So Mark chapter one, and we're
going to read from verse 29. Mark gospel chapter one and verse
29. So this is the Lord Jesus that
we're speaking about here. He has just preached in the synagogue,
and he has cast out a demon from a man, an unclean spirit from
a man there in the synagogue. And forthwith, verse 29, when
they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of
Simon and Andrew with James and John. But Simon's wife's mother
lay sick of a fever, and anon, or straightway, they tell him
of her. And he came and took her by the
hand and lifted her up. And immediately the fever left
her, and she ministered unto them. And at even when the sun
did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them
that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered
together at the door. And he healed many that were
sick of divers' diseases, and cast out many devils, and suffered
not the devils to speak, because they knew him. And in the morning,
rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed
into a solitary place, and there prayed. And Simon and they that
were with him followed after him. And when they had found
him, they said unto him, All men seek for thee. And he said
unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach
there also. For therefore came I forth. And he preached in their synagogues
throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils. And there came a
leper to him, beseeching him and kneeling down to him, and
saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And
Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched
him, and said unto him, I will, be thou clean. And as soon as
he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and
he was cleansed. And he straightly charged him,
and forthwith sent him away. And saith unto him, See thou
say nothing to any man, but go thy way, show thyself to the
priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded,
for a testimony unto them. But he went out and began to
publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that
Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without
in desert places. And they came to him from every
quarter. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Our earlier studies in the opening
part of the first chapter of Mark, we thought about the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We drew that from the opening
verse, and we emphasised that when we think about the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and indeed the gospel of Christ being
the life of the man and the message of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
reminded ourselves that We must not be preoccupied with doctrine
or the sense that it's the knowledge of the when and the what and
the why and the how of our faith that brings us into that experience
of grace and salvation. Because we must never lose the
sight of the who. The person, the man, Christ Jesus. This was the one for whom John
the Baptist prepared. It was the coming of the person
that John was so eager to prepare the way for. And we learned a
little bit that John the Baptist's ministry, that ministry of baptism,
that ministry of preaching repentance, the Lord Jesus Christ himself
honoured by succumbing and going through that process of
baptism with John. He honoured John's testimony,
he honoured John's message and his preaching, and he commenced
his own ministry by this experience of baptism. We speak often about
baptism as following the Lord in baptism, and that's exactly
right. As John preached baptism and
baptised believers, so the Lord Jesus Christ is the one to whom
we look when we are being baptised in the name of the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit. And we spent a little bit of
time thinking about the temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ as well. And we thought about the fact
that that temptation distinguished him as the holy God. He was able to withstand Satan
himself. He was able to withstand Satan
and declare to Satan that he was now in the world, that he
had an object to accomplish, he had a purpose to fulfil and
that God himself in the person of the eternal Son had come in
human flesh. We thought about the authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ and it seems as if Mark desires to
establish that the Lord Jesus had a formidable and distinctive
and unique and inspiring character. we are to think of his person
and again this is this aspect of not simply relying on our
knowledge of the truth as in the knowledge of doctrine but
that sense of awareness of the relationship that there is between
the Lord Jesus Christ and his people, the union that exists
between his people. There are many, many people who
are happy to settle upon a doctrinal understanding of scripture, but
as we were thinking of Hart's hymn, that true religion is more
than notion, something must be seen and felt. And so it is that
we are to understand the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the authority of Christ. And we saw that in the calling
of the disciples. We saw that in the way in which
the disciples followed after the Lord. We saw it in the way
in which the Lord preached his astonishing doctrine. And it
was so different from what the scribes and the Pharisees would
have preached. There they were in the synagogue
rehearsing, restating, repeating the historic doctrines, the teaching,
the symbolism, the topology, the prophecy of the Old Testament
week by week, but yet there was a veil over their eyes. And there
is a necessity that that veil is removed and the true identity
and nature of the Lord Jesus Christ be recognized. And we saw the authority of Christ
in the case of the unclean spirit that was forbidden to speak and
yet was forced to leave the man, the poor soul whom he inhabited
and in whom he dwelt. And these all spoke to us of
the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that in a few verses
at the opening of this chapter, Mark is telling us who is He
is explaining to us the identity and the nature of the Lord Jesus
Christ, who he really, truly is. And already, I hope, I trust,
there is a sense building here of expectation and a sense of
anticipation being established to the point that we're saying,
well, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ, this is the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ, What on earth is going to happen next? And that's where we commence,
that's where we begin. Our thoughts this evening are
going to be centred upon this idea of the compassion of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Because while we've thought about
his authority, while we've thought about his person, what I want
to follow up with this evening, and I think this is what Mark
is doing also, is he is showing us the empathy, of the Lord Jesus
Christ with his people, the sympathy of the Lord Jesus Christ with
his people, and the compassion of Christ. I think that that's
Mark's intention here, as I've been reflecting upon how to bring
these verses that we've read together and synthesise them
a little bit for the benefit of our understanding, that Mark's
intent seems to be to declare and to display To interweave,
as it were, something of this intimacy, this caring and compassionate
dimension of the Saviour's personal approach to the work that He
was doing. To say to you, as it were, that
when it comes to the Lord's dealings, people matter. People matter. Now, I don't want us to lose
sight of the fact that Mark is blending these two ideas together
because he has shown us that Jesus Christ is God. He is showing
us that this is the one that John the Baptist spoke about.
He identified him in the Old Testament prophecies, and he
is saying that this is the Messiah. This is the Anointed One come
to earth. This is God on earth. that Jesus
of Nazareth is God. That's what Mark is showing us
here at the start. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He is omnipresent, that the Lord
Jesus Christ is the all-powerful God, the all-knowing God, and
the ever-present God. He is the one of whom it was
said when he came out of the waters of baptism. He is well-pleasing
to his Father. He is the one who is threatening
to Satan, who Satan could not convince to bow down to him,
who Satan had to turn and leave, knowing that this one, Jesus
of Nazareth, had withstood Satan even after those 40 days and
40 nights in the wilderness. The temptation of Christ, such
a significant event. And then, almost immediately,
the Lord takes that unclean spirit and causes him to leave his house,
his home, if you like. So, showing that he had authority
over Satan also. showing us that in his omniscience
and his omnipotence, he knew the heart of men. He knew what
men were up to. He knew what men were thinking.
He could tell what was on their minds. He was able to read their
minds. He saw their hearts. He knew their motivation. But he also knew their needs.
He knew what provoked them and prompted them. He knew about
that sin that dwelt and pulsed at the very core of their being. He knew about the consequences
of the fall. He knew about the evil nature.
But he also knew that these were people who needed help. The eternal
God is in this person, Jesus Christ. And in his knowledge
of their needs, he demonstrated kindness and gentleness and meekness
and tenderness and compassion towards them. I just want to
dwell on that point for a moment because I think it's something
that we perhaps don't often realise or remember or remind ourselves
about with respect to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In
his omniscience, for example, his knowing all things, the heart
of men, their motivation, their minds, what was going on inside
their heads when they spoke one thing through their mouths. You
know, we don't know that. And it's in many ways a blessing
that we don't know that. But you'll remember with me,
perhaps, that there's a little verse in 2 Peter 2, verse 7,
which speaks about the man Lot. And we're told there that God
delivered Lot, that was Abraham's nephew when he was in Sodom and
Gomorrah. And we're told that Lot was delivered
but that lot had been vexed, listen to these words, vexed
with the filthy conversation of the wicked every day. And in 2 Peter 2 verse 8, it
goes on to say, for that righteous man dwelling among them in seeing
and hearing vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their
unlawful deeds. Now if that was the case with
Lot that his righteous soul was vexed and we can feel it to a
certain degree in our own lives when we are confronted with overt
and clear evidences of the wickedness and the sinfulness of men and
you don't need to read your newspaper or watch the news headlines to
see that. We see it constantly all around
about us in our day-to-day conversations with the men and women of this
world and we We understand something about that vexation of spirit.
But think about what that must have been like for Christ. Think
about what that must have been like for the Lord Jesus to be
constantly surrounded by people who were double talkers, who
hated him, who followed him only to get from him what they could,
only to satisfy their own sensual desires. No wonder the Lord was
called a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And yet, in all of
his insight, discernment, and understanding of the nature and
duplicity of those around about him, He looked upon them with
pity and he looked upon them with compassion. This evening
I want to take these verses that we've read, and they kind of
split up into three main divisions. Peter's mother-in-law sick with
a fever, the mass healing of the people in Capernaum, and
then the story at the end of the leper. And I want to just
briefly, I trust, touch upon all three and see if we can see
in these three divisions some sort of insight, some sort of
discovery of the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ towards
men. The first one I'm taking with
a heading of sickness and sin. Sickness and sin. And there is
a strong connection, perhaps a better word is association,
between sickness and sin in the Bible. Now, let me just be absolutely
clear. That is not to say that all sickness
is directly a consequence of an individual's wickedness. Rather it is that sickness and
weariness and disease came into the world because of sin and
as sin has come down into the lives of every individual so
the consequence of sin is there in every individual and all of
us suffer, weariness, sickness, disease, to a greater or lesser
extent, and ultimately, we will go the way of all flesh with
the demise of our bodies and the separation between body and
soul. So that is not to say that all
sickness is a direct consequence of wickedness. However, There
are certainly occasions in the Word of God where there is a
direct link with judgment and that is especially the case with
leprosy. Now we're going to touch upon
this a little bit later but we find that there are examples
Miriam was one example where because of her wickedness, because
of her speaking against Moses, she became a leper. It was a
judgment from God. Gehazi was another. And as he
ran after Naaman and said to Naaman that his master Elisha
would have some gifts upon reconsideration, he was inflicted with that leprosy
that had been Naaman's. And we discover that there was
a king of Judah, a man called Uzziah, and he confronted the
priests in the temple. And he, too, found that leprosy
broke out in his forehead as a result of his confrontation
with the priests there in the temple. So there was a sense
of punishment coming there. You'll remember that it was a
sense of understanding in the day of the Lord because the disciples
of the Lord said to Jesus, with respect to the man that was born
blind, in John chapter 9, verse 2, I think it says there that
his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man
or his parents, that he was born blind? And so there was this
association in the mind of the disciples that the people that
had these terrible illnesses or diseases must in some way
be culpable and responsible personally for them. But the Lord answered
them and in a sense he dispensed with that notion. And he said,
neither hath this man sinned nor his parents that he was directly
born blind. but that the works of God should
be made manifest in him. Now we are going to just touch
upon leprosy a little bit later, but with respect to this general
sickness here, it is called a fever. And we read about it in the opening
part of our passage, and we see that it was a fever that had
come upon the mother-in-law of Peter. And we also see a little
bit further down in verses 32 that there were many other diseases
or general sicknesses and possessions spoken of in verses 32 to 34.
And even That's interesting actually.
This happened in the evening because there was supposed to
be no healing done on the Sabbath day. And you'll remember that
this was the Sabbath because Jesus had been at the synagogue.
So they waited until the sun went down. which was the end
of the Sabbath, in order to bring all their friends and family
to the Lord for him to heal them. So that speaks about the intensity
of the religious understanding that the people in Capernaum
had there. So they waited until even, when the sun did set, they
brought unto him all that were diseased and them that were possessed
with devils. And all the city was gathered
together at the door. and he healed many that were
sick of diverse diseases or different diseases, diverse diseases and
cast out many devils and suffered not the devils to speak because
they knew him. And so we see that here the Lord
is dealing with these sicknesses and it's Really interesting to
see that this is where Mark's emphasis is. He emphasises this
healing ministry of the Lord. And the Lord performed many miracles. But so we see, it was principally
a healing ministry that he maintained. Now there were other things,
there were occasions when the miracle wasn't expressly a healing
miracle, but the vast majority were. And of all extremes, from
small things to raising of the dead, And we see that the Lord
showed and revealed his power according to the need of the
moment. But I wonder if you've ever thought,
did it have to be so? The Lord Jesus Christ, as we've
just said, was the omnipotent God. And he evidenced that, demonstrated
that with this healing ministry. But did it have to be healing?
Might the Lord have done it in another way? Might the Lord have
spoken about his authority in another way? For example, there
was a big movement to recognise in the coming Messiah a champion
of military and political power. So perhaps that would have been
a way to draw men to the Lord Jesus Christ if he had shown
himself to be this leader of the nation of Israel. A rebel
if you like, a zealot. Many people were poor. Could
the Lord not have given them riches or made some sort of economic
transformation in the society? Would that have been a suitable
way to show his power and his authority? He's God. I mean, could He have given the
world some sort of innovative technology, some sort of invention
or some breakthrough in science to move the society forward in
its development? Could He have improved their
food or their animal husbandry or their water engineering or
a hundred other things that the Lord could have worked upon? as God, with the power to do
miracles, with the power to change people's lives. But it was healing. It was healing that he did. And
I believe that it was healing purposefully. I believe that
he healed pain. I believe that he healed the
body. I believe that he healed men
and women who were unable to heal themselves, who were at
a loss, who were at, as it were, their wit's end, at death's door,
for whom there was nothing else left but to simply endure until
their illness took them away. And the Lord came and dealt with
that in people's lives. Simon's wife's mother is an example
of that. She had a fever. Luke, he was
the beloved physician, so you can see the doctor coming into
play here. Luke called it a great fever. He wasn't content simply to say
that it was a fever. He needed to be a little bit
more precise, and he called it a great fever. And we're told
that the disciples, Peter, told the Lord about... It's his wife's mother. It's
lovely, actually. It's a really potent thought
that here is Jesus in Simon's house, Simon and Andrew's house,
with his disciples and his wife, presumably, and his wife's mother,
and she's really sick. She's sick with a great fever. it may well be that she's near
to death's door herself. She's an older lady, obviously. Peter is married, he has a wife,
and it's her mother, so there is some age there as far as that
is concerned, and she has a great fever. And we're told in verse
31 that the Lord Jesus, and he healed her. Immediately
the fever left and she was fit and able to minister to her guests. It's a beautiful picture, is
it not, of deliverance. Deliverance from sickness. Deliverance and recovery from
a condition that we could not recover from ourselves. and restoration,
being brought back to that place where service was possible and
ministry was enabled. And I think that in that we can
see something of the purpose for the Lord's ministry. Later
that day it continued. Sunset had come and Capernaum
was obviously buzzing. Word had got around of what had
happened in the synagogue, perhaps even what had happened in Peter's
house with the lifting of the fever. And many sick were healed
and many devils cast out at sunset on this Sabbath day. And those
unclean spirits were told again were prevented from speaking
because they knew who he was. The Lord would have his own testimony.
He didn't need these devils to be testifying to who he was or
indeed have anything in common with them. It's a really wise
thing that the Lord did by shutting these evil spirits up. But this emphasis on healing
then that we have before us, it has lots of significance to
be sure. But here are just a couple of
examples. It first of all demonstrated
the power and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it caused
his fame, his reputation to spread widely. And so people were interested
in who this man was and what he had to say because of his
healing ministry. But it also pictured something
deeper. It pictured gospel healing. And it pictured healing of the
soul. Because he who heals the body
in this miraculous way also had power to heal the soul. The Lord Jesus himself made that
connection directly on the occasion when the man was brought by his
friends and let down through the roof of the house into the
midst where the Lord was surrounded by people. And he made the direct
connection between the fact that he had the power to forgive sins
and the power to say to that man, rise, take up your bed and
walk. When he said to the man, your sins are forgiven, the people
around about said, well, that's not acceptable. Nobody can forgive
sin but God himself. And the Lord, he said to them,
Is it easier for me to say to this lame man, rise, take up
your bed and walk, or to say your sins are forgiven? And he
demonstrated there powerfully and convincingly that he had
authority over both physical and spiritual need. And there's
another aspect to this also, because it brought the Lord Jesus
Christ into direct personal contact with people who needed his help. There was none who ever came
for healing to the Lord Jesus Christ, none who ever comes for
help that were turned away. And that ought to be a lesson
to us. If we have the faith to go to
the Lord Jesus Christ, if we have that desire to have our
needs dealt with, if we have that burden of an awareness of
our sin and a need for forgiveness, then the Lord Jesus Christ has
never yet turned away someone who sought salvation and redemption
and forgiveness from him. The question is simply this. If we feel a need of help, we
are to take it to the Lord Jesus. Whatever the complaint, whatever
the need, be that spiritual? which is clearly the most important,
or be that physical, be that in our bodies, be that in our
emotions, be that in our anxieties, be that in the needs that our
family has, in our own needs, whatever it is, the Lord Jesus
Christ is proving by these healing miracles that he is approachable
and available and accessible to those who go to him in faith. All Capernaum gathered and waited
at the door of that house. And the Lord Jesus Christ said,
I am the door. Is there a better place to gather
and to wait than at the door? who is the Lord Jesus Christ,
and wait on his mercy, and wait on his help, and wait on his
healing, and wait on his cleansing. It was sin that brought sickness
into this world, and sin brought death. But when the Lord Jesus
Christ came, he stood in the middle of a huge crowd of diseased,
and possessed and depressed sick people and he healed them with
care, with compassion and with love. The second thing I want
to show you in these passages is this. The preaching and the
purpose of the Lord's ministry, his presence in the world and
his ministry is exhibited here by Mark also. So he has shown
us the compassion of the Lord, in a sense, with this healing
ministry, or he does in these passages. But he is also showing
us that there is a deeper purpose also, that the healing is not
an end in itself. The Lord Jesus Christ wasn't
a doctor. The Lord Jesus Christ wasn't a physician. He wasn't
even simply a miracle worker. These things were not an end
in themselves, but they revealed something bigger and better to
do with the Lord. So much bigger and better indeed
that the Lord, we find, rose early in the morning in order
to find a solitary place to pray. You see, he knew that he needed
to pray to his father. The one that the previous night
had healed all the sicknesses of Capernaum. Everybody that
came to the door was healed. And the next morning, The Lord
Jesus Christ is out in the wilderness, in a solitary place, and he is
on his knees and he is praying to his Father for help. You see,
he knew that the job that he had was much bigger and better
and more important than merely healing those people. I wonder
what the Lord prayed for when he was out there on his own.
Perhaps he was praying for his disciples that were just newly
called and asking that the Father would preserve them and protect
them and provide for them. Maybe he was praying for those
that had been healed the previous night, that they would be blessed
of the Father and given wisdom to know the meaning of the experience
that they'd had. Maybe he was praying for his
own gospel ministry. But whatever it was, surely it's
humbling to us to see the Lord Jesus Christ there on his knees.
Surely it ought to teach us a lesson. Is this not a fine object lesson
by example to the Lord's people, to his disciples and to his church? The Lord needed to seek out a
quiet opportunity to pray, and we ought to also. What was that
better, bigger mission that the Lord Jesus Christ was embarked
upon? Well, the disciples came to him
there in that solitary place, having searched for him, they
found him, and here's what they had to say to him. All men seek
for thee. All men seek for thee. You know, it's interesting to
see the way the word all is used in the gospel sometimes. And
sometimes we have to emphasise that you simply can't suggest
that it means every single individual in the whole wide world. It just
doesn't mean that. In fact, it never means that.
But here the disciples say, all men seek for thee. Everybody seeks their own good.
Everybody wants God's blessing. Everybody wants God's help. Everybody
wants to go to heaven. But there are few who see beyond
the physical, who see beyond the flesh, as it were, to see
beyond the healing of the body, the cure of the disease, and
rather understand that there is a sickness of soul that must
be addressed and this is the people to whom the Lord Jesus
Christ was sent. It is those who have that sickness
of soul, those who have been brought to see that without the
redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ, without the shedding
of his blood, without the application of that forgiveness, they cannot
stand before the Holy God. And so the Lord speaks here of
that mission that is before him. And he says in verse 38, let
us go into the next towns. We've been in Capernaum. He's
come out now from Capernaum. Let us go into the next towns
that I may preach there also. For he says, therefore came I
forth. It's a lovely little phrase,
isn't it? The next towns. Let us go into the next towns. Because the very fact that it's
plural there, the Lord didn't say, let us go into the next
town. Because then maybe the disciples would have thought,
well, that's it, that's done. He needed them to see that their
vision, their view, had to be lifted above Capernaum. Indeed, beyond Galilee. even beyond Israel and to the
ends of the earth. Go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel." This was the mission that the Lord Jesus
Christ had. This was the great work that
he had been sent to do, to bring grace, peace, forgiveness, redemption
and liberty to the chosen people of God, to God's elect people,
to the church, to all of those that had been committed into
his hands to care for and provide for and deliver. And that was
the great work which weighed heavily upon the shoulders of
our Master and our Saviour, Jesus Christ. He says, therefore, for
therefore came I forth. For this reason, He came out
into the wilderness to pray. For this reason, He came out
of Capernaum. For this reason, He came out
of Nazareth to be baptized of John. But for this reason, He
came out of heaven. For this reason, He came from
His Father's presence. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
earth as a man. He was sent to do His Father's
will. And what is that will? The Son
of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost, to
preach the gospel of the kingdom, to preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ, to declare the way of life, to go to the cross and
there to ransom his people. And his message was to preach
and his mission was to fulfil all that was required for the
salvation and the deliverance of his people. Hence the Lord
Jesus Christ could say on another occasion, Wist ye not that I
be about my Father's business? What brought the Lord Jesus,
what brought the Son of God to earth? his love for his people. He says, I have loved you. I
have loved you with an everlasting love. The Lord Jesus Christ was
moved with compassion for his people, with a desire to do them
good, a desire to heal their souls and to redeem their lives
from out under the curse of the law. And this brings us to the
last point and it's to do with this compassion and cleansing. This final example that we have
here is both delightful and blessed because here a leper comes to
Jesus. He's a leper, he has the disease
of leprosy. Now, there is a disease which
is called Hansen's disease, which is identified with leprosy, or
leprosy or Hansen's disease is regarded as the same thing. And
it may well be that this leprosy that this man had is what we
now call Hansen's disease. It might equally be that it was
different. And I say that with some recognition
that leprosy in the Bible had a specific, purposeful, typological
purpose, reason. It was given by God to teach
Old Testament Israel particular truths. We can see those truths
described in detail in Leviticus chapters 13 and 14. But whether
that leprosy is our Hansen's disease or not, leprosy in the
Bible is a picture of sin and of the conviction of sin. And it is in the Bible distinguished
from other diseases and special rules apply to it. This leprosy
seemed to be painless. It was flesh-destroying. It was
stinking. It was separating. It was a long-term
disease, and it culminated in death. It was a disease that could not
be cleansed or removed by medicine. It required blood atonement. There were people in the Bible
who were cured of their leprosy, but it was a picture that God
expressly gave by type to show us something of the spiritual
work which would be accomplished by Christ. The Bible leprosy was medically
incurable. and the only cure would be by
blood and grace. We saw that when we were thinking
about the curing of Naaman from his leprosy. And also, it was
only priests, it was only Aaron, according to the rules given
in Leviticus 13 and 14, it was only Aaron and his sons or priests
who represented the Lord Jesus Christ in his high priestly office,
who could identify leprosy and who could remove the leprosy. So there is this intense typology,
tight metaphor, picture in the scriptures to do with leprosy
and its connection with sin and corruption. And it was also understood
that if anyone was to be cured of leprosy, it would be by this
blood atonement, it would be by the grace of God, and it would
be a direct work of God. There was no one else who could
cure the leper, but God himself. And we can see that in 2 Kings
5, verse 7, where the king of Israel received Naaman to his
palace with a letter from the king of Syria, asking that Naaman
be cured of his leprosy. Can you remember what the king
of Israel did? He read the letter, and he tore his clothes and he
said, this man is trying to pick a fight with me. Am I God to
kill and to make alive that this man doth send unto me to recover
a man of his leprosy? You see, he knew that it was
God's work to cure the leper and only God. Let's read verse 40. I want to
just read verse 40 again of chapter one. And there came a leper to
him, to the Lord Jesus, beseeching him and kneeling down to him
and saying unto him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. What do we see here in this picture?
We see a man bowing down. We see a man making a request. And we see a man testifying of
the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see that? It was well known in Israel that
the cure of a leper could only be achieved by divine fiat, by
God himself. But here is this man, and he
has obviously been brought to understand that this person that
is standing before him, this Jesus of Nazareth, must be God. How did he know that? Perhaps
he had heard about the leper or indeed even saw the man with
the unclean spirit in the synagogue because it was possible for lepers
to go into the synagogue. There were special arrangements
and conditions applied, a little bit like the way we're having
to do church at the moment ourselves. distancing and all that sort
of thing. The rules are there in the Old Testament scriptures. Maybe he had seen what had happened.
Maybe he saw what had happened to all these other people who
had been healed. But for whatever reason, he understood that Jesus
was able to cure him from leprosy. This man had nowhere else to
go. He had no one else to go to. Christ was his last hope,
but he came with faith. And I just so admire this man's
attitude. He says, if you will, you can. If you will heal me, You can. That was all that man wanted. All that man needed was to be
healed. And he knew that Jesus could
if he but would. You see, this isn't the religion
of today with its free will slot machine instant gratification
teaching. The Arminianism which says, just
put up your hand and get salvation. You know what, if it was just
a case of putting up your hand and getting cured from leprosy,
do you think that man wouldn't have put his hand up a hundred
times, a thousand times? The point is simply this, that
the healing of the soul is much more significant than the curing
of a leprous disease. And this man understood it. And
so he came with humility. He came with a sense of need
and dependence, and he cast himself before the Lord. And he said,
if you will, you can make me whole. I want to show you something
else about this man, which I think is very interesting. And I hope
that we'll be able to draw some applications and some lessons
from this. But this man showed a degree
of audacity. What do I mean by that? Well,
he pressed the Lord. And it was subtle. It was real. He pressurised the
Lord Jesus. And let me show you how he did
that. Luke tells us that the circumstances with this, of this
meeting were, Luke is a little fuller with his information,
again it's the doctor coming out on him perhaps, but Luke
says that this man was full of leprosy. That means that it wasn't
hidden, it wasn't sort of under his armpit or in under his tunic
or on his leg somewhere where you couldn't see it under the
skirts of his robes. This man was full of leprosy. From the top of his head to the
soles of his feet, this man was as far gone as you could be. And Matthew tells us, that he
cried out this prayer to the Lord before a large crowd of
people. There's a little verse in Matthew
11, verse 12, and it says this, from the days of John the Baptist
until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent
take it by force. What that verse is telling us
is this, that those who are desperate compel, compel Christ to act. in their desperation. That's
what it means that the violence, the kingdom of heaven is taken
by force. And this man, in his desperation,
pressurised the Lord Jesus by coming in a crowd of people,
coming before this great mass of people, falling down on his
knees before the Lord, worshipping him and declaring in no uncertain
terms, if you will, You can make me whole. I believe that you
have the power to do this. I believe that you are divine.
Do you see the pressure that he put on the Lord? Do you see
the desperation in the man's heart? Look, such an appeal arrests
the saviour of souls. It stops him. It presses him
to act according to his will and his strength and his power
and his promise. There was no way this man was
going to leave without that healing if Jesus Christ could possibly
heal him and he believed he could. Matthew and Mark don't mention
the feelings of the Lord here, but Mark says that Christ was
moved with compassion. This man came and it wasn't a
case of, can you? He didn't doubt, but he could. It wasn't a case, not if you, He didn't come and try to do
a deal with the Lord. He had no doubt that Christ could
heal him. And he said, if you will, you
can. He said, will you heal me? Will
you heal me? Lord Jesus, will you heal me? Because you're able to. And that stirred the heart. of Jesus Christ. That moved the
Lord Jesus Christ with compassion. And Jesus put forth his hand
and touched him. And he said to him, I will be
thou clean. I love that the Lord Jesus Christ
touched the leper. What does that say that the Lord
Jesus Christ put out his hand and touched a man that was full
of leprosy? It says that the Lord knew that
he had come to take our sin, that he had come to take our
disease, that he had come to take our flesh-destroying, stinking,
separating, long-term sin problem, and indeed the very condemnation
of death itself, to himself, and carry it on his own shoulders. The very fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ touched this man, perhaps even embraced this man, shows
us that the Lord Jesus Christ had empathy with him in his need. His heart went out to him and
immediately we're told the man was healed. Why? Because the
Lord Jesus Christ touched him. Oh, for a touch from the Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, that Christ would touch us
in our bodies, in our souls, in our spirits, that the Lord
Jesus Christ would be willing to forgive us of our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That same power heals sinners
today. Oh, for a touch from the Lord
Jesus Christ. And what an encouragement this
man gives us to go to the Saviour and to say, if thou wilt, thou
canst make me clean. What good hope that we might
hear in reply from Jesus Christ, I will, be thou clean. It is only Christ that can apply
His blood to your conscience. Just as it was only God who could
heal leprosy, only Christ can apply His blood to your conscience. Only Christ can give you that
knowledge of your sins forgiven. Only Christ can speak peace to
your soul and pronounce you clean. then we go to Christ and we say
to him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole. These last few
verses of this chapter suggest that the man did something wrong,
that he went out and began to publish it much and to blaze
abroad the matter when he had been told to speak to no one.
Well, I think we need to be a little bit more generous than to be
blaming this man. Let us remember that this was
not a hidden miracle. This miracle was public. It was performed before a multitude
of people, Matthew tells us. But rather what is happening
here, what is transpiring here between Christ and the man is
simply this. The Lord Jesus Christ is telling
him to go straight to the priest. That means straight to the temple.
Now remember where we are. We're in Galilee. We are many, what did
we say last week, maybe 70 miles or so away from Jerusalem? The
Lord was telling this man to go straight to the temple and
there to fulfil the requirements of Leviticus 13 and 14 with respect
to the offering and the blood and the view of the priest and
the declaration from the priest that he had been cured of his
leprosy. That was the testimony and the
witness that was to be made. The Lord had silenced those unclean
spirits, but he called upon this man to testify to him by the
fulfilment of the Mosaic requirements with respect to the cleansing
of a leper. I think it's hardly surprising
that that man shouted for joy all the way from Galilee to Jerusalem,
that he cried Christ's praises, that he leapt and sang and danced
and worshipped all the way to the temple. And no wonder the
fame of the Lord Jesus Christ was shed abroad. I think I might
have danced like that as well. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us and encourage our hearts in them. Amen.