Verse 12, it says this, And it came to pass, when he
was in a certain city, behold, a man full of leprosy, who, seeing
Jesus, fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if
thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And he put forth his hand,
and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately
the leprosy departed from him. And he charged him to tell no
man, but go, and show thyself to the priest, and offer for
thy cleansing according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto
them. But so much the more went there
a fame abroad of him, and great multitudes came together to hear,
and to be healed by him of their infirmities. And he withdrew
himself into the wilderness and prayed. Now my subject this evening
is the leper cleansed. Our Lord's acts towards the helpless,
the hopeless, towards sinners, always, always were wondrous,
always were full of grace, always full of compassion. But it was
towards those who were helpless and hopeless, those who couldn't
do anything for themselves. You see, He is life. Outside
of Him, there is nothing but helplessness and hopelessness.
He is life, and life is in His words. The words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit and they are life. The flesh profiteth
nothing. There's life not only in His words, but there's life
in His touch. You know when he said, Lazarus come forth, there
was life in his words. He just spoke and Lazarus came
forth. And then there's life in his touch. It's like the woman
with the issue of blood. She said, if I can touch him.
And then when Jairus's daughter was laying dead, he just went
in and got her by the hand, lifted her up. So there's life in his
words, life in his touch, life in our blessed Savior. And here
what he does is he gives life to a letter. And why I say that
he gives life to a leper, because this man didn't have any life.
He didn't have any life. You know what it would be like
to be a leper? Look over here in Leviticus 13, just a minute.
Leviticus 13. This is what God said about lepers.
And lepers are awful. Lepers are horrible. I've never seen one except in
pictures. Leviticus 13. In verse 44, and here our Lord
as he finds this helpless, hopeless leper, a sinner, filthy, vile,
unclean. And it says here in Leviticus
13, 45, 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'll put a mask around himself,
that's what he'll do, that's what that means, covering around
his mouth. And shall cry, unclean, unclean,
so people have time to get out of the way. People have time
to stay away from him. Don't get near him. And all the
days wherein the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled,
he is unclean. What's this? He shall dwell alone.
Without the camp shall his habitation be." He wasn't even allowed to
come around people. He wasn't even allowed to come
into town. But here's a man. Here's a man
who was a leper. He'd come among people. And as
he's going through town to get here in this certain city, you
can believe he had the mask over his face. And you can believe
that everywhere he went he was crying, unclean, unclean, unclean,
unclean, so folks would get out of the way, stand clear, realize
who was coming. And he was unclean, as it says
there, before the law. The law said he was unclean.
He was unclean before the Lord. God said he was unclean. And
he was unclean to himself. He knew he was unclean. He was
unclean to all the people because the people could let him dwell
among them. If he touched a house, if he
leaned against a house, that house became unclean and had
to be destroyed. That house had to be destroyed.
That's how awful this awful disease was. And here's the thing about
it, not only was he unclean to himself and the Lord, before
the people, before the Lord, but he was unable to change his
condition in any way. in any way whatsoever. He could
not undo his leprosy. He could not undo his uncleanness.
He could not undo his standing before the law. He could not
undo his standing before the Lord. He could not undo his standing
to himself. But thank God, thank God, wherever
the Lord Jesus was, the power of God was present. Look down
there in verse 17, just a minute, in Luke chapter 5. And it came
to pass on a certain day as he was teaching that there were
Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come
out of every town of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, and
watch this, and the power of the Lord was present to heal
them. Wherever the Lord Jesus Christ
was, the power of the Lord was present, and it was present to
heal. So let's look at this leper being
cleansed here. First of all, we have a man who
is in a miserable, miserable condition. In verse 12 it says,
And it came to pass when he was in a certain city, he said, Behold
a man full of leprosy. Here's a man full of leprosy.
And what this means is his disease had reached its final stage.
He is full of leprosy. It starts out with just a little
scab. And then it starts moving from a scab, it eats away your
face, it eats away your nose, eats away your fingers, eats
away your toes. And when it eats away all your
flesh, you have this awful putrid smell. And then they get in such
a bad state that all they do is just lay and cry and moan
and can't even recognize them as a human being. Well, here
was a man who was full of leprosy. His disease had reached its final
stage. And like sin, this loathsome, loathsome disease, it may work
slowly. It may start out just like a
little tiny scab, like a little tiny something. But in its course,
when it runs its course, it's deadly and it's irresistible. It cannot be stopped. It's like
a river. Whenever it breaks through, it's
coming on. And oh, beloved, this leprosy-like
sin was poison to the blood. It's poison to the blood. And
when the blood is poisoned, when this leprosy was in a man, the
whole man was affected. It just didn't affect his hand.
It just didn't affect a spot on his head. It didn't affect
just a spot on his knee. It affected the whole man. The whole man was considered
unclean. The whole man was full of leprosy.
The whole man was affected. And ain't that the way sin affects
men? Ain't that the way sin affects
people? It affects the whole man. It don't leave any part
unaffected. And it starts in the blood. When
the blood is wrong, the body's wrong. You can't have a disease
in your blood and your body not know it. It's going to tell on
you, and sin affects the heart, and now the heart are the issues
of life. And here is this man in this
miserable condition, full of leprosy, full of leprosy. And I tell you, there's nothing
better than trying to talk to somebody who knows what condition
they're in, or starting to get in that condition. to talk to
them, be able to tell them, and they will argue with you. Say,
yeah, you're right. You know, it's wonderful to talk
to somebody that ain't got any hope. It's wonderful to talk
to somebody that's full of blemish. It's wonderful to talk to somebody
who's got a disease that's incurable. They'll be still long enough
to listen to what you gotta say. They may not believe it, but
they'll be still listening to what you gotta say. But all this,
and not only is he in a miserable condition, but look what a blessed
sight he saw. It says this man full of leprosy,
who? Seeing Jesus. Oh, who's seeing Jesus, huh? Oh, whenever you see, you know,
sometimes it says they saw the Lord. Sometimes it says they
heard that Jesus was coming. Some said they knew he was passing
by this way. But how blessed is a soul in
this condition? How blessed is a man in the soul
of this condition, full of leprosy, to look up and see the Lord Jesus
Christ. To look up and see Him who has
all power. Look up and see Him who has the
authority over everything in this universe. See Him, beloved,
who can do something for you when you can't do anything for
yourself. His eyes were full of despair
and hopelessness, and now when he looks up and sees the Lord
Jesus, A little twinkle starts coming into them eyes. A little
light starts coming into them eyes. He no doubt had heard of
our Lord Jesus and heard of the miracles that He had done, the
mighty works He had been doing. And he believed the report. He believed what he had heard
about the Lord Jesus Christ. And now he lifts up his eyes
and sees Him for himself. And as he sees Him for himself,
that sight turns into faith. turns into faith. What we have
here is this. We have a seeking Savior and
a seeking sinner. And when they come together,
they can go down. Oh, it's wonderful. Here's a
man full of power and compassion. And another one's full of leprosy.
Oh my, what a contrast. But look, what a meeting. And
then look at the position this leper takes. This man full of
leprosy who's seen Jesus fell on his face. What else he gonna
do? What else he gonna do? You see,
when he's seen the face of the Lord, when he sees the face of
God, always makes us hide our own face. When he's looked into
the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, this one who is God, this one
who has the power, this one with greater built-in glory, the only
thing he could do was get on his face. And always, everyone
you find in the scriptures, beloved, when they see God in the face-to-face,
it always makes us hide our own face. And when we're hiding our
face, it's an outward expression. It's an outward expression of
a deep, inward conviction. It's like that publican. He went
so much as lift up his eyes and smote on his breath. He said,
oh God, be merciful to me. It's like Isaiah when he saw
the Lord. That's when he cried, oh, it's
me, I'm undone. That's when Job said, oh, I've
seen you. Now I see you. And I abhor myself. And that's why Simon Peter said,
depart from me, Lord. I'm a sinful man. Oh, whenever
you see God and you see the Lord and you see Him as He is and
get a sight of Him, as old Scott Richardson said, we make our
headquarters in the dust. Now we do. We can't help but
do it. We ain't gonna get up on our
hind legs in the face of God Almighty. We may get up on our
hind legs in the face of some preacher or something like that,
but not in the face of God. No, no, we gonna have to We're
going to get out. Ain't that right? And I'll tell
you this, if a soul hasn't taken their place in the dust, in their
shame, overwhelmed, I just guarantee you they haven't seen the Lord.
You haven't seen yourself in His sight. A man who hasn't seen
himself in God's sight, he ain't going to get in the dust. But
if he ever sees himself in God's sight, he's going to get in the
dust. He's going to fall on his face and say, Lord, That's the
first word that's going to come out of his mouth. That's the
first word that's going to come out of Peter's mouth. That's the first word
that's going to come out of that woman's mouth. That's the first
word that's going to come out of them men who sent for their
daughters and wives to be here. Lord. That's the first word out
of their mouth. And that's why Simon Peter said,
Lord, depart from me. How can you have anything to
do with me? How can you show me mercy? How can you walk away
and leave me and I've got no claims on you? I've got no claims
on you. And oh my, anybody thinks that
they've got a claim on God, they ain't seen Him yet. Anybody that
hasn't, I know this without a shadow of a doubt, you look through
the scriptures, whenever God would manifest, when He manifested
Himself to Abraham, Abraham fell on his face and worshipped. When
God manifested His glory to Moses, Moses fell on his face, bowed
toward the ground and worshipped. And oh, I tell ya, this generation
don't know anything, anything about it. All they know is hallelujah. Hallelujah, that's all they know.
But oh my, when we see ourselves in His sight, there ain't no
place we can go but in the dust. Gotta go. And that's the position.
He fell on His face. Didn't look what He done while
He was on His face. I believe that He still had His face toward
the ground. I believe He was down there. And then he says,
look what he says. First word out of his mouth. He said, Sage, he besought him. Here's an earnest prayer. He
besought him. And this is what he said. This
is the prayer he prayed. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. This prayer repeals two things. Two things that this man knew
without a shadow of a doubt. First of all, he had a knowledge
of the character of Christ. And I tell you why I know that.
First, because he called him Lord. Jehovah. You're God. You're the one with all the power.
You're the one with all the rights. You're the one with all the authority.
First word out of his mouth is Lord. It wasn't Jesus. It was Lord. And then he says,
if you, if you will, I'm subjected to your will, I'm subjected to
your power, I'm subjected to your authority. And he knew. And his knowledge, you see, his
knowledge made his faith intelligent. If he's going to seek the Lord,
he's going to seek you, the Lord, on the basis of his character.
Not like he thinks he is. Not like he hopes he is. But
as he knows he is. The first word, Lord. If you
will. You got the will. You got the
will. You got the power. You got the
authority. And if you will, as badly shaped
as I am, as unclean as I am, as full of leprosy as I am, all
you got to do is say, be clean, and I'll be clean. Oh my, he knew to whom he was
coming. He knew his power. He knew his
authority. You, you can make me clean. You can do it. If you will. If you will. And the second thing
I know about this leper, he had one desire. To be made clean. To be made clean. And what did
he do? He confessed his need. I need
cleaning. I can't cleanse myself. I've got this awful disease.
I'm running around crying unclean, unclean, unclean. I don't have
any ability. I'm not even supposed to be here.
I need people. I need infestation aid. I need
cleaning. I need cleansing. I've been to the priest and it's
never helped me. I've been to the law and it's
never done anything for me. Oh my. He confessed his needs
and he preached for personal cleansing. Personal, your Lord
cleanse me. I'm the one in trouble. I'm the
leper in this outfit. I'm the one that's in a miserable
condition. In all the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, if we
confess our sin, He's faithful and just to cleanse us from all
sin. Oh my. I told the lady that day,
I said, I know you want to understand this. I said, but I was trying
to talk to her about Christ. And I said, I know you want to
understand this, but this is true. I said, I've been pastor
in the same church for over 27 years. And I said, I want, on
all the studying and all the praying, I said, I want Christ
as much today as I've ever wanted. Desired today like I've always
desired him. Needed today like I've always
needed him. And I want him today like I've always wanted him. And I pray God you create that
same desire, because if you ever want Him, you are wanting and
wanting and wanting and desiring. You know when you know you've
got Christ talking to a preacher today, he's preaching, he said
he preached this Sunday. He said, you know when you know,
you know when that, that Christ has saved you, when you know
the Lord Jesus Christ? When you must have Him. When
you must have Him. You must have Him. You just don't
need Him every once in a while. Don't need Him when you're in
trouble. Don't need Him when everything's not going just right.
Don't need Him when you're sick. Don't need Him when you got a
headache. Don't need Him whenever you need your conscience back.
But when you must have Him, have Him for your own. Have Him to
be your Savior. Have Him to be your Master. Have
Him to be your Lord. Have Him to be your Savior. Have
Him to be your all in all. You must have Him. He must need to go through Samaria. He must abide at this house today. And whenever you say, Lord, I
must have you, it's because He must have you. When He must have
you, then you must have Him. Ain't that right? And that's
the way this letter was. I must have pledge, and if I
have it, you're the only one that can give it to me. And then
look at a perfect salvation. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. Now watch this. In verse 13,
he put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will be thy clean. Now watch this. And immediately
the leprosy departed from him. How do you undo a lifetime of
a disease? How do you undo the corruption
of a body that's rotting away? How do you undo a heart and a
body and eyes so emaciated? When you're the Lord, you can
bring life where there's death. Oh my! And I'll tell you something,
every miracle, every saved sinner is linked to one thing, the I
will of Christ. Ain't that right? I will! I will! I will! And you shall! But let me give you two or three
things about this touch here. First, there was an atoning touch.
He touched him. Now, you think about this. Now,
nobody else would have touched a leper. If I got around a leper,
I wouldn't touch one. But the Lord Jesus could touch
him. Could touch him. And not be defiled by touching
him. If I touched him, I'm just as
unclean as the leper. I couldn't have him in my house
that tired of burning my house down. Under the law. But the
Lord Jesus Christ, who is the law embodied in his person, he
can reach out and touch him and not become untrained. Oh, he
can reach out and touch your name and not be defiled. Oh my. He touched him, the hole
in the Come into contact with men, and with this man here,
and all in his awful defilement, yet he himself was not defiled.
And I tell you, beloved, he who bore our sins was no sinner,
and yet someway mysterious. He so identified with us that
God judged him as a sinner, and condemned him as a sinner, and
punished him as a sinner. And he touched us, and yet God
made him to be sinned, and yet he knew no sin. You figure that
one out. I can't do it. I can just believe
it. And all the power, all the power
of the Godhead is in the touch of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then
look here, not only is it an atoning touch, but it was an
assuring word. He says, when he touched him,
put forth his hand and touched him. You imagine what that crowd
thought when they gathered around there, and they stand around
watching him, and he touched that leper. But if he hadn't have been cleansed,
and if he hadn't have been healed immediately, they would have
run that path and run in that direction and got away from there.
But oh my, look what an assuring word he says, I will be thou
cleansed. Oh with his touch, he touches
him and with the touch he says I will be cleansed. What an assuring
word, when he touches us, speaks to us, comes to us in the gospel,
comes to us in his word, washes us in his blessed blood. He gives
us assurance by his own word, not by our feelings, not by what
we think, but by his own word. What's the word of our faith?
What he said. What reason have I to believe
other than the Lord said? That's the only reason I've got
to believe. It's the Lord said. He speaks and it's done. I said he's clean. You reckon
he's clean? And there's a complete salvation,
a complete deliverance here. And it says immediately, immediately
the leprosy departed from him. Departed from him. Now let me
ask you something. This is the first thing I thought of when
I looked at it. Where in the world did the leper should go?
If it departed from me, where'd it go? Where'd it go? Huh? I'll tell you where it didn't
go. It didn't go somewhere where
we'd come back and bother him again. No. No, no. God put it someplace where we'd
never, ever bother him again. And there was never no danger
of him ever becoming a leper again, ever. No, God put it away. And that's the way our sins are. Our salvation is so complete
and so perfect that just as that leprosy departed from that man
immediately, and he was made clean immediately, Whatever he
was like until the Lord Jesus Christ spoke those words and
touched him, whatever he is like from that day forward, he was
not never the same. He was never a leper again. All
of his leprosy was gone. He never had to one more time
cry unclean, unclean. He took that mask off of his
face. He could walk up and breathe
in somebody's face and they wouldn't jump back because they watched
him go. They watched him depart. And oh, look over in Isaiah 38.
And this is what God does with our sins. Whatever He's done
with this leprosy, that's what He's done with our sins. Isaiah
38. Oh, our sins are gone. God said,
your sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Well, look
what He does with them. In Isaiah 38, 17, He says this. Behold, for peace I had great
bitterness. but thou hast in love to my soul
delivered it from the pit of corruption. Watch this, for thou
hast cast all my sins behind thy back. Where in the world
is the back of God at when the heavens of heavens can't contain
him? The earth is his footstool, the heaven is his throne. Has
everybody ever found his back? Where's the backside of God at? Look over at Isaiah 44. that's
where they're going wherever I said that God done this way just throw them cast them away
and oh what hands hands big enough to take all the sins of all God's
elect and cast them behind his back look in Isaiah 44 and verse
22 now watch this I have brought it out as a thick cloud by transgressions,
and as a cloud by sins. Oh, it's like a great big thick
cloud. In other words, he sins up with
this great big thick cloud. I can't see through that cloud.
You can't see through that cloud. I blotted him out. I blotted
him out. And over in Micah, you don't
have to turn there, but over in Micah, it says this, that
he cast out sins into the bottom, into the depths of the sea, to
the bird body. So anywhere you go, sins are
gone. That leprosy is gone, sins are
gone, and they're not going to come back and build us ever again. Now
look back over here in Luke 5 real quick with me. Now here we see not only that,
but In verse 14, he charged him to tell no man. Don't tell anybody
what I've done. This is what I want you to do.
I want you to go and show yourself to the priest and offer for thy
cleansing according as Moses commanded for a testimony unto
them. Now why would he tell him to
go to the priest and offer a sacrifice, offer for cleansing according
as Moses commanded? Well, I'll tell you why. Because
our Lord didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law.
To fulfill the law. And go show thyself to the priest.
He didn't come to set aside the law, but to fulfill it. And in
going to the priest, he's not going to go there for his cleansing,
but to offer the sacrifices because he's already cleansed. He's not
going to the law so the law can pronounce him unclean. Now let's
look over in Leviticus 14. Let me show you what happens
here when they're pronounced clean. And he's going to go to
the priest and what he's going to do in Leviticus 14, he's going
to walk up there to that priest and he says, you know that priest
is going to know him. He's been up there before. He's
went through all this. You know, the priest is the one
who has to pronounce you unclean. He's the one who's got to inspect
you. He's got to be the one to tell you. And you read Leviticus
13. It tells you all about it. Here in Leviticus 14, it says
in verse 4 and 5, And when that priest, verse 2, this shall be
the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. This is the
day of his cleansing. Christ cleansed him. He shall
be brought unto the priest, and the priest shall go forth out
of the camp, and the priest shall look, and behold, if the plague
of lepers should be healed in the leper, and I mean the lepers
going to go up there and say, Remember me? Look at me now. And sure enough, that priest
would have. He would inspect it. And our
Lord's work can test, stand the mightiest inspection of the law,
of the priesthood, of the ceremonies, of Moses, of God, of man, of
devil. Our Lord's work can stand inspection. And when they inspected him,
you reckon they found a spot or a blemish? No, no. They had
to do exactly what the law said. And the law had to let him go. Now watch what happens now. Then
shall the priest command to take for him that is to be clean,
two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood and scarlet and thistle. And the priest shall command
that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running
water. You're going to kill that bird.
Running water is going to come out. It's going to mix in that
blood, in that basin with that blood. As for the living bird,
he shall take it, and he'll take the cedar wood, the scarf, the
hyssop, and he'll take that and have it all in this vessel that
he killed that bird in where the blood's at, where the water's
at and he'll put all that in that and he'll take that living
bird and he'll dip him in that blood in the blood of the bird
that was killed over the running water and he shall sprinkle upon
him that's to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times I mean
he's perfectly clean not a flaw in him and shall pronounce him
clean now watch this And He'll let the living bird loose into
the open too. He's free from the law, full
of happy condition. He'll never have to go back,
go through that again. And ain't that the way it is
for us? Free from the law. Oh, the bird's been set free.
We've been set free. And we was dipped in the blood,
washed in the blood of the Son of God. Now let me mention this
in closing, back over here to Luke 5. Let me mention this in
closing. So, oh my, our Lord Jesus, His
work can stand the minus nudist inspection. The law, the prophets,
the world, the devil, even God Himself. There's no flaw. Then
it says here, but there, verse 15, but so much the more with
our fame abroad of Him. Oh, His fame began to go. People went by, went out telling
everyone, said, there was a leper there, full of leprosy. And that
Jesus of Nazareth touched Him, and He was cleansed like that.
And all great multitudes came together to hear. They came to
listen to what he had to say and to be healed by him of their
infirmities. And no matter how busy, and that's
what he'd done, he was continually working, continually moving,
continually preaching, continually being pressed by God, continually
healing people, continually preaching to people. But this is what he'd
done every day. He normally done it early in
the morning. In verse 16, he withdrew himself
into the wilderness and he prayed. No matter how busy he got, how
many people were pressing on him, he had to go and be alone
with his father. He had to pray. He had to commune. He had to have fellowship with
his father. And oh, God teach us that. No
matter how busy we get, how busy you think we are, how much we
got going on in our lives, let's take some time out of our day,
every day, and do like our Master. Go be alone. Go be alone with
the Lord. Go be alone with Him. Do that. Our Father, our gracious, gracious
Father, Holy, holy, holy is your name. Father, thank you that we are
able to see from your word how you save sinners, how you cleanse
sinners, how it is your will to cleanse lepers. And I pray
for the lepers among us, that they come to you, they fall on
their face, And they'd say to you, Lord, if you will, you can
make me clean. And oh Lord, we know that you'd
touch them and you'd cleanse them. And they'd be made whole. Be made whole. And oh Lord, we
look to you to do that. We look to you to cleanse lepers,
save sinners, raise the dead. Preach the gospel to us through
your word. Thank you for the privilege. Thank you for the
time. And again, we pray for Rebecca
and her condition. Pray for Paul, Steve Jones, and
Wanda. God have mercy on them. Make
his heart strong. And we thank you for Fran and
Bill. Thank you that you protect them and preserve them and see
them safely home. Father, we thank you for your
people. In the Lord Jesus' name we thank
you. Amen.