Here's a question that I want
you to try to honestly consider. Have you been cleansed? Or have
you been healed? Have you merely been changed
by little experience of religion in your behavior? Or have you
been made whole? by the grace of God. There's
all the difference in the world. There were many during the days
of our Lord's earthly ministry who touched him who were never
touched by him. There were many at the marriage
feast in Cana of Galilee who drank the wine that he had made
out of water and saw the wonder of what he had done and tasted
the sweetness of the wine, but they never drank the wine of
his grace and never knew him who had turned water into wine.
There were many in our Lord's life on this earth during his
earthly ministry who enjoyed temporal outward benefits that
came from his works, miraculous works, works of great power,
works that they weren't likely to forget. Who could forget standing
by the shores of Galilee and watching a man Take five loaves
of bread and two pieces of fish and feed 20,000 people. Don't
tell me I didn't eat the bread and eat the fish. I was there,
buddy. I can tell you the name and the place. I can tell you
where I was standing in the crowd. They ate the loaves and fishes, but
they never tasted the bread of life. There were many who were brought
before our Lord Jesus as He went from place to place. And we read
in the scripture that they brought men and women to Him, and everyone
that needed healing, He healed them. They were healed in body,
but not in soul. They were cleansed of their outward
disease, but not cleansed in their hearts. We have a great
example of this. Here in Luke 17, verses 11-19. Luke 17, verse 11. And it came to pass, as he went
to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria
and Galilee, And as he entered into a certain village, there
met him ten men that were lepers, which stood far off. And they
lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on
us. And when he saw them, he said
unto them, go, show yourselves unto the priest. And it came
to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them,
when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud
voice glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet,
giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, were
there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine? There are not found
that return to give glory to God save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise,
go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. How many there are
like those nine lepers who want no more from Christ
than power to correct their woes, power to change their circumstances,
because that's all they seek, that's all they get, and they're
content to go to hell with a change in their lives. Multitudes. The big business religion of
our day. Most common thing on this earth is folks talk to you
about how if you believe on Jesus, he'll heal your bank account.
He'll heal your marriage. He'll heal your home. He'll heal
your body. He'll heal your life. Oh, well,
let me have Jesus because I don't want any more pain. And you get
what you want. You get what you want. I've known many who in times
of great danger, in times of great difficulty, because they
have brought upon themselves by their foolishness and by their
ungodliness great misery, they begin to pray. They profess faith
in Christ. They join the church. And they
become very religious, at least for a while, sometimes a little
longer. Their lives are radically reformed. They have undergone great changes. I've known men who were drunks
to quit drinking and stay sober the rest of their lives. I've
known folks who were dopeheads to quit smoking pot and quit
taking dope and stay sober the rest of their lives. They just
got so low they had to make a change. I recall one of the fellows I
was in high school with, Shortly after God saved me, he showed
up one day, he said he got saved. I used to run with him, ask him
about his experience in grace. He said, well, I didn't know
anything about grace, didn't know anything about God. I just
got slow, had to make a change. And I'm afraid he died just that
way. And he made a change. And never went back to what he
once was. Never did. Never did. Their troubles are
healed. And once they get what they want,
like these nine lepers in this passage, they are not found worshiping
at the master's feet. They may be found in church.
They may be found on the mission field. They may be found climbing
those mountains down in Papua New Guinea side by side with
Brother Lancellor. They may be found lots of places,
but they're not found worshiping at the Master's feet. They are
cleansed outwardly. Everything got all cleaned up.
Put on a spit-shined polished pair of shoes and new suit of
clothes and carry a Bible in their hand and recite scriptures
to their cousin, and now everything's all right. But they weren't healed. And
there's a difference. There's a difference. There are others, like this one
leper, who when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and
with a loud voice glorified God so everybody around could hear
what he said. And fell down on his face at Christ's feet, giving
him thanks. There are many, many lessons
for our souls in this passage of Scripture. And I keep praying
that God the Holy Spirit will seal them to our hearts. Let's
see what the Lord has for us. Look at verse 11. And it came to pass, as he went
to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst
of Samaria and Galilee. Our Lord Jesus is on his way
to Jerusalem for the last time. He set his face like a flint
to go up to Jerusalem. Because before the world was,
he set his face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem at the
appointed hour in due time to die for the ungodly. The Son
of God is going now to Jerusalem because the time has come when
he will lay down his life for his sheep. The time has now come
when he will die in our room instead, bearing our sin in his
own body on the cursed tree, being made to be sin for us.
He's going to Jerusalem that he might suffer all the horrid
wrath of God Almighty to the full satisfaction of justice
at the hands of wicked ungodly men who wanted nothing more than
that he should suffer everything they could heap upon him. Our
Lord Jesus was not taken by force and he was not in any way out
of control. Things were not out of his control. But rather he went directly to
Jerusalem because he had an appointment at Jerusalem. An appointment
made in His own eternal purpose before the world began. An appointment
with death. An appointment with justice.
An appointment with God Almighty as our substitute. An appointment
which He would not miss for anything in the world because this is
why He made the world. He created it that he might die
in our room instead and satisfy the justice of God on our behalf. He's going to Jerusalem to make
satisfaction for sin, to finish the work which he came into this
world to do, to put away sin and to bring in everlasting righteousness
as our substitute. As he's going to Jerusalem, he
goes through Galilee. between Galilee and Samaria the
Passing through the midst of these and now there's been a
lot of speculation made about that Lots of folks have said
a lot about that But I tell you why he went this way Because
that was the shortest way to get to where he was going He would not be deterred He's
going to suffer for us Having loved his own, which were in
the world, he loved us to the end. Look at verse 12. And he entered into a certain
village. As he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men
that were lepers, which stood afar off. There are ten of these men. Apparently
they were all Jews except for one old despised Samaritan. What are these doing together?
What are they doing together? Jews have nothing to do with
Samaritans. Samaritans have nothing to do
with Jews. They'd rather rub shoulders with
hogs than rub shoulders with each other. They hated each other. You know, that kind of prejudice
and divisiveness among men, the kind of stuff that makes fellas
not have anything to do with others because they wear bibbed
overalls while the other fella wears a nice tailor-made suit,
or because this fella's got white skin and the other one's got
black skin. Because this one is well educated
and the other one is not so well educated? That's the kind of
division they had, you know, between these Jews and Samaritans.
It was just that kind of stupidity. Those kind of divisions are real,
real popular when everything is going well. When you've got
plenty and you've got no need. But buddy, when you're all brought
down to nothing. you get along pretty good. When
you just got nothing to make you any different, you get along
pretty good and push those things aside. Here these ten people
in misery are together as one company seeking mercy. What a lesson there is for us
there. They're united in a community of deadly misery. They're far
off from the Lord Jesus and dare not approach very near because
the law commands that they stand far off and cover their upper
lip. And as anyone approaches to cry,
unclean, unclean, they dare not come nearer. No doubt these 10
lepers had heard about this Jesus of Nazareth. So how can you be
sure of that? That's reading into the scripture.
Well, it might be, but I can't figure any other reason why they'd
be going out to meet him if they hadn't heard of him. They heard
he's coming this way. They heard that this is the man
before whom a leper came and fell down at his feet and worshiped
him and said, Lord, if you will, you can make me whole. And the
master said, I will. Be thou clean. And that fellow
got up and walked home completely clean. They'd heard about it. And they said, Jesus of Nazareth,
you know the fellow who healed that leper, Daniel? He's coming
his way. He's coming his way. And they
understood that no mere man could cure leprosy. It had never been
done. It had never been done. But here's
a man who may cure leprosy. And they come to him and cry,
Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. or a picture there is before
us. Try to get it if you can, and
it's next to impossible for us to get it. I presume you're like
I am, you've never seen a leper. I've seen images of men made
up to look like lepers in movies and so forth. I've seen pictures
of what lepers are supposed to be. And I doubt still I can get
any kind of an idea, but here standing before the Lord Jesus
and his disciples are ten men whose voices are dry, so dry
and raspy they can hardly speak. Their noses are sunken in because
the cartilage has decayed and gone. Their faces look more like
chunks of half-burnt coal than flesh. Their eyes are bloodshot
and red and burning. Their skin, what's not completely
covered with scabs and sores, is crusted over, and they have
a horrible stitch. Everything about them is polluted
and unclean, everything. They're dying. Most miserable
death imaginable. Walking about as living corpses. And here are ten of them. Now,
you got that picture? Let's take it out of the picture
frame. Now you're looking into a mirror. And there we are before God Almighty
in our natural state. Leprous. Leprous. From head to foot, nothing but
leprous. Leprous say, And if someone hears
this message on tape that doesn't know me or knows this congregation,
I'm not talking about folks in our day in any way discriminating
or any of that kind of stuff. The leprosy in the Old Testament
is set before us in the Old Testament context as distinctly being a
picture and type of what we are by nature, our sin. And it was
treated as such because it was a representation of what we are
by nature. Leprosy, according to Old Testament
law, made a person unclean. Unclean. Which meant that everything
he touched was unclean. He could not come to the tabernacle
to worship God because he was unclean. He could not abide with
the people of God, not even with his own family, because he was
unclean. He's far off, shut out without
the camp, amongst other lepers. There, and there alone, he could
dwell among men of his own kind. He's unclean. Everything the
leper came in contact with was defiled and unclean before God. Lepers say, Like sin was a spreading
disease. Spreads through the body of the
man. Spreads to everything he touches. Just spreads here and
there. So that even the walls of the
house become leprous. Unclean before God. Oh, how that has been so with
sin in this world. And sin in our members. And sin
all the days of our lives. Leprosy. like sin, was looked
upon as an incurable disease. Incurable by any human means.
Sometimes lepers, who were still lepers, would be made clean,
but they were still lepers. They didn't change from being lepers.
And in the Old Testament, and throughout the scriptures, you
never read anywhere of a leper being taken to a doctor. Wasn't
any point in taking him to a doctor. Doctor couldn't do him any good.
Doctor had no salve to make anything any better. Doctor couldn't do
anything to change the disease. The leper was taken to the priest. And the priest could do nothing
for him. All the priest could do is look
at him, and judging by the standard of God's law, he could say this
leper is an unclean leper. Or if this leper is covered from
head to foot so that there's no sandness in him, but nothing
but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores all together covered with
leprosy, then the priest could say he's clean. But he couldn't
change a thing. All he could do is identify the
leper and declare the leper's state before the law. So it is
with God's holy law in dealing with you and me. The law of God
can change nothing. It was never intended to change
anything about a man. The law of God doesn't make a
man better or worse. The law of God only identifies
what he is and declares what he is and shuts him up to what
he is. That's all the law can do. Nothing
but the precious sin-atoning blood of Christ. Nothing but
the stripes inflicted upon him by the whip of God's law and
God's justice can heal us of our disease and cleanse us of
the plague of our hearts. As leprosy portrays our sin,
the cleansing of the leper under the law also portrayed our redemption.
You remember in the Old Testament when the leper was pronounced
clean by the priest, then there was a ceremony they had to go
through. And the ceremonies were always beautifully illustrative
of redemption and grace. The leper, in order to be ceremonially
clean, had to have two living birds. And he'd take one of the
birds, and it would be slain. Slain in an earthen vessel under
running water, portraying Jesus Christ, the innocent, holy, spotless,
sinless Lamb of God. He who did no sin, who had no
sin, he who had no offense, like a little bird in an earthen vessel,
in a body of human flesh, is slain. under running water, portraying
His purity, His cleanness before God. But now He's slain because
He dies as our substitute. And then there's another bird.
That little bird also pictures Christ. His feathers are dipped
in the blood of the slain bird. And it flies away to heaven. showing Christ's resurrection,
having accomplished our redemption and our resurrection in Him.
And there's no other way for sinners to be made clean. Ten
men that were lepers met the Lord Jesus on His way to Calvary. Now watch this, verse 13. And
they lifted up their voices And said, as one man, as if all
of us together at one time in our leprosy met him, and they
said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Now as I said, they knew
full well that no mere man had ever healed another man of leprosy.
But they had heard that this man had. So they called upon
him, the man who stood before them. The man. Try to understand
what a remarkable thing this is. This would be like me standing
a little further off than I am from David Peterson, and I call
you to have mercy on me, to help me of my leprosy, as if he's
God. Well, these poor lepers, it's
done gone to their brains. They think a man's God. They
sure did. They sure did. All ten of them. They address Him as Jesus. The name means Jehovah saves. So maybe they didn't really understand
that. Maybe they did. Master. Jesus. Jehovah Arafat. Jehovah who's
come to save. God come to save. God in human
flesh. Master of everything. Have mercy
on us. Mercy is God's prerogative, not
a man's. And they come seeking mercy.
Now look at verse 14. And when he saw them, he said
unto them, Go, show yourselves unto the priest. And it came
to pass, as they went, they were cleansed. Now I read that and
I thought, Why? Why did he do that? Why did the
Lord Jesus send these lepers and say, go show yourself to
the priest? Now if you read Leviticus chapter 13, you'll find out that
lepers were required, if they were suspected of being leprous,
to go to the priest, the Levites, representatives of law. Go to
the priest, and show yourselves to the priest, and the priest
would examine them, and the priest would say, leper, unclean, outside
the camp. And that's exactly what the priest
did. That's what the law does. It
identifies us as sins, declares us to be sin, and shuts us out
from God on the ground of justice because we're leprous. But obviously
this had already been done or they would not have been a far
off. They had already been to the priest. They had already
been declared by the representative of the law that they're unclean,
that they're leprous. But now the Lord Jesus sends
them back to the priest. So why? You find the answer in
Leviticus chapter 14. The lepers were again required
to go to the priest. To show themselves to the priest.
The leper Thanks. I believe now I'm clean. Now I can go back to the house
of God. Now I can be accepted of God. Now I can go into the fellowship
of God's saints as one of God's children. Now I'm no longer barred
from God and His people. And so he goes to the priest.
And he says, how about it, Law? Am I clean or unclean? The law
didn't change him. The priest couldn't change him.
The priest would look him over from head to foot. An old leper. And when he was
completely covered with leprosy, the priest said, you're clean.
You're welcome. You're clean. When there was
no soundness in him, he's clean. He's clean. And the law of God
says to the man, to the woman, who believes on Jesus Christ
the Lord, coming to him with all your leprosy. How about it,
Lord? Speak to my conscience and tell
me, will God Almighty have me now? And the law says God Almighty
will have you because you're clean. And so the master sends
these men back to the priest, not to be cured, but because
he had cured them. So the essence of this is this. These ten men They came to the
Lord Jesus, met Him in the way, and they said, Jesus, Master,
have mercy on us. And the Lord Jesus said, you
got it. You're clean. Go show yourself
to the priest. These fellows who came to Him
as lepers, unclean, believed Him. They believed Him. They got up and went to the priest.
He said, we're clean. I can't tell the difference.
Looks to me like I'm the same Joe I was yesterday. But they're
walking along the way. He said, we're clean. And when
he said to that other leper, he's clean, he was clean. So
if he says we're clean, we're clean. And as they walk along
the way, Joe, what are your skin? It looks
like it's turned back to the skin of a perfectly healthy man. You two back, and they're walking
along, and as they're going to the law, to be pronounced clean,
they realize, man, we're clean. We're clean. It came to pass,
just as He said, just according to His Word. We are clean. Now, look at verse 15. And one of them, when he saw
that he was healed, not just clean, when he saw that
he was healed, turned back. He didn't have anything to do
with his healing, did he? He just, all of a sudden, he saw
he was healed. The way you preach, you talk
like when a man gets saved, all that he does is he finds out
God saved him. That's exactly what we have pictured
here. He found out the Lord healed him. He saw that he was healed.
He turned back and with a loud voice glorified God and fell
down on his face at his feet. Now wait a minute, he's going
back to this man and glorifies God falling at the feet of this
man on his face. That's right. giving him thanks. How come? Because he's the God
who healed him. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus
answering said, were there not ten cleansed, but where are the
nine? There are not failed, they return
to give glory to God. Save this stranger. Now this
is such an instructive part of this passage. Why did the other
nine go on to their priest? Why did they go back to that
Levitical priest to be pronounced clean by that priest? How come
they did that? Well, the master told them to.
He sure did. But this one who glorified God
didn't go back there, did he? He didn't go back. Why did the
nine go on to the priest? Why did this American stranger
return to the Lord Jesus, glorifying God with a loud voice as it falls
at his feet, giving thanks to him? The answer is as obvious
as the nose on your face. The other nine called the Lord
Jesus by his name, Jehovah Jesus. God our Savior. They acknowledged
Him as Master. And they were cleansed of their
leprosy in their bodies, believing His Word. But this man, being
cleansed both in his body of his physical leprosy, and in
his soul of the leprosy of his heart, the plague of his heart,
when he saw that he was healed and made whole, He goes not to
the priest, but to the priest. Not to the shadow, but to the
substance. Not to the picture, but to the
Savior. Not to the ceremony, but to Christ
Himself. Look at verse 19. And He said
unto him, Arise, go thy way. Go back to the priest. I told
you, go back to the priest. No. Arise, go thy way. Because your way is my way. I am your way. Go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole. When the nine were cured in their bodies, when they got
their finances healed, When they got the record straight so that
folks looked at them as good folks now, when they got their
homes straightened up, when all the troubles were over, when
they obtained everything they wanted and everything they needed,
they went on about their business just as they always had. But
this Samaritan stranger, he'd experienced something else. He was healed of his leprosy
in his body. His life really was straightened
out. But he had something more than
that. Something more than that. He who healed him of his leprosy
in his flesh poured grace into his soul and healed him of the
leprosy in his heart. And he, seeing that he was cleansed,
turns back to give God the glory. The nine were content to go on
just as they always had, living under the yoke of religious bondage
and ceremonialism. But this man was forever done
with Jewish priest, forever done with religious ceremonies, forever
done with legal sacrifices, and forever done with carnal ordinances.
He fled away to Jesus Christ, made an high priest forever,
according to his endless life, our great God and Savior. Countless
multitudes, like those nine lepers, being healed outwardly in their
bodies, healed by a religious encounter of one kind or another,
never know the Son of God. and never worship Him. Never. I wonder who among us here been
in church for years, go through religious ceremonies, two, three,
four times a week sometimes, bear the name of Christ Believe all the right doctrines. Got it all fixed in your head.
And your life has been cleaned up real good. But you've never
known what it is to worship at His feet. You are still unclean. inside. Unclean without a sacrifice. Unclean without a substitute. But poor, wretched sinners knowing
their uncleanness, knowing the leprosy of their souls, as soon
as they're made whole by the Lord Jesus, fall at His feet,
giving glory to God with thankful hearts and worship Him, and they
are forever done with the law of carnal commandments, and they
worship God in heart and in spirit, circumcised in the heart, and
they have no confidence in the flesh. To all who thus believe
on the Son of God, The Son of God says this. Now
listen. Now listen. I want to say it
as distinctly as I possibly can. I want you to hear it. Every
syllable. And I especially want those who
listen to this tape with a critical ear, and there are some who do,
I hear from them. So you pay no attention to what
I'm saying right now. I especially want them to hear it. The Son
of God says, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole. He didn't say that. I believe
he did. I believe he did. Why that's
not consistent with good Calvinism. You know I don't think he cared
a bit. Don't think it bothered him one bit in the world. Why
that destroys our system of doctrine. I suspect he understood that
very well. Well, that's not really what he meant to say. Let's see.
He didn't say it once. He said this throughout the New
Testament. Throughout the New Testament. In Matthew 9.22, he
said to that woman who had an issue of blood and touched him,
Daughter, be of good comfort. Thy faith hath made thee whole.
In Mark 10.52, you remember blind Bartimaeus? The Lord Jesus said,
What is it you want? He said, I want to see. And the
Lord Jesus said, you got it. He said, thy faith hath made
thee whole. And Luke 7.50, you remember that
woman who was a sinner? She comes to anoint the Savior
for his burial in the house of Simon the leper. And as she's
washing his feet with her tears and wiping them with the hairs
of her head, and anoints him with that alabaster box of oil,
the Lord Jesus holds her up before all the crowd as a spectacle
of honor! One who believed Him! One who
has sacrificed himself for Him! And as she stands before Him,
a forgiven sinner, worshiping Him because of His free forgiveness.
This is what He said to her, Thy faith hath saved thee. Go in peace. In Luke 18.42, our Lord said
to another blind man, Receive thy sight. Thy faith hath saved
thee. I know folks who cringe at hearing
such words. I know preachers who cringe at
it. Oh, you can't say things like that. People won't understand.
Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. If what you believe, if your
system of doctrine cannot bear to hear and rejoice in exactly
what this book says, exactly as it's stated, your doctrine
is as corrupt as leprosy itself. And it doesn't need to be defended,
it needs to be destroyed. Altogether destroyed. You say,
well, that's not consistent. People might misunderstand. People
might be confused. I heard Brother Scott Richardson
say one time, I think he was standing right here when I heard
him say it. He said, folks tell me all the time, you're confusing
people. He said, they're born confused. I'm left with them.
Born confused. The Word of God is not going
to confuse anybody. Just declare it as it is. What on earth is
our Savior saying? Oh, if you said to that leper,
thy faith hath made thee whole, that poor simple-minded simpleton,
you know, he's been a leper for a long time, he might think he
healed himself of leprosy. You know what? I ain't got a
clue, he thought like that. He was a leper. Now, if he hadn't
been a leper, he might think he'd heal himself of it. If his
nose wasn't falling off, he might think he'd heal himself of it.
But he was a leper! When the Master said, Thy faith
hath made thee whole, he never dreamed that he had something
to do with making himself whole. But the Master honored the faith
that honors him, without which you cannot be whole. Yes, faith is His gift. No, faith
has no merit. No, sir. Faith in itself has
no efficacy, but the one we believe does. And you will not be made
whole except you believe Him. Except like this leper, you fall
down and worship Him. Except like that woman, you reach
out and touch Him. Like Bartimaeus, you cry, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. And this is his promise
to every sinner who believes it. Will you hear me? Forget
about hearing me. God help you to hear him. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath everlasting life. A long time ago I heard a missionary
from India. describing an event that happened
while he was walking through the brush. He was walking with
a group of other folks and they heard a raspy, faint cry. Help me. Help me. Oh, somebody please help me. And they just kept hearing it.
And they tried to make their way to the place where it sounded
like that voice was coming from. And they got out into a clearing. And the missionary said he saw
the most horrid sight he'd ever seen. There was an old leprous
man there who had been brought out and set in the middle of
nowhere and left to die in his leprosy. And there was nothing
I could do to help him. He cries, help me. Help me. Please, help me. But as I stood there and watched
him in my helplessness, I thought to myself, if I could just go
over to that man and put my face against his and my body against
his, if I could just And breathe in all His corruption
into me. And take His death. And breathe
in all my health and life into Him. And give Him life. That's what the Son of God has
done for me. Amen.