I want to talk just a little
bit this morning out of some verses here, Luke 17. I'll read verse 11 down through
the 19th verse. Luke 17, 11, And it came to pass,
as he, that is Christ, 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
afar 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. Let me read that again. Surely
there must be some mistake. 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? They 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. As I meditated upon this particular
portion of the Word of God this morning, I thought about what
a rare thing praise and thanksgiving is, even among the people of
God. We're told that of all the ten lepers whom Christ healed,
there was only one of them, one of them, who turned back and
gave thanks unto the Lord. Now the words that fell from
our Lord's lips on this occasion are very solemn, very solemn
indeed. Were there not ten cleansed?
Were there not ten cleansed from leprosy? But where are the nine? Now we know that leprosy, in
the word of God, is a type of sin in the soul. And we recognize that these ten
lepers were cleansed by the power of God, the Lord Jesus Christ,
having mercy upon them. They cried out, Master have mercy
on us. They felt deeply the weight of
their disease. And so they cried out unto the
Lord. Isn't it amazing how that when men are in need, they will
pray. Now, the majority of people never
pray, and it's because they have no sense of their real need. There's no feeling of desperateness
about their case. Therefore, they do not cry to
the Lord. But these, they cried out unto the Lord because they
were lepers you see, and they were standing afar off, they
were unclean, and they needed mercy, and they needed the Master. I do not know how much they knew
about the Lord Jesus Christ and about His abilities to heal and
His ability to deliver, but apparently they had heard something about
the fact that He was Master that he was Lord and so therefore
they cried to him that he might have mercy on them and then when
he saw them he said to them you go show yourselves unto the priest
if you're familiar with the 13th and 14th chapters of Leviticus
you understand what our Lord was telling them here you go
show yourself to the priest and then as they went in obedience
to the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, they would be healed.
They would go in faith, they would be healed as they obeyed
the Lord. Oh, how important it is for us
to read the Word of God, for us to meditate upon the Word,
and for us to study the Word of God and to apply it to our
hearts by faith. It is as we walk in obedience
to Christ and to His Word that we shall have the blessings of
the Lord upon our lives and so as they as they came to pass,
as they went, they were cleansed. They were cleansed. God, through
His mercy and grace, cleansed these lepers. And one of them,
when he saw that he was healed, one of them, when he saw that
the Lord truly did have mercy on him, one of them, when he
discovered that his situation had entirely been changed by
the Master, that he was healed, he turned back and with a loud
voice he glorified God. Now let me say that the best
of us here are far too much like the nine lepers that did not
return and had no thanks to give unto the Lord Jesus Christ. I
said the best of us are like these nine lepers. We're more
ready to pray than we are to praise. We're more ready to unburden
our souls to the Lord than we are to give him thanks and praise
when he has answered our prayer. Those who pray, I guess, is greater
than the number of those who praise. We hide our mercies,
do we not? While we exhibit our trials and
tribulations, we set them on a hill for all to see, but we
have no word of thanksgiving in our hearts. They all joined
in the prayer, but only one returned to give thanks unto the Lord.
Multitudes pray when they're sick and dying, but when they
get better, then they have no real praise to God, they have
no song, of thankfulness on their heart. It is sadly too true.
Indeed, there are more that pray than praise. There are more who
receive benefits than ever give praise for them, and we need
to be aware of this, that it may convince and convict our
own heart of the need to pray and praise God alike Pray for
what we have need of, but do not forget to give Him thanks
for that supply of the need. Ten healed, one praised. We ought
to remember all of His benefits. Think of all the benefits of
our God toward us this morning in life. in health, in our eyesight,
our hearing, and the love of friends and loved ones around
us. Salvation. What a wonderful blessing salvation
is. God sending His Son, dying in
our room instead in place, suffering our hell for us. Salvation. His deliverance of our souls
from everlasting death and from destruction. How wonderful the
mercy of God has been in the salvation of our souls. And then
just think of salvation, everyday salvation. Think of how the Lord
has delivered you over and over and over again throughout your
life in the faith. how wonderful it's been to be
able and we that are getting up in years can look back and
we can see the good sure hand of the Lord having been with
us through the years and how God has multiplied His mercies
over and over in our lives toward us and toward our loved ones,
toward our families, toward our children. How wonderful has been
the salvation of the Lord. And it's been real and true salvation
every day of our experience since we have known the Lord. Christ, how wonderful it is that
He's been given to us. The Lord Jesus mentioned how
that the Father had given Him to the sheep and how wonderful
it is. How else could we have ever gotten
the Lord Jesus Christ? Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable
gift. We could never have had Christ
if God had not given Him to us. That's grace. is what that is. You could not have received Him,
you could not have had Him given, you could not have received Him,
except He be given by God the Father. And God spared not His
own Son, but delivered Him up for us all. How shall He not
also through Him freely give us all things. And then the Holy
Spirit. How wonderful the Spirit of God
is. The Holy Spirit of God has come
upon us. He's the comforter, you know.
And God has given us the Spirit to comfort us, to fill us. And
we know that the Christian life is life and joy and peace in
the Holy Ghost. This is what the Kingdom of God
is. And so we have the Holy Spirit giving us a gift. We've all been
baptized by one Spirit into one body. All been made to drink
of one Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. And so we ought to give
thanks, not only for Christ, but for the third person of the
Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And then the Eternal God. the
author of our salvation, and the giver of Christ, and the
giver of the covenant of grace, wherein we find all things that
are necessary for our life and sustenance in this world, in
the faith of the gospel. And so we give thanks for the
providence of God also. The providence of God is the
working out of His will in our lives, daily, the working out
of His good purpose in our lives, His providence. And all God's
providences are good providences. Why? Because they come from a
good God. They come from an all-wise God. They come from God Almighty,
who is omnipotent, omniscient, and he is able to give and to
provide and he does that in his providence, faithfulness, the
faithfulness of God. You know the Bible talks about
the mercies of God that are new every day, God's mercies. You've
experienced them. You know what I'm talking about.
Everybody here knows something about the mercies of God and
God's faithfulness in continuing to send them. There is one man
in ten who thanks God for these things. One man in ten, according
to this text this morning. This seems to be the ratio in
life. Now then, hosannas languish on
our tongues and our devotion dies, the poet says. We do not
praise the Lord fitly, we do not praise the Lord proportionately,
we do not praise the Lord intensely, beloved. One said we receive
a continent of mercies and only return an island of praise. The years roll on and we seldom,
if ever, observe a day of praise. Have you ever set aside a day
of praise? A day which you will not ask
anything of the Lord, but you will just give thanks to God
all day long. You just give Him praise from
your heart. Well, as we said, the years are
rolling on, and we seldom, if ever, observe a day of praise.
The widespread thanklessness of Christians seems to me to
be the disgrace of our day. and it is widespread. There's
far too much murmuring and complaining, far too much finding a fault,
and very little of giving thankfulness to the Lord. Now let me say a
few words about the characteristics of true thankfulness. This man's
simple act shows the character of praise. You say, well I think
that it's a complicated thing. I say this man's simple act shows
you something about the character of true praise. It does not take
the same shape in everybody, that is true. Love to Christ,
like living flowers, wears many forms, Only artificial flowers,
you know, are all alike. Living praise is marked by individuality. Men can sin in company and they
can go to hell in company, but when you obtain the salvation
of Christ, you'll come to Christ alone, you'll come to Him alone,
I say, and so therefore you must learn to come to Him alone and
give thanks to Him. Individuality I'm talking about.
This man came, he was the only one of the ten. And so this man
quits the company of the other nine, and he comes out alone
to give praise to the Lord. If your heart is right, you must
praise Him. You must love Him. I say, if
your heart is right, if your heart is right with God, if you
truly understand the value of your own soul and the value of
Christ, if you truly understand the value of what He did on your
behalf, If you truly understand it, then my friend, you must
love Him, you must praise Him, and those who do not love Him,
let them be anathema maranatha. Only those who know and love
the Lord Jesus Christ can praise Him rightly. You will not be
kept back by the state of the other nine. If you love Christ,
if you truly love Him, you will not be saying, well, you know,
the other nine is not praising, so therefore why should I be
so concerned about it? You will not be kept back by
the state of the other nine. You need to be aware of this.
There's always something, if you look around, that will keep
you from uttering the praise of your heart. giving thanks
unto God. That is the fruit of your lips,
giving thanks unto God. And so, the worldliness of your
family, say, the worldliness of my family keeps me from praising
the Lord. I'm so distracted that I cannot
praise Him. Oh, you say the coldness of the
church is what my problem is. The church is cold and indifferent. and I just simply am not able
to praise the Lord. Your personal love to Christ
will make you praise Him even if heaven and earth and the sea
are all wrapped in silence. Your personal relationship with
Christ and your personal love to Christ will make you praise
Him. The poet said, O may the sweet, the blissful thing fill
every heart and tongue till strangers love thy charming name and join
the sacred song. The next characteristic of this
man's thankfulness here was promptness. Promptness. He was back to Christ
almost immediately. He didn't even go on to the priest
to show himself to the priest so that the priest could pronounce
him clean. He didn't do that. He immediately
turned back to glorify the Lord. When you're saved or blessed,
the quicker you can express your gratitude for it, I think the
better off you are. I think it's good to praise God
immediately when you're touched by the Lord. For you to be an
individual living in God's world, we having sinned, fallen as we
have in nature, we having the the plague of sin, the curse
of sin upon us, and God reaches down and touches one of us. He
touches us. He touches our souls and delivers
us and brings us out. My friend, this is a great mercy. And we ought to immediately,
the sooner the better, begin to glorify God for it. I never
will forget, and I don't want to get into my own situation,
But I never will forget, when the Lord saved me, I had to give
glory to God. I had to praise Him. I had to
do it. I couldn't help it. I must praise
the Lord. I must give Him glory. And even
as a young man, not having the language of Canaan to express
myself, I still must vent the blessedness of my soul unto the
Lord and to give gratitude unto Him. Well, we all plan to, don't
we? We all plan to, but it's better
to lay one brick today, as the old man said, than to propose
to build a palace next year. It's better to lay one brick
today than to build a palace next year. Magnify your Lord
in the present for present salvation. Do you have present salvation? Well, thanks be unto God that
we're not just put into a savable state by the grace of God. No,
Paul said to Ephesians 2 that ye are saved. Ye are saved. Not that you're put into a savable
state sometime down, you know, in the future. Not that we have
to wait until we die to find out whether we're saved. No,
ye are saved right now. You have a present salvation. And so magnify the Lord in the
present for present salvation. Next notice his intensity. The intensity of this one who
came back to glorify God. And with a loud voice the scripture
says. And with a loud voice he glorified
God. Well somebody says, well did
he have to get loud about it? Did he have to get loud about
it? Well, bless God, yes. He was just cured of leprosy
and he could not whisper. He could not whisper it out.
He must, with a loud voice, lift up his heart and bless the Lord. Fain would I sound it out so
loud that earth and heaven should hear, the poet said. Next, if
you will, in true thankfulness, there is humility. There's humility,
and this needs to be remembered. In true thankfulness, there is
humility. In verse 16, we see that he fell
down on his face. He fell down on his face at his
Jesus' feet. He fell down at the feet of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He did not feel in his place
until He was lying there until he was at the feet of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now beloved, to know we are undeserving
is the true secret of a thankful spirit. To know we're undeserving. This man knew that he had just
become the recipient of a great blessing. And he knew that he
truly was undeserving of it. Undeserving of it. It reminds
me of the testimony that I've heard of one believer this morning
as she came in the building. She said, things are better with
me than I deserve that they be. Well, now brother, sister, I
don't know what your situation is this morning, and I don't
know what you came from, what you left at home, but I am saying
to you that things are better with all of us than we deserve
they be. They are indeed. And it is the best way to get
yourself out of the doldrums and out of the place of discouragement
and trial and test is to begin to enumerate the blessings of
God in your life and how much better off you are than what
you deserve to be. And as you do that, begin to
praise the Lord, the burden is suddenly lifted and you wonder
where it went to, but the Lord lifts it off again. He lifts
it off. It is the man who feels his debt
to grace and remembers that in reality he deserves nothing but
judgment and hell. This is the man who will be blessing
and praising God with a loud voice at the feet of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I am nobody from no place This
man seemed to say, but I must praise the Lord for what He's
done for me. At His feet. I would rather be
nobody at Christ's feet than to be everybody anywhere else.
How about you? How about you? That's where I'd
rather be. I'd rather be at the feet of
the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no place so honorable
as down at the feet. of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thankfulness
is a flower which will never bloom well excepting upon a root
of deep humility. Now just remember that. If you're
proud as a peacock, there isn't going to be much praise come
out of you. And it won't mean anything if it does. It's on
a root of deep humility that the flower of praise grows. This was worship. This was worship. This man came back and he worshipped. You say, well, he had something
maybe that I don't have. Well, what is it that he has? Are you a believer? Have you
experienced being transgressed? Have you sinned in the kingdom
of God's dear Son? Have you experienced being, as the scripture says,
have you passed from death unto life? Are you alive in the Lord? You happy quickened who were
dead in sin, are you alive? in the Lord, then my friend,
you have all that you need to vent praise and adoration on
your Master and on your Lord. And you need to begin to cry
out unto God. Now there's one other thing that
I want to call your attention to, and that is the lack of self-righteousness
in this man. The lack of self-righteousness
in this man. His silence as to the censoring
of others. I want you to notice this. When
the Savior said, where are the nine? Notice that this man did
not reply. He did not reply. The Lord Jesus
said, where are the nine? Was there not ten cleansed? Where
are the nine? And this man, he did not say,
I'm astonished that they did not return to thank you as I
have. I am very, very disappointed
in those nine, that they too have not fell at your feet, and
with a loud voice glorified you." Nope, he was absolutely silent. He did not say a single solitary
thing. If I can do just what I should,
he seemed to say, if I can do what I should, then that's my
duty. That's my responsibility. Whatever
anybody else does, let that be their responsibility. Let us
not be self-righteous, brother, sister. Let us not say, well,
others don't seem to have any praise or thankfulness in their
heart, so I won't either. Let us learn, my friend, that
we have a duty and responsibility to glorify our Lord and to honor
Him. Let us learn from this text,
finally, that were to praise, were to have a praise meeting
once in a while. Individually, were to have a
praise meeting. And then it wouldn't hurt anything
to have one in the church every once in a while to praise the
Lord, were to put praise in a high place. Let us pray for a thankful
spirit. It is the spirit which God will
honor. Let us pay our praise to Christ
Himself personally and vehemently. Personal praise to a personal
Savior must be our life's object, must be the object of every believer. If others do not praise our Lord,
let us be sorrowful, but let us not be so disappointed that
we will turn our backs on the Lord. Numbers get a blessing,
but do not feel love enough to own it. Do not expect gratitude
yourself. Do not wonder if you bless others
and others do not bless you. Even the Master did not get praise
from the Nine. And so don't be running around
with your chin hanging down all the time saying, nobody recognizes
me. Nobody says anything good about me. Nobody is praising
me. Well, my friend, remember these
nine when you begin to feel that way. Even the Master did not
get praise from them. I share this little poem with
you, and we'll close right away. Meet, and right it is to sing,
in every time and place, glory to our heavenly King, the God
of truth and grace. Join we then with sweet accord,
all in one thanksgiving join, holy Holy, Holy Lord, eternal
praise be Thine. Let us praise God with heart
and voice, with soul and substance, with might and man. Hallelujah. Let us give praise unto the Lord. I thought this morning that I
would preach short because we're going to have the Lord's Supper,
but also because I purposely felt that we should give a little
time this morning to give him praise to God. I thought it would
be selfish for me to stand up here and to get to give praise
to God with a loud voice if you please, and nobody else had opportunity
to do so. And so in honor to the Master
who we are about to remember here with the Lord's Supper,
if anyone has a word of praise, then you feel free to rise and
give that word of praise to the Master. God will honor and own
praise. Anyone here got a word to share
about their Master? A word of praise to give to Him.
I'll praise Him for what He's done for me. Lately I've been really lifted
up in my glory to be King of the Lord Jesus Christ. I've got
a view of Him that has really blessed my heart, to see how
great and powerful and mighty He is as Savior. And He's just worked crazy in me
that I have to express. He's doing something in my life
that's changing. He's changing things in my life
greatly. And I don't understand the end of it yet. But I do believe
God is speaking to me in a lot of ways when I read His Word. And I still don't know the end
of it, but I praise Him for it. I am so thankful. The things
I've seen in His Word that just have been so strong and powerful
that they've come to me. I praise Him. And I want to praise
Him. And I see that in my life, in my back Christian life, the
last 20 years, that the Lord has saved me. I've been very
quiet about what the Lord has done. The great things He's done
in my soul. And I know it's wrong. It's like
these lepers in my back. I should have praised Him more.
He gave me a voice to praise Him. And I may not be the best
singer in the world, but I love to sing His praise. And I want
to speak for Him. And I want Him to keep burning
His love in my heart. I don't want it to be just something
that men do. When I go to preach, if I preach
to someone, I want the power of God to be in what I say. And I want Him to use me to bring
glory to His name. I just don't want to be just
doing it to doing it. That's not what I want. I want
Him to use me to glorify Himself. and a deceased sinner brought
to repentance. And I want to be humble in it, because I see
a danger that men can be taken up in their self and should become
self-righteous in it. So I see a danger there. And
I don't want that to keep me from coming forth and praising
the Lord like I should. But I know it can't. Satan can
use that to keep men from praising Him when they should be praising
Him. He'll use anything he can to
keep those people from trying to do it. I know it. So I want
you to pray for me.