I'm reading from Matthew chapter
8, I'd like to read the first four verses. Matthew 8 verse 1, when he was
come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. This is after he had preached
what is known as the Sermon on the Mount. And behold, there
came a leper. and worshipped him, saying, Lord,
if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth
his hand and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately, his leprosy
was cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, see
thou tell no man, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest,
and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto
them. I've entitled this message, Behold,
There Came a Leper. Now when is the last time you
ran into someone who had the disease of leprosy? I never have. It is a disease that's easily
curable today with antibiotics, but In that day, it was the disease
of diseases. It was the most dreaded disease,
and the scripture gives a lot of time describing this disease,
particularly in the book of Leviticus. And the reason is that leprosy
is given as a type of sin. Get that. Leprosy, this horrible
disease, is given as a type of sin. Now, why was this leper
cleansed? There were a lot of lepers. As
a matter of fact, we read in Luke chapter four when the Lord
was opening up his public ministry after he had preached in Nazareth
and they objected to his preaching. He says in verse 27, and many
lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha. prophet, and
none of them was cleansed. Of these many lepers that were
in Israel, none of them were cleansed. God did not heal one
of them, saving Naaman the Syrian, a Gentile. God passed by all
the lepers of Israel and healed a Gentile leper. And all they in the synagogue,
when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. And they
rose up and thrust him out of the city and led him into the
brow of the hill whereon their city was built that they might
cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst
of them went his way. Now, why were they so angry?
The Lord was bringing out the absolute sovereignty of his father
in saving whom he will. And he passed by. all the lepers
of Israel and cleansed just this one Gentile leper. Now, here we have a leper coming
to Christ and he was cleansed. The Lord said to him when he
said, if you will, you can make me clean. He said, I will. Be
thou clean. Why was this leper cleansed? Now let's go back a couple of
verses into Matthew chapter 7, the final words of what is known
as the Sermon on the Mount, verse 28. And it came to pass when
Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at
his doctrine. They had never heard anything
like this before. They were dumbfounded. They were
amazed. They were astonished. And verse
29 says, for he taught them as one having authority and not
as the scribes. I love that slam on the scribes. He spake, he taught as one having
authority, not like the religious leaders. of his day who had no
authority behind what they said. Now, their preaching and teaching
did not recommend itself as the truth of God. You could listen
to it and tell it came from man, but Christ spake as one having
authority. Now, in the Sermon on the Mount,
six times the Lord says, You've heard it been said of them of
old," and then he would quote a scripture, and then he would
say, but I say unto you. Six times, you've heard it said,
and he quotes an Old Testament scripture, but I say unto you. He's saying my authority is such
that I'm the only one who can give the true meaning, the true
interpretation of that passage of scripture. And 15 times during
the Sermon on the Mount he said, I say unto you, the one who speaks
with authority. Now the reason he spake as one
having authority is because he has all authority. the right because of who he is,
the right to do whatever he will. He said, can I not do what I
will with my own? Yes, he can because he has all
authority. He said, all power is given to
me. All authority is given to me
in heaven and in earth. He said to his father, thou has
given him power over all flesh. Christ Jesus has power over all
flesh. Right now, whoever it is that's
listening to this message, he has power over you. He has authority
over you. You are in his hands for him
to do whatsoever he's pleased with you because he has all authority. Thou has given him power over
all flesh. that he should give eternal life
to as many as thou has given him. He even said to his enemies
that you may know that the son of man have power on earth to
forgive sin. He has such authority that whether
or not you and I are forgiven of our sins is up to him. In a Dear Abby column this week,
someone actually said, I just can't forgive myself of the sin
I've committed. It was said to her, you need
to find a priest who can grant you absolution from your sin. Now, no man has the ability to
do that. Christ does. He has power on earth to forgive
sin. And whether or not your sin is
forgiven, it's not up to you. It's up to Him. That is the authority
and the power He has. Our eternal destiny is in His
hands. When Pilate said, speakest thou
not unto me? Knowest thou not that I have
power, I have authority to crucify you, and I have power or authority
to release you? And the Lord replied to him,
Thou couldst have no power at all over me, except it be given
thee from above. Now the Lord is letting him know,
I'm in control of this situation, not you. Remember when they came
to arrest him, and he said, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus
of Nazareth. He said, I am. And immediately
they fell backwards at the power of his voice. Why? He's letting
them know, I'm no victim. I'm in control. I'm in absolute
sovereign control of this situation. Such is the authority of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Those are the last two verses
of Matthew chapter seven. And then we have chapter eight,
the passage I just read about this leper. And what this is
doing is giving us a demonstration of his authority. That's what
we're learning in this passage of scripture about the authority
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's go on reading. He taught
them as one having authority. and not as the scribes, when
he was come down from the mountain, after that great message, the
Sermon on the Mount, where people were astonished at his authority,
behold, there came a leper and worshiped him, saying, Lord,
if you will, You can make me clean. Now, leprosy in the Bible
was a horrible disease, and it was given as an emblem of sin. It came from within you. You
usually felt no pain with it, but it would end up killing you,
and it was humanly incurable. The leper was not allowed to
touch anything. If somebody came toward him,
he was to cry, unclean, unclean. Stay away from me. You don't
want to be around me. Anything he touched was either
burned or ceremonially washed because it was considered unclean.
And such is the sinner. He can't cure himself. He can't
make himself clean. Anything he touches is unclean
because he touched it. Luke's account of this tells
us this man was full of leprosy. That means there wasn't one square
inch of healthy flesh. He was completely covered over
by this horrible disease. You couldn't see anything but
the ulcers of leprosy. Wherever you looked, from his
head to his feet, he was completely covered. This is the leper that
came to Christ. He came and fell on his face,
according to the other accounts, before Christ. And he worshipped
him. Now, this is so significant.
The first thing that this leper did was worship him. Now, the reason he worshipped
him is because he knew who he was. You see, you will only worship
an absolute sovereign. And he knew that the Lord Jesus
Christ was the Lord and he worshiped him. And this is going to be
settled before anything else is. Worship. Now this leper did
not know whether or not Christ would heal him. He said, Lord,
if you will, you can heal me. He didn't know whether or not
the Lord would heal him. but he worshipped him for who
he was. He worshipped him as God. The one who, I'm in your hands. I can't make myself clean, you
can. It's completely up to an act
of your will. In coming to Christ like that,
he worshipped him as God. Now you will only worship a sovereign. Now what do I mean by that? You
will only worship one that you can't manipulate, that you can't
control, that you can't bargain with, that you can't get him
to respond to you. You are in his hands and he can
do with you whatever he's pleased to do. Now that is worship. He came and worshiped him. Did you know that you can't worship
God and believe in free will at the same time? You see, if
you believe in free will, you believe that your will can trump
God's will. You might not have thought it all out, but that's
still what you believe if you believe in free will. You believe
that you're independent of God's will. And there's no worship
there. You only worship an absolute sovereign. And until this is
settled, We can't take another step. He came and worshipped
him and he didn't know whether he would heal him or whether
he wouldn't heal him. He didn't know whether he would
cleanse him or whether he wouldn't cleanse him, but he still knew
that the Lord was worthy of worship because of who he is. Now, if Christ saves me or if
Christ passes me by, he's still worthy of worship. The leper understood this. He
came and worshipped him. Have you ever worshipped the
Lord Jesus Christ? bowed before him in your heart, knowing that
you're in his hands and your eternal destiny is not up to
you, it's up to him. Now that's worship. Nothing short
of that is worship. Now look what he said. He came
and worshiped him saying, Lord, Lord. He knew he was the Lord. Now I've heard tell of what has
been called the lordship controversy, like it's a controversy. There's
no such thing as a lordship controversy. He's the Lord and he's your Lord,
whether you acknowledge it or not. He's my Lord. whether I acknowledge it or not,
because he is the Lord. I've heard people, I've heard
preachers say, won't you make Jesus the Lord of your life?
That's blasphemous. He is the Lord. You don't make
him the Lord. He is the Lord because of who
he is. And the only reason for our existence
is His glory. Now we're going to glorify Him
one way or the other. We're either going to glorify
His grace or His justice. But glorify Him we will because
He is the Lord. He's the Lord of creation. He
spake the universe into existence. All things were made by Him. And without Him was not anything
made that was made. He's the Lord of Creation. He's
the Lord of Providence. He controls everything that takes
place, doesn't matter what it is. He's in control of it. It's
all His will being done. By Him, all things consist. He upholds all things by the
word of His power. He controls everybody, everything,
and every event. Somebody says, what about the
bad stuff? Well, He's in control of that. It's always his will
being done. Now I might not understand why
he's doing what he's doing, but I trust him because whatever
he does is right. He's the Lord and he controls
providence, most especially He's the Lord of salvation. Salvation
is in his hands as the father raises the dead and quickens
them even so the son quickens whom he will. Now this leper
came and worshipped and acknowledged his lordship. He came and worshipped
saying, Lord. And so does everyone else who
ever comes to him. They know he's the Lord. And
look what he says next. Don't miss this. Lord. If you
will, if you will, you can make me
clean. What if this leper would have
come into Christ's presence and said, I will that you make me
clean. Sinners don't speak to the Lord
Jesus Christ like that. They don't tell him what they
will do. That is a failure to acknowledge
his authority and his lordship. He didn't come saying, Lord,
I will that you do this or that you do that. He acknowledged
Christ's sovereign will. Lord, if you will, you can make
me clean. I will have mercy, he says, on
whom I will have mercy, and I'll have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then it's not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. This leper understood this. He
understood the supremacy of the will of Christ. My cleansing,
my salvation is in his hand. If you will, You know, people
talk about free will. There's no such thing. God's
will is sovereign, and our wills are controlled by our nature.
God doesn't have a free will. His will's controlled by his
holy nature. He can't freely choose to sin.
He can't freely choose to lie because of who he is. There's
no such thing as a man having a free will to accept or reject
the Lord Jesus Christ. And anybody who ever truly comes
into his presence acknowledges this. if you will." But notice
what he said next. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can. You have the ability. Now, he
wasn't all that sure about the Lord's willingness, but he was
sure of the Lord's ability. Lord, if you will, thou canst
make me clean. Paul put it this way in 2 Timothy
1, 12, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed to him against that
day. He is able. Lord, if you will,
you can. You have the ability to make
me clean. Now, if I said to you, trust
me, trust me. And I'll make sure everything's
going to be fine for you and you'll be in heaven when you
die. If you trusted me, you'd be a fool trusting a man. But
if the Lord Jesus Christ says, trust me, trust me, he has the
ability to make you to where you have no sin before God. He
has the ability to make sure all your sins are forgiven and
put away. He has the ability to make you
the very righteousness of God by giving his righteousness to
you. He has all power, and all ability. And the leper understood
this. He said, if you will, you can
make me clean. And that's precisely what the
Lord Jesus Christ did on Galilee's tree. He made all of his people
clean, sinless, spotless, perfect before God. Hebrews 1.3 says,
when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down at the
right hand of the majesty on high. Now, notice what this leper
came for. If you will, you can make me
clean. Now that's what I need. I can't
make myself clean. You can. I can't make you do
it. It's up to you. But this is what
I need. I need to be made clean. I need to be made spotless and
pure before God. I need to be made so that God
can accept me. I can't do that. Only the Lord
can do that for me. I need to be made clean. It's what the Bible calls justification,
being made to be without guilt, without sin before God. If you
will, you can make me clean. Now, he has the ability to make
you clean, perfect, sinless before God. Now, whether or not he does
it is up to him. but he has the ability to make
you clean. And he is to be worshiped as
the Lord if he doesn't make you clean, because he's the Lord,
and he's worthy of all worship. Now, why was this leper cleansed,
this leper? Well, there's only one reason
we can give, the will of Christ. There were many lepers, but this
leper was cleansed because of the will of Christ. You see, salvation is not dependent
upon man's will. It's dependent upon God's will,
upon the will of the Lord Jesus Christ. And look how he answered
this man, I will. What an answer. I will. Do you know there's never been
a sinner who came to Christ the way this leper came, that Christ
turned away? He said, I will. As a matter
of fact, the scripture says he was moved with compassion in
Mark's account. He was moved by compassion when this leper
came into his presence and he reached forth and touched him.
Wonder how long it had been since that leper had been touched by
another human being? Probably many years. But the
Lord was moved with compassion. But do you remember how I said
at the first of this message that Luke's account tells us
he was full of leprosy? You couldn't see anything but
leprosy when this man came into his presence? Let me read you
a passage of scripture from Leviticus chapter 13 when it's talking
about the cleansing of the leper. We read, beginning in verse 9
of Leviticus chapter 13, when the plague of leprosy is in a
man, that then he should be brought unto the priest. And the priest
shall see him, and behold, if the rising be white in the skin,
and it hath turned the hair white, and there be quick, raw flesh
in the rising, living, healthy flesh is what that means. Living,
healthy flesh. He's got leprosy, but there's
some living, healthy flesh still there. It is an old leprosy in
the skin of the flesh, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean,
and shall shut him up, for he's unclean. Verse 12, And if a leprosy
break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the
skin of him that hath the plague, from his head even to his foot,
wheresoever the priest looketh, just like this leper who came
to Christ, completely covered with leprosy, nothing good. Verse 13, Then the priest shall
consider and behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he
shall pronounce him clean. And did you hear that? If you
came to the priest with any healthy flesh, you're unclean. If you come completely covered
over with leprosy, with these ulcers, with these sins, there's
nothing but sin, what does the priest pronounce you? Clean.
Now this is the way a sinner truly comes into God's presence,
into Christ's presence, as nothing but sin. If you have anything
good about you, he won't have anything to do with you. But
if you're nothing but sin, now you're a candidate for salvation,
because He only saves sinners. If you come into His presence
with anything good about you, you'll be pronounced unclean,
back to the leper colony. But if you come the way this
man did, full of leprosy. You're going to hear the Lord
say to you, I will be thou clean. And the scripture says immediately
his leprosy was cleansed. And in both Mark and Luke's account,
it says the leprosy departed from him. Well, where did it
go? When Christ went to the cross, all of our sins were made to
meet on him. All of the elect have their sins
lifted off of them and placed in Christ. Christ bore them and
put them away. And now that this man is clean,
he can turn him back to the law and say, let the law look at
you and see if it can find anything wrong with you. And Jesus saith
unto him, see thou tell no man, but go thy way, show thyself
to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for testimony
unto them. Now he could go back to the priest
and have the priest pronounce him clean. Now the salvation
that's in Christ Jesus, You go to the law and the law will not
find anything wrong with you. God's holy law will say, I find
nothing but that which is pleasing in my sight. When the Lord cleansed
this leper, he could turn him back to the law and the law couldn't
find anything wrong with him. Now, that's the way the Lord's
salvation is. It's a perfect salvation that
stands perfect before the holy law of God. There's no fault
in his salvation. Would to God that you and I would
come to Christ like this leper, worshiping him for who he is,
saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And if we
come that way, we'll hear these words. I will be thou clean. We have this message on DVD and
CD. If you call the church, email
will send you a copy. This is Todd Nyberg praying that
God will be pleased to make himself known to you. That's our prayer.
Amen.