Look at verse 40, Mark chapter
1 verse 40, and there came a leper, there came a leper to him, to
him. Now when I first looked at this
verse, this is what jumped out at me. There came this leper
to the Lord, a leper who was in need of mercy, who was in
need of healing, in need of cleansing. This man was dying and he knew
it. This disease is terminal. He was dying, he was smitten,
he was full of leprosy, and except by a miracle of God, except God
intervened, he knew his condition was terminal. And there came
this leper to Him, to Him. Beseeching or begging Him, Him. Kneeling down or worshiping Him,
saying unto him, if you will, your Lord, I acknowledge
that you are Lord of heaven and earth, and that whatever you
do is right, Lord, if you will. He comes with an attitude of
submission, doesn't he? If you will. Not demanding, but
Lord, if you will. If you will, you can make me
whole. You can make me Now, we see in
this marvelous story, a true story. I believe this is a true
story. These aren't fairy tales. These
are real stories, real people. We see in this marvelous story
how needy, guilty sinners are to approach the Lord of glory,
how to seek mercy where mercy is found. And my prayer for us
right now, all of us here, May God help us right now to do just
as this leper did in this day, seeking the Lord, beseeching
Him, begging Him, and asking Him to show mercy to such as
we are. Now here's the first point in
this message. This sinner came to the Lord
in his desperate condition. It says there came a leper, a
leper. He came in his desperate condition. He came just as he was, vile,
wretched. This disease is a terrible disease. It infects the whole body, the
whole body. He came because of his need.
Dr. Luke said this man was full,
full of leprosy. Now, from what I've read by other
people who say they know something about leprosy, This disease is
no mere skin infection. It is a disease that affects
the whole person. It infects the blood, the flesh,
and it even goes down to the bones. It attacks the whole body
until the outward extremities of the body, the nose, the ear,
the finger, the toes, start to rot off. It is a terrible terrible
disease. They rot off inch by inch. It's an oozing wound and sore,
a putrefying sore, and this man was full of this disease. Someone called it a walking death,
and certainly that's what it is. This disease, as we understand
it and read something of it, this disease fitly represents
the plague of our sinful nature. Does it not? I think it's a good
description. Which is ingrained into us. It cleaves to our bones inwardly. Our flesh is rotten. Our blood is contaminated. And it cleaves to us with a deadly
force. This sin. When sin is finished,
it brings death. Death. It infects this disease
and leprosy that we know of as sin. It infects our whole being,
our whole body, our whole nature. It affects the heart. The scripture
says in Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things
and desperately wicked. Who can know it? It affects the
will. Men love darkness rather than
light. Our Lord said, you will not come
to me that you might have life. It affects our understanding.
In Ephesians 4, 18, it talks about our understanding being
darkened, being ignorant, being alien from the commonwealth of
Israel, strangers from God without hope and without God and without
Christ. It affects the whole person.
Our heart, our will, our understanding, the carnal mind does not receive
the things of God. It can't even know them because
they are spiritually discerned. And this disease we know of,
of sin, affects our mind, our thinking. Our thinking is all
wrong. By nature, our thinking is corrupt.
The wise man put it this way, there is a way that seems right
unto men, But the end of that way is death. Our Lord said through
the psalmist, you thought, you thought, now that's our problem.
God said you thought I was altogether such a one as yourself. Our thinking is all wrong. Our
thinking is all corrupt. We need our thinking changed. God must change us. Sin like
leprosy makes us unclean, unclean before God. We are all as an
unclean thing. All of our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. Sin like leprosy makes us unfit
company for God. You remember the psalmist, Psalm
24, Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand
in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart, who has never lifted his soul to vanity, who has never
sworn deceitfully. Now that just slammed the door
on me. I'm unfit company for God. He's holy and I'm sinful. Something must happen. Flesh
and blood, he said, cannot enter the kingdom of God. It's got
to be changed. I'm unfit company for God. Sin like leprosy makes us unclean,
makes us unfit company for God. Sin like leprosy is incurable.
Incurable by any earthly physician. As Paul said, O wretched man
that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Remember
what he answered? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Sin is far worse than leprosy. Only some people are infected
with that natural disease, but sin is far worse because everyone
is infected with this vile disease we call and we know about sin. all have sin and come short of
the glory of God." Now, if you know something about your sin
nature, if you know something about the sinfulness and the
exceeding sinfulness of our own sinful self, I tell you what,
you're a blessed person. You're a blessed... If you know
what you are before God, guilty and vile and helpless and wretched,
you're a blessed person. Well, preacher, how's that? Well,
I'll tell you what. The Scriptures said that there
is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understands.
There is none that seeks after God. There is none. No, not one. None righteous, no, not one.
But my friend, the good news of the Gospel is this. Salvation
is for sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ died for
the ungodly. He said, I didn't come to call
the righteous. I came to call sinners unto repentance." It's
interesting, mark this scripture down if you're taking notes and
you can go back and read it. In Leviticus 13, 13. Leviticus
13, 13. When a man was completely covered
with leprosy from head to toe, and he was instructed to go to
the priest of the temple, and those who were completely covered
with leprosy Do you know what the priest said of them? He's
clean. And that teaches us that salvation's
for sinners. Those who had just a spot or
a speck, he said, you're unclean. But those who were covered head
to toe with this vile disease, he said, you're clean. You're
clean. And that tells us that salvation
is for sinners. There came a leper to the Lord,
beseeching him. Now, secondly, This sinner came
with great humility, great humility, beseeching Him. That word means
begging for mercy. He came as a mercy beggar like
that publican in the temple. God have mercy on me, the sinner. He came begging Him, beseeching
Him. It says here He came kneeling
down to Him. Dr. Luke said He fell on His
face. Matthew said this man came and
worshipped Him. Well, which did he do? I think
he did all three. Don't you? He kneeled down, he
fell down, and he worshipped him, and he begged for mercy. God is not, then, of a broken
heart. He saved us such as be of a contrite
spirit. It says in Matthew chapter 8,
the great multitudes followed him. This sinner came and worshipped
him, beseeching him. addressing Him as Lord. Lord,
if You will, You can make me clean. The Father seeketh such
to worship Him in spirit and in truth. And I tell you, there
is no spiritual worship apart from the truth of God, the truth
of the gospel, the truth of who He is, who Christ is, what He
accomplished, and the truth of salvation by grace and what we
are. There is no true worship apart
from the truth being declared. In Matthew chapter 2, you remember
the wise men, they came and they said, where is he this born king
that we might worship him, worship him. That's why we've met together
this afternoon, this evening, to worship him, to learn of him,
to learn of him. He is Lord. to the glory of God
the Father. And we do willingly, lovingly
bow to His Lordship and acknowledge that He is Lord to the glory
of God the Father. I'm glad that He is Lord. I'm
glad that He is my Lord. And I submit to Him and I bow
to Him in all things in salvation. And I cry out, Lord, if You will,
You can make me clean. He addressed Him as Lord. He
came to Him with great humility, great humility. The third thing
is this, He came to the Lord acknowledging His sovereign right
to act as He will. Notice it says in verse 41, or
the last part of verse 40, if you will, if you will, you can
make me clean, if you will. He came submitting to the Lord's
sovereign will. The Lord who works all things
after the counsel of His own will. Acknowledging His power. You're the Lord and you have
all power in heaven and earth and you alone can make me clean. He bowed to His will. Acknowledged
His power. You are able to save to the uttermost
all that come to God by Him. This is a plain and open confession
of his total inability, is it not? He's confessing, I can do
nothing for myself. You're the only one that can
help me. My case is so desperate. You're the only one. I cannot
clean myself. No doubt he tried. Don't you
think he tried? Don't you think when those sores
started appearing, he tried to wash them off and tried to get
some help and he tried all he could do to cleanse himself and
just rather grew worse. Have you ever noticed how much
time we spend in our life trying to remove dirt? This dawned on
me just the other day in a most profound way. I rented a carpet
cleaner machine and tried to clean some carpet over at the
house and over at the building. And it suddenly dawned on me,
man, we spend a lot of time trying to remove dirt out of our life. We wash our hair. We wash our
body. We brush our teeth. We wash our
clothes. We clean the house. We wash the
dishes. It's something that's never ever
finished. Is it? It's a continual life
of trying to remove dirt and it's never done. My friend, we
cannot remove sin by our Sin is only removed by the blood
and power of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that was his confession.
I'm totally helpless to remove my disease. And we're totally
helpless. There's not one thing I can do
to put away my sin. My faith never put away sin.
My repentance will never put away sin. It's only the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And true faith and true repentance,
they both acknowledge that Christ alone puts away the sin of God's
people. This is our confession. The blood
of Christ alone cleanses us from all our sin. You see, the whole
of our salvation and all of our cleansing is totally determined
and dependent upon His will, not mine. I can't even... Have you ever had a toothache?
I mean, man, they hurt, don't they? If we really, as some say,
that man has a free will, well, you just will that toothache
stops. You can't even stop a toothache.
I had a kidney stone a couple of weeks ago. Oh, I tell you,
that's painful. And if I could have willed that
pain to go away, I would have said, pain be gone. I cried unto
the Lord, Lord, remove this pain. I tell you, I could do nothing
in my will to remove that pain. And my friend's salvation is
totally determined and dependent upon his will, not mine, and
I'm glad it's so. I'm glad it's so. I'm glad it's
so. It's not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth, but it's God that shows mercy. You
know, man's will is not free anyway. It's in bondage to his
nature. Man's nature is like free-running
water. You go out here on the sidewalk,
pour out some water. And which way is it going to
go? It's not going to go uphill. It's going to seek its lowest
course. And that's man left to himself downhill. Man's will
is never Godward and upward. It's always selfward and downward.
Always. Always. It's in bondage to our
rotten, ruined nature. I'm glad that salvation is by
His will. Of His own will begat He us with
the Word of Truth. So the whole of our salvation
is determined upon His will. The whole of our salvation is
determined and dependent and accomplished by His will and
His power, His power alone. That's why Paul said, I'm not
ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone who believes this gospel. And you know how we believe?
How do we believe this gospel anyway? I've got an answer for
that, a scriptural answer. If you'll find Ephesians, Ephesians
chapter 1. How do we believe this gospel
anyway? A lot of people say, well, you believe that salvation
is all of God's sovereign grace. Well, the sinner has to believe.
He will when God works on him. You know how He works on him?
With His power. Thy people shall be willing in the day of His
power. Ephesians chapter 1. Look at
this carefully. Ephesians 1 verse Verse 18, "...the
eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know
what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory
of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness
of His power toward us who believe according..." How do we believe?
What does it say there? "...according to the working
of His mighty power." Now what kind of mighty power are we talking
about? Notice the next verse, "...which he wrought in Christ,
when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right
hand in heavenly places." This is resurrection power. you have
he quickened who were dead." The same almighty sovereign power
that it took to raise the dead body of the Lord Jesus Christ
out of the tomb that day is the same exact power it takes to
resurrect a spiritually dead sinner and to give him life.
That's the reason we believe His will and His power. And that's what this sinner acknowledged.
Lord, if You will, You're able. You're able. No doubt about that. Now here's the fourth thing,
verse 41. And this is precious. And the
Lord Jesus Christ, verse 41, moved. He moved. This is a sovereign move. This
is a move on purpose. And the Lord of glory, the Lord
Jesus moved with compassion. He put forth His hand. And he
touched him and he said, I will, I will be thou clean, be thou
clean. Notice how the Lord sovereignly
acted toward this vile, wretched man. He was moved with compassion. He was moved with love, love. The reason of his mercy is fetched
from within himself. We have nothing in us to recommend
His grace, His favor. Nothing in us would recommend
us unto God. Is there anything in us at all? You see, the reason of His mercy
and the reason of His love is found within Himself. He is love. He is merciful. And He will have
mercy on whom He will. Herein is love. Not that we love
God. He loved us. And He sent His
Son to be the propitiation for our sin. He is love. We love
Him only because He first loved us. He was moved with compassion. I am so thankful that our Savior
is a Savior of compassion. Compassion toward His people. Compassion toward those who are
ungodly and vile and guilty. He was moved with compassion
toward this One who was His own. his elect, his son, his chosen. It says there that he reached
out, he put forth his hand, and he touched him, the touch of
the master. He reached out and touched him.
Now, I'm sure there was no place on him that was not infected
with this disease, and they tell me leprosy is contagious. When
those lepers were out in public, they walked on the opposite side
of the street, and they covered their face in as much as they
could, and they would yell, �Unclean! Don�t come near me! I�m unclean!�
If anyone touched them, they�d be contaminated. But yet, the
Lord reached out and touched him. Touched him. Anyone else
would have been contaminated, but not him. He controls all
things. The Lord exerted His sovereign
power, His sovereign purpose, and directed it sovereignly toward
this one man, and reached out, lay hold on him, and touched
him, and embraced him to himself. What a glorious picture. God
saves sinners by deliberate touch. God never saves sinners by accident,
always by His purpose and grace given us in Christ before the
foundation of the world. Did you ever notice that? I think
I've read this verse almost every time I've come here, but let's
turn and read it again. 2 Timothy 1.9. And these two
words here, you see, God, when He saves sinners, it's a deliberate
touch. It's on purpose. It's by His
purpose and grace. It's not an accident. God doesn't
save, you just didn't bump into the gospel one day. God crossed
your path by His sovereign purpose, and God by His purpose and grace
touched you in a way of mercy. 2 Timothy 1.9, 2 Timothy 1.9,
you could all quote this. Look at verse 8, Be not thou
therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner,
but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God. Now watch this, who saved us?
Now who saved us? God saved us. And then He called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works. but according to
his own purpose and grace." Those two words go together. Purpose,
underscore it, purpose and grace. Purpose and grace. "...which
was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is
now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who
hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel." It was a sovereign touch. He
reached out deliberately, sovereignly, as God Almighty, and touched
this sinner in saving mercy. And then look back to the text,
verse 41. He was moved with compassion,
He put forth His hand and touched him, and then He speaks a word
of mercy. I will, I will be thou clean. Be thou clean. I will be thou
clean. What powers in His Word? He speaks
the Word and the deed is done. It says in Ecclesiastes 8, where
the Word of the King is, there is power. He but speaks and the
cure is done. What He commands and what He
says, it's done when He speaks the Word. He speaks in power
when He speaks to His people. mercy and in grace turn over
to 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 Like what he says right here
2nd Corinthians 4 Verse 5, but we preach not ourselves 2nd Corinthians
4 5 we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord And
ourselves your servants for his sake for Christ's sake for God
who commanded the light to shine out of darkness." When he speaks,
it's done. He said, I've spoken it, I've
purposed it, I'll bring it to pass, I'll do it. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face,
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He speaks with command,
let there be light and life And it's done. And it's done. And that's what happened this
day. I will, the Lord said, look back at the text again, Mark
1, verse 41, I will be thou clean. Well, what's going to happen?
What's going to happen? Look at verse 42. Here's the
rest of the story. And as soon as he had spoken,
immediately, The leprosy departed. It's gone. And he was cleansed. He was cleansed. Here we see the immediate results
of God's purpose and grace. The immediate results of God's
sovereign mercy. His leprosy departed from him.
The cure was instantaneous and miraculous. Someone said nature
works gradually, but the God of all nature works immediately. Our Lord has put away the leprosy
of our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He took, and you think
with me, the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man mediator. At Calvary's
tree, it says that God made Him to be sin for us. God made Him
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Now, here's this picture I get
with this leper coming to the Lord, and the Lord reaches out
and touches him, and I believe he could have, and maybe he did,
wrapped him up in his arms and pressed him to himself. And in doing that, we get a picture
of what happened at Calvary Street. He took our sin willingly. He
said, ìNo man takes my life from me. I willingly lay it down.
Willingly I lay it down, and I have power to lay it down,
I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received
in my father." He willingly embraces our sin as He did this leprous
man. And in doing so, God made him
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. The Lord embraces this leprous
man and takes that vile disease to Himself. And then he takes
that blessed righteousness as the God-man mediator, and his
righteousness flows out into this man, and he is ever whit,
clean. That's exactly what God does
for us in salvation. That's what he says here, "...and
immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed."
He was cleansed. The blood of Christ cleanses
us from all sin. Our Lord has put away the leprosy
of our sin by the sacrifice of Himself. It says in Isaiah 53,
turn over there, this is substitution and satisfaction. It says in
Isaiah 53 verse 4, Surely He hath borne our griefs, He carried
our sorrows. We did esteem Him stricken, smitten
of God and afflicted, smitten of God and afflicted. It pleased
the Lord to bruise Him. He was wounded for our transgression. He was bruised for our iniquity.
The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes
we are healed." We are healed. He put away sin by the sacrifice
of Himself. And it says here that in our
text, He was made clean, ever with clean. The Lord Jesus Christ
has done this very thing for us. He has put away our sin,
the just dying for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God.
And He has given us a justifying righteousness in the sight of
God Almighty. And God who knows all things
and has never forgotten anything, you think about this. He says
in Hebrews 10, 17, their sin and their iniquity will I remember
no more. How can that be? The blood of
Christ has so completely, thoroughly, eternally put away our sin that
they no longer exist. Gone. is from the West. Blessed is
the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without work. Blessed is the man to whom God
said, in Christ Jesus there is therefore now no condemnation. And this man was made whole that
day, clean. His sin was gone. And the believer's
sin is gone. And He's given us a blessed everlasting
righteousness in Christ Jesus. It says there, in closing, and
I'll just read these verses and close. The Lord told this man,
according to the law, he was to go and have this cleansing
publicly declared by the priest that he was clean. And he did
just that. And he offered those things as
a testimony that he was clean. And then he went out and he told
others how the Lord had mercy on him. Let us all do as this
leper did that day. Seek mercy where mercy is found.
You know, I've never read, maybe you can correct me, but I've
never read in God's testimony of a sincere mercy beggar who
sought the Lord for mercy and was turned away. Have you read? Brother Singleton, you've been
studying Scripture longer than I've been around. I've never
read a mercy beggar turned away when he sought the Lord for mercy.
Not at all. Our Lord said, everyone that's
weary and heavy laden, He said, come to Me. I'll give you rest. Oh, everyone that's thirsty,
come! Come to Me. May we come to Him. by God-given
faith in submission to His will, and worship Him now, now and
forever. And let us never despair of any
sinner's salvation, no matter how diseased, no matter how desperate
the case. There's nothing, there's nothing
too hard for the Lord. Remember those disciples said,
well, well, Lord, who then can be saved? He said, with men it's
impossible, but not with God. With God All things are possible. Nothing too hard for the Lord.
If He had mercy on such a wretch as me, wretched man that I am,
why not you? If He can save me, He can save
you. God is able to save to the uttermost
all that come to God by Him. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that the Lord Jesus Christ came to
save sinners. Paul said, And you know, this
man Saul of Tarsus, oh, I tell you, he was thankful that God
came to save sinners because he certainly considered himself
the vilest of the vile. And he said, this is a faithful
saying. God came to save sinners and
I'm the chief one. I'm the chief one. We read in
Scripture, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall
be saved." I'm going to call on the name of the Lord. And
God said, those who do, He said, I'm going to save them. And I
tell you, if you call upon the Lord, it's because God has already
saved you by His grace. Yeah, He's already called. That's right. We call upon Him
because He called us. That's right. Like we love Him
because He first loved us. And the Lord said in Isaiah 45,
look unto Look unto me. You a sinner? You desperate? You vile? If you are, you'll
look. You'll look. I won't have to
browbeat you. You'll look. You'll look. Look
unto me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth, I
am God and there is no other. I am the just God and Savior.
Look. Look to Him. Look to Him. Salvation
is in the look. Looking at Him. Him. Him.