Good morning. Greetings to all of you in Christ's name, and I'm glad to be able to come and bring the Word today. I wish the circumstances had been better for our brother Carl, but I'm happy to be of service to my brother and to all of my brothers and sisters up here. Mark chapter 1, verses 40 through 45 is our text this morning. Mark chapter 1, verses 40 through 45. And I'll give you a moment to turn there. And when you have the text, look up and I'll commence reading. I think we got it. And a leper came to Jesus, imploring him and kneeling, said to him, If you will, you can make me clean. moved with pity. He stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once and said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as a proof to them. But he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter. Thus is God's Word, and let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we are grateful that You give us Your Word that is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, and that its inspiration is perfect. It is profitable for correction, for reproof, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be equipped for every good work. So, Lord, this morning we pray that Your Spirit would be among us, that He would guide me as I preach, that He would open the ears and hearts of the hearers, both for believers that they may be further edified and strengthened in the faith, for those who may not know You, that their hearts might be opened for salvation and for life. Lord, we would be with You this time. These things we do pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Some of you may know a little bit about our 17th president, Andrew Johnson. He was the president who succeeded Abraham Lincoln after the Civil War, after he was assassinated. He had a rather, shall we say, hard temper. And I can often say hard-hearted temper at that. And the sad part about it was that he was often in the highest places of power and embarrassed himself and embarrassed his country, and yes, even before the Civil War. You see, right before the war ended, he was military governor of the state of Tennessee after the federal troops had regained or reconquered that state. And there was one day where he was in the governor's quarters, And he was there with a Methodist minister. It was a point where the battle was really steeped because the Confederate troops had come up into Nashville, besieged it, and were about to retake it from when they had recently lost it. Johnson was pacing the room, anxious, irritable, and frustrated. And finally, when he could take it no longer, he looked to a Methodist minister who was with him there in the room, and he said, Reverend, we have got to pray. Can you pray with me? And so the two kneel, and the reverend prays. Johnson and the reverend get up from their prayer, and he says, Thank you, Reverend. I do feel so much better. And then sealing it with a curse word, he says, but these Confederates will not retake this city. A rather bold and brazen approach for just finishing a prayer, is it not? At one point, military Governor Johnson, imploring God, desperate, anxious as all get out. And then once he finishes the prayer, the next breath, he's back to his hot-headed tendencies to the point of almost telling God what will or will not take place. And that's scary. That is scary. It reveals a very, how shall we say this, a very hard-hearted spiritual disposition, one that is turned in on itself about his own affairs rather than yielding to the wider affairs and submission to the things of God. And so that brings us to our text this morning. We have a situation where a leper comes to Jesus desperate as all get out, like military governor Johnson. ask him for what he needs, knows that Jesus is the only way forward, yet in the very next breath, disobeys Jesus once he's healed. Goes out and just trounces upon the commandment, tramples upon the commandment that God has given through Jesus. And that leads us to the main point of our text today, and that is, we as sinful men, often yield to God's will when we are in need. And yet we as sinful men often disregard God's will when we are satisfied. We'll see this in two main points. We, as sinful men, often yield to God's will when we are in need. And that's found in verses 40 through 42. And then we, as sinful men, often disregard God's will when we are satisfied. And that's in verses 43 through 45. So back to our first point, we, as sinful men, often yield to God's will when we are in need. Back to verse 40. And a leper came to him. imploring him and kneeling before him, if you will, you can make me clean." A leper. A leper is designated in scripture as one of many skin diseases that are disfiguring to the body. Modern day scientists have identified it as many, many forms of leukoderma because the scriptures talk about white scaly patches and pink irritated patches, particularly in Leviticus chapter 13 and chapter 14. Some scientists today have said much of this is like what the medieval Europeans identified as Hansen's disease, where members of the body actually will decay and rot off. noses will be disfigured. As a matter of fact, just down the road in the state of Louisiana, there is a place, some of you may remember former Congressman Carville. His family runs a ranch for the lepers and is a rehabilitation center. And those lepers live in isolation to avoid infecting others. Well, that was the case in Jesus' day. and in the days before Jesus under the old covenant and the laws of Moses. Because the situation was such that God commanded those who were considered to be leprous and unclean to be outside the camp, if they were judged so by the priests. And the reason is that that which happened to the body. You know that when we as human beings fell into sin in Adam, that not only did we die, but we became subject to illness and death as a consequence of that fall into sin. And not only were we in our fallen state in Adam sinfully unclean, but also The sicknesses that attended that sinful uncleanness and the law of Moses, the uncleanness of sin. was often equated because of the fall of Adam and the fall of man in him with uncleanness of the body. Those two are on some levels. And yes, when some people sinned by virtue of the necessary consequence, some people suffered disease in accordance with the Scriptures. When Miriam sinned, she suffered from leprosy, for instance. There was a direct correlation. But oftentimes there is not always a direct correlation that just because of the virtue of the fact that we live in a fallen world and subject to the common fallen nature that we share. There is no direct correlation between an act of sin committed by one individual and the disease. And so in God's law. Uncleanness went to the spirit and to the body and those who were sick. If they were examined by the priest and they had these white scaly patches or the pink patches, if they were not healed within seven days, they could be shut out outside of the camp, sent away by the priest. Seven days, they would wait outside the camp. And then if they were not clean, they were permanently shut out of the camp until such moment, whether it be months, whether it be years, that they would recover. They could even be shut out of their own homes if leprosy and the disease was found in the stones of the walls. So now you know just what a desperate plight is that of the leper, if you think about it. To give you an example, being outside the camp, In that kind of a state, you can have no embrace from your family members, no handshakes from your friend in that day, no kiss on the cheek, which is more common to those whom you loved. Wandering in isolation, and not only that, the law of God prescribed for the leper to dishevel his hair and his garments and to call out, unclean, unclean, lest anyone in Israel come near him and contract the disease. It's a very lonely state of affairs, very sad. And it's a time of waiting to where one can be restored to the camp of Israel, the delight in his brothers and sisters in God. Now, a leper in his desperation came to Jesus in this particular text. It said that he kneeled before him, imploring him and said to him, if you will, you can make me clean. Imploring that is entreating someone urgently, like with everything within a person. Knowing that the person to whom one is offering and treaty can can deliver the solution. Kneeling was a sign of respect. John Calvin says that in Eastern custom, before a great teacher, it was often common to kneel in deference throughout the Middle East. Perhaps this was the case in which the man did it. Perhaps he saw Jesus' reputation as a healer and kneeled out of respect. Perhaps also he knew that Jesus was the Son of God and kneeled to him because he knew he was the Savior. We don't know. The text does not say whether the man was a Christian or not, looking to Jesus. But we do know that he had some knowledge of what Jesus could do. Sort of like the respect that the rich young ruler showed to Jesus, even though he didn't yield. Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? If the man didn't know that Jesus was the Son of God. But perhaps he bowed in worship. We don't know. And it's interesting. Desperation is the spiritual disposition behind imploring. So not only was this man, not only was he lonely, but he was desperate for God to relieve his plight and ready for redress. And so he went and asked Jesus, if you will, you can make me clean, knowing perhaps that whether he knew he was a son of God or not, this man was tied to the power of God doing his bidding. And not only was he doing his bidding, but he knew that in doing his bidding, he was tied to the God who says in Isaiah 43, I work and who can hinder it? I work and who can hinder it? Ephesians 1, 11 and 12, although this text was to come after Jesus was on the earth, says that God worketh all things after the counsel of His will. Everything happens according to the will of God. Not a sparrow falls to the ground, Matthew chapter 10 says, without the knowledge of God. And then finally and definitively, Romans chapter 9 verse 9 says, who can resist God's will? So this man knew this. He would have known that the Lord God was sovereign as a citizen of Israel. And he would have known to come with the attending respect, attendant respect. And so he says, if you will, you can make me clean. First John, chapter five, verses 14 to 15, urges us if we put when we pray to ask anything according to God's will. And God will hear us. So recognizing the Savior's authority, recognizing his potential willingness, he kneels. And what does Jesus do? He answers. He answers and he says in verse in part of verse 41, I will be clean. And in verse 42, immediately the leprosy left him and he was made clean. The compassion of Jesus. I think of segments in prayer from Luke's gospel where Jesus says that if a child asks for a fish, will he get a stone instead? Or if he asks for a cup of water, will he get a snake? Those who ask in accordance to God's will, God grants their petition. That is the case here. And compassion. Jesus was moved with pity, it says in verse forty one. And the pity there literally means in the Greek move from his gut. It went down into his very his very innards, as the old King James says. And as we still say down south, it really went within him. Jesus felt he was not he was not some stoic philosopher lost in apathy, as one might say. He, as the son of God, really was sensitive to the needs of his of those who came to him. He was a high priest, it says in the book of Hebrews. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. And that goes not only for our sins, but for our physical infirmities as well. That is the case with the Savior. And whether this man was saved or not, we know that God has a compassion for all men. I think of Acts chapter 17, where Paul talked about God giving even those who don't know Him, the Gentiles, grace. Not saving grace, of course, but what is called common grace, or I would like to say common care. I like to call it that way. Giving them crops, giving them produce in due season. God is concerned about all people. His saving love and electing love, yes, He gives to some, but for all people, He cares. And Jesus was moved enough not only to care from His gut, but to touch this man. A real, in-your-face, nitty-gritty compassion. To reach out, and of course, Jesus being the Son of God, could reach in and heal him. and thereby still satisfy the law to stay away from the unclean man because he could look at him and touch him and heal him and pretty much resolve the whole problem. That is what Jesus did. He still obeyed God's law in doing so because he just reached in and healed him, took care of the problem with a full heart. And so now by way of application, my brothers and sisters this morning, do we know what it means to be desperate? If we have a disease, for instance, on one level. Maybe we felt the pain. Your own associate elder here this morning basically said that he was in pain, he knew what he knew what it was like. There are times and we're all desperate. Many, many people that might have slipped discs that may be writhing in pain may be worse, it may be a real life leprosy, but do we know that in the pain? Jesus words in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Do you know that he's promised to be with us through his Holy Spirit to be our comforter to when we so when we come to him, we receive a sympathetic ear. In that plight of sickness. Or do we know about sickness of soul, do we know the burden of our sin, do we know Just the pain that perhaps it is causes if we be in a season of besetting sin. The uncleanness and the misery that that brings us, sins that may keep cropping up, for which we keep calling to the Lord, deliver me, rescue me from these things. As we yearn for sanctification. Do we weep more and wail, as James says? So many of us don't go to that extent, but do we know that we need to run and make a beeline straight to Jesus when we are in need? Do we know that? For God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we should not fear. In our desperation, He listens. And when we make that beeline straight to Jesus in our spirit, when we make that beeline, Do we ask knowing that God is sovereign? It's one thing to know cognitively that God is sovereign. We see that in the Scriptures. But do you know it in your heart that He cares? Do you come trusting Him? Or do you come with a sense of entitlement? which is dangerous. Granted, yes, if we ask anything according to his will, he will answer it. Yes, he cares. But sometimes the deliverances may not come in this life. They may come in the next life. He still cares, but he promises to be with us. One day he will deliver us in the next life. Some he heals of cancer now, some he heals later. But are we content with the will of God, regardless of what the outcome is, knowing that God, through Jesus Christ, the Savior, is solicitous to us? Do we know that? Do we know that He cares regardless and that He's moved from His gut in our capacity, in His capacity? So do we yield to God when we're in need truly from the heart, trusting Him and His goodness? And if we do so, God will most certainly act. It may not be in the way we expect. It may be no for now, but that answer will come later. Though it tarry, wait for it. It will certainly come and will not delay. Jesus is compassionate to our need. All who call the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans chapter 10 for that petition. And we know that there is a sacrifice. Isaiah chapter 53, he who is wounded by whose stripes whether we were made whole. We see that. Jesus is able to help. And so, we as sinful men, we often yield to God's will when we're in need. For the regenerate, it is a consistent yielding. We go through seasons of sin and backsliding, yes, but our heart is bent on yielding to Jesus. That is the case for the unregenerate who doesn't have a heart to yield to Jesus. He may, in his hour of desperation, yield to God and yet totally have a heart that's alienated from God, not made right. And that though regenerate people are often inconsistent after they yield, the unregenerate would just seek to use God for what he can get. Desperate in need. And then we go to our next point, not necessarily no, in no ways, attending to God's will when he's satisfied. That's our next point. We, as sinful men, often disregard God's will when we are satisfied. Verses 43 through 45. And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once and said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone, but go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as a proof for them. But he went out and began to talk freely about it and to spread the news so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town that was in desolate places and people were coming to him from every quarter. And so we as sinful men disregard God's will when we are satisfied. So Jesus commanded this man after he was healed, after he received this very, very great and amazing blessing, healing from leprosy, which after a time he could be restored to the camp of Israel. His problems from a physical sense were over. What a great gift that was if he had thought about the implications of it. And I'm sure he did going joyfully forward. But Jesus, after he healed him, it said he did something that might. Disturb us a bit if we take a look at what's really going on here. It's interesting, Jesus commands him sternly to say nothing to anyone but to make an offering for his cleansing. Sternly. The Greek word embryos ominous, you know, that is like a snorting of a horse that Jesus gave this man. So he was moved from his gut with compassion. Yet in the next breath, it said that he sternly warned him and he snorted like a horse. With that sense. Whether it was a literal snorting or not. In his spirit, there was something that irked Jesus as he warned him. And it says after he warned him and told him to, he said he sent him away, cast him out literally in the Greek. Why would he have this disposition to be moved with compassion and then warn him firmly and then send him on the way if he didn't know something was about to happen? Well, he did. He knew that this man was about to go out apparently and tell everyone after he told him not to tell anyone, but to instead go and make a sacrifice According to the law of Moses as for his cleansing. The man just went out and began to talk it freely, and so Jesus. Anticipating this was part of him was irate. And so what was this man to do if he disobeyed? Well, first of all. First of all, my friends, he was to make that sacrifice according to the law of Moses. And what's involved with this? Well, it's an elaborate process that would have taken quite a while. You know, in Leviticus chapter 14, it gives us the details. I will summarize it for us because you need to know just what Jesus was commanding this man to do. First of all, he was to show himself healed to the priest. And after doing so, he was to bring two birds. One bird was to be killed. And then the live bird, who was still alive, was supposed to be sprinkled with the dead bird's blood. Then after that, the bird that was living was supposed to be released, symbolizing a cleansing from sin. Then the person was to shave his body hair, bathe with water and wait seven days. Then the man was to shave again. And then on the eighth day, he was to offer two male lambs and one new lamb, one for a guilt offering, one for a burn offering and one for a sin offering. And then lastly, he was to do an oil for a wave offering before the Lord. So all of these animals, oil from the produce of the land, he was to present all of these before the Lord. It was to take eight days. So this man would have been locked away, spending time with the priests of Israel, not going out and sharing the news instantly. It would have been a period of following the law of Moses. This is what Jesus asked the man to do. in what he should have done according to God's law. But he sinned and he failed. He flagrantly disobeyed. It's just like after he was healed, he had no regard for what our good Lord told him to do. And that is so sad to be so desperate just to go out and just totally throw all caution to the wind. It's very, very sad. But Jesus knew what was in a man. And yet he healed him anyway, since Jesus has knowledge of the fact he knows what was in the man. Let's think about this. Jesus could tell what the Pharisees were thinking, could he not, at one point? He could say, why are you saying in your hearts? So he could read this man's heart in this case. And yet he healed him anyway, even knowing the consequences, even knowing that this man would hurt Jesus. That's what happened in this case. And, you know, my friends. That. We've got the bad news and the good news here, the bad news is this. Back to the man's sin. So often, if you think about it, we seek to get the gifts of God with utter disregard for the person of God. And that is if we're unregenerate. We have no regard for the person of God, but are just after his gifts. There's no light in our hearts. We seek to use God as a sort of cosmic vending machine. And I don't have hearts alive for him that are just out for his earthly benefits. As Jesus told the people in John, chapter six, do not work for the bread that perishes or that you came here. You came here out to see me because you ate your fill of the loaves, not for any deeper spiritual reason. That is what is the case. Of those who are unregenerate, God is just using them to get whatever urgent desire they have. No regard for them in their hearts. It says in John 14, 15, if you love me, rather, you will keep my commandments. That's what you will do if you love God. But you know, my friends, even those of us who are regenerate, are there not those times when God gives us a great deal of deliverance, our hearts are alive to God, and yet there's some distemper of the flesh? Your pastor spoke of simultaneously justified and sinful. Yes, we're just our hearts are changed, no longer slaves to sin, no longer using God consistently every day for what we can get from God. But yet still being still being that remaining corruption within us. There are times when I'm sad to say. That we. Go into a simple pattern and use God even when we love him. We know He's going to do good things for us, yet that tendency comes back into our lives, even though our heart hates it, that we do it. It's sad, but we do. And so what does God do? That's the bad news of our sin. But the good news is that God has compassion on us, though He knows that we will sin. We whose hearts have been made alive to Christ, we have the continued benefit of His forgiveness. It's not an excuse to sin, no. Shall we who sin that grace may abound? God forbid that we who died to sin should go on any longer living in it, Paul says. due to our weakness and our distempers. We give in to it. God does good for us. He forgives us. And then we stumble. He forgives us again. That's what the good news of the gospel is. We continue to find cleansing. And on that journey, we're made more and more like Him in the process of sanctification. And in the process, He keeps cleansing us. And our hearts become more and more like Him. Though Jesus may snort at us, knowing full well that we may do something to hurt his heart, he cleanses and he gives us grace to yield our members more and more to him and less and less to sin along the journey. That's the good news of the gospel to you all, my friends. Now, you may be saying to yourself this morning, all I have ever known is God. I use Him to get what I can get. I try to get whatever I can out of Him and move on. This may be the first time this thought has occurred to you. It's your modus operandi. And if that's the case with you, then you are in a very dangerous predicament. You do not know the Lord. He's not your Lord. Otherwise, you would care about his own heart rather than just what you can get. And if that's the case, you're not under the cleansing blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're you are not in that condition, you are facing only wrath and curse and danger and hellfire. That's that's the scary part about it. But I have, if that's your case, examine your heart. See if that be the case with you. But you do not have to stay at that particular point of using God, of that being your M.O. The good news is that you can be forgiven for that by receiving the good news of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, who is the Son of God, came down, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Though we in our fallen state be about our own lust, about satisfying the lust of flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, though we be fallen in sin, God sent Jesus to show us a greater glory, that our eyes might be opened, that we might not be stuck in the slavery to sin forever, to serving our base desires, because that is what our base desires are. They're those desires that are just only about what we can get in this life, only about setting up our own lordship rather than Christ, only about the next pleasing thing that we can get after the ways of this world. But instead, Christ came to show us a better way that we might not have to stay at that point of slavery, just to the next and latest, hottest thing we can get our hands on in service of ourselves. Augustine said this, and I'm paraphrasing here, are you not weary of this road? Are you not weary? of setting about your own kingdom, of setting about, of trying to find happiness in this life, seeking one, goading, seeking one, even the gifts of God. Are you not weary of that? Because seeking those very things that are gifts of God can become bitterness without God. There is deliverance from that, from using God. to receiving His love, and that is to recognize that you are a sinner, that you use God, and that Christ came to serve you as your Savior. If you but accept that fact, if you accept the goodness of the gospel, that there is none righteous, no but one, that's the bad news. We've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But in turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, acknowledging our using of God, Confess that to Him. Turn from that sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. Have His mercies and His shed blood. Become the atoning sacrifice of your sins. Believe in Him that He can be the atoning sacrifice of your sins. Trust him for your salvation. Trust him to turn your heart away from serving yourself and to him. Because repentance and faith, you see, are two sides of the same coin. The only way we can turn from sin is because he first enables us to do so. And so we turn from our idols and believe in the gospel and we turn to Christ. Trusting that he is a better master than our futile ways, trusting that his shed blood atones for our sins. And in so doing, we become right with God. His righteousness is imputed to us. Our unrighteousness is washed away by His blood. Our unrighteousness is given to Christ. His righteousness is given to us. And not only in that process are we justified, made right, apart from anything that we could ever do, but He changes our hearts. They become softened. so that they want to obey the law of God. After we're healed, they want to please God. That's for salvation or for physical healing. After we receive further healings, that is. They want to please God. Though we stray, though there are times when we may use God as believers, we repent of it. And our attitude of pleasing and serving God becomes our modus operandi. And so this this this morning. If you don't know Christ, you trust that he can change your heart, that you can receive his righteousness and you can be forgiven for using God, and if you know it. Do you trust his mercies every day to guide you, to walk with you? And yes, to restore you, even when you act like the man did in this passage. I'll close with a paraphrase. At one point I had more of it memorized, but it's from one of my favorite ministers, Edward Payson. And Edward Payson, at the end of his life, was suffering from great physical disease. And he became more conscious of the idols that he had in his heart. God used this disease to bring about greater sanctification. He was not ultimately healed in this life, but in the next. And Edward Payson on his bed became conscious of his sin and how much God had forgiven him. And he said, and he was saying something like this, Lord, though you pardon me, I shall again fall in the mud. I shall again turn. But yet the more that I fall, the more you stoop down to lift me up. He inscribes a process by which Jesus literally gets down to his knees in the mud and keeps lifting him up. And he says something like, though you pardon me, I shall yet again stumble, but yet always I see your smile when I expect to be met only with chastenings and frowns and tears and Yet you grin upon my face." Why do you grin upon my face? Because Christ is good. Because of His great love. And so this morning, take hope. If you be in Christ, He'll help you to love Him more. Use Him less. And though you keep falling, He'll help you keep getting up. He loves you. Hear that good news. Amen. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we do indeed thank You for Your love. We thank You for its testimony to our hearts, both as You sovereignly led us to salvation and, O Lord, as it continues to unfold in our sanctification day by day. Help us indeed to yield to Your will when our needs are satisfied. Help us to remember who we are as Your sons and daughters. God, may we die more unto sin and live more and more unto righteousness. We would serve you as King and Lord with all that is within us and love you more deeply. These things we do pray in Jesus name. Amen.