Well, let's look in Luke's Gospel today, chapter number 5. The Gospel of Luke in chapter number 5. We've got a bit of a short reading today, but a powerful story. Beginning in verse number 12, we come to see a story about a leper who was completely cleansed by the Lord Jesus Christ. While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged Him, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, I will, be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him, and he charged him to tell no one but, Go and show yourself to the priests and make an offering for your cleansing as Moses commanded, for a proof to them. But now even more of the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. Have you figured out yet that this fallen world that we live in is a painful and a difficult place to live in? It's kind of hard, isn't it? It's tough. It's full of sickness. It's full of death. I mean, if we just consider sickness today, I mean, it's such an integrated part of human experience. I look around the congregation today and there's many people that are absent today because of sickness. We've had a lot of that going on in the life of our church. I mean, think of the medical industry. Just think of all of the people right now in this present moment who are sick with something. It's just a part of life. It's part of the fall. It's part of the world in which we live. And of course, there's the Run-of-the-mill sicknesses, maybe, that we don't think a whole lot about. I mean, everybody gets the common cold from time to time and things of that nature. It's not really all that big of a deal. I mean, unless it's me going through it, then it's a big deal. Bethany, this is a big one. You guys are a bunch of sissies, you know what I'm talking about. It's just the way it works. Then there's other sicknesses that are a little bit more severe, that are longer lasting. Things that maybe take a long time to get over. And then it gets worse from there. There's also sicknesses that are more debilitating, that kind of stick with people for a long time. I mean, we understand that, don't we? It's all kinds of things. Autoimmune sicknesses people have. That's a big, big thing today. Messes people up. Other kinds of problems that people have. It makes life hard. It's debilitating. It's very difficult when that happens, when that falls upon a person. And then there's the severest kinds of things. Sicknesses, diseases that are literally a walking death for people. I mean, in modern times, maybe we think of things like cancer, other things that can take people's life. Well, leprosy, which is basically a chronic bacterial infection that existed primarily in biblical times. I mean, it's still around in the world, but it was rampant in biblical times. It was at the top of the list concerning severity. It was, in fact, a death sentence pretty much for most people when they really ended up having it. It was horrible at every level that you can imagine. I don't know if you've ever done this, but I remember the last time I preached on the story of the man with leprosy, it was in the Gospel of Mark. And way back when I did that, I actually got online and I wanted to look up pictures of people with leprosy. It's terrible. massive skin problems. They scratch themselves so hard they don't even realize their nerve endings are gone. They lose fingers and I've seen people lose their nose and ears. It's horrible. It is a terrible, terrible physical sickness. I mean, people would just get worse and worse with it. Again, lead to disfigurement. It was debilitating. It was extremely painful. Not only the physical side of it, but also the societal side of it. I mean, if you had leprosy, it produced a social stigma. I mean, everybody knew you had it. We have instruction actually in the Law of Moses about this disease where people had to you know, call out the fact that they were unclean. They had to have a certain appearance. People understood what was wrong with them. Here's just a couple of verses to talk about that. In Leviticus 13, verses 45 and 46, it says, "...the leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, Unclean! Unclean!" He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. Now can you imagine if that was your situation and you had to, you know, anytime you were out and about, you had to holler out that you were unclean. Well, I mean, if you're saying that you're unclean, that you have a disease, people aren't exactly going to be quick to run up to you and embrace you and give you a handshake and a hug. So this would have been a humiliating thing concerning a person's social status. Isolation. I mean, the text even said in Leviticus you have to be outside the camp. The person would have been considered an outcast. I mean, despised. So you got physical pain and difficulty. You have this societal stigma. I think also, given the state of the religious condition in Israel at the time of the Lord Jesus especially, we understand that things weren't good. People weren't following the ways of God properly. All of that had been perverted by that time. And so, many of the people of Israel had turned the law into a scheme for righteousness rather than what it was supposed to do, which was to convict them. And so there was this mindset and this idea doctrinally called retribution theology. Now, I talked about that a lot when I preached through the book of Job. You remember Job's friends? They thought, well, you're suffering because you're a secret sinner and we're going to prod you until that comes out. You know, if you were good with God, you wouldn't be suffering like you are. So that idea of retribution theology is that if you're in good standing with God, you're not going to suffer. And if you've got some secret sin, well, God's going to play whack-a-mole with you and He's going to get you. And that's retribution theology. That's how it works out. A lot of people still think that way, by the way. They look at somebody who says that they're a Christian, and they're suffering, and they're going through hard times, and they say, well, God must be dealing with you. He must be punishing you for some secret sin. And oftentimes, actually, it's just the opposite. Many times that the most godly are the ones who go through difficult things because God uses them as an example to show that God is worth being worshipped and served even when things down here below are pretty rough and rotten and hard. God deserves to be worshipped not just for what He gives to people, but He deserves to be worshipped for who He is. So there was this spiritual stigma again. that no doubt the leper experienced, well, you must be hated by God. I mean, who sinned that made it to where it was like this? You remember the story of the man born blind, right? Who sinned? Him or his parents that caused him to have this terrible sickness. You see, that idea was live and well at that time. So this would have been a horrible thing. So the overall picture of the person who had leprosy was misery, abandonment, a ruined life, hopeless, despairing. And unless fully cleansed, unless a full cleansing occurred in their life, that person was perpetually unclean and they lived as a dead man walking. Now that's the story. That's what would happen. Now, if you remember what Luke has been doing here in his gospel, he's been pointing out things about Jesus since Jesus began His earthly ministry. So Jesus comes out of obscurity, He begins His ministry, and He has a teaching ministry, a preaching ministry, and healing ministry. And we understand if we go back to the previous chapter, we had spent some time there and talked about the things that marked His ministry. Remember when He read from Isaiah? This is the ministry of the Messiah. And He's saying, that's on you right now. I'm here. And so Jesus is healing people. I mean, He dealt with Peter's mother-in-law who just had a fever, common sick, but He dealt with her. He helped her, healed her. We've got other people who are sick that are coming to Jesus. They're receiving healing. Jesus is demonstrating power and authority by dealing with the kingdom of darkness. He's casting out demons. So Luke's already pointing these things out to us and helping us to understand the power and the authority of Jesus as a man is much different than just the run-of-the-mill man out there. Nobody else could do these kinds of things. But you have to remember that Jesus has entered into a world where this specific disease was rampant. And I guess the question really that's behind the text is, does Jesus actually have the power to make a leper clean? That's the question. Can he do it? Can He take a man who's a dead man walking and completely turn that situation around for that person? And if He can, and here we are all these years later reading this, if Jesus can do that, what does that mean for you and me in terms of the implications of that? Who are we dealing with here if He actually can do that? What are we even talking about when we bring up this person named Jesus? That's why Luke's got this here. Now, I want you to notice in verse number 12, we see here that Jesus is just kind of going about and He is tending to His earthly ministry. The verse begins by saying that when He was in one of the cities, You go back to chapter 4 and you look there in verse 43, Jesus was saying to them, "...I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose." That's such a powerful verse, isn't it? It gives us so much insight and understanding as to what Jesus was doing in His earthly ministry. Now, while we're on that subject, where we're talking about Jesus, His purpose, The Gospel of John actually picks up on this, recording the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it really makes it more clear to us, showing us His work. In chapter 6 verse 38 of John, you don't have to turn there, just listen to some of these references. Jesus said, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. In chapter 12, verse 49 and 50, same thing, in the Gospel of John, I've not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has Himself given me a commandment what to say and what to speak. And I know that this is His commandment, eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. And then in the High Priestly Prayer, that incredible section of Scripture, Let me just read a few verses here. Verse 1 and following. When Jesus had spoken these words, He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You, since You have given Him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You gave Me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." Now listen to this. Here's what he did. Here's what Jesus is looking back on the ministry now because he's going to go to the cross soon at this point. And listen to what he says. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were and you gave them to me and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given Me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave Me." Did you catch that? I've given them the words that you gave Me. And they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent Me. Now back over here in Luke's Gospel, verse 12, when he was in one of the cities. What was he doing in one of the cities? He was declaring to the people the words and the truths that the Heavenly Father had given him to reveal. Listen, Jesus is the apex of the special revelation of God. That's what Jesus is doing when he's ministering. I've got to go to these other towns because there's people there that I need to preach to. That's why that verse is so important in chapter 4, verse 43. I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose." I like that there in verse... I know I'm getting on a side trail a little bit going back to chapter 4, but in verse 43, I like it. I have it circled in my Bible. I must. That word must. Jesus is carrying out the musts of His ministry. There's good application for all of us regarding that, isn't there? Let me just ask you, are you carrying out the musts that God has appointed for your life? All of us have been given things to do. All of us have a purpose in this world. And as believers, like the Lord Jesus Christ, what are we supposed to do? We are to represent our Heavenly Father in the world. And so we have certain musts that we need to engage in. We need to take those things seriously. Make sure we're redeeming the time while we're here. I digress. Let me go on. Verse number 12. You notice here in the story that as Jesus was going about this ministry work, there was a needy leper who was desperate for healing who came to Jesus. Look at it again. While he was in one of the cities, there came a man, notice it, full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged Him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Now I think this man with leprosy probably didn't just have one spot on his body of leprosy. This is a man, it says, was full of leprosy. That means that when you saw this man, there was no hiding the fact that he was a leper. Everybody knew that he was a leper. He had the stigma. He had all the things we talked about a moment ago. The physical problems, the societal stigmas, all of that. His emotional state probably would have been a wreck. I mean, just think of somebody like this. A severe case. Physically, socially, spiritually. This was a hopeless man. This is a man who was in despair. This is a man who was desperate in his leprous condition. Now Jesus up until this point has already been healing people. Right? We've been reading about that. People have been coming to Jesus. So here Jesus is in this town. He's preaching. He's there. The fame of Jesus. The reputation of Jesus. It's already kind of going around. It's sort of like what happens when a good movie comes out. Everybody watches the movie and starts telling everybody, hey you gotta go watch this movie. I think that's something of what was happening in the life of Jesus. Hey, have y'all heard about this guy Jesus? He's been preaching some pretty hot sermons. I mean, he's kind of shaking things up. I was down there in the synagogue last week and he went in there. You wouldn't believe it, but there was a demon started screeching in there and he told that demon to come out and cast him out and that thing obeyed him. That would have been something of the nature of what was going on. So people had been hearing about Jesus and I think what's going on in the leper's mind is he's thinking, here's my chance. If it's true, what everybody's saying about this man, maybe I could be one of these people who could experience something from Jesus. I mean, if I have any chance at all to be rid of this leprosy that's been debilitating my life, maybe it's right here. And so we notice this man. How did he come to Jesus? Well, he fell on his face and he begged Jesus. I mean, that is a humble disposition, isn't it? He's desperate. That's why he's begging. I mean, that's what you do when you're desperate, isn't it? I mean, if you fall down in a hole, and you're stuck way down there in the hole, and you can't get yourself out of the hole, what are you going to do? In desperation, you're going to beg, somebody get me out of this hole! And that's what he's doing. I mean, there's no dignity here in his life anymore. He's prostrating himself before the Lord Jesus. He doesn't care what other people are thinking about him. He's not giving any consideration to any of that whatsoever because he's needy. And he's desperate. Here's his shot. Here's his chance. This is my one shot, he's thinking in his mind. I think it's incredible too. And I guess he had heard a lot. And maybe some people were talking about the identity of Jesus. But when he fell on his face and he begged him, what did he call Jesus? He didn't say, hey fella. You think you can give me a hand? Hail, pal! What can you do for me? That's not what it says. When he saw Jesus, what did he call him? He called him Lord. I mean, he's taking on the disposition of a servant to a master. So he's recognizing the uniqueness of Jesus. Listen to me. When's the last time, other than in prayer, you ever went to anybody and called Him Lord? You don't do that, do you? You only do that in prayer. You only do that when you're addressing our Heavenly Father. Called Him Lord, recognizing the uniqueness. You don't just say that to anybody. I think this is interesting too. When he gets Jesus' attention and he's talking to him, notice that statement, if you will, if you will, you can make me clean. There's no demands from the leper. He's not telling Jesus, you have to make me clean. He's not commanding Him in any way whatsoever. And I think what's incredible about this is that He is affirming the freedom of the Lord Jesus Christ for Him to do whatever He wants to do. And then on top of all of that, You can make me clean. There's a recognition of the ability. He's affirming the ability of Jesus. He really believes deep down in his soul that the Lord Jesus Christ can actually do something for him. So think about the picture here. He's fully casting himself upon Jesus. There's full submission. There's humility. There's absolute trust knowing that Jesus is his only hope. He's the only one that can help him. There's no demands whatsoever. It's only just a childlike trust and faith that Jesus can do it. Well, how would Jesus respond to something like this? Notice verse number 13. And Jesus stretched out His hand, and He touched him, saying, I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him. I mean, Luke records for us here that this man received a miraculous healing from Jesus. And that's why it's in the Bible. Because something happened here. Jesus did something for him and look at that. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. Wait a minute. Lepers didn't get touched. Listen, think about this. When somebody's sick, I haven't been in the depths of sickness as some people have, but you observe it and you see what happens. When somebody gets really sick and they start being kind of isolated from everyone, maybe they're bedridden in some way, that's got to be a lonely place to be in. Doesn't it? Think of the loneliness of this man. I think we take it for granted. You've come into church today, maybe this is why everybody's sick. How many hands have you shook today? I mean, you shake your brethren's hand, you give them a hug, you pat them on the back. Can you think about how miserable this life would be without physical touch? If you never received a warm embrace from someone, if you were in the place of misery, and you needed comfort, and you needed help, and nobody was willing to give you a hug, nobody was willing to put their arm around you, nobody was willing to embrace you and say, it's going to be alright, I love you, I care about you, that would have been the situation of the leopard. Nobody did that for that old boy! And here Jesus... reaches out and he's touching the man. And who knows how long? That alone must have done something to melt that man's soul. Why wouldn't other people touch a leper? Well, maybe they're afraid they'd get leprosy. Think about this. Jesus was immune to defilement. Wow. He can touch him, he can embrace him, he can do whatever he wanted to do and not have to worry about getting leprosy because Jesus is immune to all of that. And I just have thought about that this week as I've considered the compassion, the compassionate touch of the Lord Jesus to give that man from the very beginning something that we take for granted usually that happens at the very beginning of a conversation or a meeting with someone that we know. The first thing that we generally do when we meet somebody is what? Shake their hand, give them a hug, whatever. Jesus is so tender and compassionate to the needs of people. The man asked Him if He would do this for him, if He would heal him. And you notice right away after Jesus touches the man, He said to him, I will. Those must have been wonderful words. But if you think about that for a minute, there's a lot of people out in the world that might say they'll do something for someone in need? Have you ever had somebody tell you that they'd do something for you? You ask them to do something that you say, well, you do this for me. And they say, I will, but they don't. Maybe they forgot. Maybe other things became more important. Maybe they lost the resource that they were planning on giving to you to actually help you with that particular thing. Even though there was a willingness to do it, they didn't actually have the power. And so I imagine this leper, when he hears that word from the Lord Jesus Christ, I will, surely there must have been something in his soul, even for a split second, the thought, can he actually come through? He's willing to do it. I've heard that he's done it for other people. But can he actually do it for me? And what does the Lord Jesus do? He says to the man in a very simple statement, I will be clean. And so right there immediately mercy and grace is extended to the man just by a word. And then Luke gives us the very important, perhaps one of the most important details of the whole story. It says, and immediately the leprosy left him. So Jesus certainly had the power to do it. The work of Christ in people's lives, beloved, is always effectual, isn't it? When He takes a notion to work in someone's life, He has the power to bring about the effect. Alright, here's a question for you to think about. Why does Luke have this account for us? These verses that we've just looked at. You got a leper. He meets the Lord. He asks for something. Jesus gives it to him. What is it ultimately that Luke is trying to teach us? What was going on in his mind that would cause him to include this in his account? Because you'll notice here that Luke is just giving history. He doesn't draw any inferences. He doesn't give us any teaching points. He doesn't explain anything other than just the facts of the story. And so, as we all these years later are going back in our mind, doing our best to use our sanctified imagination to imagine this story, this account, don't we have to ask the question, why is this important? And what is it that Luke is trying to show us? Well, first off, I think one thing is obvious that we've been kind of going through over and over with these different stories of Jesus. Luke is highlighting to us things about the person of Jesus. So the question, who is this man? Who is it? I mean Luke is giving us this to show us the power and the authority and should we say the divinity even of Jesus. That's one of the things that the Gospels are for, is to identify the person of Jesus. Who is He? Well here we certainly see That He is a man who has supernatural power to do things that nobody else can do. He can heal a leper. I can't do that. A doctor can't even do that, really. This is something that's unique to divinity. So what do we have to deduce? Well, Jesus is God. So that's one thing to learn. You should, in your filing cabinet of knowledge, you should have a category, a filing cabinet that says the person of Jesus. Throw you a note card in there right now. Add it up. Add your stack of cards up and just compile more knowledge about who Jesus is by this account. Now, another thing. Surely, in light of our full understanding of the gospel of the Lord Jesus, not just the historical accounts with the work of the apostles giving us the doctrine and all the rest. When we shine the light of that back on this passage, certainly we can see an emblem of the gospel, can't we? What do we learn from the story of the leper and the work of Jesus Christ? This physical healing certainly is a picture of man in sin coming to meet Jesus, the Savior. We could talk more about leprosy and all of its defilement and all of its nastiness. Isn't that exactly how the Bible portrays man in his sin? That he's fallen and he's messed up and he's undone and he's wicked and he's sinful, he's guilty. There's also that side the Bible teaches of defilement and impurity. and an unholy disposition that marks all men in their fallenness. And so when you go home, maybe today, and you say, you know, I wonder what a leper looks like. Our pastor said he looked up what a leper looks like. You go home and Google it. Look up what a leper looks like. And as you look at a picture, of a leper, just use that as an emblem of man in sin. That's what we look like. Disfigured and downcast and oscillated and set apart and unclean, unclean, unclean. That's what sin has done to us. And you need to think about it today. Have you ever seen yourself like that? That's why this is here. Have you ever seen yourself as unclean? Have you seen that? Have you seen the defilement of your own soul? Have you thought about the wickedness of your own heart? All that's there by nature. Stir it up. See what it looks like. It's gross, isn't it? It's impure. It's defiled. Have you ever seen yourself, listen to me, as unclean, Unfit for God. Unfit to even worship God or to be in His presence. Have you ever had that experience in your life? When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, what happened? Well, there was separation, wasn't there? They could no longer walk in fellowship. They could no longer worship God. They could no longer do what was required of them because now sin had tainted everything. A man in his natural condition, still ruined by the fall, that's never experienced salvific grace, he hasn't worshipped God for one moment in his life! He may go through formalities, he may go through the exercises of religion, but there's no true heart worship in the life of someone like that because they're still defiled by sin. Have you ever seen yourself that way? It's hard to come to that place to see yourself that way. To say, I'm not all that great and incredible. Like man tends to think about himself. Have you seen your natural condition and sin, what you really are? Like the leper, not only defiled and unclean, but what else could we say about the leper? Oh, he was so needy, wasn't he? He was needy for something that he couldn't provide for himself. Because if he could have provided it for himself, he wouldn't have cared anything about going to see Jesus. It wouldn't have mattered. He would have already had his healing because he would have exercised his own power. Now doesn't it sound foolish to think that a leper could exercise his own power and cleanse himself of leprosy? But aren't sinners stupid? Sinners somehow think that they can do what's necessary to clean up themselves and to fix their defilement by all of the religious stuff that goes on in people's lives. It's one of the works of grace is for God to so work in your life to bring you to the place of not only seeing your defilement, but actually to bring you to the brokenness of need and desperation and to say, I can't fix this problem. Any fixers in here? Like to fix everything? Fix not only your own stuff, like to fix everybody else too? How's that working out for you? It has its limits, doesn't it? It can be good, it can be good to be a fixer, be an orderly person, put things, that's all good. That doesn't transfer over into the spiritual realm though, does it? This man was needy. How about this one? Have you ever been so desperate about your situation in sin that you came to the realization that if it wasn't resolved, that you would be lost forever? Forever is a long time. Eternity is a long time. Compound the miseries of eternity that the Lord says are in store for the wicked. When the wicked has his payday and is repaid by the Lord, gets his wages for the things that he's done, the seeds that he's sown, the wicked things that he's done, oh, it is a severe repayment, isn't it? And a man who's unclean, still in his sins, and he's needy, and he goes beyond the time of opportunity, and he makes no preparations in his life to meet the Lord of glory, he will, when he perishes, be lost forever. You know, that's always the dominating thought in my mind when I go to a funeral. Did this man or woman, ultimately in the final analysis, did they know and have received forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ? Tell me what else matters in that moment. It doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter how many places you've been, all the experiences that you've had in life. None of that accounts for anything in that moment. You can live your life, the whole of your life. You can be wealthy. You can have all of the things of the world. And yet when you're laying in the hospital bed at the end of the time, right before you die, you're not packing up any of that stuff with you. You're just not. You're going out like you came in. And the only thing that matters in that moment... Beloved, when you die and people go to your funeral, the only thing that's going to matter is... Did you know the Lord Jesus? Have you experienced forgiveness? Or did you go past the point of opportunity and end up being lost forever? Have you ever thought about that? You need to think about that. Have you ever seen, like this leopard did about his physical problem, that Jesus is the only answer to your problem? I know a lot of people who did come to the place in their life where they recognized their sinfulness and their uncleanness and iniquity and all that. but always defaulted to works righteousness and all the rest. And they never really have come to the place where they've seen that Jesus is actually the only answer. That's what people do. Listen, you can't participate in the means of grace for an extended period of time in a true gospel preaching church and not hear the fact that you're a sinner. You're gonna hear that. And to be honest with you, that's not the thing really for most people that's the most offensive or the most troubling thing in their life. They've heard it so much, they know they're a sinner. That's not really the issue. You know what really starts stirring people up and starts bothering them when it comes to things of the soul? It's when the preacher starts pressing around and poking on all the places where you've tried to dodge and take cover. And those little walls that you've built out of popsicle sticks are shot with the bazooka of God's Word. And you've got nowhere to hide. That's when the soul begins to be troubled. And it's like men in their natural condition will do anything in their power to come up with any solution rather than God's solution in Jesus. So look, when I ask you the question, have you seen that Jesus alone is the answer? That's really a big deal question. Because if the Bible I'm preaching is true, what has God said about His Son? That is the answer. He is the only answer. I've given proof to you that He's the only answer by raising Him from the dead. And if that be the case, and if you have run for refuge to anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ, my friend, and you die in that condition, you will be lost forever! So you need to wrestle with that. Have you come to Him after seeing Him in desperation and trust and faith, believing that He can and He will deliver you if you ask? That's another hurdle, isn't it? Okay, I see the Bible says that He's the only way, but if I ask Him, will He actually be the only way for me? Will He actually save me if I come to Him and ask Him to deliver me? Have you believed that to the point where, like this leper, you've humbled yourself before the Lord Jesus Christ to receive His embrace? The good news of the Gospel is He will. We have all of these promises, don't we? Whoever comes to Me, I will in no wise what? Cast out. Come to Me, all you that are heavy laden. I'll give you rest." Why should we doubt His love? Why should we doubt the fact that if we come to Him, why should we doubt in our minds, well, He won't receive me? That's an excuse for you to stay in your sin. To not believe the clear teaching of the Bible that Jesus will save you. Listen my friends, all of those questions are worthy. of deep contemplation. I hope you will. I hope you think about it. Let me go on. Look at verse number 14. This is great. Jesus gives him the deliverance that he's asking for and then I like to say that Jesus gives commands to a brand new disciple. I mean, he's been affected by the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, imagine the life change. Immediately, the leprosy left him. Whoa! What do you think that old boy did after that happened? I mean, he's got to be rejoicing. He's got to be... I mean, really? Is He gone? I mean, He's looking Himself over and immediately He's been healed of His maladies. He's been cleansed fully. And Jesus, here's His response. And this seems odd, maybe, upon first reading. And He, Jesus, charged Him, the leper, to tell no one. What? Wait a minute, I thought Matthew 28 says, go into all the world. Yeah, that is what it says, but that's later. For now, I don't want you to go telling everybody. But go, show yourself to the priests and make an offering for your cleansing as Moses commanded for a proof to them." And so, Jesus is following up His miracle with instructions to the man about what not to do and what to do. Don't go telling everybody. That's Jesus' first word to him. Why? Why wouldn't Jesus want him going to tell everybody? Well, you have to remember that Jesus is controlling the timing of things so as to avoid the crush of the crowd that only wants miracles. Listen to me. Jesus did not come into the world to do miracles for the sake of doing miracles. Like as if the miracles was the chief object that he had in his mind. That's not why he did miracles. Miracles were to prove things. To make people realize who Jesus was. And so when people start hearing about a miracle worker, I mean if a true miracle worker went down to the hospital and started healing people of deathly diseases like cancer, what do you think would happen if word got out? He'd be bombarded with the crush of the crowd, of everybody who wanted that. And so Jesus is telling, don't go tell everybody, because He's controlling things here. He doesn't want the crush of the crowd, only wanting those miracles. But there's something else that's going on here. Jesus tells him, I want you to fulfill the law. He says in the text, I want you to go rather to the priest. Show yourself to them. Make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them. Now, think about this. Who were the leaders of the people of Israel? Well, the priests played a big role in that. And if somebody had leprosy and actually received a cleansing, that had to have a stamp of approval from leadership. And so the priests, if they gave the stamp of approval that this person had been actually cleansed of that, then that was an authoritative declaration that now we're dealing with somebody who's no longer unclean. Now he's clean. And when you see him in town, you don't have to run away from him. You can actually give him a hug when you see him because he's clean. And Jesus says, I want you to follow the Law of Moses. Follow what's prescribed in the Law of Moses. Go tell the priests and go do your sacrifices and your offerings as an expression of your thankfulness to God for your healing and for all of that. But listen, there's something deeper going on here. This man, had he gone to the priests and told them what happened, they would have wanted to know the circumstances regarding the situation. And what would the man have said? There's this fellow back in town. His name is Jesus. And Jesus is the one that cleansed me. And if the priest put the validation on it that the man truly was clean, then what would the priest had to say and conclude about Jesus? Whoa! There is our Messiah! Jesus is so wise, isn't He? If they validate the man, They have to affirm truth that's being revealed about the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to me. This is why it was so important that this man, this new, let's call him a disciple of Jesus, this is why it was so important that he be obedient to the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that that proof could be made to the priests. I think also we need to just highlight here that because Jesus tells the man to keep the law, Jesus esteemed the law of Moses, didn't he? That's another picture of the active righteousness of Jesus Christ. Nobody could ever say anything about Jesus that he violated the law at all or encouraged other people to violate the law. The perfections of Jesus are seen there for us. Now by the way, in Mark's account in chapter number 1 verse 45, the same story about Jesus cleansing the leper, it says, after he was commanded, but he went out and he began to talk freely about it. And He spread the news, listen, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town but was out in desolate places and people were coming to Him from every corner. He can't even walk into town anymore because of the crush of the crowd wanting miracles. And the people are so desperate that they go find Jesus in the desolate places that He's going to so that they can receive healing and miracles. Now, why do you suppose that this brand new recipient of grace didn't obey Jesus as He was instructed? It's another good thing to think about. Well, I think the answer to that is that often times it happens that excitement can override caution, and the legitimate joys that the people of God have can lead to an illegitimate kind of zeal. Now listen, beloved. If you're a thinking person this morning, And you see the error of this man going out and blabbing all around the countryside, making a mistake, not doing what the Lord Jesus instructed. Surely, quickly, you see yourself in the text. When you were converted, and you started reading the Bible more deeply, and you come to those great books of the Bible like Ephesians and Colossians, and Paul finishes up talking about all these great things that Jesus has done for you. Oh, we were walking in darkness and now we're in light, and we were over here and now we're here, and your Amen and all of that. And then it says, oh by the way, speak truth with your neighbor. Right? Stop doing all that foolish stuff that you were doing before. Because now, you need to walk worthy of the gospel and according to the commands of the Lord Jesus. And you say, okay, I got it. Next day. Oops. I messed up. Hasn't that been your story? You became a Christian, and it's not that you don't esteem the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. You're not just out here, oh, we can just willfully sin so that grace may abound. No real Christian thinks like that. What happens is that in your infancy and in your spiritual immaturity, what happens is you're blindsided. Satan's still treating you like you belong to him. He's still throwing temptations at you. You still have remaining corruption that hasn't been mortified and dealt with and boom! You fall headlong into some stupid sin and afterwards you say, what am I doing? That's how a real Christian thinks. That's how our experience happens. We shouldn't be too hard on the leper. Yeah, he blew it so that Jesus couldn't go into town anymore because there were too many people to crush in the crowd. We should be a little easier on him though because that's exactly what we do as well. We don't always follow perfectly. We don't always do exactly what we've been told to do. Oh, but I'm so thankful for the grace and the mercy of Christ that continues to forgive us. By the way, before I leave this thought, Just remember, remember the wisdom of Jesus. Go talk to the priests. Your obedience is crucial. Because when you go tell the priests that it was me, they're going to have to believe that I'm the Messiah. Do you see how important His obedience needed to be to follow the Lord Jesus? How many times do you think in our life, because of our lack of obedience, because of our sins of omission and sins of commission, that something that the Lord Jesus Christ could have had in store for us had we obeyed, we missed out on it because of our disobedience? Don't forget that. Your usefulness, beloved, very much in the Christian life, is deeply connected to your obedience to the commands of your Savior. So we all need to be obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, this is just how it works in the Christian life. That measure of disobedience, tainting. That new life of obedience and practical righteousness. That measure of doing wrong things and doing right things all kind of mingled up together until we grow into greater levels of maturity and godliness. I pray the Lord today would help all of us to give full allegiance and obedience to Him at every point. Quickly, let me move on. Verse 15. Look what happens here. You have this growing interest in the Lord Jesus, but now Even more, the report about him went abroad. And what does it say? Great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. Massive interest because of this blabbermouth. Right? People are still looking for Jesus. And what is it that Jesus is doing? He never veers away from His mission, which was to preach and to proclaim the Word we see here. They came what? They didn't just come ultimately for the miracles. A lot of people did. But a whole lot of people came for other reasons. And what does the text say? They came to hear Him. I hope you're here today because you want to hear from the Lord Jesus Christ, from His Word. Because what He has to say is of surpassing interest. What could be more important than the words of Jesus for our lives? These people wanted to hear from Jesus, and this marked His earthly ministry. There was constantly a preaching and a teaching ministry, and then also this powerful healing ministry. He continued to have compassion on people. He continued to do works and miracles, proving who He was, helping people, showing them the glory of His person. Needless to say, word was getting around. because of His miracles and He's becoming very much in demand. And so how was it, you ask? I know how it is in my life when things get super busy and you feel crushed. Have you ever felt crushed by the demands of life? Like you get up in the morning and man, things start rolling and you start doing your thing and this stuff comes from out of nowhere and then before long you just feel crushed like this boulder's falling down on you. As a man, certainly Jesus felt that way. The crush of the crowd upon Him. How did Jesus operate? What did He do in the midst of all of that? This is absolutely beautiful, verse 16. But He would withdraw to desolate places and pray. Jesus always found time in His very busy life to slip away from the crush of ministry so that He could commune with His Heavenly Father. Jesus found joy and delight and strength and help and guidance and intimacy through the activity of prayer. Beloved, we need to learn to do the same thing, don't we? Let's take the example of Jesus. Look, that's not just true for preachers and those that are in ministry. That's true for the rank and file Christian, that you need to learn how in your life to slip away, even if it's only for just a few moments, when the crush of life comes upon you and all of the difficulties seem to swell over you like a flood, and you're drowning in the waters of life. You need to find that secret place where you can get away and commune with your Heavenly Father and draw upon His strength. And know Christ experientially, and personally, and intimately, and devotionally in your life. The only way you know Him, I know you're hearing the Word, but you really get to know Him when you commune with Him in prayer. I must tell Jesus, as the Old Hymn says. Sweet hour of prayer, as the Old Hymn says. We need that in our life. He walks with me and talks with me. Tells me I'm His own. I need the Lord Jesus to remind me that I'm His own. And often times those sweet moments and those sweet impressions come upon us when we're communing with God through the Word and in prayer. And the Lord Jesus is our perfect example. What else is going to sustain you in the busyness of life? When you're about to lose your mind and your hair's on fire and you're running around crazy because of everything that's going on in life, what pulls you out of that madness and that craziness? Is it not you're drawing upon the Lord Jesus for His strength and for His help? You need that, beloved, to keep you in the will of God rather than being pulled away from the will of God. You've got to have the Lord. We need to learn from the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm thankful for this incredible story, aren't you? Luke was wise, Mark was wise, Matthew was wise to put it in their gospel record because it's so full of help. Just thinking about that physical healing, what a glorious time and a day that must have been in that man's life. But the thing for us though to see here at the end of the day, is that in our natural condition and sin we are all affected with spiritual leprosy. Every one of us are like this man, spiritually speaking. And the only thing that can heal us, the only thing that can cleanse us, the only thing that can make us new and whole is the Lord Jesus Christ. And the good news of the gospel that we preach week after week and every time we have the opportunity is that if a person has not yet been healed of their spiritual defilement, they can find that healing and that restoration in Jesus Christ. And this text and a multitude and a mound of other texts we could bring out before you to show you that Jesus is compassionate and He is willing and beloved. He is able to pull you out of your sinful condition and cleanse you and make you all together new. And if you, like the leopard in the story, will come to Jesus in humility, in desperation, and ask Him in faith to do for you what only He can do, what do you think He will do? He's your only hope. And without Him, you'll remain unforgiven, you'll live your life, you'll be unclean, you'll remain in a sinful state, you'll be completely unprepared to stand before Almighty God, and in the end, you'll be completely lost forever. I pray that's not the case for anyone here today. And the message of the Gospel is right before you. If you'll come to Jesus, just like the man in the text, He, Jesus, will stretch out His loving hand and will touch you. And we'll say, I will be cleaned. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You today for the story of the leper who met the Lord. We thank You for the healing that was given to him and that's been preserved as Scripture for us to draw on and think about and to see the emblem of the Gospel in the story. Yes, Lord, we know that it points to the person of Jesus and His power contributes to our understanding of who He was and is. But Lord, the emblem of the gospel of the leper receiving that healing is just such an incredible picture of what happens when Christ saves someone from their sin. Lord, I pray that believers today would be encouraged by that and be reminded of what they have been saved from. I pray, Lord, that that leprous condition would remind us of who we actually were by nature and would keep us humble. And Father, that we would, as believers, be grateful in our souls as we think of the kindness of Jesus and the compassion of Jesus to enter into our life and to save us from our sins. And Lord, for any that's here today that's yet to experience that cleansing and that forgiveness, Lord, Help them to not turn away in fear, but help them to turn to Jesus, recognizing that He's compassionate, He's willing, and He has the power to do it, to make life altogether new. We pray that for some dear soul today. In Christ's name, Amen.