So let's turn to Luke chapter 17. Luke 17. And we're going to be reading verses 11 through 21. Luke 17, 11. Ten lepers in the kingdom of God. While he was on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee. He entered a village. As he entered the village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met him. They raised their voices, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. When he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests. As they were going, they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at his feet, giving thanks to him. And he was a Samaritan. Well then Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten who were cleansed? But the nine, where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, Stand up and go, your faith has made you well. Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, Look, here it is or there it is. For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. Lord, we pray that You will help us to rightly understand Your teaching in this passage. We pray, Lord, You will bring this Word into our hearts and minds in the power of Your Spirit. In Christ's name, amen. Last Lord's Day, the first ten verses of chapter 17, Jesus taught us about the manner of life He requires of His people. The way His true disciples should be relating to their brethren in the church. He was teaching us the spiritual attitude of a true disciple, the heart of a true disciple, and the ways of a disciple. And he warned his hearers, do not be a hindrance to a brother's faith. Convicting passage. Don't be an instrument in another's falling away. If you cause another to stumble, the consequences for you will be great. In Jesus' words, he said that it would be better to have a millstone hung around your neck and thrown into the sea than to be the cause of a brother's stumbling. Not only must we take great care not to be a hindrance to a brother's faith, but if and when he's engaged in some sin, we have a duty to rebuke him. Duty to rebuke one another. It's an act of Christian love to rebuke a brother who falls into sin. And we must be willing to receive a rebuke. Receive a rebuke when we've fallen into sin. Having brothers who will hold us accountable for our sin will help to strengthen us, help us to persevere in the faith. And it's only those who persevere in faith who inherit the kingdom. We're going to talk a lot about the kingdom of God this morning. Our obligation is to rebuke a sinning brother in love and to receive such a rebuke. It's all part of God's design. That's one reason why He established His church. Though our brother may have fallen into sin, if he repents, what do we do? Suppose he sinned against us. We must forgive him. We've got to be forgiving people. There should be no limit to our willingness to forgive our brethren. And repentance, remember, as he showed us in those parables in chapter 15. Repentance should be a cause of celebration. One of us falls, a brother falls, and he comes back. He repents. He turns away from whatever that sin is. That's a cause for celebration on earth as it is in heaven. Well the apostles, after hearing those things, asked Jesus to increase their faith. To increase their capacity and ability to follow Him and serve Him in faith and obedience. And by His Spirit, Jesus was going to give them a faith that empowered them to go into all the world with the gospel. And that's what they did. They testified to His resurrection. And they were working supernatural works, which God was working through them to attest to the truth of the message they were preaching. And finally, He used an illustration of a slave and his master, by which Jesus reminded His disciples that obedience to God's command is not some favor we grant to God. Obedience to Him, service to Him, is our duty to Him. It's the right response, the only right response to His grace and His mercy on us. God owes us, folks, nothing. He owes us nothing. All that He does, all that He gives us is by His grace. Well after that short parable, Luke turned to our passage this morning. It's a story about ten lepers who came to Jesus and cried out to Him for mercy. Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem, Luke tells us. And He's passing between Samaria and Galilee. Luke doesn't tell us any more about the place. But Samaria is to the north of Judea. And Galilee is to the north of Samaria. Time and place aren't important here. It's clear that Jesus' disciples and other followers were in His company. And in addition, as we see in verse 20 and 21, some Pharisees were also among His hearers. Now he entered a village, and ten leprous men stood at a distance. And they met him. Now they're not allowed to come up to touch him. They've got to maintain a distance. But they were there outside the village. And as he's coming into the village, they are crying out, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. I don't know what any of us know about leprosy, but it is a horrible disease. And we read earlier this morning what the lengthy ritual one had to go through in order to be pronounced clean of that disease. Leviticus 1345. Here's what God taught through Moses at Mount Sinai. Here was the law of Israel. Leviticus 1345, third book of the Old Testament. If you're a leper, if you've got this disease, he says, "...as for the leper who has this infection, his clothes shall be torn, the hair of his head shall be uncovered, and he shall cover his mustache and cry unclean." He has to go into the streets speaking this word, unclean. He has to declare himself as having this disease. "...He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection." He's unclean. He shall live alone. He's got to stay outside the camp of the people of the sons of Jacob. Now here these lepers, ten of them, are standing afar off. They can't get near others because they will render others unclean and others will catch this disease. But it's clear they'd heard about Jesus. The works He was doing. The healings He was doing. The casting out of demons. And they call Him by name here. They know who He is. And they addressed Him as Master. They came as near as they dared, and they cried out to Him for mercy, for help, for healing. He'd healed many others. They knew that. And they thought maybe He'll heal them. Perhaps He'll heal them. So they cry out to Him, but He didn't heal them. This is one of the more amazing miracles. Instead, verse 14 tells us, when He saw them, He just spoke to them. And what did he say? He said, go and show yourselves to the priest. Well, we've learned from reading in Leviticus, you don't go to show yourself to the priest until you believe you've been cured. You've been cleansed of leprosy. Go and show yourselves to the priest." Now we may recall that back in chapter 5, after Jesus had healed a leper, this was the command, the very same command He gave them. He healed the leper and then He said, now you go and show yourself to the priest. This time He didn't heal them. Luke 5, 12. Turn to Luke 5, 12. And here is this healing of this single leper. Luke 5, 12, While he was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean. And Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and He said, I am willing, be cleansed. And immediately the leprosy left him. And He ordered him to tell no one but to go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded as a testimony to them. Now that same account occurs in Matthew and Mark's Gospels as well. But now, when this group of ten lepers cries out to Him for mercy, He did not touch them. He did not heal them. He did not cleanse them. He simply instructed them to go and show themselves to the priest. Why is He doing this? Well, He's doing this to test their faith, most likely. A leper, remember, would only go to a priest who served in those days, as we read, as a kind of health inspector. The priest would inspect him and determine if he'd been cured. And this was required by the law in Leviticus 14. Now I'm not going to read it all again, but I'm going to read two verses. Leviticus 14, 1. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest, and the priest shall go out to the outside of the camp. And then the priest shall look, and if the infection of leprosy has been healed in the leper, Then the priest shall give orders to take two live, clean birds and cedar wood and scarlet and go through that whole ritual that we read earlier throughout chapter 14 of Leviticus. And ultimately the purpose, of course, is to determine whether he's been cleansed of leprosy. And when the priest pronounced a leper healed, and all those rituals were performed, he would be restored to full social and religious fellowship with the rest of the people of Israel. But not until then. He had to remain outside in a little leper colony. Now here's the thing, though. These ten lepers had not been cured. You don't go to the priest until you've been cured. So in directing the ten lepers to go and show themselves to the priests, Jesus was instructing them to go and show the priest as though they had been cured, though they had not. Now there's at least the sense here, isn't there, that Jesus was telling them they would be healed by the time they got there. So what did they do? Did they believe that Jesus was going to heal them on the way? Was Jesus testing their faith in Him? Well, it certainly seems so. Remember, many in Israel believed Jesus could heal. They believed in His power. And these were among those. Jesus gave them a command, and they acted on His command. And as they were going, what? They were cleansed. They were cleansed. As the tents started on their way to the priest, they were cured. Now, prior to this healing, remember Jesus had healed people of various diseases by touch, by simply speaking. Sometimes He simply willed a healing. That's the case here. He healed these lepers by His will alone. In fact, every healing Jesus did was by His will. He did the same thing in the case of the centurion's servant and the official's son, both of whom He healed at a distance. There was no indication of faith on the part of the one healed. At root, Jesus' healing was always a matter of His will. And this is the power of the will of God. He doesn't respond to our every instruction, our every request, our every command. That doesn't mean that He lacks the power to do whatever it is He pleases. And here again, divine power was displayed in Christ. Now what happens? They're walking along, they realize they're healed. One of them sees that he's healed and he turns back, glorifying God with a loud voice. one of the ten, recognizing this was a work of God, performed through Jesus, fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving thanks to him. And the one who did was a Samaritan. Now we know the Samaritans and the Jews had nothing to do with each other. They hated each other. But when people are in such a state, when they're afflicted with a disease like this, like leprosy, ethnic kind of differences have a way of fading into the background, don't they? So here we find we've got a Samaritan leper and these Jewish lepers, two races who hate each other, living together. And their only communion was with other lepers. And of the ten lepers, it was this Samaritan who was the only one who was moved by his healing to give glory to God and give thanks to Jesus. We speak of Matthew's gospel as written with a Jewish audience in mind. But one of the prevalent themes in the gospel according to Luke is that Christ came to save not only people from among the Jews, but people from every nation. And that was certainly the instruction Jesus gave the apostles as He was departing this earth. And Luke's gospel and the book of Acts, both written by Luke, were written to a Greek man named Theophilus. And look at some of the things that Luke has shown us. Look at 4.25 in Luke. There, people in Nazareth were enraged when Jesus reminded them that Elijah and Elisha, the prophets, had been sent not to the widows in Israel, but to Gentiles. But to Gentiles. Chapter 7, verse 6. After healing the centurion's servant, Jesus said, You have greater faith than anyone in Israel, a Roman centurion. Chapter 11, Jesus declared that in the judgment, the men of Nineveh, Assyrians, and the queen of the south would rise up and condemn the Jews of that generation. You can see the Gentile outreach in this Gospel of Luke. He's showing that Jesus came to save sinners from every nation. And now, only the Samaritan comes to give thanks to Him. We see in verses 17 and 18, Jesus was disappointed and He was offended that only this one man came to Him to express His gratitude and give glory to God. Jesus asked him, were there not ten cleansed? But the nine, where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? Remember, Jesus was a Jew. He came unto them, but they received him not. He was rejected by his own people. So all ten were cleansed. Wouldn't we expect that all ten would come and give thanks? And apparently the nine were so absorbed in their good fortune, as they saw it, that they gave little or no thought to the one who gave them this blessing. Only this foreigner, one not even a member of the chosen people, gave thanks. And what Jesus is showing us here, what Luke is showing us, these words of Christ were words of reproach to the Jews. He's illustrating the rejection of Him by the Jews. They've spoken to a grateful Samaritan man. And as we see throughout the Gospels, the minds of the Jews were too often given over to things of this world. We're going to see they're looking for an earthly kingdom, an earthly king. As for the Samaritan man, Jesus said, stand up and go, your faith has made you well. Now let's not misunderstand. In such healings, faith is not the cause of the healing. The will of Christ is the cause of the healing. But the instrument through which the healing was accomplished, in this case, was his faith. It wasn't always the case that those healed by Jesus were healed because of their faith. Some who were healed by Jesus had no faith. Faith was not an absolute condition for every healing performed by Jesus. Remember, all the miracles performed by Him and by the apostles were for the purpose not of an earthly blessing so much, but for the purpose of attesting to the truth of the gospel message they were preaching. They attested these men were sent by God, Jesus, and all the apostles. So God attests to the truth of the gospel through these miracles. Now we have His Word. So the other nine, what do we say about them? They believed enough to start walking toward the priests. It means they believed He had the power to heal. They believed He had the power to heal. At least they believed He might be able to heal them. That's why they obeyed His instruction to go to the priest. But there's no indication that they believed in Him. or that they repented or ever gave glory to God. They were very much like the many that we read about in John chapter 2. verses 23 through 25. I'll read them. Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing the signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man. They believed in His power. His power was undeniable. The Pharisees believed in His power. They simply tried to attribute it to demonic forces. But nobody denied His power. Nobody seems to have doubted it in those days. Faith is a gift from God. It's the blessed fruit of the work of His Spirit in a person. That was the case in this man. Restoring a spiritually dead sinner to spiritual life. Opening his mind and his heart to know and believe divine truths. So we come to Him and we ask, Lord, give me faith. Forgive me my sins. Only to the Samaritan did Jesus say, Your faith has made you well. What's He mean has made you well? Well, here Jesus was affirming in this man the faith that brings salvation. saving faith. So he sent him off with the assurance that it was well with his soul as it was with his body. Your faith has made you well. But he saved him through the gift of faith. Well again, this incident is an illustration of the ingratitude of the Jews who these nine Jewish lepers stood for. Our Lord cured nine of them. Yet not one of them returned thanks. This was the experience Jesus had when He came into Israel. Jesus' words, was not one found who would give glory to God? I mean, He's speaking to the one, but it's a reproof of the nine, isn't it? It's a reproof of the Jews to whom He came. He came unto His own, and His own would not receive Him. There's a warning here. When we're in great need, we are quick to seek God, to seek His favor, to seek His blessing. Sometimes when we've obtained our request, we can become quickly self-absorbed. It can lead us to an ungrateful forgetfulness of what He's done. One writer once said, poverty and hunger often beget faith. Abundance often kills it. Well in the next two verses, which some might put with what follows in our passage in Next Lord's Day. But I believe Luke has put them here for a reason, to show us something. In these two verses, verses 20 and 21, in response to questioning by these Pharisees. Now remember, these Pharisees were these self-righteous religious leaders who were, as Jesus called them, blind guides of the blind. Jesus affirms here that in Him, the incarnate Son of God, the kingdom of God had come unto man. This wasn't the only time He said this. But I want us to look back at the Gospel of Matthew and the proclamation by John the Baptist of the coming of Messiah. Now Messiah had been promised for hundreds and hundreds of years. Matthew 3.2, when John came into the wilderness of Judea, he preached to all the people. People were coming out. All the people, they were told, all Judea was coming out to see him. And here's what he said. Here are the first words recorded. Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand. And when Jesus came into Galilee, Matthew 4.17, what did He preach? Repent. The kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God came in Christ. The Pharisees were around when John was preaching. They seemed to be always around Jesus, and they had certainly heard of these teachings of John and of Jesus. In fact, they had likely heard both of them speak and declare that the kingdom was now at hand. In verse 20, Luke tells us that the Pharisees were asking of Jesus, when is the kingdom of God coming? When's it coming? Now I believe there's clearly mockery in the Pharisees' inquiry here. They're saying to him, you've talked an awful lot about your kingdom. We've seen nothing of it. Where is it? Where's your kingdom you're talking about? When will it come? Now Jews imagined the kingdom of which John and Jesus spoke would be a visible earthly kingdom. It'd come with the defeat of Rome and there'd be great pomp and circumstance and parades and horses and celebrations. And the king would sit on a throne, a little earthly throne. If Jesus had brought that kind of kingdom, The Jews would have welcomed him. They would have honored him. They would have bestowed every honor on him. He didn't bring that kind of kingdom. He was rejected by the Jews because, for the most part, he didn't bring an earthly kingdom. There was nothing of military bearing in him or of earthly royalty in him. The Pharisees thought of Jesus as anything but a king. They thought of him as a rabble rouser. As someone who was a threat to their authority among the people. And to their influence with the Romans. They thought of him as anything but a king. Jesus answered them, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed. Nor will they say, Look, here it is, or there it is. For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst." Is in your midst. Is among you. Now, not only did the Pharisees hear these words, but certainly the twelve who were still there and others gathered to Jesus heard these words. But Jesus was answering and speaking to the Pharisees, His opponents. So Jesus is saying here, you are greatly mistaken, you who seek the kingdom of God with eyes of the flesh. You think it's something you're going to be able to look at and observe? The kingdom of God, He said, is not earthly. It's not carnal. It's a spiritual kingdom which brings the rebirth of the spirits of His people and in which God rules and reigns in the hearts of men who joyfully submit to His rules. So why do we have two translations here? We've got the King James and a few other translators translate this. The kingdom of God is within you. We've got a Greek word entos, used only a couple of times in the New Testament. And so both of these are possible translations. So we have to look to the context. The kingdom of God is within you, says some translators. It's in the heart of the believer. And these would see Jesus' words here as akin to those of Paul in Romans 4, 17. I'll read them to you. Paul wrote, The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. One writer alluding to Romans 14, 17 says, the kingdom Jesus has in mind here consists of the inner qualities of which Paul wrote in Romans 4, 17. However, this same word entos can also mean among you, in your midst. This is how it's rendered in the New American Standard, the English Standard Version, and the NIV. Now I want to say both translations are consistent with scriptural truth. They're both consistent with the rest of Scripture. But the context is of Jesus answering the Pharisees. He certainly was not saying to those men who opposed Him and didn't believe in Him, who He called hypocrites, blind guides leading the blind. He was not saying to them, the kingdom of God is within you. With their spiritually dead vision, the unbelieving Pharisees could not see the kingdom. They could not enter into the kingdom. Remember what Jesus said, John 3.3. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Unless one is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. So it seems a real stretch to believe Jesus was telling these Pharisees that the kingdom of God was within them. So I believe the better rendering of this verse is the way the New American Standard, the NIV, and the ESV translate it. The kingdom of God is in your midst. The kingdom of God was present in the person of Jesus. The kingdom of God is where He is. This is consistent with Jesus' words in Luke chapter 11, verse 20. There Jesus had worked a miracle Casting out of demons. And the Pharisees said, well, yes, he cast out the demons. But he's casting out demons by the hand of Satan. By the hand of Beelzebul. It's the power of Satan that's at work in him. But look at Jesus' response in Luke 11, 20. If I cast out demons by the finger of God, which He did, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. The miracles were undeniable. They're still undeniable. The kingdom of God has come upon you. So he has made reference to the coming of the kingdom when he first went into Galilee. He made reference to it here, telling the Pharisees the kingdom of God had come upon them. And now he says it again. They're looking. When's it coming? He says it's in your midst. And again, both translations and both views correctly state biblical truth. It's just that the correct translation here, I believe, is the kingdom of God is in your midst. The kingdom of God is not of this realm. It's a heavenly, spiritual kingdom. But Jesus is God. And so as He stood there in the midst of those Pharisees and some of His disciples, He could say, the kingdom of God is in your midst. His kingdom is not like earthly kingdoms. Jesus' plan was not to come and rule on this earth. The plan is to rule in heaven for eternity. And we can say this with absolute certainty, that in Him, the eternal Son of God, now made flesh, the kingdom of God had come unto men. I mean, He brought the one and only way of salvation. This was the word that Jesus connected here to what? To the healing of the ten lepers. By healing them, He was showing and saying, the kingdom is here. Now to be clear, the kingdom of God in all its fullness must await His return. But let us be equally clear that in His first coming, the kingdom of God was inaugurated among men. Christ spoke here only of the beginnings of the kingdom of God among men. So Luke has been showing us many things. He's been cataloging many of the teachings of our Lord here over the recent chapters. I want to mention a couple of them. He has shown us in His record of Jesus' teachings our need for repentance. We must turn away from a life of sin and turn to Him in faith. He's shown us the Father's welcoming response to anyone who repents and comes to Him. He's shown us the grave consequence of refusal to repent and come to Him in faith. He's reminded us of the necessity that we be forgiving people. That we forgive a brother who falls into sin and then repents. That we forgive a brother even who sins against us. And our obligation to one another is to help one another persevere in the faith through these means that God has given us. Including rebuking sin and forgiving one another. Luke has shown us that our service to God and our duty to Him is absolute. Now he reminds us, though God is not indebted to us in any way, He nonetheless pours out His mercy and His blessing on sinners. And that the only right response is what we see in that Samaritan. Gratitude, worship, and obedience. Christ has assured us that in Him, the kingdom of God has indeed come among men. And so, with our spirits awakened to new spiritual life, we must enter in and witness the glory of God to others. 49 out of 50 say, that's good for you, and they reject Christ. But He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and nobody comes to the Father but through Me. So we witness to the glory of God, and we're looking with eyes of faith always to His return. To His return. Coming of the kingdom in all its fullness and all its glory. Well, let us pray. Lord, I pray that you will enlighten us all by these words, that you will enlighten our hearts and our minds, that we will know our need for you, our need for forgiveness, and we will know the hope of those who trust in you, the assurance of eternal life and glory. that we will know the surpassing greatness of your power toward us who believe. In Christ's name, amen.