Good evening. Hi, Delphus. Joey's out sick tonight, so we have the box. Let's open tonight's service with hymn number 62. Let's all stand together. 62, crown him with many crowns. crowned him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne. Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns all music but its own. Awake, my soul, and sing of Him who died for thee, and hail Him as thy matchless King through all eternity. Crown Him the Lord of love, Behold His hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above, in beauty glorified. No angel in the sky can fully bear that sight. But downward bends his wandering eye, that mystery soul. Who rose victorious to the strife for those he came? ♪ For He's now we sing ♪ Who died and rose on high ♪ Who died eternal life to bring ♪ And lives that death may die ♪ Crown Him the Lord of heaven ♪ One with the Father, God ♪ One with the Spirit through Him given ♪ ♪ From yonder glorious throne ♪ ♪ To Thee be endless praise ♪ ♪ For Thou for us has died ♪ ♪ Be Thou, O Lord, through endless days ♪ ♪ Adored and magnified Please be seated. We're going to be reading from Psalm 46. If you'd like to open your Bibles there with me, Psalm 46. As I was singing, we were singing that hymn. I was thinking what a delight it is in the believer's heart to crown our Lord as Lord. We don't make him Lord. He is Lord, but we rejoice in worshiping him as Lord. And I hope the Lord will enable us to do that tonight. Psalm 46, God is our refuge. He's our hiding place and he's our strength. That verse we looked at Sunday morning where David said he encouraged himself in the Lord. That word encouraged, you remember we saw really meant strengthened himself. And I was thinking about Isaiah 40 verse 31 where the Lord said that they that wait upon the Lord, they that trust him, that believe on him shall renew their strength. And that word renew means to exchange. We exchange our strength for his strength. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. When we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. We have no strength. All of our strength is found in him. All of our righteousness, all the hope of our salvation, all of our joy, and all of our faith is found in Christ. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. How near he is. Scripture says he's near unto us as our lips. We call upon him and he's near. Therefore we will not fear. though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah, there is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. It's that river that John saw in the New Jerusalem that was clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God. And we know that river is Christ and we drink from that river freely. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her. And that right early. The heathen raged and the kingdoms were moved and he uttered his voice and the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge, Selah. These hymns, these psalms are songs. They were put to music and sang. And the word Selah, from what I understand is a musical rest. It means rest, and it's a pause in the music. And so we pause to reflect on what the Lord has just told us. Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he has made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the earth. He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear asunder. He burneth the chariots in the fire. He took away all our weapons, beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning forks and took away all the enmity that we had by nature against him. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the heathen. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Jennifer is in Jacksonville at Mayo right now and she has her fourth treatment in the morning, so if the Lord enables us to remember her, appreciate y'all's prayers. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we have no strength, we have no ability to put away our sin, to satisfy your righteousness, to justify ourselves before the We have no strength to believe on Thee. We have no strength to rejoice and worship Thee. Lord, we need to exchange what we commonly rely upon as our strength, which is weakness for Thy strength. And we pray, Lord, in this hour that you'd be pleased to reveal your glory through your word, reveal Christ to our hearts, show us his strength in defeating Satan, conquering death, putting away our sin, establishing our righteousness. Lord, that your wonderful works would be made known to our hearts and that we would find ourselves comforted and rejoicing and resting in the glorious person of thy dear son. Lord, we say with the leper that will be looking at tonight. We know that thou canst if thou will. Lord, we pray that you'd be pleased to lay your hand of strength and healing on Jennifer and that you would use these treatments to enable her, strengthen her and heal her. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 290, 290 in the hard back teminal. Let's all stand together again. Be still, my soul, the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide. In every change, ye faithful will remain. Be still, my soul, thy best, thy heavenly friend. Through thorny ways, leads to a joy Be still, my soul, thy God doth undertake To guide the future as He has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing All now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul, the waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below. Be still, my soul, the hour is hastening on, When we shall be forever with the Lord. When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone. Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored. Be still, my soul, when change and tears are past. All safe and blessed, we shall meet at last. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1. We've been looking at the miracles recorded in the gospels that our Lord performed. And I think this is the fifth one. This miracle speaks so much hope to a helpless leper. And And the hope is that it is our leprosy that qualifies us for heaven, for salvation, not for heaven, but for salvation. And we'll begin reading in verse 40. And there came a leper to him, beseeching him and kneeling down to him and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched him and saith unto him, I will be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken immediately, the leprosy departed from him and he was cleansed. And he straightly charged him and forthwith sent him away. And saith unto him, see thou say nothing to any man, but go thy way and show thyself to the priest and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. But he went out and he began to publish it much. and to blaze abroad the matter insomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places, and they came to him from every quarter." What could give a spiritual leper more hope than to know that it is his disease that qualifies him for salvation? This miracle is so glorious and so hopeful for those whom the Lord has made to be a sinner because clearly that's what leprosy represents in the Bible. an incurable disease, apart from a miracle of God. Once afflicted with leprosy, we have antibiotics now that are able to control it, but then there wasn't, there was nothing. And so it is with our sin. Apart from a miracle of God's grace, apart from Him having compassion on us, and speaking to us and touching us and making us clean, we will die lepers. Leprosy was not only a death sentence in that it was incurable but it was a life of pain, it was a life of social separation, it was a lonely life. So many things about leprosy that picture our separation from God and the pain that we bring upon ourselves. From what I understand about leprosy, we see the grotesque wounds of leprosy. From what I understand, it's not the leprosy that's causing that. It's the fact that the leprosy kills the nerve endings, particularly in your hands and in your extremities and in your face. And so we touch something sharp, we pull away. We touch something hot, we pull away. But if you had no nerve endings, you would go about injuring yourself and not know it. And isn't that the way sin is? Self-destructive and the grotesque results of the fact that we have no sensitivity to the things of God left to ourselves. What a picture of our sinful condition outside of Christ we are. Leprosy, also from what I understand, is a bacterial infection in the blood. And we have an issue of blood. We've inherited this bacteria. from our father Adam and it courses through our veins and the Lord Jesus is the only one whose blood is untainted and perfect and sinless before God and how we need we need his blood as a covering for our sin, that no amount of sacrifice on our part will be sufficient because our blood is unclean. Here's the picture. Leprosy is contagious and so is sin. We catch it from one another, we infect one another with it, we offend one another, we tempt one another, and And here we are, a bunch of lepers in need of the Lord to cleanse us. Now the Lord's gonna send this leper back to the priest to be inspected and to be pronounced clean. And there were sacrifices that had to be made. We'll get to that in a moment. But I want you to turn with me to Leviticus chapter 13. because there's two verses in Leviticus 13 I want us to look at that apart from the understanding of the gospel, this would make no sense. If a man was suspected of having leprosy because of wounds in his body, and the manifestation of the leprosy was seen in his flesh, he had to go to a priest and the Lord gives a long detailed description of what the priest was to look for in determining whether or not this man was clean or unclean, whether it was just a boil or some sort of skin disease or whether it was leprosy. And in chapter 13 of Leviticus, there are two verses that stand out where the Lord says to the priest in verse 12, and if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his foot, Wherever so ever the priest looketh, this man stripped naked and the priest is inspecting his body and he cannot find a square inch of clean flesh on this man's body. He's leprous from head to toe. Then the priest shall consider and behold, if the leprosy have covered all his skin, He, the priest, shall pronounce him, the leper, clean that hath the plague. It is all turned white. He is clean. People look at that. I've had somebody ask me, how can that be? It doesn't make sense. It wouldn't make sense to a sinner, doesn't it? From the top of our head to the soles of our feet. Isaiah tells us in Isaiah chapter 1 that we are wounds and open sores and there's no clean flesh on us. What is the Lord teaching us here? What is he telling us? What is he revealing to us? That a sinner has no righteousness of their own. That everything about them is sinful. That every thought is sinful. Every imagination of the heart is only evil, and that continually. Paul said, in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. No good thing. Men look at sin as just a behavioral problem. They look at it as something, you know, the things that they're ashamed. Well, God makes you to be a sinner. You know that you are nothing but sin. Here we are. And when the priest, our high priest, looks at us and he sees that there's no clean flesh, that it's all turned leprous, then he turns it white and says, you're clean. Oh, there's our hope. We looked last Wednesday night at what Peter said when the Lord performed that miracle of the great drought of fish and Peter fell at the Lord's feet and said, depart from me for I am a what? Sinful. Sinful. I like that term. I like that word. It's a little more descriptive, I think, than just sinner. A sinner can, you know, a person could think of a sinner as well, you know, I have some sin. But to be sinful, is to be leprous from head to toe. And those are the ones that the Lord shows mercy toward. What a blessing. How can it be? Well, we're never going to be a sinful man until we're like Peter in his presence. He must reveal to us something of his glory. some glimpses of his holiness, the one who is holy and undefiled and separate from sinners, the one that is higher than the heavens. And every time he's pleased to make himself known, the one to whom he makes himself known, come to this conclusion, I'm sinful. At top of my head, bottom of my feet, there's no sound flesh in me. There's nothing in me like him. Isaiah saw that when he saw the Lord high and lifted up. And he said, woe is me. Daniel saw that when Daniel saw the Lord. Daniel said this, he said, my comeliness. And that word comeliness can be beauty and it can be strength. And so Daniel, when he sees the Lord, he said, my comeliness has turned into corruption. I am a grotesque leper in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have nothing but sin. I have nothing to offer him. I have no ground on which to stand. I have nothing to provide as the hope of my salvation or the atonement for my sins or my justification before God. I'm completely dependent upon him. He doesn't have mercy upon me, I'll be without hope. It's a blessing, a great miracle of grace to be made a leper. All men we know are lepers. But another thing I learned about leprosy is that you can be infected with the bacteria in your blood and it can take anywhere from 1 to 20 years to manifest itself if you don't have any symptoms. And I thought, well, that's the way I was. I had the leprosy in my blood and the Lord had to cause it to break out. He had to reveal the the disease to me in order for me to know that I had it. And how many people walking around this world have never had that happened. And they're lepers, they don't know it. It is a great blessing. So there's his condition and there's our condition. If we're going to be saved, we must begin as a leper. Now the second thing we see in this story is the posture that this leper takes in coming before the Lord. And there's a posture of worship. Worship is, the word worship means to kiss the hand. It's a complete dependence and love for one's master. It's a submission of one's life to the Lord for him to do whatsoever he wills. The leper says, Lord, I know you can if you will. We can't demand anything. To worship is to put oneself at the complete mercy of another. And that's what lepers do when they come before the Lord. They don't say with the religious world, I know you want to save me. I know you came into this world to cleanse lepers and here I am one and I'm gonna let you cleanse me. How blasphemous is that? But that is exactly what the free will gospel says. That's exactly what men believe, that God loves everybody and wants to save everybody and he wants to save you, but his hands are tied until we invite him or let him have his way or make him Lord. That is so blasphemous, so dishonoring to the Lord. This leper says, Lord, I know that you can. No bargaining, no bartering with the Lord. He beseeches him as a God. He's beseeching the Lord as a God who delights in showing mercy. My only hope is that you will delight in showing mercy toward me. And we have a promise from God that he does delight in showing mercy, that he's full of mercy. And kneeling down, notice in verse four, kneeling down before him. There's his posture. He's bowing before the Lord Jesus Christ as his sovereign. Lord, my life is in your hands. You have the sovereign right to do with me whatsoever you will. I'm at your mercy and all I can do is beseech thee." Confessing his complete dependence. Reminds me of that Syrophoenician woman. Disciples said, Lord, send her away. She's just a Gentile. She's pleading with the Lord to help her with her daughter who's grieved with an evil spirit. And then the Lord calls her a dog and says, it's not right that I should give the children's bread unto the dogs. And she said, truth, Lord, that's what I am, I'm a dog. And then I love what the scripture says. It says, and she worshiped him. She worshiped him. She did what this leper did. She bowed down before the Lord Jesus Christ and she confessed her dependence upon him. And she pleaded with him to just let a few crumbs from the master's table fall down on the ground for the dog to lick up. This is the hope that every believer has because this is how we come. This is the posture that he puts us in. He makes us to be dependent upon him and he makes us to worship him. You know, I think about those seraphim in Isaiah chapter six who are hovering over the throne of God. They know nothing of sin. The angels in heaven don't have any experience with sin. They're not leprous. They are innocent. They're without sin. What are they doing? They're worshiping the Lord. And John in the Gospel of John tells us in chapter 12 that the one that Isaiah saw back there in Isaiah chapter 6 was the Lord Jesus Christ seated upon his throne. and they're hovering over the throne of the Lord Jesus and crying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. The seraphim are worshiping him. If they're brought to that place of worship, how much more do lepers need his mercy? And how much more worthy is he of our worship? We're gonna be worshiping him for all eternity. The saints in glory for all eternity are going to be saying, worthy is the lamb to receive glory and honor and praise. And what a blessing it is that God would bring us. He would bring us to the end of ourselves. He would cause us to see that we have nothing, that we're sinful, that we're leprous, and that he would shut us up to Christ and give us no place else to go, that we might have a taste of worship here, longing for that day when we are able to worship Him as we ought. Here we are, beseeching Him, kneeling down before Him, asking for His mercy, confessing our dependence upon Him, Notice in verse 41, and Jesus, that's the one that he came to. Jehovah saves. He shall call his name Jesus for he shall, he shall save his people from all their sins. And that's exactly what he did. The sovereign, successful, Savior of sinners, our surety, the one who accomplished our salvation all by himself. That's his name. And that's who the one, that's who the leper came to. Turn with me to Genesis chapter 43. Genesis 43, I want us to look at a very familiar passage here. Joseph's brothers have sold him into slavery. Genesis chapter 43, you know the story. There's a famine in Canaan and Jacob has sent his sons down to Egypt, hearing that there's bread in Egypt. Why is there bread in Egypt? Because the Lord had revealed to Joseph the interpretation of the dream that Pharaoh had. And they had spent seven years storing up during the years of plenty. And now Joseph himself has the keys to the storehouse. And if anyone wants anything, they have to go to Joseph. Pharaoh says, go to Joseph, he's the one. And so the sons, Joseph's brothers don't know that Joseph's the prime minister of Egypt. And they go down to get corn. Joseph sends them home and he keeps Simeon. and tells them don't come back without Benjamin. So they've used up all their bread now. And they go to Jacob and say, we've got to go back. We're gonna starve. And what does Jacob say? Joseph is no more. He'd assumed Joseph was dead. Simeon is not, he's gone. And now you wanna take Benjamin? And Jacob, I'm sorry, Jacob says, all these things are against me. But look what Judah. You know, the interesting thing here is that Jacob's firstborn, Reuben, says to his father, I'll be surety for him. And if I don't bring Benjamin back, you can kill my sons. You know, he's willing to sacrifice his children and Jacob knew Benjamin, knew Reuben, he knew that Reuben would not be faithful in bringing Benjamin back. But now Judah, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book. And Judah now in verse eight of Genesis chapter 43, and Judah said unto Israel, his father, send the lad with me and we will arise and go that we may live and not die, both we and thou and also our little ones and I will be surety for him. I'm not going to put my children's life, I'm going to put my life on the line. I'll be surety. You can be certain that everything that's required to bring Benjamin home, I'll stand in his stead and I'll provide everything necessary. That's what surety means. "'I will be surety for him, "'and of my hand shalt thou require him. "'If I bring him not unto thee and set him before thee, "'then let me bear the blame forever.'" Now, this clearly is a word of prophecy. The Lord Jesus speaking to his father, "'I will be surety for them, "'and by my hand you shall require them. And if I don't bring them home, if I don't bring Benjamin, all my Benjamins home to glory, then I'll be to blame forever. Is there any possible way that God the Father would be able to blame his son for all eternity for not being successful in bringing home Benjamin? No way, no way. That's what the Lord Jesus did, and that's what his name means, and that's who the leper now goes to. He was the one, the only one that could heal him, the only one that could make him clean, the only one that could save him. Notice the heart of our Lord revealed in this text. Go back with me to Mark 1. Verse 41, and Jesus moved with compassion. Oh, scripture says he's loved his children with an everlasting love. There's never been a time he didn't love them. Loved them as his own, loved them unto the end. Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his Son to be the propitiation of our sins. Oh, what love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Our love is so fickled and so selfish. His is so perfect. He looked at this leper, This grotesque leper, this man that most would have diverted their eyes from and ignored and shunned and made sure that they kept their distance from him, lest they catch his disease and he has compassion on him. Oh, I need a savior that will have compassion on me. A Savior that will remember that I'm made from dust. A Savior that'll be merciful toward me. I don't need a harsh taskmaster like the law. I need a tender-hearted, merciful Savior, a compassionate Savior. It was the lepers, it was the harlots and the publicans and the sinners that were attracted to the Lord Jesus Christ. Why were they attracted to him? Because he had compassion on them. You're always attracted to someone that you know has compassion on you, someone that loves you, someone that always has your best interest at heart, someone that understands and forgives you. You're attracted to that person. Why weren't the Pharisees attracted toward the Lord Jesus? Because he had no compassion on them. He spoke harshly to them. He called them whitewashed tombs. He called them hypocrites and snakes and children of their father, the devil. He doesn't speak to his people like that. He speaks to the self-righteous like that, but he never speaks to lepers that way. He never speaks to harlots that way. He never speaks to publicans that way. He doesn't speak to sinners that way. He has compassion in his heart toward sinners. The poor and the needy. He sees them as sheep without a shepherd. Dumb, dirty, dependent sheep. And he takes his rod and he brings them into his fold and he's moved. I love that. Verse 41, he was moved. You know, We know a little bit about that. When we see a loved one in trouble and we're moved with compassion, he was moved. When the heart of God is moved, it's moved infinitely more than ours is. And not only was he moved with compassion, but he put forth his hand and touched him. No one else, this leper hasn't been touched by another person ever since his leprosy was made known, was manifested. He's been shunned by all men. He'd been forced into exile. And now the Lord Jesus Christ reaches forth and he touches him. Not only a symbol of compassion and concern, but a symbol of transference. Here, the leprosy of this leper was being transferred, if you will, to the Lord Jesus Christ who would bear his leprosy when he went to the cross. And in touching him and speaking to him, he was made clean. It's almost that we see the scapegoat in Leviticus chapter 16, when Aaron was instructed of Moses, put your hands on the scapegoat and transfer the sins to that scapegoat. That scapegoat was Christ. And have a fit man. And that fit man was Christ. Take that scapegoat out into the wilderness, into the land of forgetfulness. that he might be, that I may be lost forever. I've removed your sin from you as far as the East is from the West." Here's the touch. Here's our Lord reaching out. How oftentimes we see the Lord touching. He touches a corpse. No one would touch a corpse. He touches a coffin. The widow of Nain, he reaches up and touches a coffin. He touches blind people and heals them. He touches the tongue of deaf men. He transfers this power of healing with a touch and it was the woman with the initial blood that touched him. And he said, who touched me? Virtue has gone out from me. She touched him in faith and she was unclean, she wasn't to be She wasn't to be touched by anyone. We see the seraphim taking the hot coals from off the altar and touching the lips of Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter six, when Isaiah said, I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, all my words are sinful. And the Lord takes a coal, a hot coal and touches his lips and makes him clean. When Daniel sees the Lord, he falls on his face as dead and the Lord reaches out his hand and touches him, the angel of the Lord. That's a Christ, that's a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus. And John does the same thing in the book of Revelation. When the Lord reveals himself in all of his magnificence and glory to John, John, the scripture says, falls on his face as dead. And the Lord touches him and says, fear not, fear not. When the disciples on the on the mountain of transfiguration in Matthew chapter 17 when the veil of our Lord's humanity was taken away and the radiance of his deity shined forth. And the scripture says they fell on their face in the dirt and the Lord touched them and said, fear not, fear not. His touch is always a touch. of comfort, it's always a touch of healing, it's always a touch of compassion, it's always a tender touch. When Jacob wrestled with the Lord that night in fear of his brother Esau, the Lord touched him when he changed his name to Israel. And he touched him, the scripture says, in the hollow of his thigh. And Jacob limped the rest of his days, reminding him of that touch. That touch not only was a touch of grace and mercy, it was a touch of life. But it was a touch that revealed to Jacob his weakness before God. and his complete dependence always upon the Lord. And when the Lord touches us now, he continually reminds us of our need to keep coming to him. We never grow beyond this experience as a leper, asking for his mercy, depending upon his compassion. Lord, I know you can if you will, Lord, I can't demand anything from you. I can't require anything. I can't obligate you to do anything. I can't barter or bargain with you for anything. I'm at your mercy. I worship you. And left to myself, I'm still a leper. That's the Lord touching the hollow of our thigh, causing us to limp all the rest of the days of our lives. We spend our whole lives in this world as sinners saved by grace. Notice that the Lord not only touches him out of compassion, but he speaks to him. He said unto him, I will be clean. You know, no leper has ever come to the Lord Jesus and said, Lord, I know that thou canst if thou will. No leper has ever come to him like that and been turned away. I will in no wise cast you out. The ones he turns away are the ones that try to barter with him. The ones that try to bring something to obligate him, those he turns away. The self-righteous and the Pharisee, he turns away. The religious who would say, I know you want to save me, and I'm going to allow you to save me, though he wouldn't speak to them. But everyone that comes like this, we have the promise and the comfort of knowing that our Lord says, I will be clean. I will be clean. What hope? Lazarus, come forth. Zacchaeus, come down. I must go to the house today. Levi, follow me. And he immediately got up and followed him. Oh, the voice of God. When God speaks, his sheep hear his voice and they follow him. Be thou clean. Only God can forgive sin. Only God can cleanse a leper. He's the only one that can make us clean. And when he makes this clean, notice what happens. And immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was cleansed. Reminds me of Naaman. You remember when Naaman the Syrian came down to Elijah and Elijah said, go up and bathe yourself in the river Jordan seven times. And Naaman was wrath and his servants convinced him to do it. And the scripture says that when he came out of the river Jordan, he had the skin of a little child, and that word little child means a baby. He had baby skin. When the Lord forgives us of our sin, he puts them all away. He doesn't leave any of them. He separates them all from us. He remembers them no more. He makes us perfect in Christ. Justified means to be without sin. to be without sin. And though our experience in the flesh is an experience with sin in our bodies, we have a new man and a new nature that as he is, so are we, baby skin. Perfect, no leprosy, not a spot to be found. There's our hope. Perfectly clean. The Lord gives this leper a command to go back to the priest and to perform that which was required by Moses as a testimony to them. What was required by Moses? Very quickly. Leviticus chapter 14, after the leper was cleaned in chapter 13, he was to take two sparrows and take one sparrow and kill it, shed its blood over running water in a basin, an earthen basin. And then he was to take hyssop and cedar wood and scarlet. and dip the live bird along with the cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet in the basin of blood and sprinkle it on the leper. And he was to be made clean. And everything about that ceremony was a testimony of Christ. The two birds The Lord Jesus is the bird that was slain on Calvary's cross, and he is also the bird that came forth out of the grave and was released free. Just like there was two in the same chapter, well, a couple of chapters later in Leviticus, there's the scapegoat that I've already mentioned, and there's the goat that's made as a sin offering. Two goats, one was to be killed, the other one was to be set free. The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled both of those things. He was put to death that he with us might be made free. The cedar wood. Oh, it was cedars. The cedars of Lebanon are mentioned in the Bible many times and they were majestic trees. You've seen pictures of them. The Lebanese flag has picture of the cedar tree on it. And they're famous all over the world. They're known for their beauty. They're known for their strength. They're known for their fragrance. They're known for the fact that they resist rot. And they were used in the building of the tabernacle and the temple. And that cedar wood pictures Christ, his beauty and his fragrance. And then the hyssop, the hyssop from what I understand was an unassuming bush that was bitter to the taste but sweet to the smell. And there we have a picture of the Lord Jesus on the cross, the bitterness of his death, that first bird, and then the sweetness of his life in the deliverance by the miracle. All these things were testimony. It was the hyssop that was to be dipped in blood and the blood was to be put on the doors of the houses in Egypt when the Lord said at the Passover. And we know what scarlet is. The scarlet thread that hung from Rahab's window to show Joshua and the spies that she was the one that was to be saved. It's the blood of Christ. The veil that separated the holies of holies was blue and scarlet and purple. And the deity and the humanity of Christ coming together in the God-man So everything in this ceremony pointed to Christ. And the Lord said, you go back and you show the priest and go through that. I've come to fulfill the law. And the law wasn't fulfilled till he hung his head on Calvary's cross and said, it is finished. In the meantime, the requirements of the law still stood. And the Lord's using now this law to show who he is. in cleansing and healing lepers. It's how we come, isn't it? We continue to come. He continues to have mercy. And he's never been without a witness. We testify. This leper was to go back to the priest and say, it was Christ that did it. It was he that all these things pointed to him. The Lord has never been without a witness. He's always had a testimony. He had the prophets in the Old Testament. He had the apostles. He's got his written word. He's got his church. What do we testify? What do we testify to? This is a faithful saying. Christ Jesus came into the world to save lepers, sinners of whom I am chief. and he's everything in my salvation. I can obligate him and require him for nothing that we're dependent upon his mercy. And he delights in showing mercy towards sinners. That's the testimony. What a comforting miracle this is to sinners. Tom. Number five in the spiral hymnal, let's stand together. Come ye sinners poor and wretched, Weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, joy, with power. He is able, He is able, He is willing now no more. He is able, He is able, He is willing now no more. Come, ye needy, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify. True belief and true repentance, every grace that brings us nigh. Without money, without money, Come to Jesus Christ and hide. Without money, without money, Come to Jesus Christ and hide. Let not conscience make you languor, Nor of fitness caught between. All the fitness he requireth Is to have a need of him. This he gives you, this he gives you, Tis the spirit This He gives you, this He gives you, is the Spirit delivering thee. Come ye weary, heavy laden, bruised and broken by the fall. If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all. Not the righteous, not the righteous, sinner Jesus came to call. Not the righteous, not the righteous, sinner Jesus came to call.