Leprosy is a horrible disease, what we've just read of, what these men had. And it starts off very small, but eventually leads to a very, very slow death. Piece by piece, your body just begins to break down and die from within. Fingers fall off, toes fall off. You're an outcast of society because of the fact that you're extremely contagious. It's a horrible disease and it's one of those diseases where not only do you suffer from within and you know that you're dying and there's very little hope for a cure, but you're also cast out of society because of how contagious you are. So there's a loneliness issue that you have to deal with. Normally they're quarantined away from others. And Leviticus 13 and 14 deals with how to take care of lepers, how to keep them away, and how to determine if they've been healed in the book of Leviticus. But in order for them to get back into society, they had to be examined by a priest to see if they had been healed. And if they were healed and the priest would declare them healed, they would be quarantined for another seven days just to make sure that they've been healed and they would be brought back into society. And I'm sure just imagine this because God has made us to be social creatures. That'd be a great thing. We'd be very happy about that sort of thing. But normally, whenever there were those who had contracted this horrible disease, it was usually a death sentence, and it was a very slow death, and it was a life of loneliness. Now, there were two famous healings in the Old Testament of this particular disease. One was Miriam, who was the sister of Moses, and the other was Naaman, who was Assyrian. He wasn't even a Jew. He was healed by Elisha. And you can read those particular healings, Miriam's and Numbers chapter 12. And of course, Naaman was healed in second Kings chapter five. Now, leprosy healing in the New Testament. We have a couple of them, and one of them is found in the book of Luke, where one man is healed and is recounted again in Matthew chapter eight. And then we have these 10 lepers that are healed now. My message is basically has four parts to it, and it's all with regards to a response. The letter R. You will see how the lepers respond when they hear of Christ and they see him coming with regards to their leprosy. You'll see our Lord's response to them. And then you'll see the response of one man who was healed of the leprosy. Our Lord's response regarding him and our Lord's response regarding the nine that didn't return to give thanks. Let's take a look at verses 11 through 13. in this first section of the lepers response or their reaction to their leprosy. Our Lord is on his way to Jerusalem. Now, you have to know a little bit about geography and the mindset of the people at this time. You have Galilee, which is north. You have Samaria, which is south and then south of Samaria is Jerusalem, which is where our Lord is going to die. Now, Samaritans were hated by the Jews. They were it was a hodgepodge religion that they had adopted from the Assyrians. They were Outcast because of their religious beliefs their beliefs were perverted and they're basically renegade Jews that were in Samaria or that were Samaritans, so Religiously speaking they were perverted in their religion But the Jews took it to a different step. They went a step beyond of how they dealt with Samaritans. Instead of trying to evangelize them, they had nothing to do with them. In fact, they would completely disregard Samaria. They would do everything in their power to stay away from Samaria. So here you have Galilee. Here you have Samaria. Here you have Jerusalem. For a Jew to get to Jerusalem, he would not go through Samaria. He hated Samaria. So he would go completely around Samaria. make it a real long extra few miles. And in the desert, that's not a that's not a walk in the park just to get to Jerusalem. But our Lord wasn't like that. He didn't care. He walked right through Samaria, made no difference to him. So he goes through Galilee. He's going through Samaria. And so he goes to an unnamed village and he meets 10 lepers. Now, it's assumed that nine of the 10 are Jews. You can see that in the passage. Go show yourself to the priest. A Jew would know what that would mean. And of course, what our Lord says with regards to the leper that was healed and came back, he called him a stranger or from another nation. Literally, the word means from another nation. It's the only time that this word appears in the New Testament with regards to a stranger. So it's assumed that nine of these lepers were Jews. But let's put all these 10 lepers together, because that's where they're at. They are together right now because of this frailty that they have. And they have a death that they will have to meet. That's just the way it is. Verse 11. Now, it happened as he went to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as he entered a certain village, there met him 10 men who were lepers who stood afar off and they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. So here these 10 lepers are, they are together, which is a mercy of God. Imagine if you're a leper by yourself, you have no one to talk to, but at least they've got nine other lepers with one another where they could talk to one another, they could console one another. Again, I said that God makes us to be social creatures. We enjoy being with other people. And so this was a mercy of God that these 10 had the same disease and they're able at least to be around one another. So their condition, even though it was hopeless, they had a little bit of comfort because of the fact that they were with one another. And again, we notice that. Interesting that because of the fact that the Samaritan would not have any chance at all of meeting with these other nine or hanging out with these other Jews. But the only reason he's able to hang out with them or be with them is because of the fact that he has leprosy. Mercy of God, again, that God takes men when they have their prejudices and he eliminates that prejudice by causing them to have a horrible disease, which is what happens here. So God has a way of showing men their common ground. All men are with souls ready to die. And that's the great equalizer. We all have to die. It doesn't matter what color you are. It doesn't matter. You are going to die. It doesn't matter if you're black or brown or white. That is what's going to happen. If you have a very fatal disease, then all of a sudden your prejudices go out the window. You're just glad to be with someone at this time. And that's where these 10 men find themselves. Now, God has made us different. He has made us different with regards to our race. And that's that's the way God has made us. And there is a difference. But it is ungodly for us to despise someone because of the color of their skin. That is ungodly. And sickness and death and this judgment right here puts us all on level ground. And so in verse 13. These lepers are going to do something about their condition. So now we have a little bit of background about them. None of them were Jews. One of them was a Samaritan. Normally there's a prejudice that Jews have against Samaritans, but because of the fact that they all had this common sickness, no problem now. They didn't care that this man was a Samaritan because they all had this horrible disease that they were going to die. Now, the fame of Jesus was very well known. Everyone knew about the fame of Jesus. He had been around already for a couple of years. He was going to Jerusalem to die. So they knew that he had the ability to heal. And what the request is, is very simple. First of all, they acknowledge that Jesus is master. Notice that they say master. Jesus master, and then their second statement here is have mercy on us. It's a very simple request. Now, they make no request for healing. Did you notice that? No request whatsoever for healing. They just say, Lord, have mercy on us. Master, have mercy on us. Now, we don't know what their heart's desire is. It could be make our life a little bit more bearable, maybe make our life to be quickly ended so we don't have to incur this. Maybe you can heal one of us because you certainly couldn't heal all 10 of us. Could you? You just don't know. All these lepers knew what to say was, Lord, have mercy on us. That was all that they said. They made no specific request at all. And I want you to notice how earnestly these people cry out and how earnestly we cry out to whenever we are infirmed. So this is a fervent request. Master, have mercy on us. So that's the first thing we see is that the lepers response regarding their leprosy was to the Lord to have mercy upon them. OK, now we will see Christ's response or his reaction to the lepers request, and that's found in verse 14. So when he saw them, he said to them, go show yourselves to the priest. And so it was as they went, they were cleansed. I just want you to notice his reaction. He didn't touch him. He didn't say be healed. He didn't say, do you have enough faith to be healed? He didn't say, now give me some money and I will heal you. And he didn't say expect a miracle. I have to admit that I am disgusted by these TV preachers that dangle this carrot of hope out in front of the people and then they rip it away because they can't heal them. And then who do they blame? They blame the poor people. So. I have to admit, I injured my back, not as bad as Brother Jeff, but this is years ago when I injured my back. So I'm walking around like this for about three months. I have a couple of bulging discs and by the grace of God, eventually got healed. But I have to admit that there was a time. I don't know if this has happened to you, brother. You're probably much more spiritual than me, so you probably never entered your mind. But I really actually thought of going to one of these healers. I really thought about it until my understanding returned to me. And my theology got a lot better. And I realized that, no, I'm not going to go to these guys. I'm going to go to the elders, as it says in the book of James, and they might pray over me and I might be healed. Eventually, I was healed. The Lord had mercy on me. But when you're infirmed and many of you can probably testify, this is you're looking for anything. You will you'll you'll do anything. Yeah, I got to sit in an Armenian church. I'll go do that. I'll do whatever it takes to get rid of this pain. And but the sad thing is, is how these men on TV claim to have this power to heal. So the people have great hope, but that hope is ripped away from them. And then the finger is pointed to them in accusation that it's because you don't have enough faith. So let's really pile on these poor people that are infirmed and blame it all on them. One man said this. I don't know if I have the guts to say this. That's why I'm saying that this one man said he said he hopes there's a hotter hell for those swindlers who judge the people as not having enough faith. And it's a sad day when you see these poor, informed, infirm people being judged by these charlatans on TV because they just don't have enough faith. Well, Our Lord's healing and the apostles healing are completely different than these. I'll use the word bozos on TV. They don't even deserve the airtime that they're on. But I want you to know the Lord has no fanfare, no glory, no look at me. He didn't say anything at all about that. All he said to them is go show yourself to the priest. That's all he said. He didn't say be healed. He said just go. Now, the priests were especially appointed by God to be the judges of all leprous cases, and they had the ability to say clean or unclean. They said unclean. You were cast out if they said clean. Now you're anticipating good news that you will eventually get to go back into society, maybe be married and go back to work and enjoy life as a normal human being. And so they believe the word of Christ, they obeyed him and they simply went. I want you to notice here, too, that Christ showed respect for the ceremonial law. He showed respect for the Levitical law as well as the priesthood, because it was still at this time continuing. It was to be observed the veil had not been torn. The last sacrifice was not yet offered. The Old Covenant was still. Binding had not passed away. And our Lord respected the old covenant law. That's important for us to see because some preach that Christ hated the old covenant. He was one that instituted it with his father and with the Holy Spirit. So there's there's not a schizophrenic God that we have here. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. That law was fulfilled in him, but not quite yet. Our Lord shows respect to this by sending them to the priest. So that they might be cleansed, they might pay the cleansing tax, if you will, and they would be brought back into society. Now, help comes in the path of obedience. I want you to notice that here in verse 14, because as they go, as they went, they were cleansed. I want you to notice they didn't argue with Christ at all. He just says, go to the priests and they don't get into an argument with Christ. Humble people that are sick, like I said, will do anything for healing. Even though our Lord didn't say now as you're going you're gonna be healed He just told him to go showing the great power of Christ's Word He has an authority that no other men have authority when he told those men that were going to Arrest him that I am he and this detachment of soldiers fell back Because the power of his word and he told these lepers because of the authority that he had and the great power that Christ had He just said go show yourself to the priest Right away they went it's sort of like sometimes Happens in families. Mom says one thing. Dad says the same thing. And the kids seem to. Yes, sir. Right away. Shouldn't be that way, but it just happens that way just because the authority of the father. But here we see this with Christ. He simply says, go show yourself to the priest. And so they go. And as they are going, they are healed. Now they're going to get their lives back. Nine of the 10, at least, you get to go back to Jerusalem and maybe not have to go back to Samaria again or hang out with the Samaritan. Who knows? But I want you to notice the Samaritans reaction. Here's the third point here is Samaritans reaction to his cleansing, which is found in verse 15 and 16. It's a discovery. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned with a loud voice, glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. One of two things happened to this Samaritan, either as he was going, he was healed and he went ahead with his nine other friends and went to the priest. And the priest released him, that could have happened, or he's going there, he sees that he's healed and he stops and he says, I got to go back and return to the one who has healed me. That's probably what happened. The second part is that he saw that he was cleansed instead of going to be declared clean by the priest and get his life back. He's not even thinking of his life. He's thinking of great gratitude towards the one who's healed him. He has his life back. He can go back into society and to enjoy the things that most normal people do. He was thankful. And this was a Samaritan. Remember, Samaritans were not sound in their theology. Earlier in Luke, chapter nine, when our Lord was going to Jerusalem and he's passing through Samaria and they didn't receive him, that's where the apostle said, you want us to call fire down from heaven and consume this entire place? They had not received our Lord. They were not sound in theology at all. However. This Samaritan was thankful, this Samaritan was thankful to a Jew. Because Jesus was also a man, he was a Jew. I am reminded, of course, of our Lord's illustration of the Good Samaritan. Where he shows a difference between the Good Samaritan and these other Jews, and of course, our Lord went to the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter four and in Acts chapter eight, you saw the city of Samaria being converted to Christ. So. The only one to record this particular healing was a Jew, was a Gentile, which is Luke. Dr. Luke recorded this. And so we see here that it doesn't matter whether you're a Jew or a Gentile. It really doesn't matter. This this says Samaritan saw that he was healed. He was thankful. He saw his own unworthiness. He saw the mercy of God that was extended to him. And he fell down before his Lord and his savior. And he praises and glorifies God and gives credit to credit is due. And that is to God. That's what the Samaritan does. Our Lord, as I mentioned, gives illustration of the good Samaritan. And again, the Lord has been pleased to give unto us frozen here in scripture, the conversion of the woman at the well, as well as the city in Acts chapter eight. So Samaritan goes back, falls on his face before his Lord. Now, here's our Lord's reaction. Fourthly. to the nine that were not there. He asked a couple of questions. We can answer those questions. So, Jesus answered and said, where were there not ten cleansed? Yes, there were. Ten were cleansed. Did that cleansing be revoked because he didn't give thanks? No, the Lord still cleansed them. Secondly, but where are the nine? Well, they went back to the priest. OK, after they went back to the priest, why didn't they come back to me? Well, can it be that now that these Jews are cleansed and they have their lives back, that they also have maintained their prejudice now and they wouldn't dare go into Samaria, which is where our Lord is probably at right now. He's in Samaria. So there's no way they're going to go back to our Lord in Samaria and give him thanks because, I mean, we're with our friends now. We're we're back with our Jewish friends. And if I go into Samaria, they're going to cast me out or look badly upon me. Well, I want you to notice these ten lepers had five things in common. Let's go all the way back. They had five things in common. They had the dreaded disease of leprosy. Secondly, they were determined to do something about it, and that was to ask our Lord for mercy. Thirdly, they appealed to Christ as master. In other words, they all prayed. And fourthly, they all obeyed. He said, go show yourself to the priests. They went. And fifthly, they were all healed. The big difference was thankfulness. Why didn't these nine come back and give thanks to our Lord? Now, imagine this. Let's say that you go ahead and go to the priest. You're the priest. You're sitting there on your stool waiting for these nine men that you see coming. And they've been marked as lepers. And all of a sudden, all nine of them are healed. There's got to be some interaction, I imagine, with the priest. How in the world did you nine get healed? I could see one getting healed in a blue moon. But here I have nine here on my doorstep that just got healed. What happened? They would have to say something like, Jesus of Nazareth healed us. It would probably be more condemnation to these nine because there had to be some interaction with this priest. You have friends that were sick for a long period of time, they come to you, you've got to ask them the question, how did you get healed? What would be even worse is if that other Samaritan is with the nine. And he sees that they're healed and the Samaritan now is going to leave. Imagine that conversation with the other nine. Then I may see where they may say, where are you going? I'm going back to the one who healed me. Why don't you come with me? They don't. They don't. Awaken to God's power and still they are unthankful. This is a horrible picture of unthankfulness. These nine now have their lives back. And now they're going to avoid Jesus Christ and they're going to avoid Samaritans and they're going to avoid Samaria. Prejudice and yet they're still ungrateful. That's why our Lord asked the question. Why didn't they come back? Weren't there ten that were healed? He didn't return. But in verse 18, only one of the ten returned and he was not a Jew. What a grief. What a grief when you consider that Israel was a blessed nation. But this Samaritan here surpasses these Jews in praising God and giving thanks to God. A professed Jew outdone by a novice? A professed Jew outdone by a foreigner or a stranger or one from another nation? Again, there had to be some interaction with the one. This was their friend. He had the common disease. He leaves them to go back to give thanks, and they don't come back at all. I'm going back to the one who's healed me. Why don't you nine come with me? We should at least give thanks for that. They don't. Once you notice, too, that the Samaritan doesn't rebuke the other nine, we don't see that at all. Doesn't say that because he's really not interested in rebuking people. All he's interested in is going back and praising God for healing him of his leprosy. It's the only thing he's interested in is giving glory to God. Common blessings. Abound, unfortunately, ingratitude abounds as well. But remember, our Lord in Luke chapter six and verse 35, talking about his father causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust, on the unthankful and the evil. Many are shown mercy, but very few give thanks. And now Christ gives his response to the one in verse 19. And he said to him, Arise, go your way, your faith has made you well. This is reassurance. I want you to notice that the other nine did not have their cure revoked, though they ignored the good example of gratitude by this one. Nine made well. They had no saving faith. But this one was already made well. And it's implied when our Lord says, go, your faith has made you well, that your sins are forgiven you. That's what's implied there, that your sins are forgiven you. And so those are the four responses ever so briefly that we've looked at here. We have the response again of the lepers. We have our Lord's response after the one comes back that's been healed. Our Lord's response regarding the nine. And of course, our Lord giving that reassurance to that one, telling him to rise, go your way. Your faith has made you well. Well, there are some points of application. I've got about six of them here. And the first one. Is that many do pray, but normally it is to ask God for things than to give thanks and to praise God like he's some errand boy. Praise, not in prayers. At that can never be our prayer should begin with praise, many are disposed to ask what they do not have, as opposed to giving thanks for what they do have. It's not wanting what I don't have, it's wanting what I do have. And it's not me continuing to go and ask God for things without first giving thanks for the things that he has given to us. Now, there's nothing wrong in us making a request made known unto God. There's nothing wrong with us going to God continually asking for those things, which I believe should be, first of all, spiritual things and then moving on to our daily bread. Nothing wrong with that. But thankfulness is a rarity and should not be that way with the people of God. Should never be that way. Examine your prayers as you pray. Think about it right now. How do I pray? Do I even pray? Many don't pray because they see no need to pray and they've lost their heart of thankfulness to God and their prayers are just dead. Lord, bless my family. Bless the church. Bless me as I work. Thank you. Amen. That might be it. Is that really prayer? Is that praise? Are we a lot like that nine that have forgotten all of the single mercies that God has given to us? On the way here, I had to thank the Lord for air conditioning. Should I? Yes. Should I thank God for the food only at that one time when we bow? OK, we're with Christians. Let's go ahead and give thanks for the food. And then as we're eating, we never even think about, man, this food tastes great. God could have given us gravel to eat or he could have made everything just brown. Brown doesn't offend you. Or everything just could have been a very dull existence. You ever think of that? We got up in the morning. Now, granted, the sky wasn't blue today, but it was blue yesterday. But imagine God can made everything just gray, a gray sky, gray trees, gray grass, gray person, a gray. I do have a gray suit on, but a gray shirt. Everything's gray. No contrast whatsoever, but God's goodness. We should thank God for those small things that we can see that there is a difference. It makes me long for heaven more because this earth is cursed, is it not? And yet there's a beauty in it. Therefore, I long for new heavens and a new earth where righteousness dwells. We will see his face. There's many things for us to be, if I can use the word, excited about or to be thankful to God for. Even think of Paul, when he wrote Romans, he was probably a Christian about 30 years. And in Romans chapter seven, what does he do? He thanks God for his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He knows that he has sin. He knows that he battles with sin on and off and he has no hope at all within himself. But his hope is in Christ. And he thanks God for his Savior. Thankfulness is something that should be In the heart of every Christian, and remember this, my brethren, we have something a lot worse than a than a physical leprosy. We have spiritual leprosy and we had no hope at all of any type of resolution with our souls. We didn't even know the condition of our souls until God sovereignly came to us through his word. Convinced you of your sin led you to Christ. We see it's all of the Lord That's why even in your reading in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 Paul says we are bound to give thanks to God always for you brethren beloved of God Knowing that from the beginning God chose you for salvation Think of that if you're a Christian We should be the people that should be the most thankful because we didn't become Christians because of our free will and If we did, then let's all erect an altar to free will and bow down and worship free will. No, we bow to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He has saved us from our sins. They shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Therefore, praise and thanksgiving to our God for our individual salvation, as well as for our church's salvation. We should thank God for the churches. Thank God for this church that you have here. Sometimes when I talk, I've been an elder, like I mentioned, for a few years, and when we meet individuals, people, some of them just say, I just don't know what to thank God for. At least they're honest, but you can just begin to look at everything. What about the church? What about your family? What about your friends? What about that? You have a job. You live indoors. You have indoor plumbing. Do you enjoy food when you eat it? There's a lot of things we can thank God for, but what about the future? We have a blessed future ahead of us that we should thank God for. We will not perish in our sins. Those that are in Christ, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you. You know, this gets a hold of us. This gets in us. We might find ourselves praying a lot more. We might find ourselves praising God a lot more and we might stop complaining. We complain about the weather. We complain about the food. We complain about this, that or the other. And all we're doing is just complaining against the providence of God. And God has been merciful to us and therefore, because of his mercy to us, we should be as this one leper and go back to our Lord daily, thanking him for all of these mercies, as many mercies unto us. When you look at the list of the ungodly, and one of their characteristics is that they are unthankful. And unthankfulness, if you think like a mathematician, unthankfulness equals unholiness, which equals damnation. That's the way to look at that. To be unthankful is not a good thing. Unthankfulness is something that should be repented of. Paul is in prison with Silas, and what is he doing? They are singing praises to God, probably singing from the Psalms. We get in prison, we get in a little bit of trouble, as woe is me, and we cry and complain about everything. Paul writes a letter to the Philippians to encourage the church when he's in jail. I'm just saying there's a long way for me to go. There may be a long way for you to go as well when I consider how much I complain instead of giving thanks unto God. Yes, when we have our problems, physical problems, we should bring them to the Lord and continue to bring them before the Lord. But we should thank God that we're getting a lot less than what we deserve. Anything short of hell, my brethren, is a blessing from God. So our first application here is many do pray, but it's normally just to ask God for things. Thanks and praise to God should be offered up to him, especially us as the people of God. Secondly, humility and thankfulness go hand in hand. This man. The Samaritan fell down on his face before the Lord, he lost all dignity and he humbled himself. It reminds me of Peter earlier in the book of Luke, where he and his men are out fishing. They've caught nothing. The Lord calls out to him, drop your nets on the other side of the boat. OK, we'll do it just because you said to do it. We'll do it. They do it. They can't bring in enough fish. There's so much fish. And what does Peter do? He gets out of the boat, comes running down to his Lord, falls down before him. He says, depart from me, for I'm a sinful man. He just has a brief encounter with Christ, aided by God's spirit, and he is humiliated, he is humbled. And he asked the Lord, just depart from me, because, I mean, you're so holy and I'm so vile. I'm mindful of Isaiah. When he sees the Lord in all his glory, woe is me, for I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. He is humbled. And I, I seriously doubt some people's conversion when all they talk about are themselves. Nothing but pride and pride and pride and pride about I this and I that. when there should be humility, an encounter with Christ will humble us just like it did this Samaritan, just like it did Peter, just like it did all of us that have been found in Christ. We are humbled when we consider what it is that we should get. Thirdly, this is very much related to my first point. Be speedy in our praises to God for time may harden our hearts and sense of mercy and thankfulness. If the Lord has been merciful to you, Be quick to give him thanks. With regard, maybe it's with regards to your job. Maybe it's with regards to your health, with regards to a good sermon, with regards to anything that happens. Be quick to give thanks to God. You don't have to go to Jerusalem to give thanks to God. You don't have to be in a church building to give thanks unto God or be at home. You can be driving in your car, you can be eating your meal, whatever it may be. Just be speedy and quick to give thanks to God, because if time goes on, your hearts might get hardened. You might forget that single mercy of God. And you won't be quick to give thanks and you might lose that effect. This man was very quick as he was going and saw that he was healed. Does a 180 and goes back to our Lord to give him thanks. Now, these other Jews, they may have said something like, well, I have to hold to the law. I've got to go to the priest and I'm going to hold to the strictness of the law and we will go to the priest. There's nothing in there about me returning and giving thanks unto God. But not the Samaritan, he turned quickly and he went back to his Lord to give him thanks. And we should be speedy. We should be the quickest, if you will, in returning back to God and giving him thanks. Might be good for us after we eat a good meal to say thanks unto God. We always pray beforehand, like, OK, we're anticipating this is going to be a good meal. Maybe it's not a good meal, so we won't give thanks unto God. No, we're quick to give thanks unto God before and after. When you consider that there's so much of this of this world that doesn't hunger and we live good. We live very well here and that is a mercy of God. But we want to be quick to give thanks to him for our government leaders, for our church leaders, for the fact that we can meet here with the liberties that we have. We don't fear any any police coming through here and arresting those who preach and those who assemble and taking them off the prison. Do we have to worry about that? Do we? We should thank God for that. Thank God for our forefathers, that we have freedom of religious expression here in this country, live in the United States of America. For that, we should be thankful to God, be quick to give thanks unto him. I can probably go on and on about reasons for us to give thanks. I'll leave it up to you to finish up the rest. Fourthly, ingratitude is a common sin. It's common. Many claim forgiveness and initially they might be very excited when they are converted or they make a profession of faith in Christ, claiming to be cleansed by Christ, and then time goes on. And they're no longer walking with the Lord. And you can't find a good word out of them. They just become bitter people. It's sad to say, but I've seen it happen way too many times. There's this initial excitement, kind of like the sower in the sea, the one who receives the word and immediately is excited. But then when trials and tribulation come along, they fall away and they can be found nowhere, anywhere. I'm reminded of a man at my work. This is a lot of years ago when I was a manager. And he was a charismatic guy. And so I had to fire him. He was a lousy worker. That's just the bottom line. So I had to fire him. And he was very quick to condemn me. He had all this, thus sayeth the Lord to me, and this type of stuff. But he was very energetic, it seemed like, with regards to the Lord. But then I bumped into him about a year later. And so I asked him, are you still walking with the Lord? And he just shook his head. And he says, no, I'm not. I'm not. I'm just no, I'm not there. He just didn't want to talk to me very long. What happens to us? Why do we stop going to church? Why do we turn our backs on the Lord? Why? Why do these things happen? Why does apostasy happen? I trace it all the way back to ingratitude. They stop. Looking upon God they stop looking upon Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and what they're trying to do is grab as much of this world as they can And you know what you come up empty-handed every time because you got to die one day you got to face God There's no way that you can grab enough of this world to satisfy your soul you have to I mean God made us in such a way that we can only be satisfied with the eternal and that is the Living God and there's the temptation for us brethren we live in a Western civilization, we live in Southern California, and there will be many things that will try to drag your attention away from God, and you will notice that you will not be a thankful person. You will be a person of ingratitude. That's why we need to keep coming back to the scriptures, keep coming back to what God has done for us. That's why Paul continued to tell those churches and reminding them of the great things that God has done with regards to the salvation of their souls and the sanctification of their lives, as well as their physical needs. He continues to bring that out before the churches so they would not forget and they would not fall away. Can a Christian fall away? No. But one thing I can say about us as Christians, Answer this truthfully. I want to hear it verbally. Have there been times of ingratitude in your heart? Think about it. Yelling at the wife. Yelling at the kids just because they're just not in step with what you think they should be. Or complaining about your boss. Or complaining about the church leaders. Or complaining about the weather. Whatever it may be. If you begin to complain and complain and complain, ingratitude. Again, you're complaining about things that you don't have as opposed to giving thanks for those things that you do have. And the primary thing is the salvation of our souls. This life is passing away. That house that you're saving for or that house that you have, my 401k plan. Guess what? It all burns up in the end. Can I take that with me to heaven? No, I don't want it. There's something a lot better in heaven than money. And that is God Almighty himself with his son. Remember this in the book of Revelation. The promise to the people of God is they shall see his face. They shall see his face. We will behold him in all his glory. And that is something for us to be thankful for and will keep us from ingratitude, we should be a people that is so quick. to give thanks, thanks to our children. If they've done a good job, our children thankful for our parents, thankful for one another, for brethren being faithful. There are many things for us to be thankful for. And when we begin to eliminate that word from our vocabulary, such as thank you, write it down. You're becoming hardened. ingratitude will abound. And there's nothing worse than seeing someone who gets old in life, becomes bitter and envious. No one wants to get within three blocks of them. But not so here with the Apostle Paul, I've mentioned him a few times, man in prison who would still praise God. And the Samaritan here is a good example for us. Fifthly, I would say seek the means just as these lepers sought the means. Imagine if one of those lepers decided to stay in his little house and say, you know, if the Lord is going to heal me, he can heal me under any condition, right? I don't need to be with you guys. I'm just going to stay home today. Would he have been healed? No, he would not have been healed. All I'm saying is seek the means of grace, private means and public means of grace. For those of you that are unconverted, I have no idea. If there are some here that are unconverted, if you're unconverted, keep coming to church. And I would say, pray to God that he might save you from your sins. Wear him out with prayers of salvation. But those of us that are in Christ, it is good for us to seek the means of grace, especially the public means of grace. All of us go through difficult times. I've just gone through an extremely difficult time with regards to my job. The only relief I found was when I would go to sleep at night because they couldn't get me there. And on the Lord's Day, because I turn my cell phone off on the Lord's Day, they couldn't get me there. And I found great relief and comfort through the preached word of God. and through our prayer meeting and just being with the people of God. Monday starts again. OK, it's the difficulties. This is what God has ordained. But I found my relief in the means of grace. In other words, I found my relief in the Lord. And some of you may have different trials that you go through. That's the amazing thing about the Lord, how he can take one message and one word and apply it to so many lives. That's the way the Lord is, because he's a good shepherd. But we should Do everything you can to seek the means of grace. Make sure you do your private devotions. You just don't get holy by accident. Privately reading, praying, using your prayer closet, being here at the public means of grace. That's how people grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. That's how we grow with a heart of gratitude and thanksgiving to our God is by being in the place where the word of God is preached. And as these men were where they should have been, they were healed. They were healed. One of them wasn't there. He was not going to be healed. Then lastly. Prejudice is a horrible thing. Horrible thing that these Jews. Would look so much down on Samaritans now. There is a truth here that the Jews went to went too far on. Proverbs 12 26 is the righteous should choose his friends carefully for the way of the wicked leads them astray. And when the Samaritans had disregarded the Jewish religion, yes, they should not have gone in and worship with them. They should have treated them differently, but they should never have showed them. They should have shown them some common courtesy and should have evangelized them just as our Lord did. But they had no dealings with Samaritans and it was out of prejudice, prejudice because of their religion. Now, I was raised a Roman Catholic. I hate the Catholic religion. Notice I didn't say I hate Catholic people. I hate the Catholic religion because it's a religion of self-righteousness that has sent many of my members, many of my family members to hell. Obviously, I hate that system. However, I don't hate my parents. I don't hate those that are Catholic, but I want to see them come to Christ. I'm not going to go to a mass, but I will be there for them in any way that I can and to help them any way that I can. They're my family. I have people at work that may be a Mormon or that may be a Jehovah's Witness or they may be a Jew. Do I shun them? No. Or maybe I might, you know, we have people there that are Asian or that are black or that are Hispanic. And I know I'm white. So what? It doesn't matter, because when it comes that day of judgment, it doesn't matter what color you are. Christ went right through all those cultural barriers. He went right through Samaria. He healed these nine plus that ungodly Samaritan One of the reasons that Paul the Apostle was persecuted because he went to the Gentiles remember that Jews were appalled at the very thought That a Jew had gone with a Gentile dog and prejudice is a horrible thing whether it's race. Look at our nation I watched this thing may be wept on on the on the slavery issue here in our country. It was horrible. It was horrible. I love what Spurgeon said when men asked him would you ever sit down with a slave trader at the Lord's Supper. He says I'd be sitting down with a manslayer. No way I would never I would never ever do that. It was popular back then to be white and to be against the whole issues of slaves or to to be against those I'm sure I got this right here. It was a horrible thing for those men at that time to stand against slavery. If you stood against slavery, you were in rough shape. You would lose your home. The KKK would burn your house. There's a lot of things that would happen. That's what went on in our nation right here. There's no way of getting around that. It was a horrible thing. Slavery. You know, they would never allow a black man to go in and use a restroom or to be in a church like this. Now, it's gone. We see here that Christ has broken all those barriers. And that it doesn't matter what race that we are. Prejudice is a horrible thing, a horrible thing for men to judge other men just by their race. And the greatest example that we have is Jesus Christ. He didn't care if he was a Samaritan. He didn't care about any man's color, but his soul was the most important thing. And so he dealt with the Samaritan in a righteous way. Prejudice also will keep you from praying. It will keep you from praise. And we have our prejudices. We may have our prejudices. We need to keep those and put those to death. We may have something against particular religions. Yes, we should. But we should never, ever shun ourselves from those people. We should be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us. The only reason that you are who you are is because of the grace of God. And so we should be quick to be of help to anyone. It doesn't matter what the religion is. But the races, I'm not saying we go in and be mixed in with those who have an ungodly religion that would be going against the scriptures. But we need to be wise with how we interact with those that maybe have a different religion. So we might be able to win them to Christ. I hope that made sense. Anyway, here we have a beautiful example of our Lord's healing. I want you to notice here again that 10 of them were healed, even though nine of them didn't give thanks, their healing was not revoked. But this is an example to us to be a people that are grateful, that are bound to Thanksgiving. Let's pray.