Well, you may recall from last week, I decided that given the subject matter of Leviticus 13, which was leprosy and lepers, I decided that I would take a brief excurses away from our studies in Leviticus to talk about how the Lord himself dealt with 10 men suffering from that horrible condition. So to that end, if you'll turn with me to Luke chapter 17, Luke chapter 17, and read with me as I read verses 11 through 19. Luke chapter 17. beginning at verse 11. Here Luke writes, while he, that is Jesus, was on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee, as he entered a village, 10 leprous men, who stood at a distance, met him, and 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. And 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. Then Jesus answered and said, were there not 10 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. Back in Luke 9 verse 51, Luke tells us that when the days were approaching for his ascension, Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem. Now, in the overall context of Luke's gospel, Luke chapter 9 marks a decisive turning point, not only in Luke's own narrative, but in terms of Jesus' ministry. Prior to this, Luke has written about the birth of John the Baptist. He's written about Jesus' birth and early life as the young son of Joseph and Mary. He's written about John the Baptist's ministry as the forerunner for himself. He's written about Jesus' baptism, his temptation in the wilderness, and the beginning of his public ministry. He wrote about Jesus' calling of his first disciples. He has written about the Sermon on the Mount, his miracle-working ministry, consisting in his healing of the sick on numerous occasions, his calming the raging sea, feeding the 5,000, and the transfiguration. All that is up to the point of Luke 9, 51, where we can see Jesus' ministry focus begin to change from an atmosphere of unbridled joy, an intense fervor over his recent arrival onto the stage of human history, being proclaimed as the long-awaited Messiah of the Jewish people, the liberator, the one who would come and set them free finally and forever from their political enemies, We see a decisive turning point here from all of that to a more somber part of his ministry. That time where he began looking forward to and planning his eventual arrival in Jerusalem, where it would all come to an end, as it were. For those of us who believe, it's only the beginning, but in terms of his earthly ministry, this is where it would all begin to coalesce, where the truth about who he was would come out, what he had come to do by way of dying on Calvary's tree. Many who had shouted Hosanna at his arrival, many who had followed him for his ability to feed them with physical food, many who had benefited from witnessing his miracle-working ministry, there were many who would also, at the end, be among those who would shout for his crucifixion. So the fervor's dying down, Jesus has set his eyes toward Jerusalem, and he's beginning to make his way there, leaving Galilee for one last time and traveling south to Jerusalem. As we read here in our text, somewhere between Samaria and Galilee, Jesus and his disciples entered a village to find 10 leprous men standing at some distance from them. Now, it's kind of hard to tell what exactly is going on here. In case you're not, you weren't able to be with us last week, we talked about leprosy a little bit. In case you're not familiar with what leprosy is, it's thought to have originated in Egypt. Our word for this disease comes from the Middle English word lepry, which actually refers to the scales of a fish. People who contracted this horribly contagious and incurable disease would develop a scaly, scabby skin that would completely disfigure them. It would destroy nerve endings. People were so afraid to go near people with leprosy that it was rarely treated. There was really no treatment that could be found anyway, but these people were rarely cared for in the way that they might have been cared for. sanitary conditions were nonexistent among these types of individuals. They always had to be doing this visual survey of their extremities to make sure all their parts were still there, because with the nerve-ending problems that developed with this disease, it was very possible that you would get hurt. You might even have a finger cut off and not know that you'd had a finger cut off, because you couldn't feel it. Once you got even a small cut, On one of your extremities, infection could set in. You'd never be aware of it. And it would just basically just rot your extremities away. And even in modern times, we've seen pictures of lepers in other places in the world where there's no care for them. We've seen them with no fingers, no hands, sometimes no feet, no legs, because leprosy has actually destroyed their body piece by piece by piece. It really was a very horrible thing to witness. Now you'll also notice that Luke says Jesus entered a village where ten leprous men were standing at a distance. We don't know what this village was in particular. This can actually mean a couple of things. One, it can mean that the lepers were actually outside the village because they had been forbidden to enter the village. That was very common. Lepers were known to hang out outside of villages and beg for alms and things of that nature because they were not allowed to go inside the village in their unclean status. That's one possible explanation. As Jesus and his disciples approached this village, there they were on the outside. before Jesus and his disciples entered the village themselves. Now, there's also another possibility. This could be a reference to a leper colony. Leper colonies were also common back then. If you had a few people with leprosy, they would be cast out of the city and sent to a particular place where they could commune together. in their condition. So we really don't know what this was, but we do know that wherever it was, they were standing at a distance. This was probably out of expectation, certainly probably out of respect for any passersby. And this is why we're told they raised their voice and yelled to Jesus to have mercy on them. And what happened when they yelled that? What happened when they asked Jesus to have mercy on them? Well, Jesus immediately replied by saying, go and show yourselves to the priests. And Luke says, as they were going, they were cleansed. Now, let me stop here for a minute because this is, I think, certainly worthy of special note. Why did Jesus send the men to the priest? Well, we talked about that from Leviticus chapter 13 in our last study. It's also carried on in Leviticus 14. The Levitical priests had been given detailed instructions as to what they were to do in the event that a leper was healed. In short, the leper was to approach the priests and announce that he or she had been healed. The priest would make an initial offering to the Lord of two birds, and then for the next seven days, the priest would be tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding the individual's alleged healing. Now, why would some people claim to have been healed when that was probably not actually the case? Well, there's always hope, right? You know, there were ways to tell whether they had been healed, and I'm not going to go back over all those, but if you're interested in that, go back and read Leviticus 13, and you'll find that, you know, if there's a bright spot, if there's not a bright spot, if there's a white hair growing in it, if there's no white hair growing in it, I mean, these were ways that they could tell whether or not it was a true case of leprosy, whether or not the leprosy that was determined to be real had actually been healed, and so on and so forth. They had these ways designated by the Lord Himself to determine the status of one's healing. Now, normally this investigation by the priest was actually to determine or to answer three basic questions. Number one, was the person really a leper to begin with? That's important to know. It would be very cruel to send someone out from among you if their only problem was eczema or something of that nature, a skin rash. Number two, if the person was in fact a leper, was he or she really cured of the disease? And again, they had ways of determining that, as I said. And number three, if the person was actually healed, what were the exact circumstances of the healing? If it was determined that the person had in fact been healed from their leprosy, On the eighth day, a lengthy process would commence involving more sacrifices and finally with the anointing of the healed individual with oil. Now, here's the rub. Rabbis have determined over the centuries that, and this comes from the meticulous way they had of documenting people with leprosy, people who had been healed of leprosy, people who had been sent away. with this condition. They kept meticulous records. And throughout all the records that we've been able to locate thus far from the rabbis in antiquity, there was never a single case of anyone being healed of leprosy. When the disease was determined to be genuine, not one case of anyone being healed of the disease. Now again, they had the procedure set up to determine whether they were healed or not, but apparently no one ever made the grade. No one ever met all the qualifications for healing. Since the days of Moses, Jewish rabbis separated miracles into two categories. First were the miracles that only God himself could perform. These are well documented in scripture. as well as in their other more secular historical accounts. These are things like the burning bush. These would be things like the pillar of fire by night that kept watch over them, the pillar of cloud by day that led them, the appearance of the angel of the Lord, the things that Moses was able to do as God enabled him to impress or depress Pharaoh, as it were. All of these things that God did by way of the plagues in Egypt, that led to the freedom of the Israelites from captivity there. All of these miracles were well-documented and they were all attributed to God Himself. Why? Because no man can do these things. There was another category. that was reserved exclusively for messianic miracles, miracles that only the Messiah would perform. And what was the first miracle on that list, strangely enough? The healing of leprosy. Leprosy was so unhealable Leprosy had presented such a problem among the Israelites that the rabbis in antiquity declared that if it's ever to be healed, it will be the Messiah who heals it, and only the Messiah. And again, they had copious records describing how time after time after time after time claims of healing from leprosy were untrue. It had not happened. And now in what is arguably one of the greatest displays of both his deity and his messiahship, in the way that God typically does things, Jesus heals 10 lepers and sends them directly to the priests. This means that the priests would have not one proof that Jesus was who he claimed to be all along, they would have 10 separate proofs. And this is typical of how God does things. He always does things over the top in order to make various points. Now, in this case, we know that all 10 weren't faithful in going to report to the priests, So really, maybe the Lord did this to prove a bigger point. And we're going to talk about that more as we go on. But the proof was there. Ten men, as they went, were cleansed of this disease. And this is a tenfold proof for the deity and the Messiahship of Christ. And notice how Jesus performed this miracle. He didn't do it with a touch. He didn't really even do it with a word. These men were healed of their leprosy by Jesus' intention. You understand that? It didn't take His laying on of hands. It didn't take a divine incantation over them. They were healed as they were going. Can you imagine what that might have looked like? You've got leprosy. You're covered from head to toe with scabs and oozing sores. You may have lost some body parts. And as you're walking, the scabs just start to drop away. As you're going, your skin gets clearer and clearer and clearer. Can you imagine the exhilaration they felt? as step-by-step they felt better and better, having been freed from the most debilitating effects of this horrible disease. Each one of them should have been overwhelmed, right? Each one of them should have cried out as exuberantly as they could muster. Each one of these men should have cried out with thanksgiving. Each one of these men should have stopped in his tracks, fallen to his knees, and praised God with every fiber of his being, and especially the Jews. Nine of them were Jewish. One of them was a Samaritan. Those who had been privy to the blessings of God so many times, those who had seen miracle after miracle after miracle, those who had been alive to witness the arrival of Messiah Himself, those perhaps who had even laid palm branches in His path, shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna, they should have been the ones to know that he was Messiah and he was worthy of their incessant praise. And yet, who do we find giving him that praise? It's the most unlikely one. It was the Samaritan. And need I remind you who the Samaritans were? The Samaritans were half-breeds at best. The Jews considered the Samaritans to be dogs, mongrels, mutts. Why? Because they were among those who had intermingled with the other nations. They were among those who had intermarried and what developed from this was this unworthy race of people who were not real Jews at all, but only Jewish in Remember Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well in Samaria at Sychar, and she's saying, our people say we worship in that mountain, your people say we worship in that mountain. There was even a dispute over which mountain they were to go to in their worship, the manner of their worship. The object of their worship might have been the same in word only. There was a great gulf between the Samaritans and the Jews. The Jews, as you also know, would often travel from north to south. And rather than going straight through Samaria, which would have been the quickest route through, what would they do? They would go all the way around, sometimes taking weeks to travel around Samaria, lest they get any Samarian soil on their sandals. Because just stepping on Samarian soil was enough to taint you, to render you unclean, at least in their own minds. And here we find Jesus not just once, but a few times going through Samaria. He even says, I must needs go through Samaria, talking about the encounter with the woman at the well. I'm sure that didn't please his disciples, but much less that he was going there because he had a particular woman in mind that he needed to speak to. That was also frowned upon. And yet in this case, out of the 10 lepers, the one Samaritan is the one who lavishes praise on the Lord for having taken away his illness. Now here's the most important takeaway from all of this. All 10 of these men obeyed Jesus. To an extent, they obeyed Jesus. They made their way to the priests. This suggests that at least at some level they had faith in His compassion and His ability to heal them. But as I've pointed out many times in many different messages that address the issue of faith, the faith of nine of these men was obviously not saving faith. How do we know? I mean, that's a pretty stiff charge to level at somebody that Yeah, your obedience shows that you believed on some level that Jesus could heal you, but is this a real demonstration of saving faith? It doesn't appear to be the case. It was more a settled intellectual knowledge or acknowledgement that Jesus could, on the basis of everything they had heard about Him, He could cure their physical sickness. But there's no indication that any of them were in possession of the kind or quality of faith that was present in this one who turned back to glorify God and to thank Jesus profusely for what he had done. You see, this Samaritan knew something that, by God's grace and for his purposes, the others had missed entirely. He knew that his physical healing was simply a precursor to having his real need met. There were many who believed in Jesus as able to heal the body. But there were few who saw him as able to heal the body and the soul. Obviously not content with just the physical healing, The Samaritan ran back, fell down, and glorified God with a loud voice. And again, he had every reason to do that, did he not? You know, I fear that most professing Christians in the world today take for granted what God has done for them in making them whole in Christ. Now, why do I suspect that that's the case? Well, just look at what passes for worship in churches today. Maybe in some people's minds even here this morning. What is worship? I've told you before that the word worship itself comes from a Middle English word, worth-ship, and worship is when we come together to express to God how worthy He is to receive our love, adoration, and praise. Again, I would dare say that in the minds of many, worship is seen as an opportunity to go and be with other people and receive all the things that make me feel good. All the things that make me feel fulfilled. All the things that make me feel warm and squishy. All the things that make me, me, me, me. I've said it before, I'll say it again. If you've come here this morning, to receive anything other than the tremendous blessing that is reciprocated when we worship Him in spirit and in truth. If you've come here for the sole purpose of receiving, feeling good about yourself, checking a box, doing anything that's intended to satisfy you, then you've missed the point entirely. We don't gather together here each Lord's Day because it's about us. We're to gather together each Lord's Day because it's about Him. And it's all about Him. But how often do we take for granted what Christ has done for us? How often do we rest on our laurels instead of ministering our gifts one to another as we ought to in this place for the equipping of the saints and the betterment of all of us collectively rather than asking ourselves individually, what can I do to promote the overall welfare of the body in which God has placed me, instead of thinking how I might minister my gifts and my talents and my abilities so that others around me are blessed, instead of considering others as more important than myself, as Paul urged the Philippians. We just take for granted that the Lord has saved us. We come and we enjoy our time together, yes. But I would say that in the average church, this church probably included, there's not nearly enough thought about what I can do for you. Just look around the room. Oh, we have plenty of people who wonder why others aren't doing enough for them. One of the chief concerns that we as pastors receive from people, and it's not outright, but there's this undertone there. Why is so-and-so not happening? Why do we not have this? Why do we not have that? What's the church doing about this, that, or the other thing? And classically, our response is, I don't know, what are you doing about that? We need more of this. Then provide more of that. Oh, well, me? I'm not particularly gifted. Then find someone who's gifted to do that and ask if they would be pleased to do that. And oh, by the way, find what your gifting and calling is and minister your gifts in such a way as to benefit others as well. It's that doer mindset instead of just the hearer mindset. People love to complain. But if you're not part of the solution, what are you? You're part of the problem. And I'm not poking any one individual in the eye. Some of you might be thinking, well, he's preaching right to me this morning. No. I don't have anybody in mind when I say this. This is such a common condition. It's not just common in the church. The church is a microcosm of the world at large in which we live, actually. People behave the same way in the church as they do in the workplace, and we've talked about the Pareto principle, the 80-20 principle, where 80% of the work in the world is done by 20% of those doing it. The same thing's true of the church. I'm just simply saying that's not how it should be, because if we truly valued what the Lord has done for us, much in the same way that the Samaritan man understood what the Lord had done for him, then our every moment together would be one of unbridled praise and unbounded service. We'd have an unquenchable desire, in light of what He has done for us, to do for each other. You couldn't stop us if we truly understood the value of the gift that we've been given in grace. Spurgeon once said this relative to the point I'm making. He said, we have sometimes heard complaints that at certain revival meetings, the singing was very loud and there was even shouting. Let the convert shout, brother. Let them shout. It's kind of funny because not too long ago, you know, we have a couple of shouters, right? And some of us who are more of the frozen chosen type, I mean, it does give you pause. It's like, oh, okay, we're doing this now. Brother, let me just be the first to tell you, I love it. If that's coming from a genuine place, if the Lord has so pricked your heart to cause you to have no other recourse than to shout glory, to shout hallelujah, to shout amen, then so be it. This is Spurgeon's whole point. We're not engaging in a dead activity. We've come to worship the living Christ. We've come to show Him how much He is worthy of our praise, our love, our adoration. And it's something that we should not be afraid to shout from the rooftops. Not in some perfunctory or some charismatic way of saying, I'm more holy than you are, certainly. but never begrudge someone who feels that urge to say hallelujah in the midst of God's people. In fact, I would probably encourage you more to ask yourself why you don't feel the same way. Even when I prod you occasionally for an amen, I'll say something really profound and people are like, amen, amen. I'm not saying this for my sake, but if you agree with something, say amen. This version goes on, he says, let the convert shout, brother, let them shout. They have good reason to shout, for Christ has made them whole. We have a great deal too much of respectable death about us. Let us have a little even noisy life. I would sooner by half hear the praises of God shouted with a loud voice than hear the mockery of praise in a tone that's scarcely to be heard, while some machine grinds out music to God's glory and men forget to sing or are drowned in loud bursts of wind from the instrument. Do not be ashamed to let it be known that you are saved. Praise the Lord with all your might, and if they say that you're excited, tell them that you are. And that you wonder if anybody could help being excited under the circumstances. Even the angels rejoice. It's true. And again, I'm not advocating for any kind of unbridled charismania. You know that. I don't want people jumping around and rolling in the aisles and laughing uncontrollably. You know, and you might well say, well, there's nothing biblical about any of those things, but you know what is biblical? Shouting praise to God. We should at least be as excited as this Samaritan man in whom Christ had done such a work of grace. There are many in churches all over the world who are more akin to the nine lepers who simply marched off as ordered with really nary a thought as to what had actually happened to them, which again is most likely an indication that while they'd been physically healed, they still lacked spiritual healing. Let me just ask you, what's your response to the internal work of the Holy Spirit, number one, in saving you, but number two, in sanctifying you. How are you growing more and more into the image of Christ every day, and are you grateful for that? Do you see this progressive growth in your life? Do you recognize, as the Samaritan leper did, that God has saved you from something far worse than leprosy? God has saved us from death. He has defeated death in the grave, and He has, as the forerunner of our salvation, He has become the firstfruits of the resurrection. If Christ be not raised from the dead, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, then we of all people are most to be pitied, because our faith is in vain. Now don't be afraid if you're still content to be among the frozen chosen. But I would hope that whereas you would say nothing before, you might at least mumble an amen here and there, here and there. I think we would all do well to take this Samaritan as an example of what it means to really praise, honor, glorify, love, and adore The one who has healed us. Now in verses 17 and 18, it seems as though Jesus is perplexed. Seems as though he's somewhat dismayed over the fact that over the fact that the 10 lepers were cleansed, only one of them would return to give glory to God. But was Jesus expressing concern or was he actually expressing something else here? I believe His questions were entirely rhetorical. In other words, He was merely using what had happened as yet another object lesson intended to convey a deeper truth to His disciples. In other words, we can actually take His questions and turn them into statements and I think get a better sense of His actual words. Jesus is basically saying, look, ten men were miraculously healed. And only one of the ten, and a Samaritan at that, returned to give glory to God. And I believe what Jesus is pointing out here is actually just an amplification of what we read in John 1, 11 through 13. Remember what's said there, and we see it happening all the time throughout Jesus' ministry. But in John 1, 11-13, we read, He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. These Jewish lepers had certainly benefited from Jesus, but only in a temporal way. Remember, the Jews were all about accepting the temporal blessings of God. They received them, and they received them with some modicum of appreciation. They were all too willing to be spared from certain death every step along the way during their exodus. They were all too willing to accept every provision that God cared to make for them in terms of His temporal blessings upon them. They were grateful for God's law, but they didn't obey it. They were grateful for His presence when He would make Himself known, and yet they didn't obey Him. They promised to obey Him, but they didn't obey Him. They were grateful for His covenants, even though they had no intention of keeping those covenants. So there's a very temporal aspect to the belief of the Jews throughout history. In fact, by the time we get to the New Testament, as Paul continues to say in Romans 9, 10, and 11, they're still recognized as a blinded people, a people given over to a stupor. A people who would not process things in a spiritual way because they could not process those things in a spiritual way. For centuries, as I said, they benefited tremendously from God in a number of remarkable ways, but not in the way that counted the most. None of them had benefited, at least none of the nine, in the same way as this Samaritan. benefited from God's grace and salvation. Now why do I make this point so strongly? Well, to anyone here this morning who might be classified as a nominal Christian, that is those who profess Christ but his work in them can scarcely be seen, Don't fool yourself into believing that because you enjoy God's temporal blessings... Did I do that? Don't fool yourself into believing that just because you enjoy some of God's temporal blessings that you're in a right relationship to him. This is as foolish as the unjust farmer receiving rain and thinking, God loves me because he allowed rain to fall on my field. Don't confuse God's omnibenevolence or his general goodness with saving grace. The two are very different. And don't consider the fact that you said a prayer, walked an aisle, signed a card, whatever you did in order to be in a right relationship with Christ, don't consider that to be the source of your salvation. Your salvation has nothing temporal about it. Your salvation, if it's real, will manifest itself in the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And if you don't have the fruits of the Holy Spirit evident in your life, then you're counting on those temporal blessings, and you're no better off than the Jews of old, who saw great value in God's temporal blessings, but had no interest in serving Him with their whole hearts. It's a real problem. The age of easy believism that we have all come up in, the age of decisional regeneration, has done far more harm, I believe, among God's professing people than probably any other heresy the church has ever faced. Now, why do I say that? Because normally, real heresy is not hard to spot. I mean, truth is truth. Something that's being said or done will either comport itself with the Word of God or it won't. And so, you know, thank God, heresy, if we're students of the Word of God, rightly dividing the Word of truth as workmen who need not be ashamed, if we're doers of the Word, not just hearers, if we believe that every word is breathed out by God and is profitable for all the things that it's profitable for, then we have what is necessary with the help of the Holy Spirit to determine truth from error. The insidious nature, though, of easy believism, this idea that I can be a recipient of God's blessing and not see any change in my life, again, is one of the most damaging things, one of the most damaging lies the devil has ever foisted upon the church. Now, there are some out there who will say, well, sounds like you're promoting a works-based faith. No. What I'm promoting is a works evident faith. An apple tree, a real apple tree, doesn't have to work at producing apples. Why? Because that's what it does. That's its nature. One who has been redeemed by the grace of God, given the indwelling Holy Spirit, will, by their nature, produce fruit. So it's not, and that's another lie that's been foisted on the church at large, this idea that in order to be saved, we have to produce fruit. Now, that's not how it works. If you are truly redeemed, you will produce fruit. If you're not truly redeemed, there's no hope that you'll ever produce any fruit. Don't be deceived. Well, this brings us to verse 19, another controversial part of this passage. Jesus says to the Samaritan who has been healed of his leprosy, stand up and go, your faith has made you well. What does that mean? Your faith has made you well. People have asked me that over the years. It doesn't mean what we think it means. And I know a lot of yours, you know, well, there's Pastor Tim again saying, whatever your scripture says, don't believe that because that's not really what it says. Well, it does say that, but that's not what that actually means. What does it mean to say that your faith has made you well? Well, first of all, we know from the rest of Scripture that if Jesus is saying that anything in this man was responsible, even in the smallest way of healing him spiritually or rendering him whole, as some of your translations have it, then salvation simply can't be said to be all of grace and all of God. That would mean, as, again, many people believe, that would mean that faith actually comes before regeneration. Faith precedes regeneration. We know that's not true. Regeneration precedes faith. Faith, according to Ephesians 2, 8 through 10, faith is what? It's a gift from God. Faith is not something that every person's born with, and they just one day wake up to the fact that they have it, and they're like, oh, I probably need to use that in the right direction. And so I'm going to use the faith that God's given me since birth, and I'm going to direct it toward Christ, and God's going to save me because I was smart enough to direct my faith to Christ. No. Instead, you were born dead in trespasses and sins, but God made us alive together with Him. How? through the gift of faith, by grace through faith. Again, if it was based on anything that we possessed innately, and it was duty bound for us to exert it in that direction in order to be saved, who can take credit for their salvation at that point? Me. So if Jesus means your faith has made you well, he might as well have said, you've made yourself well. But that's not what he means. The faith that Jesus is talking about is this same faith that Paul talks about in Ephesians 2. It's the gift of God. So what he's actually saying to the Samaritan is, the faith that God has given you has been the catalyst for your healing. God has healed you. I have healed you." Listen to Gil here. Gil says, this man's salvation is ascribed to his faith not as the efficient cause of it, but as that which was wrought in him and drawn forth from him and exercised by him in receiving this blessing from Christ, the author of it. And once again, don't divorce this from its larger context. Jesus has just instructed his disciples that the amount or quantity of one's faith is not what's important. Every believer has been given the same gift in terms of both quantity and quality. And here, through this miracle of healing, Jesus is demonstrating that particular truth. All this man needed in order to be healed was God-given faith and God's good pleasure to use that faith. as an object lesson with regard to its value. The main point of this passage is that only one in 10 of these lepers was an actual recipient of this kind of faith. Again, how do we know? Because it was this faith that compelled him to turn around and go back to the source of it and praise him for it. You're a person of faith this morning, true God-given faith. Every waking moment of every day, at some point, you should be overwhelmed with the thought, the need to thank the Lord for what he has wrought in you. To thank him profusely for sparing you from something far worse than leprosy, for giving you eternal life in himself. Now, why do I take this excursus this morning and go out on this limb, go down this rabbit trail? I think you can see why. It's fruitless to talk about leprosy in the Old Testament and perhaps develop an optimistic view that, well, the priest had this well in hand, there were methods and means set up whereby they could address these problems among the people. No, that's the whole point. God is once again, in the giving of his law, he's instilling in these priests a sense of futility, a sense of abject helplessness in their own ministries without the sovereign, personal intervention of the Lord himself. And again, we would do well to read the whole of the Old Testament in that light. Where is Christ? What is he either doing here or what is he promising to do? What is being foreshadowed by way of his later ministry? Don't just read it in a vacuum. That's why we have people in churches today saying, I can't eat pork or shellfish because the Bible says not to. It doesn't. It's astounding how many people don't get past the book of Leviticus, much less all the way to Acts chapter 10. Right? Anyway, next Lord's Day, Lord willing, back to Leviticus. But I've determined, I'm gonna, I know I've promised you this before, but rather than get down in all the deep weeds that we sometimes get into I think this kind of approach is going to become the norm. I'm going to have to bring in the light of the new to be shed on the old. Otherwise, we're just going to be in drudgery, right? And nobody would get time for that, right?