So our text this morning will be Mark chapter 1 verses 40 through 45. If you can't tell by now what we're going to be speaking of between the reading in 2 Kings chapter 5 and Mark chapter 1, we will be speaking about the healing of this leper. Now Christ overcame this man's incurable disease. how the great divine creator, who of course has all authority over all things, was able to heal such a disease as this, which in that day and age would have been incurable. This man would have been an outcast. He would have been cut off from the general culture and society of Israel. Some of that was due to just the nature of the disease, which was very grievous, but then also you have the fact that within Israel there were laws that put the lepers out. They could not remain within the walled cities. Now, some of that was not just to be mean to the lepers, not to just be nasty to them. It was for the sake of hygiene and health of others, because it was contagious, this type that he had, or what they believe he had, the scholars. So, it would have been not good for him to set up and live in the midst of everybody else. It would have caused much for others to become sick. But we find in this miracle, the amazing part of this is the power of Christ, that even this had no power over Christ's divinity. That we can see that in this state, this man had no hope being completely cut off. The physicians of the day had no answer for him, had no answer for his disease. So the greatest of minds couldn't heal him, but then we see what? We see the divine physician. We see the great physician. And it's recorded for us, friends. It's recorded for us so that we, of course, we're not sitting here with leprosy ourselves or some form of it. It is to point us to the fact that men are spiritual lepers. that they're spiritually cut off from the community of God, being in their sins. And in that state, of course, they are thoroughly sinners. They are complete from the top of their heads to the bottom of their feet. As this man was covered in leprous sores, they are just exactly that in their sin. And in so, they cannot enter into the community of God or enter into His communion with God, and so they're set aside. And there's no hope in and of themselves. There's no hope among their own kinsmen because they are tainted with this disease also of sin. So where do they find hope? Where do they find healing? Well, they find it in Christ. And so this is what we come to see. We come to see that that same creative power, restoring power, is the same today for men's spiritual leprosy. This is the emphasis. Though we see that in this, this account would have been a historical narrative of Christ's healing this man, we want to emphasize that for men today, it is a spiritual condition, and it needs to be resolved. And it can only be resolved as they have no hope themselves. And so, they must do the same as this man. That's part of this also. It's a wonderful example to come. And we see a way and a means to come unto Christ. We see this man, he comes and he does it in a certain fashion. He doesn't just saunter into Christ's presence and demand of Him to cure. He comes kneeling. He comes asking and pleading and earnestly as there's no help from Him elsewhere. He comes begging. And we see he comes on his hands and knees, says, prostrate, kneeling down. And in his voice we even see the case too. He says, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. It's not a denial, as we'll talk about in a moment. It's not a denial of Christ's power. It's a denial of Christ's willingness. Would Christ be willing? And we see how this man is, of course, met in this condition, in this state. He's met with compassion. Christ does not cast him off. Christ does not say, well, you go to the physician and heal yourself, or go seek the greatest medicines of the world. No, we see he's met with compassion and grace. And so, we want to say to all, if you see yourself as being thoroughly sinful and cut off from God, you have compassion in Christ. You can flee to Christ, you can come humbly before Christ and entreat him, and you'll be met in the same manner with compassion and power and a change. And this is what we see in this man's life. Now, first we want to look at verse 40. This is the leper's approach. As I was saying just a moment ago in the introduction, we see that He doesn't just come in. He's not like a king and He doesn't just come in and willy-nilly and say, well, you know, you're going to do this for me or I'm friendly with you and you're going to do this because of this or that or the other. No, He comes in a certain way. And really, this is an amazing account because He was not supposed to be coming to Christ at all. He was not supposed to be approaching another Israelite. without a clear declaration that he was a leper. Part of the law of the land was when they were leprous, as they went around, if they were approaching places where there was a population, they were to cry that they were unclean. And this was to notify any around them that they were leprous and that they would be deemed unclean if they came into contact And this, of course, uncleanness would be a religious functionality within Judaism, and they would have to go to the priest to give the appropriate sacrifice to be considered clean again. Those that would come into contact with the lepers. And so we see how sad this man's state is. As a leper, he was in this state, we don't know how long, We know that it was a skin disease, as you can read in other parts of the Scriptures. Leviticus has the part where Moses gives the Israelites the law on leprosy and all that was included in that that would have been understood in that day. It apparently afflicted the skin of these men. Some believe, if you look it up in a Bible dictionary, some believe it's Hansen's disease. But either way, it was very grievous. because as being deemed unclean by the religious rites of the day, the religious law, the ceremonial law, they could not live within the community. They couldn't worship God within the community, which of course we know from the scriptures was a very big deal to the Israelites. And so here's this man. He's cut off. And more so, this impacted his personal life. his economic life. He wouldn't have been able to live and work in a field of labor, to earn money, to support himself. He would have only been able to rely on others' benevolence. They were often beggars. As we see other places in the Gospels, the accounts, when we read of the blind and the lame, what do we often read of them? They're by the wayside, they're begging for alms from the people that pass by. So this was the same with the leper. They would have been relying on others' handouts to have life and to have bread and water and these things. And this is very sad. This is very grievous. We can see how it was impacting. He could not have a family. And even if he had a family before this disease developed, I'm sure he would have had to leave the family or else run the risk of giving this to his wife and children and having them succumb to it. In this state, he would have been completely consumed. This would have been lesions and sores on his skin that would have been all throughout his body. As it consumes his body, as it gets into his arms, his feet and legs, or his hands and feet, we know from reading in various dictionaries and other sources that it often would cause fingers and toes to fall off. appendages to fall off. So this man wouldn't have had a very high quality of life. He wouldn't have been very desirable to be around. It would have affected completely his whole life. But on this day, he meets with Christ, the one who can heal him. We don't know how he knew of Christ. We're assuming that maybe he heard other accounts of healings. The portion of text we read in the reading went further than just this account, but we see that within Galilee there, Christ was teaching and He was healing others, so maybe one of these others that was healed started to talk to others, and maybe this man overheard it. We do not know, but we know that He goes to the place that only He could find relief. where only he could get this relief because he could not give it to himself. He could not find other physicians. The religious leaders of Israel could not grant him this, but yet he could find it at the feet of Christ. Now spiritually, what do we see of this? Well, in our culture and society, we don't see much of leprosy. It typically is more somewhere in arid regions. For my short life on earth of about 41 years, I don't know that I've ever met a leper. I've read accounts of leper colonies and things like that where you have people that labor among people and they're often wrapped in cloth and linen cloth because of the sores and things. But I've never met somebody in real life. So you might say, well, what does this have to do with us? I'm not a leper. What do I have to do? Well, we are spiritually. We are spiritual lepers. We are consumed completely from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet in sin, fully. And this sin, of course, in us, of course, affects all parts. What does it affect? It affects our affections, our emotions. It affects our bodies. We're sick. We have frailties. We can get sick. There's death. It affects our activities. Because often we do harmful things to others. And really, we don't have to see how our relationship is so affected by these things. It affects our relationship with God, but then it affects our relationship with our fellow men. And you can just turn on the news for about 10 minutes and see that. We see what comes out of men's mouths. We begin to understand their motives sometimes when they do things to others. This is the sin. This is the leprous spirit. It's putrid and odious, loathsome. We cannot have a right when we have this leprous spirit. We cannot have a right family life. We cannot have a right relationship with our extended family. We are cut off from the community of God. We cannot worship God or right. These are all things that we share in common spiritually because we're sinners and leprous in our souls. But we see something with this man. He knew he was a leper. And that's what we need the scriptures for, the word of God. We need it to tell us that we're lepers spiritually, to open our eyes to it, that we may understand that we are fully lepers. He didn't just come to Christ and say, well, I have this one little spot on my hand. Can you take care of that? No, he comes kneeling and saying, if thou will make me clean. In one of the other accounts, it talks about he was full of leprosy. And so he would have been, the reality of that would have been very clear and distinct. He would have not been like most men spiritually that say, Oh, I've got a little good in me. I'm okay. No, he would have been thoroughly and fully afflicted. And so this is what drove him to Christ. He saw his state. He could not deny the disease and what it was doing to him and how it was ravaging him and how it affected all parts of his life. So in this, we see that he went to the right place. He went to the, as Christ is labeled in another part of the Gospels, the great physician. He went to the one where he could seek and have true cleansing. So what now? We see the leper's cure, and this is verses 41 through 42. We see that he comes, And he comes in a certain way. He comes kneeling down and begging. And in this, we see that he comes low to the ground. What does this tell us, friends? What does this tell us? This tells us that in this state and in this condition, he saw himself as he truly was, which then drives him to Christ for healing. And he does it in a humble way. He comes low. He comes not thinking highly of himself, that he was deserving of this healing. And it also shows his earnestness and his sincerity. Because he was not going to get healing from anywhere else. He was not going to find it anywhere else but with Christ. And he pleads earnestly And of course, his confession is, we see that he believed that Christ was the only place to receive this cure. Is this you today, friends? Is this you? Do you see your state before God as being completely and thoroughly sinful? Then go to Christ. Plead for Christ to heal you. In that, that's believing that Christ is divine and can do so. and seeking at His hand what only He can give. Because this man had no hope outside of this. He knew that. He was hopeless. Where else could he go? And as we said in the introduction, He comes and at the end of the statement there, He says, Thou canst make me clean. And on the surface, it seems as if he's doubting Christ's power and doubting Christ's ability to do so, but that's not the case. In the Greek, you can see that it's a doubting of Christ's willingness, not the power that he has to cure his disease. So he doesn't just demand, he doesn't just say, he says, oh, Lord, if thou will, you can make me clean. Not that you don't have the power, that you might have the power, but no, you have power, it's whether you wish to exercise that power or not. And this, friends, is wonderful. It's wonderful because we see that even in our own sinful state, we can plead to Christ, and we will receive, of course, the same reception. He will not cast us off. Now, that's the leper in and of himself and how he comes, and now we wish to see his cure. I got ahead of myself earlier, but now we're on verses 41 and 42. And so Jesus moved with compassion. So he doesn't just cast him off, he doesn't just walk by him and ignore him. No, we see he's met with compassion. And the wonderful thing of this, friends, is this is not what the religious leaders of the Jews would have done. They probably would have beaten him and told him to get on and to get away from them because he's unclean by religious rights. But no, Christ, the great high priest himself, the great physician himself said, no, I'll have compassion on you because you've come to me. He's not sent away. And that's the beautiful thing. He receives him. And we can expect the same reception as if we're seeing ourselves as poor sinners. He receives graciously and compassionately. We ask for Him, while He's calling on others, to call upon us. Is that your prayer today? Is that your entreaty to Him? That's a wonderful hymn we sung earlier about that. If He's calling on others, don't pass us by. And so this man comes and kneels, he's received, but we see something even more astonishing, more so than just him saying, I will make thou clean. We see, how do we know that his compassion is truthful? We see that it's exhibited in a touch. So he comes and he sees him, has compassion, and he touches, he reaches down and touches the man. And what a wonderful thing. That first touch this man received was that from Christ and the healing of his leprosy. How long had this man went? How long had he not received any touch from any other? And the first touch is from Christ himself. And I can only see in my mind's eye the man there groveling at Christ's feet and Christ spins down and touches him and raises him up and says, you're clean. I've cleansed you. It's gone. And that reminds us, friends, of how Christ himself left the glories of heaven to stoop to his fallen people. To stoop and become robed in the likeness of sinful flesh, to live on this earth, to be afflicted with the things that we're afflicted with, the hunger and thirsting, the fatigue, the pain and suffering. And then what happens, he goes to the grave and is raised again on the third day. And he did so, he became like us to make us like him. And that's the wonderful thing of this, the compassion and grace of our Savior, that he would do such a thing to us, that he would buy us and seek us and then cleanse us of our sin, of our leprosy. And this is how he's ready to receive poor sinners. So we see he's met with compassion, but we see also he's met with surety. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was cleansed. So the leper's uncertainty was met with God's certainty. There was no Well, half of you are good, half of you have been healed, you're good. Or it may clear up in a few weeks, or go away and maybe it might clear up. No, immediately and fully. And that's what we receive in our own sinfulness. We receive full pardon when we come in conviction and repent and believe. And He pardons us and washes us clean. and were then restored to the community. And that's what we see here. We see his restoration unto the community of Israel. The old life is now gone, the old leprous life, the being separated to being outside, to now being able to go back to that which he knew before, or maybe had never known. Even if he had maybe a wife and children, how glorious that would be to be cleansed and then be able to go back to your home and for them to be received and to be restored again in newness. And so this is that new life that we see even following conversion of sinners. But he is to be given instruction. He's not just left to himself. He's to, there's something more he must do. So Christ now gives him instructions, and we see the leper's instructions in the last two verses, 43 and 44. And Christ straightly charged him, and forthwith sent him away. And saith unto him, See thou say nothing to any man, but go thy way, showing thyself to the priests, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. So Christ gives him a directive. He's not just going about his life and cheerfully go on, which of course was a great grace of his receiving this healing and that he could go back to normal life, but now he's given something more. He's to fulfill the law of the land. So Christ doesn't try to set himself up as some rebel or a separate authority. He says, these things were dictated by God to Moses for the law of the land. Go fulfill them. He was to go and give an offering. It was two birds and then a lamb. And there was a period of time that he was to sit under the priest in Jerusalem that they could monitor his condition to make sure it wasn't going to spring back up. And then once that time frame was met and the appropriate sacrifices were given, he was then pronounced clean. That would have been his certificate of cleansing to the people. And it wouldn't have been just this man running around stating things that were not truthful. He would have an authority within the land. That's what Christ wanted him to do. And some of that was, of course, to make sure that the civil leaders were not going to see Christ as some rebel or usurper. That was not what Christ was intending to do early in His earthly ministry, nor throughout His ministry. So He did ask this man to go do these things. And as far as we know, He kept that. But we do see that He did something that He was also not told to do. He went about telling others. Christ told him not to go tell others. Now this is a very curious thing. Why did Christ do this? you would think Christ wouldn't publicize so others would come and know to come. And of course, many might say, well, isn't this against the gospel? We're told to go take the gospel unto those who do not know Christ and to teach and bear witness. So why is this man being told? Well, some of this was because Christ didn't want it to be noised about as if he was some earthly miracle worker. some earthly healer. That was not his intent. He wanted people to understand the premise of why he came for the spiritual kingdom, for the kingdom of God, to establish it outside the realm of the physical. But in this, this man, as he comes in this new life, He's now restored that which he previously did not have. He's now restored to the community of Israel. He can now go do those things that other Israelites could do. He's now a part of that community. He can now start a family if he did not have one or be restored to his family. But then we see also that in this he's given directives. Well, this is a model to us in our own lives. First, that under new life, after conversion, that we're now under new management. We're not given to just going about life as it was. We're not given to following after our own hearts or our own emotions and to how to live. We have a Word. We have God's Word. And so we see as Christ being the Word of God, he gives us man directives of what to do after he's cleansed and how to do that. And so, friends, if you are new to the faith, you have the Word of God. We're to follow after what he tells us in the precepts and the laws that he gives to us. We're not to be our own entities. But we see also with this that he goes about and publishes it, well, it causes Christ some concern because now he can no longer enter into the cities to minister. Now, providentially, that was not going to damage or keep any of those away that were to come to him for healing, but it did cause some concern as he could no longer enter into the places, had to keep without. So there was no way for him to go forward into the cities. But we see that through this man's emotions and this heightened emotions, which to be honest, who could blame him? This was a very great miracle. He was completely cleansed and this awful disease was gone in but a second. But he was also given directives. and His emotions shouldn't have overruled that. And so we must look to Christ for these things and to see that we have instructions in the Word, but we find also within the grace of Christ that there's still more grace. We're not perfect. This man was not perfect. He went against the counsels of the Word of God, went about blazing these things, but then we see In our own witness, in our own things of coming to Christ, we see that even we're not made perfect, and sometimes we do things that are contrary to the Word of God, but there's still grace. There's plenty of grace for our falterings. There's plenty for us to go after and to have repentance and to have those things pardoned of us when we do sin, when we do go against those directives and instructions we're given. So we see, in this wonderful example to us, what a wonderful example, though we may not be afflicted physically with leprosy, we may not know men that have leprosy, or how grievous it might actually be, or those sores and how it spreads throughout a man's body, and the continuing on of it in the body, or the painfulness of it, But we know that spiritually, we can see all around us a world that spiritually is cut off from God. They're spiritually afflicted by sin. All parts of the man, his mind, his heart, his affections, his activities, his relationship to God, his relationship to other men, all of this is tainted by his spiritual leprosy. and it causes great harm, it's great and loathsome, especially to God. But yet God has sent the Great Physician. God has sent His Son, who came and lived a perfect and sinful life, and was there present with this man when he was healed, who provided the healing because of his sinless and perfect life. And so today we have to seek him at the same thing. We have to seek him as this man did. He in himself saw himself as he truly was. He was deeply affected by leprosy. There was no hope for him. There was no hope within the nation of Israel. There was no hope in the rites and the offerings and those things. It was only after he received true healing that those things meant anything. And so this man is a great example to us all spiritually. And so we must come as we see ourselves in afflictions of our sin, afflicted by our sin, thoroughly sinful. We must come and seek relief, sweet relief at the feet of Christ. We must come humbly, acknowledging that we're sinful and that only He can provide a true cure. And as we come, we believe that He has power to enact this cure and that it's only His willingness to cure us. But we see, we have great confidence that right here, He received this man in compassion. and even touched him, even reached down to him and touched him, the first touch he would have received in however many years or months or however long he had been afflicted. He had that healing that only could come by Christ. And so there was now a new life, a new life under a new leadership, under a new Word, under new instructions in how to live that life. And so we have the same. After true spiritual healing, we have the Word of God to give and guide and direct us. So, see your sin, seek healing from Christ, beg for His help, and believe that He has the power to heal you. And it is only in Christ that we can receive this, friends.