“And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: and they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, He said unto them, Go, show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: an he was a Samaritan. And Jesus, answering, said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.” — Luke 17:11-1911And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: 13And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 14And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. 15And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? 18There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. 19And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. (Luke 17:11‑19).
WE have in this simple narrative very sweet instruction as to the way of blessing for souls. The scene has great simplicity about it, and God has recorded it as illustrating the way in which souls, if they are to get blessing at all, must get it, now. We have simply to listen to the word of Jesus, and the moment eve obey His word, blessing comes down.
These ten men, who met the Lord, had one characteristic, they were lepers, and lepers whom none but God could heal. The ravages the disease had made might be more or less marked, perhaps different in every case, but they had one common characteristic, ―they were all lepers. Leprosy, in Scripture, is used as a type of that terrible disease which afflicts the whole family of man, ―Sin. You, my friend, are a sinner, and I want you to look fully in the face what is involved in being a sinner.
Where did their leprosy put these men? They “stood afar off” I grant you they had a sort of fellowship, or companionship, but it was fellowship in sorrow, companionship in suffering, and there can be no comfort in that; but such is the terrible effect of sin on men’s souls, that they treat the fact of their being sinners with levity, because they think every one else is as bad as they are.
These lepers dared not company with any but lepers. In Israel, according to the law of God, the leper had to own he was unclean. The priest, who stood for God, had to discriminate if he were a leper or not; the priest it was who had to pronounce him unclean; and when the priest had thus pronounced him a leper, and unclean, the leprous man had to own his state, ―had to confess it openly. And what do we gather from that? That God would have every sinner take his true place, ―own, and confess, that he is a sinner.
You are a sinner, my reader, and Scripture calls you a lost sinner. Unless you have been brought truly and really to the feet of the Lord, you are, and God addresses you as such, a lost sinner! Have you ever owned it? “No,” you say, “I never owned I was lost; I never thought I was lost.” I ask you, Are you saved? “No,” you say, “I could not take upon myself to say that.” Then, my friend, God sees but the two classes, ―the saved and the lost, the clean and the unclean, and you are yet in the latter class.
You and I must subject ourselves to what God says. God has spoken, and we have to hear what God says, and act accordingly. He tells me, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” He tells me, too, that “The Son of Man is come to seek, and to save, that which was lost.”
All have sinned, all are condemned, all are lepers in that sense, but there is this mighty difference, some are saved, and they know it. And how do they know it? Because God has said it, and they have believed him.
These ten men were alike in this, they were all lepers, and they all knew they were lepers, and had taken the place of lepers, outside, apart from everyone else; and there they must abide, till God Himself restored to them the privileges they had lost.
Do not think, my reader, that man can be restored to an earthly paradise, and the innocence that Adam forfeited. But Christ Jesus did a work, whereby God is justified in taking the sinner out of the place of degradation and death, in which he is, and putting him, not into an earthly paradise, but ―like the thief who died on the cross, believing in Jesus into the paradise of God, and not only putting him there, but putting him there in righteousness.
I find, then, these men, conscious of their condition; not daring to draw near, they “stood afar off.” And where is the sinner? Afar of from God. Christ Jesus brings the soul nigh; but if you are still in your sins, my reader, you are “afar off” from God.
“And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus Master, have mercy on us,” That is a sweet word― mercy. Do you feel your need of mercy? Oh, what a cry to meet the ear of that blessed One, who said, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” He delights in showing mercy. The last thing God does is to judge. Judgment is His “strange work;”
and therefore, when these poor afflicted souls cry “have mercy,” it was the very thing Jesus came to do, ― to show mercy, to meet man in his misery.
The very thing these men want, is the very thing Christ came to bring. They said, as it were, “Lord, you know our case, our state of misery, but there is that in Thee which can meet our case.” And is there not something in Jesus that can meet your case, my reader? Oh yes! If you are feeling your need, turn this day to Jesus, and what will you find? Mercy in abundance. At first, when they found they were lepers, given up to a terrible and life-long malady, that no one could meet but God, no doubt they felt something akin to despair; but they heard of Jesus, they came to Jesus, they stood “afar off” in their wretchedness and leprosy, and cried to Him for mercy.
And you, my reader, have a malady, not only life-long, but eternal; a malady that will make eternity a torment, unless you turn to God in time. Now is the moment when you may taste His mercy, and find He has nothing but mercy for you.
You may well be afraid to meet Him by and by; to meet Him at the great white throne, when He fills the seat of judgment. But now, He holds the scepter of mercy, so you have nothing to fear. If you come to Jesus today, He will have nothing for you but blessing, nothing but mercy.
“And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go, show yourselves unto the priests.” He saw them. He looked upon them in their misery. Have you, my friend, ever known what it is to have His eye upon you?
What is the meaning of His saying, “Go, show yourselves unto the priests?” In Leviticus 14, which gives to us the interesting record of the law concerning the leper, we read, that if God in His mercy healed a poor afflicted creature, the law of the leper was this, he was to go again to the priest and show himself, and the priest was to look on him; and if it was clear that God had healed the leper outside the camp, the priest said he was healed; and then there were certain things to be offered for his cleansing.
There were to be brought for him “two birds, alive, and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet and hyssop;” and one of the birds was to be killed over running water, and the priest was to take the living bird, and the scarlet, and the cedar, and the hyssop, and dip them in the blood of the bird that was killed over running water, and sprinkle upon the man, who was to be cleansed, seven times, pronounce him clean, and then let the living bird loose into the open field.
The scarlet is a figure of human glory, and the cedar of human grandeur, while the hyssop is the type of human baseness. That is, we have man in every shape and form, in his elevation and in his baseness, ―all must go down into death. The priest takes all these, and the living bird, and dips them in the blood of the slain bird. The living bird and the slain bird are both figures of Christ. Why are there two birds? you ask. Because one would not have sufficed for this type. One must be killed, for there must be death, and the scarlet, the cedar, and the hyssop, are all put out of sight in the waters of death; and the living bird, let loose into the open field, is the type of resurrection.
But if you had seen that living bird flying away, what would you have seen on its body? The marks of death, the blood of the slain bird. The living bird, flying away into the open field, bore with it the marks of death; and if I look up into heaven to-day, what do I see? The fifth of the Revelation tells us, “a Lamb as it had been slain.” Yes, Jesus bears for evermore the marks of His passion and of His death,
The resurrection of Christ, since He bore my sins, shows that those sins must be gone, for He has not carried them into heaven with Him. The living bird, let loose, told that the leper was clean, the priest pronounced him clean.
The Lord, we observe therefore, says to these men, “Go, show yourselves unto the priests.” He recognized the existing state of things, for His death had not yet set it all aside.
Here the faith of the ten lepers came in. (It is Christ’s blood that cleanses, it is your faith that lays hold of it.) If they had not believed His word, they would not have gone; but the moment they had faith in the Lord, and obeyed His word, that moment they were cleansed. “And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.”
He says to them, as it were, “Have you the faith to leave my presence, and go to the constituted authority, trusting my word? “They had. If they had looked at themselves, they might have thought, we are as bad as ever, what is the use of going to the priests; but they took Jesus at His word, and, as they went, they were cleansed. Cleansing was the fruit of faith; and have you, my reader, faith in the Lord Jesus today? If so, you are cleansed from every stain of sin.
Then what have we after? Nine went on, but the tenth, when he found he was cleansed, could not go any farther, because he felt, ― “I have had to do with God. The One who bade me go to the priests must be Jehovah Himself, for none but God can heal the leper!” and his heart was attracted to Christ. Do you take Him at His word Do you see it is His work, His shed blood, that has cleansed you? Oh! then, may your heart be attracted to Himself, to feel you must be near Him.
This Samaritan turned back. I do not believe they had gone very far before this healing action took place, and he turned back at once, and “with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face.
at his feet, giving him thanks.” Have you, dear reader, ever turned round to the Lord Jesus, and given Him thanks for saving you? Do not, I beg of you, keep company with the nine. The nine went on, they had no thanks for Christ.
How sweet for the Lord Jesus to hear a soul thus turn round, and praise, and thank Him! If you have never gone, and given Him thanks, I beseech you to go now. Would you be among the nine? I will show you what you will miss, if you are among the nine.
Jesus says to this man, “Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.” That is the way the Lord confirms the faith of every soul that simply looks to Him; and if you have been brought to rest your sin-stained soul on Christ, this is what He says to you, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” It is not thy feelings, nor thy prayers, but “thy faith.” And if you ask how my cleansing has taken place, the two birds show it. The death and the resurrection of the Lord, are the two great pillars on which the whole superstructure of Christianity rests.
Christ Himself is the object of the faith of your heart, and when you believe the word of Christ, ―turn to Christ,―immediately you get saved, get blessing but you do not get the full cup of joy the Lord would have you drink, unless you are attracted to, and turn again to Himself, and hear Him say to you, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.”
Were not all the others cleansed? They were; but I believe they were not fully happy. I believe they lived in fear lest their leprosy should come back again. They had not heard His own voice say, “Thy faith hath made thee whole; “and that is the case with many souls now. They have doubts, and fears, and uncertainties; they have not gone back to Him, and fallen at His feet, and thanked and worshipped Him, and heard His own voice say, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” They have not been so attracted to Him, that they have been turned into worshippers.
Let me urge on you, my reader, if you have never yet drawn near to Him as a sinner, with a cry for mercy, draw near now and if you feel He has had mercy on you, draw yet nearer still, and give Him thanks. For when these men first cried to Him, where were they? Afar off. And when the Samaritan returned to give Him thanks, where was he? As near as he could possibly be, viz., at His feet. Do you ask, Can I get as near as that to Him? You can; you can get near enough to Him, to hear His own voice whisper in your ear, “Arise, go thy way, thy faith hath made thee whole.” W. T. P. W.
NEVER permit what you do not understand to upset what you do; for what you do understand is founded on knowledge, whereas what you do not understand is connected with ignorance. Bearing this simple, but patent rule of thought in view, would save skeptical minds from an immensity of trouble and needless distress. W. T. P. W.