FROM ver. 11 of chap. 17 to ver. 8 of chap. 18, must be read together. We are still with the Lord on His way to Jerusalem. The historic structure of Luke delineates the different stages of His journey up to the city. Now, as he passed through Samaria and Galilee, He came upon a certain village, and He was met by ten lepers, taking the place in which their leprosy put them, standing afar off: We find in Leviticus the divine dealing with leprosy. It was set apart among the plagues that visit human nature to represent sin, and to show what God would do with it. The leper was first put outside the camp, and that is just where sin puts you and me. Have you any business or right to put a spot on the fair creation of God. No, you have not, and consequently to represent that the leper was put outside the camp, and his business there was to learn what he was. Your first business as a sinner is to learn that exile from God becomes you. So he lifted his hands and cried " Unclean, unclean." This, in Evangelic language, is called conviction. There he is left outside, and with whom? None in the whole creation but God. His friends and neighbors were put afar off. So none can meet our necessity but Christ. Then he was cleansed, brought back to the camp, and the priest received him back. This represents sin in its fruit and penalty, and the way in which God takes it up and deals with it. Now, they cry, " Master, have mercy on us." This was not the language of faith, but of misery, but the Lord has an ear for the voice of misery. He had an ear for the voice of Hagar, when she wandered in the wilderness, and now from their misery they howled out, "Have mercy on us," and He had mercy. " Go show yourselves to the priests," He said; and they went, and as they went they were healed. This was the proof that they had been in God's presence-that the Jesus who had spoken was none less than God Himself; because if we look again at Leviticus, we shall find that none but God had a right to speak to a leper. This just shows us that we in our sin can go to none but Jesus; if I go to any other, I have not learned what my sin is-that it shuts me out from all but Him. My necessity is such, that if I do not reach Christ I do not reach blessing. The nine lepers had not discovered this; only one read thehealing aright. Nine-tenths of those who hear a sermon will let it pass by. Another.will ponder it, and learn Christ. That was the tenth leper. He was stirred up to ponder what was done, and, instead of going to the priest, he returned to Jesus and laid his offerings at the feet of God his Savior. This was faith, " with a loud voice he glorified God." The other cry was misery. He had discovered who the stranger was, and he was down on his face, glorifying God. He who "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," at once goes in, and occupies God's relation to their misery. There is a difference between misery and faith. " Did you cry to me when you howled on your beds? " says the prophet. " No, you did not." Yet many a one begins his eternity of joy with the howling of misery. In ver. 20, we find Him again in company with the Pharisees. How exquisitely interesting it is to trace the moral scenery that constituted the path of Christ 1 Here they asked, " When the kingdom of God should come?" What a vain,-an insolent inquiry! What I mean is this: it was as if they had said, " Oh, we are ready for the kingdom,-the only question is, when the kingdom will be ready for us." At once the Lord answers the condition of their souls. "You must look for the kingdom within you, before you can get it around." Do not you vindicate the Lord in such words? You are never ready for the kingdom in glory, till you have the kingdom within you. And having thus disposed of their question, He turns to the disciples and speaks to them of the kingdom. The kingdom of God is a self-evidencing thing. Wherever it erects itself, it does not want a witness. Do the sun or the moon, the thunder or the lightning, want a witness? They bear witness to themselves. Are you conscious that God has set up His kingdom within you? Paul says, " The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Now, can you have such a thing in you, and not know it? It may be in feebleness. There is many a poor trembling soul whose tremblings are evidence to those who look on that it is in a better plight than it thinks; but wherever the power of God is, it make itself known. "The kingdom of God" is an expression meaning divine power. Having established this with His disciples, He says, "The days will come when you will desire to see the kingdom in glory, but you will not see it yet." What is the path of the church all through this age? A path of desire. Is your spirit traveling, day by day, a path of desire after your un-manifested Savior? "I am to pass through rejection first," He says, "and you must pass through it with me." The saint is desiring an absent Lord, and till He comes is the companion of a rejected Lord, filled with desire for His return, and filled with consent to be companion of His rejection. It is a rebuke, but let us welcome it; 'tis an excellent oil that will not break our heads.
Having presented these qualities, He goes on to show the state of things just before the Son shines out in glory. In the days of Lot you get a picture of what the world will be then; and also in the days of Noah. They will be going on as those that have found their object in the world. The Lord had given a sketch of what the saint in the age of His absence ought to be,- now He draws a sketch of what the world would be. Then, He says, it will be a day of discerning, as the day of Noah was. Was not Noah left when the whole world was destroyed? The story of Noah is to be revived in the closing hour of earth's history. There will be two in a bed-two in the field-it matters not, it will be a day of discerning. Like the pillar of cloud that was at once salvation to the Israelites and doom to the Egyptians, so the day of the Lord will rise like the sun with healing in his wings for one in a bed, while it will burn like an oven for the other. No wonder that they cried out, " Where, Lord?" Strikingly, He answers, "-Where the carcass is the eagles will be." He never answered a question curiously, but morally. So it is here. The day of judgment will make no mistake; it will not take one it ought to have left, or leave one it ought to have taken. We ought to say, "Am I ready? Do I know that if the Son were to break forth in judicial glory, I should not be part of the carcass!"
Then, in this connection, He gives the parable of the poor widow. " He spake a parable to this end, that they ought always to pray," not " men." Suppose I were practically the companion of a rejected Lord, what should I naturally be doing? Praying, to be sure, for strength to take my place till the master conies back. Then he shows how the judge lent a deaf ear to the poor widow. Now does not the Lord appear to do the same? It was the judge's wickedness-it is His glory, and His long-suffering. Why did the judge not answer? Because of his selfishness. Why does not the Lord come back? Because of His long-suffering. The Lord seems to pass by our prayers, as the judge did pass by the poor woman, but the judge passed her by because of his selfishness; the Lord passes by, not willing that any should perish. But He will avenge, and the book of the Apocalypse comes in to make good the word. The day is coming when He will avenge these quarrels, but look to yourselves. Take care, while you are crying out against others, that you be found right yourselves. Cherish and cultivate the hidden life of faith to which He has called you, and into which the Spirit He has given you would lead you..This completes the scene. Oh, if there is a thing to delight our hearts, it is to discover the personal, moral, and official glories of the Lord Jesus, and to see how Scripture harmonizes to bear this undistracted lesson to your heart and mine!