Luke 17:11-49.
My object in directing your attention to this passage of Scripture is to bring before you the three conditions of soul, or rather that which answers to the three conditions of soul we find depicted here, This Scripture, and what it teaches, is suited to all; it is suited to the most advanced child of God, and suited to the one on whom the light of the truth of God is only just breaking, for we have here the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and what is like this for the heart? Supposing you were challenged in the street as to the greatest favor bestowed upon you, you could at once say, the most wonderful favor, the greatest blessing that could be conferred, is that God should draw aside the veil from His glory above and give to your soul the personal known revelation of Christ in Heaven!
It is Christ, then, in all His blessedness that we have shown to us in this short narrative. The Lord Jesus is approaching the cross, knowing what is before Him, knowing that the enmity of man led on by Satan will end in this—still His face is set as a flint to go up to Jerusalem. On His way to Jerusalem, on His way to the cross, he passed through Samaria and Galilee. Mark it! Every word of Scripture has its own deep meaning. What was Samaria? Samaria was the place of mixed worship! I need not say that even in this day there is that which approaches Samaritan worship. Galilee was the place of complete rejection): we find the Pharisees saying to Nicodemus, “Search and look, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” But Jesus, God’s own beloved Son, on His way to the Cross, passes through these two despised districts, and you will find, in the end of Matthew’s Gospel, that after his resurrection He is only to be found at Galilee.
“As He entered into a certain village there met Him ten men that were lepers” (Luke 17:11-2011And 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. 20And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: (Luke 17:11‑20)). I would have you remark who this was that was thus walking this earth in tender grace and pity, namely, the one who in His own person was the Christ, “over all, God blessed forever,” the Creator by whom and for whom all things were created. The everlasting, the blessed Son of God was here in the form of a man. I want you to go back one moment in your hearts to the morning of creation, before sin had brought its withering blight upon this world. I want you to think of the moment when God looked on Adam as he came fresh from His own hands, looked on the partner He had formed for him, and could see these creatures of His own making without a blemish, and could pronounce them “very good.”
The one who walked this earth in lowly love was the one who looked on Adam in Eden as He had created him, perfect; and now how things have changed! He goon to this village and is nit by whom Ten children of this very Adam, covered over with a disease, loathsome and incurable, which could only be met by the direct power and interposition of the living God. Let the light of the morning of creation fall on this circumstance, and think what He must have felt! Oh there is nothing so delivers us from self as meditating upon what He passed through in this world; getting to see things as He saw them, to feel things as He felt them, to measure things as He measured them. Think what He, the Creator, must have felt as He gazed on these men in all their disease, misery, and defilement— “ten lepers!” Why do you think it speaks of ten and not of nine or eleven? Surely it has its own blessed solemn instruction, specially for people who have been characterized as being a legal people. When God gave from Sinai the measure of His claim from man, how many commandments did He give? Ten. Ten was the number that expressed the measure of God’s claim from man when he stood before Him on the ground of his own righteousness. In Matthew 25, the kingdom of heaven is compared to ten virgins. In Numbers 14:22,22Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; (Numbers 14:22) the people tempted the Lord ten times. That is, the people who professed to stand before God in their own righteousness tempted Him “ten times.” I have no doubt “ten” is the number that represents the measure of man’s responsibility before God, on which ground man has absolutely failed, and that is what you and I must be brought to own.
Blessing is now no longer proposed to the sinner on the ground of what he can be for God; but is freely ministered by the hand of Christ to all who cast themselves on Him.
In this narrative of the ten lepers we have not only blessing, but degrees of blessing. The moment a soul has entered the pathway of blessing, Satan’s one desire then is to lead that soul to be content with a small measure of blessing. I ask you, what are you going in for? A small measure of blessing content with knowing you are delivered from hell and that heaven will be yours at the last? or are you going in for the greatest measure of blessing God can bestow upon you now in this world? I answer for my blessed Master; I tell you affectionately from Him there is nothing will so delight His heart as to lead you into the fullest blessing you can possibly enjoy on earth. You had a bright yesterday, you have had a brighter today, do not stop at that, go in for having a still brighter tomorrow.
I press upon you there are degrees of blessing, there are stages in that pathway which ends in eternal glory.
Verse 13. There was one fine characteristic about these ten men in their misery, and it was this, they knew what their condition was, and fully owned it. And has there not come a moment in your history when Divine light broke in on your soul, and what was its first effect? It manifested your condition, your sins, your utter unsuitableness for God. But then there is much more than this:
“Jesus the Lord our night broke through
And gave us light divine.”
What does this light from the glory, this “Gospel of the glory of Christ” mean? It is a message from God in the glory, proposing to contribute to man from the glory, but setting aside in man all that is unsuitable to the glory. Then if all that is unsuitable to the glory of God must go, I say, both root and branch must go, for everything in me is unsuitable to the glory, therefore everything must go; and faith can say more; faith can say everything is gone. Where? In the cross and grave of Christ! That is what faith accepts on God’s testimony.
“And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Go back in the memory of your souls and look at these ten men in their misery, picture them, ten lepers, and this blessed Son of God, and, who breaks the silence? Here are ten men in their misery meeting Jesus, and Jesus meeting these ten men. They break the silence, and what is the first word that falls from their lips? Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! not God merely, but Saviour. Do you not think the Lord had a joy in hearing it? I believe He had a twofold joy on earth, one which was never interrupted, the joy He had as a dependent man in His Father, and the other which was often interrupted by proud independent man. He came freighted with all that could meet man’s need for time and eternity, and the heart of man was closed against him, but wherever He met a heart to whom He could communicate the blessing, He had a joy in doing it, which He never could have had in glory.
I think it is beautiful to see these lepers owning their need of mercy, and the moment you own your need of mercy you own you have not one particle of claim to the favor of God; it is all pure grace.
In this short narrative you find three associations. 1St, the association of evil; 2nd, the association of blessing, and 3rd, the association with the Blesser, which is the highest character of blessing that can possibly be known on earth or in heaven either.
These ten men had been living in the same common association of evil, and now pass by the same pathway, the same channel from the association of evil to the association of blessing. You ask, perhaps, is there one way, one channel—what is it? Define it! I will in a few words. It is the obedience of faith! Faith is always obedient, unbelief is always disobedient. It is faith’s obedience to the word of God that takes a soul out of the association of evil into the association of blessing.
“Go show yourselves unto the priests,” the Lord said to them; it was only the priest in Israel who could pronounce upon the leper in his defilement and in his cleansing, hence it would have been of no use to go and show themselves to the priest, unless they believed that some change would take place, that the work of cleansing would, in fact, set in; therefore it was faith only in the word of the Lord that could take these men to the priest. They did not look at themselves, they did not reason from what they were to what they should be when they got to the priest, they obeyed the word of the Lord, and as they went they were cleansed. Faith’s obedience brought them to this point of being cleansed. What a moment in their history! When they knew they had passed from uncleanness, defilement, and unfitness for the presence of God, into a condition in which they could stand before Him, and this, simply and solely, through “the obedience of faith.”
You must own there was a visible break between the two conditions—First, they were partakers of one common lot of misery, and now by “the obedience of faith” they all passed into one common lot of blessing from the hand of Christ.
And now let me ask you, is not that where souls often stop; knowing the stains of sin have been washed away by the blood of Christ, and that their title is clear to everlasting glory? You know it is. We get one brilliant exception to the rule here. It is not often that you get a whole congregation to rise up and say, “Whatever our past has been, we go on from this day forward, not content to have the blessing alone, but to be found with the Blesser also;” you do, however, get one here and there to say this.
There was only one here out of ten—one solitary exception—and what did he do? “He turned back.” What did he turn his back on? On formalism, on ceremonialism, on Judaism about to be judged, on all that was empty, all that was hollow, all that was pharisaical and unsatisfying to His soul. And what did he turn his face to? To a living Christ! Do you think it was an easy thing for him? I believe that man never had such a conflict before, and never had such an one after. Do you think Satan let him go easily? There were nine against one. No doubt they opposed him. No doubt they said to him, Why go back? why not go on with us to the priest, is it not Jehovah’s priest? No, he seems to say, “I must turn even from Jehovah’s priest to the one who has done all for me, to the one that claims me. I have got the blessing, but I must have the Blesser!” There is an energy of faith about the man that clings to the one who has blessed him. It is lovely—and oh, I ask you, are you content with anything short of this? There are none who are in greater danger of not having Christ personally before the heart than ourselves, we who have been so blessed by Him. I urge upon you, beloved friends, this question, How much have you got Christ Himself before your hearts? How much did you, when you broke with everything else besides, get Christ personally for your hearts, and how much now?
This man was out and out for Christ, there was no half-heartedness about him. I have the gift, he says, but I must have the giver, and so he turned back to Him. He was not ashamed to confess Him either. “With a loud voice he glorified God.” He is a beautiful illustration of Romans 10:1010For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:10)— “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
What is his next act? He fell down, at His feet! That was the very consummation of all blessing. He has parted with his companions in blessing, and he is found now in company with the Blesser. It is beautiful to see how the feet of Jesus are brought before us in Luke. In the 7th of Luke we get a sinner standing at His feet. In the 10th we get a saint sitting at His feet; and here we get a cleansed man worshipping at His feet.
Tell me, what do you consider the unparalleled moment in a Christian’s history as he travels through this world? It is when he gets to His feet, worshipping. There is nothing like it! worshipping at the feet of Jesus Not coming to ask anything, not coming to solicit anything, but coming to give something! This man had been a recipient from Christ, and now he comes to give to Christ. I believe thanksgiving is a part of worship. Coming to thank Him for what He has done, coming to praise Him for the deliverance He has wrought out; but the highest note of worship is when the soul finds its delight in adoring the one who has done it all, when you lose sight of your own blessing even, and are lost in adoration of the Blesser,
“Lost in wonder, love, and praise!”
Are you so lost?—everything else gone from your view, save the Son of God, the matchless, the blessed One, and you at His feet, you at His feet! Oh, I urge you, get there, get there. The devil will stop you if he can, he will let you have anything rather than the company of the Son of God, let you have service for Him, visiting the poor, anything or everything to prevent you from getting to His feet. Do not let him hinder you from getting to those blessed feet. Those feet today are not the same as they were on that day; then they were whole, today they have the marks of the nails, today they are wounded feet, pierced feet—pierced for you, for me.
“But,” you say, “He was in the world then, He is in heaven today. We cannot fall at His feet and know what it is to be in His presence as the leper did.” I say you can—by faith you can. To whom has He secured the fact of His own veritable presence? To those who are gathered together in His name— “there am I in the midst,” He says.
Distinguish, I pray you, between the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church and the presence of Christ in the midst of those gathered in His name. Wait on the Lord in the Spirit, do not wait on the Spirit, or you will have nothing but weakness in your midst. Christ has said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.” And that which is the mark of Christianity is this—that when we gather together we have an invisible Christ in our midst, unseen to mortal eye; but He is there: and, as one has well said, “Christ is the Object, and the Holy Ghost is the Agent.” There is blessed power and sure guidance when, counting on the Holy Ghost, you have Christ Himself before the soul.
I ask you, is there anything else to compare with it, that men and women, once lepers, once defiled, can come, gathered to Himself, sheltered by His name, Himself in their midst, to worship and adore, by the power of the Holy Ghost, the one who has brought them there, to lose themselves in wonder, love, and praise.
First then, we have had, in these degrees of blessing, the passage out of the association of evil, then the entrance into the association of blessing, and now we have the intense personal association with Him who is in our midst—the Blesser.
Is there apprehension in your soul to seize His presence? It is by the Holy Ghost I do it. I am dependent on the Holy Ghost for it. I may have it at the beginning of a meeting, and lose it at the end, because I am dependent on the Holy Ghost to keep it up in my soul. I am to be always in the Spirit.
This man, once a leper and a stranger, returned because he had been blessed to give something to the Blesser. I pray you, be you bright exceptions to what we have around us in Christendom. Assembled round His blessed person, let Him have from your hearts the tribute of praise, of worship, of loving adoration and thanksgiving, giving glory to His name. What I covet earnestly for you—the one solitary wish of my heart for you—is that you may be found at His blessed feet as worshippers.