Luke 17:11-19, Thanksgiving: The Theological Holiday

Luke 17:11-19 and the Thankful Samaritan

Luke chapter 17 verses 11 19 hear the word of the Lord on the way to Jerusalem. He was passing along between Samaria and Galilee and as he entered a village He was met by ten lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices saying Jesus master have mercy on us.

When he saw them he said to them go and show yourselves to the priest and as they went they were cleansed. Then one of them when he saw that he was healed turned back praising God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at Jesus's feet giving him.

Thanks now. He was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered we're not ten cleansed where the nine was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner and He said to him rise and go your way your faith has made you well.

May the Lord had his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word. Well, we had Thanksgiving last Thursday and now that that's over. We got the real fun of Black Friday and then small business Saturday yesterday.

I don't know who made that up. Bobby small business people and tomorrow will be cyber Monday. And you go online and you buy all the stuff that you couldn't find on Black Friday, I guess or from small businesses yesterday.

Now we're so used to that. We don't see what a bizarre really absolutely bizarre juxtaposition of contradictory impulses that it is going directly from Thanksgiving. Understand what that's about expressing gratitude for all the blessings We have are so happy and content for them.

To that from going from that to the very next day and now actually almost on the same day now to the consumerist. Selfish greedy urge to grab everything that I think I need that is Black Friday. Because I'm not really content with the life that I just said I was thankful for on Thanksgiving.

Of course now Black Friday starts on Thanksgiving itself. And so, you know people are thinking now Let's just cut this big meal short so we can go to the mall and buy the stuff that will finally make me happy.

This stuff that I'm supposed to be happy about for this holiday besides. I don't like turkey that much anyway, right? Consumerism has now consumed Thanksgiving itself, but to blame the destruction of Thanksgiving on to consumerism really misses the point I think Consumerism is the culprit you can shout.

Well, it sounds like there's some foreign force that has invaded our lives that if only we can rid ourselves of this invasion. We can then return to being thankful and content and satisfied and worshipful.

Like we really all want to be consumerism is the ideology that says that the meaning of life is in the things that we possess. So if you want more life You get more or better Stuff and you get a new gadget.

You know your current smartphone isn't quite good enough. They come out with a new one or a newer even higher definition TV somehow there'll be more definition of the TV than there is in real life soon a new new car or whatever.

So the consumerist thinks that's where you get your life from and that's what much of this Season commencing on Friday. No, excuse me on now on Thursday itself is all about but some people could think then well if the problem is with these stores opening up on early on Friday and now I'm on Thursday and Drawing in people with their deals.

The problem is with the capitalists trying to cash in on our free time if the problem is an ideology Consumerism is what the sociologists call it. Then let's teach a new ideology. So if we couldn't then what we need to do is make the stores close.

We could do that. We could just shut down the capitalists. We could ban the term Black Friday then maybe We'd finally be thankful and content and satisfied and worshipful. Really what we'd be is just bored sitting at home Eating our leftover turkey and eating up with discontent.

The problem is deeper than consumerism if the poisonous fruit the fruit. If the fruit is greed the living for stuff the selfish craving for whatever the newest thing. The consumption of Thanksgiving by Black Friday.

That's the fruit then the tree is consumerism producing that fruit but the root. The root is our faith in ourselves our narcissism our Fundamental belief that my chief end is to enjoy myself for as long as I can and everything and everyone including God himself Exists to help me do that and if they can't.

Well, we'll just dispose of them. Such people may even be religious but when they Survey the wondrous cross they see a piece of art. I like to have that on my wall and it's on sale down Black Friday. I'll get that cross put on my wall.

A great story about love and sacrifice for all for them. It's all about them something not something that demands my life my soul my all so They say all that turkey was wonderful. So was that pecan pie?

Now, let's go to Best Buy and see what's on sale and make me I could add to my life. That's the new American Holy Day. Turkey Day slash Black Friday. And that's a travesty. Because Thanksgiving is our truest and most Christian holiday and we see that here in Luke chapter 17.

We at least we see why that is true here in Luke 17. Where the one who has faith real faith that saves not only from leprosy but from what the leprosy represents from sin is the one who is thankful. Notice how.

Thankfulness is the fruit produced by the salvation thankfulness sincere Heart-filling utterly amazed gratitude is one of the surest signs of salvation. Here in Luke chapter 17 Jesus passes by ten lepers and they're at a distance.

Lepers by law had to stay outside the towns in the cities. They had to stay separate. So these lepers stood at a distance in verse 12, they see they see Jesus and they cry out Jesus master. Have mercy on us.

Notice the way they talk they call him master a lot of respect reverence they plead for mercy. That they know the right words. So Jesus says back to them. Go show yourself to the priest. Very simple very direct.

Now the priest in Israel acted as a kind of health inspector. To see if someone was really cured of leprosy and they could then come back. You had to get the approval of the priest to come back into regular society back into the towns and cities and go shopping in.

The ball on Black Friday they could return leprosy in their terms. Was what we now would know of is a variety of skin diseases. Including the most serious of the skin diseases what is now called Hansen's disease.

It's an infection of the skin and nerves that leads to a loss of sensation. They particularly starts in the extremities. They lose it gets numb. The nerves are destroyed by the bacteria and and then. The people with it can't feel those areas affected areas anymore and they get infected or they get wounded and they don't heal.

And they some just drop off sometimes so extremities become deformed and eroded. We saw lepers in Ethiopia missing fingers. I don't mean just like one or two here or there sometimes whole hands with no fingers body disfigured by leprosy.

Leprosy also serves in the Bible as a symbol for sin. It's leprosy is contagious and disfiguring because it's contagious. Leopards were required to stay separate from the rest of society like here when other people came near they were required to call out unclean unclean.

Warning to them like sin leprosy spreads and so must be ostracized. So it destroys relationships when people are eaten up by sin it separates them from others. It makes us unclean to God and to each other like leprosy sin disfigures us.

We were made in the image of God to be thankful to be worshipful to be gracious and loving and giving like God is. But when? We get eaten up by the selfishness of sin. We become these these monsters who consume everything.

Who take every gift as if it were our right and when we're done with it, we just move on to the next next relationship next neighbor next God next church to devour for ourselves. Here Jesus encounters those with this most serious form of leprosy and they rightly call out for mercy.

Okay, their words are right. They know the right words to say but their actions will show if they really saw healing as a gift of mercy. When you know something is something you get because it's mercy, you know, it's not deserved and you you're grateful for it.

And we'll see here whether they're really where they really see it is mercy or whether they think it is something. They have a right. They have a claim to it it's kind of deserve pay they get because of what they did or maybe.

It's it's it comes their way because of who they are because of their status. They say they want mercy if that's what they really thought healing was. They would be filled with thank thankfulness when they get it so we'll see as.

In James is not a matter of talk. Remember it's a matter of actions. Jesus tells them to go. To act based on his command notice even before they're healed. He doesn't like lay hands on them and heal them and then send them to the priest notice.

He says go and in verse 14, they are only healed as they are going. In other words, they're already on their way to the priest. To show them that they're healed. They set out to go to show them. They're healed even before they're actually healed.

So they were required to do this act of faith, but they had that such faith in Jesus. They went at his command, even though they weren't healed yet when they started and they are all healed. You notice that that's important.

They're all ten of them are healed. They receive this miracle of healing now we normally think I think we thought about it. We would assume that if people are even okay. We understand maybe people are always they're not made grateful kind of by run-of-the-mill.

Gifts by things they think they earned by by their food and their shelter and their friends and their family. Okay, we get it that people aren't made grateful for that because they think they they earned it or they whatever.

They just take it for granted, but surely we think. People would be made thankful by a miracle. But a miracle of mercy surely that would make us anyone thankful. Surely, we're not so hard-hearted. Are we that even miracles?

Don't make us thankful. Are we really that hard-hearted? Yeah, we are here after ten miracles. Only one man is made thankful. You know when he saw that he was healed. Rather than go to the priest and then maybe went back home.

You know could have gone home to his family if he had a wife there or whoever he turns around and he comes back to Jesus and as he's coming to Jesus, you know, just when he sees him from a distance he Loudly just praising God he just gushing out praise and shouting it out to everyone that hears and You know saying just you know, hallelujah.

You can see this guy going down the road waving his arms and shouting. Hallelujah, and when he sees Jesus it comes to him. He falls down. He's just prostrated on the ground. He's flat on his face on the ground before Jesus is giving him.

Thanks. He's saying hallelujah. Thank you Lord. He's thankful now. This is true Thanksgiving. He knew that he was not over healing. He knew that it wasn't his right. Something he wasn't something he earned by doing the right ritual or saying the right confession or or by being a moral man or Not something by birthright because he's in the right nation.

He just kind of you know, it's coming to him because it's like something he inherited. He knew it was a gift given to him. So he was thankful. The others yeah, not so much. It was also a Samaritan. Now normally the Jews in the Samaritans didn't hang out together, but lepers were probably, you know, such outcasts.

Well, you know, they just didn't care. Don't all the society rejects us who cares if we hang out with the Samaritans do. That he was a Samaritan was probably a large part of what made him exceptionally thankful.

You know if the rest were Jews. They kind of Bobby then maybe they thought They deserved healing is their birthright, you know, I'm a son of Abraham. We will inherit the kingdom of God. So this is what we get.

We get healing. It's who we are. We're not like these Samaritans. They're they're foreigners. They don't deserve it. We do. Maybe I thought healing was something that owed them a right to claim. Not a blessing bestowed, but this man though, he was different.

His head hadn't been inflated with the kind of ego boosting talk about what is owed him about. What he deserves that he deserves the the healing them the money your best life now. That that it's all yours by right if you'll only name it and claim it.

The type of religion that panders to. Narcissistic people who take everything for granted the narcissist thinks that every good thing that comes his way It's is deserved. You know what a narcissist is everything good is I.

It belongs to me. I get whatever I want. That his or her had a baseline of X expectations. What do you in other words? What do you expect? It at base. In anything more than that you think is a bonus. The narcissist baseline of expectations is everything everything he or she wants is expected.

That that's how that's where they begin that's their default setting. So, you know, they're not really grateful for anything they get because they should get it. That's their attitude if he or she has leprosy then getting healing.

It's expected. I should get it. They think anything other than that in their mind is. The worst injustice that I don't get. The job I don't get. You know the money I want. I don't get the first the relationship I want.

I don't get the car I want. I don't get the healing the leprosy. I want this is horrible. They're they're wrong. They're cheating me. God himself is wrong having leprosy in the first place would be them.

They would think an undeserved travesty. That now the narcissism it narcissists may cry out have mercy as a necessary means for getting whatever he or she wants. But once it is given Once the healing comes once Once they've been given the gift.

Once you've done them the big favor. Big or small whatever favor they think. Well, that's mine. That's that's my right. That's my earned wages. That's what I deserve because of who I am. Don't you know who I am?

I'm the one who deserves healing. It's my birthright. This man though the Samaritan man didn't think that way. The Samaritan ex-leper is on the ground shouting his hallelujahs to Jesus and Jesus notes, you know, we're not ten cleansed.

Where are the nine? Why do they think they deserved healing that they're not even grateful for it. They got it. They don't they're not thankful for it. Oh. So if it's not odd, it's kind of common. Was no one found.

Jesus says was no one found to give praise to God. Except this for it just occurred to me. The man is giving praise to Jesus and Jesus says he's giving praise to God. One of these divinity of Christ things anyway, the implication though was that the the rest the the other nine.

They that they weren't foreigners that they were probably Jews and so they should know better. Right. They should have been raised on the Word of God from a child hearing hearing the promises of God the instructions about God.

They should be praising God, too. They should be filled with Thanksgiving, you know, this is odd overwhelmed heart-feeling Gratitude instead they think I got what's coming to me finally. What I had a right to yeah.

You can't earn the gratitude of ungrateful people. I Mean that's sad. That's a sad reality, but that's the reality. You cannot earn the gratitude of Ungrateful people it doesn't matter what you do for them.

You can't earn their gratitude. No matter what you do for them. You can even heal them of leprosy. Miraculously and they'll shrug their shoulders and think well it's about time. But the one who knew he didn't deserve it.

He was filled with thankfulness. So Jesus says that that one rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well, or it could just as easy to be translated. Your faith has Saved you. Saved him from leprosy.

Saved him from the wrath of God. If you've been saved through faith be overwhelmed by the Indescribable gift of your salvation. If you've been saved through faith realize you didn't deserve that. It wasn't owed you.

It's not it's not something you should kind of expect just you begin with this baseline of expectation. God's gonna save me. It's what I what I deserve. No. See instead it's a Something he did for you purely because he is gracious and once you see that Your heart will be filled with thankfulness.

You'll be transformed by a sincere sincere heart-filling utterly amazed gratitude. You will look at your life astounded and think So much good I Received so much good all thanks to God. It's that understanding That gave us the holiday of Thanksgiving.

It came directly from what the the Puritans believed and experienced now the typical way of telling the Thanksgiving story is to tell about. The first group of Puritans who came to America now commonly called pilgrims landing on Cape Cod in the fall of 1620.

Barely surviving the first year many of them dying of diseases because they were weakened by malnutrition and was the harsh Conditions in North America compared to what they were used to. But when they had survived that first year, they had a good harvest.

They felt now they were established that there were now it looked like we're gonna make it after all. They thought that this was an occasion to thank God for sustaining them. And so they had a great celebration.

They had a Thanksgiving inviting the local Indians, you know to share the Wampanoag's. I believe they were called the tribe and and then they said. They said we assume they didn't really say this, but we assume they said this this was fun.

Let's do it again next year. And so a tradition was born. Now the first part's true. The second part about the assumption. No, that's not that's not what really gave us ongoing Thanksgivings. The Puritans had ongoing Thanksgivings because they believe that every like from the book of James remember James every this or that Was under God's control.

And so they responded to got what God was doing. Every this or that and some of those this or that's are good things. That means God gave it to a you and you respond with Thanksgiving and that and so that's where thanks ongoing Thanksgivings come from.

On the other hand if events showed that God was displeased with them. They would call days of fasting and humiliation. If there were droughts or shipwrecks or severe Indian attacks or epidemics. They saw those as kind of those events as as whips and God's hand to discipline them.

They believe that all things were under God's control so they would obey what we saw in memory of James 5 Weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you and they would call they would weep and howl and call a day of fasting and prayer days of humiliation.

They said that these days of humiliation were for quote do examination of our ways toward God and consideration of God's ways. Because he's afflicting us toward us. So they would they said quote make a solemn and real profession that we justify God.

Otherwise these bad things are happening in their lives. There's epidemics people are dying Disasters and they would justify God they would say to God your ways are right. Oh God what you're doing to us is what we deserve justify God and judge Ourselves Says a lot about us in our culture that we've abandoned this fasting day days of humiliation and only kept the feasting day.

Maybe that's why now our feasting day. Our Thanksgiving Day is being consumed by our greed and hollowed out by our consumerism our dissatisfaction. They were more they were more thankful. Precisely because they were more repentant more grieving over their sins more aware of those sins of their own depravity and so more aware That what they really deserved was judgment.

They were happier at their Thanksgiving days because they wept more on their fasting days the great earlier early Puritan pastor John Cotton wrote Besides the celebration of the Lord's Day every week today.

We sometimes appointed extraordinary occasions either of notable judgments do set apart a day of humiliation or Upon special mercies we set apart a day of Thanksgiving. Notice the Puritans in Thanksgiving.

We're celebrating God's work in the present. What he had done for them lately. It was the public expression of an ongoing Relationship with God. It wasn't like a lot of people think today that they had, you know.

That first Thanksgiving is this one surviving their first year their first harvest and then celebrating sort of the anniversary of that every year after on maybe on On the same day or on the fourth Thursday of November.

No, they saw God's hand at work now in Recent things that have happened maybe a full harvest maybe peace for the Indians healthy children a revival among the youth. Whatever good thing has happened and then in response to that they would call.

Hey, look what God has done good things. Let's have a Thanksgiving between 1632 and 1686. They called 61 days of Thanksgiving. That's 61 Thanksgivings in 55 years a little more than one a year. Of those 20 Thanksgivings were called for improved harvest and better health.

31 Thanksgivings were called for peace and unity for good leaders for victory in battle and better relations with England. Five Thanksgivings were called for the well-being of England and peace in Europe and then there were five Thanksgivings.

They called just because just things are going pretty good. You know feel like God is big is blessing us. He is not destroying us. No specific reason given. That it was a spunt. It was spontaneous and dynamic.

It was about the present not the past is what makes it kind of difficult for people today. Understand because almost all our other holidays are our anniversary things. I mean remember, you know when Christ was born or a new year or whatever things like that.

But this was supposed to be God's done something good. We're gonna have a Thanksgiving, you know. Start cooking now. Now we've confined it to a scheduled day of the year. So we made it kind of cyclical cyclical and Repetitious which obscures what it means obscures that it's supposed to be an impromptu response to what we perceive God is now doing a spontaneous response for something from our hearts of being filled with an utterly amazed gratitude because God has done something new in our lives a blessing and we realize we don't deserve it.

So we're thankful. That's what this is supposed to be but I'm glad we still have Thanksgiving even if we pinned it down and kind of made it repetitious. The other thing that makes it difficult for people to understand What is really this this vestige of a tradition that we have left over from the Puritans called Thanksgiving is that it is a theological? holiday.

It's not simply an anniversary of a harvest meal. But it's the reaction sort of a chemical reaction when two doctrines mix in our hearts. Right like putting two chemicals in a beaker and stirring it and it blows up.

You put two doctrines in our hearts and stir in our life and you get Thanksgiving when two or three doctrines that the Bible teaches and the Puritan believe come together. They combust and they explode in a reaction called Thanksgiving and those two doctrines are two main ones are depravity and Providence or the sovereignty of God in all things.

Now first the Bible teaches and the Puritans believed that in the doctrine of total Depravity human depravity is one of the most clearest and forcefully taught doctrines in the Bible. Don't believe me.

Let me quote some verses on that Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only Evil. Continually try to find a loophole in that.

Psalm 51 verse 5 says behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Isaiah chapter 64 verse 6 says we all we have all become like one who was unclean. And all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and Desperately sick who can understand it. In John chapter 3 verse 19 says people love darkness Rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

In John chapter 8 verse 34 The Lord Jesus says truly truly I say to you everyone who commits sin and who is that that's everyone is a slave To sin. And Romans chapter 3 verses 10 to 11 says none is righteous.

No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. Finally Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 says we are dead in sin. And there are others and that being what we are like. That's the description of us left to ourselves without God's grace in our natural condition.

Always inclined to evil sinful from conception. Desperately sick dead in sin lovers of darkness by nature. Slaves to sin not seeking God even when we think we're being religious since that's what we're like.

What we deserve. No good thing. Now far from the narcissist who thinks that he or she deserves every good thing and takes it for granted. When they get it because they deserve it they think far from that we actually don't deserve any good thing we deserve.

Torment and wrath and hell hell. Should be our baseline of expectation, you know. That should be what we know we have earned. Anything better than hell that we get for even a second is a gracious gift better than we deserve and Yet we have so many gracious gifts.

So much of our lives is better than hell, isn't it? Now the question is Why? Why do good things happen? To bad people. That's the real Philosophical conundrum that we should just be baffled and amazed by why do bad things happen to us bad?

People why that's far more important far more relevant. For it makes much more sense than the so-called question of the problem of evil that these philosophers deal with today. You know, why do bad things happen to good people?

It did happen once but you know, it doesn't happen much. It doesn't happen after that. Either they would think they pose this question trying to act sophisticated and then they say well either God is not good.

For giving us us good people that we are these bad things or he is good. But he's not all-powerful because he's not able to stop all these bad things that we don't deserve. You know, you sort of sound sophisticated and tell you take a step back and consider the premise.

I mean the assumption that they never they don't even seem to examine. The assumption is that we're good people that there are good people. Consider that that is wrong. Consider that the Bible is right and we are depraved.

There were always inclined to evil that even when we think what we think our good deeds are like filthy rags to God. Consider that here. We are. We're soiled from head to toe we're covered in the leprosy of sin.

It's eating away at us. It's disfiguring us completely. It's cutting off the spiritual nerves in our heart. It's numbing us to spiritual things to the things of God. Unclean unclean that's who we are and we're standing before a holy God and we're asking him arrogantly.

Why are you treating us like we're dirty. It's just why because you are dirty. Infected to the to the heart what we should be asking instead as the old song goes Why me Lord? What have I ever done? To deserve even one of the blessings I've known.

Why me Lord, what did I ever do that was worth love from you and the kindness you've shown. Why do that? Why do good things happen? To bad people. That's the amazing question. And you could ask I guess well either God is not holy.

And so he's not holding us to his standards. That's why he's. Why he's allowing us to have good things because we're so bad. We should be getting bad bad things. But you know, maybe he's not holy. It's not holding us to a standard.

Well, we're shown throughout the Bible like an Isaiah 6, you know, holy. Holy. Holy that he is. Holy. We know that's not true. So you can mark that out or Maybe some people think I don't know anyone that really thinks this but try to be logical all the explanations.

Maybe we us bad people get good things because like before God's not all powerful. He's not in control that he really wants to punish us. For our sins he wants to Pour out his wrath on us and you know destroy us.

But we keep getting away and we keep getting the good things that he doesn't want us to have. Well, the Bible teaches and the Puritans believe that God is in control as we saw in James chapter 4 verse 15, you know.

We ought to say if the Lord wills we will live and do this or that because whether we live and Do this or that is totally according to what he wills. So even the little this or that of our business life every little this good this or that we enjoy is Under his control and so he gave it to us so you can count that out.

There must only the only option left the third option. God is generous to us. Despite how bad we are. So guess what? We should be thankful. Thanksgiving is such a genuinely Christian holiday because it recognizes that God is indeed in control of it all.

Then the theological chemical reaction in our hearts when we believe in our depravity believe in God's holiness and God's sovereignty leads to Thanksgiving. Thankfulness comes when we really believe that there is a God who is at work.

Giving us all the good things We don't deserve. So when we look at all the good we received. Whatever it is, that's a good family or a loving spouse good children. At least most of the time good children a home rewarding work food and drink.

Churches where others are thankful to a country where we're free to attend and support those churches, you know, that wasn't luck. It wasn't just because we worked hard and we worked smart. We did the right things.

And so we built this. No a gracious God gave it to us. Part of what makes it hard for us to understand Thanksgiving. Is that we often think we often think just like modern secular people think. You know that God maybe God is he's there.

Yeah, he's the God of miracles. God can do miracles. But the the rest of the world. Miracles kind of the cause and effect the things of science the things you can understand the natural laws that that's all out of his control.

He's not he's not involved in that that the world is like a machine churning away and he's not Involved in that he's in he's the God of miracles not the God in this world. So we think then well we could be thankful for miracles.

Like if I got healed of leprosy. By hit by Jesus I would be thankful for that. But if we got leprosy and we were cured by doctors prescribing the right combination of antibiotics. Well, we just pay the bill and you know, we go about as if God had nothing to do with it.

There's very little understanding. Today even among Christians of the doctrine that made the Puritan so thankful and it made them so thankful that they found it a holiday. All about expressing that thankfulness that that doctrine and distinction to the ignorance of so-called luck luck means you just don't understand it.

And the arrogance of the self-made it's called. Actually by the name of this little town we're in Providence. Providence means that God is in control of even the natural things. The this or that the cause and effect things that we think we understand, you know.

Like like the weather our jobs our grades a good harvest. We plant the seed with watered and it grows and we think okay, that's all science. Yeah, but that's God's in control of that sign. Now he's Providence can be a cure from a disease like leprosy Hansen's disease if we take the right medicine all of that.

It's Providence. It's under his control now whether God heals leprosy through miracles or antibiotics. It's still just as much the work of God either way. Now think about it. That's hard for us to understand but just think about it for a second, you know, God is all-powerful right.

God all-powerful. So since he's all-powerful. Which is it more more difficult for God to do? Okay, he's all-powerful. Nothing's more difficult than anything else, right? But he's more which is more difficult for God to do heal leprosy you know send them send go to the priest by miracle or Cure it with antibiotics.

Which is more difficult? For an all-powerful God to do. Last 20 years say 16 million people have been cured of leprosy by the the medicines the antibiotics. Jesus here healed 10 by a miracle now, which is more difficult for an all-powerful God to do neither.

All-powerful nothing is difficult in any way for you, right? God can just as easily do either. Which is more under God's control put it that way the miracle. It's in the image of the priest is that yeah, that's under his control.

It's a miracle or the antibiotics the doctor prescribing the medicine you go to the pharmacy you get it you take it your cure. Which is which is more under his control. Neither they're both equally fully 100 according to his will.

You know, we don't always get that because we think we understand one and we don't understand the other when God acts beyond the laws Of nature like here in Luke 17, we call it miracle. Ah, we see. Wow God's at work when he acts through the laws of nature.

Like in healing through medicine, we call it Providence but both are equally his work. According to his will the only problem really is with us. You know, we see God acting through Providence. I think we see Providence that we see things happening and we think we understand it was that we don't see God behind it often.

And we take it for granted we can fail to see God willing every this or that as. Though nature is out of his control as though it's just luck or us working hard and smart mastering the laws of nature with our science.