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He was in the middle 80s and in the scare, the rightful scare of all the HIV-AIDS virus and the epidemic, and one of my friends was in a grocery store and saw someone fall down and go into convulsions and couldn't breathe.
And so my friend quickly, who was trained in CPR, got down and did CPR and mouth-to-mouth and blood on his face and on his saliva on his mouth and the paramedics arrived. The man was now breathing and they quickly donned on all kinds of different protective layers and gloves and face masks and said to my friend that the man there was dying of AIDS.
And so my friend, for many years, got tested thinking that I'm a dead man walking, I'm going to die from HIV and this is it. Well he never got HIV, he's still alive today, but it reminds me we have not HIV but we have a virus and it's going to kill us.
It's the sin virus, S-I-N virus. That is why we need a savior to save us from our sins. And if you ask the question who do you think Jesus is, if Jesus is only a teacher, he can't deal with the sin issue.
If you say, well he's just a good example, then he's not going to deal with the sin issue. Who do people say that the Son of Man is? Some said John the Baptist, others said Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets and he said to Peter, but who do you say that I am?
And remember Peter's great spirit-driven words, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God, the Messiah. You need to believe in the Messiah because you have the sin virus and it's going to kill you.
And what I love about the passage today, it just blazons forth the credentials of the King of the Universe who is the Messiah. Let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 8. Get ready to be impressed with Jesus, his sovereignty, his love, his compassion, his power.
You need to believe that Jesus has the credentials to back up his messianic claim. You need a Savior because you're a sinner, we all are. Matthew chapter 8, over and over throughout the years, I've just found my way back to Matthew as kind of just a dear friend.
I think about Jesus, the King of all the kings, kinging the Lord of all those, lording. And when I go back to Matthew, Matthew just arranges the gospel of our Lord in such a way where you say to yourself, just like at the end of chapter 7, nobody speaks like this man.
This is amazing, I'm astounded, I'm marveled. No one talks like Jesus. And then in chapters 8, 9, and 10, it's the same kind of wonder and exclamation where you say to yourself, and no one does the things Jesus does.
No one talks like him, no one acts like him, who is like Jesus? Do you see at the end of chapter 7, verse 28, and when Jesus finished these sayings, that would be the Beatitudes, chapter 5, 6, and 7, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and not as their scribes.
Yes, but really, is he the Messiah? He talks a good message, but is he the Messiah to come? And so what Matthew does is he arranges chapter 8 and 9, and puts about 9 or 10 miracles clumped together, not necessarily in chronological order, to show you that he is who he said he was.
To confirm in your mind, to confirm in the reader's mind, that Jesus has the credentials of the Messiah, proof that he had the right to speak the way he did, because he could act the way he did. And so chapter 8 starts with three healings, a leper is healed, a Gentile is healed, and a woman is healed, picking up where chapter 4 left off.
Chapter 4, verse 23 it says, and he went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
So his fame spread throughout all Syria, may the Lord do that even today. And they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them.
No one ever spoke the way Jesus did, nobody ever acted the way Jesus did, and Matthew chapter 8 and 9 is given so that you the reader say, I believe the claims of Jesus. These miracles affirm his identity as the Old Testament prophesied of the Messiah to come.
Isaiah 29, Isaiah 35, Isaiah 61, he's going to heal the eyes of the blind and open the ears of the deaf, yes this man is the Messiah. And so today we're going to look at Matthew chapter 8 verses 1 through 4, the healing of a leper.
Matthew picks this one first because short of raising someone from the dead, this is the most fantastic miracle. This is not a leg lengthening deal, this is at the top of the list, short of only raising people from the dead, how do you cure someone who's not curable?
Leprosy is not curable, you can't cure it. And so I like it that Matthew puts this one at the very beginning, showing the king's credentials and as you look at the passage today you should say to yourself as well, yes Jesus is the Messiah and I know I'm a sinner and I need this Messiah who saves sinners like me.
Wait till you get into the passage, this is awesome. Chapter 8 verse 1, when he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. Now there are reports of Jesus circulating out, infiltrating every nook and cranny of society, including the huts that are outside of the gates where the lepers lived.
Even the lepers have heard about Jesus and maybe they've even heard some of the sermons in second hand where Jesus said in Matthew 7, ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened for you.
And if a leper had heard that message, the leper says I know I can go get healed, I better go ask. Great crowds following and then it says in verse 2 of Matthew 8, and this is the way Matthew writes to show the vividness of it, and behold a leper came to him and knelt before him saying Lord if you will you can make me clean.
Leper came up to him, what do you mean? Lepers are supposed to keep their distance, lepers are supposed to be far away, there's not only a physical issue of contamination but a social and a religious uncleanness.
Remember what are lepers supposed to do? They're supposed to take their hand and cover their mustache it says and say unclean, unclean. Everybody's paying attention right now, it's kind of a good effect isn't it?
Rabbis would say this is uncurable, how many lepers were cleansed in the Old Testament? I think you'll see two, 1500 years ago was the last leper that had ever been cleansed. And Mark says that the leper came beseeching him and falling on his knees.
Now just a little bit about the symptoms of leprosy, the word leper is just from the Greek word lepros and it means scaly. If you see a fish you know the fish has scale, it's just scaly skin. We're not sure what exact kind of leprosy this man had because things change over time and mutate, is it an Old Testament kind of leprosy and then now it's the modern version of Hansen's disease, there's some debate about that.
But one thing we do know is it's a very wicked disease, pretty soon you have areas of your body that are just kind of numb, it's like you hit your elbow on something, the funny bone and your hands are just kind of numb, it starts off like that.
Then you get a couple spots, it looks like scaly spots but you know you have age spots after all so maybe it's not that big a deal. Your hands and your extremities start turning white, blood supply is decreasing and so now you'll start getting ulcers on your body, hands and other places.
Skin around your ears begins to bunch up and it looks like you have cauliflower ears. The cartilage underneath your nose caves in and your nose therefore is caved in and your face over time starts to scrunch up and some people say it looks like a lion, Google it sometime, not now, stay off the Google.
Pictures of leprous folks and their faces are kind of scrunched up but I wouldn't say lion looking, I'd say Shar-Pei, a Shar-Pei dog where there's just so many folds of the skin. Eyebrows are out, eyelashes are out and you know it's one thing if their face is just deformed and their hands are deformed and the digits of, the end of their digits start falling off, their toes fall off, their fingers fall off, that'd be one thing but they're so rotting that they begin to smell and if you're just downwind a little bit or close to them you could smell how bad they smell and to top it all off, leprosy attacks the throat and the voice box and the person begins to wheeze and the person begins to gargle and gurgle and so from the foul discharges of their body to just sounding weird and smelling weird, talking in a hoarse, raspy way, that's a deadly disease.
Hansen's disease has studied lepers and the tendons of the arm begin to shrink and as the tendons of the arm begin to shrink then the hands become claw-like and unusable, can't really feel pain in modern Hansen's disease.
I read about Paul Brand years ago, I've never forgotten to this day, in third world countries where there are lepers today, they'd always put a cat in the room with the lepers because lepers have no feeling in their toes and their fingers and so the rats would just eat their toes off and their fingers off but if a cat was there, the cat would keep the rats away.
You were weak, prone to other diseases. It wasn't just a skin disease, this is not eczema or psoriasis, this is internal, immune system issues. Listen to this biblical description of someone with leprosy.
Numbers 12, When the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. Then Aaron said to Moses, Oh my Lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned.
Oh do not let her be like one dead whose flesh is half eaten away. That's leprosy. Whose dead, like they're dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother's womb. As a leperologist said, it's like a painless death.
If I was teaching a high school group and I had a bunch of kids, I would say, true or false, there's zombies in the Bible. They'd think I was funny, but you know what, this is as close to a zombie as you can get there, the walking dead.
They're going to die soon, their body's dying, they smell like death, they look like death, they are dying. And you know what, if it was just the physical, that'd be one thing, but the social stigma, tear your clothes, uncover your hair, and it says in Leviticus 13, remain unclean all the days during which he has an infection.
He is unclean, he shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. Leviticus 13 says this is what you do if your clothes have been affected by touching somebody with leprosy, and it ends with burn the garment, burn it in the fire.
If your house has been marked with leprosy, this is fascinating. I think it's the only time it's used in the Old Testament, chapter 14, verse 38, and the priest shall come out of the house to the doorway and quarantine the house.
This guy's supposed to stay away, he's not supposed to get close, he's supposed to be over there, he's supposed to stay unclean, unclean, and he is so desperate, he realizes his need, what does the text say, he came up to him and knelt before him.
I don't even think he could feel his knees hit the ground. Why? Because you can't feel your extremities if you're a leper. He came boldly and confidently, he wasn't sneaking up around and kind of covertly hiding, and my question that's unanswered in the text of course is, what was everybody else doing?
Here comes a guy that's voice is gurgly, he smells like death, he looks like death, I'm not supposed to be close to him, and he's right up there with Jesus. He's desperate. Josephus said, if you see a leper treat him like a dead man.
So here comes the dead man walking. And the cry is insightful of the leper. I don't know how to say this with a gurgling voice, with a wheezing voice, with shortness of breath, but you can imagine what it would be like.
How do you worship Jesus without a voice box? But he was able to muster this up, Lord, mark these words carefully. People are scattering, giving him a wide berth, if you will, you can make me clean. If you will, you can make me clean.
It doesn't take you very often to watch TBN to realize this guy didn't watch TBN. I'm going to claim my victory, I'm going to name it and claim it, I'm going to grab it and nab it, I don't know what people, how they say these things, name it and claim it.
Jesus, I know you can heal me. You have the power. But I'm just going to ask, would you, because you're sovereign. That's a lot different than claiming some healing. I know you have more power than I have leprosy.
Luke 5 says he was full of leprosy. You're full of power, I'm full of leprosy. I know you can, but I just don't know if you will. Will you? Will you heal me? Falling on his knees. By the grace of God, he's been brought to some knowledge that Jesus is Lord.
Will you do this? I submit to your sovereign hand. I acquiesce to your being a king. I don't even know if it's your will, but Lord, if it's your will, would you? Lord for the leper meant Lord. I don't know if you caught this or not, but in Matthew chapter 4, when I read verses 23 and 24, they brought to him all sick people, diverse diseases and torments, possessed with demons, epileptics, people who were paralytics and healed them, but not one leper was mentioned.
I'm asking for something that hasn't happened for 1500 years. I know you can do it. Would you? Doctors can't heal him. No medical possibility of being healed. One scholar said, James Boyce quoted him, and the scholar said, there never has been any disease which so separated a man from his fellow men as leprosy did.
Will you, Jesus? I know you can. Verse 3, this is fascinating. No one teaches like Jesus. Nobody acts like Jesus. He's the Messiah, the only Messiah. Jesus stretched out his hand, his own hand, and then did the unthinkable and touched him.
I wonder if the leper had been touched in the last five years of his life, the last ten years of his life. I know we'd try to tell the kids when we would visit Grandma at the rest home, assisted care home, make sure you go up and hold Grandma's hand, make sure you stroke her hair, make sure you touch her forehead, make sure you hold her arm.
Why? Because the only person that touches Grandma is the nurse, the doctor, the caregiver. He stretched out his hand and touched him. I don't know if he touched his hands with no fingers. I don't know where Jesus touched him.
He's the guy that everybody's yelling, unclean, unclean. He has to yell unclean, unclean, and Jesus touches him. McLaren said this, the touch answered the if by something that spoke louder than any word.
No rabbi would have dared to touch him, but Jesus put out his hand and touched him and then spoke the thrilling words, I will be clean. Friends, do you grasp just for a second how important the incarnation is?
For all kinds of reasons, but the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, cloaks himself with humanity. And then when I read Hebrews 4, it just floods my mind with emotion and meaning. We have a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses.
Mark says this, Matthew doesn't say it, Mark says that Jesus was moved with compassion, with pity. Mark says Jesus was emotionally moved. It was his motion. The Greek word is for his guts, his bowels.
Somebody from the first service knew the Greek word. Does anybody know the Greek word for, used 12 times in the New Testament? Splankna. Who said that? Oh nice, thank you. Twelve times in the New Testament, used once of the Samaritan when the Samaritan wanted to be a good Samaritan and help and move with pity and compassion, but all the other times used of God.
Used of God dealing with sinful people, saving sinners, forgiving sinners, touching sinners. It's used in Matthew 9, and seeing the multitudes, Jesus felt compassion for them because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.
He felt compassion, but you can feel compassion and not do anything about it. He felt compassion and Mark says, and so does Matthew, and then he touched him. He didn't stop with feelings. Sometimes that's the only thing we can do though, is we can feel bad with people, for people, but we can't change the situation.
John Calvin said, by his word alone he might have healed the leper. Couldn't he have done that? Just be healed. Why did he have to touch him? He's going to heal the centurion's servant in chapter 8, verses 5 and following in the next account.
He doesn't even have to be there. He could just say, you're clean. Why did he touch him? Because Christ was the compassionate Messiah as well. Calvin goes on, but he applied at the same time the touch of his hand to express the feeling of compassion.
Nor ought this to excite our wonder since he chose to take upon him our flesh that he might cleanse us from our sins. Who's compassionate? What God of the Old Testament neighborhood was compassionate?
Only Yahweh. Exodus 34, the Lord passed in front of Moses and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, and what was the first thing on the list? Before gracious, before slow to anger, before abounding in love and kindness, the Lord was what?
Compassionate. Psalm 116 .5, yes, our God is compassionate. James chapter 5, the Lord is full of compassion and here now Jesus does what no person would ever do. He touches the leper. And instead of getting contagion on him, it's the holiness of God contagious the other way, purifies.
It imparts cleansing. Mark says, Jesus stated, I am willing, I'm always willing. Look at verse 3, and Jesus, Matthew 8, stretched out his hand and touched him saying, I will be cleansed, I will be clean.
And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. This is written so that you realize, I don't have any confusion about this leper being healed. Now think about it for a second. No more scaly skin. If you have no fingers, if this was an older leper, no fingers, I now have fingers.
No more sharp looking face, it's just normal. No cauliflower ears, it's just normal. Not limping around. He smells good. He doesn't look white. Suddenly his voice is perfect. This is a huge deal. Jesus touches the untouchable and cures the incurable.
And what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7 must be true. He is the Messiah. No scales, no sores, no scars. The worst social stigma that you could have, the most lonesome and the supernatural eternal son of God affirms his credentials.
And how does Jesus heal? He heals unlike people who say, come to the healing that's going to be down at the civic center. He heals instantaneously. Mark chapter 5, the lady said, if I touch his garments I shall get well.
And immediately the flow of her blood was dried up. Jesus heals completely. Jesus heals everyone. Everyone around those towns, laying his hands on every one of them, Luke 4, was healing them. He just didn't pick out, well, you know, I think I could heal you because you need your leg lengthened but you over here, you can't heal.
I won't heal that like these charlatans do. By the way, you can know these people today who say they have the gift of New Testament healings are frauds to the core because I want to see them at Children's Hospital, please.
You're the most unloving, godless person in the universe if you have the gift of healing and you're not at Boston Children's Hospital. And Jesus could even raise people from the dead. Luke 7, and the dead man sat up after Jesus said, I said to you, arise, began to speak and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
And fear gripped them all and they began glorifying God saying, a great prophet has arisen among us. God has visited his people. When God does a miracle then you say, only God can do the miracle. Jesus is God.
He has to be divine. And then what happens here, verse 4, Jesus said to him, this is kind of a curt warning. It's more curt in Mark but in Matthew Jesus says, see that you say nothing to anyone but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a proof to them.
I'd like to fully include you into society. This is the proper step. I'm under the law. I'm born under law and so are you. It's Old Testament law. This is the way you go get cleansed. I want you in society.
I want you to go give proof to the people. They're going to say, aren't you the leper? Yes, I am. Who did it? Jesus. Bear witness and testimony to that. Trap them in their denial of Jesus the Messiah.
Those all could be reasons but Mark gives us the main reasons why Jesus warned him. Actually it says in Mark 1, Jesus sternly warned him. Translated one time in John 11 as deeply moved and translated in Mark 14 as scolding.
Why was Jesus so stern? The word is interesting. It's the word for a meddlesome horse that snorts. You can just see a horse's nostril flare out. You can see your faces right now. Flaring out, just kind of angry a little bit.
And so here Jesus of course with righteous indignation admonishes and rebukes urgently, don't run out there and begin to tell everyone. Mark 1 says and he began to proclaim it freely and spread the news about to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city but stayed out in unpopulated areas and they were coming to him from everywhere.
Of course I'm the Messiah but right now we don't go tell everyone because there needs to be public ministry. Isn't it interesting when Jesus says go show yourself to a priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded for proof to them?
So there's something in the Old Testament for lepers that got better. And I love the humorous account that S. Lewis Johnson describes about what this must have been like. This leper who's been cleansed and the priest who have never done one of these rites for a healed leper.
Because a leper hasn't been healed for 1 ,500 years, Lewis accounts. Oh yes, I lived right outside the wall over there. There are eight of us and I'm one of them. But Jesus touched me and look, I'm clean.
Now I want to offer the sacrifice that's supposed to be offered. Jesus told me to come to you. Johnson writes and the priest has never performed such a sacrifice so he shouts back, bring me the manual.
I don't know what to do. It's somewhere in Old Testament law. Finally after a lengthy time the leper is still standing there. They find it back in Leviticus 13 and 14 and go through the ceremony. Jesus wasn't going to violate the law.
He wants the Jewish leaders to establish the miracle and he also wants the man to keep quiet about it after that so Jesus has more free reign. Matthew portrays Jesus as Messiah. And so I ask you the question, do you believe that Jesus is the Messiah?
Do you believe that Jesus is the eternal Son of God who cloaked himself with humanity, lived under the law of God perfectly, died a substitutionary death not for his own sins but for the sins of all those who would ever believe and that God raised him from the dead and he's the only hope of heaven, your only hope of forgiveness?
I was shocked one day out of my gourd as it were when my professor at Master's Seminary once said, see the people at Grace Church, John MacArthur is the pastor, out of the 10 ,000 people that go there on a given Sunday and I think the professor was trying to be a little hyperbolic to make a point.
He said probably 50 of them are saved because lots of people go to church and they're not born again. My guess is there's quite a few today who do not really believe the gospel. Say, well I was baptized, I didn't ask that.
I go to church, I serve. The credentials of the king are for a reason. Who heals like Jesus? Who fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah like Jesus? Who can deal with sin like Jesus? The Bible is true when it says you must be born again because you might not have physical leprosy but leprosy is a picture, a very gross picture of sin.
And so the time that I have left, let me remind you of how your sin is like leprosy. So you say, I have no other option except Jesus. If Jesus can't save me, I can't be saved. If he, he has the power to do it but I just need to know if he's willing.
I am a spiritual leper and I'm going to tell you right from the get-go, it doesn't feel that good because our society is, you're great, you're wonderful, you're special, self-esteem. But the Bible is, you want to see the last days, people are lovers of themselves.
That's how you know you're in the last days and we need to be broken so that we can be mended. We need to know, yes, can you imagine if a guy, he's got leprosy there in Matthew chapter 8 but he never thinks he has leprosy.
Well, maybe, you know, it's just like age marks and stuff and maybe it's just, maybe it's just psoriasis, that's all I have, a little eczema there, no problem. But when you know you're leprous, you go, I'm going to go to the only person who can cure me.
Every person here, I don't care how old you are, you need to believe that Jesus is a Messiah. That's why Matthew wrote it, do you believe that Jesus is a Messiah? 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Are you a Christian?
Examine yourself to see if you're in the faith. I went to church for a long, long time to hear the message about Jesus and I was a pagan. Like leprosy, sin renders men and women as good as dead. Unbelievers are just as good as dead, they have a terminal disease but the stakes are higher.
One thing I learned this week about leprosy is, depending on your state before you get it, you've got 10 to 30 years before you mentally decay, go into a coma and then die. I found this fascinating. In the Middle Ages one account says, when a person was diagnosed with leprosy they were brought to the church and the priest read the burial service over them for in effect they were already dead though still alive.
You got leprosy, I'll give you the last rites now, you're as good as dead. And you know what, because of Adam's sin, when he was in the garden on probation and Adam's sin and then God imputed Adam's sin to all of our account and by consequence we are now by nature sinners, we're as good as dead.
No wonder Paul says in Ephesians 2, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. One day here everyone's going to die and then stand before God and you need the Messiah's covering, you need the Messiah's cleansing, you need the Messiah's power, you need his perfect life, his substitutionary death.
I was also thinking about leprosy and I thought, you know, I need a Savior, Jesus, because like a leper my whole being is defiled. That's one thing about it, is if you think of yourself, well I have sin or I do sin, I don't think you think about it correctly because the Bible would teach us that we are sinful.
And not that we do these, I mean I remember one time when I was super angry and I slammed down an Ikea dresser and it broke into a hundred pieces, if it would have been real wood it probably would have only broken into like three pieces.
And I thought, you know what, if I've got an anger problem, I go get counseling for anger and then I deal with the anger problem. If I've got problems with other things, then I go get counseling for that other thing.
But if I don't have an anger problem, I am the problem, where do I go? I'd like a new me, please. How well does that work in psychological counseling? Yes, I've got some problems. What are your problems?
I need a new me, because I'm broken and defiled and corrupt and loathsome and wicked and putrid. And I guarantee you that shrink would look at you and go, no, no, no, no, you're not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am.
Compared to you I might not be, but I am. But I am wicked before God. No wonder the most holy man in Israel and Judah, he wasn't a Hamas terrorist, he wasn't a pedophile, he wasn't an adulterer, he wasn't a murderer.
Isaiah the prophet stands before God, but compared to everybody else, he was the best man walking in Judah. But compared to God, what did Isaiah say? Woe is me. If Isaiah was a leper, he'd say, I'm unclean.
I'm unclean. Woe is me. I'm undone. I thought I had integrity compared to these other people, but when I see Jesus, John chapter 12, on the throne, I'm totally undone. Not just on the outside, but on the inside too.
Leprosy everybody thinks is a disease of the skin only, but it attacks the nerves, it attacks the brain, it attacks the nervous system, twisting of the limbs and spinal cord issues. Our heart is corrupt inside and outside.
No wonder Isaiah says, but we are all as unclean things. All our righteousnesses are as filthy, what? Rags. I need a new me. I need to be born again. I need to be a new creature. Only the God of the universe who creates things can then recreate things.
Spurgeon said the leper was not only loathsome in his person, but was defiled in all his acts. If he drank out of a vessel, the vessel was defiled. If he lay upon a bed, then the bed became unclean, and whosoever sat upon the bed afterward also becomes unclean.
If he touched but the wall of a house, the wall became unclean and must be purged. All that he did was full of the same loathsomeness as was himself. Now this may seem to be a very humiliating truth, but faithfulness requires us to say it.
All the actions of mankind, sinful natural mankind, are tainted with sin. Whether he eats or whether he drinks or whatsoever he does, he continues to sin against God. In the flesh it's impossible to please God.
Without faith it's impossible to please God. So if I'm so wicked, if I'm so full of spiritual leprosy, then I need somebody who has more power. I need not somebody who's just powerful, not an impersonal, stoic, fatalistic God.
I need a compassionate God. I need somebody who says, I've got the power and I'm willing. And if you come to me I certainly won't cast you out. That's what I need. That's what you need. I think of leprosy and I say to myself, you know what, what a picture of sin too because lepers couldn't cure themselves and you can't cure yourself either of the sin issue.
You need Jesus as a Messiah to cleanse your conscience, to cleanse your will and soul. Romans 5 says, while we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man someone would dare even to die.
But God demonstrates present tense, makes conspicuous His own love towards us that while we were yet sinners, Christ touched us. He died for our sins. I have no other option except for Jesus. And the thing is, if I could understand the chasm between a leper and society, I might understand the chasm that isolates me from God, my own sin.
The leper was isolated from family, from friends, but I just don't think our society gets it today. And maybe you're sitting here today and you don't think you need a Savior, but I don't think you realize how repulsive your sin is to God.
I could even go farther if I'm going to try to make you mad enough to believe. You don't realize how repulsive you are to God. To think how repulsive I was. I was God's enemy. And I didn't do anything.
I didn't even come up with my own faith. I didn't come up with my own repentance. I wasn't turning good. I wasn't trying to help myself. God just loved me in spite of all my sin and He proved it when He had His Son die for me.
Who dies for enemies? Who dies for sinners? Who dies for helpless? Who dies for the ungodly? Who dies for the repulsive? The Messiah does. Jesus, the Messiah. He's greater than my sin, greater than my defilement.
You know, we don't talk about this around here. That's the problem with the church. I don't mean Bethlehem Bible Church. But until you understand sin, you don't really get how great the Savior is. We just think, ah, somebody sins and it's kind of forgiven.
I just say, I forgive you. That's not how God forgives sins. Justice has to be held up. That sin has to be punished. And once you're guilty, 5 ,000 years of hell doesn't make you any less guilty. Once you commit a crime against God, you've always committed a crime against God.
And the only way our separation is going to be dealt with is if Jesus shows up. And He did. And Matthew wants people to know, you can be religious, you can quote the Old Testament, but you need to be born again.
You say, yeah, but I'm not really that bad. Well, if you could get to heaven by being good, then the Father's a masochist for killing Jesus. Why would He do that? Galatians chapter 2. I think about leprosy and I say, do you know what?
Like a leper, I need a blood sacrifice. The leper needed a blood sacrifice and so do all sinners because the wages of sin is death. The cost of sin is blood sacrifice. Listen to Leviticus 14. The living bird, he shall take it and the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop and shall dip them and the living bird and the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water and he shall sprinkle upon him.
That is to be cleansed from leprosy seven times and pronounce him clean. There's an issue with leprosy. There has to be a blood sacrifice and a sprinkling of blood. I'm a spiritual leper and there's been the sprinkling of the blood, the removal of all my sins based on the shedding of Christ's blood.
I need a sacrifice. No wonder Peter, Peter's excited about it. You are not redeemed with corruptible things but with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot. No wonder John on Patmos.
I mean, can you imagine? I remember we just took a group and we're standing there on Patmos and John writes in chapter 1, unto him that loves us and washes us from our sins in his own blood. No wonder Paul just with praise, in whom we have redemption, Ephesians 1, through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Aren't you glad your sins are forgiven? I knew I was wicked before I was saved and my way was I'll just distract myself. I'll get inoculated with enough Bible to say, you know what? Yeah, I believe in Jesus.
But then God says, I'm willing. You're cleansed. One man said, but says one, how am I to know that Christ died for me? You will never know it until you are willing to stand in the leper's place full of leprosy.
If you know this day that you are full of sin, if you are conscious that in you, that is in your flesh, there dwells no good thing, then it is written that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures.
It is just this. If you are willing to stand today condemned as a sinner and nothing more than a sinner, then Christ died for you. Your business is to trust your soul in the fact that Christ did hang on the tree for sinners.
Mark this, faith is trusting Christ and having done with yourself. Put your finger on any sound place in your flesh, you are a lost man. Point to any good that you trust you can do and there is no heaven for you.
Rely on anything that you have felt or thought or said or done and you rely on a broken reed. But trust in Christ alone. Cast your arms around his cross and cling to that, if you can. No, the leper said, if you will, I know you can.
One thing I notice about Christians, when they realize they are saved from their sins, they can't stop talking about it. I am not saying it is a sin to talk about the Red Sox. Am I saying that? The San Francisco Giants?
But you know what, I have had my fill of my own sin and I want to move on. I have pretty much had my fill of all the other things that the world can offer. I am not calling you to be aesthetic or to be a monk or anything else because last week, after all I preached, I want you to enjoy your life under the sun, under heaven.
But there is something to be said for some people who have some fire in their bones. No wonder Charles Wesley, he breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest, leprous sinner clean.
His blood availed for me. I don't know what else to preach. It is all I got for you. It is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And as your view of Christ goes up, who does that to a leper? Don't forget, who did that for you if you are a Christian?
Jesus paid it all, all to Him what? I am forced to do against my will. Thanks for the ministry. I don't think so. Joseph Hart said, come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus stands ready to save you full of pity, love and power.
He is able, He is willing. Doubt no more. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Father in heaven, who is like your Son? He is amazing. What a teacher, what a compassionate Savior, what a friend of sinners.
Father, for those of us that you have drawn towards your Son and to yourself, we exclaim as a body, my Lord and my God, thank you for granting us salvation, for granting us saving faith, for granting us eyes to see our own plight and eyes to see the value of the Savior's life, death and resurrection.
Father, for those that are here, there certainly must be some, maybe young ones, maybe old ones, maybe long time members. Father, I pray that you would be willing today to save them. Father, you would convict them of their sins, you would grant them new life.
Father, and if they will not turn to you, I pray that you wouldn't give them any rest until they do, until they rest on the cross and the cross alone. Thank you for loving us, thank you for being compassionate.
We're thankful that you just didn't have compassion, but you had compassion and showed it. And in light of that, may Bethlehem Bible Church be known, not for her doctrine, not for her precision. We want doctrine, we want precision, Lord.
But we want to know for proclaiming the excellencies of Christ Jesus with enthusiasm and precision too, in Jesus' name.