(Luke) 17 - Fish & Man With Leprosy — Ed Miller

Okay. Okay, let's bow please before the Lord, commit our time on the end.

Our Father, thank you again for your precious word and for the Holy Spirit who ever lives in our heart. And we just pray as we meditate again, as we fellowship around your precious word, that you would indeed draw our hearts together and to focus in a living way upon the Lord.

We commit our time unto you in the all-prevailing name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. Okay, I'll ask you please to open. We'll be in Luke chapter 5, but if you can open to Luke chapter 4 for a little bit of review.

Luke’s Presentation of Jesus as the Son of All Mankind

Good morning. In the Gospel of Luke, and we're meditating on Luke's wonderful presentation of the Lord Jesus as the Son of all mankind. Not just the Son of the Jews, but the Son of everybody. In our discussion, we've come to the second great division in the book.

And that is chapter 4, verse 14, all the way to chapter 19, verse 28. You notice that's a big segment out of Luke. And we call that the Galilean ministry of our Lord Jesus. This is the ministry of the Son of all mankind.

And in that section, Luke divides it up into two different parts. What Jesus did and what Jesus said. Basically, I mean, there'll be some overlapping, but pretty much from chapter 4, 14 to 9, 15 is what Jesus did.

And mostly, he did miracles. And so we call him there the friend of all mankind. And then beginning at chapter 9, 51, all the way to 19, 28, what Jesus said. And there's many of his parables and his teachings.

So Luke divides the Galilean ministry into these two parts. Jesus, the friend of all mankind. Jesus, the teacher of all mankind. Now last week, in a panorama, I tried to give an overview of the ministry of our Lord Jesus.

Especially as the friend of all mankind. In other words, his miracles. What he did. And I showed you that Luke stresses four areas over which Jesus showed his amazing authority. He showed authority over demons.

He showed authority over disease. He showed authority over death. And he showed authority over nature. Now if you'll glance at chapter 5, verse 31. It's important, and we stressed it last time, but this is right in the middle of the miracles.

And it was in the greatest miracle of all. The miracle of salvation. God saved Matthew. And when he recorded it, he put it right in the middle of the miracle. He gives ten miracles. And so he gives five miracles.

And then he tells how he came to the Lord. Then he gives five more miracles. And that's in order to illustrate the greatest miracle of all. Is when a person comes to the Lord. And so Matthew, to celebrate his salvation, throws this great banquet in honor of the Lord Jesus.

And it was at this banquet, chapter 5, verse 31 and 32, that our Lord Jesus said this. It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.

The point that I made and am emphasizing again is this. Right in the middle of all the physical miracles was a spiritual miracle. And at the banquet where he celebrates the spiritual miracle, he announces the fact that he's a soul doctor.

The sick need a physician. I've come not to call sinners, but the righteous to repentance. In other words, he's saying, I am a spiritual doctor. And the miracles that I do physically, they're literal.

I'm not saying he didn't really do them. But they're all redemptive. They all have a spiritual message. And he called attention to that so that we would read a little deeper when we saw the miracle, in order to see the spiritual reality.

So what he did on the outside always pictured what he wants to do on the inside. He healed the blind, not just so they could see, but so that we could know that he heals the spiritually blind. He healed the deaf in order that we might know.

He that has an ear to hear, let him hear. We have ears in our heart. Every miracle he did was to teach us how to live before him spiritually. We don't need to be humped over as we walk before God. He healed the lame to teach us how to walk.

And so every miracle he did had a spiritual background to it. And what we're trying to do as we go through this is to look at the miracles and then show the spiritual intention behind each one. That does not mean we don't believe literally he did the miracle.

He really did cleanse the leper. But in order to show that he cleanses sin. So we'll look at the miracle and then try to dip in. God assisting us to see the spiritual reason for all of this and how he was the friend of all mankind.

Healing Peter’s Mother-in-Law and Ministry in Divine Strength

If you'll glance at chapter 4, 38, we left off with this first miracle. The healing of Peter's mother-in-law who was suffering from a high fever. This takes place in Peter and Andrew's house. They co-own the home.

Luke chapter 4, 38. And he arose and left the synagogue and entered Simon's home. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever. And they made requests of him on her behalf. And standing over her he rebuked the fever and it left her.

And she immediately arose and waited on them. Now we looked at this one last time. If you missed that and would like it, of course, Lillian would have the tape. The spiritual message is in the words of verse 39.

Standing over her he rebuked the fever. It left her and she immediately arose and ministered unto them. When the Lord touches me or us, his people, the fever leaves and without convalescence. See, in the natural, after a fever, you're going to have to take it easy for a while.

But when the Lord touches, immediately you rise and serve. And the principle behind the fever has to do with ministry. She arose and served others and served the Lord. For years in my own life, I thought that I had to move from natural weakness, fever, to natural strength.

And my whole Christian life was in fits and starts. In other words, I got real weak and then I heard a good sermon or read a good book or something. I said, alright, I'm going to do it. And then I got up in the energy of the flesh and I started off.

And then after a while you just teeter out again. And then you determine again. So it's fever, chill, fever, chill. And you determine, I'm going to do it. And I'll get up early and I'll memorize or I'll study the scriptures or whatever it is.

And then after a while, you just fizzle again. That's because I was moving from natural weakness to natural strength. In this miracle of the fever, he gives the key to all ministry. It's moving from natural weakness to supernatural strength, not natural strength.

And that delivers you from all the fits and starts and then fizzling out and all of that. When the Lord touches you, then you're able to rise up and empower not your own minister to him and to others.

And so that's the idea of this fever. And how the people of God need to learn this secret of ministry. Because the church, quite honestly, is suffering from a high fever. And they just need the touch of the Lord so they can learn to minister in his strength.

The Miraculous Catch of Fish and the Call to Catch Men

This morning I'd like to continue looking at the Lord's Galilean ministry. And we'll look at two miracles. In chapter 5, 1 to 11, the miraculous catch of fish. And then verses 12 to 16, the cleansing of the leper.

Now we're not going to spend a lot of time on each miracle. But it will be my intention, as God helps, to look at the miracle in terms of the spiritual, the redemptive principle. Because when you get them all together, you've got a complete course on how to live the Christian life.

And of course the big answer is by a miracle. And he illustrates, he breaks it down. And so we'll look at each one of these. Follow along please as we read the record here. The first 11 verses. It came about while the multitude were pressing around him and listening to the word of God.

He was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. By the way, that's just another word for Galilee. And the Sea of Tiberias is another word for Galilee. So when you see those three, it's always the same. And he saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake.

But the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. And he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And he sat down and began teaching multitudes from the boat.

And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. And Simon answered and said, Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. But at your bidding, I will let down the net.

And when they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish. And their nets began to break. And they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats so that they began to sing.

And when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet saying, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken.

And so also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Do not fear. From now on you will be catching men. And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

As the first miracle, the healing of the fever, had to do with Christian service. The miracle of serving in his strength. So I think it's clear that the spiritual message of this miracle is in verse 10.

The end of verse 10. Do not fear. From now on you will be catching men. The spiritual reality behind this miracle is evangelism. It's soul winning. It's mission. Fear not. From now on you will be catching men.

Now I'm not reading this application into the story. Jesus put it there. Jesus is the one that compared fishing to fishing for man. And soul winning and so on. In a sense this is connected to the healing of the fever of Peter's mother-in-law.

Because it's an enlargement of that miracle. See that taught us how to serve in his strength. This is also serving in his strength. But now it reaches out not only to Christ and His people. But evangelism going out into the world and bringing others in.

Let me make a couple of observations about the miracle that will help us tie it into the spiritual message. The first observation of course is this. That all evangelism, all soul winning is a mighty miracle of God.

Just as really as Peter's mother-in-law had to learn how to really serve in the strength of the Lord. So now Peter is going to have to learn how to fish. And how to evangelize. And it's a mighty miracle.

It's an awesome thing to think about being a fisher of men. In fact it's a scary thing. If you ever tried to share the Lord with your family or your friends. You might already say, well that is scary.

That's a frightening thing. I want you to glance please at verse 10. Because there's a key here. Jesus said, do not fear. From now on you'll be catching men. Why do you think that Jesus said to Peter, don't fear.

You'll be catching men. What does fear have to do with it? You see in the Greek it's actually stop fearing. Stop being afraid. He was already afraid. And Jesus said there's no need to fear in this whole idea of soul winning.

Because I'm going to make you a fisher of men. Now what was Peter afraid of? Let me give you the background. You see this is not the first time Peter heard those words. I'll make you fishers of men. Mark fills us in.

In the gospel of Mark in chapter 1, verse 16 and 17. It's about two months before this. And they're outside the Sea of Galilee and they're doing the same thing. They're cleaning their nets. Jesus walks by.

And as he was going along, I'm reading from Mark 1, 16. As he was going along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon. Casting a net into the sea, they were fishermen. Jesus said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.

And they immediately left their nets and followed him. That was two months early. And Jesus said, I'm going to make you a fisher of men. Well for two months he had nothing to do but think about that. And it scared him to death.

To think about the fact he's a fisherman. All his life he's been a fisherman. Is Jesus telling him he's going to have to change vocations now? I'm going to make you an evangelist. It scared him to death because Peter thought, I am no preacher.

I'm embarrassed to get up in front of people. I don't know how to talk to others. I don't want to be a fisher of men. Why did he say that to me? I don't want to speak in public. I'm no John the baptizer.

I suppose he thought of John. And Jesus said, from now on you're going to be a fisher of men. And he saw John and said, oh no. Don't tell me he's got his hand on me for that. I don't want to be a missionary.

And so he was scared and he felt unqualified. Peter felt like, I know how to fish for fish. But I don't know how to fish for men. I know about fish. I know how they travel. I know when they eat. I know when is the best time to fish.

I know where to fish. I know the best spot. I know the Sea of Galilee. I know when the squalls come. I know the weather. I'm a fisherman. But don't talk to me about teaching and preaching and sharing.

I'm not an evangelist. Then Jesus comes along in verse 3 of chapter 5. And in a sense he says, Peter, do you mind if I borrow your boat as a floating pulpit? I need to teach the people. And I can't prove this, but I have an idea.

Peter sighed with relief. And he said, oh, that's what he meant, a fisher of men. He wants to use my business. He wants to use my resources. He wants to use my boat. He knows I'm not a teacher. He wants to teach from my boat.

That's fine. And I think Peter sighed with relief and said, you got it right now, Lord. You be the teacher. You be the preacher. You be the evangelist. And I'll be the businessman. And yes, I give you my business.

You can use my boat. You can use my boat as a pulpit and so on. My business is a tool for you to use. Then after he finished, in verse 4, he finished his little sermon, he sort of put the heat up a little and said to Peter, launch out into the deep and let down your nets.

Again, I'm reading into Peter's mind, but I have an idea. Peter said something like this in his heart. He said, Peter, I mean, he said, Lord, stick to preaching. And I'll stick to fishing. You know how to preach.

You're good. I know how to fish. And quite honestly, the advice you're giving me is not good fishing advice. Actually, it contradicted everything about fishing because late morning and early afternoon is not the best time to fish.

And to fish, you don't go out into the deep. You go along the shoals and that's where they're feeding and so on. And besides, they spent the whole night fishing and there were no fish in the area. Try to get into Peter's heart.

This whole idea of evangelism and his fear and telling others about the Lord and he's sort of saying, Lord, you preach. I'll fish. I know how to fish. And you know how to teach. In verse 5, when Peter said, Master, we've worked hard all night and caught nothing, implied in that statement is the fact that Peter expected nothing to happen.

In other words, Peter said, this is going to be a colossal waste of time. We have already tried all night long. It's not going to work. You want us to go out into the deep? You're a carpenter. You're a teacher.

You don't know how to fish. But nevertheless, out of respect for the Lord, in spite of his doubt, just to do what he said. He said, I'm going to do it. But you'll see. We're not going to catch anything.

But I'm still going to obey you. I'm going to honor you. And at your word, we're going to let out the net. And so, to prove the futility of further efforts, he goes and he casts out the net. And then we read, of course, verse 6 and 7.

And when they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish. Their nets began to break. They signaled to their partners in the other boat. They came and helped and filled the boat so that they began to sink.

The Lord Jesus, in his marvelous way, in this parable of action, was instructing his disciples. He was saying, Peter, you don't know how to catch men. And you don't know how to catch fish either. I'm going to teach you, Peter.

This is what was so humbling. Because he was teaching the fishermen how to fish. I'm the one that's filled your nets today. And Peter, don't you know I'm the one that fills your nets every day? You know why you've been successful as a businessman?

Because behind the scenes I've been filling your nets. You don't know how to do anything, Peter. You don't know how to fish for fish. And you don't know how to fish for people. And the reason your business has prospered is because I made it prosper.

And for no other reason. Verse 8, when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus' feet and said, Depart from me, I'm a sinful man, O Lord. You see, Peter was so afraid of soul winning, he didn't know how to witness.

Jesus scared him when he said, I'll make you a fisherman. Because he didn't hear him right. It's the same thing when they said, go over to the other side. And somehow they heard, go to the bottom. They thought they were going to sink.

And sometimes you don't hear what he really said. Peter thought, he said, you have a new duty now, a new responsibility. You've got to witness to your friends and neighbors. You've got to become an evangelist.

Jesus didn't say that. He said, Peter, I will make you. Then you start doing it. It's not a new duty. It's something that God is going to work in him. And God is going to make him a fisher of man. How did those fish end up in Peter's net?

And the answer is, by a miracle of God, Jesus drew them into his net. It wasn't Peter fishing. It was the Lord's drawing power. And he drew those fish into the net. Now tie this into evangelism and soul winning.

How am I ever going to bring my family to the Lord? God better draw them into the net because there's nothing else I can do. And there's nothing you can do. And it's scary as it was for Peter. From now on, he said, I'm going to make you.

Stop fearing because your responsibility is not to win the laws. Your responsibility is just to obey me. Look what Peter did. There are two things he did. In verse 5, even though he had his doubts, he set his heart to please the Lord.

I'm going to do this. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think it's good advice. But out of love and honor and respect for you, I'm going to do it. Sisters in the Lord, this is a tremendous principle of God.

Don't worry about soul winning. Don't even worry. That's the bad word. Be concerned about just pleasing Jesus. The best thing in the world I can ever do for my family who is resisting the Lord is obey Jesus.

And as Peter just obeyed the Lord, then God drew the fish into the net. Soul winning is a supernatural thing. He'll take care of the fish. He'll take care of the fruit. He'll take care of the harvest.

He'll draw the fish into the net. All we have to do is whatever we have light on. The light we have, just obey God. And as we obey God, then He'll do the soul winning. Soul winning is not a duty to be performed.

It's a mighty miracle of God that happens when we just set our hearts to please Him. Did you notice in verse 11, when it was all over, Peter took a forward step in surrender? When they brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.

Now, here's an amazing thing. Two months before this, when Jesus first dropped the bomb and scared him to death, telling him he's going to have to be a soul winner, when he did that, the Bible says in Mark 17, chapter 117, after Jesus said, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men, it says, and they immediately left their nets and boats and followed Him.

Well, here's the question. If they left their nets and boats two months ago to follow the Lord, how come they still have their nets and boats now, two months later? I thought they left those in order to follow the Lord.

And then after this, we read in verse 11, he left everything and followed the Lord. So now he leaves his nets and boats again. Two years later, hello? Two years later, we're in Luke chapter 5. Two years later, after the resurrection, Jesus does another miracle and they're out in their boats and fishing again.

Well, now here's the question. At the beginning of the ministry, they left their boats and nets. In the middle of the ministry, they left their boats and nets. After the resurrection, they left their boats and nets.

How come they still have boats and nets if they already left their boats and nets? And I think the answer is the spiritual principle. There's a way to leave something and still have it. They didn't leave it in the sense that they dumped their treasure.

They didn't leave it that way. They left it in terms of their heart's attachment. They were attached to their boats and nets. And every time they saw the Lord, they took a forward step in their surrender and were less attached to the physical thing.

I have an idea that Peter's surrender to the Lord constantly was measured by his attachment to his boat. You go through the record, it's exciting how Peter loved his boat. How Peter loved fishing. In the life of Peter, we always see him returning to his boat.

Even when he was walking on the stormy sea, the Lord Jesus was supernaturally trying to separate him from his boat. And then when he saw the wind and the waves and so on, he ran right back to the boat again.

And he's constantly going back and every time he sees the Lord, there's this new surrender of the nets and the boat. But that doesn't mean that he gives them up forever. What it means is he sits loose to them.

His heart is not attached unto them. So over and over again, he goes forward in this surrender. Peter felt so unworthy to have this part in soul winning, fishing for men. He felt so disqualified and he said, Depart from me, I'm a sinful man, oh Lord.

When he said, Depart from me, that was the prayer on his lips. He didn't mean that prayer. That's not the prayer of his heart. When he said, Depart from me, he wasn't saying, I wish the Lord would go away.

See, later on, we'll look at another miracle when Jesus cast the demon out of that man at Gennesaret, I mean the garrison. And they said, Depart out of our coast. Well, they meant it. They didn't want the Lord.

And so he left. But when Peter said, Depart from me, he really meant, Never depart from me. Don't ever leave me. But as a soul winner, at the beginning, all you have to do is obey me. And as you live to please me, I will bring fish into your net.

That's the secret of soul winning. And it was so humbling for him. He felt so disqualified. He felt like he didn't deserve that. Let me review these first two miracles and we'll look at the third. The first miracle is the fever where we learn the secret of service.

We move from natural strength to supernatural strength in order to serve others. In the second miracle, we learn the secret of soul winning and evangelism. The secret of soul winning is, we set our hearts, obey the Lord.

Period. And God will do the rest. For years, I thought God called me to ramrod the gospel down the throats of all my loved ones. And I think I told you some of the stories on how I used to do that. And oh, I'm so glad that God began to open these eyes of mine.

All you have to do is live and please the Lord. And as you live and delight yourself in the Lord, He'll give you the desires of your heart. Best thing you can ever do for your unsaved friends and family is delight yourself in the Lord.

And the more you delight yourself in the Lord, the more redemptive your life becomes and my life becomes. God's the one that puts the fish into the net. And He doesn't do it because we know how to fish or because we're skillful.

He does it because He's a good God and He wants to use us. Glantz at chapter 5, verse 12 please. Let me just do this one other miracle. It came about while He was in one of the cities. Behold, there was a man full of leprosy.

Jesus Cleanses the Leper: Willing and Able to Forgive Sin

And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, Lord, if You're willing, You can make me clean. And he stretched out his hand and he touched Him, saying, I am willing, be cleansed.

And immediately the leprosy left him. And he ordered him to tell no one but to go and show yourself to the priest. Make an offering for your cleansing just as Moses commanded for a testimony to them. To get the full impact of the spiritual message of the cleansing of this leper, we must understand how God explains leprosy in the Bible.

We say, leprosy, what a disease. This is different than all other diseases mentioned in the Bible. You see, God healed other diseases. God never healed leprosy. It always says He cleansed. And the reason He said cleansed is because God develops leprosy as a picture.

In fact, there are two chapters dedicated to leprosy. Leviticus chapter 13 and Leviticus chapter 14. 116 inspired verses just on leprosy as a picture. Leprosy is God's picture in the Bible of sin. That's why it was such a dreaded disease because of its insidious beginnings and because of the slow process of leprosy and because of its destructive power and because of its ultimate ruin, leprosy became God's picture of sin.

The same laws that applied contact with a corpse in the Old Testament applied to contact with a leper. In other words, leprosy was a living death. The same process of decay that takes place after a person dies on the body already began to take place on the leper while he lived.

One illustration of this is when Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron got leprosy. Aaron prayed for his sister. Numbers chapter 12 and verse 12. And Aaron prayed this prayer. Do not let her be dead. She is half-eaten.

That's what leprosy was. It was a living death. The leper was completely ostracized from Hebrew society. You can read in Leviticus how they had to rend their garments and shave their heads bald, put their hand over their mouth and keep a certain distance and cry, unclean, unclean.

Just a tremendous picture of sin. I don't want to be too gruesome, but I think the more you enter into the plight of the leper, the more you're going to appreciate the miracle that our Lord Jesus did when He cleansed the leper.

Remember in the Old Testament when King Uzziah died of leprosy. In the same year, Isaiah saw the Lord. Isaiah chapter 6. And the Lord was high and lifted up. And when he saw the Lord, he saw himself. And he said, I saw myself as a leper.

Unclean. My lips were unclean. And he saw himself as a leper, a moral leper, living in a leper colony. Every time we really see the Lord, we're also going to see a corresponding revelation of ourselves.

And this picture of leprosy, all through the Scripture, is a picture of sin. Now with that as background, what is the great revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ in this wonderful miracle of cleansing the leper?

Remember now, all through these nine chapters, He's presenting Himself as the friend of the sinner. He's the friend of the sinner. And now, He's showing Himself in a special way as the friend of sinners who is willing and able to cleanse leprosy in its most aggravated forms.

I love this truth that Jesus was willing and able. And the leper comes up. He says, If you're willing, you can. Willing and able. You have to have both though. You have to have the power to do it and the will to do it.

If you don't have the will to do it. And the will to do it isn't enough. If you don't have the power to do it. The Lord just called home my best friend just before Christmas. How do you measure a best friend?

But he was one of my dear friends. Since 1975, this man had MS and multiple sclerosis. And in 1978, I was dubbed his physical therapist. And so I would go over three times a week and just do passive exercises on him for 20 years.

I would stretch his arms and stretch his legs and just sort of keep him loose. Now I love Rainier. I love this man. If I could, I speak as a fool, I would have walked in there and raised him up. I would have healed him.

If I could. I couldn't. But if I could, I would have. Because I had the will. But I didn't have the power. You got to be willing and able. I wasn't able. But I was willing. The reality is, Jesus loved him more than I did.

And more than his family. And he had the power to do it. But for some reason, he wasn't willing to do it. We don't know why. There's a lot of mystery in why he doesn't raise some people up. I call attention to that because of this particular reference.

When he said, if you're willing, you can. And Jesus said, I am willing. Be cleansed. And he was. I call attention to that because with disease, God always has the power. But sometimes, he doesn't have the will to do it.

I don't know why. He just doesn't always heal. He has the power, but he doesn't always do it. With sin, he is always of this healing of the leper. When he said in verse 13, I'm willing. Be cleansed. He's not revealing a one-time pleasure as if arbitrarily he'll heal this leper.

He's not revealing a one-time pleasure. He's revealing an everlasting attitude. He is always and willing without reluctance, infinitely willing to cleanse, to cleanse sin. There are some sins that people call disease.

You're probably familiar with that. They take this perversion or that perversion and say, well, it's not a sin. It's a sickness. But I'll tell you this. You'd be better off calling it a sin. I'll tell you why.

Because God hasn't promised to heal every disease, every sin. In approaching those things as a sin and coming before the Lord as a moral leper and saying, if you're willing, you can. And God will always say, I am willing.

Be cleansed. For sin, there's never an exception to that. If people would just come before the Lord, how they could be delivered from their bondages. And so Jesus shows himself in this miracle as the friend of sinners, the one who is always willing and able to forgive sin.

One thing that makes this so remarkable is the fact that Luke wrote it. And Luke, on the level of earth, was a doctor. He was a physician. Luke 5 .12, Luke, the doctor, the physician says, there was a man full of leprosy.

Now that's the doctor's description of this man. Perhaps you've heard stories or seen pictures about the advanced stages of leprosy. I have a friend who's been a missionary in India for many, many years.

And he works in a leper colony over in India. And all he does is make shoes for lepers. That's what he does day after day, year after year. Just makes shoes for lepers. And the reason is because many times, leprosy, you lose your members.

You lose your toes. You lose your fingers and so on. Even your nose off your face. It's very common that lepers don't even have a nose and so on. I don't know what stage this was. All I know is he was full of leprosy.

And we read in verse 13, immediately, the leprosy left him. When I read the Bible, I always try to enter in and put myself in the shoes of the people. And I can just picture this. Again, I can't prove it.

And I'm not trying to say that it's this way, but I think his toes grew back. And I think his fingers grew back. And I think his nose grew back. I know in 2 Kings 5, I think it is, when Naaman the leper was healed, the Bible says that his skin became like the skin of a little child.