Leprosy is a vivid picture of sin. In this message we look at the Plight of the Leper, the Actions of the Leper, and the Cleansing of the Leper.
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Cleansing for Spiritual Lepers
Luke 5:12-16
Leprosy was the most dreaded disease in the ancient world. It was the AIDS of the first century. Luke has already shown us Jesus’ power over demons and disease and the animal creation in the miraculous catch of fish. Now, he is going to show us Jesus’ power even over the most dreaded disease of the first century.
Now, I find it fascinating that the Bible doesn’t speak about people being healed of leprosy. Rather it always says they are cleansed of leprosy. In verse 12 the leper says to Jesus, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Jesus responds in verse 13 by saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Notice these other texts:
Luke 4:27 “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”
Luke 7:22 And He answered and said to them, “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM.
Matthew 10:8 “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons; freely you received, freely give.
Now, my inquiring mind wants to know why. Wasn’t leprosy a disease? Why then don’t we read of people being healed of it? I believe the answer is that leprosy was always intended by God to picture something else that needed to be cleansed. Can you think of anything else in Scripture that needs to be cleansed? Yes, of course, SIN!
Leviticus 16:30, “for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD.”
Psalms 51:2, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin.”
1 John 1:7, “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Of course! Leprosy is a type, a picture, an illustration of sin. In this story of the leper coming to Jesus to be cleansed of his leprosy, there are some powerful spiritual lessons about how each of us need to come to Jesus to be cleansed of sin.
This morning, let’s consider 1) The Plight of the Leper; 2) The Actions of the Leper, and 3) The Cleansing of the Leper.
1. The Plight of the Leper
He was Unclean
Leviticus 13:3 says that if a person was found to have leprosy the priest was to pronounce him unclean. From that moment on, he was religiously and ceremonially defiled. He could not worship in the tabernacle or temple, because he was unclean. Friends, that is exactly how our all holy God views people. They are unclean. They are dirty. They are filthy and polluted in His sight. Job 15:15 says, “Behold, He puts no trust in His holy ones, and the heavens are not pure in His sight; how much less one who is detestable and corrupt, Man, who drinks iniquity like water!” In Ezekiel 36:25 God promises that He will “cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.” In the sight of God men and women, boys and girls are filthy. They may look fine to us, and they may seem fine to themselves. But in the sight of our infinitely holy God, man is filthy. He is unclean.
He Was Repulsive
Notice, that according to verse 12 this man was “covered with leprosy.” He had not just contracted the disease. Rather, he was in the final advanced stages of leprosy. Now, what did a leper look like in the final stages of leprosy?
In Numbers 12 Miriam became leprous as a judgment of God because she had spoken against Moses. Aaron cries out to Moses, “Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb!” The people in Moses’ day described leprosy as a person whose flesh is half eaten away.
My friends, sin is repulsive to God. Listen to how Isaiah describes Israel’s sinful condition in Isaiah 1:5-6, “The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is nothing sound in it, only bruises, welts and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged, nor softened with oil.”
New Testament commentator William Barclay has written, “The whole appearance of the face is changed, till the man loses his human appearance and looks, as the ancients said, ‘like a lion.’ The nodules grow larger and larger. They ulcerate. From them there comes a foul discharge. The eyebrows fall out, the eyes become staring. The voice becomes hoarse and the breath wheezes because of the ulceration of the vocal cords. The hands and the feet always ulcerate. Slowly the sufferer becomes a mass of ulcerated growths. The average course of the disease is nine years, and it ends in mental decay, coma, and ultimately death. The sufferer becomes utterly repulsive – both to himself and to others.”
William Thomson in his book, The Land And The Book, has written, “As I was approaching Jerusalem, I was startled by the sudden apparition of a crowd of beggars, without eyes, without nose, without hair, without everything… they held up their handless arms, unearthly sounds gurgled though throats without palates – in a word, I was horrified.”
Sin may look attractive to us, but it is repulsive to God! Remember that God does not look on the outward appearance, but on the heart. Of course we focus on the outward appearance. That’s why we put so much emphasis on exercise, jogging, spas, gyms, health clubs, weight lifting, new clothes, and beauty salons. But in spite of how well you look on the outside, God looks at your heart and sees that which is ugly and repulsive to Him. Do you see that there was nothing in us to attract God? If God ever draws near to us, it is not because He sees something beautiful in us. Rather, it is because He has mercy upon us!
He Was Unfeeling
For centuries people thought that leprosy caused the rotting away of tissue in the body. But in the mid-20th century, Dr. Paul Brand made the monumental discovery that leprosy, (also called Hansen’s Disease), is really the loss of sensation to pain which makes sufferers susceptible to injury. Listen to what Dr. Brand has written, “Hansen’s disease is cruel, but not at all the way other diseases are. It primarily acts as an anesthetic, numbing the pain cells of hands, feet, nose, ears, and eyes. Not so bad, really, one might think. Most diseases are feared because of their pain – what makes a painless disease so horrible? Hansen’s disease’s numbing quality is precisely the reason such fabled destruction and decay of tissue occurs. For thousands of years people thought Hansen’s Disease caused the ulcers on hands and feet and face which eventually led to rotting flesh and loss of limbs. Mainly through Dr. Brand’s research, it has been established that in 99 percent of the cases, HD only numbs the extremities. The destruction follows solely because the warning system of pain is gone. How does the decay happen? In villages of Africa and Asia, a person with HD has been known to reach directly into a charcoal fire to retrieve a dropped potato. Nothing in his body told him not to. Patients at Brand’s hospital in India would work all day gripping a shovel with a protruding nail or extinguish a burning wick with their bare hands, or walk on splintered glass. Watching them, Brand began formulating his radical theory that HD was chiefly anesthetic, and only indirectly a destroyer. On one occasion, he tried to open the door of a little storeroom, but a rusty padlock would not yield. A patient – an undersized, malnourished ten year old approached him smiling. “Let me try, doctor,” he offered and reached for the key. With a quick jerk of his hand he turned the key in the lock. Brand was dumbfounded. How could this weak youngster out-exert him? His eyes caught a telltale clue. Was that a drop of blood on the floor? Upon examining the boy’s fingers, Brand discovered the act of turning the key had gashed a finger open to the bone; skin, fat, and joint were all exposed. Yet the boy was completely unaware of it! To him, the sensation of cutting his finger to the bone was no different from picking up a stone or turning a coin in his pocket.”
Interestingly, the Bible tells us that sin makes a person unfeeling as well. We are told in Ezekiel 36 that when God saves a man, he takes out his heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh. He goes from having an unfeeling heart to a living, pulsing, feeling heart. Paul in 1 Tim. 4 speaks of those who “have been seared in their own consciences as with a branding iron.” In Ephesians 4 he speaks of the “hardness of men’s hearts, and that they have become callous and have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.” Sin hardens us toward sin. It hardens us toward God. I remember as a kid on my paper route, driving by that pomegranate tree every day. One morning the pomegranates looked especially ripe and sweet. With a twinge of guilt I remember picking one of the pomegranates and riding away really quickly on my bike. However, the next day, I didn’t feel quite as guilty. After a few days, I hardly even gave it a second thought. Eventually I was picking grapes, plums, oranges, and pomegranates wherever I found them. Sin hardens us and makes us unfeeling.
He Was Alienated
One of the most horrible things about leprosy was that it cut a person off from his friends and loved ones. He was contagious, so he had to live outside the camp, either alone, or with other lepers. He couldn’t hold his children on his lap, embrace his wife, or enjoy tender moments with his family around the dinner table. Can you imagine the emotional pain? In fact, the Law prescribed that he must wear torn clothing, uncover his head, cover his lips, and shout “Unclean! Unclean!” Whenever he approached people.
Similarly, this is exactly what sin does to a person. It brings alienation into his life; primarily alienation from God. Is. 59:1-2 says, “Behold the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” Oh my friends, unless you find a remedy for your sin, it will separate you from God for all eternity!
He Was Incurable
In the ancient world, leprosy was an incurable disease. God may bring a miraculous healing on occasion, but apart from that, a man with leprosy was doomed to die. In fact, in 2 Kings 5 there is a story of a Aramean officer named Naaman who was a leper. A Jewish maid servant told him that the prophet in Israel could cure him of his leprosy. So, the King of Aram sent a letter to the king of Israel along with silver, and gold, and 10 changes of clothes, asking that the king of Israel would cure Naaman of his leprosy. When the king of Israel read the letter he said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?” You see, to them, it was humanly impossible to be cured of leprosy. It was incurable!
And you know, sin is exactly the same way. It is impossible for a man to save himself from sin. Do you remember that rich young ruler who came to Jesus? When Jesus told him he must sell everything he had and give it to the poor, and then come follow Him, he went away said, because he wasn’t willing to obey Jesus. Jesus then turned to His disciples and said, “How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they asked, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus responded, “The things that are impossible with men are possible with God.” Did you hear that? Jesus said it was impossible with men to be saved. If a man is ever saved, it will have to be the work of God. Man cannot save himself or even contribute in any way to his salvation. Salvation is a work of pure grace from God Almighty!
2. The Actions of the Leper
He Became Convinced Of His Desperate Condition
He knew he was a leper, and he knew he was in the advanced stages of leprosy. Why else would he fall on his face and beg Jesus to make him clean?
You know, before a man will ever be saved, he must be convinced of his desperate condition. Jesus said that is the reason that He would send the Holy Spirit – to convict the world of sin. Most people are sinners, bound for hell, but they aren’t convinced of it. If you were to make a video of their lives, you’d find out that they are selfish, self-centered, greedy, lustful, proud, resentful people. They live for themselves and worship themselves. Yet, if you ask them why God will allow them into heaven, they respond, “Because I’m a good person”! It is such a sad situation. Lost sinners are blind to their desperate sinful condition, and they are blind to the glory of Christ.
If you will ever be saved you have to own up to your sin and guilt in the presence of our holy God. As long as we excuse our sin, or rationalize our sin, or justify our sin, we will stay in our sin, and eventually die in our sin. Becoming a Christian means we have to come clean before God. “He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion” (Pr.28:13).
He Came to Jesus
Where do we find this event taking place? Luke 5:12 says, “While He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy.” Wait a minute! What is a leper doing in a city?! He was forbidden to be around non-leprous people. He was banned from the cities. That’s why Luke says, “Behold!” Look! Check this out. This should never be happening. A leper never went into a city. So, why is he there? Why is he coming to Jesus? Because he is absolutely desperate! He is determined to do anything he has to do, in order to get to Jesus, including even breaking the Jewish rules about leprosy.
Friends, you will never be saved, until you are willing to do anything you have to do to get to Jesus. In order to come to Christ, you’re going to have to turn from your sin. But you’re okay with that. A man who wants to come to Christ has to be willing to put Jesus before his wife, children or parents, but you’re okay with that. A man who comes to Christ must be willing that He become your Lord and Master, and take the steering wheel of your life from now on, but you’re okay with that. A man who comes to Christ must be willing to give up all his possessions and recognize that they all belong to Christ, but you’re okay with that. But, unless you’re willing to do anything you have to do to get to Jesus, you’ll be lost. Remember what Jesus said in Mt.11:12, “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.” What Jesus is saying, that if you are going to get into the kingdom, you’re going to have to use a kind of holy violence. You will have to do violence against your sin. You are going to have to repent and exercise self-denial.
I know many people speak about how becoming a Christian is such an easy thing. I don’t think it’s such an easy thing at all! Is it easy to turn from the sins you have lived in and loved your whole life? Is it easy to trust in Someone who is invisible, who you can’t feel, taste, touch, see, or hear? But this leper knew his one and only hope was that Jesus might cleanse him. Our one and only hope of ever being saved from sin is that Jesus might cleanse us! “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
He Cast Himself on Jesus’ Mercy
This leper knew he had no rights. He could make no demands on Jesus. His only hope is that Jesus might have mercy on him, in spite of the fact that he did not deserve it. That’s how salvation works. It is by God’s mercy. None of us deserve it. None of us have a claim on God. None of us can demand it of God. If we are ever saved, it will only be because God has had mercy on us.
Remember the story Jesus told of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who went up into the temple to pray? The Pharisee prayed proudly to himself, “Lord I thank You that I’m not like other men. I’m not a swindler, unjust, or an adulterer, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes of all that I get.” But the tax collector, standing some distance away, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven. He stood there beating his breast, the seat from which all his sin had proceeded, saying, “God, be merciful to me the sinner!” What was he doing? He was casting himself on the mercy of the Lord. What was the result? Jesus said, “This man went down to his house justified. He was forgiven! He was saved! But, certainly not because he was any better than anybody else. He was saved because he cast himself on God’s mercy.
He Humbled Himself as a Beggar
Take a look at this leper. He fell on his face and implored Jesus. The word “implored” means “begged.” You know the reason so many never become Christians, is because they are just too proud. They are too proud to beg. Folks, we can’t buy salvation. It doesn’t take any humility to buy something. It takes a whole lot of humility to beg. To become a beggar means that we understand that don’t have anything we can bring to the table. It’s not just that we are poor – we are penniless! We don’t have anything! We have no righteousness to recommend us to God. We are destitute of anything that we can give to God that would put Him into our debt. If we are ever saved, it will be only because of His free and sovereign grace. Have you ever come to God as a poor, humble, beggar? It is the only way that a sinner can ever receive salvation. “Blessed are the bankrupt in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
He Exercised Faith in the Power of Christ
Look at this leper’s faith. He said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” This leper had no doubt heard about Jesus. He had heard that He had turned water into wine, had cast out demons, had healed a nobleman’s son from death, had healed a paralytic. Jesus’ fame was being spread far and wide. Everyone was hearing about this miracle-worker in Galilee. The leper knew there was no help anywhere else, but there was hope in Jesus. He knew Jesus could do it. He just didn’t know if He was willing.
It’s the same today isn’t it? If we are saved, we must have faith in Jesus Christ. We must believe that He is able to cleanse us from our defilements. We must believe that Jesus is stronger than sin, than Satan, than death and hell. And although this man didn’t know if Jesus was willing to cleanse him, we don’t need to have any doubt about that. If you want Jesus to cleanse you from sin, if you are willing to come to Christ on His terms, surrendering your life to Him, you never need to doubt whether He’s willing. Oh, He’s willing! The reason you’re willing to come, is because He’s willing to save you!
3. The Cleansing of the Leper
Jesus Touched Him Personally
Friends, we have no idea of how shocking this would have been! This just didn’t happen. You don’t just touch a leper. If you do, you are in danger of contracting the deadly disease. In fact, this leper probably hadn’t experienced human touch in years! To touch a leper was to contract his defilement. But I love this about Jesus. He didn’t turn up His nose in disgust with this leper. Instead, He intentionally stretched out His hand and touched Him.
Legally, Jesus became unclean Himself. But in the process, He gave the leper healing. Oh, what a picture of what took place on the cross. Jesus became sin for us. He identified with us in our filth and defilements. He didn’t remain at a distance with a turned up nose. Instead, He deliberately stretched out His hand and touched us. He took our sin upon Himself. And what was the result? He gave us Life, and Health and Salvation! We became the righteousness of God in Him!
Jesus Cleansed Him Instantly
The Scripture says “immediately the leprosy left him.” The leprosy didn’t leave him gradually over the next three months. It all left instantly!
Salvation happens the exact same way. We are born again instantly. It is not a gradual process. Some religious groups teach that we are saved gradually by our good deeds. That is a lie! It’s cruel, because a sinner will never know when he has done enough good deeds to tip heaven’s scale and grant him salvation. It’s also evil because it takes away the glory from Jesus, and gives the glory to us. If we can save ourselves by faith plus good works, then we deserve some of the glory. However, God has designed salvation so that no man can glory in His sight. My friends, if God saves you, He will do it in an instant. Salvation is going from spiritual death to spiritual life, and it happens instantly.
Life Application
Oh, my friends, have you ever seen yourself like this leper – unclean, repulsive, unfeeling, alienated, and incurable? If you see yourself that way this morning, come to Jesus for cleansing! Come as a humble beggar. Come casting yourself on God’s mercy. Come exercising your faith in Christ as a great Savior. Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (Jn.6:37). Oh, come! Come! Come and be saved by Him!
For those of you who have been cleansed of your spiritual leprosy, Jesus says “Go!” He told this man to tell no one. However, He tells us, to go and tell everyone! This man disobeyed, and told everyone. We disobey and tell no one! Oh, if Christ has cleansed you, declare what He has done for You. Don’t be ashamed of Him or His gospel. Tell every person you can what a great Savior you have in Christ!
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