Leprosy and Thanksgiving

Back here on the afternoon of the 8th. Well, I guess on Sabbath after Thanksgiving, it's probably been my history and maybe the tradition, if you will, to give a sermon about Thanksgiving. And I'm going to do that today, but I'm going to do it in a way that I certainly didn't anticipate it, you know, a few weeks ago, and not in the way that I had really ever thought of Thanksgiving before. But over the last few weeks, I've been studying something, and it's made me appreciate this Thanksgiving even more than I normally do.

I always enjoy Thanksgiving. I always am thankful to God and recognize it's Him who provides all of the things that we enjoy in life, certainly our calling and the promises of the future that He's made for all of us. But this year, I enjoyed it, and I appreciated God even more. Let me start off in a way that you're going to think is most unlikely as we begin this sermon today. First, let's go through some words of Jesus Christ. In Matthew 10, let's begin there. I'm going to read a few verses of things that He said when He was here on earth, and I think you'll see the pattern maybe, or the common denominator in these verses that I am going to read, and then we'll talk about that here a little bit.

Matthew 10 and verse 5. Here is where Christ is sending out twelve disciples of His into the world, and He's telling them to preach the gospel of the kingdom, and He gives them specific instructions of what to do. Matthew 10, verse 5. He's twelve. Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying, Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons, freely you have received, freely give. And then He goes on, and He says more things as well. But I'll just stop there, because within those few verses is the subject of today. Let's go one chapter over in Matthew 11. In Matthew 11, we have John the Baptist, who has sent inquiry about Jesus Christ.

And in verse 3, you see where He sends some messengers to Him and asks Christ, Are you the coming one, or do we look for another? And Christ answered in verse 4 and said, Go and tell John the things which you hear and see, the blind see and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them, and blessed is he who is not offended because of Me. Go back and tell him these things. This is what you've seen.

And that should answer his question on whether Christ was the one they were waiting for, or they should be waiting for another. Let's go over to Mark, the Gospel of Mark, first chapter. In this one we actually have someone approaching Jesus Christ who has the condition that none of us would ever want to have in our lives, and no one who ever lived would want it. People of Old Testament time, I think, probably feared this condition, and in Christ's time they feared this condition as well.

And this man comes to Christ and asks for healing of it. Mark 1, verse 40, Now a leper came to Christ, imploring him, kneeling down to him and saying to him, If you are willing, you can make me clean. Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand, and touched him and said to him, I am willing, be cleansed. A leper came to him and said, Didn't ask to be healed, can I be cleansed?

And Christ said, Yeah, I'm willing, I'm willing, be cleansed. Now leprosy is something that has significant mention in the Bible. You read through the Old Testament, you see that leprosy is there. It's kind of an overlay over the people's lives. If we had leprosy today, it would probably be on our minds. The Bible gives them specific instructions about leprosy.

There's two whole chapters in the Old Testament dedicated to what the priests would do, not doctors, not physicians, not natural medicine people or people who are specialists and heirs. But the priests would have to identify it if someone came up with a sore on them that was suspected of being leprosy, because leprosy was a serious, serious condition, unlike anything that we have on earth today, I believe.

And it was something that people feared, something that, if they were diagnosed with it, became really a death sentence for them. They couldn't run to the emergency room. They couldn't take any herbs. They didn't have any pills. It was an incurable disease, by all accounts. Let me read to you from Easton's Bible dictionary how they define the physical symptoms or the physical condition of leprosy.

Before I do that, though, let me tell you, with the Hebrew word that's translated there, leprosy is tzara'ath. It literally means a smiting or a strike. I should tell you something about that disease.

It says smiting or a strike. Here's what Easton says about, I'm going to say condition or disease. It's really a condition. It says, this condition, they say, begins with specks on the eyelids and on the palms, gradually spreading over the body, bleaching the hair white wherever they appear, crusting the affected parts with white scales and causing terrible sores and swellings. From the skin, the disease, eats inward into the bones, rotting the whole body, piecemeal. It's a progressive disease. It starts off very small. You might have a sore on your hand that looks maybe suspicious, but something that's there.

It starts off, you know, you might think innocently, but then it turns colors, I guess, and whatever. When someone would see this spot, they were very aware of it. In Leviticus 13 and 14, we'll see this in a minute, they were instructed to go to the priest.

He will examine it. He'll put it through some examination of what God said to do with that and determine whether it's a leprosore or whether it isn't. So it would progress, it would start very slowly, and it would just progress. It wasn't something that was going to go away on its own. It wasn't something that people got healed of. It wasn't something that people just miraculously one day woke up, unless God healed them, of something. The only answer to this disease was healing from God, or cleansing from God, as Jesus Christ would say. As the disease would progress, the people, they would eventually become just covered with scales, flaky-type scales.

Their hands and their extremities would cringe up, and they would hardly even be able to stand up straight. Everything would be affected even into the inward parts. They say that some people, when you read through it, would even get to the point where all their hands and their legs or their feet and their hands would just be, as they described it, like it was an anesthetic. It had no pain. No pain at all. And that was causing them a problem, because if something caught in fire or they did something, they didn't even know they were going to lose their hand because they felt no pain.

And that commentary happened to mention that it teaches us that pain, while we think of it as often as a bad thing, it really is a good thing, because it protects us in a way, and people with leprosy lost that. It was a very significant disease.

It was something that no one would want, and something that was a virtual life sentence. But beyond being the physical problems that it had, it had a social consequence as well that was just as bad, I think, as the physical disease, because these people became just absolute rejects, if you will, from society. Let me go on to read what it says about the social aspects that Ines says about this disease, because it's not just about the physical effects of it.

It says, In Christ's day, no leper could live in a walled town. He might be able to live in an open village, but wherever he was, he was required to have his outer garment rent as a sign of deep grief, to go bareheaded, and to cover his beard with his mantle, as if in lamentation and his own virtual death. He had further to warn passers-by to keep away from him by calling out, Unclean, unclean, nor could he speak to anyone, or receive or return salutation, since this involved an embrace or a touch. So beyond having this horrible disease, this horrible condition that you knew the only outcome was death, and a continual deterioration, he had a social aspect where you were just pretty much set apart from the community.

You had to be set apart. You couldn't be inside the community. You were out there without anyone that you could identify with. People couldn't even touch you. I think if you just step for a moment, think about what that had to be like, that that was your sentence the rest of your life. Continual deterioration, no comfort, no human contact, not being able to live in the city, but being cut off from the community and putting out of the village. What a horrible, horrible, horrible situation that would be.

You can see why leprosy. When it was identified or when it was suspected, it would bring a panic into people's life. It was something that, as the Hebrew word would say, they would have felt that they had been smitten with, something that had struck them, something that no one would want.

No one would want for their family because it was a condition that is just out there that none of us can even really imagine. I guess we can imagine, but we can't even really fathom the fact that we would never be able to reach out and shake someone's hand when we come in contact with them. That when people saw us and we had our mantle over our head and our clothes, rent, signify our own virtual death, they would be looking at us and saying, we need to stay near flair.

This is someone that's unclean. We can't even go near to them. We don't want anything like that happening. An existence that was just absolutely awful. And people were faced with that. This man in Mark 1, he was faced with that. And he came to Christ and he said, if you are willing, if you are willing, you can cleanse me. He didn't say you can heal me, you can cleanse me because there was more than healing we're going to see.

Leprosy could be healed, but to be a part of the community again, you were going to have to go through some other things that we'll talk about in a few minutes. Now, I hope as you're thinking about leprosy, and I've gotten your attention on that, you're thinking about maybe the spiritual applications as well. Because this disease that was, I won't say a stand, but well known, well known in ancient times, certainly has an application to us in our spiritual lives as well.

But let's pause on that for a moment and go back to that point in a little bit. A few weeks ago, maybe a few months ago, I had a question come to me, or a thought came to my mind, I don't remember what it was, but I remember thinking and answered it, oh, there's something back in Leviticus about that. There's something that the priest had to do back then, and they had to identify mold or something like that, and I wasn't really sure what it was.

So I went back in the Bible, and I began to look and see what were those instructions that God gave to Israel back concerning those things. And when I came across Leviticus 13 and 14, there were two whole chapters. I didn't realize or didn't remember that it had to do with leprosy, and it was having to do how to identify leprosy. But as I looked at those chapters and I read what was required, my mind started working like, what was it about leprosy? Why would God have leprosy? What is it that this was such a significant thing? Because there were people in the Bible that were affected by this.

You remember the occasions well of when someone got leprosy? There was Miriam, right? Moses' sister. She was there, and she was talking against Moses and his wife and whatever. And God struck her with leprosy because she wasn't honoring Moses the way that she should have. She was panicked as well, you can imagine, because the minute it was identified as leprosy, she knew it. She knew what the rest of her life was like because everyone had heard of those stories. Moses prayed that God would relieve it, and seven days God did heal. You remember the story about Naaman?

Naaman actually was Assyrian, Assyrian who developed leprosy or had that condition. And God used this as an occasion that he would be glorified because Naaman did what he was told. There was no cure. Naaman just kind of thought here he was the captain in the Assyrian army. He thought he had life by the tail, if you will. And all of a sudden he comes down with this condition, virtually a life sentence, until a little Israelite girl said, there is a prophet over in Israel that can heal you.

And he went over there, and he looked, and he went to Elisha and had faith in that. He did what he needed to do, had some issues with what Elisha told him to do, but he learned when someone told him, why wouldn't you just do what the prophet said? Why wouldn't you just do it? Because when you do these things, you know, happy are you if you do them. Naaman did, and he was healed. Let's go over to Luke 4. It's an interesting thing. Some of the commentaries will indicate that leprosy, we read of all the cases of leprosy that are in the Bible, not so. Not so. It's not just Miriam, Naaman, and then, of course, Gehazi.

Gehazi also contracted leprosy when Naaman, when Gehazi wanted to inherit or take the riches or the payment for his healing, God put the leprosy on Gehazi, and he suffered with that for the rest of his life. But over here in Luke 4.27, we see it was a common—I'm not going to say common—it was not just a couple people that had it.

Luke 4.27, Christ speaking, he says, and many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed. None of them, except Naaman the Syrian. Isn't that interesting? Many lepers, even Judah during the time of Elisha, many times, many in Israel, none of them were cleansed, except Naaman. What did Naaman do? That he was cleansed, and the rest of those people were not. They should have known the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They should have known that he can do all the things, and that the only answer, when there are no answers in life, the answer is God.

None of them were healed. You know, another man in the Old Testament that contracted leprosy was King Isaiah. Remember him? He was a good king. Let's look at him for a minute over in 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles 26. He was a man, and one of the verses that it says about him, I think about often, and he has used often, but in chapter 26, you know, as we begin in 2 Chronicles, we see that he became king when he was 16 years old.

Verse 4, he did what was right in the sight of God, according to all that his father, Amaziah, had done. In verse 5, he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding of the visions of God, and as long as he sought the Lord, as long as he sought the Lord, God made him prosper. That should be one of our mantras.

As long as we seek God, as long as we are seeking His will for us and not supplanting His will with our desires, as long as he sought God, God made him prosper. And under Isaiah, the Judah did prosper. And he was able to do many things, and he even built up some armaments here for Judah. Let's drop down here to verse 15 in chapter 26. See some of the things that he did in this, at least this area of weaponizing Judah. And he did many other things that should be through the chapter as well.

Chapter 15, he made devices in Jerusalem, invented by skillful men to be on the towers and the corners to shoot arrows and large stones. His fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped, hmm, till he became strong. Isn't that the story? As long as he was humble, as long as he sought God, as long as he was teachable, as long as he had a soft heart, but when he became strong, wow, something changed. Mind you of Saul, doesn't it? As long as Saul was humble, but then he became mighty in his own eyes.

Verse 16, But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction. For he transgressed against the Lord his God by entering the temple to burn incense on the altar of incense. Also, remind you of Saul as you read through this. Azariah the priest went in after him, and with him were eighty priests to the Lord, valiant men. And they withstood King Ozziah, telling him, You can't do this.

This is a priestly function. This isn't a kingly function. You can't be in here and do that. They probably reminded him of what Saul had done and what the outcome of Saul would be, that he lost his kingdom, he lost his reign, he lost everything. They tried to restrain him from doing it, but he had become wise in his own eyes. He had become strong. I will do it the way I'm going to do it. I'm the king of Israel. I'll do whatever I want to do. He didn't have that tender heart.

He had lost seeking God. He had lost being receptive to what was being told. He just, as we talked about last week, he just wouldn't listen. They withstood King Ozziah and said to him, It's not for you to burn incense to the Lord, but he wasn't going to listen. Verse 19, Ozziah became furious, and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense. And while he was angry with the priest, leprosy broke out on his forehead, before the feast in the house of the Eternal, beside the incense altar.

He was defiant. He was going to do things his own way. He'd been warned. He knew what he shouldn't be doing or that he wasn't supposed to be in that thing. God smote him with leprosy. And they knew immediately what it was. They knew immediately what had happened to him.

And Ozziah lived the rest of his life with a mantle over his head, shouting, unclean, unclean. No longer could live in Jerusalem, had to live his life out in a house outside of the city, no longer part of the king of Judah. He lost it all. He lost it all and lived that life sentence that leprosy brought on it. Even Ozziah, who his entire life, up to that point, he had done very good things according to the Bible.

But at that time, he transgressed and God smote him. God smote him with leprosy. Well, you're probably thinking, what does leprosy have to do with Thanksgiving? What does leprosy have to do with Thanksgiving? Let's go back to Leviticus 13. I hope it becomes clear as we go through this. Leviticus 13, I'm not going to read through.

Leviticus 13 and 14 are pretty long chapters and very detailed chapters. As I said, the only disease in the Bible where God gives specific commands, and commands the priests, do this, do that, wait seven days, do this again. And if you see the disease spread, this is what's going to happen to the person.

And then, even the cleansing part. In Chapter 14, we're going to see there's significant detail that God puts into the Bible, because this is a disease and a condition unlike any other thing that was on the face of the earth in those days. And unlike anything we see on earth today, if you go online and you type in leprosy, you're going to see some things and they're going to say, oh, it's probably the modern day, the modern day, Hansen's disease is what they call it. And then they're going to say, you know, but it's not as serious and probably the Bible over-speaks what really happened and it's under control and it happens in some of the remote parts of the world now.

I don't think there's anything on the earth today that's like the leprosy of the Bible. Nothing. There was nothing that could sure it except God. And in Chapter 13, God gives them specific, specific information and instructions on what to do when someone had a sore and what to look for. And the priests, the priests, not the physicians, not anyone else, the priests were the ones who were going to look at that and examine it and make the pronouncement, whether it was or was not leprosy, and so it was leprosy, they were put out of the community, no longer to be part of that place.

Well, I'm not going to read through 13, but let's get off down to verse 45 in chapter 13. You can read that some other time. In 44 you see the determination is when the priest examines, he is a lepros man. He is unclean. The priest shall surely pronounce him unclean. His sore is on his head. Now the leper, verse 45, on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare, and he shall cover his mustache and cry unclean, unclean.

Just like we read in Easton's Bible dictionary, he will be unclean. All the days he has the sore, sore, he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. It has physical consequences and social consequences as well. He is unclean. And then the rest of chapter 13 and part 14 will talk about it. Then you look at the garments. And if it's in the garments and if it's spread, the garments need to be burned.

If it's in the house and the priest examined it, the house can't stand, the counts, you can't just call the mold experts in. The house has to be torn apart piece by piece and taken outside the camp. No part of it remains inside the camp. It is a totally separate situation that people have to deal with there. But there were occasions, besides Miriam and Naaman, I'm imagining, that people were cleansed or healed. Now, when they were healed, and you remember when the man came and asked Christ in Mark 1.45 or 1.40, he said, If you're willing, I'll be cleansed.

And Christ said, I'm willing. He didn't say, You're healed. He said, You're cleansed. In verse 4, Chapter 14, we find what this cleansing ceremony is. Again, something to do with leprosy that isn't done for any other disease or condition that someone may get. Let's read through the first seven or eight verses here. Verse 1, Lord spoke to Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing.

He shall be brought to the priest, and the priest shall go out of the camp. Notice, they don't bring him into the camp. He thinks he's been healed, but the priest has to go out because he can't come back into the camp until he's been cleansed. The priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him. And indeed, if the leprosy is healed in the leper, then the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water.

As for the living bird, he shall take it, the cedarwood and the scarlet and the hyssop, and dip them in the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. Now, let me give you a minute to absorb that. So, we have this cleansing ceremony. We have someone who says they've been healed of leprosy.

The priest goes out to examine him. He says, Yes, it looks like it's gone. Now you go through the cleansing process. We're going to take these two live birds when he's brought back in. One bird is going to be killed. The other living bird is going to be dipped in the blood and in the scarlet and the hyssop and the water of that other bird. Then in verse 7 it says, he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy, and shall pronounce him clean, and then shall let the living bird loose in the open field.

Now, I remember reading that back several weeks ago. So, we know that it's something that was important in the Bible, something we can learn from. So, I started looking at some of the commentaries, answered several of them. Let me read you three back serfs from them. First one is going to be from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible. The language can be a little confusing in here, so I'll take its flow and try to explain it as we go through.

John Gill's Exposition of the Bible in verse 5 here of chapter 14. The killing of this bird may have respect to the suffering, death, and bloodshed of Christ, which were necessary for the purging and cleansing of leprosy's sinners, and which were endured in his human nature, comparable to an earthen vessel, as a human body sometimes is. And then he quotes 2 Corinthians 4, verse 7. So, he's saying, okay, we've got this dead bird. This bird has to be killed.

Someone has to die, okay? He's likening it to Christ. It says, "...the running or living water mixed with blood may denote both the sanctification and justification of Christ's people by the water and blood which sprung from his pure side, and the continual virtue thereof to take away sin and free people from it." Or he says, "...it can represent the active and passive obedience of Christ, which both together are the matter of a sinner's justification before God." So, what he's saying is, look at what was involved in this purification of this cleansing ceremony.

You've got water. You've got blood. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. When he was pierced, water and blood came out of his side. There's an analogy with when you're looking at the Bible, it's always one of the proofs to me when you see the continuity from Old to New Testament that the things make sense and that they kind of complement each other.

You can see those threads running through the Bible. So, he's likening this to Christ, okay? We are freed from sin or our sins are forgiven because Christ was killed or died on the cross or died on the crucifix for us. Jameson, Fawcett and Brown, this is what they say, the slain bird and the bird let loose are supposed to typify the one to death and the other the resurrection of Christ, while the sprinklings on him that had been leprous typified the requirements which led a believer to cleanse himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and to perfect his holiness in the fear of the Lord.

So, he takes it a step further and says, these are things that, as we look at our lives today, we do sprinkling of the water cleansed by the water and blood of Christ.

Breathe from a life that is leading nowhere, a virtual death when we live a life of sin, when we're apart from God. You remember Isaiah 59 verse 2, right? Iniquity separates us from God. We're apart from his camp. We're no longer in his camp, if you will, when we are sinners and we allow that sin to continue in us. And only he, only Christ, can wash it away. This is from, I had never heard of this commentary before, but it has some interesting points. This is the Criswell commentary. It says, the live bird was dipped in the combination of water and blood, and then allowed to fly away. The live bird thus received its freedom at the price of the slain bird. The live bird became symbolic, not only of the resurrection of the Lord, but also of the new freedom that is found in one whose sins have been cleansed. So, if we step back for a moment and kind of think about what we've talked about so far. We've talked about leprosy, a virtual death, as they put it. There was no cure. When you came down with it, you were the only option you had, the only chance that you had of any life, normal life or continued life, was if God healed you.

And even if He healed you, you had to be cleansed. There were things you had to do. It wasn't just healed. To be cleansed and admitted back into the camp, you had to go through this cleansing ceremony. When someone was healed and they came in and they wanted to be cleansed, and the priest said, yes, they would take two birds, slay the bird. Slay one bird, the living bird. The living bird really dipped in the water and blood, the scarlet and the hyssop. And, of course, when we think of hyssop, we think of Psalm 51. That's one of the key places that hyssop is, and when David says, purge me with hyssop. So, to be freed from sin, to have our sins forgiven, we needed Christ's sacrifice. In order for us to live, we need Christ's sacrifice. We need to accept it. But it's not just a matter of Him doing it. It's not just a matter of Him did it. He died for all of mankind, that all of our sins could be forgiven. There are requirements for us. Because to just say, I accept Christ's sacrifice, and then do nothing is the height of—I don't even know what the word is—ridiculousness is the height of not even understanding what the Bible says. In order to accept Christ's sacrifice, when He was slain for our sins, there's something that has to be done. For the leper to be cleansed, not just healed, okay? When God calls us, we begin to see the way we've been living is wrong. The way we are living, the way we are living, leads only to death.

Nothing good could come if I continue on this path. I am apart from God, and we begin to realize that. And if we want to be back and open our minds, right? We've all tried to open other people's minds and tell them, the Sabbath is binding, the Ten Commandments you must keep. If you want salvation, if you want eternal life, you must do these things. You can't just say, I accept Christ and all the rest of it. It's okay. It's not okay. Without action, there is no faith. It says clearly in James, without works, your faith is dead. We must do the things just like they did back then.

So, we have this scenario that's with us. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, it talks here in verse 7, in verse, Leviticus 14, about sprinkling. Sprinkling it seven times over the one who is to be cleansed. And then the rest of the chapter, I mean, you can go see it. It's not something that even with that stuff, that he cleansed. He goes through this for seven days, and then another seven days, there's a whole ritual to be sure that he is cleansed.

Let's go back and look at a few things that we'll talk about cleansing, because again, we can see the pattern in the Bible that will relate back to some of these ceremonies that God built into the Bible. Let's go to Psalm 51. I just mentioned the hyssop that's mentioned in that repentance Psalm.

Let's look at the washing that's in that Psalm as well. Psalm 51 and verse 2.

Psalm 51 verse 2. David, after his sins with Bathsheba and Uriah, we spoke of last week, heinous sins, right? He knows he needs God. He knows that only God can cleanse him. Verse 2, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Wash me and cleanse me.

Make me clean. Make me clean. Over to Ezekiel 36. Ezekiel 36, speaking of the time in the future when Israel is brought back to his promised land and they know who God is and worship him. In verse 24 it says, I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. In verse 25, then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

And the next verse bears reading as well. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, because when we are cleansed, when we go through the baptism ceremony, we become new people, a new creation, a new heart, a new mind, God's spirit, combining with us, that leads us to live his way and reject the ways of the past. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Over in the New Testament, let's look at Hebrews 10.

Hebrews 10, verse 22.

Breaking into the middle of a sentence here that's talking about Jesus Christ.

Verse 22 says, Let us run near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Just like those two birds that were part of the leprosy when someone was called out of virtual death and given a new lease or given a lease on life, given an opportunity to live and be part of the camp again, part of the community again, part of where God's people were again.

And lastly, let's look at 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1.

And verse 2. In verse 1, Peter is greeting the people to whom he is writing, and he says, Basically, you are the elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

His, He, washes us. Every year at Passover we take of the blood and the wine that cleanses us, that helps us to be alive again and washes away the things that keep us from being who God wants us to be. And that bird, if you will, when all this cleansing process was done, the live bird was let loose. It could just fly away, and it was free. It had no longer any yoke of any burden on it. It was free to go, and it had a life that had a life that you and I, that pictures what you and I have. Let's look at Romans 8. Romans 8, where it speaks a lot of the Holy Spirit throughout the chapter.

Romans 8, verse 2, says, The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

It's made me free. That bird died. There's a live bird that's now free from that yoke of sin and death, that virtual death that we were all living in. And I'm taking a little bit of liberties talking about all sin, because I think leprosy, when it was put on people, it was when they had performed or had committed some heinous sins. But I think you get the analogy there of what God is saying. It is something that creates in us a death sentence if we don't have it washed away and if we're not cleansed through the process that God has given for us. And over in Galatians 5, Galatians 5 verse 1, Paul again writes, and he says, Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don't be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Can you imagine someone who had a diagnosis of leprosy, who had to experience the pain, the agony, mentally, socially, and physically that they had to go through, that they had to endure all that, and then they were set free? They were healed. They were given the opportunity to be cleansed, and they were cleansed. Can you imagine them going back and doing the same thing again that would lead to leprosy all over again? Can't imagine that, right? Before healed of something, we would turn from the way that we live to the way that God wants us to be. Certainly a leper wouldn't turn back to those things. In his time alone and apart from everyone else, he would have taken the time to realize or think or ask God, what was it? So, when they were made clean, they didn't take on themselves the same yoke of bondage again. And God tells us, when we're baptized, when we're cleansed, when we have had our sins washed away, and we take up the mantle, and we are living free and following God, don't go back to the old ways. Don't bring virtual death back on you again. You live the way of life. And be thankful for what's done for you, and that when the cleansing comes, you're admitted and now part of the household of God. I think when those lepers were admitted back into the camp, there had to be great joy that they were back among the people who were in the community again. They had to be excited at what was going on, the fact that this death sentence had been lifted from them. But you know, that's happened to all of us. We're here, members of the household of God, it says in Ephesians 2.19. Back in 1 Peter 2.9, a royal priesthood, a people who were not a people before, something that God has called us, God has said, I am willing, be cleansed. And we listened, and we did it. And he made us part of his household, just like welcomed us into a camp. Before that, we were people who were on the outside looking in, outside looking in, without a whole lot going on in our lives.

Certainly nothing that was going to last forever. Certainly nothing in our life, whatever was going on in physical life, was anything like God would have what God has promised us. Nothing in this life compares to that. And so we have lepers. We have leprosy. We see these things that God has built in, in the Old Testament. Let's go back and look at Mark 1 again, and this leper who said, Christ, if you're willing, let me be cleansed. And Christ said, I am willing, I am willing, be cleansed. We are in Mark 1. We read verses 40 and 41. Let's go. Let's continue on in verse 42. Mark 1 verse 42. As soon as Christ had spoken, as soon as he said, I am willing, be cleansed. Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. He was healed immediately when Christ said that. Man had the right attitude. He knew who to come to in order to be healed.

In verse 43, but Christ gave him an admonition. He strictly warned him and sent him away at once and said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone, but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded as the testimony to them.

You go back and you do what we just talked about in Leviticus 13 and 14. You go to the priest. Don't go anywhere. Don't tell anyone on your way what Christ was saying. I don't think he was saying, Don't ever tell anyone that I'm the one who cleansed you or healed you. He was saying, You go back and you finish the process. You go back and you get cleansed. You go back and have the priest look at you, pronounce you healed, have him bring you in, go through the process with the live birds, the seven days and another seven days until you're pronounced clean and part of the camp again. Pretty clear instructions. He warned him, it says, Do this. Don't talk to anyone. Don't tally. Just go and do it. Verse 45, however, he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the matter so that Jesus could no longer openly enter the city, but was outside in deserted places and they came to see him from every direction. Well, you can imagine what that was like. What? This man? This man was able to heal leprosy, the incurable disease, or the incurable disease. He was able to do that. Of course, he was sworn by people. But the man who was healed, but not cleansed the way Christ said because he did what he wanted to do as he began. He didn't listen to what God said. His clear command was, Don't tell anyone. Go to the priest. Be cleansed.

Then you can tell what happened, but go there first. Do that. He didn't do it. He didn't do it. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if you were cleansed from something that was a virtual life sentence and God said, or Christ said to you, or God said, Do this, that you wouldn't just do it exactly the way he said? It seems so simple, right? It seems so simple. A miracle has occurred. He's given me life. He's set me free from this death sentence. I should do exactly what he said, how he said. And yet this man thought, I'm going to tell everyone along the way. I'll dilly-dally around. I'm not going to run to the temple and do what he said. I'm going to do it my way. Now, the Bible doesn't say what happened to him if he got leprosy again or anything like that. Hope he didn't. But there's a lesson for us in that he didn't do it. And it interrupted and interfered with Christ's ministry because all of a sudden he had all these people and that wasn't the plan at that point. Now, he probably knew what the man was going to do because he was so happy and so joyful that he had been healed of this life sentence or this death sentence.

But the fact is, he didn't do it. He didn't do what Christ had asked him to do.

Well, if we're grateful people, if we're grateful for the cleansing that God has given us, we have no choice but to obey. You know, Naaman obeyed, didn't he? Here's Naaman in Syria, not even an Israelite or Jew. But when, but when, Elisha said, you go and dip in the Jordan seven times, initially he didn't want to do it. He thought, this seems kind of silly. Why am I going to go dip into Jordan? And he was not going to do it. Simple command, right? Until the little Israelite girl said, man, if you had actually do something difficult, wouldn't you have just done it? Why don't you just do what the man says? He can heal you. If you just do this. And Naaman came to his senses and thought, yes, why am I just not doing it? And he did it and he was healed.

He listened. He obeyed. He didn't think, I'm not doing that. Not beneath me or it's beneath me, and I'm not going to go dip into Jordan. I'd rather go dip in whatever river is over there in Syria. He just did it. Such huge lessons for us. Just do it. Just do what God says. Back in 1 Samuel, 1 Samuel 15, you know this verse before you even turn back here, 1 Samuel 15 verse 22.

1 Samuel 15 verse 22. One of those hallmark verses as Samuel is talking to Saul. Saul always played those games with God. I know God gave Saul his Holy Spirit and that Saul kept doing things his own way. Just a little different than what God said. Ah, you know what? I'm going, same as Ziah did. He decided he was going to offer the sacrifice instead of waiting for the priests.

And he lost everything. But in verse 22, a verse that should always be at the forefront of our minds. Samuel said, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the eternal? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. Just obey. If we are grateful people, if we are thankful people, if we recognize what God has done for us, if we appreciate what He has done for us, we simply obey Him. We don't question, we don't compromise, we don't think, okay, I've been set free, I've been cleansed, I'll just do things my own way. That's not how it works.

We do what God says. And there is no other way except through Jesus Christ. We do what He says exactly how He says. Naaman did it. Man in Mark 1, verse 45, he didn't do it. He kind of changed the game a little bit to fit His will rather than God's will. How about us? Are we grateful enough that God has cleansed us, delivered us from a virtual death sentence? That we do things exactly the way He says? Or do we just kind of play with it a little bit and take it for granted and say, God's okay with that? God's okay with what we do? Let's go back this time and look at another example in the New Testament. Luke, Luke 17. Now, interestingly enough, you know, I mentioned that leprosy was an Old Testament disease and certainly was evident here at the time that Christ was on earth. But after the time of Christ, leprosy is not mentioned in the Bible again.

It just disappears. In fact, the last time leprosy is mentioned in the Bible is here in Luke 17.

It's almost as if Christ, who opened the door for our sins to be forgiven, leprosy also disappeared at that point. There's some form of it in the world today that some of the scientists and medical people, but nothing like what the Bible had. Last time this message is here in Luke 17, and it's a kind of a telling few verses here in Luke 17. Verse 11. It happened. It happened as Christ went to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee, and then as he entered a certain village there met him ten men, who were lepers who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. So when he saw them, he said to them, go, show yourselves to the priests. You know what he didn't say there?

He didn't say, you're healed. He didn't say, you're cleansed. He said, go, show yourself to the priests.

To their credit, that's exactly what they did. They started on their way to the priest, and so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. When they obeyed, they were cleansed.

And they, all ten of them, at first verse 15 and one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face and his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. Out of the ten who came and said, Christ, have mercy on us.

Out of the ten who began their way to show themselves to the priests, all of them were healed.

Just one, just one, came back to say thank you. Just one. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Wouldn't you, if someone had done something for you, wouldn't you at least go back and say, thank you? Wouldn't you at least go back and praise them and thank them? If someone had given us a job, if we had been out of work for one, two, three, five years or something, and someone said, hey, you know what? I'll give you this job. Wouldn't you go back and say, thank you, at least? Or would you just sort of go on your way and take it for granted and not do anything with it? Ninety percent of the people who were healed that day did nothing. They didn't even come back to say, thank you. That is just absolutely incredible to me. And the one who did come back, he was a Samaritan. He was something the Jews, someone that the Jews would just look down on.

The Samaritan, not even worth their time, but he's the one that came back, said, thank you, and glorified God. Well, it's a glorifying God. God is interested when He calls us, when we respond to the call, when He cleanses us, when He gives us the promise of eternal life, when we're cleansed and we already have that death sentence removed from us, He's interested that we spend our lives glorifying Him. Not just by the words we say. Words are very easy to say, glorify God, glorify God, glorify God. We need to say them, and in our prayers we need to be thankful to God, and we need to be showing Him that gratitude. But we do and show our gratitude through ways other than just the words. The words are important. But God has given us something that no one else could give us.

Left to ourselves, we have nothing but death to look forward to. We're no different than the lepers. We're outside the camp looking in. Inside the camp there's joy, there's peace, there's future, there's hope. Outside the camp there's nothing but death and solitude and a miserable existence. And God has asked all of us, or cleansed us, that we could be part, part of His family. Let's go back and look at some of the ways we can glorify God, other than just by our words. Hebrews 13.

Hebrews 13.

And verse 15.

Therefore, Hebrews 13, 15, therefore, by Him, by Him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. He does want to hear thank you. He does want to have it come from our hearts. He does want to hear those words. He does want us, when others are asked the reason for the hope that is in us, that we would glorify God and give Him the credit for who we are and the way we live our lives. But this doesn't stop there. He goes on, and He says many other things. In verse 16, But don't forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. He wants to see what you do with what you do and with the life He's given you. Do you shed it abroad? Do you share it with others? The love that God gives you? Do you practice it? Do you—I say you, but I'm including me—do we do those things that people can see God in us, living in us, working in us? Do they see us part of a community? Do we see those—do they see us different than the world around them, living the way God wants us to, and not trying to be like them or trying to look like them or to pretend to look like them, but clearly being different than the people around us as the occasion to worship God does? And that includes doing things the way God says, when He says, where He says. Don't forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Verse 17, Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive. Be good employees. Don't be bad employees. Don't be people like Saul, who told God, hey, thanks for everything, but you know what? I'm going to do things my own way. Don't be like Isaiah, who gets all proud and says, you know what? This is the way I am, and I'm doing it. I'm the king, and that's it. I'm not listening to anyone anymore. I'm who I need to be, and that's the way it is. Don't be that way. That's not showing gratitude to God for what He's given. That's being just the opposite of gracious. That's being what the people who, 90 percent, didn't come back and even bothered to say, thank you. We could go on in Hebrews 13. You can look at that a little bit later. Let's go back to Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5 and verse 18. Ephesians 5. 18. Paul writes, Don't be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.

Let that be the Spirit that lives in you. Let that be what people see, not the other. Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting to one another in the fear of God. Submitting to one another in the fear of God. Not counting one as yourself more important than someone else, but realizing there is no partiality with God. Submitting to one another. Listening. Obeying. Doing the things that God called us to do. And if we are grateful people, if we are grateful people, we do exactly what God says and try all the time to do it. We don't justify. We don't rationalize. We don't compromise. We do it the way God said. Because grateful people do that. If your boss who gave you a job after you were out of work for a period of time said, Be there at 9 o'clock Monday morning and you showed up at 9.30, I don't think he would think you're very grateful. I think he'd think, Why did I even waste my time? If he can't even do the little bit I say and be here where I want him to be. Look at 1 Corinthians 10. Another one of those verses that you probably, 1 Corinthians 10, 31, as I say it, it's probably popping into your mind. You see that God wants us to glorify him with our words, but he wants to see what we do. He gives us this Holy Spirit, not just to benefit us, but that it benefits others as well. And that we are blessings to other people. Just like Jesus Christ didn't come to earth for himself, he came to be a blessing to us. He expects us to do the same thing. 1 Corinthians 10, 31. Therefore, whatever you eat or drink, very physical things, right? Therefore, whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give him the glory. Remember, he's the one who gives you life. Remember, he's the one who's removed the death sentence. Remember, he's the one who's given a future and a hope and allows us to live and fly free of the yoke of bondage that holds us back. Do all to him that didn't glorify him.

You remember the verse where Christ said, Many are called. Many are called, but few are chosen.

Many have the opportunity. Many may even take the steps.

The few it is. Few there are who can enter that narrow and straight gate.

I wonder if 90% has anything to do with those people. You know, years ago, an elder mentioned to me—this was back several years ago, not recently—that all the people that were baptized in the Church at that time, and back at some time, that Church had well over 100,000 people in it. Somewhere between 80 to 90% of the people had left.

80 to 90% of the people who had been baptized quit the Church before they died.

That was before 1995, when the Church decided to change some doctrines, and the Church continued with the United Church of God, the Churches of God, that it kept and held to the doctrines of Christ.

90%? That's an alarming number, isn't it? Don't you want to be one part of the 10% to glorify God? Don't you want to be 10% of the ones who do that and not the 90% who had it but then just threw it away? I hope that we all do. If we see ourselves as the spiritual lepers we were, if we realize that those people who had leprosy and had a life sentence of leprosy had a tremendous blessing, had a tremendous blessing when they had that removed from them. And we can apply that to ourselves and realize we were no different than them. We were no different than them. We were as spiritual lepers and God cleansed us.

And He willed the rest of humanity at the time, but He determines it to be so.

Isn't that the greatest blessing that you could even imagine? If you were a leper and you endured all those things that the lepers did, and then you were healed and had that removed from you and you were welcomed back into the camp, wouldn't you think you would be eternally grateful for that?

And yet the same thing has been for you and me. Shouldn't we be the most grateful people on earth? Shouldn't Thanksgiving? And when we think of thanking God and the things that we do that He's never far from our minds and that we owe literally everything to Him in a way maybe we hadn't thought of before? Oh, I think that we owe God everything. I think that we should glorify Him all the time and sing His praises and be very, very, very thankful to Him and demonstrate that in the way that we live our lives, the examples that we set, and the way that we respond to Him and do the things that He said, exactly the way those lepers needed to. Let's close. Let's close in 1 Chronicles 16. 1 Chronicles 16 verse 25. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. Verse 27, Honor and majesty are before Him. Strength and gladness are in His place. Give to the Lord families of the peoples. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory. Do His name.