Christ The Compassionate Healer
Scripture: Matthew 8:1 – 4 plus others! (Mark 1:40 – 43)
Introduction:
-By way of introduction, I want you to see the TRUE SCENE!
-Wherever Jesus went:
1.) People were literally astonished at Jesus’ teaching!
2.) Jesus taught with a certain authority, that they never heard before!
3.) As a result:
-The vast crowds were following Jesus all over, wherever He went!!
-Pressing in on Jesus from every side to hear more, for they were so taken by Him!
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I. BEHOLD THERE CAME A LEPER
–Mark 1:40 puts it even more clearly,
“THERE CAME A LEPER TO HIM!”
Let me tell you what’s coming to Him for there are two kinds of lepers:
1. The first kind: (Most likely this man’s condition)
-Begins with white spots; little white spots turn into running ulcers!
-Eventually the eyebrows fall out, all feeling leaves eyes, therefore, unable to blink!!
-Then you “stare” with those fixed bulging eyes, and then ulcers affect the vocal cords!!
-And the voice turns raspy and harsh as it produces a very garbled sound!
Get the picture now:
a. This man is covered with hideous running sores, eyes gaunt, glaring, and voice raspy.
b. And by now the skin around the eyes, as usual, is bunched up, with deep furrows!
c. The face takes on appearance of a lion’s face, and it begins to consume the entire body!
d. Then after 9 years of this sort of leprosy:
-The poisons attack the brain, and the victim becomes deranged!
-And ends in an awful coma, and eventually death!!
2. The second kind of leprosy is as follows:
-Is where all the parts of the body lose their feeling!
-This type seems to focus its violence on the extremities, like the hands!
-The tendons of the hands draw up until the hands begin to look like claws!
-Eventually the loss of feeling affects the whole body; hands and feet begin to deteriorate!!
-They fall off inch by inch; this lasts for about 20 years as the entire body dies inch at a time!!
II. WHERE DID THE LEPER COME FROM?
-From no place special I tell you. Being a leper was worse than the leprosy itself!!
-They were treated like dead men, living dead, but dead nonetheless!
1.) From the moment of diagnoses, lepers were banished from society, and all contact with human beings!!
2.) We read in Leviticus 13:46 the Law of Moses:
“ALL THE DAYS WHEREIN THE LEPROUS PLAGUE SHALL BE IN HIM,
HE SHALL BE DEFILED: HE IS UNCLEAN: HE SHALL DWELL ALONE:
WITHOUT THE CITY-CAMP, SHALL HIS HABITATION BE!”
-Can you feel the howling horror of these words; dwell alone, outside city walls!?
-Watching parts of your body drop off, with no one to talk to, no one to share with!
**
Other rules were:
1.) They had to wear torn clothes, shaven head, mouth covering, and cry ‘unclean, unclean,’ as they go along!!
2.) It was the “Leper Uniform”, including shaven head, and mask over his face!
3.) He was forced to “advertise his condition.” You can read all about it in Leviticus 13.
More than that:
1. He could never enter Jerusalem, and for a Jew, that would be like being for us, kept out of heaven!
2. Other villagers, on a calm day, had to stay 6 feet away from everyone. And on a windy day, 150 feet!
3. And anyone on a calm or windy day wouldn’t care to get within 150 feet from you anyway!
4. Why?
-Because of the danger indeed, but also because of his offensiveness to all senses!
-His raspy voice, his horrible look, he smelled so bad, and if you got near enough, you tasted the odor!
-The smell, and sores, the ulcerous skin and the cry “Unclean, unclean!!”
-In short:
1.) The disease of leprosy stands for one thing in scripture, “LONELINESS!”
2.) Longing for someone to fellowship and speak with, and touch – LONELINESS IS A LIVING HELL!
III. THE LEPER WORSHIPS JESUS
First thing he did was come to Jesus – the Greek word indicates confrontation, closer than 6 feet.
Next thing we read is Matthew 8:2,
“THE LEPER WORSHIPPED JESUS!”
1.) We read in Mark 1:40 that that included,
“KNEELING DOWN TO JESUS.”
2.) The Greek word for worship is “PROSKUNEO”, and always invokes the posture of body in some form of worship!
3.) But more than that:
-We must not miss this, and that is that all of his worship consisted of we do not know exactly, but he worshipped Jesus!
-“Consumed Body”, “Raspy Voice”, “Running Sores”, and all! He was honoring and reverencing the Lord!
**
Listen, if this man could worship, who can’t?
1.) This is what the Lord wants at all times, and it will move the Lord to action!
2.) Remember “Jonah!” (Another example of the same principle.)
a. The GREAT FISH:
-The Lord had prepared a Great Fish to swallow Jonah.
-And, Jonah was in the belly of the fish 3 days and 3 nights.
-Hard for us to imagine the kind of situation Jonah was in.
-There was seaweed wrapped around his neck; fish’s digestive juices eating at his flesh.
3. Jonah’s reaction:
-The Bible then outlines a prayer that Jonah prayed out of the fish’s belly.
-He complains about water compassing him; about weeds wrapped about his neck.
-For 8 verses, his prayer had been that of more or less a COMPLAINT.
-However, in Jonah 2:9, Jonah seems to hit a spiritual Hot Button,
“BUT, I WILL SACRIFICE INTO THEE WITH THE VOICE OF THANKSGIVING,
I WILL PAY THAT WHICH I HAVE VOWED. SALVATION IS OF THE LORD!”
4. Then God speaks to the fish in Jonah 2:10, and the fish,
“VOMITS HIM OUT ON DRY GROUND!”
-For the fish, that’s how you spell relief!
b. Listen to me:
-It’s a biblical principal, an unfailing, consistent, Biblical principle.
-When Jonah worshipped and praised the Lord, the whale couldn’t hold him any longer.
-Suddenly, Jonah is released from his horror.
-The moral of this is:
“When we are down in the belly of the fish; when it seems that everyone has forgotten us; we must stay away always from complaining, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord. When we do this obediently, then God speaks to the source of our bondage and we are delivered!”
**
Footnote:
-We read that Jonah in Jonah 2:9 offered up a SACRIFICE OF PRAISE!
-If things are going well, there is really no sacrifice involved!
-But, God wants a sacrifice, when it hurts, when it means real self-denial and death to self.
IV. THE LEPER PLEADS WITH GOD
We read in Mark 1:40,
“THERE CAME A LEPER BESEECHING HIM!”
-It is a powerful word:
1.) It means a “Desire from my Heart;” it means an “Emotional Pleading!”
2.) It means an appeal to the “Tenderness” and “Compassion” of Jesus.” “I appeal to Your love Jesus!”
3.) It means: “I appeal to Your heart Jesus!”
-Is it wrong for you to BESEECH-PLEAD to be healed; is it wrong for you to beseech Jesus?
-Did Jesus rebuke him, turn him away? Not at all! The leper is pouring out his heart to the Lord in the midst of his unimaginable misery and suffering.
**
-The thing that the leper then says is so important, Matthew 8:2,
“LORD, IF YOU WILL, IF YOU ARE WILLING, YOU
CAN MAKE ME CLEAN!”
-We must approach this thing two ways:
FIRST:
-As we hear so often, “God is able, yes, God is able!”
-Of course, God is able, God is Omnipotent, God is Almighty, yes, God is able!
-But in the midst of utter agony that is not always easy to confess.
-This is a matter of the leper’s Great Faith! In fact, this is faith carried to its highest. This “Outcast” coming, approaching Jesus and the multitudes.
-He must have Great Faith, Great Expectancy, to do what he is doing – rags, raspy voice, smell and all!
-But more than this:
a. Never before do we read of Jesus healing a leper; this is the test case, precedent setting!
b. Yet, face in ground, he places himself before Jesus full of anticipation!
*
SECOND:
-The leper then prayed what we by nature don’t like to pray, namely,
“IF YOU ARE WILLJNG – that is – IF IT BE YOUR WILL.”
-This is a prayer of total and humble submission to the SOVEREIGN WILL OF GOD.
-It is a prayer that we are told to pray in the Bible as we hear the words of James 4:14-15,
“Yet you do not know what your life will be tomorrow. You are
just a vapor that appears for a little while and then
vanishes away.”
“Instead you ought to say, “IF THE LORD WILLS, WE SHALL
LIVE AND ALSO DO THIS OR THAT.”
-This is one of the GODLIEST AND MOST GOD-GLORIFYING PRAYERS IN ALL OF SCRIPTURE. It pleases our LORD AND KING. Refusal to pray it is sheer blasphemy!
V. JESUS IS MOVED WITH COMPASSION
The next thing we read in Mark 1:41 is that,
“JESUS IS MOVED!”
1.) It is such an often repeated truth, but we need to hear it again and again!
2.) And that is:
“PRAYER IS A GREAT FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE, WHILE GOD IS THE
GREATEST FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE BY FAR.”
–Jeremiah 33:3,
“CALL UNTO ME, AND I WILL ANSWER THEE, AND SHEW THEE GREAT
AND MIGHTY THINGS, WHICH THOU KNOWEST NOT!”
-God says there in effect:
“That if we will pray, He will work!”
-God says:
“If we will seek His face, He will bring to pass great and
mighty things.”
-Remember:
a. It is an amazing thing, that God has “Limited Himself!”
b. If we will not pray, to put it bluntly, He will not work!
c. This is one of the deep mysteries of God, but it surely is a fact:
“Faith-filled, expectant prayer moves the heart of God!”
*
We read in Mark 1:41,
“HE WAS MOVED WITH COMPASSION!”
-The word COMPASSION:
1. Terribly powerful reaction; because it is a terribly powerful word!
2. Especially, when you trace that word back to its roots:
-It goes back to the Old Testament, and is used to describe the inward parts of animal sacrifice!
-When the priest would take out the heart, kidneys, intestines – inward parts!
*
Listen:
“COMPASSION MEANS THAT YOU HAVE SUCH PASSION FOR
THE SUFFERING THAT IT FEELS LIKE YOUR GUTS
ARE BEING TORN OUT.”
-If you will:
“COMPASSION MEANS THAT YOU ARE LITERALLY SUFFERING
THE SUFFERING OF THE SUFFERER.”
-COMPASSION comes from two words – “COM” MEANS “WITH,” AND “PASSION” MEANS “SUFFER” – hence “SUFFER WITH.”
-Hence:
a. Colossians. 3:12,
“BOWELS OF MERCY!”
b. I John 3:12,
“BOWELS OF COMPASSION!”
c. Understand, compassion means,
“Response to other’s needs in the deepest part of your life.”
d. So we read in the Bible: “Depths of mercy”, like “Groaning of love.”
*
So it came to mean love:
-But not just any gooey love; but this is moving, passionate, painful love!
-Not a soft, passive love, but a love that has “guts” to it,”innards” to it, you can hear and feel them groan!
-And therefore, it is a love that is moved:
a. It reaches out at any cost, will break down any barriers, and will do anything to relieve the sufferer!
b. And, that’s what Jesus feels here:
“His bowels of love are in pain! Jesus sees this poor living-dead
man, prostrated there before Him; the smell has
already reached Him!”
-There rises within Him the love of God; that love that almost “doubles” Jesus over with love pains, and the response of deepest yearnings of love.
*
ILLUSTRATION
Patrick Greene, a lifelong atheist known for his public stands against Christianity, recently announced that he has become a Christian.
Greene was a militant atheist. He threatened to file lawsuits against the courthouse in Henderson County, Texas, if they didn’t remove a nativity scene from the public property. It wasn’t just that he didn’t believe in God; he fought publicly against the expression of Christianity wherever he deemed it inappropriate.
Greene, who had been a taxi driver for 33 years, was diagnosed with cataracts. He didn’t have insurance or the cash needed for necessary surgery, and so he was at risk of losing his license and his only stream of income along with it.
Upon reading about his situation, Jessica Crye mobilized people at her Christian church to donate to a fund to help Greene pay for his surgery. The small community of faith collected $400, and their generosity inspired others to join in. Patrick Greene was dumbfounded. He could hardly conceive that a Christian woman, whose faith had been the object of his attacks for years, would respond to his disdain with COMPASSIONATE GENEROSITY.
Most important is Crye’s response to Greene’s need. In looking past their differences, and even his own disregard for her closely-held faith, she found her sense of CHRIST’S COMPASSION. It was this Christlike act that moved Greene to reevaluate his position on faith. Crye and her church did not hold the gift over his head, requiring him to renounce his atheism in order to receive it. They didn’t crow about a sense of moral superiority. They just gave because they were deeply gripped with CHRIST’S LOVING COMPASSION.
*
ILLUSTRATION
Oh how COMPASSIONLESS so-called Christians can be, and even so-called pastors as well.
In one of his sermons, Fred Craddock told a story about something that happened many years ago while he was driving by himself cross-country. He had stopped at a small diner somewhere in the South to refresh himself with an early breakfast and some coffee. He had been driving through the night and now it was getting close to dawn. So before he got too sleepy, he stopped for a while.
As he waited for his breakfast order to come, Craddock spied a black man who had just come in and had sat down on a stool up by the lunch counter. The diner’s manager then began to treat the black man with a contempt that was clearly borne of deep-seated racism. The manager was rude, insulting, demeaning toward his black guest. As he sat in his booth a little ways away from the counter, Craddock wrestled with saying something to chide this manager for his shameful, racist conduct. Eventually the black man quickly slurped down some coffee and then fled the diner. Craddock meanwhile remained silent. “I didn’t say anything,” he confessed. “I quietly paid my bill, left the diner, and headed back to my car. But as I walked through the parking lot, somewhere in the distance, I heard a rooster crow.”
With that poignant, final image, Craddock evoked an entire cloud of denial, betrayal, shame, and regret. The rooster’s crow following the disciple Peter’s triple denial of Jesus has become one of the more famous images from the gospels. Of course, even so, not everyone knows it.
I once heard Craddock say that one Sunday he was a guest preacher at a church and he preached that same sermon. After the service, a man came up to him in the narthex, shook Craddock’s hand vigorously, and said, “Thank you, pastor, for that powerful sermon. That really hit home! Oh, but by the way, what was that business with the rooster?”
*
ILLUSTRATION
Those who pray for healing for others in the name of Jesus without compassion are hypocrites.
Those of us who are familiar with Dante’s Inferno will recall the hellish punishment Dante imagined would come to hypocrites: for all eternity they would wear the most gorgeous flowing robes, looking ever-so-lovely on the outside. But those robes would be lined with lead, making the very act of standing up straight an abiding agony. Such indeed would be the fit punishment for those who spent their lives harboring ugliness, selfishness, and unconcern on the inside even as they exuded nothing but superior piety on the outside.
Hear it:
“THOSE WHO PLACE ALL POWER IN GREAT FAITH, BUT LACK THE BOWELS
OF COMPASSSION, MINISTER IN DARKNESS AND END IN DARKNESS.”
It all reminds me of the strength tests you used to see at county fairs. It was all a matter of how hard you could hit the thing with the sledgehammer. If you were really strong, you could ring the bell. And if you were not, well, better luck next time.
There are those who think strong faith is the greatest and strongest power in the world, and that it will ring the bell every time. Sorry, faith, no matter how strong, is not the greatest. It is not, for the Holy Spirit tells us that the greatest is love. We had better get our priorities straight in our lives if we are called to a healing ministry. Those who tell the sick that they are so because of their little faith, are completely devoid of COMPASSION, and should quit their praying for the sick! Why? Because they are the antithesis to the GOD OF LOVE AND THE CHRIST OF COMPASSION, and therefore they are doing more harm than good.
*
THOUGHTS ABOUT COMPASSIONLESSNESS
FIRST:
“A COMPASSIONLESS PERSON IS ONE WHOSE CONCERNS
ARE TOTALLY AND ONLY ABOUT SELF, AND HE HAS
A TOTAL UNCONCERNEDNESS ABOUT OTHERS.”
SECOND:
“A COMPASSIONLESS PERSON IS ONE WHO IS TOTALLY
INSENSITIVE TO THE GOOD DONE TO HIM BY OTHERS,
AND THEREFORE IS ALSO COMPLETELY INSENSITIVE
TO THE EVIL DONE TO OTHERS BY HIMSELF.”
THIRD:
“NO PITY OR PAIN FROM THE SUFFERING OF OTHERS EVER
REACHES HIS STEELISH HEART, BUT RATHER ANY AND
ALL SUFFERINGS OF OTHERS BOUNCE OFF HIS IRON
HEART LIKE B Bs OFF A BRICK WALL.”
FOURTH:
“COMPASSIONLESSNESS NOT ONLY FEELS NO REMORSE
OVER THE HURT IT HAS DONE TO OTHERS,
BUT IN FACT IT ENJOYS IT.”
FIFTH:
“NOT ONLY IS COMPASSIONLESSNESS THE ESSENCE OF
INHUMANNESS, BUT IT IS EVEN MORE SO THE ESSENCE
OF SHEER DIABOLICALNESS.”
-We think today of ISIS – MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, AL QAEDA HAMAS, and the entire demonized Muslim Religion. It is impossible for them to be joyful in their faith until they have shaken off all the fetters of pity and compassion. Kill the infidels, cut their heads off, and do so without conscience, and you have the recipe for a EUPHORICALLY DEMONIZED RELIGION. If you will:
“ISLAM IS THE EMBODIMENT OF COMPASSIONLESSNESS,
AND THE SICK JOY OF UTTER CRUELTY.”
*******
VI. JESUS HEALS THE LEPER
Jesus bursts forth to his request, as we read in Matthew 8:3,
“I WILL, BE NOW MADE CLEAN.”
-Look at it all together – Verse 3 –
“JESUS PUT FORTH HIS HAND, TOUCHED HIM, SAYING, I WILL,
BE THOU CLEAN!!”
1. No man was to touch a leper, but compassion is not put off by running sores, stinking skin!
-This man had not been touched by anyone for who knows how long.
-All the love of God flowed through that touch which must have felt like heaven!
-It was! The healing touch of Jesus is the touch of Divine compassionate love, not a Pentecostal massage of mysterious healing!
*
2. Then the words – “I WILL!”
-The man had said,
“IF YOU WILL, YOU CAN MAKE ME CLEAN!”
-Then the words of Jesus were:
“I WILL!”
a. Words that are emblazed in compassionate fire,
“I WILL!” (Praise God!)
b. It is much stronger than,
“Well, okay, you dragged yourself all this way!”
c. Rather, it as if Jesus stomped His foot, and said:
“Of course, I will!!”
d. In fact, J.B. Philips translates it just that way:
“Of course I will!”
e. As if to say,
“How could anyone dare to think, I wouldn’t!”
f. I really want you to hear it:
“I will, I will, I will, I will, I will!”
g. As in the moment of marriage, love says:
“I do, I do, I do, I do, I do!”
*
3. More Exegetical Reflections:
In the Greek of Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ reply to this leper is wonderfully brief but powerfully revealing. Although in English we are forced to use a few more words, in Greek there are only two: Thelo. Katharistheti. The man said, “If you are willing,” and Jesus snappily replies, “Willing!” The man said, “You can make me clean,” and Jesus says “Cleansed!” And that’s all it took for this miracle to happen.
“If you are willing . . .” We know what the leper meant—he was hoping like crazy that Jesus would be willing. Still, it’s a curious way to frame the issue. Jesus’ swift and brief response is also interesting as he essentially seems to give a version of the exuberant response, “Ready, Willing, and Able, Sir!” Yes, Jesus is willing. He’s even eager. And He is surely able.
If there is one thing the gospels make clear, it is that whenever someone approached Jesus for healing or cleansing or for most anything else, Jesus was indeed willing to extend His hand and bring wholeness back into chaotic and broken lives.
In fact, there is a sense in which all the goodness of the Gospel is contained in that little Greek word Jesus employed: Thelo! Willing! There’s more grace tucked in there than we may at first appreciate. Yes, God is willing to heal, to save. That’s why God sent His only Son into the world in the first place.
But what we can proclaim to everyone in our pews on a given Sunday morning—and what passages like Matthew 8 and Mark 1 give us opportunity to proclaim—is that God is willing, God is on our side, God is ready and available. Even when we cannot know the ins and outs as to why specific people suffer in specific ways that are not always cured or healed on the spot, what we can know and so proclaim is that none of that separates us from the love of our God in Christ, and also that none of that means God is anything less than willing to keep on working toward the complete restoration of all things—a goal that He will surely accomplish through Christ and in Christ.
Matthew 8 and Mark 1 remind us that when we look out over a congregation, we may well discern in the eyes of those staring up at us a question that trembles in the silence of all our hearts at one time or another: Willing? Is God willing? The good news of the gospel is to bring these people to the feet of Jesus whose compassion always conveys the same message: Passionately Willing! Willing indeed! And in God’s good time, we will be healed.
*
4. Then the words of Verse 3,
“BE THOU CLEAN!”
-We then read in Mark 1:42,
“AS SOON AS HE HAD SPOKEN, IMMEDIATELY, THE LEPROSY
DEPARTED FROM HIM!!”
-Hear me now:
a. There is healing in the words of Jesus; there is healing in the Word of God!
b. Divine healing for mind, emotions, spirit, body, flow to us through the Word of God!!
c. There is life in the Word of God to bring “healing to our human flesh!”
d. We read in Psalm 107:20,
“GOD SENT HIS WORD, AND HEALED THEM AND DELIVERED THEM!!”
e. How true:
“When we keep His word before our eyes, even as the Word made flesh stood before the leper, and now the written Word replaces the physical Christ, when we keep His Word ever before our eyes, when we meditate on his Word, then the Lord becomes life and provides health to our whole being!”
f. Or again:
-When the Syrophenician Woman came to Jesus for healing for her daughter.
-Jesus said to her,
“IT IS NOT RIGHT TO TAKE CHILDREN’S BREAD, AND CAST
IT TO THE DOGS!”
-Jesus equated healing with bread and the bread that heals is God’s Word!
-Jesus said in Matthew 4:4,
“MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD
THAT PROCEEDTH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.”
*******
VII. THE RESULT OF THE HEALING
-We read in Matthew 3:3,
“AND IMMEDIATELY HIS LEPROSY WAS CLEANSED!!”
-Suddenly, immediately:
1.) In the blink of an eye, the running sores dried up and clear away before your eyes!
2.) Suddenly, the eyebrows grew back; all the wrinkles of the lion face smoothed out!
3.) His eyes became warm as he is blinking now and his raspy voice clear when he talks.
4.) His whole body is restored in front of your very eyes! Hallelujah!
5.) WHOLE – EVERY BIT WHOLE – NOT A SCAR – NOT A SMELL – NOT A TRACE – WHOLE – WHOLE – WHOLE!!!!!!!
*******
VII. CHRIST’S FINAL STIPULATION
We read in Mark 1:44,
“AND JESUS SAID UNTO HIM, ‘SEE THOU SAY NOTHING TO ANY
MAN: BUT GO THEY WAY, SHEW THYSELF TO THEPRIEST, AND
OFFER FOR THY CLEANSING THOSE THINGS WHICH
MOSES COMMANDED FOR A TESTIMONY
UNTO THEM!'”
-You see:
1.) Before a leper could be reinstated into society as a healed man!
2.) He had to go to the priest and do certain things that the Law required!
3.) Then the priest would give him a “waiting” or a “bill” declaring him clean!
4.) And the priest’s word was final!! Not so much as a freckle, not anything unclean!
5.) That was the Law!
**
-It all went like this:
1. Word was taken to the Priest by a friend about a leper who says he is cleansed.
2. The Priest goes out of the temple, outside of the city walls, to meet that leper who claims he is healed.
3.) The Priest conducted certain tests to verify healing.(Leviticus often reads like a medical text.)
4.) After passing the test, there was a ceremonial cleansing that lasted for 8 days.
5.) The ceremonial cleansing in Leviticus 14:5 went like this: (most incredible thing in all of Leviticus):
-They took 2 little birds, perhaps doves, pigeons, which were common in the temple proceedings!
-They had to be clean. What was also needed was an earthen-ware pot, full of fresh water!
-The water had to be from a running stream, not stagnant, but fresh running water!!
-And then:
a. You hold one bird over a pot, kill it, and blood drips into pot of fresh water
b. Then the blood and water are mixed. Then the other living bird was to be immersed in the blood and water!
c. Then the Priest was to take the living bird, shake it over the leper, so that bloody droplets fall on the leper.
d. Then you would release the bird in front of the leper, as he watched the bird fly into his nest:
-It was a symbol to the leper; he was a dead man; but now he has come to new life!
-I am free now, like that bird, to fly back to my home; a new beginning!
-That’s why 8 days; God created the world in 6 days and rested on 7th day.
-The 8th day is returning to #1, day 1, a new beginning!
-Also, they shaved him, washed, scrubbed, like a new born baby; ready to enter his new life.
**
-On 8th day, they would take to the temple a sin offering.
a. He had not gone to temple all his leprous life! He needed covering!
b. They would take the blood of sacrifice; sprinkle some on the ear, thumb, and big toe of the cleansed leper.
c. This stated the following:
-That which I once heard, listened to.
-That which I once did, performed.
-The places where I once went, all of that is now cleansed too!
d. Then they would take “oil” on the blood-stained ear, thumb, and toe.
-Meaning that now under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, I have ears only for God.
-Meaning that now under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, I will serve only God.
-Meaning that now, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, I will walk in union with God!!
e. And, the oil left over, they poured all over him, immersed him in it: 8th day totally cleansed and healed!
**
-Understand the meaning for us (0.T. begun, completed in N.T.).
-Jesus is that Little Bird, come down from heaven for us.
1.) He came to die, to take away all our sins and sickness! Bore both in His soul and body!
2.) It is Jesus, this little Dead Bird, Jesus in His death, bleeding His life away!
3.) And as He does, bearing our sins and sicknesses away; the blood is not lost!!
4.) It is caught in a vessel of living water, and mixed with that blood, we are cleansed as by a living stream itself!
-Then:
1.) The Living Bird, dipped in the mixture, its feathers sprinkled on the leper seven times.
2.) What does it mean:
-It means that Jesus is alive, the Living Bird, risen from the dead!
-I can’t love a dead savior; I can’t be saved by a dead bird!
-But Praise God, “The Living Savior Jesus, sprinkled the blood upon me!”
-The death of Jesus means nothing, apart from the resurrection of “Jesus Christ”!
-The Living Jesus brings to me, healing, cleansing, atonement, wholeness! Then:
1.) Jesus flies away to the Heavenly places; and says come on, it’s a home I prepared for you!!
2.) And one of these days, you are going to fly away in the air and be with Jesus!
3.) Jesus rises with healing in His wings!
***
CONCLUSION:
Some don’t know the healing, loving, saving Jesus:
-Or, you knew Him once, but backslid; never really knew Him!
-He is reaching to love you, save you, heal you, bring you on the inside and to heaven, no longer on the outside.
-Stranger,backslider, eaten up by leprosy of this world, this life, put it all behind you!
-The Living Bird is fluttering over you wanting to cleanse and make you whole!
-Ask Christ Jesus to be YOUR COMPASSIONATE SAVIOR AND HEALER today and come home to God. Amen!
