So we are pleased to have some of you joining us for the first time and some of you joining us after a long time. I hope the others who are not yet back, I’m sure you are waiting to be back here with us. So let’s continue to pray alright that the situation will improve and that we can all gather back again in worship alright as a church together in person. So nevertheless again I welcome all of you both here and those joining us online and welcome back to our series. So I hope you still remember what we are studying in this series. So please turn with me to the gospel of Luke for this morning. The gospel of Luke in chapter 17.

Alright Luke chapter 17, this morning we are looking at verses 11 through 19. Verses 11 through 19 of Luke 17. So let me first read our text. This is the Word of God. Verse 11: “Now it happened as He (that is Jesus) went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Now then 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!”

And so when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. 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 at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” Then He said to him, “Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.””. Now let us again turn to the Lord for help in prayer.

“Our dear Father in heaven, we thank You for every opportunity that we have to gather around Your truth. We know that this is Your precious Word, and we pray that we’ll come with the right spirit and the right attitude. Grant to us that longing, grant to us that hunger and thirst after Your truth, and grant to us understanding, for we know that we cannot understand this truth by ourselves. And so we look to You for Your blessing. Teach us, O Lord, for this we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Alright, we are looking at the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ as I pointed out, and let me point out once again alright that the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are meant to teach us spiritual truths. They are meant to teach us about salvation or the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But each of these miracles alright, they do not teach us everything. Now they are not in a comprehensive way everything about salvation. But each of these miracles, they teach us a particular aspect alright. So they have a particular focus. For example, a particular account of the miracle may help us understand our helplessness, our hopelessness.

Or another miracle account may teach us about the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ to save. Yet another miracle account would teach us about the condition for salvation and that we must come to Jesus and believe in Him. And so we see that every one of these miracles has a particular focus or aspect. So we come to this miracle account again this morning and asked that question: What does this miracle account teach us? So that is the way we need to come to understand alright the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So this morning we are looking at the ten lepers and we ask the question: What is the particular aspect or focus of salvation that this account or this story is teaching us? I think as I was reading this passage you might have an idea of it already, there’s a clue as it were. So let me put this alright out right at the very outset that the particular focus or teaching of this miracle account is the right response to salvation. So the ten lepers alright- the healing of the ten lepers is to teach us about the right response to salvation. 

Now we know that there ought to be a response to salvation. Those who have been saved, we ought to respond to that salvation correctly or rightly. Now we have hymn writers who write about this. You remember a hymn (some of you), a hymn that goes like this: “How can I say thanks, for the things you have done for me”. That is the kind of response that we are talking about. Or in another hymn that writes: “When I think about the cross that my Saviour had to bear, and how He died for me upon the tree. Then my heart with fervently plea cries O Lord it was for me, let me be worthy for the price you paid for me.”. That is about response, and this is what this miracle story is about. 

And so the question we want to ask is: Have you been saved by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? How many of us this morning can testify to the grace of God in our life, to this great and mighty work of salvation in delivering us from damnation, from hell, from the bondage of sin? Now don’t we realize what salvation is about? Now here is a story that tells us there is a man who understood what his salvation is about. And where is the cry? Where is the cry? Where is the response to Christ and say: Oh, how can I say thanks? 

Have you at any point in your Christian life (if you are a Christian, now this is what this passage is asking us), has there been a point in your Christian life where you pause and you think about your salvation and you cry out: “Oh my God, thank You! Oh my Saviour, thank You! And I want to live for You. I want to love You back.”? We know that we love only because He first loved us. And so this is what this story is about. It’s about response. It is about right response to this great salvation that the Lord has wrought for us.

And so as we follow this, we see that the writer here (now Luke) is trying to highlight this important aspect by first of all depicting the sinner before he came to Jesus Christ. Before he came to Jesus. And I want to use the word to sum that up, and that is ‘guilt’. And then he tells us and shows us the sinner as he comes to Jesus, and that is grace. And then thirdly, we see in this story account, he shows us the sinner after he has come to Jesus. So we shall therefore follow this simple outline to see the teaching of this miracle. And so let’s begin by first of all looking at the sinner before he comes to Jesus. 

Now, this is the first thing we ought to grasp. In other words, the first important truth Luke tells us is to understand. It’s to know what the sinner is like before he is saved. Have you ever pondered about that, give some thought to that? What were you like before you were saved? Now I want to point this out, to underscore this- that you will never appreciate your salvation. You will never appreciate your present condition in Christ if you have never known, you’ve never understood what you were before. What you were before. 

So often you find that Paul reminds his reader of this truth. Remember when he wrote to the Ephesians, he told them in the second chapter of Ephesians that before, you were dead in your sins and trespasses. When he write to the Corinthians in First Corinthians chapter 6, he says that you know that those people who are wicked you know- the sodomites and the adulterers and so on, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then he says: “And such are some of you”. You were like these people. When you look out into the world and you see wickedness, you see evil people, you see sinners, you see adulterers, you know what? The Bible is saying to us, you remember that you were such. You were like one of these people. 

And so that is what Luke is telling us here in this story. So the first thing to grasp you say is to know what you were like before you came to Jesus. And so that begs the questions: What were you like? What is the sinner like? And so we read in verse 12 alright in Luke 17:12- “Then He entered a certain village, and there met Him ten men”. And what were they like? They were lepers. That is what they were like. They were lepers. In other words, they were infected with a deadly disease. You see, leprosy is a picture here used in the Bible very often alright to describe the human condition- the human condition. And so here we see the same thing again. And so we ask: How does leprosy illustrate or picture sin, and how do these lepers alright picture us? 

Now I think to help us understand something of this, I’d like to turn your attention to an Old Testament text in Leviticus chapter 13. Leviticus chapter 13, and here we have some teaching about leprosy. In Leviticus chapter 13, and here we ask the question. Now here is leprosy. I say it is meant to picture and to illustrate our condition in sin. So leprosy illustrates sin. But how so? So in Leviticus chapter 13, we say in these number of ways. There are number of things we see in this passage, in this chapter here that tells us how leprosy illustrates sin.

Firstly, we see in verse 3 of Leviticus 13 which says: “and the priest shall examine the sore on the skin of the body; and if the hair on the sore has turned white, and the sore appears to be” what? “Deeper than the skin of his body”, then it is leprosy. It is a leprous sore. Now that is how the priest can confirm in those days. You know they would have to go to the priest and the priest would examine them and to find out. They were in the sense the health officials. They were in a sense the expert as it were in trying to diagnose your problem. And this is the way the Bible tells us they come to that conclusion whether it is leprosy or not.

When the priest sees that it is deeper than the skin, then it is leprosy. In other words, sin is deeper than the skin. Sin in other words is a serious problem. Sin is not a surface, it’s not a superficial, it’s not a minor, small problem. It’s not like an ant bite you know an ant bite on your skin, that is a small problem. You can get some ointment and you rub on it and it would go away. But that is not sin. Sin is a more serious problem than that, and that is the trouble with many people today. 

We think that sin is a small problem and we just give some moral education or we put some solution and put some cream, and then we think that this sin problem will go away. And for centuries, for thousands of years in this world, humanity has been trying to deal with this problem of sin and we have never solved the problem. It is still as serious. Why? Because sin is deeper than the skin. It is (the Bible says) it is a heart problem. It is a heart problem. Jesus explains it this way, and let me read from Mark’s account of what Jesus said in Mark 7:21-23.

Listen to what Jesus says about our problem. Verse 21 of Mark chapter 7, Jesus said: “For from within, out of the heart of men”, what? “Proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders (verse 22), thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.”. Verse 23: “All these evil”, where do they come from? All these evil deeds that we see all around the world in our society, where do these things come from? What is the Bible explanation? Now this is the Bible explanation, Jesus says in verse 23: “All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”. It comes from the heart.

That is the problem with us, and that is what this leprosy is trying to illustrate. It’s trying to help us understand our human condition, that we have a serious problem that cannot be solved easily. In fact, can never be solved by humans. There’s nothing that we can do, try as we may. There’s nothing that we can do to solve this problem of sin in our lives, in society, in this world. Never, nothing can do that because it is a serious problem. 

But then there’s a second thing the Bible tells us about how leprosy helps us understand our problem of sin, and then back to Leviticus 13. Leviticus 13 and look at verse 8. Verse 8, which says: “Now if the priest sees that the scab has indeed spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean.”. So the priest will continue to examine. First, he sees that it’s deeper than the skin. And then he sees also that this thing spreads. It spreads on the skin. What does it tell us about sin?

Sin spreads. Sin is more contagious than Covid-19. Can anything in this world, sin is like these diseases. It spreads. And so we see here. And so that’s how he illustrates. So you find that this leper when he gets this disease, this person when he gets leprosy, now what he will soon find is that he will soon find that spot in his skin alright will turn his whole body into an ugly mess. That’s what we see in humans. We see ugliness all around.

Well, sin has turned us into ugly beings, and that’s what it does to a leper. The Bible tells us from one man’s sin spread, from Adam sin spread to all men and all died. We know that sin spreads also in the sense that sin spread and affect every facet of life. It spreads in everything that we do in life. It spreads to education; it spreads to businesses; it spreads to politics. It spreads everywhere. It touches everything. There’s nowhere that we can turn that we do not see this manifestation of evil and sin in our society. But that is what the Bible teaches, it spreads. 

But thirdly, what else does it teach us about sin? Well in Leviticus 13:46. Verse 46, and it says here: “He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.”. Can you see this? What sin is doing to a person, what this leprosy is doing to this leper? He is unclean, he is evil. He is unclean, he is not fit to be in a place where he is supposed to be clean. Jerusalem is a place alright- it is a picture of heaven. He’s not fit to be in Jerusalem. He is therefore to be cast outside of Jerusalem, cast outside the gate. And that’s what verse 46 is telling us. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. He shall be separated. 

Now that is what sin does. It separates. It separates. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. Why? Because he is unclean. That’s why it says many times here. He’s unclean, he’s unclean. He shall be separated. Sin separates us from God because God is clean. Because God is holy. But human, every one of us, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And God cast man out of the garden of Eden. He cast us out from His presence. He will cast us out forever because we are unclean. Because we are sinners. That’s what we learned about sin here. We will never go to heaven in our sin, never!

Do you have sin? Have you done any evil? Have you never spoken any lies, evil thoughts in your mind, evil motives when you do things? Don’t you have selfishness, pride? Yeah, you have sinned. You are a sinner. And hear this: No sinner will ever go to heaven because heaven is a holy place. He shall be cast out. And then we learn the fourth thing about sin from this passage in Leviticus 13:52. Verse 52: “He shall therefore burn that garment in which is the plague, whether warp or woof, in wool or in linen, or anything of leather, for it is an active leprosy; the garment shall be burned in the fire.”.

Sin is fit only for the fire. Now all these things- the garment, everything will be just thrown into the garbage dump and to be burned. Jerusalem there is a dumpsite, where all these things will be thrown and be burnt. All unclean things, all useless things, all rotten things will be thrown into this dumpsite, and that dumpsite is called “Gehenna”, which translated ‘hell’. That is the word for hell. Hell is God’s eternal dumpsite. It’s a place of fire.

And that’s why the Jews, they will have that image in their mind when they see the dumpsite outside Jerusalem. It’s always burning. It’s always smoke. They will all be throwing their garbage, and they throw this garment of the lepers alright into this dumpsite because it’s fit only for that place. That is the only place that sinners can expect to go. We cannot expect to go to heaven, a holy place. We can only expect as far the Bible is concerned to go to that dumpsite, God’s eternal dumpsite called “hell”. 

Now that is what we understand here. That’s what we see here. That is what the Bible is trying to show here to us that these lepers (these ten lepers) in Luke 17, they are a picture of us. And that is what it means to be a leper that your problem is a serious problem, that it will suppress you from God, that you will be cast out, and that you are fit only for eternal dumpsite of God to be burned forever and ever. Now, do you understand something of your condition before you came to Jesus Christ? 

You see, a lot of people don’t understand. They didn’t understand what they had been saved from. They didn’t understand the condition that they were in, that they were in a sorry state. They were in a pitiful state. They were helpless and hopeless in their sin. They are decaying. They are like a walking dead. That is what the leper is- he’s a walking dead. His body slowly decays just as all of us in this world. Because of sin, our body is decaying day by day. It’s all because of sin. That is our condition- the sinner before he came to Jesus. I say unless you understand something of your condition before you were saved, you would never appreciate salvation. You would never appreciate from what you have been delivered. 

So that leads us to the second thing: the sinner as he comes to Jesus. Now let’s come back again to Luke chapter 17. Luke chapter 17, and now we see the second point in this story- the sinner as he comes to Jesus. And the word to summarize that is ‘grace’. Grace. I want you to see these lepers here in this passage, see them coming to Jesus. And I want to say here that that is the picture of sinners coming to Jesus. See these lepers coming to Jesus. This is a picture of sinners coming to Jesus. And how we see the grace of God as these lepers come to Jesus? That is what now Luke wants us to see in this story here.

Can you not see as these helpless, hopeless creatures dying in their leprosy as it were and that as they come to Jesus, the beautiful thing we see here is the grace of God? Two things here I want you to see. First, see the lepers cry in verse 13: And as they came to Jesus, “they lifted up their voices and they cried out saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!””. These people understood their condition. These people can look at themselves and look at each other, they could see that they were dying.

These people could see that they were hopeless, and so they came to Jesus and they cried out to Jesus: “Jesus, Master, help us! Have mercy on us!”. Was there a time in your life you ever said that to Jesus? There are many people who call themselves Christians, but can never recall a time when they came to Jesus and cry out to Jesus for mercy. You never cry out for mercy. I want to ask you: What did you cry out for? You cry out for prosperity, maybe. You cry for some other things or some goodies, but you never cry out for mercy. But these lepers, they came. And they came to Jesus, and they moan. They wept and they cry. The following chapter in Luke chapter 18, Jesus mentions this alright in Luke 18:13-14, and He tells us about the tax collector in verse 13.

He said: “The tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’”. And then Jesus said what? “I tell you, that this man went down to his house justified rather than those other Pharisees”, who were so righteous. There are people who say we are good citizens, we are good people, we are moral people. We are not like those you know terrorists, we are not like those rapists, we are not like those other people. I’m a nice man. Those people would not go to heaven. Those people would not be justified. Only those who come to Jesus and cry out “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner”. 

So that is the first thing we see here in this picture in this story in this miracle account: the lepers in their hopelessness and helplessness came to Jesus and cried out for mercy. And then the second thing we see what? Now, this is so important to see that as people, as people come to Jesus, as people cry out to Jesus, we see secondly the Lord’s gracious response. We see Jesus’ gracious response in verse 14: “And when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.”.

And I want to underscore, I want to point out to you again and again as we study the miracle stories in the Bible, we see this truth being repeated. Every time these people came to Jesus, we see the graciousness of our Lord Jesus in His response to these people. Look at what Luke tells us earlier on in Luke chapter 4. Luke 4:38. Verse 38, which says here: “Now when Jesus arose from the synagogue and entered Simon’s house. But Simon’s wife’s mother (that is Simon’s mother-in-law) was sick with a high fever, and they made a request of Jesus concerning her.”. They told Jesus about this woman in need.

And so verse 39: “And so He stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. And she arose and served them.”. And Jesus responded. He need not respond that way. Why should He? Who is this woman? But Jesus came and responded and helped. And then we see in verse 40: “When the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to Jesus; and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them.”. Everyone who came to Jesus, they were helped. They were being helped by Jesus.

Jesus will not reject anyone who comes to Him for help, and that’s what this verse is saying. Those on that day, all those who came, they found this gracious Lord so willing to help them. And so we come to chapter 5. Chapter 5 of Luke and verse 12, we see again here: And it happened when He was in a certain city, that behold, a man who was full of leprosy saw Jesus; and he fell on his face and implored Him, and said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.””. Lord if you are willing, you can save me. I’m a poor sinner, I’m dying, I’m going to hell without your help. Can you help me? 

And listen to Jesus’ response to this man’s cry in verse 13: “Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.””. The man asked: Lord, are you willing? Jesus answered: I am willing. You can always hear that from Jesus if you come to Jesus and say: Lord, will you save me? You can be assured of His response: Yes, I am willing. That is what Luke is trying to help us see again and again- the graciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 8. Chapter 8 and verse 41. And verse 41 of chapter 8: “Behold, there came a man named Jairus, he was a ruler of the synagogue. He fell down at Jesus’ feet and begged Him to come to his house”.

And what happened? Jesus came to his house and Jesus saved his daughter. See, when he begged Jesus, Jesus helped him. Verse 43: “Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed”. And then verse 44, she came to Jesus and she was healed. Don’t you see a pattern here? Don’t you see what Luke is trying to help us see in all these miracle stories that as a sinner comes to Jesus, we see the grace of God? We see the grace of God. And I want to tell you this morning that you can be certain of that as well. Maybe some of you have not yet come to Jesus Christ. You have not yet called out to Him. I will urge you come to Jesus. Come to Him. 

How often in the Bible we see Jesus issuing the invitation? “Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” “Come to Me, for I’m the living bread.” “Come to Me, I’m the living water.” “Come to Me, and you will never hunger again, and you will never thirst again.” Come to Me. And then He said: “All who come to Me, I will in no wise cast out.”. No wise. I will not reject anyone who comes to Me. Oh, come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. He’s such a gracious Lord. 

Don’t you see your need of a Saviour? Don’t you see that you need Jesus Christ? You still want to continue in your leprosy, in your sin? There is hope. There is hope in Jesus. And so this is what we see- we see the sinner before he came to Jesus. We see the sinner as he comes to Jesus. We see the grace and the graciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that leads us to the third important truth which we ought to see here, and that is the sinner after he has come to Jesus. The sinner after he has come to Jesus.

I hope most of the people that I’m speaking to this morning either here or online have already come to believe in Jesus Christ. You have known the grace of God. You have known the mercy of God. You have known what I’m saying here this whole morning here, that you are a sinner and that Jesus is gracious to save you. Then what? Then what? The sinner after he has come to Jesus, the word to sum it up is ‘gratitude’. Gratitude.

See again in Luke chapter 17. Luke 17:15-16, listen to these words: “And one of them (one of the ten), when he saw that he was healed, he returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. For he was a Samaritan.”. Can’t you not see this that here we are told of this man (one of the ten). When he saw that he was healed, he has been saved by the gracious Lord, he came back to Jesus and he said thank you. Now, what did Jesus say to this? Verse 17 and 18: “So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?”. Now, these are searching questions. Jesus is saying: Where are the other people who have been saved? Why only one? 

Now, these words of Jesus tell us something. It implies that Jesus expects some kind of response from people who call themselves Christians. Jesus expects. He has expectation that we live a certain type of life. They have been healed (remember) of the most feared disease of the ancient time. There’s no other disease they feared more than leprosy. These were the people. They have been healed of that. They have been saved in other words from their worst problem in life. If you are a Christian, can’t you not see that you have been saved from the worst problem in your life? Not your poverty, not your sicknesses, but your sin. But your sin that is dragging you into hell, and Jesus plucked you out and saved you. And now Jesus says I expect you to understand that and expect a proper, appropriate response. A proper, appropriate response. 

So the question is: Where are the other nine? Where are the majority of Christians? Now it is for me both heart aching to hear sometimes of comments like: “The church is always made up of the core group. It’s only the core group. The core faithful. The rest are all on the fringes.”. That’s what Jesus is talking about. Why only the core who are committed? Why only the core are prepared to sacrifice? Why only the core are prepared to serve Me? Why only? Where are the other nine? They’re all on the fringes. They’re all just tagging you know along. Why only one remembers? That is what Jesus said. Why only one remembers to say thank you? 

You know what? It’s rude. Christians, many Christians are very rude. It’s not polite. You gain benefit and you never say thank you. So Jesus is asking: Why only one person came back to say thank you? Why only one remembers to worship? Why only one remembers to pray? Why only one remembers to give? Why only one remembers to sacrifice? Why only one remembers to serve? Why only one remember to evangelise? Why only one? That is Jesus’ searching question: Where are the other nine? Why only one? Maybe they don’t understand salvation. Maybe they don’t understand from what they have been saved from. Maybe they don’t understand the richness of God’s grace and the richness of God’s mercy. Or maybe, maybe they are not saved at all. They are not saved at all. They don’t understand. They’re still out there.

So I want to ask you this morning: Do you understand? Then where is your “thank you”? This is the way you repay God, the way you live your life today? Is this the way to repay God for what He has done for you? Is this so much you are prepared to sacrifice? Is this so much you are prepared to give? Now ask the question. Let me ask you in the words of this hymn 94. And hymn 94, it says (sorry hymn 428 alright- hymn 428): Would not be this be the words of our heart when we think about our Christian life, that we will say that we have not, that “we have not loved Thee as we ought”? 

Maybe for most Christians that is a confession that “we have not served Thee as we ought”, that we have not served, we have not feared God as we ought. Now let us examine our life. That is what Jesus is saying here in this passage to the lepers. And examine your life, what kind of response that would be appropriate to one who had been saved graciously by the Master from his worst problem. That is something for us to think about. Let us pray.

“Our Father in heaven, again we bow before You and we want to thank You for Your mercy. Help us indeed understand something of what we have been saved from. Indeed You have delivered us. You have delivered us from eternal damnation. You delivered us from the grip of the evil one. You have delivered us from the bondage, a bondage in sin. Lord, we pray. We pray that You will help us to be like this one leper who came back to say: “thank you”. And teach us how to say: “thank you”. Teach us how to live our life appropriately in response to Your great mercy and love for us. Help us to walk worthy of the calling with which we have been called, for this, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.”

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.