[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we're luke chapter 17. if you'll turn in your bibles now to luke 17 and i'm going to read verses 11 to 19. luke 17 starting at verse 11.
it says now it happened as he that is jesus 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 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 and so jesus answered and said where were or rather 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 and he said to him arise go your way your faith has made you well i've entitled my teaching today where are the nine where are the nine let's pray lord thanks for this time together in your house we pray that you would use this passage of scripture to speak to us we know that this is an ancient story uh and we're reading from an ancient text but your word is as true and relevant today as it was then and always shall be and so we pray that you will use your word now to teach us and to speak to our hearts we love you we thank you for this time we can gather in your house we thank you lord for meeting us here speak to us now we pray in jesus name and everybody said amen well this particular story that i just read like most of what luke writes between chapters 10 to 19 is unique to just the gospel of luke matthew mark and john do not record this story that we just read only luke does and luke tells us that jesus is on his way to jerusalem now this will happen to be the last time that jesus comes to jerusalem before he's crucified and it says in the text that as he goes to jerusalem passes through galilee and samaria so these are provinces and so think of it like this if you were going to washington dc and you're living in loudoun county you're going to pass through loudon and you're going to pass through fairfax county on your way to the city so this is the kind of thing jesus's ministry is primarily up in capernaum which is the region of the galilee so he's leaving that region he's moving through the galilee and then he's moving through samaria and it tells us that he comes to an unnamed village an unnamed town so we'll call it annandale all right and so he comes to annandale on his way into the city and there he meets ten men who are afflicted with the disease of leprosy now leprosy is a common topic in the bible we find leprosy mentioned 68 times in the bible 55 times in the old testament 13 times in the new testament it was one of the most debilitating and ultimately over a long period of time deadly diseases at this particular time and very little was understood about its transmission and except for a miracle there was no cure for leprosy several people are mentioned in the bible as having had leprosy uh the first time we see leprosy mentioned in the entire bible is is uh when miriam the sister of moses is afflicted with leprosy by god because she is showing disrespect to her brother and his leadership as god's prophet and so miriam is struck with leprosy god has mercy on her and heals her too but it's a wake-up call and that happens in your bibles around the year 1450 bc first reference to leprosy in the bible you also see in second kings chapter 5 a syrian king by the name of naaman who has leprosy and god is merciful to him also he receives a miracle and he's healed from leprosy and then you find a story a mention of a man in matthew 26 in the new testament his name is simon the leper simon the leper is somebody who has jesus to his house for dinner and so it is believed that jesus has previously healed this guy of leprosy otherwise you would never invite someone to your house for dinner if you currently had leprosy so that's this reference to simon the leper and and so medically speaking uh leprosy today is called hanson's disease and it was so named after the norwegian doctor who discovered the causative organism behind leprosy which is a bacteria that has been called mycobacterium leproid and so dr g a hanson discovered that in 1873 and so it's called hanson's disease today but there was not a cure that was discovered for this causative bacteria until about a hundred years after hansen discovered it until 1981 in 1981 a cocktail of antibiotics and drugs were discovered as standard treatment so that effectively today leprosy is curable but again that's only been since 1981. so you have to think about it just in terms of biblical history first reference is 1450 bc the first medical cure 1981 what does this mean for nearly 3 500 years leprosy was incurable unless you got a miracle from god it was an incurable disease that eventually would take your life leprosy is transmitted generally by direct person to person contact usually it had to be repetitive over a prolonged period of time and you could be infected with the bacteria and symptoms don't emerge for another four to eight years that was the incubation period four to eight years its symptoms start on the skin with a rash or a sore that doesn't heal and then this rash that doesn't go away or the sore that doesn't heal begins to spread across your body and then this bacteria travels to the peripheral nervous system outside the brain and the spinal cord and then it spreads so it causes neurological issues then it spreads to other parts of your body particularly the extremities it begins to affect your hands it affects your feet your eyes your ears patients with leprosy experience disfigurement of the skin and the bones this bacteria would get into your system and start to cause even your bones and your ligaments to twist a standard characteristic of one with leprosy would be these claw-like hands your hands would begin to to bend and to uh twist and they would end up looking like claws and you would a lot of times lose your fingers because you would become desensitized the nerve endings would erode and so you wouldn't know that something was hot and and you would injure yourself often this this happened this happened regularly people would experience loss of feeling they would experience muscle paralysis a very debilitating disease facial changes including your your face would begin to to contort you you your outer ears would thicken the cartilage on your nose would begin to disintegrate is awful leprosy would become debilitating disfiguring and cause a lifetime of suffering not just physically but think about emotionally what this is doing to you those with leprosy and the bible had to quarantine themselves and they had to announce themselves from a distance by shouting unclean unclean whatever they would go you had to announce yourself that way and even though there is effective treatment today and the disease can be cured with a cocktail of antibiotics still today the world health organization estimates about 200 000 people around the world are afflicted with leprosy and here's a little known fact little lepers in ireland are called leprechauns okay come on yeah you got to lighten it up a little bit right did he just insult leprechauns they're not real okay and it's curable today so don't send me your emails because people can get cured everybody's fine all right we see in this story one of the aspects though of leprosy is this isolation because look at your bibles again in verse 12 it says when jesus comes into this village the lepers are verse 12 they stood afar off they stood afar off you see they were not able to integrate with normal society you couldn't work you could not go to worship you had to leave your family because you couldn't infect them so you had to join these little colonies the people with leprosy would join together in these small communities and they would live together you would never go back to your family remember this is incurable so you left your family you could never go back to your family you were considered societal outcasts now look in this case which is very common with leprosy their common miserable condition drove them together but can i just use this for a moment to to say something in everyday life people tend to congregate with similar people based on their shared misery you know if you find yourself surrounded by a bunch of people who seem to gossip all the time that says something about you that says something about you if you find yourself always surrounded by people who are complaining or they're critical or they're negative look in the mirror okay because you're a magnet and for some reason it says something about you they are drawn to you because they see a commonality so you're putting up with it if you wouldn't put up with it they wouldn't hang around you as much so it's saying something about you misery commiserates and people end up being drawn to each other based on shared misery it's not good but i'm just saying this is a common human problem be aware of it so these lepers are standing afar off they see jesus as he enters their village and all 10 of them in unison it says in verse 13 all 10 of them in unison lifted up their voices and they cry out to him jesus master have mercy on us now notice they refer to him as master the new testament was originally written in greek the word is epistates it means one with supreme authority they're acknowledging jesus as having supreme authority you have supreme authority but notice what they ask they don't ask for healing they ask for mercy now no doubt within their request for mercy is their desire for healing but they don't ask for healing they appeal to divine compassion they need the mercy of god they say jesus master have mercy on us god is rich in mercy aren't you glad in psalm 103 verse 8 it says the lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in mercy your father in heaven overflows with mercy towards us these guys appeal to the divine mercy of god the one who is master who has supreme authority and i love verse 14 and i want to read just the first part very slowly when jesus saw them can i encourage you sometimes read your bible really slowly and pause and meditate because sometimes each little phrase or a single word means a lot you know there are a lot of times i like to read my bible i'm just kind of old school i like pages i like to take notes i like to read but then there are times i get on my phone and i listen to the you version of the bible because i like the auditory part too i'm an auditory learner but when i listen to the bible uh you know auditory i i slow it down i like half speed it sounds really terrible i mean the guy reciting the scripture says like when jesus saw them you know but but for me it helps me to slowly drink it in and the reason i think it's important to point that part out is because sometimes when you are feeling really terrible or you're at a bad place in life one of the most comforting things is just to know that jesus notices you that you're not invisible to god oh that god sees us that he sees our affliction and he knows what we're going through and he's he's acquainted with our suffering he's touched by our infirmities it's just good to know i'm not invisible to god when jesus saw them he noticed them psalm 33 verse 18 says behold the eye of the lord is on those who fear him on those who hope in his mercy these guys were hoping in his mercy and jesus the eye of the lord was on them and he saw them but notice jesus does not go over to them in the story here he doesn't lay hands on them to heal them now it's not like jesus had reluctance to touch them he certainly touched the sick all the time in fact in luke chapter 5 he touched a leper he laid hands on a leper and healed him of his leprosy but in this particular case in this instance he doesn't lay hands he doesn't even go over to them he just gives them a single directive and here's the directive go show yourselves to the priests now why would he say this why would this be the method of his healing by just simply giving them this directive go show yourselves to the priests i submit three reasons to you number one is to affirm god's commands you don't need to turn there but you can just make a note in the margin of your bible that in leviticus 13 and 14 there are two chapters devoted to where god gives specific instructions to the priests who in that day were considered like the health department the priests were the one entrusted by god to either diagnose someone with leprosy or to declare that he or she was leprosy free had been cured and in luke 13 and 14 there's this whole proto sorry leviticus 13 and 14 there's this whole protocol where god tells the priest this is what you're to do when you diagnose them with leprosy and this is what you're to do and if if they are cured and here's how you write them a certificate of health and here and here are the offerings that you that you slaughter on behalf of the person who has now been cured and so jesus by saying to these guys go show yourselves to the priests is basically just reaffirming that god's instructions god's given some specific instructions about how to go about diagnosing or declaring someone is is whole is clean is healed but the reality is think about it because again except for a few miracles that god performed in the bible for 3 500 years leprosy was an incurable disease so think about it this is the first time that we ever read in the bible that leviticus 13 and 14 actually have to be exercised because god laid out this whole protocol leviticus 13 and 14 about how you declare someone free of leprosy but no one had ever been cured of leprosy i mean except again for a few individuals that god directly miraculously healed there's no record that anyone actually went to the priest to exercise leviticus 13 and 14. so what i'm thinking is what a scene this was when these lepers show up at the tabernacle of the lord the temple of god and they say uh we've been cured of leprosy and the priests are like uh what are we supposed to do here uh we've never done this before uh we've never seen somebody cure to leprosy where is that where is that in the oh that's okay it's leviticus 13 to 14.
