MATTHEW 8:1-4

When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

Once again we find Jesus surrounded by multitudes -

The same thing that was going on in the life and ministry of Jesus before Chapter 5.

It was simply pandemonium as word spread of the miracles wrought by Jesus

From Tyre/Sidon - Damascus - Jerusalem/Judea -

Jews/Gentiles - Roman soldiers/Pharisees/Sadducees

As we began Chapter 5 it said that Jesus seeing the multitude went up on a mountain and that His disciples came to Him.

I believe that Jesus walked UP the Mount of Beatitudes to deliver His Manifesto of the Kingdom in order to separate those who really wanted to hear His words from those who were willing to listen and follow as long as it was convenient…. As long as it was exciting,

We made note of the fact they were willing to walk uphill.

We also made note of the fact that our Christian experience is an uphill experience.

Jesus is constantly drawing and calling us UPWARD!

Phil 3:14 14I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

NOTICE - Now it says that as He comes down from the mountain that the multitudes begin to follow Him again.

When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. {2} And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. {3} And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. {4} And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

And, behold, there came a leper

KEY INSIGHT: The Talmud (the written record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish laws, ethics, customs and history) referred to lepers as the walking dead.

Because there was, and even today, is no cure. Today they can only arrest the disease.

And in those days it was considered a death sentence from God.

KEY INSIGHT: The rabbis called leprosy the ‘finger of God.’

They believed that when someone contracted leprosy thy were being judged by God for sin.

KEY INSIGHT: The leper would have to stay a hundred paces away from the healthy population, preferably down wind, and cry, “Unclean, Unclean.”

NOTE: If a leper got too close to healthy people they were stoned.

They threw stones at them to drive them away.

Well here’s this man who is a leper.

A WALKING DEAD man believed by the people to be touched by THE FINGER OF GOD as judgment for his sin.

KEY POINT: Bearing in mind that leprosy is a type/picture of sin, I am GLAD that the first person we see after the Sermon on the Mount is a leper who comes to Jesus and is cleansed.

Because after I get through reading the Sermon on the Mount I always feel like a leper.

It says that –

We are to turn the other cheek.

If you even think about adultery you’ve done it.

Anger is like murder.’

We are to ‘Pray for our enemies.’

I read that stuff and I feel like a leper. I need to get cleansed.

So it is so beautiful to see Jesus coming down from the mountain where He proclaimed the charter for the kingdom and then see Him CLEANSE this man of his leprosy!

KEY OBSERVATION: Luke in his record, because he’s a doctor, takes a little more notice and says that this man was ‘full of leprosy.’

He was in the advanced stages. He probably was missing appendages, fingers or a hand or ears.

He would have had large black spots all over his body.

He may have been bald by this time.

He may have been blind.

KEY INSIGHT: The description of the diagnosis of this disease is given in great detail in Leviticus 13.

They were VERY CAREFUL to diagnose a blemish as leprosy.

BECAUSE leprosy, for all intents and purposes, ENDED your life.

You would be put out of your family.

You could never again be around your spouse.

You could never again be around your children or parents.

You could never again be around the temple.

You could never again be around worship.

You could could never again work and earn a living.

IF you were diagnosed with leprosy your life would come to an end

So God gave very specific instructions in making the diagnosis.

AS WE LOOK AT THOSE INSTRUCTIONS we see that leprosy is very much a picture of sin in it’s beginnings and its end.

1.) The disease would often start with a hard spot.

And that is just how sin starts in our lives - with some hardening.

With some hard spot in our hearts regarding some particular thing.

The Holy Spirit comes and convicts us concerning that particular fire that we are playing with or getting too close to.

We tell the Holy Spirit, “Don’t worry about me.”

Like He’s going to be relieved.

2.) Then it becomes a shinning spot sometimes.

How often sin shines and glistens and we’re attracted to it.

Think of Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

We like those lights and baubles and all of those things.

All of them are a cheap imitation of a city that will be infinitely more grand than those.

KEY OBSERVATION: So here is this man who has leprosy - he comes and falls down in front of Jesus and he does not for a moment doubt the ability of Jesus to cleanse.

What he doubts is the willingness of Jesus to heal him.

THAT is his single, great concern!

He comes down and falls down in front of Him and worships Him.

And he says, ”Lord, if you will you can make me clean.”

INTERESTING: Wuest’s Translation of the New Testament reads his statement as, “Lord, if you have a heart felt desire.’

That’s what the word ‘will’ means there.

THAT is what he NEEDS to know about this Jesus - Is it in the heart of this Jesus to cleanse a man such as me!

CRUCIAL INSIGHT: Where Jesus says, “I will, be thou clean,” its literally - ‘I desire it with all of my heart.’

KEY APPLICATION: I think that’s a question that we all have at heart when we come to Christ.

If you’re not a believer - that’s very important.

Because you see - You NEED to be cleansed of sin, not merely have something fixed!

The leper needed MNORE than new fingers - he needed to be cleansed of the thing that was destroying him!

So too - You need a supernatural touch upon your life.

No priest can do it for you. No pastor can do it for you.

You need to be cleansed of this thing called sin

This thing that starts so slowly in our lives and ultimately erupts and comes to the surface.

This thing that destroys life, destroys families.

This thing that will ultimately bring eternal judgment upon you!

INTERESTING: Often in Jesus’ day a leper would see that spot coming and he would keep it covered

Sometimes for a month, for a year, for two years, even though he knew that it would finally become obvious to everyone.

He did this because he knew that the day that it was seen that he was cast outside the camp.

Maybe you’re feeling like, “I’m hiding this. I hope it doesn’t come out.”

Maybe you’re thinking, “I have this constant anger. This is constant bitterness or this constant lust, this constant problem.

I need to be cleansed.

But is He really willing.

Is He really willing to touch me?”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for Him to just cast me off and have nothing to do with me?”

Maybe you’re a Christian who thinks, “I’ve been wrestling with this so long.

Is He willing to put up with me one more time as I come with the same thing?”

Isn’t that the question? Because we think He loves with a human love.

KEY OBSERVATION: This guy says if you’re willing. You are able to do this.

And the remarkable thing is that he must have pushed his way through the crowd.

He is rubbing shoulders with people he WOULD never have been around…. SHOULD never have been around….. JUST to get to Jesus!!

And he falls down in front of Jesus…… And everybody must have stopped and drawn back because they could see that he was full of leprosy.

AMAZINGY/REMARKABLY - Jesus says, “I will be thou clean.”

EVEN MORE AMAZING/REMARKABLE - Is that it says, “He touched him.”

What an incredible moment for this man who’s probably spent years now

watching other fathers take their children in their arms or put them on their shoulders and give them a piggy back ride

watching other men experience the dignity of going to work and earning a living.

For years he had been shut out of the most common human experiences that we take for granted.

What was it like for him to all of sudden feel a human hand?

All of sudden he felt something he had not felt for years.

In fact he felt something that he had never felt –

He literally felt the hand of God. EMMANUEL…. God with us… is the One who touched him!

Remember - the religious people were telling him that his problem was the hand of God.

But the truth was that the hand of God was right in front of him reaching out to cleanse, not judge.

GOD BECAME MAN TO TOUCH THE UNTOUCHABLE!!!

All of sudden he feels THIS hand upon him.

HE is STILL in the business of touching the untouchable / cleansing lives!

THAT is what happens to EVERY man and women who when they get saved….

THAT is HOW you get saved…. JESUS TOUCHES and CLEANSES you from your sin.

KEY INSIGHT: Now what we have here is a reversal of Levitical law.

Levitical law says that when you touch a leper you become unclean.

Heaven does it a different way….. When Jesus touches the leper the leper becomes clean….Jesus doesn’t become contaminated.

So Jesus touches him and it says that immediately he was cleansed.

WE CAN’T IMAGINE what that was like because Luke says he was filled with leprosy.

Imagine people standing there and seeing his fingers pop back out. His ears coming back. His eyes opening up.

Watching this happening right before their eyes!

How astounding that must have been!

I would have loved to have been there and watched all those things pop back in place. Jesus does remarkable things.

KEY OBSERVATION: Jesus says, “Don’t tell anyone.”

Isn’t it interesting -

Jesus tells the leper not to tell anybody and he tells everybody

Jesus tells the church to tell everybody and we don’t tell anybody.

That’s a hard challenge - “See thou tell no man but go thy way and shew thyself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded.”

Jesus has a purpose in this.

It says right here why He’s doing it –for a testimony unto them, unto the religious leaders of Israel.

That was His purpose because there is a very remarkable thing that must now take place.

AGAIN - in Leviticus 13 there is great detail given to the diagnosis of leprosy.

And no doubt this man had been diagnosed by the high priest.

And in THIS man’s case it would have been Caiaphus and Annas who had put this man outside of the religious and social life of the nation.

Jesus says I want you to go back to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses prescribed in the law for a testimony

I believe in my heart that as this man came back to the temple and showed himself to Caiaphus and Annas and said, “I’m here to offer the sacrifice that Moses prescribed,”

I think they ran to Leviticus and said, “What is that sacrifice? We’ve never offered it. What does the law say?”

Jesus even says in Luke 4 that in the days of Elijah there were many lepers in Israel but none of them were cleansed except Naaman of Syrian.

The only record in the Bible of an Israelite being cleansed from leprosy was Miriam, before the law concerning leprosy was prescribed.

In the wilderness journey in Numbers she is cleansed of leprosy in an instant.

But there is no record anywhere in history that lepers were cleansed in Israel.

KEY POINT: That means something very significant.

That means that Leviticus 14 was written for Caiaphus.

This man had to go show himself to Caiaphus and Annas the priests.

Then they had to examine him.

If he appeared to be cleansed then they were to take two turtle doves and an earthen vessel and a piece of hyssop with scarlet wrapped around it and living water.

Then take the living water and put it in the earthen vessel (a type of Christ).

Take the scarlet and hyssop and make a brush out of it.

They were to slaughter the one dove and take the drained blood into the living water.

Then take the other dove and dip it in the living water and set it free.

INSIGHT: It was a picture of one dove being cleansed by the death by another.

One is set free from the other dying.

Then they had to put this guy away.

Shave his head and eyebrows and put him away for seven days.

On the eighth day they had to bring him out and examine him again.

If he was still clean and they knew the leprosy was gone then they were to sacrifice a lamb.

They would take the blood of the lamb and put it on his right ear, upon his right thumb and on his great toe on his right foot.

INSIGHT: That is a picture of the blood being applied to what we hear and do and where we go.

Then they would take the oil - a picture of the Holy Spirit - and apply it to his right ear and to his right hand and to his right foot.

INSIGHT: Having been washed, our hearing and our doing and our walk should then be led of the Spirit.

After they went through that procedure then they were to take this man and present him publicly to the nation.

The crowds were to gather in the temple courts and the priests were to say this man has been cleansed from leprosy.

KEY INSIGHT: Do you see what Jesus is saying to him now?

Tell no man - but go to Jerusalem and to the priests - Annas and Caiaphus - and offer the sacrifice that Moses prescribed in the law as a testimony for a testimony to THEM!!

Jesus loved Annas and Caiaphus.

Jesus LOVED the men who would ultimately turn Him over to Pilate.

The door was still open for them at that point in time.

Jesus was sending a message to the religious center of Israel.

That message was that lepers were being touched and cleansed in their nation by the Messiah.

KEY APPLICATION: And you see that’s the message that we are supposed to take to the nation that we live in, through lives TOUCHED… CLEANSED and TRANSFORMED by Jesus

By applying the blood to what we hear, what we do and where we go.

There should be a change in our lives when we get saved.

More than a profession of faith in a system of belief -

But lives transformed and now we have the Holy Spirit determine what we hear, what we do and where we go.

THAT is the message we have for a lost generation.

Lepers are still being cleansed by this Savior - this redeemer.

As Jesus sends this man to the center of the nation to proclaim that the Old Testament prophecies about Christ were beginning to be fulfilled…..

Jesus sends US who have been TOUCHED and CLEANSED…. Who have been given life