ONLY ONE CAME BACK
Sunday, March 13, 2005 – AM
Luke 17:11-19, "And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, 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 Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole."
Leprosy is disease that is feared around the world. We have tried to dress it up just a little and alleviate some of the fear by giving it a different name. We now call it “Hansen’s Disease”. From 1894 to 1999 one of the greatest treatment centers, or hospitals, in the world was located not very far from here at an abandoned and remodeled plantation at Carville, Louisiana. The hospital in Carville closed its doors in 1999 and no longer treats patients for Hansen’s Disease.
Today, we have learned a lot about leprosy and how it is treated. It is not as contagious as many once thought and there are treatments and medications to cure it. But for those who are susceptible to catching it, the disease that is spread pretty much the same way as the flu or a cold is spread – through sneezing and coughing around other people. The good thing is that the vast majority of people will never catch it because their immune systems prevent it from developing. The sad thing is that there are still a lot of people who contract leprosy every year and most of them are children.
Every hour, 65 new cases of leprosy are detected; 11 of these affect children. Leprosy is relatively rare in the United States, where 200 new cases are detected every year and 6,000 people are on record as having the disease. Leprosy flourishes in poor countries, where personal hygiene reduces the ability of the immune system of the body to fight off disease. Despite man’s best efforts it is proving to be a daunting task to eradicate leprosy around the world. Worldwide, about 700,000 new cases were detected in 1997, and three countries—India, Indonesia, and Myanmar (a small country bordering on southern India)—account for 70 percent of the new cases reported every year.
We have come a long way in the treatment of leprosy. But in the time of history when Jesus walked the earth, leprosy was the number one most feared disease known to mankind. It was a horrible disease that brought on years of suffering, and separation, and, after watching the body literally fall apart piece by piece, a welcomed death would come as the only relief.
I cannot begin to imagine how terrible it must have been to be a leper during that time. There was no treatment. Once the disease was found you were immediately declared “unclean” by the Priest and suddenly became as though you were dead to everything and everyone you loved. No one could ever have contact with you again. You just disappeared from the mainstream of life to dwell among the other lepers, all of whom were in different stages of dying.
When we think of the horror and hopelessness of leprosy, it’s not hard for us to imagine how desperate these 10 lepers were who stood afar off from the Lord and cried out for mercy. They knew that Jesus was their only possible hope for deliverance. No power on earth could help them now. Their only hope was in the mercy and power of God to perform a miracle.
These lepers were not bad people, worse than all the rest. They were actually pretty good citizens. They respected Jesus as a true man sent from God. They respected the law of the land and the judgment of the priests. They did not rebel against the Law of Moses. They were respectful, obedient and trusting, and so when Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priest, they just turned and went toward the temple. Only the priest had the power to pronounce them clean and cured so that they could return to a normal life again. The problem that most of them had was that they had an “unthankful spirit”.
Can you imagine the excitement they felt as they began to notice the leprosy was leaving? As they walked toward the priest in obedience to Jesus’ command, every one of them was healed of his leprosy! Though they still had to be pronounced clean, they knew the miracle had already happened. The rest was only a ceremonial formality.
Ten lepers were healed that day, all at the same time and in the same manner, but only one turned back, before he ever reached the temple, to go back and thank the Lord for the miracle in his life.
I wonder what excuses the other nine had for not going back to give God the glory and giving thanks for their miracle?
· But he told us to go to the priests - we’re only doing what he said!
· Jesus is God, I don’t need to go back and thank him. He knows I’m grateful.
· I have so many things to do now that I can be a normal person again! I’ll thank Him later when I get the time
Unthankfulness is nothing less than sin. The leprosy that had the lepers in that city bound in chains of hopelessness, pain and suffering, was only an outward symptom of a greater inward and spiritual condition. Healing of the body was wonderful, but what about the healing of the spirit and of the condition of their souls? The Son of God, who stood before them that day and healed their disease, had so much more to offer than just satisfying their needs in the flesh. He had the power to forgive their sin as well. They just didn’t see it.
Leprosy has always been used as a type of sin that invades the heart of mankind. Because of sin, all of mankind has been pronounced unclean and barred from the courts of Heaven. Through our own evil actions we not only defile ourselves, but the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners." Our evil communications, whether by the words we speak, the motions of our hands, the look we give with our eye, the contortions of our face, or the movements of our body, are like the sneeze of a leper. We spread the disease of sin and evil and it continues to infect our children and everyone around us. (Give a few examples of how we communicate)
Have you ever heard the statement, “When Mama’s not happy, nobody’s happy?” That’s saying the same thing as 1 Corinthians 15:33, just in a more understandable manner.
No matter how we try to dress it up, clean it up and put a façade on sin, it’s still sin and we are still pronounced “unclean” by our High Priest in Glory. Mankind tries to justify his sin by blaming everyone but himself. He tries to do away with its consequences by denying that God even exists. He tries to create his own cure by proclaiming his good works and believing that all he needs is good works to enter into Heaven’s courts. What mankind refuses to see is that without a Deliverer, and without the removal of that sin, and without the pronouncement of the High Priest of Heaven, we will never be able to live in God’s Kingdom.
Ten lepers came that day. Ten lepers were healed as they went. But only one came back to give God the glory and thank Jesus for the miracle in his life.
I want to liken those ten lepers to those who were once lost in sin, but who have been set free by the power of God and the Blood of the Lamb.
Before we met Christ and cried out to Him for deliverance, we were a pathetic sight to behold, especially in the realm of the spirit. We were walking, breathing and going about doing what came naturally, but all the while we were dead spiritually. We were forever cast out of God’s presence. All we could do was try to exist until the day that death came to this body and then there was nothing left but eternity without God, forever chained in the pits of Hell, tormented forever, with no hope for deliverance ever again.
The sin in our life had already destroyed our hope, but like the leper who can’t feel it when his finger falls off, we were numbed by sin and didn’t know how hopeless we were. The joy of knowing the Lord was unknown to us, for that too, had been taken away without our realization of it. Peace was practically non-existent, having been lost a long time ago. Just like a leper, who flesh is slowly dying and parts of his body are falling off without his knowledge, we lived what we thought was a normal life, not knowing just how much sin had stolen from us.
As I look around the church this morning, I see a lot of “spiritual lepers” who have been pronounced clean by our Great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Many of us, if not all of us, have stood afar off and cried out to Jesus to save us. He heard our cry, and he set us free from sin, then like the man at the Pool of Bethesda in John chapter 5, His words to us are “John 5:14, "…Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."
Aren’t you glad that Jesus heard your cry! Aren’t you glad that Jesus delivered you from the power of sin! Have you returned to thank Him? Or have you just taken it for granted and went on your way like the 9 Lepers who never came back?
I’m so glad that all of you are here. As I look around the room I believe that all of you are represented by that one leper who did come back. I believe that you are here this morning because you are grateful, you are thankful and you are here to give God the glory for the great things He has done in your life. I hope and pray that all of you have that kind of spirit.
But what about the other nine? Where are they today? Why are they not here giving God praise, thanks and glory for what He had done for them? What excuse are they giving to God right now?
·I’m obeying God - so he owes me these blessings.
·God knows my prayers before I offer them. Why should I have to tell him?
·I’m very busy right now. I’ll thank him later.
·I am hurting so much because of other needs. Why is he not helping me with that too?
·God didn’t do that for me, it was: my hard work, nature, my friend, luck.
How many people have come to Christ, crying out for deliverance, and then turned and walked away after Jesus has performed the miracle for them?
We live in a day when people don’t want to go to the House of God like they should. We live in a day when we allow anything and everything to keep us from coming back to Jesus to give him thanks. Oh we may give Him thanks with our mouth, but what about with our heart?
How can we say that we are thankful when we are not obeying his Word or spending time with Jesus every day? A thankful heart and spirit will want to spend time with the Lord.
The thing that is disturbing to me are the words that Jesus spoke to that lame man at the pool, “...sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee!”
There are so many who have once tasted of the goodness, mercy and saving grace of the Lord and yet, today, they no longer come to Jesus with a thankful heart. They go about our own way oblivious to fact that the sin of leprosy has once again infected their spirit.
Little by little Satan is eating away at their victory in Christ.
Where they once loved to be the House of God, worshipping the Lord, they now find any excuse not to be there.
Where they once loved to sit in the church and hear the Word preached, now they would rather listen to some unknown preacher on the radio or TV because it can be done at their convenience.
Where they once loved to associate with the people of God, they now have a new circle of friends that is leading them ever further from God.
Little by little, piece-by-piece, the spiritual body that they once had is being lost, slowly but surely, until finally, their spirit is once again, dead in sin. The power of sin has numbed them to the process and they don’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late to stop it.
What is the “worse thing” that can come upon someone who goes back into sin after being delivered? Firstly, Matthew 12:45 says that the devil who once claimed that soul as his dwelling place will come again and bring, “…with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first." That’s bad enough but I think there is even a worst thing than that.
Once we have known the Lord, then turn our back on Him with an unthankful heart, we find ourselves in a place of grave danger.
Hebrews 6:4-6, "For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame."
It is possible, through the numbing power of sin that those who once were called a “Child of God” can lose their eternal soul and never come back. The “worse thing” that will come to them is that they will forget God, die in their sin, and then spend an eternity in Hell remembering what they lost and can never get back. It’s very hard to reach the backslider. It’s harder to get them back into the church and into serving the Lord than it is to see a sinner born again for the first time, because most of them still think that everything is all right with their soul. They can’t see how far they have fallen.
That’s the danger of an unthankful spirit. Let us never forget what Jesus has done for us. Let us never forget to turn back to Him, kneel before Him with an humble heart, and give Him glory and praise for what He has done for us.
There is no more information given concerning those 10 lepers that Jesus healed that day. I don’t know if the nine who didn’t come back ever really knew who Jesus was. But I can’t help but believe that the one who came back, received a far greater blessing than those who kept going.
Let us be like the one who turned back. Let’s keep coming back, over and over again, to give Jesus praise for what He has done for us. Let’s have a true spirit of praise, giving God glory, for the salvation that Jesus has given to us; for the times that He has healed our diseases; and for the times that He has poured out His blessings upon us.
