Giving Thanks

Luke 17:11-19

While Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem.....this was an actual event, not a parable.

We must believe this was an ordained meeting of these leprous men.

Leprosy was very common back in those times. There are laws setup for people who have leprosy.

Leviticus 13:45–46 “And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.”

So, not only are you suffering with a horrifying disease, that slowly eats away at you, you are forced away from your family, to live with other lepers, not allowed to enter the city.

There is a scene in the movie Ben-Hur where it provides a good idea of the lepers and where they would go. The lived in caves outside the city, where their family would come by and throw food into the pit where they lived.

This disease was very contagious.......God’s law also states that the priests are the ones that declares them unclean and if they are healed the priests are the only ones the can affirm their healing and give them a clean bill to return to their families and their city.

Any communication with someone who didn’t have leprosy would have to be from a distance and basically shouting would be their only means of communicating!

Here, they would of been shouting at Jesus.

Have mercy on us!.....Their lives were consumed with the disease and that would be their only thought was to either die or be healed!

Have mercy on us........was a common call for someone that was in need of healing.

Some thought and some even taught that because you have a disease, you have done something wrong. You have sinned therefore you are sick.....

If that is the case then we all should have some kind of disease........well, indeed we do it is called death, however it comes it is to come to all mankind!

Anyway, Job’s friends thought that and told Job it was because he sinned that he was suffering so. Called in him to repent so that he would be rid of his disease, but that wasn’t the case, the suffering that Job was going through was not because of his sin.

For their foolishness God called Job’s friends thoughts on the matter, folly!

Back to these 10 lepers they probably was convinced that their sinful life had something to with their condition and asked for mercy, that was common in those times.

And it is true, for Jesus to do anything for mankind would have to be mercy/grace.

After they called out to Jesus for mercy, Jesus told them to go show themselves to the priest.

This had to be done to be declared clean.......So, before they were actually healed, Jesus told them to go on to the priest and show the priests that they had been cleansed.

The healing didn’t happen until they went, until they obeyed.......

Now, this is where it gets interesting to me.....there are a lot of teachings that say that you have to activate the miracle by your own obedience

There is even some that teach that Jesus’ miracles is hindered by your unbelief or disobedience.

Now, throughout God’s Word there were times when Jesus healed people because they believed. There were many times when He healed people who didn't believe.  In fact, there were times when He raised dead people and they can't believe.  So there were times when faith played a role, and times when it did not.  But in this case, He asked them to exhibit enough faith to do what He said.

One writer wrote that Jesus healed the lepers caused He chose them to be healed!

However, these were told to go to the priests to show that they had been healed before they were healed.......

To make the turn and go on your way to the priests before seeing/feeling your healing would of took faith.

Was that true faith in the Christ the Son of the Living God?.......The rest of this encounter with Jesus tells the rest of the story!

One preacher called their faith a meager faith! Explaining that they just wanted to be healed and nothing else! They wanted nothing else from Jesus!

Healing, Miracles, signs and wonders was a part of Jesus’ ministry to declare and prove that He was the Son of God, God the Son!

It also declared the Godhead’s compassion/lovingkindness......

If the all of the powers of God were the sole purpose of His coming, then we would never die......all of God’s glorious works lead us to the greatest work that is ever done and the only true healing that we ever need........That is to be cleansed of our sin, cleansed to the degree that we can enter into God’s presence and live forever!

Back to the story.....The 10 turned and went to the priests before they were healed.....On their way, they were cleansed of that horrifying disease!

They presented themselves to the priests and were declared cleaned!

Probably shouting...... “I am clean” instead of “Unclean”!

In their joy, there was only one, a Samaritan at that, that glorified God and gave thanks to Christ for being cleansed.

He was the unlikely one, the hated Samaritan, was the only one that realized the compassion and the love of God!

Spurgeon said this: “All ten were willing to do a religious ceremony; that is go to the priest. Only one was filled with true praise and thanksgiving. “External religious exercises are easy enough, and common enough; but the internal matter, the drawing out of the heart in thankful love, how scarce a thing it is! Nine obey ritual where only one praises the Lord.”

Jesus marvelled at the 9 that didn’t return and give thanks...... “Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?”

The other nine possibly caught up in being clean went on about their way, enjoying their new life!

One writer presents the possibility that the 9 went from the priests to the temple to worship God!

Stating: “Interesting way to look at that: What are the other nine guys doing?  They're moving toward the priests, maybe with a view, we're going to go, we're clean, he's going to see it, we're clean then we're going to the temple.  We're going to the temple, because you ultimately have to go there to make the sacrifices that are required of one who's been cleansed.  We're going to the temple and when we get to the temple, sure we're grateful, we're excited, we're enthusiastic.  This is an unbelievable thing.  When we get to the temple we'll...We'll worship God where we should worship God, in the temple.  We'll thank God there and we'll praise God when we get to the place where God dwells.

Hmm, guess what?  God doesn't dwell in that temple.  God hadn't been in that temple in a long, long time.  Ichabod was written on that temple long ago when the glory departed.  That was an apostate temple and an apostate form of religion.  And that's why Jesus said, "The time is coming when you won't worship God in Jerusalem or in Mount Gerizim, because you're going to worship God in spirit and in truth and you're going to worship Him from the heart any place," but most significantly this man knew where to worship God, where God really dwelt.  And where God really dwelt was in Jesus Christ. That was the real temple.  He goes back to the true temple of God.

In John 4:23–24 “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

Only one was a true worshipper......Jesus declared that this stranger/Samaritan’s faith made him whole! Faith in the healing or the healer?

The Healer, Jesus the Christ the Son of the Living God! He came back to the true place of worship which is Jesus Christ!

This man’s heart was made whole....the other nine had clean bodies but sick hearts!

Turn with me to 1 Peter 1:18-25........purified your souls.......

1 Peter 2:24 “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”

I started out in this to make this a “sort of” Thanksgiving” message and it is in a way, but the main theme in all of life to me is “what do we do with Jesus?”

Every person that has lived and died on this planet, at the moment of their death that will be the determining factor of their after life......”What did you do with Jesus?” He is the only answer to our condemnation, our separation from God, He is the Only Remedy and it is not in our hands but He has already provided the way, it is a matter of the heart, the inward man!

I would rather have a cleansed inward man than cleansed outward man!

1 Corinthians 15:57 “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”