Little White Spots

Luke 5:12-15

Luke the Physician loved to show us Jesus the Great Physician in action. He healed innumerable people, including so many lepers. Leprosy is a loathsome disease, still active in some parts of the world including Thailand where Kimberly’s uncle was a missionary and worked w/ lepers.  In Asia and Africa there are about 200,000 new cases per year, with only 250 in the US. It was much more prominent in Bible days, and much worse.  Oh what an ugly disease. The skin rots, entire limbs and digits can fall off…yet it all starts w/ just little white spots.  [little foxes spoil the vines/little leaven]

3 Reasons Jesus Did Miracles:

1.     Compassion

We serve a God who is concerned about more than our eternal needs…also our temporal needs!

2.     Credentials

The Jews required a sign, and Jesus proved He was the Messiah over and over again.

        Jesus did 5 great miracles in Capernaum, and they still rejected Him!  (their judgment will be greater… “if I had done them in Sodom and G. they would have repented!”)

3.     Conveyance

Conveying His power…revealing that what He could do in the physical realm He could also do in the spiritual realm. Heal leprosy=heal sin!

We read of a great miracle here in Luke 5…

I have 3 simple points:

The Misery of the Leper

        The Mercy of the Lord

                The Ministry of the Law

1. The Misery of the Leper

v. 12    He was probably living in a leper colony, isolated and exiled from society…then he heard about the Lord, and he believed that if only he could get to Jesus, he could be healed.

        He approached the Lord and would have proclaimed, “unclean, unclean!” as the law required.  But actually he wasn’t supposed to come into a city. Bystanders would be outraged at his actions (“how dare he?”), but would scatter to a distance. This man could be stoned for violating the quarantines that surrounded leprosy, which were based on the Old Testament law.  But at this particular point, stoning may have been a relief.  Jesus offered to him the only hope.

Leprosy in the Bible is a picture of sin.  For instance:

        In this man’s case, he was probably out plowing one day, and noticed a little white spot on his hand…just a little white spot!  He showed it to his wife, and she said, let’s watch it a few days…but then there were several little white spots, which became nodules, which grew and began to ooze fluid.  “You’d better go to the priest and show him” (in those days the priest was also the public health official—Andy Griffith: sheriff/justice of peace) [church trustee/Faith Group board/chiropractor!]

As the law required, the priest would have the man quarantined for 14 days, at the end of which the priest broke the bad news, you have leprosy, you’re going to die, you must be banished, separated away with others like yourself.

        “Wait, I have to tell my wife goodbye”

No, that’s not possible, you can never go near her or your family again.

        “Wait, just one hug from my children!”

No, you cannot…never again can you touch a clean person.

He was sent to a leper colony to die (the avg. lifespan for a leper in those days was 9 years)

Certainly he probably watched his children grow up from a distance…they would approach from the safety of a few hundred feet and would wave at him, leaving him food or a written message.

Soon the sores covered his whole body and became ulcerated, and would begin to bleed…then flesh would begin to fall off of his body, sometimes in large portions—fingers and toes first, perhaps an ear or part of the nose. 

Lepers would begin to emit a foul odor so bad you could taste it.  If you tried to lie down long to rest, the rats would gnaw at your flesh.  You couldn’t sit on a rock, it was against the law, lest someone else sit there later and contract the loathsome disease.  He couldn’t drink from a stream, either. The voice would become raspy and the breath wheezy, and then he would know there wasn’t much longer for him. 

He was a total outcast, totally isolated/exiled/despised.  His leprosy was a picture of the filthiness/rottenness/putridity of sin…a picture the devil doesn’t want us to see today.  He presents it as pleasant, alluring, and enjoyable…and he never shows us the ultimate results of sin!

Sin always starts out rather innocently:  just a little white spot (glass of champagne on an anniversary, just a beer w/ the boys…but here’s how it goes: the man has a drink, then the drink has a drink, and then the drink has the man!)

How does adultery begin?...as just a little white spot.  An innocent flirtation, listening to a co-worker share their problems at home, consoling them a little…then emotions are added to the already present physical attraction, lust leads to sin, something physical happens, adultery occurs, and lives are ruined by the deadly leprosy of sin!

A teenager has just a little white spot on their record, just that one friend from the wrong crowd…the devil makes sure it all comes together one night at the wrong place, at the wrong time, the circumstances snowball on them, and they do something they would never have dreamed of doing when the night began…and everyone knows now, or their picture’s in the paper, someone’s life has been destroyed, somebody’s got a disease, somebody’s pregnant, or somebody’s dead!  A deadly dose of leprosy has crept in…and it all started as a little white spot!

Ill.—King David had just a little white spot of laziness one day, didn’t go out to war…but idle hands found something to do, laziness gave way to lust and adultery ensued, followed by lies, deceit, and murder!  He lost his children/family/kingdom…how did it begin again?  With just a little white spot!

A man doesn’t think much of “harmless” glances at women, and eventually he’s able to excuse himself briefly, and rationalize away a little look at something in a magazine, on the computer, his phone, or the tv…but oh, now he can’t look away, he’s enslaved, he doesn’t want to be, he knows it wrong, he wants to stop, but he cannot…he never wanted to become this person, and he never would have, except for a little white spot…those “harmless” glances! 

        Sir, get control of your eyes or they will take control of you!

In my years I’ve counseled w/ hundreds who never intended on having their life crumble away and rot w/ leprosy, but it happened almost w/out their knowing it…because they didn’t pay much attention to just a little white spot!

I’ve seen children and teens possessed w/ an evil spirit of some kind, and traced it all back to a little white spot long before…a book or a movie or a game with wicked content and evil themes…and their parents bought it for them!

        Oh, the cunning, deceiving leprosy of a little sin!

Well, in Bible days, there was no cure for leprosy…all you could do was exile and ostracize. 

        In the last century, mankind has cured a lot of diseases, but one thing mankind has never done, is devise a cure for the sin problem.  The only cure for the leprosy of sin is the Lord Jesus Christ!

We’ve seen the misery of the leper, now…

II.    The Mercy of the Lord

v. 13        The man came to Jesus and said, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean (not if you can, but if you will)  He had confidence in Jesus.

        What an awesome scene:  This hopeless, helpless man stands before the Great Physician Who has never lost a patient (the blind always went away seeing, deaf hearing, lame walking) He touched the leper and healed him, too.  Mark says it was because of compassion/Jesus used His hand/He touched him and said “I will!” He did it in front of a crowd!

Jesus uses His hand and touches people, the same today as back then, except for one thing:  today, we are His hands!

Jesus used His hand and reached out and touched the man.

        As for this leper, for years, no one had touched him.

(We take human touch for granted:  holding hands, shaking hands, hugging our kids [strangling] [FBC does not condone child abuse!])

        This man was touched physically, emotionally, and spiritually. (explain)

This man was healed instantly!

v. 13        “immediately”  Salvation is not a process, it’s an experience, in an instant, the moment that hand makes contact!  Have you had that moment? (don’t describe a lifestyle or tell me you’ve always been a Christian!)

Misery of the leper…Mercy of the Lord

III.   The Ministry of the Law

v. 14a      Mark gives more detail:

Mark 1:45

But he went out, and began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter…

Ironic, isn’t it?  Jesus said, “don’t tell anybody”, and he went and told everybody.  Jesus tells US, “go tell everybody”, and we don’t tell anybody!

        I heard about two lepers in a leper colony. A missionary was viewing them from a distance. One was carrying the other on his back trying to plant corn. The one who was doing the carrying had no hands, and the one who was being carried had no feet. And he was dropping the corn down in each row. They were each using what they had left to plant a garden.

        Are we with healthy bodies planting any gospel seed?...

We need to be like this man and “blaze abroad” the matter. (joke--blaze abroad…doesn’t mean set wife on fire!)

        Do your co-workers know you’re saved?  If not, you haven’t blazed the matter abroad!  Others at school know? / own parents? / siblings? / neighbors?

v. 14b—Jesus said to do what the law required…go show the priest.

        In the OT book of Leviticus (ch. 14), if a leper was miraculously cleansed, there was an offering to be made.  The one healed was examined by the priest, who would take 2 pigeons, kill 1 over a bowl of water, and let the blood drip into the water.  Then he would take the living pigeon, and take a brush made of a hyssop bush and dip it into the blood and the water, and sprinkle it upon the living pigeon.  Then he would take that pigeon to an open field and release it, and as it flew away, the priest would sprinkle that blood and water over the leper.

Why was this required?  It was intended to be a picture of the future work of Christ…dying for us, shedding His blood, ascending back to heaven, cleansing the leprosy of sin by His blood!

v. 15        And today in heaven, that believer who once had leprosy is probably still singing…let’s sing it w/ him:

“He touched me…”

Has He touched you? Spirit saved? Soul cleansed? Need a touch in your body?