The One Leper

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening to the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. The resurrection power of Jesus Christ is absolute, transforming and restoring lives, healing hurt, and making all things new. This power set Michael Bowen free from the captivity, darkness, and hell of addiction and delivered him back to God. This is Jesus Breaks the Chains. Hello, and thank you for tuning in to this podcast, which is a part of the Jesus Breaks the Chains series on Truth Network.

I'm evangelist Michael Bowen, and I pray that the Lord blesses you greatly, and you receive this word in love and in truth. This podcast is titled The One Leper, and in this podcast we will be discussing the story where Jesus heals the 10 lepers, and it's found in Luke chapter 17. And I want to go through, before we read this scripture, I want to give you a history or a background about the lepers and the disease that they had, that they were healed from, so you can get a better understanding of the concept of gratitude that we can learn from this story. We'll get into that later, but to dive right in, let's talk about leprosy. What kind of disease is this, and what did it do to people, and what did it cause their lives to be like when they contracted this disease? We can start off, leprosy is an infectious disease. It causes severe disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms, legs, and skin areas around your body.

I mean, it affects the entire body. Leprosy has been around since ancient times, or I mean, it's been recorded in transcripts and in the Bible and different historical books over the times, and we also know that outbreaks have affected people all over the world on every continent. The term leprosy, which includes the word leper, lepers, leprosy, and leprous, it occurs 68 times in the Bible, 58 times in the Old Testament, and 13 times in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it is described by the word tessaraath, and that's the Hebrew word, and in the New Testament, there's a Greek word for leprosy, and it's lepros or lepra. In the Old Testament, the instances of leprosy, we believe, meant a variety of infectious skin diseases, but even sometimes that word tessaraath, it referred to mold or mildew on clothing and walls. The precise meaning of leprosy in both the Old and New Testament is still in a little bit of dispute, but it probably includes the modern Hansen's disease, especially in the New Testament, when they talk about leprous and lepra, where we know most definitely it is describing an infectious skin condition or an infectious skin disease, like in Luke 17, where we start talking about how Jesus encountered the 10 lepers and healed them with a touch of his hand, and that's very interesting.

We're going to dive into that in just a minute. I want to still go over leprosy a little bit more so we can understand the impact that Jesus had on these lepers. So many have thought that leprosy, and as you see it with your eyes and the disease itself and what it does to the human body, many believe it's just a disease of the skin, but it's far worse than that. It's really a disease of the central nervous system, because leprosy bacteria, the bacteria that causes the disease of leprosy, it doesn't attack the skin, it attacks the nerves, but we see the symptoms come out in different areas of the body.

The symptoms start in the skin and in the peripheral nerves, in the peripheral nervous system, outside the brain and spinal cord, then it spreads to other parts of the body, such as the hands, feet, face, and earlobes, and that's what we notice the most, especially with the hands and feet and the face, even the nose. People with leprosy experience serious disfigurement of the skin and bones, not only just the skin and the superficial features of the face, but the bones of the body, and there's a thing that happens, a twisting of the limbs, their hands twist, their toes curl, their feet and ankles get twisted, and there's a thing called claw hand, that the fingers will form like a claw and they can't use their hands anymore. Can you imagine how devastating this disease would be, even in our modern times with our medicine, but think about biblical times and the type of medicine and technology that they had. This is something that is devastating, that is, well really, there was no cure for it. It was a death sentence when you were known to start showing the symptoms of leprosy. You were a dead man walking, you were an outcast, and nobody wanted to be around you, and people could first see this because your face would start to change, which includes a thickening of the outer ear and the collapsing of the nose. The nose would literally almost fall off a leprosy, a leper's face, and also tumor-like growths called lepromas would form on the skin and even in the respiratory track, in the lungs, which would cause a difficulty in breathing. Sometimes lepers would die from that, not being able to get enough oxygen into their body.

To make matters worse, since it is a nerve disease, it attacked the optic nerves and it would cause many of them to go blind, slowly go blind because the optic nerve would deteriorate. Leprosy, such a painful disease, and people were terrified of it because of its terrible disfiguring effects and death sentence. When you got it, it was just a black cloud over your head, and the thing is, you couldn't hide it.

You knew if you got it, people would see it and then you would be banished. You would be kicked out of society because that's what happened. People with leprosy, they were sent away from the rest of society. If you lived in a town or a city and you were showing the symptoms of leprosy, you were kicked out.

They had established leper colonies that were way outside of town, out in the countryside, way far away from the rest of the people. You were banished there and sent away and deemed unclean. Nobody wanted to touch you. Can you imagine going through life where nobody will even touch you because they're afraid of you? They're afraid of your disease.

Can you imagine what that must feel like? We can liken that to some of our own struggles when we feel worthless or dirty in our sin and our shame. Maybe we've done things that we're not proud of or that we think make us unclean. People don't want to be around us. I know I speak for myself that when I was in my drug addiction, I became just a horrible person and nobody wanted to be around me. And so I can somewhat on one level relate to being an outcast, to being nobody wanted to be around me, to being just told to get away.

We don't want you to be around us. It was because of my own doing because I chose to use drugs and deal with the symptoms. The disease of drug addiction has symptoms too, just like any other disease. And so I can understand to an extent, but not on a level of leprosy in my understanding.

This is just on a whole different level. You can understand how it's just like recently when people come down with COVID. We had a little bit of this with the COVID scare. And when COVID came into our society and started getting people sick and people started dying from it, if you really caught COVID, nobody wanted to be around you. So we can understand a little bit about what these lepers might be feeling.

Think about it. When you got COVID, nobody wanted to be around you. You had to go separate yourself from everybody else.

And it was a good thing because we had to do that. We did not want the disease to spread. But it's the same thing, true leper, but on a whole different scale because it was a stigma.

People were stigmatized. When you were a leper, you were dirty, unclean, unfit for society, thrown away, trash, garbage, throw you away out there, fend for yourself. We don't want to be around you. We don't want to touch you. We don't even want to look at you because to look at a leper, it is a hard sight to behold to have to look at someone whose face is falling apart, whose limbs are twisting.

It's a very uncomfortable thing. So that's what these lepers were going through at the time. That's what they were feeling. They knew what was happening to their body and they knew from a physical perspective, but also from a spiritual and in a heart perspective, they were being crushed in their spirit and their hearts were being broken. These lepers, think about it.

Think about what that must have felt like all alone, suffering and no help, a death sentence. People look down on lepers. They didn't want to go near them and they were the least of these during biblical times. They were the ones that were despised. They were unclean, less than human, outcasts of society.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for a leper? And in addition to the pain and disfiguration, biblical leprosy or Hansen's disease, as we believe that's what they were talking about, our modern day Hansen's disease, were both dreaded and people were shunned. The Hebrew to Sarath included a variety of elements in the Old Testament, a variety of elements and is most frequently seen in Leviticus.

You can pick up the book Leviticus and read about it in there. Where it referred primarily to uncleanliness or imperfections, according to biblical standards, a person with any scaly blemish was to Sarath. In the Septuagint or the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, to Sarath was translated as aphe leprous.

These words in Greek implied a skin condition that spread over the entire body. References to leprosy have a different emphasis in the New Testament. They stress God's desire to heal. So in the Old Testament, whereas it represented uncleanliness, imperfections, and disease, and rejection in the Old Testament, in the New Testament the references to leprosy gave a chance for healing and God's desire to heal. So we can just see this concept of being outcast through and using leprosy kind of as a symbol of that, of God coming in and cleaning that which was unclean with sin.

Hallelujah. And Jesus touching the people with leprosy in this story in Luke 17. Jesus touching the lepers that nobody else would touch. Jesus freely touched them.

You know, he came to say that which was lost. He came to clean, cleanse that which was unclean. So this is a beautiful story and I'm about to read beginning in Luke 17. And I want to say this, while people with leprosy traditionally suffered banishment from family and neighbors, Jesus broke from that tradition just like he broke from all the traditions of the time. He treated lepers with compassion and he went to them and he touched them and he healed them. Oh, what a mighty God we serve.

Oh, how great our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is. He will go to the least of these and touch them and save them. He came to me and touched me in the depth of my addiction and unclean life that I was living at the time in prison.

And he touched me and he healed me of my disease and he healed, he will heal you of whatever disease you have. He will touch you. He will bring you into him. If you feel alone, despised, rejected, he will come to you.

He will touch you. He will receive you. And now I want to read in Luke 17 verses 11 through 19 and we're going to talk about the story of the 10 lepers. Now it happened as he went to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as he entered a certain village there met him 10 men who were lepers who stood afar off. Now you notice in the scripture they stood afar off. They weren't with the rest. They had to stand away afar off. So they're already outcast.

This is a picture of being an outcast. The 10 were afar off. They stood away from the rest. And they lifted up their voice and said, and they started crying out to Jesus, just like I cried out to Jesus in that prison. And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us.

Have mercy on us, Jesus. 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. So Jesus answered and said, were there not 10 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. Wow, what a beautiful picture of healing that was. And what a lesson of gratitude that only one, out of all 10 that were healed, only one came back. To give glory to God and to give thanks to God for what he had done for him and to praise Jesus for what he did for him.

Only one showed gratitude. One out of the 10, only one out of the 10, realized he had been completely healed and filled with gratitude and ran back to Jesus, not even filled with gratitude, and ran back to Jesus, not just walked, but ran back to Jesus, praising God in a loud voice. And he threw himself at the feet of Jesus to thank him. Interesting enough, this man, this leper, this one leper who was completely healed, he was a Samaritan. And if you know anything about those times, this is really going against tradition, not only going against tradition of not touching or being around lepers, but the tradition about Jews and Samaritans, because the Jews hated the Samaritans and considered them to be half-breeds and very unspiritual and unclean.

They wouldn't even touch a Samaritan, wouldn't even want to be around them. So this one leper who returned to Jesus in gratitude was actually an outcast of the outcast. So he was an outcast for being a Samaritan first, then he was an outcast for being a Samaritan with leprosy.

An outcast of an outcast. Being a Samaritan and a leper, it was a double strike against him, yet he was the only one who returned. He was the only one that showed gratitude. At this point in the story, Jesus asked a profound question. Were not all 10 lepers cleansed?

Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God other than this foreigner? So in this, Jesus is speaking to this double jeopardy of this leper.

He calls him a foreigner and he talks about him being a leper, and only one came back. My question for you right now is this. Since the Lord has touched you in your life, has shown you his salvation, hallelujah, has brought you into the family of God because you believed and received him and had faith in him as your Lord and Savior, and now that your life is changing. You might have been healed from some sort of disease.

I know you were healed from a spiritual disease and a disconnectedness, but my question for you right now is this. Are you that one leper who returned to Jesus in gratitude when you were saved and set free from sin? Or are you like the other nine who forgot the giver and only focused on the gift for yourself? Which one are you?

Are you the one or are you the other nine? What does your life look like since you were saved and cleansed of your sin, made new, reborn? Have you used your newfound freedom to glorify yourself or does your life glorify God? Galatians 5 13 through 25 says, You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Rather, serve one another humbly in love, for the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command. Love your neighbor as yourself.

If you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.

They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious, sexual, immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. And this is the important, an important piece that I want you to focus on in the scripture. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, or forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking into men each other. It is important for you to understand what the one leper understood. We are found by God and delivered and healed of our sinful nature. He was healed of his leprosy, but he was also, I believe, healed of his sinful nature. So that we are healed, we are delivered, we are saved, so that we can be a witness of the love of God in Jesus Christ. That while we were yet still unclean sinners, that Jesus died for us. Jesus died for us so that we would not have to remain dead and separated from God for eternity.

He died so that we would not have to be separated from God like the lepers were separated from society. We are saved by grace through faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and we are saved and set free from sin. We are to use our salvation and freedom to bring glory to God.

In this story, the one leper came back and glorified God. This is what we're supposed to do when we have been given the gift of salvation. We don't use it for ourselves to continue to live in the flesh. We use it to bear the fruits of God.

We are to live a new life as a new creation in Jesus Christ, and we are to live in the Spirit. And in that, we are pleasing to God. And in that, we glorify God. We bear these spiritual fruits of God and show them to this world. We are to love the unlovable like Jesus loves us. We are to love the rejected and despised like Jesus loved the lepers. We are to bring people in close and share the love of Jesus Christ with them so they too can come to believe in Him and find their own salvation and freedom.

So my question to you still remains, are you that one leper or are you the other nine? How do you live your life now that you have been saved? Do you share your faith with others, bring glory to God and pleasing God, or do you keep this treasure all to yourself? Do you live a life of gratitude or do you live a life of unthankfulness? I say never ever forget the giver of the gift.

So many times we can be so excited about the gift we are given that we get lost in the gift and totally forget who gave us that precious gift. If we truly realize what it cost God to give us this gift of salvation, we would praise His holy name every day the rest of the days of our lives. It cost God everything. John 3 16 says, for God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. 2 Corinthians 5 21, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus lived a perfect life on earth but at the cross of Calvary God placed all of mankind's sins upon Him.

There at the cross our Savior experienced a perfect life on earth. He experienced the fullness of our transgressions along with all the guilt, shame, and regret. He must have filled despised, broken, rejected by all.

Can you just imagine? He actually became like a leper up on the cross, despised and rejected by all. Shame and guilt. He bore our transgressions. He bore our shame and guilt on Himself so that we would not have to die in our sins and be separated from God. That we could become new creations in Jesus Christ by believing on Him and believing in His name and that we could become one with Him and God forever for time and eternity. We've been given a gift so precious and we are to use this gift every day to glorify God. 2 Corinthians 5 14 through 20 says for Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died and he died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. When that one leper came back who was healed and glorified God he no longer lived for himself but he lived for the one who healed him Jesus Christ and glorified God in his life the rest of the days of his life back in the scripture so from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view though we once regarded Christ in this way we do so no longer therefore if anyone is in Christ here it is the new creation has come the old is gone the new is here all this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ not counting people sins against them and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation we are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us we implore you on Christ's behalf be reconciled to God for me to be saved and set free as a disciple and ambassador for Jesus Christ is to love God with all my heart soul mind and strength and to love others as myself and to be conformed in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ and show this image and likeness and lightness as a witness to the world in power and indeed in this I bring glory to God in this I plea I am pleasing to God my life is pleasing to God in this I am showing gratitude to God when I reach out and help his children come to know him like I know him in this I am like the one leper who returned to Jesus in gratitude for his healing let us now take another look at what Jesus last said to the one leper who had returned in verse 19 he said then he said to him rise and go your faith has made you well so I say to you all now rise and go your faith has made you well share the gospel with those that are still lost and who are unclean in their sin those who feel despised rejected and feel like outcasts go to them tell them about the God you serve tell them what Jesus did in your life give them your testimony so that they too can come to believe in in in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ I say hate the sin and not the sinner do not do not be afraid to approach the sinner in his guilt and shame and in the nastiness of his sin rise and go forth and reach out to the lost wherever they may be go to the least of these the highways and the byways go to the drug houses the streets go to the hospitals go to the supermarkets go everywhere you can when you're riding the bus speak to someone about Jesus glorify God be pleasing to God show your gratitude that you were saved it is our duty as free men and women ambassadors Jesus Christ to share this gospel that has saved us and we're to share with every as the word says with every creature in the world and we are to take it to every nation every tongue every tribe every jail every prison every hospital every store every corner of this earth who is your creature what is your nation that you will approach and deliver this ministry of reconciliation to this message of hope this message of salvation is your nation at your workplace is your creature your boss or co-worker is your nation your neighbor and your creature your name your is your nation your neighborhood and your creature your neighbor is your nation's bus stop and your creature the man or woman sitting next to you on the bench waiting for a bus ride is your nation your school and your creature the student sitting by themselves all alone that has no friends where is your nation and who is your creature that you can share the love of Jesus Christ with and glorify God in doing so we can show our gratitude for our gift of salvation and freedom from sin by sharing that gift with others Hebrews 12 1 through 2 says I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercy of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God which is your reasonable service I love you all and I pray that you too can find the freedom that I've found in Jesus Christ Jesus breaks the chains it is my gratitude to God for what he has done in my life through Jesus Christ that gives me my purpose in my new life as his ambassador I want to help God give this gift of salvation healing and freedom to others as he did for me I know what a profound effect it had on me I know it changed my life I know that it made me a new person I was reborn and given a spirit his spirit hallelujah power and hope and love and I believe that the one leper is a great example of how we should respond to such a great gift as this the gift of eternal life that God gave his own son for despised and rejected the leper was despised and rejected by the society he belonged to the one leper was made whole by his faith and was accepted by God we are to respond to this great gift we have been given by living a life in Jesus Christ that brings glory to God we can do this by sharing the gospel that saved us and set us free this is the greatest life I've ever lived living my life in Jesus Christ as his fearless disciple God bless you all in Jesus name I pray amen thank you for listening for more information on Michael Bowen's ministry sons and daughters of thunder visit sons and daughters of thunder.org and remember there is no addiction in Jesus Christ Jesus breaks the chains this is the truth network