Come to Jesus and Be Made Clean

Mark 1:40-45
Gregory Broderick | Sunday, November 17, 2019
Copyright © 2019, Gregory Broderick

In our passage this morning, we see a miserable, dirty, diseased leper coming to the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and being made clean.  This is the picture of every sinner.  He is miserable, weary, cast out, desperate, and unclean.  Jesus is the only cure for our true problem, for our sin problem.  Our problem is not that we are physically ill or socially excluded, as this man was, or perhaps as you are.  No, our true problem is that we are sinners, unclean in the sight of God and unfit for heaven.

We are sinners afflicted with the disease and filth of sin, and thus destined for hell.  The only cure for our sin disease is Jesus Christ.  As the leper went and begged Jesus to make him clean, so we must go to Jesus and beg Him to make us clean, and He will do it.  As He said, “I am willing” to this ancient leper, so He says, “I am willing” to us even today.  Jesus said in John 6:37, “All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.”  He receives all who come to Him in faith.  In John 6:40 He says, “Everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

We will examine four points from this text this morning.  First, the petitioner; second, the petition; third, Jesus’ response; and, fourth, the leper’s reaction.

The Petitioner

Our petitioner is a man with leprosy.  This was a very serious problem in the ancient world, even though leprosy is uncommon in our time, at least where we live.  This vile disease of leprosy is caused by bacteria and occurs, as with most diseases, more commonly among the poor and in undesirable parts of the world.

Leprosy is also a sneaky disease.  It can be in your body for many years without any outward manifestation.  Eventually, however, the infected skin will show discoloration, lesions, and severe deformation of the hands and face.  It is a painful and disgusting condition, and the afflicted leper is obvious at first sight.  You will see him coming.  I would not recommend that you Google “leprosy” and look at it.  It is gross.

A leper is, and has always been, a social outcast.  In any country at any time, lepers were outcasts.   In India, leprosy was considered a divine punishment, and lepers were shunned.  Even in the United States, lepers were historically exiled to an island to keep them away from everyone else.  In the Middle Ages, lepers were required to wear a bell to warn others of their affliction.  A leper cannot get any kind of job.  No one wants to be around you, first of all.  No one wants to hire you, and so they end up as poor, homeless, filthy, stinking beggars.  So on top of all the leprosy, you have all those other problems.

Moreover, in ancient Israel, lepers were considered unclean and thus excluded from worship in the temple and excluded even from life in the community.  They were unclean.  You did not want them to make you unclean, or you would be excluded also (Lev. 13:45).  Lepers were to be sent outside the camp and away from the people so as not to defile the assembly.  Think about this:  Even the mighty King Uzziah—this is the king of all the people—even King Uzziah was excluded when he was afflicted with leprosy.  So this disease is so bad that even the king is expelled when he has it (2 Chron. 26:21).

So this is a deplorable condition.  But the text that we have it not merely recounting the story from a bygone era when someone had a deplorable condition and Jesus was nice to a poor man.  No, this leper is a picture of every sinner.  You see, our God is holy, pure, and perfect.  He is the thrice-holy God:  Holy, holy, holy.  He is so holy, He is so pure, that His eyes cannot even bear to look upon evil or filth (Hab. 1:13).  In fact, in Leviticus 15:31, God warns His people that they must “keep the Israelites separate from the things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.”  So God is very pure, and He is very serious about His people being pure and holy.

Against God’s perfect holiness, we are utterly sinful.  We are filthy.  We are totally defiled.  Spiritually speaking, we are more vile and defiled than the leper is from a physical perspective.  Think about it this way:  God does not hate lepers, but God hates sin.  God’s wrath is not poured out on lepers, but it is poured out on sinners.  So we are worse off than the lepers.  In Proverbs 6:16–19 God says sin is detestable in His sight.  He does not say the leper is detestable in His sight; He says sin is detestable in His sight.  God hates the sins of pride, lies, a wicked scheming heart, those who sow dissension, and so on.  That is what Proverbs 6 says.  Psalm 11:5 says that God so hates the wicked man and hates those who love violence.  Psalm 5:5 says the arrogant man cannot stand in God’s presence.  It says that He hates all who do wrong; not lepers, but all who do wrong.  Proverbs 8:13 says He hates evil behavior, perverse speech, and arrogance.

God not only detests sin, God not only detests sinners, but God also punishes them severely.  First Corinthians 6:9–10 makes a list of those who will not inherit His kingdom due to sin.  Colossians 3:5–6 says the wrath of God is coming on a whole list of sinners, and it lists all the sins.  God is so holy that He must hate and punish sin severely.  He punishes it with eternal hell.  As it says in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death”:  eternal agony in hell.

All sin is infinite because it is against an infinite God.  So God’s perfect justice requires Him to give out an infinite punishment for this infinite sin.  On top of that, there is more bad news:  We are all sinners.  We are all lepers, but worse.  Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Everyone—all have sinned.  We see the same idea in Ecclesiastes 7:20.

We are not perfect, as we would be required to be to stand in the presence of God.  In fact, not only are we not perfect, but we are not even good.  Of course, we know this deep in our own hearts.  When we stop and reflect on things we have done or thoughts we have entertained, we know that we are not very good.  But the word of God confirms what we know:  Genesis 6:5 says, “Every inclination of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil all the time.”  We are indeed spiritual lepers.  In fact, even our good deeds are bad, tainted with our sinful thoughts and sinful motives.  All our righteous acts, the Scripture says, are as filthy rags.  Even the good things that we think we are doing are as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6).

So we are worse off than the leper.  At least he was alive.  We, from a spiritual perspective, are more like Lazarus:  dead and stinking in the grave.  Dead towards God and only alive towards sin.  We are unfit in this condition to stand in the presence of the all-holy God for even an instant, much less for all eternity.  We in our dead, stinking, filthy rags belong in eternal hell forever.  So we may hear about this leper and think that he is in a sorry state.  But we are in an even sorrier state.

But notice there is some hope.  The Lord Jesus does not recoil from the leper.  He does not order the leper to get away from Him.  He does not rebuke or reject the leper.  Instead, He stops and listens to what the leper has to say.  Now, the fact that Jesus listens, much less does anything, is amazing.  The fact that He hears the leper’s plea is amazing.  Jesus does not need anything from the leper.  He cannot profit by hearing the man out.  Even though He does not need anything, even though He cannot profit from interacting with this leper, He does it anyway.  Eternal God stops to hear the plea of the leper, and, praise God, He still stops to hear our plea today.

The Petition

Verse 40 tells us that this leper begged Jesus on his knees, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”  This is the kind of plea, the kind of petition, that God accepts:  humble, needy, and made in faith.

First, this leper comes in faith.  The first thing we notice is that he comes to Jesus.  He does not say, “Jesus should come to me.”  No, the leper understands his lowly position.  He understands that Jesus is very God and needs nothing from a dirty leper or from anyone else.  The leper understands that he is not doing Jesus a favor by asking Jesus to heal him.  He does not arrogantly wait for Jesus to pursue him and come after him.  He does not sit in judgment of Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God, nor does he demand some further proof that Jesus is the Messiah, as He says He is.

No, the leper understands reality:  “I need help, and Jesus can give it.”  Someone probably told the leper about Jesus.  We don’t know how he heard about Jesus, but someone probably told him about Jesus.  Perhaps it was the people who had earlier seen the demons driven out in the synagogue.  Maybe it was one of the many people who were healed or freed of demons at Peter’s mother-in-law’s house.  Maybe it was one of those who saw the Holy Spirit descend in bodily form on Jesus at His baptism.  Whatever the source, this leper heard the good news:  The Messiah has come, and He can save you from your affliction.  The leper heard the word, he believed the word, and he went to Jesus.

We get the sense in reading this passage that this leper went to Jesus right away.  He did not delay or sit back or observe to get the lay of the land.  No, he went and fell down on his leprous knees, and he begged Jesus, “Make me clean.”  This man understood that he had a problem of the utmost urgency.  But so do we.  We must not dither or delay or waver between two opinions.  We must not think that we are doing Jesus a favor when we go to Him.  We must not treat our sin problem as though it is academic or philosophical or a simple difference of opinion.  No, just like this leper’s life was at stake, our lives are at stake.  Eternal life is at stake.  Eternity hangs in the balance.

There are only two outcomes in this life:  salvation and eternal worship in God’s presence in heaven forever, on the one hand, or judgment and eternal damnation and agony in hell on the other.  There is no third way.  Everyone is going to end up in one or the other.  The choice must be made in this life—this fragile life that can end at any moment.

So stop whatever else you are doing.  Go to Jesus today, as this man did.  Fall on your knees and beg Him, “Make me clean.”  Beg Him to take away your sin and the just punishment that you deserve.  Beg Him to put His perfect righteousness on you.  Don’t stand there and wonder what to do.  Don’t put it off.  Don’t leave it undecided.  It is too important.  It is the most important thing in this life.  In fact, it is the only thing that matters in this life.  You are a sinner; you are a leper.  But Jesus will not turn you away.  He will hear your plea.  So go in faith, as this man did.

Notice, he not only went in the faith that Jesus could do something for him, but he also confessed Jesus as Lord.  He fell on his knees, as you would actually and literally do if God were here.  If Jesus were here right now in bodily form and you could see Him, you would fall on your knees.  The fact that this leper came on his knees showed that he believed Jesus not only to be a great man but to be the God-man.  He called Jesus “Lord” in the parallel account of Matthew 8:2, and the Greek there strongly implies that the leper was not merely kneeling before Jesus, but worshiping Jesus.  Luke 5:12, another parallel account, says that the man fell on his face, or fell facedown, as you do in the presence of God.  This leper was prostrate before very God.  He was worshiping the Messiah, the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Notice that all of this is before the leper was healed.  He worships Jesus and confesses Him as Lord because Jesus is Lord.  Jesus is worthy of worship.  We do not confess Him or worship Him because we can get things from Him or for what He can do for us.  We don’t worship Him or confess Him as Lord because of something He has already done for us.  He has done those things.  He can do those things for us.  But that is not why.  We worship Him and confess Him as Lord because of who He is.  He is very God.

So this leper confesses Jesus as Lord and worships Jesus as God unconditionally and unreservedly, and so must we.  Only this approach of unconditional surrender is acceptable in God’s sight.

The leper also expresses his genuine faith in Jesus by the petition that he makes.  The leper says, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”  This again shows that the leper believed that Jesus was very God.  After all, leprosy was totally incurable.  There was nothing anyone could do about it for most of human history.  Even today, with all of our advanced medical knowledge, there is not much we can do about it.  If it is caught early, it can be halted.  But we cannot reverse the damage already done by leprosy, even with two thousand years of medical knowledge in between.  That is in our time.  Back in this man’s time, there was no possible cure, no medical hope, nothing that could be done.  But what is impossible for man is possible for God.  In fact, it is easy for God.

Remember Naaman the Syrian?  He was also a leper and desperate for a cure.  Second Kings 5 recounts the story.  Naaman hears from a slave girl, “There is a prophet Elisha in Israel who can heal your leprosy, who can intercede with God to cure your disease.”  So Naaman is hot to go to Israel and get this cure.  But when Naaman’s boss, the king of Aram, tells the king of Israel, “Naaman is coming to be cured of leprosy,” the king of Israel is distressed.  He exclaims, “Am I God?  I can’t do anything about this.  Only God can do something about this.”  It was understood that no one can cure leprosy but God alone.  Despite this fact, the leper in Mark 1 has no doubt that Jesus can heal his leprosy.  He boldly and confidently says, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”  It is not a question of ability.  It is only a question of willingness.

Notice that this man believed that Jesus personally could heal Him, that Jesus could heal him directly.  He did not ask Jesus to ask God.  He did not ask Jesus to intercede with someone who could help him.  No, he says to Jesus, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”  This man was declaring his faith that Jesus is Lord, that Jesus is Messiah, that Jesus, who can heal him, is God.  That is a petition of great faith.

We also see that it is a humble petition.  This man comes on his knees.  He comes facedown.  He comes making no demand.  He comes believing.  He comes imploring and begging.  The leper understands that he is inferior and that Jesus is far superior.

Maybe that seems easy for a leper.  He is a nothing, and you are right:  Blessed is the leper who knows that he is a nothing deserving of nothing.  But everyone from a spiritual perspective is a leper, and, in fact, worse than a leper.  Blessed is the leper who knows that he is a nothing.  But cursed is the leper, the spiritual leper, who fails to realize his true condition.  Maybe he is a proud man.  Maybe he is rich.  Maybe he is beautiful or important.  Such a proud person who does not realize that he is a nothing will never come to Jesus in humility.  He will never come on his face.  He will never beg to be made clean.  No, instead, such a proud person will stride in his great pride all the way to eternal hell.

Finally, notice the content of the petition:  “Make me clean.”  The petition is not merely, “Cure my leprosy,” or, “Make me healthy.”  It is not “Make me rich and powerful,” or, “Give me a husband or a wife or a big house.”  No, the petition is, “Make me clean.”

As I already pointed out, leprosy was a serious problem that led to all kinds of physical pain.  It led to all kinds of social ostracism.  It led to all kinds of economic insecurity.  But those are ultimately short-term problems.  So the leper does not merely ask for healing so that he can then get on with his life or get a job and then get on with whatever he wanted to do.  No, he asked to be made clean.  Being unclean in the sight of God is a much more serious eternal problem than even the horrors of leprosy.  Sin makes us unclean in the sight of God (Matt. 15:20).  It arouses God’s wrath against us (Ezek. 24:13).  Holy God will not tolerate the filth and uncleanness of sin and sinners (Deut. 23:12–14).  So it is a bigger problem.  If we die in our sins, if we die unclean, then we are permanently separated from God and eternally cast out of His presence.

We must, therefore, be made clean—clean from the stain of sin—so that we are pure, holy, and fit for worship in the very presence of eternal God.  We must be made clean by the gospel.  Ephesians 5:25–26 says that Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself to make us holy, cleansing us by the washing with water through the word, or, as Jesus said in John 15:3, we are made clean by the word He speaks, the gospel.

We must be cleansed by the word of God, by the gospel.  As it is preached to elect sinners, the Holy Spirit moves.  He moves, applying the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.  He gives us a new heart and a new mind.  He makes us able to understand the truth, He makes us able to believe the truth, and He makes us able to do the truth, confessing Christ as Lord and Savior.  That is the only way to be made clean, spiritually clean, and to be qualified to stand in the presence of the holy, holy, holy God.

A sinner is like a person in white robes which are stained with the mud of sin.  As we try to clean off that stain with our own muddy hands, we only make the situation worse.  We have no way to cleanse ourselves.  Our good actions cannot earn our cleanliness.  They are tainted by sin.  They are like filthy rags.  Our ritualistic religious observances also fall short.  They cannot make us clean.  Hebrews 10:4 reminds us that that it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

Our sin is against infinite God and thus we need an infinite holy payment for our sin, and there is only one such payment:  Jesus Christ.  Fully God from all eternity, He voluntarily became a man.  He lived a perfect sinless life in word and in deed, in thought and in motives, and then He sacrificed Himself on the cross.  He suffered a gruesome physical death and bore the full wrath of God in our place.  He can pay the infinite price because He is infinite God.  And He can be our representative, our scapegoat, because He was also fully man, born of the virgin Mary, by the Holy Spirit.

But this is a unique person.  He is the only God-man.  There is not another one.  There is not an alternative.  Thus, Peter tells us, “There is no other name on earth by which we may be saved” (Acts 4:12).  Salvation is found in no one else.  In fact, as Jesus Himself said in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Jesus is the only way to be saved.

How do we access this salvation?  It is not by good works, as I already said.  Those are filthy rags.  It is not by religious observance.  It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.  It is not by money.  It is not by family connections.  It is not by genetics.  It is not even by the church.  No, salvation is offered to all for free by grace through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord (Eph. 2:8).  So put your trust in Him.  Declare Him as your Lord.  He will save you.  Romans 10:9 says, “Confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, [and] you will be saved.”  God makes you alive.  Even while the word is being preached, even right now, God can make you alive.

He enables you to confess Christ as Lord.  He enables you to repent of sin and turn away from it.  He enables you to do good, to live for God, and to obey Him by faith.  He moves you from death to life, from darkness to light, and from hell to heaven permanently, irrevocably, and forever.  He makes us clean, permanently clean, and stain-proof.  Now, that does not mean that we have become perfect, at least not yet.  No, we are not perfect.  But we are no longer indelibly stained by sin.  Instead, after we are saved, when we sin, we repent.  We confess it, we renounce it, and it is washed away by the shed blood of Jesus Christ (Prov. 28:13).

If we are truly saved, we will repent of sin and we will persevere to the end.  We will not die in our sins, but we will die in the Lord.  Then we will be made perfect.  Then we will be made spotless.  Then we will be made sinless, clean forever, fit to stand in God’s presence and to worship Him in spirit and in truth forever.  So let us all say by faith, “Lord Jesus, make me clean,” as this leper did.

Jesus’ Response

The man said, “If You are willing, You can make me clean,” and He is willing.  He did make the man clean (v. 41).  He cleansed him of the leprosy (v. 42), but we will see that He also cleansed him of the stain of sin.

This Jesus is a willing Savior.  In fact, He is an eager Savior.  God graciously offers His salvation, His cleansing, to all sinners.  He genuinely wants all sinners to repent (2 Pet. 3:9).  God takes no delight in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33:11).  He will do it.  He is just.  He will do it, but He takes no delight in it.

Look at Jesus here.  Again, this is holy God.  This is the Lord Jesus.  This is God-man, eternal God.  He is totally clean.  Yet, as I said, He does not turn away when the stinking leper approaches Him.  (GTB)  He does not rebuke the man or spit in his face.  Instead, it says that Jesus is filled with compassion for this lost and dying sinner (v. 41).  He does not reject the man’s request offered in faith, but instead says, “I am willing.”  He says, “Be clean,” and the man is immediately made clean.

This is Christ’s response to every sinner who comes to Him in faith.  Jesus says, “I am willing.”  Jesus says, “Be clean.”  He cures your sin-stain immediately.  In fact, He does not even wait for you to come to Him.  He calls you.  He draws you to Himself.  Indeed, He has been speaking to you throughout your whole life.  He declares Himself to you in the heavens and in the earth (Ps. 19:1).  He gave you life, and He sustains your life.  He provides you with food and water and shelter and clothing.  He gives you a logical mind, capable of thinking and understanding.  He gave you a conscience—a conscience to know that there is a God, a conscience to know that there is a right and a wrong established by God (Rom. 1).  He gives you a clear sense that you have done wrong when you violate His moral law.

More than these general revelations, He also provides you with clear understandable and complete special revelation in His Bible, His very word.  You have probably heard the gospel in some form or another before.  But I know you heard it today because I just said it.  This means that the eternal God, very Creator of the universe, who is in need of nothing, made special provision for you personally to hear the gospel from me today.  He literally arranged the entire cosmos and all the actions of all His creatures so that you could come here and sit there and hear His gospel call today—the call to repent, believe, confess, and be saved.  He is very gracious to arrange the entire universe just for you.

Yes, Jesus is willing.  He is willing indeed.  He is eager indeed.  And just in case you need more assurance than that, He gives it.  In John 6:37 He says, “Whoever comes to Me I will never drive away.”  If you come to Jesus, He will not refuse you.  Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord in faith will be saved—everyone.

There is no question about His response.  This man asked a question:  “If You are willing?” Yes, He is willing.  He is filled with compassion for you.  He will make you clean immediately and clean forever.

You may be asking yourself why would He do this?  Why would eternal God do this?  The answer is, divine love.  There is no other reason.  Certainly, there was nothing in us that made us special for Him to pick.  But He chose a people.  He elected a people before all time in eternity past.  Yes, while we were His enemies, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins.  We were dead.  We were disobedient.  We were damned sinners, but He loved us anyway.  Yes, God is willing.  “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).  God is love—great love, divine love, infinite love, just love, holy love, love for unlovable sinners like us.  Yes, He is willing.

So I say, cry out to Him today.  Confess Him as Lord and Savior today.  Put your faith in Him today.  He will not reject you or turn you away; rather, He will make you clean.  He will save you.  He will say, “I am willing.”  He will say, “Be clean,” and like that leper, you will immediately be cured, you will immediately be made clean, you will immediately be fit to worship God in heaven forever.  Hallelujah.

The Leper’s Reaction

The leper was understandably pleased, of course.  He no longer had leprosy.  This was an unimaginable turn of events, a reversal of fortunes for him.  He was cured of an incurable disease which had dominated his entire life.  I am sure that this caused him to go walking and leaping and praising God.

But the focus of verses 43 through 45 is not the leper’s emotional state.  It is not his improved life prospects.  It does not speak about how the leper went out and got a job or found a wife or bought a house.  Maybe he did those things and maybe he did not.  No, the focus of verses 43 through 45 is the leper’s testimony.  He went around telling everyone what Jesus did for him.  And by his testimony, he brought many people to Jesus.

We notice that Jesus commanded the now-cleansed leper, “Go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”  So it is not the “Go and make a sacrifice” that is the key here.  It is the “Go and testify to those priests.”  Jesus sent this man as a missionary to the proud, unbelieving priests that they might hear the gospel.  And we are not told, but I am sure the man did that.  I am certain the man went and told them, “Jesus made me clean.”  I am sure they heard the story of how his incurable disease was cured.  I am sure he told them about his Lord and his Messiah.

This leper was now a clean man, and just like every sinner made clean, he lived in a different way.  He lived a new life of righteousness, of obedience to God’s holy word.  In that time, such obedience meant that you would go and make certain ritual sacrifices at the temple.  So that is what he did.  This new life of obedience is part of the testimony of every believer.

This leper offered the sacrifice.  He was made ceremonially clean.  And now he could participate fully in social and religious life in Israel.  He used to be perpetually unclean, but now he is permanently clean.  And you can bet people asked this guy, this former leper, “How did you become clean?” You can be sure that he told them, “The Messiah, the Christ, the Lord Jesus, made me clean.  He washed away my leprosy.  He washed away all my sins.  And you should go to Him too.”

But the ex-leper cannot contain himself to a few priests or temple-dwellers.  Despite what we are told of Jesus’ strong warning to not go telling anyone (v. 43), the man began to talk freely, spreading the news to everyone (v. 45).  That is what you do with good news:  You tell it to everyone.  This is a natural response to the saving work of Jesus Christ.  You share that good news with all people.  This leper cannot contain himself despite Jesus’ strong warning.

Now, some have argued that this man did wrong, that he disobeyed Jesus and caused all kinds of problems.  But I do not see that as the thrust of this passage.  Rather, this is instructive for us.  If this leper went and told everyone what Jesus did, despite Jesus’ direction to keep quiet, how much more should we spread the good news!  Jesus may have told him to keep quiet, but He did not tell you to keep quiet.  After all, Jesus has said to us, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey whatsoever I have commanded” (Matt. 28:19).

Jesus said that we are His witnesses, and we are to go and to testify.  We must testify as to what we have seen and what we have heard.  We can do it.  I know it is hard to do, but we can do it.  God will empower us to do it.  We should do it.  God did a miracle in us, and we should go and tell that to other people.  We must do it; God commanded us to go and testify.

Notice, the testimony of this leper was very effective (v. 45).  It says that people came to Jesus from everywhere.  This man told so many people about what Jesus had done that Jesus could no longer go out in public as a result.  Jesus could not go into a town or He would be flocked with people.  That must be some earnest testimony to produce that kind of result.  That must be some believable testimony.  That must be some constant, frequent testimony.  That must be some joyful testimony about what Jesus did for him.

Let each one of us do the same.  Let us tell with joy and with sincerity and with frequency what Jesus did for us.  “I was dead, but now I am alive.  I was a slave to sin, but now I walk in the light in obedience to God.  I was a son of hell, but now I am a son of eternal God.  Jesus saved me.  Jesus made me clean.  Jesus will do the same for you.  Go to Him.”

I say to everyone who hears me this morning:  You are blessed.  Yes, you may be a leper, miserable with sin.  But Jesus calls you to come to Him today and to be made clean.  Yes, you are a sinner destined for God’s wrath, destined for eternal hell.  But God calls you to come to Him and be saved, and be destined for heaven instead.  Destined for peace with God.  Destined for eternal life.  Destined for glory.

Beg Him on your knees.  Ask Him in faith to make you clean and to save you.  He is willing.  He will make you clean.  And when He makes you clean, go and testify about Him.  Testify by your new life of obedience to Christ, the obedience of faith.  But also testify by telling what Jesus did for you.  Tell it to your family, tell it to your friends, tell it to your neighbors and your co-workers and everyone else.  You have the good news.  Something amazing has happened to you.  Your incurable sin has been cured.  You have been saved by faith in Christ.  Tell it with zeal.  Tell it to everyone.  Tell them that they can be saved just like you, by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.

So tell them, and then take them to Jesus to be saved, to be made clean.  Then march with them and us to eternal glory in the presence of God in heaven forever.  Amen.