VICTORIAN VILLAGE Life Style
Chaplain’s Corner: Mark 1:40–45
then we may have some idea of the remarkable wretchedness of a leprous person. To use the words of Aaron, when he interceded for Miriam, he was "as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed." (Numbers 12:12.) But is there nothing like leprosy among ourselves? Yes! Indeed, there is. There is a foul soul-disease which is ingrained into our very nature, and cleaves to our bones and marrow with deadly force. That disease is the plague of sin. Like leprosy, it is a deep-seated disease that infects every part of our nature, including our heart, will, conscience, understanding, memory, and affections. Like leprosy, it makes us loathsome and abominable, unfit for the company of God, and unfit for the glory of heaven. Like leprosy, it is incurable by any earthly physician and
We read in these verses how our Lord Jesus Christ healed a leper. Of all our Lord's miracles of healing, none were probably more marvelous than those performed on lepers. Two cases only have been fully described in the Gospel history. Of these two, the case before us is one of them. Let us try to realize, in the first place, the dreadful nature of the disease which Jesus cured. Leprosy is a complaint of which we know little or nothing in our northern climate. In Bible lands, it is far more common. It is a disease that is utterly incurable. It is no mere skin disorder, as some ignorantly suppose. It is a radical disease of the whole man. It attacks, not merely the skin, but the blood, the flesh, and the bones, until the unhappy patient begins to lose his extremities, and to rot by inches. Let us remember, besides this, that, among the Jews, the leper was reckoned unclean and was cut off from the congregation of Israel and the ordinances of religion. He was obliged to dwell in a separate house. None might touch him or minister to him. Let us remember all this, and
is slowly but surely dragging us down to the second death. And, worst of all, far worse than leprosy, it is a disease from
which no mortal man is exempt. "We are all," in God's sight, "as an unclean thing." (Isaiah 64:6.)
Do we know these things? Have we found them out? Have we discovered our own sinfulness, guilt, and corruption? Happy indeed is that person who has been really taught to feel that he is a "miserable sinner," and that there is "no
www.VictorianVillage.com (708) 301-0800 | vv@provlife.com | 12600 Renaissance Circle | Homer Glen, IL 60491
5
Made with FlippingBook Annual report