THE KING’S BUSINESS
278
exemption from service (like the auctioned slave, freed by his purchaser but, insisting on following and serving him). Christ’s servants’ day’s work done, He will gird Himself and serve them (Luke 12:37).
claims. But those who stand on grace, confessed unprofitable, these “stand in the liberty wherewith Christ makes free” (Gal. 5:1). They call themselves bond-servants ( so Paul) but serve for love, not accepting
LESSON IX.-SMay 31. — T h e G r a t e f u l S a m a r it a n .— Luke 17:11-19. G olden T ext . —Were there none found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger ?—Luke 17:18.
grace of Christ ; to show the grace of grat itude and the disgrace of thanklessness; and to give evidence that nine out of ten deserve no better than they get and get far more (of good) than they deserve. 12. “As He entered” (while still on the outskirts) “there met him ten men that were lepers.” Imagine the pitiful sight! Down in the “Red Light,” down in the “Tenderloin” are such tens and hundreds. Moral lepers, we call them—and how, too, about “The Upper Ten?” “Passing along.” Christ (“Christ in you”) is •now passing along to “the New Jerusalem,” and wants through you to heal the lepers on the way. 13. “They lifted up their voices,” for "they stood afar off” (v. 12). Not less by law than 150 feet. First they cried, “Un clean! Unclean!” (Lev. 13:45), so sinners must first confess (Luke 18:14).' “Master, have mercy on us.” They must have heard of His mercy and ability to cure lepers. Sinners must hear before they will call (Rom. 10:14), and we cleansed lepers must “noise it abroad,” and show that we are clean. Oh, that sinners, by tens, would lift up their voices and cry “Mercy!” 14. “Go and show,” etc. (See Lev. 14: 1-8.) There two birds represent one Christ. One slain* for cleansing is by “shedding of blood;” one freed, for Christ lives again; lives stained, dipped in blood; for He bears the blood and the marks of the cross into the heavens (Heb. 9 :7; Rev. 5:6). Those birds figure also the leper (sinner) crucified, dying with, and rising with Christ, bearing in his body “the marks of the Lord Jesus” (Gal. 6:17). And as the cleansed, leper washed (Lev. 14:8) him self so the sinner saved is (2 Cor. 7: 1)
I. L eprosy . 1. The Law and the Leper. See Leviti cus, chapters 13 and 14. Leprosy is a Scrip ture and an apt type of sin. It is a living death and a dying life. It is hereditary, contagious, progressive, polluting, destruc tive; so seldom curable that it well symbol izes sin as incurable, but by Divine power. Neither the leopard, the leper nor the sin ner can change his spots. 2. The Priestly Diagnosis. We see that not the leper but the priest pronounced on the case. So not the sinner but the Divine oracle is the Judge of sin. Sinners may. deny the reality, or the enormity of their sin; all the same God says that from head to foot there is no soundness (Isa. 1:5, 6). A leper is a leper, and a sinner a sinner when there appears only “a bright spot,” as when the malady is seen to be “deeper than the skin’’ (Lev. 13:24, 25 ; Rom. 3 :22, 23). There is one sentence for all alike (Lev. 13:45, 46; Rev. 22:14, 15). But Christ took the leper’s spots and suffered “without the camp” (Heb. 13:12, 13). 3. O. T. Instances. The punishment of a hand lifted against the Lord’s anointed (Num. 12:1, 9, 10) ; of pride intruding into the Holy place in its own name, without a Mediator (2 Chron. 26:16-21) ; of setting a price on God’s free gift (2 Kings 5 :20- 27). There is worse punishment than lep rosy (2 Kings 7:1-9). The same text records how four grateful lepers used the
“day of glad tidings.” II. V erse by V erse . 11.
“It came to pass.” Leprosy, even, is not an unmitigated evil, the event came to pass to teach the compassion, power and
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker