INTRODUCTION:

1. Here in our text tonight we see an amazing miracle, the instant healing of ten lepers (17:12-14).
2. Back in Luke chapter 5, Jesus healed a leper in Galilee, but here we see that he healed ten lepers. Only Luke records this miracle.
3. A number of years ago, a well-known Baptist pastor was strongly criticized for his soulwinning methods. He had a habit of boasting of large numbers of converts but only a small handful of them showed any evidence of being genuinely saved.
4. As the criticism increased he responded with a sermon that was published in a popular fundamentalist newspaper.
5. His text was Luke 17:11-19, and the gist of this preacher’s sermon was that ten lepers were saved but only one returned to the Lord to give thanks. Only one showed evidence of being saved.
6. His point was that his so-called "conversions" were indeed genuine even though very few gave any evidence of the new birth.
7. The sermon was filled with personal anecdotes about people this pastor allegedly led to the Lord who never joined his church. Some were in the military; some were traveling salesmen; some moved out of town, etc.
8. It was an unfortunate sermon. Yes, all pastors have had the unhappy experience of seeing people we have led to Christ leave town and move away. But to say that this happens to over 90% of our converts is beyond plausibility.
9. But in my opinion, the worst thing about the sermon was that he misinterpreted what our Lord said. Jesus did not say that all ten lepers got saved but only one joined the church. He said that all ten lepers were cleansed, but only one was saved.
10. All ten were cleansed from their leprosy, but only one was saved from his sins. All ten were healed, but only one got saved (cf. 17:19).
11. W.H. Griffith Thomas outlined the passage this way –

1. THE GREAT NEED – “ten men that were lepers” (17:12)
2. THE EARNEST CRY – “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (17:13)
3. THE PROMPT RESPONSE – “He said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests” (17:14).
4. THE IMMEDIATE OUTCOME – “And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed” (17:14b).
5. THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT – “And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back…” (17:15, 16)
6. THE SAD DISAPPOINTMENT – “Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?” (17:17)
7. THE FULL REWARD – “Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole” (17:19). (Outline Studies in Luke)

 

I. ALL TEN LEPERS HAD A GREAT NEED (17:11,12).

1. Lepers were not excluded from society in pagan nations. But God gave Israel a law about segregating lepers to help keep the disease from spreading. Today, everywhere lepers are put in leper colonies yet God instructed Israel about this centuries before any pagan nation realized it was necessary.
2. In the Bible, leprosy is a picture and type of sin. Leprosy is incurable and so is sin. Only God can cure leprosy and only God can save a sinner.
3. Like sin, leprosy is deeper than the skin (Lev.13:3).

• Like sin, leprosy spreads (Lev.13:7,8).
• Like sin, leprosy defiles (Lev.13:44-46).
• Because of his defilement, the leper had to be put outside the camp. Notice it says in Luke 17:12 that the lepers “stood afar off.”
• They were not allowed to enter the village while they were afflicted with the leprosy, for fear of infecting others. Leviticus 13:46 says, “He is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.”
• Likewise, if we do not want to be defiled by sinners, we must separate from them. Second Corinthians 6:17 says, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”

4. Garments defiled by leprosy had to "be burnt in the fire" (Lev.13:52). Likewise, lost souls that have been defiled by sin must be burnt in the fires of hell. Otherwise they would infect heaven with their wickedness.
5. “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God” (Psalm 9:17).
6. This group of ten lepers included one Samaritan along with nine Jews. Normally Jews and Samaritans did not mix.
7. The woman at the well was surprised that Jesus would speak to her. She said to Him, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans” (John 4:9).
8. Normally Jews and Samaritans did not mix, but these men were united by their common disease.
9. Shakespeare said, “Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows” (The Tempest).

 

II. ALL TEN LEPERS WERE HEALED (17:13, 14).

1. Back in Luke 7:22, Jesus said to the disciples of John the Baptist, “Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.”
2. Perhaps these poor lepers heard that wonderful report – “the lepers are cleansed” – and so in hopeful anticipation they cried out to Jesus, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (17:13).
3. They addressed Jesus as "Master" (17:13). These lepers recognized that Jesus was totally in command of everything, even disease and death.
4. They lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us" (17:13). Their prayer was short and to the point.
5. Harry Ironside said this: "For 1,500 years after the law was written we never read of one solitary Israelite who had been cleansed. Miriam, Moses’ sister who became leprous was healed; and many years later Naaman the Syrian also was healed, but he was not an Israelite, and naturally he was not required to obey the law about going to the priests. Otherwise we never read in all the Old Testament records of one leper being cleansed during 1,500 years, and the priests must have wondered why that 14th chapter of Leviticus was in the Bible. They would naturally say, ‘I have read that chapter over and over but have never had to apply it.’ But when Jesus came things were different. One leper after another was sent to the temple at Jerusalem to be pronounced clean, and when he appeared before the priests he was found to be healed of his leprosy” (Luke).

 

III. ONLY ONE LEPER TURNED BACK TO GIVE THANKS

1. “Go show yourselves…” (17:14). By this command our Lord was giving them an implied assurance that they would be healed.
2. They had not been cured yet, but they were told to go to the priest (Luke 17:14). This required a certain measure of faith on their part, for our Lord did not first heal them, and then tell them to go.
3. It was a long journey to Jerusalem to see the priests. It would have been a great waste of time and effort if they were not healed.
4. He told them to go without expressly assuring them that they would be healed, and without, as yet, any evidence to show to the priest.
5. This a great lesson on faith. Those who will not believe till they first receive are never likely to get saved.
6. Remember what Jesus said to Thomas. He said, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29).
7. These lepers believed our Lord, and they went to the priest before they were cleansed (Luke 17:14).
8. Jesus told them to show themselves to the priests (according to the Mosaic law, Lev.14). The priest acted as a kind of health inspector.
9. Jesus was putting their faith to the test by asking them to act as though they had been healed already. The Bible says it was "as they went, they were cleansed" (Luke 17:14).
10. Now here is the most important part of our story: they all had enough faith to be healed, but only one had faith to be saved, and that was the one who "turned back" (17:15).
11. The only one who turned back, the only one who glorified God, the only one who fell on his face and gave thanks to our Lord "was a Samaritan" (17:16).
12. Samaritans were despised by the Jews. The Samaritan woman at the well said to Jesus, "The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans" (John 4:9). And she was right. The Jews despised the Samaritans.
13. The Samaritans were half-breeds, part Jew and part heathen. They mixed the Old Testament together with various pagan customs and traditions. They were “strangers” (foreigners) to the Israelites (17:18).
14. So here was this despised Samaritan, this unclean leper, and he is the only one who demonstrated true faith and true gratitude (17:15-19).
15. The fact that he was a Samaritan makes his conduct all the more remarkable and striking in the sight of the Jews because of their prejudice and their contempt for the Samaritans.
16. Albert Barnes said, “They considered the Samaritans as peculiarly wicked, and themselves as peculiarly holy. This example showed them, like the parable of the good Samaritan, that in this they were mistaken; and one design of this seems to have been to break down the opposition between the Jews and Samaritans, and to bring the former to more charitable judgments respecting the latter.”
17. The Samaritan gave thanks to God (17:16), something the other nine did not do. This is an important lesson on the ingratitude of man.
18. Most people are like those nine lepers who did not return to give thanks. I often think about those two ungrateful Port Authority policemen who were rescued by brother Dave on 9/11.
19. James Hastings said, “The averages of gratitude and ingratitude do not vary much from age to age, and the story suggests that ninety percent of those who receive God’s benefits are more or less wanting in gratitude. Man is prone to forget his benefits and mercies. He lays more stress upon what he has not than upon what he has. It is our human tendency to take our blessings for granted and as a matter of course. Man seems to look upon all good things — pleasurable sensations, comforts, even luxuries — as his birthright, upon which he has a natural inalienable claim, giving him just ground for complaint if he does not receive them. A stroke of good fortune, an agreeable surprise, creates only a transient ripple and leaves but a dim impression! Instead of being thankful for it as a sheer gratuity, an extra dividend, the individual only finds in it a reason why he should receive more of the same kind and oftener.”
20. Our Lord said to this Samaritan leper, "Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole" (Luke 17:19). The other nine lepers were declared clean by the priest, but only this leper was declared saved by the Son of God.

 

CONCLUSION:

“Ingratitude is a mean and despicable vice! He who is guilty of it is unworthy of the name of man! A soldier, who had been kindly rescued from shipwreck and hospitably entertained, was mean enough to endeavor to obtain from Philip of Macedon the house and farm of his generous host. Philip, in just anger, commanded that his forehead should be branded with the words, ‘The ungrateful guest.’ That man must have felt like Cain when the mark of God was upon him; he must have desired to hide himself forever from the gaze of man. Prove a man ungrateful, and you have placed him below the beasts, for even the brutes frequently exhibit the most touching gratitude to their benefactors” (C.H. Spurgeon).