Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1935
“And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face atHis feet, givingHim thanks. Andhe was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not 10 cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found that returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner? And He said to him, Arise, go your way: your faith has made you whole.” Luke 17:15 -19.
You have often heard the leprosy described—it was a very horrible disease, I should think the worst that flesh is heir to. We ought to be much more grateful than we are that this fell disease is scarcely known in our favored country. You have also heard what an instructive symbol it is in human flesh of what sin is in the human soul, how it pollutes, how it destroys. I need not go into that sad subject. But here was a sight for the Savior—10 men that were lepers! A mass of sorrow, indeed! What sights our Lord still sees every day in this sin-defiled world! Not 10 men that are sinners, nor even merely 10 millions are to be found all the world over, but on this earth there are a thousand millions of men diseased in soul! It is a miracle of condescension that the Son of God should set foot in such a lazar house as this.
Yet observe the triumphant Grace of our Lord Jesus to the 10 men that were lepers. It would make a man’s fortune, it would crown a man with lifelong fame to heal one leper—but our Lord healed 10 lepers at once! So full a fountain of Grace is He, so freely does He dispense His favor, that the 10 are told to go and show themselves to the priests because they are healed—and on the way to the priests they find it is so! None of us can imagine the joy they felt when they perceived that they were healed. Oh, it must have been a sort of new birth to them to find their flesh made fresh as that of a little child! It would not have been amazing if the whole 10 had hurried back and fallen at Jesus’ feet and lifted up their voices in a tenfold Psalm! The sad thing about it is that nine of them, though they were healed, went on their way to the priests in the coolest possible manner—we never hear of their return—they drop out of the story altogether. They have obtained a blessing, they go their way and that is an end of them.
Only one of them, a Samaritan, returned to express his thanks. Misery has strange bedfellows and so the nine lepers of the seed of Israel consorted with an outcast Samaritan—and he, strange to tell it, was the only one who, seized by a sudden impulse of gratitude, made his way to his Benefactor, fell down at His feet and began to glorify God!
If you search the world around, among all choice spices you shall scarcely meet with the frankincense of gratitude. It ought to be as common as the dewdrops that hang upon the hedges in the morning but, alas, the world is dry of thankfulness to God! Gratitude to Christ was scarcely enough in His own day! I had almost said it was 10 to one that nobody would praise Him, but I must correct myself a little—it was nine to one! One day in seven is for the Lord’s worship, but not one man in 10 is devoted to His praise! Our subject is thankfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I. I begin with the point that I have already touched upon, namely, THE SINGULARITY OF THANKFULNESS.
Here note there are more who receive benefits than ever give praise for them. Nine persons healed, one person glorifying God. Nine persons healed of leprosy, mark you, and only one person kneeling down at Jesus’ feet and thanking Him for it! If for this surpassing benefit, which might have made the dumb to sing, men only thank the Lord in the proportion of one in 10, what shall I say of what we call God’s common mercies—only common because He is so liberal with them, for each of them is inestimably valuable? Life, health, eyesight, hearing, domestic love, the continuance of friendships—I cannot attempt a catalog of benefits that we receive every day—and yet is there one man in 10 that praises God for these?
A cold, “Thank God!” is all that is given. Others of us do praise Him for these benefits, but what poor praises! Dr. Watts’ hymn is sadly true—
“Hosannas languish on our tongues, And our devotion dies.”
We do not praise the Lord fitly, proportionately, intensely. We receive a continent of mercies and only return an island of praise. He gives us new blessings every morning and fresh ones every evening—great is His faithfulness—and yet we let the years roll round and seldom observe a day of praise. Sad is it to see God all goodness and man all ingratitude! The tribe who receives benefits may say, “My name is legion,” but those who praise God are so few that a child may write them.
But there is something more remarkable than this—the number of those who pray is greater than the number of those who praise. For these 10 men that were lepers all prayed. Poor and feeble as their voices had become through disease, yet they lifted them up in prayer and united in crying—“Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” They all joined in the litany, “Lord, have mercy upon us! Christ, have mercy upon us!” But when they came to the Te Deum, magnifying and praising God, only one of them took up the note! One would have thought that all who prayed would praise, but it is not so. Cases have been where a whole ship’s crew, in time of storm, has prayed, and yet none of that crew have sung the praise of God when the storm has become a calm. Multitudes of our fellow citizens pray when they are sick and near to dying, but when they grow better, their praises grow sick unto death! The angel of mercy, listening at their door, has heard no canticle of love, no song of thankfulness. Alas, it is too sadly true that more pray than praise!