Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2960
“And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” Luke 17:17.
THE whole narrative connected with the text is worthy of your careful reading. There were 10 men, lepers who, according to the old proverb that “birds of a feather flock together,” had made a company and seemed to have lived in greater amity through kinship of suffering than they would have done had they been healthy and competent to share the fragrance of each other’s joys. Mutual woe may have softened some of their natural jealousies, for we find that there was at least one in the company who was a Samaritan, while the others were Jews. Now, “the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans,” yet, when both are placed beyond the pale of society—in their sickness an intimacy springs up between them. So does common calamity bring about strange friendships. These men, who, under any other circumstances, would have been mortal enemies, became comfortable companions—at least, so far as their disease would allow them the thought of comfort.
Do you not observe everywhere how sinners congregate together? Drunks are gregarious creatures—they will not often drink alone. The lascivious song is hardly sweet unless it thrills from many tongues. In most sorts of merry-making that are not wise, we know that it is company that gives the zest and yields the main gratification. Men seem to have a sort of anticipation of the time when they shall be bound up in bundles—they gaily forestall their gloomy doom as they bind themselves up in bundles while they are yet living! Oh, that Christians would adhere as closely to one another as sinners do! That they would forget their differences, whether they are Jews or Samaritans, and walk in friendship and love! If common sickness made the lepers a band, how much more should common mercy bind us to one another?
Well, it so happened that all these 10 lepers, at one time, agreed to go to Christ the great Healer. Oh, what a mercy it is when a whole hospital full of sinners will agree to go to Christ at once! I recollect—I can never look back but with pleasure upon the time when a whole company of friends who were simply worldly, irreligious people, and were accustomed to meet together constantly, were all moved with a desire to come up to the House of God. And it pleased God to so direct the shot that the most of them were brought under the Divine Power! Some of them who are sitting here, now, will recollect right well when they used to issue invitations for their convivial parties on Sunday evenings! But now they are with us and are some of the most useful and vigorous church members that we have! It is a fine thing when the 10 lepers all agree to come together—it will be a grander thing when the ten lepers are all healed and not one left to mourn that he has been neglected!
These lepers become an example to us, for they went to Jesus. Their disease was foul and loathsome. They felt it to be so. Their own society could not stand them—they needed health and nothing else but perfect health would content them. How did they go to Jesus? They first of all went directly, for it is written in the narrative that as Christ entered into a village, these lepers began to cry out. They did not wait until He got into the nearest house and had sat down and taken some refreshment. No, but they meet Him at the village gates! They waylay Him at the very portals. They cannot stop— no delay, no procrastination for them! O leprous Sinner, go to Christ at once! Go now, tarry not until you have left the sanctuary! Wait not until the sermon is over! It is written, “Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts.” Young man, at the threshold of your life, seek Christ! Go now, you who have begun to be sick. Go now, young woman, now that your cheeks begin to be blanched with consumption. Go now, go at once, go instantly to meet the healing Savior!
They went humbly. They stood afar off—note that. They felt that they had no right to come near. So must we go to our Lord for mercy—conscious that we have no claim upon Him and standing, just as the publican did, afar off, scarcely daring to lift our eyes to Heaven, we must cry—“God be merciful to me a sinner.” William Dawson once told this story to illustrate how humble the soul must be before it can find peace. He said that at a revival meeting, a little lad who was used to Methodist ways—I do not tell the story for the sake of Methodism, but for the sake of the moral—the little boy went home to his mother and said, “Mother, John So-and-So is under conviction and is seeking for peace. But he will not find it tonight, Mother.” “Why, William?” she asked. “Because he is only down on one knee, Mother, and he will never get peace until he is down on both knees.” Now the moral of that story, using it metaphorically, is true. Until conviction of sin brings us down on both knees—until we are completely humbled, until we have no hope, no merit, no proud boasting left—we cannot find the Savior! And we must be willing not to embrace Him like sanctified Mary, but to stand at a distance like the unclean lepers.