Pastor David shares an evening message at Alaska campmeeting; lessons of salvation from Christ’s interaction with the leper in Matthew 8.

<p>Pastor David shares an evening message at Alaska campmeeting; lessons of salvation from Christ’s interaction with the leper in Matthew 8.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

How Jesus Treats the Untouchables

Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity that we have to come apart from the cares of this life.

At this holy convocation to spend in reflection upon heavenly themes, We pray that you would bless this camp meeting.

We pray that you'd bless the grounds that are here, the people that are coming, those souls that have come here tonight.

I pray that you would hide me behind the cross that Jesus would be uplifted, Christ would be seen as we open your word, for we ask these things in Jesus' name.

I want to invite you to open your Bibles this evening to Matthew chapter 8, verses 1 through 3.

I'll Try to move my mic around here a little bit.

I'll be reading in the New King James Version.

You can follow along the version that you have there.

Jesus has just given the greatest sermon in history.

They are amazed and at the end they say that never a man have we spoke as this man, for he spoke with great authority and not as the scribes.

This is a sermon that they've never heard before and they are so gripped with the words of Jesus that they follow him after his sermon.

I've had the privilege of preaching at different places, but I've never had a sermon where I preached at my local church and the congregation said, you know what, pastor, we wanna follow you home.

I've never had an experience like that before and that's what's happening.

They are following Jesus down the mountain after he has given the Sermon on the Mount.

And in Matthew chapter 8 verse 1, that is the scene.

When he had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

And behold, a leper came and worshiped him, saying, Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." What a scene!

Jesus is coming down the mountain and in my imagination I imagine Jesus is being followed by this crowd and suddenly there is a pandemonium that breaks out.

There comes this leper to Jesus and the crowd splits like the Red Sea and suddenly there is Jesus standing in front of this leper.

I was reading a news article when the Ebola epidemic was breaking out in West Africa.

Maybe some of you have read about James Appel, a Loma Linda graduate and a Seventh-day Adventist, received a phone call.

He was serving in Africa and the call was to go to Monrovia, Liberia and serve at a hospital in which he would be 1 of 2 physicians.

And he said, If anything has scared me throughout my medical training, it has been 1 word, Ebola.

But I knew that I should not let fear get the best of me.

He went and served in Monrovia, Liberia, and you remember that there were several individuals that were medical individuals that came back and they were infected with the Ebola virus.

There was in North America and Western Europe quite a fear of this deadly virus that literally makes you bleed through all of your orifices.

James Appell came back to Southern California.

Evidently, it got out that he had just returned from Monrovia, Liberia, and he walked into a men's store, and the salesman met him at the door and said, you go away.

The fear that grips individuals because of contagious diseases, And I would imagine that if someone with Ebola walked into this auditorium that there would be a natural reaction.

Walk down through here, there would be a lot of movement, a lot of commotion.

It was highly contagious and it had no respect for education, for economic status, it didn't matter who you were, once you got leprosy, you were immediately ostracized from Jewish society.

You were not only determined as being physically unclean, you were determined ceremonially unclean.

And you read the Old Testament, the lepers would have to go in bands, and when they would come across clean individuals, they would have to proclaim the words, unclean, unclean.

I think of the story of Father Damien, a Catholic priest that felt the call to serve a leper colony on an island, spent significant time serving the lepers on this island in the middle of the ocean.

He would report back to headquarters from time to time on the mainland and he was reporting to his senior supervisor.

And at some point during the discussion, the senior supervisor's eyes got wide and said, Father Damien.

Father Damien looked down and there was smoke coming up and it was his hand that was smoldering in the candle flame there and he had contracted leprosy.

I saw a film that was on his life and he had a photographer that would follow him around on the island and document the stages of leprosy and he lost his life serving the lepers, dying as a leper.

So this story tells us something about the nature of sin.

This is out of pages 267, Ellen White commenting on this very account in Matthew chapter 8 verses 1 through 3 tells us that the work of Christ in dealing with this leper and cleansing him from this terrible disease is an illustration of his work in cleansing the soul from sin.

What Owen White tells us is that when we read Jesus's interaction with this leper over 2, 000 years ago, it is an illustration, in other words, it tells us something about how God deals with each 1 of us who are not leprous with the physical disease, but we all are infected with the leprosy of sin.

So as we closely analyze the way that Jesus interacted with this leper, you can know that it is exactly the same way that Jesus relates to us.

I imagine that when this leper made the decision to come to Jesus, that likely there was an inner conflict that was taking place.

It was not easy to come to Jesus publicly after the Sermon on the Mount.

If you think it was easy, you think of the dynamics when someone makes an altar call for an appeal.

Times that by a hundred, and here is this leper that likely had an inner struggle, not only was there an external dynamic, but there was a very real internal struggle that was likely taking place and if you would permit me I just like to digress for a little bit because we hear this term many times you know just come to Jesus just surrender And I agree that this is what we need to do, but it leaves out a very important element, that it is not always easy to come to Jesus.

There is many times, I would say all the time, an internal conflict that takes place within each 1 of us.

And I want to, for a moment, invite you to open your Bibles to Romans chapter 7 verses 14 through 20, as we discuss this real existential struggle that the Apostle Paul depicts in Romans chapter 7, verses 14 through 20.

We're not going to read through the whole chapter, I invite you to do so on an afternoon that you're free.

Romans chapter 7, Paul here speaks in the first person of an experiential struggle that I believe he himself went through.

Romans chapter 7, verse 14, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

For what I'm doing I do not understand, for I will to do I do not practice.

For what I hate that I do, If then I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good, but now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells.

For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.

For the good that I will to do I do not do, but the evil that I will not to do that I practice.

Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me." What a passage, it's like a tongue twister.

Paul is identifying a real human struggle that we all go through.

Have you ever had something in your life, a habit, an addiction?

Something that you hate and you say, you know what?

I'm never going to do this, perhaps it's around New Year's and you say, you know what?

This habit that I have in my life, perhaps nobody but the Lord Jesus knows.

I hate this thing so much, I'm giving it up.

And that very thing that you hate, you do it.

And on the other hand, you have something in your life that You want to do.

Read through the Bible in a year, have regular morning devotions, come to prayer meeting.

All of these things that are in your mind, you say, I want to do these things, but what happens?

A real struggle that we all face in surrendering our lives to the Lord Jesus.

And Galatians chapter 5 verse 17 says, for the flesh desires what is contrary to the flesh and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh.

They are in conflict with each other so that you do not do whatever you want.

We have these 2 entities that are within all of us, the spiritual nature and the carnal nature.

These are in conflict with each other, and I want to tell you that when I first came to the Lord Jesus, I had this assumption that after you accept Jesus and you're baptized, that you no longer have to deal with the sinful nature anymore.

I've heard individuals that have said, look, David, if you're struggling, you're not really consecrated.

It's evidence that you're really not converted.

Now, I had the privilege of serving in South Central Los Angeles as a Bible worker.

Anyone here ever been to South Central Los Angeles before?

We pitched our tent on Florence and Figueroa.

And I remember it was around 4th of July.

We were staying in Compton and there were these things like firecrackers that were going off.

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How Jesus Treats the Untouchables

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