“The Desperate Victim” (Luke 5:12c)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/27/2026 8:13 AM

My Worship Time                                                                         Focus:  “The Desperate Victim”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                    Reference:  Luke 5:12c

Message of the verse: “and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”

            We are talking this evening about a man who had leprosy and the Bible has much to say about this disease.  Moses wrote about rules to follow for someone who has leprosy way back when Israel was coming out of Egypt, so we can assume that this disease was in Egypt, but where it started the Bible does not tell us.  People with this disease had no hope, humanly speaking.  This man’s disease was incurable, socially stigmatizing, and viewed as God’s punishment for his sins.  Having heard about Jesus, he came looking for Him (cf. Matt. 8:2) where Matthew talks about this too.  So when he saw Jesus, he approached Him.  That was inappropriate behavior on his part, because lepers were strictly forbidden to come near other people.  “12  And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance” (Luke 17:12).  Lepers were not to interact with anyone except other lepers.  So great was the fear of contagion that lepers were barred from Jerusalem or any other walled city (cf. 2 Kings 7:3).  They were forbidden to come within six feet of a healthy person (one hundred and fifty feet if the wind was blowing from the direction of the leper) and were restricted to a special compartment in the synagogue.  One rabbi refused to eat and egg bought on a street where there was a leper.  Another advocated throwing stones at lepers to force them to keep their distance.  “(cf. Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974], 1:494, 95).”

            John MacArthur then writes: “It is not known that leprosy (Hansen’s disease) is not highly contagious, since 90-95 percent of the human race is immune to it.  Exactly how the disease is transmitted is not known for certain, but people living in close contact with those with untreated leprosy had a higher risk of becoming infected.  But lepers in biblical times were isolated not only due to fear of infection, but also because they were ceremonially unclean (Lev. 13:45-46).  In rabbinic teaching, leprosy was second only to contact with a dead body in terms of defilement.  ‘Not merely actual contact with the leper, but even his entrance defiled a habitation, and everything in it, to the beams of the roof….If he even put his head into a place, it became unclean.’ (Edersheim, Life and Times, 1:494, 95).

            “That the leper approached Jesus in violation of rabbinic law reveals his desperation.  He was past fear, past shame, and heedless of the danger to himself or others; he literally had nothing to lose.

            “Coming to Jesus, the leper fell on his face in a posture of reverent worship.  Matthew 8:2 says he ‘bowed down’ (proskuneo; better translated ‘worship.’  This term is usually used in the New Testament of worshiping God.)  Whatever his understanding of Jesus was, he was convinced that He was sent by God and called Him Lord.

            “That he implored or begged Jesus for help reveals the leper’s sense of urgency.  He was a sinful outcast, wretched and miserable, with nowhere else to turn. 

            “The leper also approached the Lord in complete humility.  He did not doubt Jesus’ ability to heal him, but acutely aware of his own unworthiness, he wondered if He was willing to do so, thus acknowledging the Lord’s prerogative.

            “Finally, he approached Jesus in faith, affirming his confidence that Jesus had clearly displayed many times the power to heal him and make him clean.

            “The leper’s approach to Jesus graphically illustrates penitent sinners’ approach to Him.  They come in desperation, casting aside their self-righteous efforts to save themselves as the filthy garments that they are (Isa. 64:6).  They come in reverence, affirming Jesus as Lord (Rom. 10:9), God (John 8:24), and the only Savior (Acts 4:12).  They come with a sense of urgency, knowing  that ‘now is the acceptable time…now is the day of salvation’ (2 Cor. 6:2).  They come in humility, poor in spirit (Matt. 5:3), deserving nothing from the sovereign and knowing they have nothing to commend themselves.  Finally, they come in faith, because ‘to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness’ (Rom. 4:5).  Now if you are not a true believer in Jesus Christ and desire to be then reread this paragraph.

5/27/2026 9:12 PM