The Death Sentence

Yesterday during the praise time in our church service I mentioned the ten lepers that were healed in Luke 17 and how only one came back to thank and praise Him.  I think the story was relating to man’s attitude and their appreciation for what He has done in their lives.  What kind of attitude and appreciation we have says a lot about us.

This story is in Luke 17:11-19 which says this, “Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’

So when He saw them, He said to them, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’ And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.

So Jesus answered and said, ‘Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?’ And He said to him, ‘Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well.’”

Knowing a little about the sin nature of man, I know we can be very selfish and ungrateful people at times, thinking that the world owes us something.  Think about this, these men had a death sentence on their lives, having leprosy in those days was not curable so if you contracted it your body rotted and basically fell apart little by little, limb by limb, until you died a terrible death with no hope of life.  Lepers had to live in complete seclusion from other family members and friends, in what we might call today communes, with other lepers because the disease was so contagious.

Let me say this, not every disease that was called leprosy in the Word was the type of leprosy that these men had, at the time there were different diseases which were called leprosy.  The reason I think this was the one that carried the death sentence was this, the scriptures said these men stood afar off, men with this kind of leprosy had to stay downwind of others and, if my memory serves me correctly, they couldn’t come closer than fifty feet of a clean person, plus they had to cover their heads and yell, “unclean, unclean,” to warn others in the area of their disease.

Jesus had a problem and it was not that these men had to praise Him, or even thank Him, but it was their attitude.  One of them, realizing that he was healed, came back to give God glory but the other nine seemed to be too preoccupied with themselves.  I realize they may have been so preoccupied with getting back to their families and friends to share their healing with them, that they didn’t want to go back and show their appreciation at the time.  If this was the case, they missed a great opportunity.

Now think of this, the one that went back to glorify God was an enemy of the Jews, he was a Samaritan.  These people were despised by the Jews, considered to be adulterous half breeds.  In the normal scheme of things you would think that this man would have laughed and ran while the getting was good, but he didn’t, go figure.  He may have been considered an enemy, but he had a great attitude and Jesus was aware of it, even in His disappointment.

What about you, how is your attitude?  Are you thankful for the Lord’s compassion or do you take His blessings for granted?  I think maybe all of us take the Lord’s blessings, grace and unmerited favor for granted at times, but we must be careful not to make a habit of it because the flow of the Lord’s blessings can dry up in an instant and none of us would want that to happen.  Remember this; we all had the death sentence on our lives at one time before we became believers.  We owe everything to the Lord our savior, Jesus Christ and He is worthy of our thanks and praise if He never does another thing for us.  

Thinking about this subject, this is something that disturbs me, when the players in a ball game get more applause than the Lord does in a testimony time at church, and I think it should disturb every believer.  Question: does it disturb you?  It should.

This is something I hope you will think about, and you will start today thanking and praising the Lord more than you ever have.  May the Lord bless you and yours and I hope you have a super day!!