Insight for Living

Bill Maier: Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll reminds us of two words that sent crowds fleeing for the exits. And for one man, those same two words became the sum of his existence, a life of isolation, shame, and untouchable despair. Can you guess the two words? Well, one day, this marginalized man finally stepped out of the shadows and came face to face with the only person who could change everything. What happened next is one of the most tender, surprising encounters in all of scripture. Chuck titled today's message Changing a Leper's Spots.

Chuck Swindoll: If you've not yet done so, you will find in your worship folder an outline for the morning message. And you will also locate the scriptures found in the second gospel of the New Testament, the gospel by Mark. We're looking at the last six verses of Mark chapter one, verses 40 through 45. And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching him and falling on his knees before him and saying, if you are willing, you can make me clean. Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I am willing. Be cleansed.

Immediately, the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. And he sternly warned him and immediately sent him away and he said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded as a testimony to them. But he went out and began to proclaim it freely and to spread the news around to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but stayed out in unpopulated areas. And they were coming to him from everywhere.

Bill Maier: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the gospel according to Mark, be sure to purchase a copy of our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study workbooks by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message Changing a Leper's Spots.

Chuck Swindoll: Two identical words would empty the room. Those same two words would clear out a marketplace. In fact, whenever those words were shouted, everybody ran for cover. Unclean. Unclean. And as soon as the words were heard, everybody knew that they were in danger of being near a leper. Leprosy today is virtually unknown and never enters our mind. However, in ancient days, it was the dreaded plague. The closest we could come today to how they must have felt when those words were used would be for us to find ourselves in the middle of a busy mall and someone screams, suicide bomber.

And we would start for the exit as quickly as we could get out of there. But in ancient days, suicide bombers were unheard of. But leprosy was everywhere. In fact, it was such a pathetic, dreaded disease that when God gave the law to Moses, he included an extensive section of the book of Leviticus to address how one would know he has the disease and then followed by 57 verses count them out of Leviticus 14 on how to deal with it when you think you have been cleansed from leprosy. For example, listen to the words that Moses recorded out of Leviticus.

As for the leper who has the infection, his clothes shall be torn and the hair of his head shall be uncovered. The Hebrew word means unkempt, disheveled. The hair of his head will be disheveled and he shall cover his mustache, that is the lower part of his face, and cry, unclean, unclean. He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection. He is unclean. He shall live alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. Leviticus 13 45 and 46. In our antiseptic 21st century world, we're so removed from the fear of leprosy, even the thought of being contaminated is foreign to us.

And admittedly, great strides have been taken in the disease so that we do now know more about it than we did say 50 and more years ago. One whom we have to thank for that knowledge is Dr. Paul Brand, the late Dr. Paul Brand, unfortunately died within recent years. He wrote the fine book Fearfully and Wonderfully Made as well as Pain, the gift nobody wants. In that more autobiographical work on pain, Dr. Paul Brand describes how he had an aversion to medicine while growing up. His father and mother were missionaries in the southern hills of India.

And while there, his father, who practiced medicine among the people of India, dealt with all kinds of diseases and maladies. Brand remembers many of them and they turned him off, frankly. Listen to his words. Over time, childhood memories of medicine had distilled into a few scenes of suffering and I now found these scenes abhorrent. There was a revolting scene of my parents working on a woman tormented by guinea worms, including one whose dragon tail poked out of the corner of her eye. And the memory of my father's most challenging patient, a man who survived a mauling by a bear, his scalp torn from ear to ear.

And there was one more scene too, perhaps the most haunting of all. My father would not even let us watch him work on the three strange men who approached the clinic one afternoon. He confined us to the house, but I sneaked out and peered through the bushes. These men had stiff hands covered with sores. Fingers were missing, bandages covered their feet. And when Dad removed these bandages, I saw that their stumpy feet had no toes. I watched my father mystified. Could he actually be afraid? He did not banter with the patients and he did something I had never seen him do before.

He put on a pair of gloves before dressing their wounds. The men had brought a basket of fruit as a gift, but after they left, mother burned the basket along with my father's gloves and unheard of act of waste. We were ordered not to play in that spot. Those men were lepers, we were told. Isn't it just like the Lord to take an experience that was oh so disgusting to a little boy? And over the passing of years, turn his attention to the study of medicine and ultimately to giving his life truly to the people of Carville, a leprosarium in Louisiana, where the man studied this strange disease that makes the limbs numb so that feelings no longer are attached to the nerves in our bodies and they scrape themselves and cut themselves and often bruise themselves so deeply that well, they wind up with with such stubs for hands and feet that it is tragic to behold.

Dr. Brand poured himself into those lives as he devoted himself to the study of leprosy. So that today we we realize what they never knew back in ancient days. However, there are on occasion a leprosarium located far removed from the people of the world away from populated areas. But in ancient days, Jewish colonies were preserved from any of that plague by the one who had the disease announcing should he or she ever be out in public, unclean, unclean. Which makes this narrative we're looking at in Mark chapter one, verses 40 through 45 all the more intriguing.

Our Lord cleanses a leper here, but what is remarkable is that there is no shout. Maybe there was something that the leper had observed from a distance away about Jesus that caused the leper to know he wouldn't need to shout that when coming to the master. We're not told, but the absence of the shout tells us there must have been something that drew him to the one who could bring cleansing. And by the way, leprosy all the way through scripture is rarely described as being healed or cured. Leprosy is a symbol of sin and we're never healed or cured of sin, only cleansed.

And so appropriately, all the way through time, the victim of leprosy would announce that he needs cleansing or the hope as he would attend be attended by a physician. Could there be cleansing of my condition? And that's the cry in the heart of this man. Two surprises actually meet us as we get to verse 40. There is no shouting of the word unclean. And second, what he says seems amazing to us. In fact, read the verse with me. A leper came to Jesus, beseeching him and falling on his knees before him and saying, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

Initially, we're to understand the heart of this leper. He acknowledges completely his condition. There's no hiding of the disease. In fact, uh Luke chapter five verse 12, Dr. Luke, the physician who writes the one of the gospels, states that the man is full of leprosy. So it's in its advanced stages. Perhaps by then there was no nose, there were no lips. If not one, uh perhaps both of the ears were gone by then. Perhaps no fingers or just a few. Luke tells us that he fell on his face and implored the Lord. Matthew states he bowed down before him.

Both of those writers tell us that he used the word Lord. Lord, kurios. A word for submission to a supreme one. And so he calls him Lord and has no sense of entitlement. See the way he puts it. If you are willing, you can cleanse me. The way Mark writes this is in a particular condition that suggests maybe you are and maybe you're not. It's undetermined. There is a at best we could say hopeful doubt. The man has spent years of his life isolated from family and friends. And now he comes and says to the only one who could give him hope, if you're willing, you can cleanse me.

Let me pause here for a little sidebar of information. It occurred to me it might help all of us to learn from this need for relief. The Bible speaks of four areas of relief, relief, which is a magnificent experience, relief of anything. First, regarding disease, the Bible speaks of healing a disease. Surgeons can't heal. Only God can heal. Physicians cannot bring about a removal of a disease. They can prescribe medicine and often do great work in analysis, diagnosis, and even the work of surgery. But the healing of the body to take away the pain of a disease rests in the hands of God.

So the first kind of relief would be the relief of pain that comes through the healing of a disease. Here's a second. Regarding sin, we are hopelessly lost in our sins. Should God not intervene? Sins must be forgiven and only God can forgive sins. Sin brings guilt and condemnation. The only way to find relief from either or both is through forgiveness. And we are promised forgiveness through the cross. He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf. What a grand statement. That we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So there's the relief of guilt and condemnation that sin brings through the forgiveness that only God can give.

There's a third, death. Death plagues virtually every person alive, certainly those without Christ. One psychologist writes the last place anyone can ever imagine herself or himself is in a casket. We are so repulsed with the thought that we can't imagine ourselves ever being in that box. Why? Because most feel the helplessness and hopelessness that death brings. The only way to find relief from such hopelessness and grief is resurrection. Only God can resurrect the dead. And he promises to do so yet future. There's a fourth and that's what we're dealing with here and that's leprosy. Leprosy speaks, don't miss this.

Leprosy speaks of the stigma of shame. That's why when you ever witness in your lifetime, and surely most of you never have, when you ever are seeing a leper, you will rarely have eye contact. They look down. It's a disease that brings shame to the victim. The stigma of having leprosy. Miriam was was judged by God and made a leper. King Uzziah was judged by God and became a leper till his death. In fact, his gravestone reads, he is a leper. It is such a dread disease that the person with this disease is set aside and quarantined in a place that not even family can reach them.

They live in isolation, which makes this man's coming out into public and meeting the master all the more remarkable. You and I can't imagine the magnetism of a life like Jesus. There was something about his presence that drew the man out of the shadows and brought him face to face with the master saying, if you are willing, you can cleanse me. Now the second I notice in this passage, verses 41 and 42, is a compassionate response followed by a miracle. Don't rush to the miracle before you take time to see the first thing that occurred in the life of Jesus is his being moved with compassion.

It's a tough Greek word to pronounce. Splankna is the word. It's a guttural term. Splankna means the innards. We would call it the guts. Deep within the body is in the Greek term the splankna, the intros, the visceral part of one's inner being. Jesus down in the depths of his being feels deeply. He's filled with tenderness for this man in his helpless condition. So that's the first response. He is moved with compassion. Following that twinge of compassion, please observe now love this. Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. You never touched a leper. You never sat where a leper sat.

You never ate anything a leper would give you, which explains the reason the mother would burn the basket and the fruit. But Jesus breaks with the years of tradition and uh condemnation and reaches out. Bishop Westcott makes the statement that the Greek term suggests a firm grip, not just a pat on the head, but a perhaps a a gripping of the shoulder or of both shoulders. He reached out and he touched him. This man who has no name, who has no history, and has no value to Jesus is suddenly touched by the master. He had not been embraced by his wife for as long as he can remember.

If he is married and with children, the children have not touched him for as long as he's had the disease. Think of it. He had forgotten what it felt like to have an arm around his shoulder or a hand on his head. I want to pause here and uh and talk to all of us about the value of touch. I hope all of you know the joy of being loved by those who touch you. We live in a strange time. Teachers are no longer to touch their students. Well, I remember teachers that touched me. Oh.

Whoa. We had a coach that touched me rather regularly in a place I will not describe with a great big paddle. We no longer touch people. It's not politically correct. I'm not talking about an inappropriate touch. You know that, please. I'm talking about an embrace that means something. I can tell you in my own life that there is nothing like the embrace of my wife when the bottom is dropped out of my life. And I can tell you there are times that our grown children come near me and know that I'm going through a tough time and their touch means more than I can put into words, just to be touched.

I make it a habit regularly when I see someone in a wheelchair to lean over and touch them. Most of them are never touched. I've watched people in wheelchairs and the best they get is a little pat on the head. When you see someone who is in need like that, don't be afraid to touch them. And by the way, I I also know we're in Texas where men don't touch. What nonsense is that, huh? If you're a father and you are no longer touching, I regret that for your family. Your family needs to feel your your arms around them.

And I tell you there's nothing like a grandson or granddaughter. I was getting firewood years ago when our little Parker, one of our grandchildren, was just really small, came up about to my waist just big enough not to carry firewood, but thought he was strong enough to do so. So I'm carrying the firewood and I bring it in to put in the fireplace and he says later, we carried all that wood in here, didn't we? And I said, we sure did, we sure did. And the warmth came from the fireplace and it got cozy and I'm standing there warming my hands and little Parker puts his puts his arms around my legs and he looks up at me and he says, Bubba, I love you with all my heart.

I said, would you like a Porsche? Or or something like that. I mean it it moved me. It it it it moved me. Kent Hughes tells the moving story of speaking to a person who didn't know Christ. And the man is so lonely. He didn't belong to a church. And in describing his loneliness to Kent, he said that he had his hair cut once a week just to have someone touch him. I realize I've taken a little excursion from the story, the narrative, but it's it's worth our time. Don't forget in this busy, cold, windy world to touch the people you love.

Please. He reached out and he touched him. I'm willing be clean. I pause here so you can feel what that man must have felt. For the first time, he's cleansed. Mark goes immediately to his favorite word immediately. Immediately, the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. I love it that it's in the passive voice. This Greek term, he was cleansed. His faith did not cleanse him. How wrong of these so-called faith healers to say when someone isn't healed, you just didn't have enough faith. What an insult. This man has no faith. He doesn't even have fingers or toes or a name or dignity.

He's helpless. And he was cleansed. Love that. He was cleansed.

Bill Maier: He was cleansed. He was cleansed not by his own faith, not by anything he did, but by the sheer compassion of a savior who reached out and touched the untouchable. Maybe today you've been hiding something that you thought made you unclean or unworthy or beyond reach. Well, hear this. The same Jesus still cleanses, still touches, still restores dignity to the helpless. This is Insight for Living. Chuck Swindoll titled today's study in Mark chapter one Changing a Leper's Spots. We hope this new series has whet your appetite to learn more. If so, you'll want to own the Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbooks for Mark.

Because of the size of Mark's gospel, Chuck split his teaching series into three volumes and all three Bible Study Workbooks are ready today. You'll find all the details for volumes one, two, and three at insight.org/offer. And then I'd like to tell you about a special resource created and published by Insight for Living. The holiday season is just around the corner and it's the perfect time to focus on the coming king, Jesus, and to find ways to reflect his love and generosity. Well, we're pleased to offer an Advent devotional book for you and your family. It's called Everlasting Light, a journey from promise to presence, written by Pastor Carlos A.

Sorueta along with Chuck Swindoll. This 25-day devotional will elevate your holiday season as you anticipate the Advent of Christ. It's our gift to you when you make a donation to support the ministry of Insight for Living. You know our times are urgent. People need the hope of the everlasting light. And your contribution to Insight for Living will be applied directly toward broadcasting this message far and wide. To give a generous donation and request the Advent devotional called Everlasting Light, write to us at Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas 75034. You can also call us at 800 772 8888 or go to insight.org/donate.

I'm Bill Maier. Join us when Chuck Swindoll presents a truth that reorders everything. Friday on Insight for Living. The preceding message Changing a Leper's Spots was copyrighted in 2010 and 2026 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2026 by Charles R. Swindoll Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.