Evening, February 26
Go To Morning Reading
“Behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce
him clean that hath the plague.”
Leviticus 13:13
Strange enough this regulation appears, yet there was wisdom in it,
for the throwing out of the disease proved that the constitution was
sound. This evening it may be well for us to see the typical teaching
of so singular a rule. We, too, are lepers, and may read the law of
the leper as applicable to ourselves. When a man sees himself to be
altogether lost and ruined, covered all over with the defilement of
sin, and in no part free from pollution; when he disclaims all righteousness
of his own, and pleads guilty before the Lord, then he is clean through
the blood of Jesus, and the grace of God. Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed
iniquity is the true leprosy; but when sin is seen and felt, it has
received its deathblow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon
the soul afflicted with it. Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness,
or more hopeful than contrition. We must confess that we are “nothing else but sin,” for no confession short of this will be the whole truth; and if the
Holy Spirit be at work with us, convincing us of sin, there will be
no difficulty about making such an acknowledgment—it will spring spontaneously from our lips. What comfort does the
text afford to truly awakened sinners: the very circumstance which
so grievously discouraged them is here turned into a sign and symptom
of a hopeful state! Stripping comes before clothing; digging out the
foundation is the first thing in building—and a thorough sense of sin is one of the earliest works of grace
in the heart. O thou poor leprous sinner, utterly destitute of a sound
spot, take heart from the text, and come as thou art to Jesus—
“For let our debts be what they may, however great or small,
As soon as we have nought to pay, our Lord forgives us all.
’Tis perfect poverty alone that sets the soul at large:
While we can call one mite our own, we have no full discharge.”