Morning, September 4
Go To Evening Reading
“I will; be thou clean.”
Mark 1:41
Primeval darkness heard the Almighty fiat, “light be,” and straightway light was, and the word of the Lord Jesus is equal
in majesty to that ancient word of power. Redemption like Creation
has its word of might. Jesus speaks and it is done. Leprosy yielded
to no human remedies, but it fled at once at the Lord’s “I will.” The disease exhibited no hopeful signs or tokens of recovery, nature
contributed nothing to its own healing, but the unaided word effected
the entire work on the spot and forever. The sinner is in a plight
more miserable than the leper; let him imitate his example and go
to Jesus, “beseeching him and kneeling down to him.” Let him exercise what little faith he has, even though it should
go no further than “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean;” and there need be no doubt as to the result of the application. Jesus
heals all who come, and casts out none. In reading the narrative in
which our morning’s text occurs, it is worthy of devout notice that Jesus touched the
leper. This unclean person had broken through the regulations of the
ceremonial law and pressed into the house, but Jesus so far from chiding
him broke through the law himself in order to meet him. He made an
interchange with the leper, for while he cleansed him, he contracted
by that touch a Levitical defilement. Even so Jesus Christ was made
sin for us, although in himself he knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him. O that poor sinners would go to Jesus,
believing in the power of his blessed substitutionary work, and they
would soon learn the power of his gracious touch. That hand which
multiplied the loaves, which saved sinking Peter, which upholds afflicted
saints, which crowns believers, that same hand will touch every seeking
sinner, and in a moment make him clean. The love of Jesus is the source
of salvation. He loves, he looks, he touches us, we live .