Gold Nugget 207 - Leprosy of the Soul

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      Leprosy commenced with a rising in the skin of the flesh, or a single bright spot.  It was so small at the beginning as to be barely perceptible.  A few specks of reddish spots on the skin were all that appeared at the outset.  These sports became more numerous; they grew larger, bleaching the hairs that came in their way; they overspread the body, crusting it with leprous scurf or shining scales; sores and swellings ensued.

      For a long time it seemed only cutaneous.  But it did not stop with the skin; it penetrated deep down.  It ate its way to the bones, it attacked the joints, it reached the marrow.  The blood is corrupt, portions of the extremities mortify and drop off, a wasting away supervenes, till the poor leper, mutilated and disfigured, presents a shocking sight – a hideous spectacle, when dissolution at last brings him to a welcome grave.  How dreadful was all this!  And yet how like the leprosy of Sin!

      It also is little in its beginnings, but it makes gradual, sometimes rapid, progress.  No one has become entirely vile all at once.  At the first appearance of the leprosy of sin in childhood, it is a mere spot – a small speck.  The beginning may be some slight evasion of parental authority, some trifling act of disobedience; or it may be some small departure from strict truth; or it may be, perhaps, a petty act of pilfering, an insignificant instance of dishonesty; or it may be a little outburst of childish passion.  It appears so small a matter that the indulgent parent or guardian overlooks it as unworthy of notice – at all events, undeserving of punishment; or the kind friend laughs at it as a mere childish trick.

      But oh! let it never be forgotten that that trifling disobedience, or small fib, or petty theft, or little ebullition of passions is the first breaking out of a spiritual leprosy – the first manifestation of the plague-spot of sin.  And who can set limits or bounds to a seemingly small transgression, once it has been repeated and repeated until it has grown into a habit?  … Who can check its onward progress?  What can resist its downward sweep when, like the rushing of the roaring torrent, or with more than the impetuosity of the mighty waterfall, it overbears and overcomes all resistance, hurrying its hapless victim downward to perdition? …

      Here, in all this, is a sad symbol of sin.  It separates between us and our God; it excludes us from his presence and privileges, from his friendship and family; it shuts us out from the society of his saints, from their benefits and blessedness, and, unless cleansed in God’s own way, it will shut us out at last finally and for ever from his heavenly temple …

      It never gets cured of itself; no mortal man can recover himself from it; no human being can restore the individual suffering from its pollution; no created power can heal this leprosy of the soul.  God alone can deliver from this spiritual disease; the blood of Christ alone can cleanse from its defilement. …

      No bodily disease is one-millionth part so terrible in its ravages as sin, of which leprosy is such a special and striking type; none so dreadful in its results, or so destructive in its consequences.  It darkens that spirit in man that once reflected so purely and perfectly the image of the Creator; it defiles the fountain-head of thought and feeling; it destroys the health and happiness of the soul. …

      He is not only willing, but waiting to bestow on us present and immediate blessings.  Present pardon and purity and peace, immediate grace and instant loving-kindness, instantaneous spiritual health, as well as future everlasting happiness, are among the boons which he stands waiting to confer. …

      The present is his accepted time; he is willing to receive us now, he is waiting to cleanse us now, he is ready to bless us now.  Present opportunities may not return, present impressions may be effaced and never renewed; his spirit will not always strive, his salvation will not be offered evermore.   

The Pulpit Commentary, Mark p.79-81, Mark 1:40-45, (J. J. Given)

Gold Nugget 207

Leprosy of the Soul

     

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