Jesus on the Inside Working on the Outside

of the Times Square Pulpit Series. It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times Square Church in Manhattan, New York City. Other tapes are available by writing to World Challenge P.O. Box 260, Lindale, Texas 75771 or calling 214-963-8626.

None of these messages are copyrighted and you are welcome to make copies for free distribution to your friends. To the book of Leviticus, the book of Leviticus, we sing a song here once in a while, which I'm going to use as the title of my message tonight. Jesus on the inside working on the outside.

Amen. And if the Lord had gifted me with a voice, I'd go right into it right now and just lead you into it, but I won't dare do that. And you would appreciate it.

I'm sure very much. Jesus on the inside, working on the outside. Leviticus chapter 14 says, then the Lord spoke to Moses.

14. I didn't tell you that. I thought maybe you would discern where I was going.

Chapter 14, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, this shall be the law of the leper. If I were going to give my message, even another title or a subtitle, I would call it the law of the leper. This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing.

Now he should be brought to the priest and the priest should go out to the outside of the camp. Thus the priest shall look. And if the infection of leprosy has been healed in the leper, then these were the instructions.

The priest shall give orders to take two live, clean birds and Cedar wood and a Scarlet string and hyssop for the one who is to be cleansed. The priest also shall give orders to slay the one bird in an earth where vessel over running water as for the live bird, he shall take it together with the Cedar wood and the Scarlet string and the hyssop and shall dip them in the live and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was slain over the running water. He shall then sprinkle seven times.

The one who is to be cleansed from the leprosy and shall pronounce him clean and shall let the live bird go free over the open field. Now turn, uh, back into the new Testament, if you will, and just leave your Bibles open to Mark chapter one, as we'll come to that a little bit later, Mark chapter one, praise the Lord. Amen.

Let's look to the Lord and ask his blessing upon the word tonight. Our father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the way that you minister this morning to our hearts, Lord, you enriched us by your word, by your Holy spirit.

And again tonight, Lord, the praises that have gone up from your people, Lord, we rejoice in you again and again, but Lord tonight is, is another matter is another challenge. And only, you know, the needs that are represented in this place. And I pray that you would search out from the very first row to the very last row in this auditorium, search out the hearts of people tonight who need you, who need to be cleansed, who need to be freed of leprosy, who need Lord for you to change and to come into their life tonight and do a work.

Oh Lord, we give it to you. We give this service. We give this message to do, but Lord, most of all, we give these people to you, Lord, you, only you can do it.

Only your spirit can search out and make the word alive and real in hearts. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Now I have in part tonight, the governor of this state to thank for part of the motivation for this message. I read this week, his part of his, his address to the, which is called the state of the state message that he gave this week in Albany.

And in it, he said that one of his major projects or major objectives is to fight the drug problem. And it was the first issue that he addressed in, in his speech. And I'd like to give the governor tonight, some free unsolicited advice after I read his speech.

Now this message is not primarily, I'm not going to primarily address address the drug problem, but I do want to begin at this point because the governor in his speech asked a very important question relative to not only drug abuse, but teenage pregnancy and AIDS and other problems. Now, regarding the drug problem, he said, and speaking before a full house of state senators and congressmen and staff and reporters and so forth, this is what he said. And I quote him one such essential matter today dominates our attention and must engage all of our intelligence and all of our energy.

It is the single most ominous phenomenon of our times. It is the greatest vulnerability now, and the most severe threat to our future. It is the spread of drug abuse with all of its horror.

Every day, more children surrender their bodies and souls to crack are driven to madness. They're robbed of their childhood. They're left desperate and broken and dangerous.

Thousands and thousands of more lives are being lost and ruined each year. Billions of dollars, billions, he says, in cost and lost productivity, unquote. Now, perhaps the governor was alarmed by the fact that we're told that one out of 18 high school students has experimented with crack.

That's not just in New York City. That's a nationwide figure, one in 18. In 1985, New York, the New York City police had not made one single crack arrest, 1985.

Last year, in the first 10 months, they were making them at the rate of approximately 100 a day or over 20,000 in the year in New York City alone. I saw in the paper, perhaps the governor was thinking of situations like this. I saw another paper Saturday, maybe you saw it.

It's headlined, crack crazed teen stabs his mother to death. A Bronx teenager desperate for cash to pay his crack dealer stabbed his mother to death and then stripped her body and made it look like an intruder had raped and killed her, police said yesterday. This is a new one on me that someone would degrade their mother to this degree, said the local policeman from the station house.

Right under it is another article that says addict mom beats and robs son. A cocaine addict, a mother beat her 10 year old son with a pipe until he gave up $11 that he had earned washing cars. Now, the governor is proposing expanded law enforcement, education and prevention, and more rehabilitation programs to fight drug abuse.

But he admits, he says this, as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply no matter what we do. And the inevitable devastation will follow. We must end the cycle before it begins.

We must as soon as we can and as early as we can teach our children not to take drugs, not even to try them. He says in our schools and our churches and in our synagogues on television, on billboards, every way we can, everywhere we can, we must teach our children not to take drugs. Then the governor asked a very important question.

In fact, it's much more important than I believe even he realized what he was saying. And in finding an answer to this, to the governor's question, is the single most important issue in our society. Again, I quote from the governor out of the New York Times this week, he said this, let me now, if I may suggest a broader perspective on the drug problem that occurs to me after reflecting on this awful drug syndrome, as I know you have, and it applies equally to other issues that concern us this year.

And then here is where the governor starts talking like a preacher. It seems to me, he says that many of the worst problems faced by our children and by the larger community are not caused by acts of God or an inscrutable fate. They're produced rather, at least in the beginning by personal choice.

He says they're voluntary acts, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, children being born to children, AIDS. These most often originate involuntary decisions by individuals. And it seems to me increasingly evident that the larger and more fundamental cause of many of our problems is a fundamental confusion of making those decisions, a disorientation, a foundering that produces tragically bad choices.

Isn't it clear that too many of our young are not sure of what is worth pursuing, what is owed to themselves and what is owed to others? And is it too much to say that at least in part, this must be the fault and the responsibility of those who are charged with setting the standards and pointing the way? Let me read that again. He says, and is it too much to say that at least in part, this must be the fault, at least the responsibility of those who are engaged with setting the standards and pointing the way. Now, let me tell you something.

The governor is right. And what he is saying, I don't know if you, if you picked it up, what the governor is saying is that the answer to the drug abuse problem, the answer to teenage pregnancy, and I would add abortion and the answer to the AIDS problem can only be found when we point the abusers to some standard and to some quote unquote way. Now I accept the governor's challenge, but see the question, this begs the question tonight.

The governor says, where are we going to find a standard? Where are we going to find a way? And this begs the question as to whose standard and what way are we going to point them? And you see what the governor is asking and what he's searching for and what society is looking for, my friend is a system of beliefs of ethics, of standards of morality, of spiritual power to give people a reason not to make bad choices and to destroy their lives with AIDS or with, with drugs or other sexual immorality. The governor sounded, sounds like Thomas in John 14, five, who asked the question, how do we know the way? How do we know the way? Well, the governor need look no further than the Bible because Jesus said, I am the way. Listen to one more brief quote and challenge from the governor.

He said, we must find new ways to put a new emphasis on values like discipline, respect, responsibility, community, a new way to convince our children of their own dignity and that of every other person, convince them that there's no high greater high than reaching for their dreams. Surely in an ideal world, this would not be the government work. He said, it's not yours.

It's not mine. He said, we're not going to find what we're looking for here in Albany. We're not going to find it in the state house.

He said, we're not going to find it here. He said, it must be done by the family and at home, or perhaps from a pulpit or a synagogue. Well, I'd like to invite the governor to the Times Square church.

I'd like him to sit on the platform or sit in the audience because we believe also what the governor advocates. We believe in values and we believe in discipline. We believe in respect and responsibility and community.

However, the new way that he's searching for is the old way. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. You see, America is at a crossroads.

It's not our enemies from without that we need to worry as much about as the enemy within. America is in the process of self-destruction, drugs being just one of the reasons. And what the governor of this state is realizing is that we cannot solve our drug problem or our AIDS problem or our teenage pregnancy problem or our homeless problem by working from the outside in.

You have to work from the inside out. Jesus said it this way. He said, the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and those defile a man.

For out of the heart come evil thoughts and murders and adulterers and fornicators and thefts and false witnesses and slanders. These are the things that defile a man. You see, the cure, the answer that must be directed to the source of a problem within a man.

You see, for decades now, the government and our society have been trying to paint over the rot, hoping that the disease will go away. For example, in the 1960s and the 1970s, there was a social gospel preached in the pulpit and in the state house and in the white house that went like this. It says, change the social environment, get rid of poverty, clean up the ghettos, give people better jobs and a better education and better housing and better schools and a better environment.

Now, who of us does not agree with that? In fact, I would rather our government spend less money in some of the bombs they're making or planes they're making or wasting money in that and put it into housing and put it into helping the truly needy. There's no doubt about that. But you see, the gospel of creating a great society did not work.

It will never work because you can't work from the outside in. You can't change a man's behavior until you change his heart. You see, in the 1960s, everybody said, well, the drug problem, it's a problem of the poor.

It's a problem of the ghetto. And so we've got to change the ghettos. And so we poured millions of dollars into that.

But my friend, how do you explain today the fact that the, one of our major drug problems of cocaine is in wall street and in Hollywood. And now we have a mayor of a major city who allegedly may have a drug problem. How do you explain all of that? Jesus said the poor you will always have with you because of the poverty of a man's soul.

I spoke with a young man in our church this week. He is a student in Bible school and he feels called to come back here next year to work with the homeless. He does now on the weekends, he comes here, Billy White is his name.

And he comes with students and goes in various places throughout the city. And he wants to come back here and work on a full-time basis under the umbrella of our church. And he tells me that when he goes out on the street among the homeless, they'll say to him, said, Billy, we need a job.

We need housing. He said, I need a job. And Billy says to him, I know you need a job, but that's not your problem.

Your problem is what are you going to do when you get your paycheck? What are you going to do when you get your paycheck? You see if the heart is not changed, the lifestyle will not be changed. And no matter what kind of a job a person has or how much money he has, he'll come to poverty because as Isaiah says, he'll spend his money for that which is not bread and his wages for that which does not satisfy. You see the gospel is revolutionary because it begins on the inside.

It begins where our problems originate. And the resolving effect is the, of that inward work is demonstrated outwardly. And Jesus said, not, not even religious activity can change a man on the inside.

Not, not, not even all of his religious deeds can reform or transform the corruption in a man's insides. Listen to what he said. He said, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup of the dish, but inside you are full of robbery and self-indulgence.

You blind Pharisees first clean the inside of the cup of the dish so that the outside of it may become clean also. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites and politicians will put in there as well. For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

James 4.1 says, what is the source of your quarrels and conflicts within you? Is not the source, is not the source your pleasures that wage war in, in, in your members? You know, there is a prison, there's a prison in Maryland, a federal government is trying a new experiment. They have decided that they're going to use this one particular prison, not for punishment, but for rehabilitation. And therefore they are doing everything they can to try to change the behavior of the criminals.

And they're doing it with a strong education program, a strong training program with therapy and so forth. However, they're already having a problem because they're trying to work from the outside in. And now they're graduating educated criminals full of dead men's bones.

I remember when I first came to work in this city, I, I started working in the prisons and, and I came from out of Pennsylvania here into New York and I just thought a jail, you know, everything was a jail, you called it a jail house or a prison. But when they gave me my pass to go in, it said it was issued from the New York city department of correction. I didn't know they called the prison, the department of correction.

I thought that's a great idea until I start going in there and realize that there wasn't any, any correction going on. The only department of correction I know is the father, the son, and the Holy ghost. Hallelujah.

And by the way, by the way, the governor is worried about where they're going to get all the money to, to, to finance all of these programs. The, the, the, uh, the state is, has a shortfall. The city has a shortfall and money.

And, uh, you know, I think, I think I can help him. I think I can help him. Uh, because, uh, uh, you see when Jesus is on the inside, jails are not needed.

Hospitals are not needed. And we could have a host of you stand up here tonight and testify of what Jesus has done in changing your life. And you no longer cost the taxpayers any money anymore.

In other words, in other words, you're saving the taxpayers money. Jesus saves like to go in the state house and say that they'll, they probably kick me out and say, that's just an old cliche. I said, now, wait a minute, wait a minute.

That has more than you understand Jesus. When Jesus is in the inside of a man, you see, he doesn't have to go that route anymore. Jesus saves money as well for the taxpayers praise the Lord.

And anytime they're going to start taxing the churches, we're going to have to be able to show them how much money I'd like to calculate sometime right here tonight. I'd like to calculate how much money the government is being saved right here tonight, because the Lord has changed and cleaned up your life. Hallelujah.

Jesus is an inside man. The question is who is going to attack the war going on inside us when the inside room is cleaned up, then the outside deeds will change. Now I want you, I want you to look with me to an illustration of it.

Go with me to mark the first chapter, Mark chapter four, excuse me, Mark chapter one. I was just testing you. That's all right.

Somebody got it, caught it back here. Good. You get it.

You get an A today. Mark chapter one is a story of a leper who is cleansed. Now let me say this before we read anything there, there's probably no better biblical type of Jesus who is on the inside working on the outside than the lepers who were cleansed by Jesus.

And here's one example in Mark chapter one. Now in the book of Leviticus chapter 13 and chapter 14, and we read you a few verses there. There is virtually a medical treatise on the subject of leprosy.

No other disease has given as much attention. There were other diseases in the Eastern world that were more powerful, more fatal, more contagious. They were equally afflictive, but nothing is said about them.

Leprosy is singled out from all other ills on the earth at that time. And it's, and we're given detailed and specific regulations were set down for regulating it. It was to be treated by the priest, not by a physician.

Thus it was dealt with in a way which cannot be accounted for in the nature of the disease itself. And one man said this, he said, no other disease reduces a human being for so many years to so hideous a wreck. And because of the way the Bible treats leprosy, it is, it is really has to be looked at as a spiritual type.

It is a picture. It is a parable of sin. And when you look at how leprosy was contracted, how it spread, how it affected the diseased person, you'll get a perfect picture of how sin ruins and wrecks a man's life.

You see, sin is a corrupting, disorganizing, degrading disease. Isaiah puts it this way, chapter one, verses five and six, where will you be stricken again? As you continue in your rebellion, the whole head is sick. From the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness on it.

Only bruises, welts, and raw wounds, not pressed out or bandaged nor softened with ore. In other words, it's untreatable by any medical means. You see, sin is a disturbance, a corrosion, a disorder, a cancerous disease spreading to the whole head, and it consumes every part of the body.

And like leprosy, the deliverance from leprosy was called a cure and a healing, as well as a pardon. The Jews called leprosy the finger of God, the stroke of God. And in Leviticus, the regulations concerning it demonstrates what God thinks of the nature and consequences of sin.

And there is no more vivid picture of sin in all of the Old Testament than when we see the painful ugliness of leprosy. For example, leprosy was sometimes hereditary. Most often it was contracted by contagion.

It was spread from one person to another, but often it would begin in the deepest interior of the body. And it was often in the body as many as three to a dozen years before it showed itself. The first visible signs were often very minute.

They were inconsequential. They were not easily detected. It began with a little pimple or a pin-sized prick on the finger, or there was some small redness or scaliness on the skin, or some other slight symptom that you wouldn't even think anything of it.

But from that innocent little blemish, eventually it would spread to the body, often causing death. For example, leprosy might begin by a sudden loss of a limb or the use of a part of the body, or the nerve endings would be affected, or the muscles would waste away, or the tendons would contract until the hands were like a claw. Then there would follow the ulceration of the hands or the feet, and maybe a finger would be eaten away and drop off.

Or maybe a toe would be eaten away and drop off. Or then it would even get worse. Eventually, at times, a whole hand or a foot would be eaten off, and sometimes it would last.

That kind of leprosy would last from 20 to 30 years. It was kind of a terrible progression, progressive death, which a man would die inch by inch. In the Middle Ages, the priest used to bring the lepers to the cathedral or to the church and have a burial service.

They would have a funeral service for them while they were still living. Now, I said all of that to paint that picture because, you see, that is a description of sin. You see, the sad thing about leprosy is that the worst and darkest iniquities may grow out of the smallest beginnings.

It's just a look of the eye, a desire of the heart, a thought of the imagination, a simple little yes or an okay. This is the end of side one. You may now turn the tape over to side two.

All these are often a little door that is open to the enemy, and you think there's nothing to it. You think there's nothing of it. Oh, it's nothing, we say.

You know, sometimes we have something, and somebody says, what's that? We say, oh, it's nothing. But my friend, when it's sin, it's something. I told the story before, a little story that I think that you'll get my point.

I've told the story about the camel who stuck his head in the window in the eastern, you know, where they had open windows, and the camel stuck his head in the window, and man was in his bedroom sleeping, and man looked at the camel, and the camel said, you know, it's cold out. Mind if I stick my head in here? He said, okay, go ahead. A little bit later, it got noisy a few hours later, and the man woke up, and now the camel had his neck inside, and the camel said, look, you know, it's cold out there.

You mind if I stick my neck in? He said, oh, go ahead. A few hours later, he looked up, and here the whole camel was inside. He said, oh, well, you know, he let it go.

Next morning he got up, and he said to the camel, he said, it's time to go. He said, there's not room for both of us here, and the camel says, I ain't leaving. I ain't leaving, and the point is this, give the devil a head, and soon you'll have the neck to deal with, and then the whole body.

Give him a look, and soon you'll give him a lust. Give him a desire, and pretty soon he'll make a demand. Give him a thought, and pretty soon he'll have a deed.

Give him a touch, and pretty soon you may be entangled. You see, all the guilt that ever stained the earth can be traced to one look, the admiring look of Eve upon the forbidden tree, and no one can ever know to what or to where the smallest little sin can lead, and some of you could testify here tonight. You've been there, or perhaps you're still there, involved in gross sin and immorality, but you never imagined, you never imagined on that first occasion, on that first night when you said yes, or that first encounter, whatever it was, you never imagined that it would lead to you a lifelong habit, or addiction, or a lifestyle that wrapped itself around you and said, I ain't leaving.

Once it got in the door, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Behold how great a forest is set aflame by such a fire, a little fire. Pull one little strand out of your sweater, and it may unravel.

Bore a little hole in a dam, and you'll soon have a flood. Roll a small little snowball down a hill, and see what happens. Open one little artery of your arm, and you will have done enough damage, if not stopped, to speed your death.

You see, sin is often a gradual thing. Its first manifestations may seem nothing, but once you open the door, however small it is to Satan, right behind it, he is ready to march in with a whole host and troops of hell. This week, on Long Island, you may know that there were three wives, over a period of eight days, who were shot to death by their husbands.

Two of those husbands committed suicide. And if you wonder how they could do such a thing, I want to tell you, wonder no more. Because the seeds of those kinds of things or atrocities can be in your own heart.

You see, we're shocked sometimes when we read of child abuse. And we've seen it. It's been in our headlines too much lately, it seems.

And we may bemoan the condition of society, and how far men and women have fallen to commit such hideous, scandalous crimes. But let us not forget that those headline-making sins are only the working outside of what was long ago inside. And we need to understand that sin like leprosy may begin with an innocent, bright, little red spot.

But that little thing is just as much a sign of leprosy as when the disease dismembers the body. And you look at that body, and you turn your head aside and say, oh, it's so gruesome, it's so ugly. But I want to tell you, that little pin, that little bit of leprosy has just the same disease in it.

All the difference is that it has spread itself to the whole body. The point is this, deal with your sin today, or it may break out in a rage tomorrow. Sin is progressive.

And if we give ourselves to it at all, there is no telling where it will lead. David should have never looked on the rooftop across. Judas should have never, I think probably Judas, when he got that first one single piece of silver in his hands, and he held it there and something gripped a hold of his heart.

It wasn't the 30 pieces, it was the first piece. And so it is in our lives. And tonight, I know that I speak to some of you that are at different stages of leprosy or sin perhaps in your life.

But I want you to know there's good news for you. Leprosy and all of its hideousness is curable. There is a physician who specializes in leprosy.

Hallelujah. Let me go back to Leviticus again. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, this shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing.

In the day of his, in other words, it's presupposed that there is a possibility of cleansing. And that possibility was pointing towards the ministry of Jesus. And just as leprosy began within often slowly, but surely progressing and working itself outwardly and throughout the whole body.

So the cure takes place the same way. Jesus who comes on the inside begins to work itself, his power outside. Look at Mark now, chapter one, verse 40, and the leper came to him, beseeching him and falling on his knees before him and saying to him, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

And moved with compassion, he stretched out his hand and touched him. And he said to him, I am willing, I am willing be cleansed. You see the old Testament laws concerning the leper says that they were to be outside the society, outside the camp.

In fact, nobody could touch them. Nobody could touch them. Oh, but Jesus touched him as a sign that death and hell and the grave and sin cannot touch him.

And he touched him symbolizing and demonstrating the power that he had over it. And verse 42, it says, and immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. Oh, you see Christ's power is released by a word.

It says in Psalms, he sent his word and he healed them. It says, you are already clean because of the word, which I have spoken to you. And Jesus is that living word and that living power that can touch your leprosy tonight.

He can touch your homosexuality. He can touch your immorality. He can touch whatever that disease is.

And he says, I am willing. I will clean your life up. Hallelujah.

Like the leper, because of the cleansing power of the word, we need no longer sit brooding in despondency over a leprous condition. And I want to tell you, it doesn't matter if you're in the first stages or if you're a terminal case tonight. I don't care if you're in a turn, you're a terminal case.

You know, it seems like, I don't know, pastor Bob, but we get a lot of terminal cases here. We talk about that as minister. I don't know.

I'm glad that the Lord entrust us with a terminal cases because we know what God can do in cleaning up a life. I don't know how it was that this leper got as close as he did to Jesus. He was not supposed to be there.

He was not supposed to be out. In fact, lepers, when they were out, we're supposed to holler out, unclean, unclean. And this man, whatever, I don't know how it was, but he got there.

He got there. And listen, when you're desperate to be cured, you're going to break through any barrier. And the leper fell on his knees and he said to Jesus, if you're willing, if you're willing, and Jesus answered right back, I am willing.

And I want to tell you tonight, if you're willing, he's willing. If you're ready, he's ready. And there may be someone here tonight.

And I felt it as I was praying and listen to me carefully. I felt it as I was praying throughout this week that there's somebody here tonight, not just one, but perhaps many of you, you are involved in deep gross sin. In fact, it's so ugly.

It's like leprosy. It's reached a certain stage and you have given up hope. And maybe you're so guilt-ridden tonight that you feel that you're beyond a cure.

But even to you tonight, this is the word that the Lord has given me to come and deliver you tonight. If you're willing, he is willing. I don't care how far along you've gone.

God is able to clean up your life. Hallelujah. I remember one time, I may have told this here.

I remember one time when I was in teen challenge ministering and I'd go into the chapel meeting in order to lead the service and to preach. I would always notice that when I would go in, that there would always be a certain number of young men that were in the program, teen challenge program, who would come into the chapel service and always sit in the back, always take the last seat, always a group in the last row. And in fact, some of them would take their chair and pick it up and move it back as far as they would go.

And I would come in and I'd see this and there'd be a group in the front, there'd be another group here, and then there would be this group in the back. And I'd come in and I'd say, all right, fellas, come on, move up. Come on, move up, you know? So they'd drag their bodies up a few rows and I'd have to edge them up a little bit further than they would.

Then they would sit down and then they would speak to me with body language. They would sit there, you know, you've heard of body language. Well, you know, they would sit there with body language telling me what they thought about, you know, what I was doing.

And so service after service, I'd do that. One day I came in the chapel and I started to do that. And the spirit of God spoke to my heart and I said, don't do that anymore because where they sit is where they're at.

And I said, Lord, would you run that by me one more time? Where they sit is where they're at. And then it, then it came to me. Yes, of course, where they sit.

You see, at the end of the service, we invite people up at the altar. And I, first of all, I represented the men of God. I represented the voice of the Lord.

I represented the Lord to these young men and the altar. And so when they came into the chapel, they felt so far from God. They felt so far away.

And the Lord spoke to me and said, that's where they sit is where they're at. Just leave them there, but minister the Word to them. I'm the only one that can move them from where they're at.

And I don't know where you sit tonight. I don't know where you sit before the Lord. I don't know how far back you feel.

And some of you feel you're so far back, but I want to tell you that God wants to bring you forward. Hallelujah. And wants to bring you to the cross and to him and he can do it.

And you know, it's amazing thing. I'd watched some of those same feathers when God would get ahold of them. And when Jesus would be on the inside, you know what would happen? They'd come into the chapel and they didn't know what was going on.

They'd walk in the door and they wouldn't go to the last row anymore. They'd start walking up the aisle. I call it the Holy Ghost push.

It was Jesus. Jesus on the inside working on the outside. Praise the Lord.

Yes. Now in verse 43, after the man was cured, I want you to see something. Look with me if you will.

Are you with me? Praise the Lord. Amen. I thought of some of you may not know this, but we pastors try to figure out how we can keep your attention sometime.

And brother David always says, look this way. Brother Phillip says, are you with me? And I sometimes say you're listening to me. I thought of a new one.

You know, in the Olympics, they have people, judges that hold up these numbers. I'm going to pass out cards when you come in. And you know, if, if, if the, if the message hits your heart, you can lift up the card.

The only thing is I, you know, in the Olympics, they have one to 10, 10 is, you know, the best. And if I do that, I'm only going to pass out tens. You see, look at verse 43 and verse 42, and immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

And now something interesting happens, which ties into Leviticus chapter 14. 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 for a testimony to them.

Now, if Jesus is on the inside, if he sits on the throne of your heart, you're going to be able to produce an offering for cleansing. You're going to be able to produce a testimony. Jesus called it going and offering cleansing.

This was according to old Testament laws, which set forth a regulation. And we're going to look at one in just a moment. And the priest was to examine.

And if the leprosy had been healed in the leper, and if he was found that the plague was healed, then he was officially proclaimed cured. And he was given the opportunity to return home and to society. And this is why as soon as Jesus healed the leper, it says he sternly warned him.

And in fact, the original Hebrew language means that he scolded him. He, he, he, I guess we would say he got on his case. He, he said, he, he said, you must, you must immediately do this.

I charge you with the responsibility to obey and follow the law, even though the cure was accomplished, even though the man was indeed healed, yet he had not gone through the offering of cleansing and the presenting of the testimony. Only then, only then was he allowed to return back into society. Now, what this is, is a wonderful picture of grace and law.

What a wonderful picture of sanctification and holiness that must follow our forgiveness and our salvation. Hebrews 6, 9 says, but beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation. And what the law of the leper teaches and what Jesus is teaching in the curing of the leper is that when he reigns inside you immediately, immediately, there is a responsibility for you to go and to show your cleansing and to show that what Jesus has done on the inside is truly being manifested on the outside.

You see, our new birth is a miscarriage if it does not take on an outward active holiness and a purity of mind and heart transforming us into the image of our redeemer. And what I believe the offering of cleansing is, is when you take what God has done and you go forth and give a verification of your cleansing to those that once knew you as a leper. You see, the priest verified the leper's cure and he was in essence a public health official.

And this is what it says. Listen, listen to this from Leviticus 14 and 11. It says, and the priest who pronounced him clean shall present the man cleansed and the before said before the Lord at the doorway of the tent of the meeting.

In other words, he would present and say, I now announce to you a new creature in Christ Jesus. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

And I want to say to you tonight, parents, if Jesus is on the inside, then your children are going to be like priests and they're going to announce whether you've been cured or not. You've got to go and offer for them a cleansing. If Jesus has changed you on the inside, you must present a clean life at the doorway of your house.

If you're truly saved, then offer for a cleansing of pure heart and life in the presence of your children, because they know if your hands are clean, hold to they know. We had a young nine year old in one of our classes here, lift up a prayer request that touched my heart. This nine year old says, pray for my daddy, pray for my father.

He's not the same man at home as he is when he sits in this church. Listen, parent, listen, dad, Jesus on the inside ought to be working on the outside and you ought to be presenting for cleansing at the doorway of your house, a new man in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah.

We're in a marriage, a husband and a wife ought to offer the testimony of their cleansing daily. Husband, you ask your wife, why don't you, why don't you ask her sometime? Have you ever asked her, honey, do you think I'm a man of God or dare you or wife for you to turn to your husband and say, do you think I'm a man of God? That's offering a cleansing. That's Jesus on the inside working on the outside.

Singles, are you presenting yourself as a testimony to those that know you? You see, there is a preaching that goes on in the church today that, that proclaims healing and says the leper can be forgiven, but they never preach that you've got to go and offer for yourself a cleansing. You've got to work out what God has worked in. And so the stern warning of Jesus to the leper is a sign of the importance that he placed on obedience to the law, following our cure and our healing and our forgiveness.

There's another example that I don't have time to get into. It was the demonic of Gadara, the man with many legions of demons and devils. It says that Jesus cast out the works of the devil that was in the legions of demons inside him.

And it says, then he was, he came and he was sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind. And you know, the next thing he wanted to do, he wanted to go out and testify everywhere he could go. He wanted to go out and, and, and tell everybody what, what God had done in his life.

And Jesus said, no, he said, return to thine own house and show what great things God has done. Let it start working there and then work out from there to the larger community. Now go back to Leviticus and I'm going to close back to Leviticus.

And I honestly am going to close. There were, there was one more important thing. The leper, there are a number of things the leper had to do as a part of his cleansing to fulfill the law of the leper.

And for one thing here in the fourth verse, it says that he had to take two birds, two living birds. And one of them, one bird was to be slain, was to be set in a vessel of water, poured over it and slain, killed. And then the second bird was to be dipped in the blood of the first along with, together with the scarlet wood and a scarlet string and the hyssop and shall dip them in the live bird, in the blood of the bird that was slain over the running water.

He then shall sprinkle seven times the one who is to be cleansed from the leprosy and shall pronounce him clean and he shall let the live bird go free over the open field. And oh my friend, what a lovely picture of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see, because leprosy was a type of sin in all of its stages, the offering of the birds shows us that no sin can be wiped out, wiped out unless it's brought to the cross.

And that in the two bird offering is a picture of how Christ was mangled, was, was put to death for our sins. He was crushed to death for your leprosy and the bird dipped in blood flying away is Jesus ascending up out of the hand of the grave. And as he did so, he scattered the glorious drops of his cleansing power and the introduction of the birds and the law of the leper presents a great biblical truth.

And as they typified Christ, they show that our outward holiness, as well as our inward righteousness proceeds from the cross and from the resurrection. Hallelujah. That one bird crushed and the one bird dipped in it was let go a picture of a cross.

And if you will bring your leprosy tonight to the cross, if you will come and bow before him as this leopard did and ask him to make you clean, the moment you do, the moment you do, he will forgive you. And then he will begin to work a power in you as Bob talked about this morning that will begin to work out of you so that Jesus on the inside can be working on the outside. Let me read to you one more, one final verse of scripture, Ezekiel 35 verses 25 and 26 said, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean.

I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all of your idols. Listen, my friend, if you've got filthiness of your, in your thought life, you've got filthiness in your heart. You've got filthiness in your lifestyle tonight.

He can cleanse you. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and we'll put a new spirit inside you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and we'll give you a heart of flesh.

And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. And you will be careful to observe my ordinances. In other words, Jesus on the inside will be working on the outside.

My friend, and that's, what's going to change the world. That's, what's going to change the world. Jesus on the inside working on the outside.

Let's stand together. It could have been a few days. It could have been a few weeks, but she was there until it rained.

And what happened is that King David heard about what she was doing. And he was so moved by her determination, her devotion, that he went after it rained and the justice of God had been satisfied. He took their bones, their