He Can Cleanse, He Can Heal

Matthew 8:1- 13

There have been many who needed healing, who wanted healing from Jesus.  Jesus never forced His healing upon anybody.  In most cases when He healed people of diseases, leprosy or anything else, they asked Him for healing.  If you need healing, if you want God to do something for you, you’re not going to just sit on the bed and just ponder it.  You’re going to pray.  You’re going talk to Him about your condition.  You’re going to talk to Him about what you’re going through.  In this passage we see how these men asked, and Jesus gave them healing.

In our passage here we see Jesus coming down from the mountain. He sees this man with leprosy come and worship Him.  The man said “Lord if thou will thou can make me clean”.  This man had leprosy.  In that time a person with leprosy couldn’t mingle with the rest of the people. They would put him outside of the city.  They had camps where the only people there were people with those diseases.  They couldn’t go see their families or their wives or anything.  They were put out there so they could be able to just live, because nobody else wanted to get close to them; nobody wanted to be infected.

Today people have this disease called HIV/AIDS.  If you know somebody that has HIV/AIDS a lot of times we are skeptical about even embracing them.  We know you can’t get it by shaking somebody’s hand or embracing them - we have learned that.  But there are people that are still afraid to even come in contact with somebody if they know that they are actually HIV positive.

This man had this disease and he cried out to Jesus: “Lord if thou will thou can make me clean”.  Jesus reached out with His hand and Jesus touched this man. Now just think, here it is, this man has leprosy.  If I touch him, I’m going to be infected just like him.  But we see in this passage that Jesus puts forth His hand and touches this man. 

The bible says: “And immediately he was cleansed”.  All the sores and boils he had – now his skin became just as smooth as ours.  I would say it probably got as smooth as a little baby.  He now has baby smooth skin that cleared up just because Jesus touched him.   And right now we know that there is somebody that is sitting on their bedside looking and waiting for a touch. 

There will come a time when we won’t need healing.  My mother and father they are both gone on. My father had heart problems.  My mother had diabetes, she had heart problems and high blood pressure, and she’s gone.  But one thing I know for a fact, my Mama and Daddy were saved.  I know that where they are now, on the other side, they don’t have to get medicine.  They don’t to go to the drug store; they don’t have to go to the doctor on the other side.  They don’t have these problems.  Right now we might have ailments and aches and pains; we might take medicine.  But when we get to the other side, when we get to where Jesus is, we’re not going to have these problems.  That’s a blessing right there in itself! We’re not going to have the problems that we now face in this life.

Jesus touched this man and he was healed.  Like I said, we know that there is somebody this morning waiting on a touch.  But we know just like the Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace, we know that even if He doesn’t heal us - we know He can.

Everybody is not going to be healed.  Even when Jesus went to His home country, to His home city of Nazareth, the bible says that He healed a few sick folks and then He left.  Everybody in the city didn’t get healed. Everybody today is not going to be healed.   God may not heal me of my aches and my pain.   I pray about them.  But even if He doesn’t heal me now, I know one day I’m not going to have those aches and pains.

This man was healed, and there was another man.  Verse 5 tells us about a centurion’s servant who had the palsy.  He was grievously tormented; this man was in pain.  The centurion was a military man.  He was a soldier and he was in charge of a bunch of people.

This centurion said:  Lord, I’m not worthy - I’m not fit for you to come under my roof.   I just need you to speak the word.  I need you to speak the words and my servant shall be healed.  This man had such faith that Jesus said I’m going to go and heal him.  The centurion said: Wait, wait, no, no, I’m not worthy.  Don’t come to my house, I’m not worthy.  This man had the faith in the Lord, in God, that if the Lord would just speak the word the servant would be healed.  We know that Jesus touched the first man and he was healed. But this centurion is telling Jesus just speak the words.  In other words I’ve got faith that if you speak the word that he can be healed.

Even now we think about our co-workers, our brother in UAB’s ICU and another brother at home, maybe we  even have people in our family that are sick.  And I believe that we can pray today, this morning, and this same Jesus - this same God - is able to touch and heal. We have faith because we know what the Word of God teaches us. The book of Hebrews says “without faith it is impossible to please God”.  We have to have faith.  Jesus said “I haven’t found anybody in Israel with this type of faith”.  This man had faith that his servant could be healed if Jesus just spoke the word.

So in verse 13 Jesus tells him to “Go, as thou has believed, so be it done unto thee”.  In other words if you really truly believe that I can speak the words and your servant be healed, go then.  And it says “and his servant was healed in the selfsame hour” - not the next day but that same hour.  We’re talking about a right now God.  I’m talking about right now! I’m serious!  Even as I stand here I believe that if we pray and pray together and pray earnestly, I believe God will do anything through His Son Jesus Christ.
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If He did it back then, He’ll do it right now.  If you’ve got the faith that this man had, He can do it now.  We believe that.  But will He do it? We pray that He will. As I said earlier, everybody is not going to be healed.  We know that.  Everyone will not be healed on this side, but as believers we will all be healed on the other side.  He has shown us that He can cleanse, and He can heal.  May His Word strengthen our faith.
~J. T.