Matthew 8:1-12

Welcome guys we are in Matthew 8, its June 7th 2026 and we read at verse 1

22 Matthew 8.1-12

June 7th 2026

Matthew 8:1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

2 And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

3 And Yeshuaput forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

4 And Yeshuasaith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

Verses one and two introduce us to a series of healings Yeshuais about to do.

The first is for a leper.

The second is a Centurian’s servant,

The third is for Peter’s mother in law.

And the fourth is a man possessed with devils.

We are going to cover the first two today – verses 1-13 – the leper and the Centurians servant.

Matthew 8:1 When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

So the sermon on the mount is over, and

2 behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

When I was a child a heard Bible stories of lepers I was overwhelmingly terrified.

Initially I think it was because it sounded to me like they were describing people who were “leopards,” but that fear gave way to something far worse when I was told they were people who had a disease that would cause body parts to just fall off without warning.

Since then I learned the amazing picture the disease of leprosy presents to us today.

So here the man with leprosy who approached the Lord and worships Him. This does not mean he worshipped Him as God or in His true identity as God (even His own disciples at this point didn’t know His real identity) but the leper showed him respect in the Eastern fashion – he bowed himself before him – believing He had power to make Him whole as a prophet, a healer and maybe the Messiah but its doubtful to me.

The man had probably been living in a leper colony, isolated and exiled from society… and according to the Law and he heard about the Lord, and he believed that if only he could get to Jesus, he could be healed.

Under the law he would have approached the Lord saying, “unclean, unclean!” as the law required. And it is highly probable that any bystanders would be outraged at his actions but would scatter to get away from him.

In Old Testament times – and here when Yeshuawas approached, a person showing signs of leprosy had to undergo specific examinations by the priest.

If he was determined to have the disease, he was banished from the fellowship of all of his friends, his wife, his children, and was literally separated from all fellowship.

So one day he was enjoying all the benefits of community and the next, banished for life – or until he was healed.

Leprosy is said to begin with one small dot or spot on the skin. Nothing big.

In time it would spread with one spot becoming two, five, a dozen, and several hundred.

In time, the disease would spread to many parts of the body with the spots becoming sores and the sores becoming ulcers. When the ulcers would begin to bleed the flesh would become desensitized and therefore infection often occurred and because there is no pain because there was no sensation and then then flesh would get so corroded it would begin to slip off of the body, sometimes in large portions, and ultimately in whole chunks - beginning with the fingers and toes or an ear or part of the nose.

In the final stages Lepers would emit such foul odors that passersby have reported being able to “taste” the corruption.

Back in urban areas when lepers would lie down to sleep the rats, smelling the infection, would come to gnaw off their flesh without them knowing it – because they wouldn’t feel it.

In the Old Covenant lepers couldn’t sit on a rock, it was against the law, in case someone else sat there later because it was believed they would make contract the loathsome disease and catch it themselves. Neither could they drink from a stream – for the same reason.

When a leper’s voice got permanently raspy it was a sign that they were on their way out because the leprosy was within them. Then they would die a complete outcast, totally isolated, exiled, despised, and feared to the point that nobody could effectively show them love.

If you haven’t seen it yet the disease is a perfect picture of the filthiness and rottenness of sin and its corruptive power on the soul.

Fleshly sin (though paid in full by Christ we are talking the acts of wrong doing in the eyes of God) usually begins in small almost undetectable spots. It has been said sarcastically,

Yeah, the guy started off slaughtering his spouse, raping his neighbor, stealing his bosses car, then went on to lie, cheat and steal and before he knew it he was gossiping about others.

The lesson in leprosy relative to sin is once it appears and if left unchecked it will spread and infect other parts of someone’s life.

For the Children of Israel, God gave them a tremendous “representation of sin,” which continues to represent even for us a horrific picture. So again, like sin, leprosy starts out rather innocently: just a little white spot.

But if ignored, condoned, and/or allowed to spread, it will ultimately infect and affect the entire body – to the point, in many cases, where the exact same results occur in the soul of a person consumed with sin.

I had a very good friend who was perhaps one of the most naturally strong humans I have ever known.

His name is Randy. The guy was one of those people who could like clean and jerk amazing amounts of weight and dominate on the football field. He had never tasted refined sugar as his mom was fanatical about stuff like that and he entered life as a husband and father with all the promise you could imagine.

When I was a stockbroker, Randy used to come by and visit me at work. As we’d drive to lunch and see some homeless people along the streets in Southern California he would mock them for being weak and worthless.

Years passed. His and his wife had four children. He came to my work on afternoon and relayed the following that had happened a day or two earlier.

One night, after a long days work in sales and with more hours ahead, someone said to him,

“Take a puff of this. It will help you work like you can’t believe.”

For the first time in his life he tried his first drug. Not pot. Not pills. Meth.

Two weeks later, he had an affair with a co-worker in the office while high. And he came to me absolutely confused as to how he got himself into such a situation.

Instead of addressing the small spot on his character he convinced himself that he could handle doing the drug.

Six months later when we met up again he was using every day. Years passed. One day we reconnected. By that time he had lost all sensitivity and the secondary infections from his meth use were causing him to have infections in his teeth, to have problems with the law, in his home, and to constantly have to deal with creditors trying to take his car.

The last time I saw him he had lost his wife, his house, all of his teeth, and contact with his children. He was sleeping on his brother’s couch. And he was still doing the meth.

Years went by as I entered into ministry full time. I was sitting in a Carl’s Jr. talking to another friend and I got a call telling me that Randy was murdered. Beat to death in his parents home here in Utah over a drug deal gone wrong.

He was found after weeks molting on the couch. Almost the living embodiment of leprosy of old. I am using him as a modern illustration of sin.

For him the decline began with a single hit of a drug – one inhale. I know it sounds preachy but I detest drugs that consume the lives of most users – detest and no matter what form they take – if they assume control of your liberty, run.

Best practice is to understand that there are some drugs so powerful most humans cannot help but get addicted and the cumulative effect of them is horrific.

In biblical times there was no cure for leprosy…all that could be done was exile and ostracize the carriers.

This was the same with sin. No cure, just containment of sin through exile, stoning, death.

Someone asked me the other day about God being just – of course He is just – if He wasn’t He wouldn’t be God and seeing the force of sin in our lives as the product of our first parents God took on flesh and saved us from all of that in terms of what alienated Him from us.

But we are still left to live our freewill lives materially and that must come about through our independent choices, decisions and willingness to let Him reign over the lives we have been given.

So we have tools – spiritual tools – inwardly placed and written on our hearts that serve as warning signs of the place of so called sin in our lives.

Listen to the Spirit of the Living Christ. Conform to His wisdom over your flesh. In Him there is liberty but not toward licentiousness and decay, but to liberty and growth.

Leprosy was so prevalent in Yeshua’s time as it had been around anciently among the people, and there was absolutely no cure, and it always ended up in totally ripping the carrier apart – socially, physically, and probably in every other way.

When Yeshua came, the diseased served as a picture – a literal one for the people of that day and as a type for the Spiritual disease we allow to grow within us by refusing to submit to the Spiritual indicators of disease.

For the leper in Yeshua’s day, He was the only – solution. For us today, He remains the same – for all – exclusively.

Without Him in the world, all sin, just like all untreated leprosy, would completely disfigure the human race.

So the leper says to Yeshua,

“if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.”

As Yeshuans, we teach that this has been fulfilled through the victorious work of Christ and that He has made us all clean and therefore reconciled us to His Father once and for all.

This was His free gift. The ongoing process of Him in us is to not just make us clean but to make us healthy and strong through the Spirit of the Risen Christ so there is a difference in the application of this story then verses now.

But the actions and words of this leper reveal several important principles.

First, his heart was humble enough to pursue Him and to trust in His ability to heal His condition. Secondly, we note that the leper put the act in the hands of the King saying, “if you will.”

It’s the approach to all things in my estimation and destroys the name it and claim it propositions of asking for our will to be done.

I honestly do not believe anyone has EVER come to Yeshua this way who went away empty – but what He gives and does is truly up to Him and His will and not our own.

When Yeshua was on earth, did He, as GOD in the flesh, heal everyone of their ailments? Did He feed all the poor? Did anyone, while He was walking around on earth and during His ministerial years, die of their disease or of hunger?

Of course they did. That is the material operation of this world and it will forever continue to be. We might remember that Yeshua did NOT come to heal the world of all the physical ailments produced by the fall. If He came and healed all the world – even every Jew, and fed every hungry soul, then we could say this was His purpose – then and now.

But when He came, only a few were physically healed and fed by and through His miracles. Why?

Listen closely:

We would strongly – strongly suggest – that the physical healings Yeshua did while on earth and the feeding of the masses were types of pictures of the spiritual healings He came to give the world and then the Spiritual empowerment He also offers all who believe on Him.

Feeding the masses bread and fish from miracle loaves and a few fishes was emblematic of Him being the bread of life, and when He was consumed spiritually people will never hunger or thirst again.

Listen – listen, there are a LOT of people who think His healings were a model of what needs to happen in the world today but we suggest that something has been lost in translation.

So again, Yeshua healing the sick and raising the dead while incarnate was a picture of the spiritual healing and new life He would bring to those who believed.

These miracles also served to prove to the Jews that He and His disciples truly were sent or called of God.

We suggest that believers need to be very careful when we try and assign similar healings today to this age as we read about them back in the day the Lord walked the earth.

So the leper approached Yeshua worshipfully, and asked that he be healed if it was the Lord’s will. (Verse 3)

3 And Yeshua put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

At times I have come across people who want to know why Yeshuahad to come and hang out with us.

In their minds they wonder why God couldn’t or wouldn’t just heal us (or save us from sin) but instead has a guy named Yeshua show up in the form of a Man.

And while we aren’t entirely sure, we get an inkling from what Yeshua does next – He reaches out and touches the man.

See, it was an offence to the Jews to touch a leprous person because it would make those who did it ceremonially impure. This is why the lepers had to shout, “unclean, unclean,” wherever they went among the masses.

But Yeshua, God in the flesh, was not going to be infected or become unclean through the physical uncleanliness of another.

This type of uncleanliness – relative to the law – He was actually overcoming.

Remember, the Jews believed external cleanliness was next to holiness and they did a lot of washings and had a ton of external rituals to cleanse themselves.

When Yeshua came however He ate with sinners and it blew their minds.

In Matthew chapter 15 Yeshua spoke. Beginning at verse 10 we read,

10 And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand:

11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

12 Then came his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying?

15 Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable.

16 And Yeshuasaid, Are ye also yet without understanding?

17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?

18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.

This reality is at the core of the incarnation - forget all of the outward stuff. That just makes for people who full of dead dried bones appear to be whited sepulchers.

No, the focus of our cleanliness is on the heart. And He proved this by stretching forth His hand to touch the diseased.

So not only did Yeshua eat with sinners, not only did He let a woman with an issue of blood touch Him, He reached out and touched a man riddled with leprosy – or in our case - riddled with sin.

Because the heart of God within Him could not be defiled by physical contact with something unholy and diseased. His heart was impervious to all the external stuff.

(last verse)

4 And Yeshua saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

Some suppose that Yeshua said this so that His popularity would not increase too quickly thereby making his ministry more difficult to do. There may be truth to this.

But far more to the point was Yeshua was telling the Leper to do as the Law commanded.

The place where this cure occurred was in Galilee, which was a distance of some forty or fifty miles from Jerusalem.

It was the leper’s duty to hurry to the residence of the priest and obtain his sanction to the reality of the cure.

This was part of the Law and being the Law was still in place, and Yeshua came to fulfill it all He commanded the healed man to go to the priest and receive his stamp of being healed based on those tenets.

Some believe that if the man delayed that news of the healing would get to the priest before the actual man, and being prejudiced by who did the healing (Jesus) the priest would declare him still unclean.

We aren’t totally certain on this but what we do know is it was the leper’s duty first obey the laws of God which also included making a proper acknowledgment to him by and through an offering.

Why the offering? Yeshua says, so it will be a testimony unto them (meaning the people).

In other words, Yeshua was saying, “Go and show yourself to the priest, and get his testimony to the reality of the cure, which, under the Law, will serve as proof to the people that the healing is genuine.”

Second healing verse 5.

5 And when Yeshua was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,

6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

7 And Yeshua saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

8 The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

10 When Yeshua heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

13 And Yeshua said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.

So, after coming down from the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord healed a Leper, and then verse five says:

5 And when Yeshuawas entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,

Now, I am not really big on going into detail about geography of the Holy Land.

This is not to say it’s not important but to me it is ancillary to the core import of who Yeshua is and was.

But Capernaum, which means Nahum's town, was a Galilean city frequently mentioned in the history of the Apostolic Record.

It’s never mentioned in the Old Testament but after Yeshua was rejected by Nazareth (in Matthew 4:13-16; Luke 4:16-31), Capernaum became his "own city." A lot happened here . . . and a lot didn’t.

What I mean by this is the place was the scene of many acts and incidents from the life of Christ (Matthew 8:5,14,15; 9:2-6,10-17; 15:1-20; Mark 1:32-34, etc.) but the unbelief of its inhabitants after seeing many evidences of His divinity caused Yeshua to bring some heavy denunciation of the place (which we will read about in Matthew 11:23).

It was a sea side town, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, one of the most prosperous and crowded districts of Palestine. So while there this event transpired between the King and the centurion.

First a leper, now the servant of a commander of a hundred men in the Roman Empire.

Judea was a Roman province and so they posted garrisons there to keep the people in subjection to the empire. In all probability, this man was a pagan.

Like the leper, this powerful pagan also must have heard of Yeshua from some source, and like the leper the Centurion came to him.

For years I have been talking with people, especially in the last five with Delaney about the big Y – why do some come to faith and others do not.

There are biblical supports that supply our answer. Yeshua simply said that those who will not love the dark more than the light because their deeds are evil.

We might suggest that this is the primary reason in the end and overall scope of a persons heart but what about people who try not to love dark or do evil deeds that don’t seem to want to come and seek Him out either?

After long discussions it appears to us that the precursor to a person coming to Him, seeking Him, answering the heart door when He stands knocking is . . . (drumroll please) humility.

Humility of heart.

We might see that heart in the leper who came to Him. And we might see it in the heart of this pagan Centurion of authority.

A heart felt humility that led them to come to formally uneducated man born of ill-repute to heal them.

We suggest that this is significant. And so the Centurion comes (verse 6)

6 And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

The word Palsy in the Greek is paralutikos, which means some sort of debilitating illness.

In this case, this centurion, in addition to humility, must have possessed some degree of mercy for others – in this case, his servant.

Another factor we also suggest today is that just as humility leads to faith, mercy leads to the verb of agape love.

(Verse 7)

7 And Yeshua saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

Now listen to the heart of the centurion in verse 8 speaking of humility –

8 The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

I love this heart. It is not in any way puffed up relative to the King. This powerful man of a hundred men was lowly in the self-assessment of himself. He could have approached Yeshua and pulled a man act, saying something like,

“Hey, Yeshy, can you do me a solid. I got this guy who works for me – I’m a pretty powerful man, you know.”

None of that bull. He comes trusting that Yeshua has the ability to command on behalf of His superior and what He says will be done. That is why the centurion explains the following, saying,

9 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, “Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.”

The way the King James reads this is tough but what the centurion is saying here is, “I understand what you can do, and I completely trust in it. For I too, am a man who knows how to respond to those in authority over me and I also know how to give orders – and he gives some examples.

What the centurion seems to mean is, “I have full faith and confidence in your ability, Yeshua, as one representing God, and also as one giving commands, to get done whatever God wants done.”

“I am not worthy of your presence in my home. I am a sinner and don’t deserve your personal attendance – but I do KNOW you have authority over earth, sea, and disease, and at your speaking the words, my servant will be healed.”

“As 100 men obey me, as I obey those in authority over me, I know that so do diseases, storms, demons and animals obey you. If men obey me, who am an inferior sinful officer how much more shall diseases obey you--the original Source of power-- having control over all things!”

“Just say the words and my servant will have new life.”

(verse 10)

10 When Yeshua heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

The centurion spoke a profession of true faith. It is such faith that pleases God.

It is only by such faith that we can please God. It is by such faith we are received by God as children. It is in this faith we love God and others. And this faith, present in this gentile, a non-Jew caused the King of Kings to “marvel.”

You know what the best synonym for the Greek word for marvel is:

“Admire.”

Yeshua admired him.

Boy, that just warms my heart.

I want to my King of Kings to admire me. I really do. I want to honestly and genuinely possess such faith and trust in Him that He marvels, that He says,

“You know, that McCraney kid of mine, warts and all, that sinful kid really makes me marvel when he chooses to trust me.”

“When he believes I am.”

“When he loves others because he loves me.”

He goes on to say that not in “all of Israel has He seen such faith. Meaning, "I have not found such an instance of confidence among the Jews." And in light of this faith exemplified by a Roman Yeshua goes on in a teaching moment (verse 11)

11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

In other words, this example of faith among the Gentiles is not a singular event but “many pagans - from the east and west-- would be converted to the gospel, and be saved, as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were, and would join them in the Kingdom of heaven.

In scripture the phrase "from the east and from the west," is used to describe the whole world (Isaiah 45:6) and the phrase, “shall sit down,” typifies sitting down to a really comfortable and enjoyable meal, with great company and wonderful food - which is a picture of heaven.

Always the teacher of truth, however, Yeshua then tells the other side of the coin, saying

12 But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Where He says “The children of the kingdom,” He is speaking of the people who expected the kingdom, or to whom the kingdom even properly belonged – meaning the Jews.

They supposed that they ought to be the favorites of heaven. They expected the Messiah to enlarge their nation and spread the triumphs of their kingdom politically.

They even referred to themselves as the children of the kingdom of God - to the complete exclusion of the Gentiles.

Here, Yeshua is merely telling them, using their own speech, that many pagans would be saved and many Jews lost.

Lost to what or where? Yeshua says here,

But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into “outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

We are going to pick up next week on this topic of outer darkness. Thanks for watching.