T
hank the Lord for his indescribable gift
of the Holy Spirt and him bestowing
upon me the Spiritual Gift(s) that I
have to be utilized for his glory! I pray that this
sermon article will ministry to every reader,
someone is set free from every entanglement
and bondage of Satan and consequently surrenders their lives to the Lord which is the
best decision that they will ever make in their
lives.
As we take a look at the word Leprosy
extracted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, “leprosy also known as Hansen’s disease
(HD), is a chronic skin infection caused by the
bacteria Mycobacterium leprae[2] and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. The disease takes its
name from the Latin word lepra, which means
“scaly” and while the term “Hansen’s disease”
is named after the physician Gerhard Armauer
Hansen. Leprosy is spread between people. It
is believed to occur through a cough or contact with fluid from the nose of an infected
person. Leprosy occurs more commonly
among those living in poverty and is believed
to be transmitted by respiratory droplets.
Social stigma has been associated with leprosy
for much of history, which continues to be a
barrier to self-reporting and early treatment.”
I thought it necessary to define leprosy
so that every reader can clearly understand
what it is and to help me clearly communicate
my message to every reader. As duly noted
earlier in history, if someone had leprosy they
were considered an outcast and shunned by
everyone around them. It was hard for them
to seek help, food or any care because peo-
ple were afraid that being in close proximity
to them would increase their probability of
getting infected. This causes me to be deeply
contemplative about many homeless people.
Although I have never heard of any homeless
person having leprosy, people have a tendency to treat them as such. Nowhere can
you go and not see homeless people around
you, for as Jesus so eloquently expresses in
the Bible that “you will always have the poor
among you (Matthew 26:11, NLT).” So, it is
so sad when I observe how homeless people are shunned, mistreated, belittled and
even mocked for the simple fact that they are
homeless which similarly I am pretty sure that
is how leprous people must feel because of
their condition.
As we take a look at scripture specifically in II Kings chapter 7, we are introduced
to four leprous men. Although it isn’t clear
how they contracted leprosy, it was evident
the effect this condition had on their social
standing and dealings with people in general.
As we look at the first few verses, they were
in a dilemma, they were hungry and they had a
skin condition that was contagious but despite
all of their problems, they knew that they
couldn’t remain in the state that they were in
i.e. “Why should we sit here waiting to die?”
We will starve if we stay here, but with the
famine in the city, we will starve if we go back
there. So we might as well go out and surrender to the Armean army. If they let us live, so
much the better. But if they kill us, we would
have died anyway (II Kings 7:3, 4, NLT).” Even
though these men were leprous because of
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