Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles together to John chapter 20. John chapter 20. And we'll begin reading in verse
26. And after eight days, again, his disciples were within and
Thomas with them. Then came Jesus. the doors being
shut and stood in the midst and said, peace be unto you. Every time we come together,
that's our hope, isn't it? These doors don't keep him out,
that he will speak to our hearts and speak peace. Then said he
to Thomas, reach hither thy finger and behold thy hands. Behold
my hands. and reach hither thy hand and
thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing.'
And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God."
No indication here that Thomas had to touch the Lord. He knew
who he was and bowed before him. Jesus said unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they
that have not seen me, yet have believed. And many other signs
truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book. But these are written that you
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. The whole
Bible is written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God. If we believe that, you're a
believer. And that believing, you might
have life through his name. If you believe that Jesus Christ
is the son of God, you have life through his name. Our heavenly father, we do believe. Help thou our unbelief. Lord, we bear these sinful bodies
just like our brother Thomas did, doubting, fearful, unbelieving. Lord, we pray that you would
enter into this place and that you would speak peace to our
hearts and Lord that you would be pleased to reveal yourself
to us even as you did to Thomas and that we would find ourselves
at thy feet, crying, my Lord and my God. Lord bless your word,
forgive us of our sin. We pray for Chris and for Kevin
and for Todd. And Lord, as they make last minute
preparations, we ask that you would fill their hearts with
a message of grace that would be appropriate for the hour.
We pray that you would give us ears to hear. We pray for this
weekend, Lord, that our loved ones and our friends that may
come, that yet to know thee, we ask, Lord, that you would
be pleased to call out your lost sheep and bring them into the
fold. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Let's stand together once again.
We'll sing hymn number three from the same Spiral Hymns hymnbook. Number three. A debtor to mercy alone, of covenant
mercy I sing, nor fear with thy righteousness on my person and
offering to bring. The terrors of law and of God
with me can have nothing to do, My Savior's obedience and blood
hide all my transgressions from view. ? The work which his goodness
began ? ? The arm of his strength will complete ? ? His promises
yea and amen ? ? And never was forfeited yet ? ? Things future
nor things that are now ? ? Not all things below nor above ?
? Can make him his purpose forego ? ? Or sever my soul from his
love ? My name from the palm of his hands ? Eternity will
not erase ? Impressed on his heart it remains ? In marks of
indelible grace ? Yes, I to the end shall endure As sure as the
earnest is given, More happy, but not more secure, The glorified
Spirit's in heaven. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles together
to Acts chapter 19. Acts 19, we're going to look
at two verses. And I've titled this message, Special
Miracles, Special Miracles. In verse 11 of Acts chapter 19,
and God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul so that
from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons
and the diseases departed from them and evil spirits went out
of them. What makes these miracles special
miracles? I have four things I want us
to consider because Our hope is that the Lord will perform
special miracles for us. And if he does, these four things
will always attend his special miracles. And the first point
is that these miracles were not spontaneous or unplanned. They were purposed miracles. We serve a God of purpose and
everything he does is on purpose. The second thing we see about
these miracles is that every time the Lord does a special
miracle for his people, he employs means to that. And contrary to what most people
think, the means that he uses actually gives him more glory
than if he didn't use means. Thirdly, these special miracles,
as is true with all special miracles, were wrought or worked out by
God. And fourthly, we see what these
special miracles resulted in. What did they produce? They produced
those who were sick with diseases, and that's the sickness of our
sin, being healed. and those who were possessed
with evil spirits being delivered. So my prayer for me and for you
and for this night tonight and for this weekend and every time
we gather together is that our God would be pleased to perform
special miracles. And I'm just certain that if
he does, He'll do it the same way for
us that he did for them. We think of these miracles as
being extraordinary, unique, somewhat spontaneous, but this
word special is actually in the original language. It's actually
two words. We've translated it special in
our English version. But in the Greek text, it's the
word no and the word chance. It's two separate words, no chance. I find great hope in that. We,
as believers, don't have to worry about chance or luck or happenstance. We serve a God who is sovereign
over all the events of our lives and the lives of all men. He
reigns sovereign over the armies of heaven and over all the inhabitants
of the earth. And no man can stay his hand.
And all men are servants of God. Some of them are unwilling, rebellious
servants. The majority of them are. But
they don't know that in their unwilling rebellion that everything
they're doing is serving his purpose and his will to accomplish
his end. Others, on the other hand, are
willing servants, been made willing in the day of his power by his
grace. They have bowed to him and they
serve him willingly and they worship him lovingly and That's
where I want to be. All men are going to serve him.
All men do serve him. I want him to make me a willing
servant. And if he does, then we will come to see that nothing
he does is by chance. This is not just a happenstance or an extraordinary,
unusual event. Our God does what he does on
purpose. Listen to Isaiah chapter 14,
verse 26. This is the purpose that is purposed
upon the whole earth. And this is the hand that is
stretched out upon all the nations for the Lord of hosts hath purposed
and who shall disembowel it? His hand is stretched out and
who shall turn it back? These miracles, these special
miracles are not just, they're not just, you know, sudden, unexplainable,
inexplicable events that just happened because they were spontaneous. No, they were purposed by God. And everything our God does,
most especially in the saving of his people, Paul said, when
it pleased God, when it pleased God who separated me from my
mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal Christ in
me, it was the, it was his time of love. Don't you love that
prophet Ezekiel and he talks about, you know, the child that's
cast out into the field and the Lord says to him, live, your
time of love has come. These special miracles are always
miracles that are purposed by our God. Our God reigns. He reigns. And He does everything on purpose.
He works all things together for good for them that love Him
and those that are the called according to His purpose. Yes, these things did not happen
by chance. They are purposed in the will
of God. Everything that our God does.
And he tells us what that purpose is. We're not left to wonder
what the purpose of God is. We know what his purpose is.
He's given us that revelation. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter
one. Ephesians chapter one. And look with me at verse eight,
wherein he has abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
having made known unto us the mystery of his will. He's made
known to us what his purpose is. According to his good pleasure,
he did this, which he hath purposed in himself. So he makes known
to us the mystery of his will. That was his purpose as well,
that in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he might gather
together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven
and which are in earth, even in him. There's his purpose.
Everything our God is doing with his willing servants and with
his unwilling servants. We'll all work together to gather
his church into glory. That's when, when, when, when,
uh, Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes chapter three, that he makes
everything beautiful in his time. That's his time. And we're not
going to see it beautiful in the end, except through the eyes
of faith. We're not going to see the beauty.
of his work, but we know that he's, this is his, this is his
will. This is his purpose. This is
what our God is doing. He's gathering together his elect. Look at verse 11, in whom also
we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according
to the purpose of him who called all, who, who, who worketh all
things after the counsel of his own will. So from predestination
to glorification, he has chosen a people, he is calling them
out, he's redeemed them. That was his purpose on Calvary's
cross, to redeem his elect. His purpose now is to call out
those for whom Christ died, bring them into fellowship with him
and with his church. And then in the last day, when
he's gathered together and finished his purpose, this world will
have no more purpose. It's the only purpose this world
serves, is to provide for the gathering together of God's sheep.
That's glorious. We know his purpose. We can look
at all the events of the world. I'm not suggesting that we can
connect all the dots in the short run. I'm saying that we know
what's on the other side of the tapestry. We're looking at the
backside right now and it's a little confusing sometimes, but we know
what's on the other side. We know that there's a picture
of Christ and his church being woven together. by our God and
that one day we're going to stand on the other side of that tapestry
and we'll see it for what it is. That's his purpose. We know
that he's on the other side and we see the needles come through
and we see the different color threads and we're wondering,
you know, how this is going to fit with that. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. We know, we know
how it's all going to end. We know what his purpose is.
We know what his will is. This is what he's doing. And we can rest there. So these
special miracles that the Lord performs, they weren't by chance. They were all designed, even
as the miracles that he performs today are purposed and designed
to accomplish his purpose. Secondly, go back with me to
our text. If the Lord is going to perform
special miracles for you and me, he's gonna use means. You know, the unbeliever, show me a sign. You know, I wanna
direct contact with God. I want him to prove himself to
me. And the Lord uses means to accomplish
His purpose. Look at verse 11. And God brought special miracles
by the hands of Paul. Those who mind the things of the flesh
are always looking for fleshly things. for God to prove himself. We see the spiritual power behind
our God using common means to accomplish his purpose and how
much more glory he gets. And how proud would you be? Paul had to fight against it.
He said, you know, he was caught up into heaven. And he said,
these revelations, unless they make me think too highly of myself,
that's not exactly how he said it, the Lord's given me a thorn
in the flesh to keep me humble. How humble would you be had you
been to heaven? I mean, literally been there
and seen things you couldn't write. Or if you were like John
on the Isle of Patmos, God had to exclude him from everybody
else, lest the pride of that experience infect the whole church
and ruin him. Oh, we would be, wouldn't we? But
that's what men want. They want some sort of personal
vision and contact with God so that they can take pride in that
experience. And yet how much more glory he
gets when he uses the hands of a man, the mouth of a man. You know, I was thinking, I was
thinking today, many of y'all have been to Biltmore Estate
in Asheville and how beautiful that thing is. And I think about some of the
tools I used to use in carpentry 30, 40 years ago. And how much more advanced we
are now and how much easier things are to build now than they were
just 30, 40 years ago. When you had to use a hammer
and nail, now you got nail guns. And they were building that thing
in 1890. And then, you know, you just
go back and you think about the tools that they had and the craftsmanship
that's in these buildings. And it really, it really exalts
the builder more so, doesn't it? That they were able to accomplish
such exquisite craftsmanship with such, with such archaic
and common tools. There's a, there's a picture.
You know, the Lord gets more glory when he's, When he's speaking
to his people through a sinner, a weak, frail, empty, broken
vessel, he's, you know, this is where he, he uses, he always
uses means. He uses the means of his word.
Uh, you know, people want to say, well, you know, I want a
vision from God. I want to hear God audibly. I
want to, I want a word directed from no God. If he's going to
speak, he's going to use the means of his word to do it. That's why Paul told Timothy,
he said, you preach the word in season and out of season.
How much more of a miracle is it? How much more of a special
miracle is it when God speaks to your heart through somebody
like me than if God was to speak to you audibly from heaven? You
see, that's a, he always uses means. You know, we could, We could wish that he might carry
us into heaven, but if he does, he's going to do it spiritually.
If he gives us a vision, it'll be spiritually spiritual that,
and he's going to use men of like passions. That's what the
Bible says about the prophets. He's just men of like passion.
They're just like you. And, uh, you're going to have
to, you know, what a, what a glory. that God gets when he takes somebody
like Philip and this great eunuch of Ethiopia, the treasurer of
Candace, a man of great power and influence, of great education,
no telling how many languages he spoke, and the entourage and
the wealth of his chariot, and here comes this little prophet. Philip, understandest what thou
readest? Who do you think you are asking
me if I understand what I'm reading? Of course I understand, I've
met with God. How can I? Except a man should guide me.
Come up here and tell me. Does the prophet speak of himself
or be speaking of another? Tell me, tell me. You see, God's
more glorified that way, isn't he? Because everybody's humbled. And there's nothing more humbling
than preaching. It's humbling for you because
you don't get any, you don't get to make any contribution
to it. You have to just sit and listen. Faith comes by hearing. And the reason why God made faith
by hearing is because hearing is a passive activity. There's
no contribution made in hearing, is there? I remember back in
religion, we used to, you know, we used to have Bible studies
and everybody would get together and they'd pool their ignorance
and try to impress one another with what they knew. And, and,
uh, and nobody knew anything. And we left, and we were so proud
and so self-righteous. And you talk to religious people
today. We have people come here all
the time, and they want to impress the preacher with what they know.
And it takes about 10 seconds listening to them before I realize,
yeah, I've been exactly where you're at. And if you just sit
and listen, maybe the Lord will have mercy on you, because it's
obvious that you don't know anything. If God's going to perform a special
miracle for us, he's going to use means, and those means are
going to be very common means. He gets more glory that way.
He gets more glory that he could take a tool. that is so dull and so old and
so, you know, incapable and that he could use that to build his
house. Oh, what a God. What a God. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
3. He gets more glory when he uses
useless means. That's why, that's why in the
book of Romans, you know, call upon the name of the Lord and
you shall be set. Well, how are they going to call upon him and whom they've not
believed and how they're going to believe in him and who they've
not heard and how they're going to hear without a preacher and how they're
going to preach unless I'd be, unless they'd be sent, unless
I send them and empower them and give them a message, nobody's
going to hear anything. But here's the mean, God did
these special miracles through the hands of Paul. Hebrews chapter three, look with
me at verse one. Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers
of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of
our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him that
appointed him as also Moses was faithful in all his house. For this man was counted worthy
of more glory than Moses. And as much as he who had built
the house hath more glory than the house. You know, you, you
go up to, Monticello in Virginia and who's who gets all the glory
for it? Maybe you're talking about I
was talking about talking about Biltmore was built in 1890 I
think 120 years earlier Thomas Jefferson built Monticello you
go there and you see that you see how that place is built and
think oh What kind of tools that he had he but here's what the
Lord saying the builder gets more glory than the building.
I And the weaker and the more useless and the duller the tools
are, the more glory the builder gets. Every house is built at verse
four by some man, but he that built all things is God. And
Moses barely was faithful in all his house as a servant for
a testimony of those things which were spoken which were to be
spoken after, but Christ as a son over his own house, whose house
are we, if we hold fast and confidence, the rejoicing of our hope firm
to the end. Oh, he's the one that gets the
glory. He's the one that calls us out of darkness into his marvelous
light. He's the one who struck hands
with his heavenly father to become the surety of his people in the
covenant of grace before the world began. He's the one that
laid his life down for his sheep, shed his precious blood, became
the object of God's holy wrath and divine justice in order to
put away our sins. Here's his, he's the one that
gets the glory and that he would take such a glorious thing as
this and such a glorious thing of the gospel and put it into
the hands of men like you and me. But he does, he does. Every time that he performs special
miracles, he does it on purpose and he does it through means. The builder, the builder gets
all the glory. These, he uses scriptures and he used means to give us
scripture. Holy men of God, that just means
men that God set apart. It doesn't mean that they were
extraordinarily holier than other men. It means that God singled
them out and spoke to them and gave them his word. And then
they wrote it down. They wrote as they were moved
by the Holy Ghost. And now the same Holy Spirit
inspires us to understand and believe what those men wrote. He calls out men and tells them
to study. He uses the means of study. Study
to show thyselves approved, a workman that needeth not be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth. Now the dispensationalists
love that verse because they think, well, you know, that means
that this particular passage or this particular section of
scripture relates to this dispensation of time. And this piece of scripture
relates to this dispensation of time. And they cut the Bible
all up and make the majority of it irrelevant to current time. That's what they think that word
means, that verse means. Studying to show yourself approved,
rightly dividing the word of truth is finding Christ in every
passage. That's what rightly dividing
the word of truth is. It's finding Christ in every
passage and making the gospel alive. The Lord uses the foolishness
of preaching. I had a man tell me just recently,
he said, God doesn't need the church. He doesn't need you. He doesn't need the Bible. God
wants to speak to me. He can just speak directly to
me. You see the, I mean, that's so clearly just self-righteous
and proud, isn't it? I told him, I said, no, God doesn't
need anything, but you do. You need those means in order
that you might be humbled. Because if God gave you what
you want, you'd be more proud than you are now. And you need the simple common
means of a man preaching the gospel from the Bible in order
for God to do a special miracle for you. God wrought special
miracles by the hands of Paul. Now, obviously, some of the reference
there is the apostolic gifts that the Lord gave to the Apostle
Paul and gave to the other apostles, which are no longer in use today.
You know, this side, well, we don't even need to talk about
these foolish charlatans on TV that want to take a handkerchief
and bless it and think they can heal somebody with it. This is
a special when God gave to the apostles gifts. Let me show you
that. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
2. Hebrews chapter 2. The Lord is authenticating in
the early days of the church these men as his spokesmen and
We don't need it now because we have the word of God. We have
what these men said and what they wrote. Look at Hebrews chapter
two, beginning of verse three. will so yes the Apostle Paul
and Peter and James and John and they had special gifts that
they were given to to perform these special miracles but there
still means you know napkins and I'll show you one more passage
turn me to 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 Just in case there's any question
about these apostolic gifts, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, look
with me at verse 11. Paul, you know, the church at
Corinth was questioning the apostolic authority of the apostle Paul.
And they had those doubts because some men had come in and called
Paul into question. And now he's writing to them
in verse 11 of chapter 12. And he says, I've become a fool
and glory. But you have compelled me for
I ought to have been commended of you. For in nothing am I behind
in the very chiefest of the apostles, though I be nothing. You're questioning
whether or not an apostle, but I'm not behind the apostles in
anything, though I be nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle
were wrought among you in all patience in signs and wonders
and mighty deeds. He's reminding them when I was
with you, you saw the things that God did through me, which
authenticated me as an apostle. These were apostolic gifts. They
were given to these men. And we don't look for these things
now. Oh, we're looking for special miracles. We're looking for God
to fulfill his purpose in the preaching of the gospel through
a man by his word. And there'd be nothing proud about
that man. You know, I mentioned earlier that preaching is very
humbling to you because you don't have any contribution to make.
Trust me if you've never tried it. It is the most humbling to
the man that's got to get up here and speak. It is. And anybody that can be proud
about preaching, God's not called him to preach. If he's not preaching
in fear and trembling and pleading with the Lord and doubting himself,
I doubt very seriously that God's got anything called him. I've
got hanging on my wall in my office the jawbone of an ass. You remember that's what Samson
used to slay a thousand Philistines, the jawbone of an ass. Yeah,
I've got it hanging on my wall in my office just to remind me
that that's what I am. Just the jawbone of an ass. And the voice of one crying in
the wilderness. One who says like John, I must
decrease and he must increase. Yet God, here again, we find
the Lord using means, don't we? He uses, you know, I don't mind
being an ass if I'm God's ass, you know, that's what God's preachers
are, they just. We see God using means even in
the cross. The Lord could have laid down
his life many other ways, and yet he chose to use the most
public humiliating and most agonizing means of death that man has ever
devised in order to demonstrate his glory and show the wickedness
of our sin and the righteousness of God. Calvary's cross, and
there's no salvation apart from that. The Lord performs his special
miracles through means, and that's not just true spiritually, that's
true naturally as well. You know, we, the Lord often
heals through medicine and doctors, doesn't he? We don't, we don't
are not so presumptuous to think that God's going to heal us without
the means of medical attention. He can, but for him to use those
means is the way he heals people. This same man I spoke to recently
said, well, I don't need to be a part of the church. I said,
well, yeah, you do too. God uses the fellowship of believers
as iron sharpeneth iron, as different members of the body fit together
to make up one body. He uses the church. This is the
means that he uses. The Lord could feed us all manna
from heaven and cause our clothes not to wear out, just like he
did the children of Israel in the wilderness, but he doesn't
do that, does he? If a man, we talked about this
yesterday, Claire, if a man doesn't work, he ought not to eat. That's
a pretty simple welfare system. And if a man doesn't provide
for his own family, he's worse than an infidel. God uses the
means of responsible work in order to provide the material
things that we need in this life. Our God is a God of means. I want the Lord to do special
miracles for us. Look at verse 12. in our text
in Acts chapter 19. Verse 11, God brought them. God
brought them. The work was finished from the
foundation of the world. In the mind and heart and purpose
of God, in the covenant of grace, everything that God purposed,
everything that's happening in time has already happened in
eternity. But the Lord's using the means
of time in order to fulfill that purpose. And so we see that whatever
is worked out, God's rotting it. He's working it out. He's
the one who rots our hearts open and makes us willing in the day
of his power. He's the one who opened the heart
of Lydia. and gave her eyes to see and
a heart to believe. And he's still rotting the same
work. God rots these miracles. It's not by him that willeth
or of him that runneth. It's not up to the preacher.
It's not up to you. The miracle of salvation is going
to have to be wrought by God, isn't it? We pray for and talk
to our friends and family members and our children and grandchildren.
And we hope and then we know, Lord, you're going to have to
do it. Our Lord said, I must work the
works of him that sent me. The works which the father gave
me to do, I must do. And then, in that glorious days,
he hung on Calvary's cross and bowed his mighty head in the
blackness of that hour. From the sixth to the ninth hour,
the sun was blackened. It was no There was no eclipse. It was not a cloudy day. No,
it was the blackest of night. The shroud of God's justice was
covering the whole earth. And our Lord, the centurion,
the scripture says, he feared greatly. The Bible says the centurion
feared greatly and said, surely this is the Son of God. And the
earth quaked. And our Lord hung his mighty
head and said, it's finished. It's finished. I've wrought the
work. I finished everything that God requires. And he's still
wroughting the work for his people, isn't he? Look, and God wrought
special miracles by the hands of Paul so that, look at verse
12, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs
or aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits
went out of them. There's the special miracle The
sick were healed from their diseases and the evil spirits went out
of those that were possessed by them. I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. The whole need not a physician,
them that are sick. And he wrought that work for
the Bible says, by his stripes, we are healed. We are healed. turn back with me to our passage
we were looking at Sunday in Judges chapter 4. Judges chapter
4. Barak, who is also mentioned
in the Hall of Fame in Hebrews chapter 11, Barak is mentioned
in that, and Deborah's not. But Barak, you remember, he's
chasing Sisera, a picture of sin, and he's not able to catch
him. And a woman by the name of Jael,
who is a picture of the church, tells Sisera to come in and gives
him milk, and he goes to sleep, and she takes a spike, a tent
peg, hammer and drives it through his temple into the dirt and
pins him to the floor and Look at verse 22 and so he died in verse 21 the death of
sin and Through the preaching of the
gospel and the milk of God's word, Cicero is put to death. We see sin dying in our Savior
on Calvary's cross and we're brought daily as we As we are
brought under the sound of the gospel, we're brought daily to
die to ourselves and be made alive in Christ. And I didn't
read this verse Sunday, but I wanted us to look at it. Verse 22. And
behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and
said unto him, come and I will show thee the man whom thou seekest. And when he came into the tent,
behold, Sisera lay dead and the nail. was in his temples. Come
in and I'll show you the man that you're seeking. And he found
him dead. Not what we're due. Come in. You're looking for this man of
sin. He's been nailed to the cross. He's been put away. He's been buried in the depths
of the sea. He's been separated from you as far as the east is
from the west. God remembers him no more. He's been put to
death. Here's our enemy. Our enemy is our sin. And our
Lord's telling us through the preaching of the gospel that
that sin has been nailed to the cross and been put away once
and for all by the sacrifice of Christ. All the sick and the
imprisoned were healed and set free. There we are. We're sick
with sin and imprisoned with sin and our Lord saying, it's
a special miracle. This is the result of the special
miracle. Wrought by God through the common hands of a man. Purposed by God to deliver his
people. Oh, come ye sinners, come ye
sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus stands ready to save you,
full of pity, full of pity, love, and power. That's so true. I pray the Lord will continue
to perform special miracles for us. as he has for all his people
of every generation. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, bless your word. Wrought a work of grace in our
hearts. We might see sin for what it
is and where it is. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. 36, number 36 in their spiral, and
let's stand together.