Turn with me, if you would, to
Matthew chapter 14. Our text will be verses 13 and 14. But let's begin reading in verse
1 and we'll read down to it. At that time Herod the tea-truck,
or the governor, heard of the fame of Jesus and said unto his
servants, This is John the Baptist. He is risen from the dead, and
therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him. For
Herod had laid hold on John, and bound him, and put him in
prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife. For John
said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her. And when
he would have put him to death, he feared the multitude, because
they counted John as a prophet. But when Herod's birthday was
kept, The daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased
Herod, whereupon he promised with an oath to give her whatsoever
she would ask. And she, being before instructed
of her mother, said, Give me here John Baptist's head in a
charger. And the king was sorry. Nevertheless,
for the oath's sake, and them which sat with him at meat, he
commanded it to be given her. And he sent and beheaded John
in the prison. And his head was brought in a
charger and given to the damsel, and she took it to her mother.
And his disciples came and took up the body and buried it and
went and told Jesus. When Jesus heard of it, He departed
thence by ship into a desert place apart. And when the people
had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities.
And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved
with compassion toward them. And he healed their sick." Herod
beheaded John the Baptist. And when John's disciples heard
that that's what had happened to their dear brother, they went and asked if they could
have his body, and they took it and buried it. And then they
went and told the Lord everything that had happened. And when our
Lord heard their report, He got into a ship, And he went to a
desert place apart and a great multitude of people,
when they saw him do that, they followed him on foot around this
body of water and met him on the other side. And he healed
every single one of them that was sick. Verse 13 says, When
Jesus heard of it, He departed thence by ship into a desert
place apart. And when the people had heard
thereof, they followed Him on foot out of the cities. And Jesus
went forth and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion
toward them, and He healed their sick. Now what initially struck
me in reading this was how calmly our Lord responded to their news. I've been reading on this for
a while. And immediately, and it has struck me every single
time I've read it, just how calmly our Lord responded to their news.
John's disciples came and told him the horror of what had just happened. And
our Lord very calmly left that place and went on about his good
business. He went to another place and
healed everybody who was sick. That's how he responded. went
over to another place and started healing the sick. Now, the reason
our Lord responded so calmly to their news is because it wasn't news to Him. That's the reason why. It was
not news to Him. It was news to them You know
how it is, you hear something and it's like, what? And then
immediately you start telling everybody you know and all of
John's disciples, what? It was news to them, but it wasn't
news to him. Our Lord himself is the very
one who predetermined for that to be done to John. Our Lord is the one who allowed
it. Nothing is done without His permission. When the adversary, Satan, wanted
to touch Job, he had to appear before the Lord and get permission
first. He said, you've hedged him about.
You know I can't touch him. People say, well, Satan's got
me this and got me that. Well, there's somebody in charge
of him. Our Lord is the one who allows
things. Our Lord is the one who orders
things. Our Lord is the one who sovereignly
reigns and rules over all things, even this. Do we know that? In Deuteronomy 32, he said, I kill. I wound. Job 14 says, man's days are determined. The number of his months are
with the Lord. There's gonna come a point for
every single person where the Lord says, that's it. It says, man's days are determined. The number of his months are
with the Lord. God has appointed his bounds
and man cannot pass those bounds. Cannot, just cannot. Romans 8 says, whom the Lord
God foreknew. And that means chose, elected. He did predestinate the life
of that man or woman. Think about that. Predestinated. Predestinated. People talk about
their destiny. It was destiny, you know. Yeah,
that's right. predestinated. He appointed everything
about that person's life, the time to be born, the time to
die, every time in between that. Hebrews 9 says, it is appointed
unto man once to die. It is appointed. It's appointed
unto man wants to die. I was speaking, I mentioned just
a moment ago, our brother, Dee Parks, and I was talking to him
on the phone and he was such an encouragement to me because
he has been given a number. We all have a number, we just
don't know it. And his may not be accurate. But he's been told a number.
And I was talking to him and trying to be an encouragement
to him and he said, well, here's the thing about it. He said,
I had an appointed day before I was ever even born. I had an
appointed day before they ever told me this. This doesn't change
my appointed day. I thought, what an encouragement.
I wish I could look at it like that. It's appointed. By who? By God. God is God. God is the one who appoints things
and orders things. and allows them to come to pass.
God is God. It's appointed unto man once
to die, all men, most importantly, the God-man. Most importantly,
we can talk about any man or any woman, but most importantly,
the God-man, Christ Himself, even His death. He had a number of days on this
earth. The number of His months were
with the Lord. Even His death was appointed by God Almighty,
Father, Spirit, Son Himself. When He would die, how He would
die. Didn't He tell the disciples
over and over again, this is what's going to happen. They
didn't believe Him. They didn't get it. He'd say,
we're going to go into Jerusalem. They're going to crucify me.
They're going to bury me. I'm going to rise on the third
day. He told them. These things were not done in
a corner. When the Holy Spirit came, Peter said, He told us
all that. Wait a minute. He did order all
this. John 10, he said, I lay down
my life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from
me. I lay it down of myself. Now
God Almighty chose to use the means of some Jews and some Roman
soldiers and a Roman cross. But everything that they did
was predetermined for them to do it. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
was no surprise to God. That's what I want us to get
a hold of. It was no surprise to God. Our
Lord's reaction to John's death ought to show us something very
comforting. Very comforting concerning Christ's
death. You know, they came and begged
the body of our Lord. Didn't they? And they buried
Him. Same way, they put Him in a tomb. That was not news to God. That was the decease that the
Father sent Him to accomplish. That was the work that was given
to Him that the Father declared, He's not going to fail in it. That was Christ's business. He said, don't you know, I must
be about my father's business. That was his business. He said,
for this cause came I into the world. And what I want to do is I want
to take just a minute here. And I want us to look at that
cause, okay? Just whatever time that we have
for the rest of this message. I want our Lord's reaction to
John's death to be a reminder of the cause of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I've titled this message, The
Gospel in One Verse. That's the title of this message,
The Gospel in One Verse. And here it is. Look with me
at verse 14, Matthew 14, verse 14, it says, And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion
toward them. And he healed their sick. That's
the gospel right there. That's the gospel. That's salvation. That's what Christ accomplished
in His death, His appointed death. That was His cause. Jesus went
forth and saw a great multitude and
was moved with compassion toward them. And He healed their sick. That's what Christ did for His
people. That is the declaration of Christ. Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. That was His call. Now let's
just focus on each line here. Verse 14 says, And Jesus went
forth. This all started with Him. This all started with Him. Salvation,
His healing of our sickness. That all started with Him. A
lot of people don't realize that. And our prayer is that the Lord
would reveal that to many, many people. Pray the Lord would reveal
that to many people. Many people believe that salvation
starts with us. It doesn't. It started with God. God did this. God did this. Salvation is of the Lord. is
totally of the Lord. Man is always wondering, what
must I do to be saved? What must I... I want to go to
heaven and I want to spend eternity with Christ. What do I need to
do to get the ball rolling? Man doesn't do anything to get
the ball rolling. God does this. God does this. Salvation is of the Lord. If
any man glory, let him glory in the Lord. Because in the beginning,
God. That's how it starts. That's
how salvation starts. In the beginning, God. That's
how salvation happens. God does it. God did it. In the
beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word
was God and the Word was made flesh and came to us. Came and
dwelt among us. Why? Why did God become flesh
and dwell among us? The first chapter in this book
told us why. Matthew chapter 1. Look with
me over there if you would. Matthew chapter 1. Matthew 1 verse 18 says, Now
the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. Did He start right
here? No, this is in the beginning
was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, and the
Word was made flesh, a body prepared for Him. The birth of Jesus Christ
was on this wise. when as Mary his mother was espoused
to Joseph, they were engaged, before they came together, she
was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, being her
husband or espoused husband, being a just man and not willing
to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on these
things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in
a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take
unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her
is of the Holy Ghost. Verse 21 says, And she shall
bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. That's why he came to us. He
came to save His people from their sins, even though their
sins were so many. My sins are so many, I couldn't
even begin not only to describe them to you, but to imagine them.
I couldn't begin. I am a sinner saved by grace. Our sins are so many, but this
is what the angel declared. He said, And what that means is, by himself, not he and, he alone. And I love this next
word. I just, I really do. I thank
the Lord for this next word. Shall. Now, he's trying now. I'm telling
you, he's trying. He really is. And if y'all would
just stop messing things up for him, And if everything works out right
and our adversary doesn't have his way, this is my favorite thing to
hear, my favorite thing to tell. He shall save. Save. Cleanse. Heal. Redeem. Justify. Wash. His people. Did Christ come for everybody? Did He come to do this for everybody? I'll tell you this, and this
is just the honest truth. If He did, He's a failure. I hate to even say that, because
He's not a failure. He shall not fail, and He didn't.
But if He came to do this for everybody, He is a failure. And
here's the reason why. Everybody's not saved. Everybody's
not saved. There are men and women in hell
right now as we speak. The Scripture declares that to
us. Heartbreaking. Please let it not be us. You're
God, we're not, and this is in your hands. We're begging for
mercy. It's heartbreaking. But here's the fact of the matter.
If Christ came to save everybody, then He did not accomplish what
He came to do. And we cannot put our trust in
Him. And we cannot put our hope in Him. We cannot trust His Word. What He did may or may not save
us. Who knows? We just have to wait
and find out. Who knows? Thank God. Here's the truth of the matter.
Not one drop of His precious blood failed. Don't you love knowing that?
Not one drop of His precious, precious, priceless blood was
wasted. God poured priceless blood on
filthy, rotten, empty, vile, worthless sinners like me and
you. and not one drop was wasted. Every single drop accomplished
the purpose it was poured out for. Every particular soul that
that blood was meant for and sacrificed for and shed for and
poured out on, every single soul in that blood was saved. Verse 21 says, call His name
Jesus, for He shall save His people, His particular people,
from their sins. That's why He came. That's what
He did. And that's what our text illustrates
to us this morning. Go back, if you would, to Matthew
11, I'm sorry, Matthew 14. Matthew 14. Verse 14 says, "...and Jesus went forth." God
did this. The Lord Jesus Christ did this.
Of His own will, begat He us with the word of truth that we
should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. That's what
James 1.18 says. Of His own will, He did this.
Verse 14 says, "...and Jesus went forth." and saw a great
multitude. He wasn't looking at every single
soul on earth. He was looking at a particular
group of people. And thank God it was a great
multitude. Thank God. Concerning God's true
elect people, the scripture says, it is a number that cannot be
numbered. I love knowing that for two reasons. Number one, I love being around
as many believers as I can possibly be around. But the other reason
is that gives me hope. There's room for me to be one
of them. If it's a number no man can number, that's a lot
of people. And maybe it includes me. A great multitude. Verse 14 says,
and Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved
with compassion toward them." Why did Christ die for His people?
He died for His people because He was moved with compassion
toward them. He died for them because He loved
them and gave Himself for them. Having loved His own, He loved
them to the end. While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us because He commended His love to us. Greater love
had no man. Herein was love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the
bloody victim. Sacrificed covering for our sins. That's the reason why He saved
us. That's the reason why he died for us. Oh, the love that
drew salvation's blueprint. Verse 14 says, and Jesus went
forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion
toward them and he healed their sick. That's what Christ accomplished
in his death. The great physician, healed His
sick people. Sick with sin. Just so sick with
sin. When God the Son cried, it is
finished. They are perfected. They are
redeemed. God the Father cried, I am satisfied. I am satisfied with their redemption. I accept their redemption. And God the Spirit cried, I'll
go deliver the news. Live, that's what he says, live. You who are dead in sins, live,
you're healed, you're well. There is remission. There's remission. You've been quickened, you've
been revived, made upright again by the operation of the Son of
God. All because of his work you can
now live and move and have your being. That's the declaration.
That's what Christ accomplished in his appointed death for his
people. He himself bore our sins in his
own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live
unto righteousness. By whose stripes we are healed. By whose stripes. We're healed. That means because of what Christ
did and everything he endured and everything he accomplished,
the sin is gone. That's what it means. It's gone. Turn with me to one, I'm closing,
I'm done, but go with me to one of my favorite verses of scripture.
I just, you probably know where I'm going. Jeremiah 50. I love
this. Jeremiah 50. Can't tell you how much I love
this. Jeremiah 50. Verse 20, Jeremiah
50, verse 20, it says, In those days, that's the days
to come, the days of glory, the judgment before God. In those
days and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall
be sought for and there shall be none. and the sins of Judah, they shall not be found, for
I will pardon them whom I reserve." That's the gospel. Oh, what wonderful
news. Whenever I first started preaching, Brother Henry Mahan, the third
time I ever preached, he was sitting there and it just killed
me. If there was one person I didn't want to preach to, it was him.
Found out he is the, he loved the gospel like everybody else.
And I don't know if I did any good at preaching it, but he
was supportive. But nonetheless, he would tell me, he would help
me. And I would bring a message and he would say, that was great,
but you need to illustrate You need to tell them our Lord preached
in illustrations. He preached in parables. You
need to illustrate. So I'd say, okay, so I do it again. And he
says, so good, you know, but illustrate, you need to illustrate.
I'd do it again, and he'd say, nothing like an illustration.
I don't really, you know. And I finally told him, I don't
have any. I'd love to. I'd love to just
have illustrations upon illustrations. I just don't have any. So he
kindly came up to me the next week and handed me an envelope.
He said, here, these are mine. Just use mine. I just wrote down
mine. That's why I tell all of Henry's illustrations. That's
how it started. I didn't have any. But he gave
me all of his. Well, this is one of the ones
he gave me. In 1948, he was 21 years old,
and he was up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He's from Alabama,
but he was in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and had a friend riding with
him in the car, and he wasn't paying attention, and he ran
a stop sign. And he hit another car. And a
young lady was driving that car, and it did a lot of damage, especially
to her car. And to her, she had a cut on
her forehead, and she was kind of banged up a little bit. Police
officer came and wrote Henry a ticket and said, you're going
to have to appear in court. And he's 21 years old, and he
said, I didn't have a lot of experience in courtroom activity. So he called his dad in Alabama
to see if he would go to court with him. So his dad came up,
and they sat in the courtroom, and they sat there full of people. And, you know, the judge would
call a case, and the defendant would stand up, and they'd go
through the whatever, and call another case, and somebody else
would stand up. And they sat there and waited,
and one by one, they'd call these cases, and people were standing
up, and sentences were going out, and all that. And finally,
Henry and his dad were the last two people sitting in the room.
There was a judge, an officer, and Henry and his dad. And the
judge looks at them, and he's thumbing through his papers,
and he looks at them, and looks at that officer, and he's thumbing
through his papers, and he finally looked at Henry, and he said,
what are you charged with, son? And Henry stood up and he told
him, I ran a stop sign, I hit a lady in a car, and this is
what happened to her. And the police officer told me
I needed to be here. So the judge was looking through
all of his paperwork and he looked at the officer over here and
he said, what is he charged with? And the officer looked through
all of his papers and he said, I don't have any record of wrongdoing. And the judge said, no record
of wrongdoing. He said, I don't have one. And
the judge looked through his papers one more time and looked
at the officer one more time and looked at Henry and said,
you're free to go, son. There's no record of wrongdoing. And you're free to go. The law
has nothing on you. I cannot do anything to you. There's nothing against you.
Free from the law, oh happy condition. He admitted it, I'm a sinner.
I ran a stop sign, I hit a woman, I did it. Free from the law,
oh happy condition. Why? The Lord Jesus Christ bled
and there is remission. Cursed by the law, bruised by
the fall, but Christ redeemed me. Once for all, that's the
gospel. That's the gospel. Thank God
for the gospel. Thank God for Christ. All right.