We'll be reading the 9th Psalm
in its entirety for our Scripture reading this morning. I will
praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart. I will show forth
all Thy marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in
Thee. I will sing praise to Thy name,
O Thou Most High. When mine enemies are turned
back, they shall fall and perish at Thy presence. For thou hast
maintained my right and my cause. Thou saddest in the throne, judging
right. Thou hast rebuked the heathen.
Thou hast destroyed the wicked. Thou hast put out their name
forever and ever. O thou enemy, destructions are
come to a perpetual end, and thou hast destroyed cities. Their
memorial is perished with them, but the Lord shall endure forever. He hath prepared His throne for
judgment, and He shall judge the world in righteousness. He
shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. The Lord
also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times
of trouble. And they that know thy name will
put their trust in thee. For thou, Lord, hast not forsaken
them that seek thee. Sing praises to the Lord which
dwelleth in Zion. Declare among the people his
doings. When he maketh inquisition for
blood, he remembereth them. He forgetteth not the cry of
the humble. Have mercy upon me, O Lord. Consider my trouble which I suffer
of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates
of death, that I may shew forth all thy praise in the gates of
the daughter of Zion. I will rejoice in thy salvation. The heathen are sunk down in
the pit that they made. In the net which they hid is
their own foot taken. The Lord is known by the judgments
which He executed. The wicked is snared in the work
of His own hands. Hegion, Selah. The wicked shall
be turned into hell in all the nations that forget God, for
the needy shall not always be forgotten. The expectation of
the poor shall not perish forever. Arise, O Lord. Let not man prevail. Let the
heathen be judged in thy sight. Put them in fear, O Lord, that
the nations may know themselves to be but men. We're going to pick it up once
again in the book of Luke. We took a little break from our
studies, our series of messages from Luke. We're going to pick
that up once again in Luke chapter 7. Kingsport, Tennessee. is about, I'm going to say pretty
close, maybe not quite as many seats as we have, but pretty
close. Probably a little bit over. And they're full. God is
doing a work in Kingsport, Tennessee right now, as he had done here
in this very church one time before. You know, the Lord raises
up churches here, churches there, wherever his people are, the
Lord comes to them. Just like the lady in the well.
You remember the story of the lady in the well? What did the
Lord do? The Lord came to her, where she would be. The Lord
came to rescue where John Reeves would be sitting over here in
the pew next to his brother and his wife. The Lord comes to his
people. And right now, there's a lot
of people in Kingsport, Tennessee. Pray for them. Pray for Pastor
Gabe Stoner. He's got five men that can bring
messages in his church. Three of them with little children. And maybe, just maybe, God is
raising somebody up. Pray for Gabe, will you? Think
about him. If the Lord brings it to your
heart, that God may be using him to train young men who may
someday go out into the world and preach his gospel. There
are so, so few of us out here. You think, well, wait a minute,
John. There's churches on every corner here. There are more churches
by 10 in Tennessee than there are here in California. There's
one on every corner, in many corners. But few preach the truth. Broad is the road to destruction. Narrow. Do you know what the
word remnant means? You've seen the word remnant
in scriptures. God refers to the remnant according to election.
Remnant is that little piece of cloth above the hemline. You got a hem down here, you
got a little piece that tucks in underneath here, that's a
remnant. That little piece that's tucked
in underneath a man's robe. That very small little section
of, that's all it is. I was filled, I was filled with
gospel preaching. I'm inspired this morning by
Bruce Crabtree's message on Friday night of last week. If you have
sermon audio, folks, go listen to all of them. Go listen to
all of the messages, but listen to Bruce Crabtree. He just jumped
off the pages because we're actually here. He referred to our text. But he actually brought his message
from another text. And I think if you go and listen
to it, it'll enhance what you may hear from me today. He's
a much better preacher for one. But I want to pick up here in
the book of Luke. Would you turn to chapter 7 with me and look
at verses 36-38. I had read these verses all the
way through to the end of the chapter and had been praying.
I had been praying about what I would bring. what the Lord
would lead me to bring from this. And after hearing Bruce preach
on this subject, the subject of his feet, I couldn't think
of a better place for you and I to go to, but right here. Verse
36 of chapter 7, And one of the Pharisees desired him, the Lord
Jesus, that he would eat with him. So the Pharisee would like,
he desired that the Lord would come over and eat a meal with
him. And he, the Lord Jesus, went into the Pharisee's house
and sat down to meet. And behold, behold, take a hold
of, grasp. There's a whole room full of
people. There's an entire room full of
people that have come to eat this meal with this Pharisee,
yet one woman, behold her, a woman in the city which was a sinner. Now there's no other description
of what this woman, who she was, what her name was, and there
are many commentators who would love to sit around and debate
that she may be this one or she may be that. But our text doesn't
tell us, does it? So we're going to go on the one
thing, the one thing our text does tell us, it says she's a
sinner. I already relate. Do you? I can already understand a little
bit about this woman. There's a certain woman. Behold!
Grab a hold of this thought of this one woman who was a sinner
when she knew. Now, let's stop there a moment
again. She knew something, didn't she? She wasn't guessing. Well, maybe the Lord's over here. She knew. When she knew. It wasn't
before. It wasn't before the time that
she might have heard about Jesus being somewhere. It was when
she knew where He was. Let me ask you something. Do you know where the Lord is
today? What does He say in His Word?
He says, where two or three are gathered in My name, there am
I. We have more than enough. And
we're gathered here today in this building that God has provided
us In His name. We're not here in our name. We're not here to hear about
what we have done. We're not here to see who will
make a decision. We're not here to see who's going
to get in the baptismal. We're here to meet for Him. We're
here to sing about Him. We're here to worship. Worship
the one who deserves all worship. When she knew that Jesus sat
at meat in the Pharisees' house, she brought an alabaster box
of ointment. Now, many have said that alabaster
is an ointment, it's a fragrant perfume. It was one of those
ointments used in that day for burying bodies, for people would
wear, you know, they didn't shower much in those days, so they would
wear ointments, oils, And I understand from what many have said that
this box of alabaster would have been a year's salary to somebody
of that day, a man, maybe two to a woman. So this alabaster
box was very, very, very expensive. Verse 38, and she, she stood,
it says, and stood, speaking of her, at his feet, behind,
weeping. And began to wash his feet with
tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed
his feet, and anointed them with the oil. I want to talk to you
a little bit this morning about his feet. Where was Moses when
Moses was in the presence of God? Do you remember? He was
up on Mount Sinai. He'd gone up to see for himself
this burning bush, this picture of the fire of God that never
extinguishes. It consumed the whole bush without
burning it up. And he had heard about it. He
said, I've got to go see this for myself. So he went up to the
the mountain. What did he do? He got down with
his face in the dirt. You cannot be in the presence
of God knowing who he is in truth without putting your face as
low as you can get it. Now that doesn't mean you need
to get off your chairs and sit down and put your face down in
the dirt. I'm talking about a heart thing. talking about the spiritual
thing. What am I before God? What am
I before God? I'm nothing. I'm a worm. I'm
an undeserving worm at that. I'm one who has shaked my fist
at God and said, I will not have that one to rule over me. And
every single one for whom He died on that cross is the same
way. You say, oh no, I've loved the
Lord since I was born. I doubt that. God says that we're
saved through the preaching of His Word. Not the preaching of
somebody's word, but the preaching of His Word, the truth. We're saved through the preaching
of His Word, which is the truth. She was found at the feet of
Jesus, weeping, washing His feet. Oh, how precious to see the feet
of our Savior. Oh, how precious to see all that
is needful right there in those feet. Look over at Luke chapter 10.
Turn over to the 10th chapter of Luke. Over in chapter 10 of
Luke, we read beginning at verse 38, Now it came to pass as they
went that he entered into a certain village. And a certain woman
named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister
called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet and did what? What are you doing this morning?
People want to get together for Bible studies and have discussions,
opinion parties. A lot of folks come here for
our Bible study, and we lead a study through His Word by the
pastor. We have a discussion time afterwards,
but for the most part, our study is looking into God's Word, hearing
what a preacher has studied to bring out. And they think, well,
where's the opinion party? Where's my opinion? Isn't my
opinion worth something? Folks, let me tell you something. My opinion doesn't mean squat. God help you if you listen to
my opinion. And your opinion doesn't mean
squat either. This is the only thing that means
anything in today's world. The word about Him, who He is,
God Almighty in the flesh, the Creator of everything that is,
the One who put us in our mother's womb. That's what this is about.
That's whose opinion matters. This woman, she had a sister
called Mary, which sat at Jesus' feet and heard His Word. Let's go on, shall we? But Martha,
in verse 40, was cumbered. Martha was burdened. She had
all these folks who were following Christ around. They came in with
Him. She was cumbered about much serving, and she came to him
and she said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath
left me to serve alone? Burt bid her, therefore, that
she help me. Doesn't that seem like a reasonable
thing? If I don't get any help in that
tree, you know what? It's going to get done. I'm just
going to have to take longer to do it. I'm thankful that you've
offered help. I don't mean to say that you're
not, but if for some reason there wasn't anybody who offered their
help, I would still get it done, but would it be right for me
to go and complain to the Lord that, Lord, it's all my stuff
out here? No. The Lord bid her therefore that she help me. Not
an unreasonable request at all. And Jesus answered and said unto
her, listen to this answer. Listen to this answer, Martha,
Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, rightful
things, things that she had to get done, things that she had
to take care of. But one thing is needful. Folks, you can go about doing
whatever you want to in this world, go to your job, do what
you gotta do, take care of your kids, raise your family. Whatever
it is you've got to do, you can go do it. But there's only one
thing that we all need. But one thing is needful. And
Mary hath chosen that good heart which shall not be taken away
from her. Back in our text, this poor sinning
woman, this poor sinner, this woman, she wept for the sorrow
of what she was. Folks, if you don't weep for
your sin, then God has not revealed to you what you are. That's important. That's very important. How are
you going to call on a Savior? How are you going to call on
the Lord to come heal you if you don't need to be healed?
How are you going to call on the Lord to save you if you're
doing what you need to do to be saved? This poor woman, she
wept. She wept with the tears of who
she is before God. She wept with the sorrow of what
she was, but she also wept with the joy of whose feet she sat
before. I cried with the joy of my great-grandchild
being born. I don't care, you can call me
a sissy. I don't care. Joy brings tears to my heart
when I see God doing a work in somebody's heart. When the Lord
opened her eyes to the truth, Jean and I, two grown men, cried
our hearts out, thank you Lord! What a joy! She wept because
she was at the feet of the King. The king of all kings, the one
who rules everything, the one who is sovereign. The one who
makes the flowers come up and then wilt away. The one who brings
the rain, like yesterday. We got a little bit of rain here
yesterday, that was great. But within minutes, everything
had dried up except for the dirt. She had tears of joy that she
was in the presence of the king. The one who had revealed himself
to her. Is there joy in your heart? Because
we're talking about our king. The feet of our king. You know,
he's not the king to everybody. He is the king to everybody,
but not everybody knows him as king. You and I didn't know him
as king at one point either. Aren't you thankful? Aren't you
joyful? Our God loves to be merciful. She wept with joy of whose feet
that she sat before. She sat before the feet of the
King, Sovereign, Creator, Majesty of everything. Yet those feet
were dirty. They needed to be washed. They
were dirty. Dirty from what? You know, he
was God. He could have walked if he had
wanted to and not a speck of dust ever touch his feet. That's
the power that belonged to the Lord Jesus Christ. He could have. He was doing all other kinds
of miracles, wasn't he? Wasn't he healing the lepers?
Making them clean? Was He not bringing the blind
to see? Those who had been blind since
birth? Was He not sitting on a mountain, feeding 5,000 people? His feet were dirty with the
work of salvation. The very work that God the Father
had sent God the Son to do, and that was to save His people.
To be made of the flesh. that he would walk righteously
in the dirt, in the dirt of the earth, our dirt. Everything dies, you know why?
Because men sinned against God. The earth is cursed, why? Because
men had sinned against God. God Almighty humbled himself
and walked in our dirt. And she saw the magnificent,
wonderful feet of her Savior. And how dirty they were from
walking for her. Do you see the dirt on our Savior's
feet because of us? If you do, it magnifies His grace
in coming here and walking in our dirt forever. What a gracious
God! What a wonderful God! She saw
the dirt on His feet in the work of Him being our priest. What
does a priest do? He takes the blood. He takes
the blood and presents it in the holiest of holies for the
sins of His people. Isn't that what a priest does?
Our Lord took His blood and presented it. to the mercy seat and the
holiest of holies for his people. She saw the works of her priest
sitting there before her with the feet. Imagine how many sacrifices
were done with all those thousands of Israelites. There is blood
everywhere, folks. Blood everywhere. Imagine the
dirty feet. of our Savior as our High Priest. She saw the dirty work, the dirty
feet caused by the work of our Deliverer. He who would deliver
us from our sins. He who had to be made sin that
we would be made righteous in Him. She saw the dirty work of
the feet of our Redeemer. He who would redeem us with His
own blood. She saw the dirty feet from the
work of our Lord justifying His people, she saw the dirty work
of our Lord sanctifying those for whom He loves. This one was
the most needful to a dirty, hell-deserving sinner, for there
is no other. Look with me at another one.
Turn over to the eighth chapter of Luke. Look at Luke 8, beginning
at verse 26. His disciples had gone out on
the sea in a boat with the Lord, and the Lord had just calmed
the winds. He had just shown His disciples,
His apostles, He had just shown His people the power that He
wielded by calming the sea. And they arrived at the country
of Gadarene, which is over against Galilee, verse 26. Verse 27,
and when He went forth to land, There met him out of the city
a certain man. Oh, what it is to be a certain
one of God. Folks, we are a certain people.
You're a certain woman that the Lord came out to see at the well. I'm a certain man that God came
to see in the tombs. And a certain man, which had
devils long time, and wear no clothes, neither abode in any
house, but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out
and fell down before him, and with a loud voice, and said,
what do I have to do with thee? Jesus, thou son of God, most
high, I beseech thee, torment me not. For he had commanded
the unclean spirit to come out of the man, for often times it
had caught him, and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters,
and he'd break the bands, and was driven of the devil into
the wilderness. And Jesus asked him, saying,
What is thy name? And he said, Legion, because
many devils were entered into him, and they besought him that
he would not command them to go into the deep. And there was
there a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain, and they besought
Him, and He would suffer them to enter into them, and He suffered
them. Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into
the swine, and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake,
and were choked. When they that had fed them saw
what was done, they fled and went and told it in the city
and in the country. Then they went out to see what
was done and came to Jesus, and here's what I want you to see,
and they found The man, that certain one, out of whom the
devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed
and in his right mind, and they were afraid. Clothed. Notice who it was that did what
no man could do. If you go over to the Book of
Mark and read the account in the Book of Mark, you'll find
that this man was so violent he would cut himself. He would
put his hand on the tombstones and hit his arm with a rock until
he bled. I said this from the pulpit when
I brought a message from this in front of Don Fortner. I said,
this guy was crazy. Don started laughing. I thought,
oh, what did I say? Did I say something wrong? Scared
me to death. He said afterwards, he goes,
you're absolutely right. The guy was just flat out nuts. Totally
insane. That's what it is, folks, for
a man to think or a woman to think that they're above God.
And that's what the world thinks. That's what you and I thought
at one time, that we're above God. Yet now this man sits at
the feet of Jesus in his right mind. Salvation is accomplished
and accepted by God Himself. He whom all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily dwelleth, and the holes in His hands and the
feet prove He is the resurrected Christ. The resurrection proves
that that sacrifice He committed is accepted by God Almighty.
Salvation is of the Lord. All of our needs is found in
His feet. You say, well, how do you know?
The works that He did. What was needed? We needed a
man. We needed a man who could die in our place. We needed a
substitute. One who could lay down his life
and pay the ransom price. Because we can't. I can't even
pay a drop of what I owe the Lord. I need someone who could
pay the whole bill. And we see that in this man,
the Lord Jesus. We see His feet. nailed to the
cross, the holes in His feet, where He was nailed to the cross,
where every drop of blood came and flowed out of His body for
us to wash us clean. The very blood that God Almighty
in the Son would go into the holiest of holies with. The very
blood that He would present on, that He would sprinkle on the
mercy seat for you and I. We see all this in the feet of
Him who knew no sin. who is perfect and righteous
in all that he is and all that he did, he knew no sin. Yet God
the Father made him to be sinned. Our sin. Our iniquities. Yes, a mystery. How do you explain
that? I can't. Some men feel they can. I cannot. I know it's a miracle. I know that it happened because
He has said it happened. Listen to 1 Peter 2.24. I'm going
to read a couple of Scriptures and then I'll wrap this up. Who is His own self bear our
sins and His own body on the tree? Isaiah 53 verse 5, but
He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised from our iniquities,
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His strikes
we are healed. Isaiah 53 verse 11, He shall
see the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied by His
knowledge, shall my righteous servant justify many, for He
shall bear their iniquities. Jerebiah 33 verse 8, And I will
cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against
me, and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have
sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me. Why
would God the Father make His righteous Son to be sinned, to
be our sin? 2 Corinthians 5.21, For He hath
made Him to be sinned for us, who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. That's why. That we would be
made the righteousness of God in Him. I don't know about you
folks, but these are the feet that I wish to be at every day. These are the feet that I desire
to see before all times. The feet of Him that saved me. the feed of my substitute, the
feed of my sacrifice, behold, behold, the perfect Lamb of God
sent to take away the sins of his people. Back in our text, look at verse
39. Luke chapter 7, verse 39. Now when the Pharisee, the one
who had the dinner, which had bidden him, bidden Christ, when
he had saw what the woman was doing. He spake within himself. Did you notice that? He didn't
speak aloud. He just spoke, he just thought it. Saying, this
man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner
of woman this is that touches him, for she is a sinner. He
looked at God and hid his thoughts, he thought. We'll look at that
in our next message of how the Lord responds to him. But I want
to ask you this morning. I want to declare to you this
morning that he, the Lord, knew who she was. And she knew who he was as well.
I was listening to Brother Donnie Bell on an airplane ride home. And he made a statement similar
to this. If you're hearing the gospel
for the first time, if God is speaking to your heart for the
first time, and you've never heard it before, and you see
your need for the first time for a savior, God Almighty is
revealing that to you. Man, by their natural self, does
not see themselves as sinners. It is our very nature to think
we're okay. We're not as bad as we think
we are. We're not as bad as that Bible says we are. Oh yes, you
are. If God is revealing your need
of a Savior, then He is, He is, He is revealing who that Savior
is. Listen to Ephesians. I'll just
read this for you quickly. Listen to Ephesians. Wherefore,
I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for
you, making mention of you in my prayers." And here's what
he mentions in his prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of Glory, may give unto you. This is my prayer for
every time I stand in the pulpit. May God give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and the revelation and the knowledge of Him, that
the eyes of your understanding be enlightened, that ye may know
what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory
of His inheritance in the saints. in what is the exceeding greatness
of His power to usward who believe according to the working of His
mighty power. Have you come to the feet of
Jesus? Are you coming to the feet of Jesus? Are you coming
here on Sunday just because that's what we do on Sunday? Or are
you here to seat His feet? Oh, how I pray. You have seen
his feet this day.