Thank you, Joe. Let's go back
to that passage that Joe read to us in Matthew 11. And the
subject for this evening is Messiah's message for everyone. Messiah's message for everyone. Back in the previous chapter
in Matthew 10, Our Lord Jesus gave instructions to His disciples
pertaining to going out and preaching the Gospel, how they should conduct
themselves. If they are well received to
keep on preaching, if the people to whom they were preaching didn't
want to hear what they had to say, then just shake the dust
off your feet and go somewhere else. And so he gives them these
instructions in Matthew chapter 10. And actually, the very first
verse of Matthew 11 most likely should have been when they made
the chapter divisions, it would have been nice if the first verse
would have gone with chapter 10 And here the 11th chapter
actually began with the 2nd verse. For you'll notice that verse
1, as Joe read to us in Matthew 11, and it came to pass when
Jesus had made an end of commanding His 12 disciples, He departed
thence to teach and to preach in their cities. In other words,
He sent them out to preach the gospel of grace, the gospel of
redemption, the gospel of salvation by a crucified, buried, risen
Savior, speaking of Himself. He sent them out to go in various
locations preaching this glorious message of glad tidings, and
then He would go after them It's like they would go and prepare
the way for him by preaching the Gospel, and then he would
come and reinforce everything that they said, all that they
said about the grace of God, all that they said about God's
purpose of salvation through the doing and the dying of Himself. He would reinforce everything
that they said, and so he would follow up on their ministry Because
it is absolutely necessary that first of all, we hear the preaching
of the Gospel, and then the Lord comes on the basis of us having
heard the right message. Well, as we get into chapter
11, here we find Messiah. He describes himself. I'm going to break the chapter
down. I'm very ambitious tonight. I'm going to try to cover all
of these 30 verses, and I'll break it down into six sections. And I want you, if you don't
mind taking notes, jot these things down. It will break open
the chapter for you. And here's the first one about
Messiah. He describes Himself. He describes Himself. Now John
the Baptist, he has been imprisoned. He's been imprisoned because
he dared to rebuke the king for his atrocious behavior. for his adultery, for the way
he conducted himself, and therefore he lands in jail. This is, of
course, good news for all of the enemies of the gospel, because
they didn't like the message of John the Baptist. His message
was, behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the
world. And as the Jews heard the message of John, about God's
Lamb, of course they would then reflect back upon, like in Genesis
22, when Abraham took Isaac up on the mount, and Abraham told
the servants, I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and Isaac
thought about it, and he said, Father, we have the fire, we
got the knife, we got the wood, where is the Lamb? We've got
to have the Lamb to worship. There's no worship of God without
the Lamb, our Lord. had Abraham say to his son, my
son, God will provide himself a lamb. And I'm sure that as
John set forth his message, and of course it's condensed in John
1.29, Behold the Lamb of God, he said, when he saw Christ Jesus
walking down beside the river, he said, Behold the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world. And when the Jewish people
heard him talking about the Lamb of God, they would of course
remember, having studied the Old Testament Scriptures, having
learned from the rabbis, that Abraham spoke of that Lamb that
God would send. And moreover, they would have
then thought about the Passover lamb, which had to be a male
of the first year, without spot and without blemish. As John
preached his message, and everywhere he went he preached, Behold the
Lamb of God. God's Lamb who would be sacrificed. God's Lamb that God sent into
the world to save His people from their sins. As they heard
the message of John the Baptist, they would then reflect back
upon Old Testament Scriptures, which was all the Scriptures
that they had to go back to back in those days. And so John, John
is in prison. And he sends a couple of his
disciples to Jesus of Nazareth, to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he has them ask him, are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah? Or do we
look for another? Now, I don't think John is in
doubt himself about who our Lord Jesus is. You can read in John
1, and even more so in John 3, beginning with verse 27, I believe
it is, through the end of the chapter, as John the Baptist
writes or preaches about our Lord Jesus Christ, who receives
honor from the Father. He's not in doubt about the Son
of God. He has said very clearly, this
is God's Lamb. He knows who He is. But His disciples
needed to hear the Word from the mouth of the Savior Himself. And so John sends his two disciples
to our Lord Jesus, who was Himself a preacher of the Gospel. And
they say, are you the one we're looking for? Are you the Christ?
Are you the Messiah? Or should we look for another?
And our Lord answered them this way, look at Matthew 11 verse
4. Jesus answered and said to them,
go and tell John, go and tell him again the things which you
do, here's the first word, here, You've heard me preaching. You've
heard me declaring the message of grace. You've heard me telling people
who I am. I'm the Son of God. And you've also witnessed the
things that I do, which testify of me. In other words, he used
his miracles to verify his identity as being the Messiah. And he
lists several of them. He said in verse 5, the blind
receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers there cleansed,
the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel
preached to them. And these things not only literally
happened, but spiritually happened. Our Lord Jesus caused the blind
to see. He caused you who are naturally
blind to see, didn't He? He's still giving you sight.
To see who He is in all of His glory? To see the necessity of
having righteousness before God? He gave sight to you to see your
neediness, your sinfulness. The blind received their sight.
The lame walked. The lame walked. You come to
Christ for salvation. He healed you of your spiritual
lameness and now you draw near to Him over and over and over
again. And the lepers are cleansed.
Isn't that you? Sick with the leprosy of sin. Diseased within with leprosy. What'd he do? He washed you.
He washed you in his blood and he cleansed you. And the deaf
hear. You see, the scripture says,
the seeing eye and the hearing ear, the Lord giveth them both. Is this good news to you? Do
you hear the word of God with joy and with faith? He opens
your ears. The death here. And then he puts
these two together. The dead are raised up and the
poor have the gospel preached to them. Didn't he raise you
up from your spiritual death? And you heard then the gospel
preached to you. So our Lord Jesus says, now you
fellas go back and tell John, you go back and tell him what
you've heard, what you've heard and what you've witnessed. And he says in verse six, blessed
is he whomsoever shall not be offended in me. Multitudes were offended with
the Lord Jesus Christ. They were offended by His background. No formal education. They were offended in His claim
of deity. You say, God your Father, we
know your mom and your dad. We know your brothers and your
sisters. They were offended with Him. Offended with His lack of
education. Offended with His upbringing.
offended with his teaching, but he says, blessed is that person
who is not offended with me. You're not offended by this gospel,
are you? You're not offended with the
identity of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, are you? Well, you're blessed
of God. You see, when he says, blessed
is he, it means you're blessed of God because you wouldn't believe
this message. You wouldn't receive this glorious
gospel unless God blessed you to receive it. And so Messiah
describes himself. Secondly, Messiah defended his
forerunner. This is verses 7 through 15.
You'll notice in verse 7, as they departed, those disciples
of John, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes, there were all
kinds of people there. People from about every walk
of life. From the rebellious to those
who were obedient. From believers to non-believers. from skeptics and doubters to
followers, from enemies to his friends, from the self-righteous
to the needy, sinful people. All kinds of people, multitudes
of people there. And the Lord has His way in this
chapter of really addressing them all. He has something for
everybody. He knows how to feed the sheep,
and He knows how to speak those things that will further irritate
the goats. He knows the words that the spiritually
dead need to hear, and then those words will be life-giving. and
He knows the words that some need to hear that will further
harden them in their rebellion against Him. His message covers
the whole spectrum of people. That's the reason I say this
is Messiah's message for everybody, for everyone. He speaks to the
multitude within that large group of people. All kinds of folks. It was a mixed multitude. He's
got something for everybody. And he defends and vindicates
the ministry of John the Baptist. Understand this, if you would
have the Lord of glory honor you, you better honor him. And he says that in John chapter
three, John the Baptist says this, And in chapter 4, John
the Apostle says this. Basically, God honors those who
honor His Son. And John the Baptist honored
the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, look, behold, see? There's the Lamb of God. That's
the promise. That's the fulfillment of all
the Old Testament promises. That man right there. He's the
Savior. He's the Redeemer. He's our righteousness. He's our salvation. He's our
all in all. And John the Baptist honored
Christ Jesus. And now our Lord is going to
honor His servant. He will honor His ministry. Oh,
all the religious people, the uppity self-righteous, they turn
thumbs down on the ministry of John the Baptist. John was baptizing
out in the wilderness. People came to him and said,
we're sinners. We're sinners before God. We
need God's mercy. We believe this Lamb of God whom
you're preaching to us. And John said, then attest to
the fact that you believe Him by submitting to baptism. They
said, yes indeed. We'll seal our confession of
faith in the waters of baptism, which speaks of the death, burial,
and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those Pharisees,
they say, you're not going to baptize us. Why not? We'd be not sinners. We're not
going to be baptized in the name of this man from Galilee. They despised him. Here our Lord defends John the
Baptist, the man, and his ministry. You see, John the Baptist didn't
fit the mold of what people thought a preacher ought to be. He wasn't
a polished rabbi. He didn't go to their ecclesiastical
schools. They were so familiar with some
of the scribes and rabbis who were kind of timid and unstable
and weak and wavering men. Our Lord said, is that what you
expected to see when you went out to hear John? He said this
in verse 7. He said, what went ye out to
the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?
Somebody who would bend over backwards to kind of tickle your
ears? What did you go out into the
wilderness to see? Did you expect to see a man who was in fancy
clothing? He said, behold, those in the
king's houses wear soft clothing. John the Baptist, he dressed
in leather. Had a very simple diet. There
was nothing about John the Baptist to draw the eye to him, nor the
ear to his message. His message was unadorned with
the fancy religious rhetoric of the day. His message was simple,
clear, and plain. Repent, for the Kingdom of God
is at hand. The Lamb of God has come. The
One who will take our sin away. He was not a reed shaking with
the wind. He didn't bend over backwards
to make people happy. A friend of mine told her a preacher
said, I'm leaving and I'm not coming back. And he said, if
I change my message, would you stay? That's a reed. That's a reed bending over with
the wind. I'll change if you'll stay. And she left anyway. Because
really, he wouldn't change. John the Baptist, he was a prophet,
but our Lord Jesus said, I'll tell you, he's more than a prophet.
He's not just another run-of-the-mill preacher. He's not one of these
preachers that Bible schools put out that one is just like
the other one. They comb their hair alike, they
dress alike, they preach alike. He's not one of those. He's not
an assembly line preacher. He's a man of God. He's an individual
with the gifts that God gave him and the message that burned
in his heart. concerning God's Lamb. Oh, give
me such a preacher. I don't want him to be instructed
in the schools of men. I want him to be instructed in
the school of God. And I'll tell you what we read
in John chapter 1 and verse 6. There was a man sent from God
whose name was John. I'll tell you, that preacher's
not much to look at and ain't much to listen to either. How
come he don't preach in the synagogue? How come he don't preach in the
temple? By the way, where is he preaching? Out there in the
wilderness. You want to hear God's man? Go out there and listen
to him. And I'll tell you, you go out
there with self-righteousness, self-righteous rags on you, he'll
tear you all to pieces. because he came down a hard on
self-righteousness, but yet he had a word of mercy
for sinful people who needed the Savior. He was a forerunner of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And like I said at the beginning
of the message, every preacher of the gospel is a forerunner
of the Son of God. He will come to you on the heels
of a man who's come to you and set the stage of your neediness. And the only one who can help
you, Christ the Lord. Thirdly, in verses 16-19, Messiah
denounces unbelievers. Hear the Lord, he describes men
and women who refused to hear the word of the Lord from his
servants. They found fault with every kind
of preacher that God sent them, every prophet that God sent them.
In fact, Stephen, over in the book of Acts, and of course,
he was stoned to death, Stephen said to that crowd of religious
fools, which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And you've killed them which
showed before of the coming of the just one, the only righteous
one, the one who is the Lord, the righteousness of His people,
of whom you've now become the betrayers and the murderers.
That's what Stephen said. And our Lord likens these people
to peevish children. And they can't get along with
one another. And so this one group of kids
said, how come you won't play with us? We play happy games. We play happy music. You won't
have anything to do with us. So then we pretend like it's
funerals and we get real serious. You still don't want to have
anything to do with us. No matter what we do. And of
course, our Lord, His point was this. The Father sent John the
Baptist to them preaching the Gospel. John was a loner. He was a stern man. He was unlike
the rest of the preachers of the day. He didn't go to their
social functions. He didn't go to their weddings.
He didn't go to their festivals. If you wanted to hear Him, you
went out in the wilderness to hear Him preaching. He wasn't
real sociable. He didn't have a warm, friendly,
kind personality. He was rather a recluse. A man
who was off by himself. But he had the message of God.
That's the thing. And you may have not liked his
personality, but I don't go to hear a man preach because of
his personality, but because of his message. John had the
right message. And then our Lord Jesus comes
along, God sent Him, and He did go to their festivals. He did
go to their social functions. He did go to their weddings.
His first miracle is at the marriage of Canaan and Galilee, changed
the water to wine. He did socialize with them. John
the Baptist wouldn't do that. That wasn't the kind of person
he was. And they said of John, well,
he's got a devil. And our Lord Jesus said, well,
now here I am. And the things that you didn't
like about John the Baptist, those are the things that I do. I'm a very social man and he
would talk to anybody. I sat down on a park bench and
talked to children. He had time for anybody who wanted
to talk to him. And he went into the synagogues
and preached. He went into the temple and preached. But they didn't like him either.
And they said of him in verse 19, The Son of Christ says the
Son of Man came eating and drinking. And He's the opposite of John
the Baptist in that. And they say, well, He's a gluttonous
man. He eats all the time. And He's a winebibber. You know,
He drank wine with them. And they said this, He's a friend
of publicans and sinners. Hallelujah, He is. Thank God
He is the friend of publicans and sinners. But our Lord Jesus
then, He says there at the end of verse 19, but wisdom is justified
of her children. I tell you what, the children
of God who've been made wise unto salvation, they'll listen
to a man preach the gospel no matter his personality, no matter
whether he's real outgoing and warm, friendly to everybody,
or maybe he's just a little timid. And some preachers are like that.
But they want to hear him preach the message. It's the message. So, our Lord Jesus, He denounces
the unbelievers. You know, The fact of the matter
is, it was neither John the Baptist
nor the preacher, Christ Jesus, that they disliked. It was the
message. Oh, they didn't like the message
because the message exposed their self-righteousness. The message
was, Christ is the Lord, our righteousness. Well, are you
saying we're bad people? Are you saying we don't have
any righteousness? Exactly. That's what we're saying.
Are you saying I'm not a good person? I'm saying that exactly. You're not a good person. Not
by nature. You're a sinner like everybody
else. Well, that's hard language. You're not being kind to me.
I'm being truthful with you. And that's the best kind of kindness
there is. Somebody who will be honest with
you. And wisdom, true wisdom, will justify whatever kind of
preacher God sends you. He may be loud, as I can be sometimes,
and He may be soft. He may be very excitable and
emotional, Like Brother Al, whom is? Or he may not be that way
at all. But what we look for, what we
listen for, is who's the man preaching about? Is he being honest with my soul? Is he telling me the truth about
God and His sovereignty and His holiness? in His greatness, in
His justice, in His grace? Is He telling me the truth about
myself, how needy I am, I'm a spiritual leper? Is He telling me the truth
about the Lord Jesus Christ, that He's God, manifest in the
flesh, coming to this world to save His people from their sins?
Has He got the right message of redemption accomplished? Redemption finished? Salvation
worked out by our Lord Jesus Christ? Does He have the right
message? So Messiah, He denounced. He denounced unbelievers. And then we get down to verse
20. And here's the fourth thing.
Messiah delivers a stern rebuke. Messiah delivers a stern rebuke. Then he began to upbraid the
cities wherein most of his mighty works were done because they
repented not. He took them to task. He rebuked
them. These are not kind words. These
are not soothing words. His goal is not to win friends
and influence people. Show me a preacher who does that,
I'll show you a preacher who compromises the gospel. He spoke honestly. And if the
words cut, well, understand this, that's what a sword does. It
cuts. He said, Woe unto thee, Chorazin. Woe unto thee Bethsaida. These
are cities in Galilee. He said, for if the mighty works
which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they
would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But God
in His sovereignty did not send the Lord Jesus to perform miracles
in Tyre and Sidon, but in Chorazin and Bethsaida. Think of all the
privileges they had, and yet they closed their eyes and willfully
would not believe Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah. They
refused to believe Him. Oh, and He gives them a stern
rebuke. And that repentance, by the way,
I don't take that for evangelical repentance. This is not repentance
unto salvation. It's more like the repentance
of the people of Nineveh. It's that kind of repentance.
But he says in verse 22, I say unto you, I say to people who
have all these privileges, who've heard the gospel, who've heard
about God, who've heard the truth about Jesus Christ, the Lamb
of God, I say unto you, it would be more tolerable for Tyre and
Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. Now, understand
this, there are no degrees of heaven. There are no different levels
of heaven. We're all redeemed by the same
blood. We're saved by the same grace.
We're justified before God. God has pronounced all of His
people to be justified and none can be more justified than anybody
else. We stand, all of God's people,
right in the sight of God. through the doing and the dying
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our substitute, the one who satisfied
justice for us. We're right with God, not due
to anything we did, but due to our Savior. No degrees of heaven. There's
no degrees of glorification in heaven. What example could I give? The
believing thief. His whole life was wasted in
sin and degradation, corruption, depravity, wickedness. The sovereign Savior showed him
grace right there in the final few moments of his life. He went
to glory. He received the same inheritance
as did the Apostle Paul. They're on the same level. And
people have difficulty with that. And the ones who have difficulty
with that are the ones who believe that works have got something
to do with our standing before God. They do not. I hope that came across loud
and clear this morning. No degrees in heaven. However,
I do believe, especially this passage is an indication, there
are degrees of hell. Because to whom much is given,
much is required. People are responsible for what
they hear and don't believe, and they're responsible for what
they could have heard, but refuse to hear. You think of the privileges
of the people who listened to or witnessed the miracles of
our Lord Jesus. They heard His doctrine. They
heard of the grace of God. His lips flowed with truth. The tidings of grace and mercy
for the undeserving. They said, we're not going to
believe that. And He did all these miracles before them. And
they said, well, we're not going to deny the miracles. But He
did them by the power of Beelzebub. Oh, how awful these people were. Our Lord Jesus said, it's going
to be more tolerable for the people of Sodom than for you
folks who have heard the Gospel. You've seen with your literal
eyes God's Messiah. and I preach to you, and I've
sent my preachers to you, but you won't hear the message. It's
going to be more tolerable in hell for the homosexuals of Sodom
than for you rebels who refuse to believe the Gospel. That's
a big pill to swallow. In fact, most people choke on
it. Well, I live right. I would never
think about doing anything like homosexuality or lesbianism. Oh, I detest the thought of that. Do you believe the Gospel that
you hear week in and week out? Is your heart melted within you
when you think of the Lord Jesus and the sweetness of His grace
and His mercy and His forgiveness and His righteousness? Well,
I don't go as far as you do, preacher, to believe all that,
I'm sure you do, but it's just not for me. Oh, it's going to
be more tolerable for these sexual perverts in hell than for you. That's
tough, but it's the truth. Our Lord the Messiah gives them
a stern rebuke, and then, then, In verses 25-27, Messiah declares
the sovereignty of grace. The sovereignty of grace. That
the ability to believe the gospel is an ability that God must give. Notice what he says. First of
all, he prays. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
Thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and
hast revealed them unto babes." He doesn't have to show you these
mysteries. The mystery of how God can be
just and justify the ungodly, He doesn't have to show that
to you. The mystery of His incarnation, God was in Christ reconciling
the world to Himself. He doesn't have to show that
to you. These mysteries, He doesn't have
to break them open for you and give you faith to believe them.
Maybe He will, but He doesn't have to. He's not obligated to
do anything for you. He says it's hidden from some
and revealed to others. Why does it happen like that? Well, He gives the answer in
verse 26, Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.
God can hide these things from you or He can reveal these things
to you. And whether He hides or whether
He reveals, He's still going to be God. There's nothing you
can do about it. If I was you, if you don't have
a grasp of how the God of heaven and earth can save sinners through
the substitutionary satisfactory work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
I would in my heart prostrate myself before God and say, Oh
God of grace, teach me! So I'll know and love the truth. And he says in verse 27, it's
due to the revealing grace of God. He declares divine sovereignty. And I know a lot of people hear
about sovereign grace. That's not fair. Charge God with
being unrighteous. Well, go ahead if you dare. If
you dare to take on your Creator and have an argument with Him,
you go ahead and have at it. I'll just back away from you.
Because you and Lulu's inside. And then lastly, Messiah directs
the weary. Oh, what a sweet passage. Verses
28-30, come unto me. Not come to the church. Not come
to the baptistry. Not come to the Lord's Supper. Not come to the preacher. He
said, come unto me. What does that mean? Trust in
me. That's what that means. Believe me. All you that labor
and are heavy laden, anybody laboring under sin, laboring
under the bondage of God's law, that's always frowning at you.
The law of God, it accuses. It's a ministration of death.
It's the ministration of condemnation. Do you labor under the law of
God? You labor under the tortures
of Satan, the agonies of a guilty conscience. Christ said, come
to Me. Come to Me. And here's what He
gives. Rest. Rest. False religion won't give that
to you because they're always asking more of you. The law of
God's not going to give you any rest. because it's going to always
accuse you. You broke me again. You broke
me again. You sinned against God again.
Thank God we're not under law, we're under grace. He says, take
my yoke upon you and learn of Me! Of Me! Some people don't want to hear
any more about Christ Jesus. They want to know about how to
live. But listen, He says, take My
yoke upon you and learn of Me. How can we learn of Him if the
preacher doesn't preach Him? Learn of Me. Don't learn of the
Baptist denomination. We don't matter as a denomination.
Most of it is just crooked and wrong and false. Learn of the Savior. Learn of
the Lamb of God. He says, I'm meek and lonely
in the heart. I tell you, you come to Him as
a broken hearted sinner, you'll find a very receptive Savior
who will welcome you with open arms. He says, you'll find rest
to your souls. He says, for my yoke is easy.
My burden is light. Come to Christ Jesus. There's
the whole 11th chapter of Matthew. Breaks down beautifully. As the
Messiah, He has a message that hits everybody. That's the way
His Word is. When I preach this morning, preach
tonight, I'm not preaching as it were with a rifle aiming at
one person. I've never preached a message
aiming at one person. I've always had a shotgun. I'm
trying to hit everybody. Because the message is applicable
to all of us. Because we're needy sinners and
we need the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Kevin come lead
us in our last song, 63.