Matthew chapter 17 and verse
10 is where we'll begin. And you realize that the Lord
had just given the three disciples, Peter, James, and John, that
glorious vision that we call the Mount of Transfiguration.
where he gave them that vision of the, as one old writer said,
the effulgence of his glory. You know, and I make this point
because it is scriptural. You know, people today, they
have the idea that if you were in a crowd and you saw Jesus
Christ in that crowd that he would stick out or something
that he there'd be like a glow about him and that's not the
case You know Isaiah said it in Isaiah 53 there that there
was nothing about his form or his Nothing comely about him
that would that would set him apart just by looking at him
But here's the fact we do know that He is God manifest in the
flesh And that's something. And somebody said, well, you
know, his glory was hidden. Well, it's hidden from all who
don't believe. John said and wrote in John 1
14, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld
his glory, the glory of the only begotten. Well, that's what believers
behold. We see the glory of God in Christ. And we know his person. You know,
the gospel is all about the person of Christ, who he is, and it's
all about the work of Christ, what he accomplished in his redemptive
work to save us from our sins. That's what the gospel is about.
And so, it's the righteousness of God. That's what we need for
salvation. We don't need the righteousness
of man, because first of all, man has no righteousness. So
he revealed his glory to these three disciples, not that he
hadn't done it before in his preaching and in the performing
of miracles he had, but they had this vision, and you remember
it says he spoke with Moses and Elias, back up there in verse
three, Moses representing the law, and Elias, or Elijah's who
that is, representing the prophets. And Luke tells us in his account,
he says, they spoke of his decease, which he should accomplish in
Jerusalem. And that's his death. And remember
I told you that word decease, it's the Greek word exodus. His
death was an exodus, just like Moses, God through Moses, led
the Hebrew children out of Egypt in that exodus. Christ on the
cross as our surety, as our substitute, as our redeemer, led all of his
people out of the bondage of sin and death and the law by
his death on the cross. So they had seen this, so Elijah
comes up here, and look at verse 10, it says, and his disciples
ask him, now when he brought him down, and he came, the others
were there, his disciples ask him, saying, why then say the
scribes that Elias, or Elijah, must come first? In other words,
here's what's happening. They realize that Jesus of Nazareth
is the Messiah. He is the fulfillment of all
the Old Testament prophecies. And that's why I entitled this
lesson Another Prophecy Fulfilled, because every prophecy in the
Old Testament concerning the Messiah, the glory of his person,
the power and success of his finished work, was fulfilled
in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. And so here's another
prophecy fulfilled. We'll see another and another
and another. All of them. I lost count. I had a little paper I think
one time that had all the different prophecies in the Old Testament
and how Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled those. And it's amazing how all
of it was fulfilled. He said, Moses wrote of me, Moses
prophesied of me. He fulfilled everything that
was written in the law, everything that was written in the prophecies,
all of that. So here's another one. So they
had read, and what their question is based upon, the fact that
they'd been taught wrongly by the scribes. who were supposed
to be experts in the scripture. They wrote the commentaries.
They were the lawyers, not like lawyer's attorneys today, but
skilled in the law of Moses, but they were lost. They didn't
know the gospel. And they had taught based upon
a prophecy in Malachi. And I've got that listed in your
lesson. I've got it cited in your lesson. Here's Malachi's
prophecy in Malachi 4-5. And it says, behold, I will send
you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful
day of the Lord. Now the coming of the great and
dreadful day of the Lord is the coming of the Messiah. It was
a great day, and dreadful there means awesome. This is an awesome
day. When God would fulfill, in the
process of time, in the fullness of the time, God sent forth his
son, made of a woman. made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons. And so Malachi is saying, before
that day comes, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet.
And the disciples, having now been convinced that Jesus of
Nazareth is the Messiah, they were confused about that prophecy.
Wait a minute, we thought Elijah was coming back. Well, you know,
Peter, James, and John, they had just seen that vision of
Elijah with Moses speaking with the Lord, talking about his decease. So what happens here is the Lord
is showing them how this prophecy is fulfilled. So look at verse
11. He says, and Jesus answered and
said unto them, Elias or Elijah truly shall first come and restore
all things. But I say unto you that Elias
is come already. And they knew him not, they didn't
recognize him, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.
In other words, they did to this Elijah who had already come,
they did to him whatever they wanted to do. What sinful man
desires to do. And that's the issue when people
talk about the will of man, free will and all of that. And what
they don't understand is that because of our fall in Adam,
and because we're born spiritually dead in trespasses and sins,
that we don't have a desire or a will or a want to when it comes
to the things that glorify God in Christ. We want our own way. And what it says, it is well
within the plan and the purpose and the foreordination of God
that these, when this Elijah come, and of course you know
who it is, it's John the Baptist, that they did whatever they wanted
to do. Of course, you know what happened
to John the Baptist. He stood against the Pharisees
and the Sadducees and the scribes. He told it like it was. He called
them vipers, poisonous snakes. He said, bring forth fruits,
meat for repentance. You need to repent. Well, what'd
they need to repent of? These were the moral majority.
These were the religious leaders. Well, that's what they needed
to repent of. because their religion was a religion of works salvation. Paul wrote about it in Romans
chapter nine. They sought righteousness. They were trying to be righteous.
They were trying to be right with God. They were trying to
get ready for heaven or whatever. Get ready. Prepare to meet God. But they were doing it in a way
that denied and dishonored God. They were seeking righteousness
not by faith, which is to seek it in Christ. That's what, when
it talks about seeking righteousness by faith, it means to seek it
in the Lord. If you're gonna seek righteousness,
you gotta seek it where it is. If you seek it where it is not,
then you're gonna fail. And where is it not? It's not
in us. And it cannot be attained and
maintained by our works of the law. And that's why they failed. And John the Baptist, he was
honest. Like all God's true preachers, we tell the truth. That's what
we're here to do. You need a righteousness you
can't produce. You understand? And that's why
God sent his son. Remember in Isaiah 46, he said,
I bring near my righteousness and it shall not be far off.
That's Christ. So, He let him do, God ordained
this. All of this is by the ordination
of God. It's not by accident or anything like that. So he
says, he says, he said, Elias has already come, verse 12, and
they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.
Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer for them. They're
gonna do the same thing to Christ. Now John, you know what happened
to him, he was beheaded under King Herod and all that, and
rejected. Well Christ is going to be rejected
too, that's why he came to die. This too, as Peter said in Acts
chapter two, this is the foreordination of God. He told his disciples,
when they in their human form, fleshly desires, tried to stop
him from going to Jerusalem to be arrested and to be tried and
to be killed. What did he tell him? He said,
this is the reason I came here. I came here to die. I came here
to put away sin. Christ was made the surety of
the covenant of grace before the world began. And our sins,
having been charged to his account, our debt, Why did he come to
earth? Well, in order to pay that debt,
he had to be our substitute. And in order to be our substitute,
he had to take into union with his deity a perfect, sinless
humanity. Why? Because he had to die. Now
we're gonna be celebrating that in the Lord's Supper. He said,
this is my body, which is broken for you. That's his sacrifice. Christ going under the curse
of the law, for his people. And then he says, this is my
blood. And that's his death. In other words, he suffered in
his humanity, but he suffered unto death because the wages
of sin is death. You understand? So he had to
die. But his death was a success.
His death was a victory. His death was an exodus, as he
spoke with Moses and Elijah. So his suffering was different
from John the Baptist. John the Baptist didn't suffer
as a substitute, but he suffered for the cause of the glory of
God in Christ. Christ will suffer as a substitute. So he says, as John suffered
unto death for preaching Christ, Christ himself, according to
the eternal purpose of God, would be rejected by the same ones
and die for the sins of the people, establishing righteousness. Well,
look at verse 13. Now, then the disciples understood
that he spoke unto them of John the Baptist. Well, what's the
point here? Well, it shows us, number one,
the importance of revelation. If these truths aren't revealed
to us, we're not gonna know them. And that's a sovereign work of
the Holy Spirit in Christ to reveal these things to us. But
what he's saying is Malachi's prophecy was not concerning Elijah
the man personally. See, Elijah represented the school
and the message of the prophets. And what was that message? It
was pointing sinners to Christ, preaching the gospel, the same
gospel we preach. Now they did a lot of other prophesying.
They said a lot of other things. They did a lot of other things.
But the school and the message of the prophets down through
the ages, from Genesis all the way to Malachi, was to point
sinners to Christ for salvation, for forgiveness, for righteousness,
And Elijah was a symbol, a representative of that school and that message
of the prophets. And so Malachi wasn't talking
about Elijah personally, but he's talking about how that message,
how that prophecy, all those prophecies of Christ would come
to their culmination in the last of the Old Testament prophets
who was none other than John the Baptist. And so Elias has
already come. And somebody said, well, how
do you know that was John the Baptist? Well, read it there. Then the
disciples understood that he spoke unto them of John the Baptist.
Isn't that what the word of God says? It's been revealed to them. And
my friend, the gospel is the revelation of that message, that
truth. The gospel of Christ, the gospel
of his person, the gospel of his righteousness. And so now,
after this, Matthew tells us about the Lord healing an epileptic
boy. after this. Look at verse 14.
It says, and when they were come to the multitude, there came
unto him a certain man or a man kneeling down to him and saying,
Lord, have mercy on my son for he is a lunatic. Now you've heard
that term. You know what that means? That
means moonstruck. That's what it literally means.
And it comes from the fact that the Jews at that point in time,
they believed that that kind of madness, seizures, was brought
around by the phases of the moon. And so they call it lunacy or
a lunatic. And it said he was sorely vexed,
troubled. And you know what that is, don't
you? I mean, here's this boy. who's got, and most commentators
say it's epilepsy. It probably was, so that's what
I put down. But it says, for oft times he
falleth into the fire and oft into the water. You know what
this is. I mean, there's an actual person
here who's got an actual physical, mental problem. Christ is going
to heal him. Well, what is that but a picture
of us spiritually? You know what I am by nature?
I'm a lunatic. That means I'm subject to the,
not to the phases of the literal moon, but I'm subject to the
flesh. And that's what we are. And I
always talk about that. I always keep in mind how the
Bible makes a distinction between our standing before God in Christ,
which never changes, never changes. I mean, listen, if we're in Christ,
we're washed in his blood from all our sins. We're righteous
in him, his righteousness imputed. And that never changes. I mean,
that's set in stone. But as to our state in this world,
we all start out as spiritual lunatics. We don't know God. We don't even know ourselves.
We're totally depraved. That's what that means. That
doesn't mean that we're all immoral in the eyes of men, but it just
means we don't know the difference between right and wrong according
to God's standard. You remember the rich young man
who came to Christ and he called him good master? He didn't believe
that Christ was the Messiah or the Son of God or anything like
that. Didn't believe he was God. And
that's why Christ said to him, said, well, why do you call me
good? There's none good but God. Your standard of measuring goodness
is all wrong. And that's what That's what a
lunatic would be. I remember one time I was listening
to a preacher up in Ashland, and his message, he said, we're
all spiritually insane. Well, that means we don't know
the difference between right and wrong until God reveals us his standard
in Christ. And a couple people got offended
at that, and I thought, well, Doesn't offend me, I know what
it is. But that's how we start out in this life. Until God the
Holy Spirit brings us under the gospel and reveals the truth
to us. And then our state in this world
is sinners saved by grace, believers, And then the third word I always
use, the next one is struggle. Because that's where the struggle
begins. The warfare of the flesh and the spirit. And that's our
whole lives until God takes us on. And we're perfectly conformed
to Christ. Well, the Lord along with Peter and
James and John, they came down from that mountain, and here's
this certain man who comes and says, Lord have mercy, on my
son, for he's a lunatic, verse 15. Sore vexed. Isn't that us? For oft times he falleth into
the fire, and oft into the water. In other words, puts himself
in dangerous situations. Look at verse 16, he says, and
I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
The disciples couldn't do it. And then Jesus answered and said,
oh faithless and perverse generation, How long shall I be with you?
How long shall I suffer you? Bring him hither to me. Now, you look at passages like
this and it makes you wonder about the disciples and all of
that, but don't get caught up in that. What's the point that's
being made here in this historical account? Here's what it is. Whatever means or method the
Lord uses to heal somebody physically, or whatever method or means he
uses to save somebody from sin, it's he that does it. Salvation
is of the Lord. I think about people today in
false religion who, when they get sick, they won't go to a
doctor because they say, well, I'm just dependent on the Lord.
Well, let me tell you something. If you go to a doctor and he
administers the cure and you get cured, yeah, I thank God
for doctors who do that. But my friend, ultimately, it's
the Lord who does it all. And that's certainly true in
salvation. The disciples couldn't cure him.
The preacher can't cure you. I can't put away your, I can't
even, somebody said, I can't save you, I can't even save myself.
That's not what we're here. What are we here to do? We're
here to point you to the one who is able and willing to save
his people from their sins. And so he says, oh, faithless
and perverse generation. You see, our faith is in Christ. If you separate, you know, people
talk about faith today, but it's born of ignorance. To them, faith is something that
is the product of their own inner goodness or free will. That's not faith in the Bible.
Faith in the Bible is the revelation of the knowledge of God in Jesus
Christ. You cannot separate God-given
faith from the person and work of Christ. And if you do, you've
got an empty faith. a powerless faith. And I remember
when I was out in Oregon preaching and I made the statement, there
was some visitors there, one of them was a young man who was
a preacher in the Southern Baptist Church, and I made this statement,
I said, faith doesn't save us, Christ does. Now I know there's
passages in scripture where Christ said, thy faith has saved thee
or thy faith has made thee, but what is that faith? He's not
telling that person, well, the fact that you mustered up enough
belief, you know, that he's, no. When you say faith saved,
you're talking about Christ, if you know the Bible. And I
made that statement, I said, it's not our faith that saves
it, it's Christ. And he got really offended. He
said, I can't believe you said that. And I told him, I said,
well, That shows me that Christ is not your savior, your faith
is. And I said, that's a bad place to be. God-given faith. In that passage in Romans 1 16,
where it says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for
it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first, and the Greek also, and then verse 17 says,
for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith. Now you know the basic translation, you might say, of
the word faith is knowledge, to know something. And it means
you know it for sure, that it's being revealed to you. So from
faith, that's knowledge revealed. To faith, that's knowledge received
and believed. And so it becomes part of you.
And so he says, well, our faith must be in Christ and his power
and ability. Why couldn't the disciples cure
him? I think, and it doesn't really give us a commentary on
it here, but I believe it's like all of us. We get proud and we
think, well, we've got the ability to do this. And they were looking
to themselves. No, we gotta point centers to
Christ. We gotta realize that. that it's
all by his power, it's all by his goodness, it's all by his
grace. And so these are great words
here when he says in verse 17, bring him hither to me, bring
him here to me. That's salvation. Coming to Christ,
not coming to the preacher, not walking down the aisle and shaking
the preacher's hand, or even getting into the baptistry, or
taking the Lord's It's all in Christ. The glory of his person,
the power of his finished work, his righteousness alone. And
so look in verse 18. He said, Jesus rebuked the devil,
and he departed out of him. So we know that it was an unclean
spirit, a demon. And the child was cured from
that very hour. All Christ had to do was rebuke
the unclean spirit. Took him out, he became free. And verse 19 says, then came
the disciples to Jesus apart, that is, off to themselves, and
said, why could not we cast him out? Now you know they had cast
out demons before. Well look at verse 20. Jesus
said to them, because of your unbelief. Wait a minute, these
are disciples. What do you mean because of their
unbelief? Well, and I heard this years
ago from Brother Mahan, and I believe it's true, and of course the
scriptures teach this. A sinner saved by grace is a
believer. We have the gift of faith. So
our state in this world is we are believers by the grace of
God. But there's a problem that we
all have equally, and it's called the flesh. And so a sinner saved
by grace, a child of God, is not in a state of unbelief like
we were by nature. But we still struggle with doubts
and fears and unbelief within. And I think that's what was happening
here to the disciples because of your unbelief. He says, for
verily I say unto you, verse 20, if you have faith as a grain
of mustard seed. Now mustard seed is pretty small.
You have faith as a grain of mustard seed. You shall say unto
this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove,
and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Now all this is a metaphor. He's not saying that we can go
out here and move mountains, all right? He's using this to
make a point. And what he's saying is this.
It's not the strength of your faith in the sense of how much
I believe, it's the strength and the power of the object of
your faith, which is Christ. You see what I'm saying? So,
O ye of little faith, all of that, all of this shows that the power,
the glory of salvation is in the person and work of Christ
and not in ourselves. And so we point sinners to Christ.
And look at verse 21. How be it this kind goeth not
out by prayer and fasting? Well, you know, a lot of people
try to say, well, it's the power of prayer and the power of fasting.
No. Now, in the New Testament, there's
no passage of scripture that requires believers to fast. Now,
we're to pray. Prayer, you know, somebody said
prayer is like breath, spiritually, to a believer. But what are our
prayers? It's not the power of our prayers.
It's not the number of our prayers. It's not the repetition. You
remember what Christ taught in Matthew chapter six. You know,
people say, well, we need to get a prayer chain started. Prayer
chain? You think that, what do you think's
gonna happen? You think that God's gonna take
notice of that and change his mind? No. No, that's not what
prayer is about. Prayer is an act of faith, it's
an act of worship, it's an act of submission. Well, we're not
required to fast, but fasting is said to be beneficial as an
act of humility, expressing our total dependence and need of
Christ. And that's what it's all about.
So what he's teaching these disciples is, look, You need to realize
where this power and where this goodness and where this grace
comes from at all times. It's not in you, it's not in
me, it's in Christ. Okay? All right, we'll stop there.