The Gospel of Matthew chapter
9. I want to just read a few verses
here. Beginning with verse 31. But they, when they were departed,
spread abroad his fame in all that country. And as they went out, behold,
they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast out,
the dumb spake, and the multitudes marveled, saying, It was never
so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He casteth
out devils through the prince of the devils. I thought about it today. I don't
know how often that I've told you that in these cases that Jesus
healed. That they were illustrations,
all the various ones, blind, lame, palsied. They were all
illustrations of His ability to heal and to save spiritually. Save men spiritually, no matter
what the case. and no matter what the condition. As a matter of fact, I'd say
that all of the conditions together just aptly and fitly describe
how men and women are spiritually. And it is the same here in this
man's case. This man was dumb. And that simply means that he
was a mute. He was unable to speak. And in that, he illustrates for
us how man by nature is unable to speak before God, unable to
speak things a holy God would hear, and is also unable to speak
to God. I always remember what Brother
Scott Richardson used to say. He said, God will not speak to,
nor will he be spoken to, by any one sinner outside of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They can talk about having their
conferences with God all they want, but God will not speak
to, nor can He speak to, a sinner apart from Christ. And people
are always saying what they're going to tell God at the judgment. But the one man that's described
as trying to enter into the wedding feast, the wedding feast that
represents the marriage supper of the Lamb. The one man that's
described by Christ in Matthew 22, it says this, and he saith
unto him, that's the master of the feast. That's the king. Friend, how camest thou in hither
not having a wedding garment? What are you doing here? without
the garment of Christ's righteousness. What are you doing here in that
righteousness that is provided by the king himself, that garment? And it says, and he was speechless. He was speechless, couldn't say
a word. And that's the condition of man,
and most likely this man had been that way from his birth. It seems like most likely he
had been that way a long time, and that's the case of man. That's the case of man who is
described as being born dead in trespasses and sins. Being born as one who comes forth
from his mother's womb speaking lies. He had a tongue. but he could not speak. And man
in his spiritual condition, he has a tongue, but he cannot speak
to God or the things of God. He cannot speak the things that
God will accept. And as was the case here, this
dumbness was associated with demons or the devil and his agents. And that's the way that men and
women are described. They're described as being blinded
by Satan. They're described as being deceived
by Satan. They're described as believing
his lies. All the spiritual condition of
man came through that deception in the garden wherein the devil
as the serpent deceived Eve, and our parents fell. What this man needs, what this
man needs is not a speech therapist. He doesn't need somebody to teach
him what to say or how to speak. What he needs is a miracle worker
that can give him a voice, that can enable him to speak, that
can give him life, spiritual life, that is evidenced by this
being able to speak. And that's the condition. He
represents the condition of every son and daughter of Adam. He represents the natural condition
of you and of me and of every person except the Lord Jesus
Christ who has been born on this earth. Everyone, spiritually,
is like this dumb man. But the Old Testament prophets
who spoke for God They spoke of a promise, of a work, of one
coming, of a time that would be characterized by this bringing
men and women to speak. Hold your place and turn over
to Isaiah chapter 35. And this is just one place. In Isaiah 35 verse 4, it says,
say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not, Behold,
your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense. He will come and save you. Now this prophecy is given to
the nation of Israel. who are a type of spiritual Israel,
who are a type of God's church, God's elect, and they are promised
that God will save them. And of course, this fulfillment
can only be in the body of Christ. Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, then
shall the lame man leap as a heart, and the tongue of the dumb sing. He's foretelling of a day. He's
prophesying a promise from God Himself that there will come
a day when a Savior, when the Messiah will come, and He will
save His people from their sins, and He will do everything that
is necessary to right all of these conditions spiritually. One of which, He says, the tongue
of the dumb shall sing. And when God comes by His Spirit
in the new birth, when He comes because Christ has died for this
people, when He comes to them, He gives spiritual life which
has a voice. I would say it is the voice of
faith. And with this God-given voice,
this utterance that is like no other, with this God-given voice,
having been brought from being one who is dumb spiritually before
God, with this God-given voice, I'd say they do at least three
things. those who experience what this
man's miracle represents spiritually. When he brings us to faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ, when he comes and quickens us and gives
us spiritual life, we speak three things. Number one, we speak to God. In Christ, as our Mediator, as
our High Priest, who beginning at this conversation, at this
calling out, we don't even know fully who He is or what He's
done. But when we are brought from
this dumbness to be able to speak, the first thing we do is speak
to God. And we speak to Him as we really
are, for the first time in our life, we speak to Him as we really
are, and we are enabled, in part, to speak to Him as He really
is. You think about how many times
you prayed How many times you spoke of God before the Lord
came in power to your soul and really revealed who you are and
who He is. All these phony callings, all
these phony prayers, all this disregard for God as He is, ignorance
of God as He is. But now we come sincerely. And we not only come and speak
to Him sincerely, we speak humbly. We speak as beggars who are begging
for mercy. We speak confessing ourselves
to be sinners. We speak reverently. We speak
pleading for His blessings. We speak thanking Him. We speak
praising Him. We speak asking according to
His will. Our whole, not only do we have
voice, but our whole conversation is changed. We speak like the
thief on the cross. Lord, remember me. He never said that before. He never uttered such words in
his life. And God let him live in this
dumbness spiritually until the dying hour that he faced on that
cross. And when he performed the miracle
that is pictured in this text, He opened his mouth. One minute
he's saying, you saved others, save yourself. But why don't
you do something for us? He joined the other thing, but
now he's talking a different language. He said, Lord, remember me. Remember me when you come into
your kingdom. He speaks to God. He speaks to
God in human flesh, hanging there on the cross. He's crying out
to God. He's got a voice now. And the
first thing that he does with this voice, he cries out to God
in a totally different light. I'll never forget. One of the
things that I remember thinking whenever the Lord was pleased
to reveal His truth in me, I began to think, God is not who I thought
He was. I've been telling him what I've
done. I've been telling him all these
things. I've been telling him and expecting
him to do based on my faithfulness or my goodness or my something
or other. He's not who I thought he was. But when the Lord gives us this
voice, we speak to God as God. We have an expression. We say,
when somebody talks differently, we say, he changed his team. Well, that's what happens when
God comes to us in power. When the Spirit of God reveals
God to us in Christ and shows us what we are, we speak to God
in a totally different way. We speak to Him pleading for
mercy and for grace and for help. We speak to Him reverently. Our voice is turned into pleading. Our voice now is a crying after
Him. Lord, save me or I perish. Lord, You don't owe me anything
except Damnation and hell because of
my sin. Lord, if you will, you can make
me whole. All the illustrations in the
Bible. Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. It won't do to call on man anymore. Won't do to ask any man's opinion
anymore. Because we're in such a state
and condition spiritually that we know we have to speak directly
through to God Himself. Call on Him. Paul said, let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with
grace in your hearts to the Lord. We begin to recite. I hate that word, but that's
the only one I know to use. We begin to recite back to God
His promises. We begin to speak again the things
that He's told us to say. We begin to ask for the things
that He's told us to ask for. We begin to recognize Him and
honor Him, and we speak, oh, so low. When He gives us a voice, we
speak to God. And then something else happens
with this voice. A voice we never had to this
point. A voice we never could speak. Words we could never speak. We
speak to God and we speak of God. It's amazing. Men and women have their own
thing. You might as well say, when you
run up with them, you know what they're going to be talking about. They're going to be talking about
hunting. They're going to be talking about sewing. They're
going to be talking about the hobby. They're going to be talking
about the kids, their grandkids. They're going to be talking about
something like that. But when the Lord gets a hold
of our hearts, He gives us a new heart, which out of the heart,
the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. When He gives
us a new heart, we begin speaking of God. And we stop talking about ourselves. I, me, my. Well, let me give you my testimony.
I, uh, I, uh, I, uh, I, uh. Like Nebuchadnezzar. Oh, great
Babylon that I built. I gave so much to the church.
I did this. I did that. I quit doing this. I don't do that. With this voice, we speak of
God. We talk about His great attributes. We're in awe of Him. You know, if you really seen
something, seen something exciting or been someplace that's wonderful,
you can't stop talking about it. And when we've seen the glory
of God, the glory of His grace, the glory of His redemption in
the person of Jesus Christ, when we see Him as God manifest in
the flesh, coming to earth to save us, we can't stop speaking
of Him. We speak of His holiness. I'll
tell you one thing, I never spoke of His holiness before. We speak of His justice. I didn't know there was anything
in the Bible about justice or justification. We speak of His
grace. We speak of His mercy. We speak
of Him in ways we never spoke of Him before. We speak of His
electing choice. I can remember when I didn't
even want to talk about that word. I didn't want to say it. I didn't even want it in my vocabulary. But when the Lord gave me this
heart and this voice and this faith, that's all we can talk
about. Electing grace. We talk about
his predestinating love. We speak of God. We speak of Him as He's revealed
in His Word. We speak of His sovereignty,
of His sovereign will, of His infinite power. We speak of His
works. Tell about what He's done. We speak about His glory. We quit talking about free will
and start talking about His will. And that's never emphasized so
much, it seems like, as it is with a preacher that God saves. All he can talk about is morality. All he can talk about is what
men are to do. All he can talk about is the
things that we ought to be doing and such stuff as like that.
But when God gives us this tongue, this voice, that is the result
of spiritual life and faith, we talk about Him, what He's
done. We talk about His Word. We speak
of God's word. We speak of God's promises. We
speak of God's threats. We speak about how he saves sinners through the blood and the righteousness
of his son. We come together to talk about
him. Luke 1 tells about Zechariah. Zechariah, when he heard that
his wife was going to have a son, he laughed and the Lord shut
his mouth. But when that son was born, the
family name was about to be put on that boy that was born. who
was John the Baptist. The Lord opened his mouth and
loosed his tongue and it says, and he spake and praised God. That's what happens every time
the Lord opens the mouth. Every time the dumb speak. They
have praise for God. Talk about the Lord Jesus Christ. You've heard of people that somebody
said, oh, I can't say enough good things about him. Oh, yes,
you can if he's a human in this world. But you can't say enough
good things about our Lord. He's infinitely glorious in every
way, and to the infinite degree, He's glorious. So that the psalmist
said, O Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth
thy praise. That's how you can tell if the
Lord is really given that person a new birth,
new life, faith in Christ, revealed the truth to them, their mouths
will show forth His praise. They'll speak of God. And then here's the third and
last thing. They'll speak for God. They'll speak for God. We know
that those that He calls to preach speak for God. But, in truth, all God's born-again
children, they all speak for Him. They don't just speak. These people who have been brought
to religion or something like that, they speak. But they don't speak what thus
saith the Lord. They just speak. And those who have been given
the voice to speak, life to speak, faith to speak, they speak in
wisdom. They don't just speak. The Lord opens the door for them
to speak. I'm so tired of seeing people
on Facebook or the internet or seeing them in public, and the
very first thing they want to do is jump on somebody and bring
them to their way of thinking. They just want to speak. They
just want to be heard. They want to just speak and show
what they know. They're not interested in a person
being brought to the truth by the Spirit of God. They don't speak for God. He said in meekness, instructing
those that oppose themselves, if peradventure God will give
them Grant them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. They speak in wisdom. They speak
as those who are taught of God. They speak His gospel at every
opportunity to those He gives opportunity to. They set forth
His truth. They speak boldly. They speak
compassionately. They speak for God. They speak clearly the testimony of the Lord. They speak as ambassadors. They speak as heralds. who cry
out the Word of God. I'll tell you something else
they do. They speak up for His people. They speak up for their brothers
and sisters in Christ because they speak for God. All those early disciples, when
the Lord began to send them out in the Book of Acts, and they
began to be told not to say this, and not to say this, and everything
like that, they said, for we cannot but speak the things that
we have seen and heard. We've got to speak them. Because if we don't speak them,
Christ said, the very rocks will cry out. And that's what Paul as a preacher
of the gospel prayed for. That's what he asked others to
pray for. He said, pray for me that utterance
may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make
known the mystery of the gospel. A fallen man is dumb. He's dumb in the way that we
use that word today, too. But he's dumb in that he's mute
when it comes to God. But when God comes in power,
Richard's saying, when Jesus comes to save, gives him a voice, opens his
mouth, fills him with His Spirit, reveals Christ to him in all
His glory. He speaks to God. He speaks of God. And He speaks for God. Well, isn't this a wonderful
thing? Here's a man, probably dumb from
birth, Everybody is going to be so happy. The Lord Jesus has
come and performed a miracle. The dumb man is speaking. The
devil has been cast out. All the folks are going to say
hallelujah, aren't they? Look at verse 34. But the Pharisee said, he casted
out devils. through the prince of devils. He did this in the name of Beelzebub. This is of the devil. No, his
dumbness was of the devil. And it was a dumbness that they
would never be delivered from, the most of them. And that's the way it is with
so many religious people like these Pharisees, when God comes
to a sinner in grace and mercy and causes the dumb man to speak, they say, well, we don't believe
it. This is not of God. Oh, but it
is. I thought about this hymn. I kept coming into my mind one
line of it, and I finally said, well, what is that? Oh, I know
what it is. Oh, for a thousand tongues to
sing my great Redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King,
the triumphs of His grace. My gracious Master and my God,
assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad
the honors of Thy name. In this verse, hear Him, ye deaf,
His praise, ye dumb, your loosened tongues implore. ye blind, behold
your Savior come, and leap, ye lame, for joy. Here and there, one time or another, the gospel is preached, Christ
is exalted, the good news is told, And some poor, dumb sinner, mute, opens their mouth and says, Lord,
save me or I perish. Thank you, Lord, for your grace
to me. Thank you for saving such a wretch
like me. Thank you for being a just God
and a savior. Thank you for what you said in
this verse. And thank you for what you said.
Did you know he said this? Did you know Christ did this? The dumb speak. The dumb speak. It's a miracle
of grace. Our Father, we thank you for
your word. We thank you for your saving
power and mercy. We thank you that you've been
pleased to show mercy to a people in Christ. And since you loved them with
an everlasting love and sent your son to die in their place,
your spirit will come to them. and quicken them, give them life,
give them faith, and cause them to speak, cause them to confess Christ, cause them to rejoice, and offer
that fruit of the lips, which is praise, thanksgiving, We ask for all of these that
we've named tonight sick. All these who are lost. We pray that you would do spiritually a miracle. We pray that you would open our
mouths. So, all sin and coldness, the
world just causes us to close our mouths. But give us grace to open our
mouths, fill our mouths with praise, thanksgiving, with the
gospel. the good news that we might tell
sinners about Christ. We pray and ask all things and
give thanks to you tonight in Him. Amen.