Good morning everybody. If you'd
like to turn over to Luke chapter four. Luke the fourth chapter. Title for the message this morning
is The Anointed Christ. Luke chapter four. Now in the
Old Testament administration, the Old Testament government
for lack of a better term over Israel, you had three major offices.
And all these offices involved anointing. The Lord would choose
what man would occupy this office and they would take a certain
mixture in oil and they would dump it on this man and anoint
him. And so those three major offices are this. First you had
the king. This was God's appointed king. King was not like a president,
wasn't like a prime minister. Whatever the king said, that's
what was done. Whatever the king purposed, that's what happened. He was the king, God's appointed
king. Speaks of Christ our king, Christ
our sovereign, the one who purposes and rules and reigns over all
men and all things at all times. You had the priest. especially
the high priest anointed by God. His job was to bring the people
before God, especially on the Day of Atonement. The Day of
Atonement, he would slip underneath that veil into the Holy of Holies,
and he had one thing with him. He had the blood of the sacrifice,
and ceremonially, when he went underneath that veil with that
blood, he would make appeasement on behalf of the people before
God. Christ, our great high priest,
that one who comes in the presence of his father with his own blood,
with his sacrifice, and he makes appeasement with the father to
the point that the father receives everyone that he represents because
of that blood. And finally you had this, and
this is the one that shamefully I probably think on the least. You had the prophet. What was
the prophet's job? The prophet's job was to bring
God to men. spoke and all he ever said was
exactly what the Lord told him to say. I have a friend who does
some preaching and he made a funny comment at one point. He goes,
I think the prophets of old had an easier job. They just had
to repeat whatever the Lord told them to say. They didn't have
to study or anything. Whatever the Lord said that is just what they said.
That was their job to bring God to men. And they just spoke what
the Lord told them to speak. Christ is in fact our preacher.
He is in fact the very Word of God. I'll be as clear about this
as I possibly can be. The only thing that God the Father
has to say to this generation and every other generation of
men is this, Jesus Christ. That is all He has to say. This
is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye Him. That's it. One thing, one way
of salvation, Christ, one sanctification, one justification, one peace
with God in Christ. That's it. He has one thing to
say. And if I hear this gospel, this glorious word of God, and
it's truly the truth, made effectual to me unto salvation the belief
of the truth." I'm going to hear that from a man. It's going to
come in an earthen vessel, but it's not that man. He's just
a vessel. He's just a microphone. It is
Christ giving that message. It is Him speaking. It is Him
making it effectual to the heart of His people. He is in fact
our preacher. You know that's what He did for
about three years of His life. He went about preaching. preaching
the kingdom of God. And you imagine, or can you imagine,
can I imagine, being at a place where he's preaching, hearing
one of those messages. Now we deal with distractions,
our minds wander, we get sleepy, the preacher gets boring, all
these things happen. But I guarantee when he was speaking,
just like these people here, all of our eyes would be fastened
on him. No word would be wasted. No word would be lost. And for
a sinner, it would have been the most glorious and comforting
and peaceful thing a sinner had ever heard. And to a righteous
man, it would have been the worst thing he had ever heard, guaranteed. That's what I want to do this
morning. I actually want to look would be regarded as our Lord's
first recorded message. He may have preached before this,
probably often, but this is the first one that the Scripture
records. It is a very short message. He reads some Scripture out of
Isaiah 66.1, he makes a few comments, and that's it. Made of very few
words. But look down here, look at verse
16, look for it, where he had been brought up.
This was his hometown, and all these people who would be in
audience here had watched him grow up. They knew him as the
son of Joseph. That's how they knew him. This man who was preaching
to them was not foreign to them. They knew him. They knew him
from this earth. And listen to this, and as his custom was,
he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up
to read. Now, he read, he gave a short
interpretation, and he sat down. And this was his custom. On the
Sabbath day, he went to the synagogue. This is what he did. This is
what he could be expected to do, what he could be relied upon
to do, and he could be predicted to do, because this is what he
always did. On the Sabbath, he went to the
synagogue. Why did he do that? Why was that
his custom? Because that's what the law said
to do. You go to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and he was
a man of custom. At every feast he went to the
feast. He observed all of God's holy law. He was made under the
law, subject to the law in every way, shape, or form, every jot,
and every tittle. And this was his custom. He kept
God's holy law. And he kept it perfectly, not
just on the outward, not just attending the feast, not just
going to the synagogue. This man kept the law outwardly
and he kept the law inwardly. part of him in obedience to his
Father, always seeking and doing his Father's will in everything. Never wrong thoughts. Never evil
motives or evil intentions. No wickedness in that heart.
He kept God's Law perfectly. This was his custom. What he
did, what he could be relied on to do, what he could be expected
to do, and what he always did. He kept his custom. Now, before
we look at what he said, I want you to see how the people reacted
to this message. Look down here, look at verse
25. I'm sorry, verse 28. And all they in the synagogue,
when they had heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose
up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow
of a hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast
him down headlong But he passing through the midst of them went
his way." Now whatever he said in this message absolutely enraged
these people to the point they took a man who had only done
two things. He had told them the truth, every
word being the very word of God because it was God speaking.
He told them the truth, and he did only good. Keep that in mind.
This was a man of custom. He did no man wrong. He did no
unrighteousness. This was a good man, the only
good man. He did only those two things,
and whatever he said, these people said, we're gonna take that man,
and we're gonna chuck him off this hill, and let him land on
his head and die. They were ready to murder him,
the very Son of God. Now, here's my point in all this. I wanna
look at what he said. At the end of all this, if the
Lord blesses us, if he meets with us this morning, and we
can actually enter into what he said here, we're gonna find
we are in one of these two camps. Either I'm part of this mob who
says, kill him, throw him off the cliff, get him down there
right now, or, folks, this will be the best news I have ever
heard in my entire life. And if the Lord is willing to
bless us, there will be no in between, one of the two. Now let's look at
what he said. I wanna start at the end of his
message. Look at verse 25. He said, But I tell you of a
truth. Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the
heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine
was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elijah
sent, save unto Sarepta, the city of Sidon, unto a woman that
was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel
in the time of Elisha, his successor, the prophet. and none of them
was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. Now he gives two illustrations
to these people and they both relay the same point, that God
is absolutely 100% sovereign in salvation. In the days of
Elijah, you can read about in 1 Kings 17, Elijah prayed that
it would not rain for the space of three years and the Lord granted
that. What happens when it don't rain? Where's the drought? No
crops, no food, great famine throughout all the land. Tons
of people starving, tons of people in misery. And the Lord passed
every single one of them by and only had pity on one. one widow
and her son. Elijah was only sent to one,
the one of God's choosing. He pitied only one, a particular
one, the one of his choosing. And because he sent Elijah and
Elijah was with her, he sustained her and her son through that
entire famine, even brought her son back to life when he got
sick. Many in misery, many suffering, he chose to go to only one. Same
goes with Naaman, the days of Elisha. Many lepers, many suffering. Elijah was only sent to one.
He wasn't even a Jew. He was a Gentile. He was a Syrian
Naaman. He only cleansed one. Elisha
was only sent to one. He is declaring the absolutely
sovereignty of God in salvation. He will have mercy on whom He
will have mercy, and He will be gracious to whom He will be
gracious. Now Paul has a lot to say about
that. Turn over to Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9, how's that?
Let's find out. When you get to Romans chapter
9, look at verse 11. Here's an illustration of how
it works. For the children, speaking of Jacob and Esau, twin brothers
born of the same womb, for the children being not yet born,
Neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of
God, according to election might stand, not of works, but of him
that calleth, of God. He's the one who calls. It was
said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. This is about as
plain a language you can find in the whole scripture on the
sovereignty of God. Very plainly, he says this. These are two twin
boys. from the same womb and before they were ever born, before
they were ever manifest in this world, before they had done any
good or evil, not according to works because there were no works
at this point. He loved one, Jacob. And because he loved him, he
chose him, he elected him unto salvation. Not of works. This
isn't God looking through the glass of time and saying, well,
he would do good, so retroactively I'm going to elect him. No, not
of works, but simply because of who Jacob was in. He was in
Christ eternally. He was chosen in Christ. That's
where God's love is. It's in Christ. He chose Him
unto salvation. He chose to show Him mercy. Therefore,
mercy He had to be shown, and He would find the reason for
that mercy outside of Jacob. He would find it all somewhere
else. He would find it in Christ. Another brother, Esau. before
the world began, before he had done any good or evil, not according
to works. God hated him, so he passed him
by. He left him alone to do what
he would naturally do, war against God and flee from Jesus Christ. He did not intervene on his behalf. Now, a question is probably going
to arise here. The question is found down here
in verse 14. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? It's a good question. Is the
Lord wrong in this? Is he in error in saving in this
manner up to his sovereign mercy? Has he done any man wrong in
all this? Paul says, God forbid. There
is no unrighteousness with God. And he's actually gonna give
us two reasons that this is good. that this is right, that this
is just, that this is best, that this is fair. It's all very,
very good. And so here's the first reason,
verse 15. For he saith to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. Here's the first reason the scripture
gives us why this is right, why this is good, because he said
it. for he saith to Moses, he did it and he said it and therefore
it is good and it is right and it is best. Now folks, I know
that we are all born with a conscience. Every man is born with some semblance
of right and wrong. We're all born with that conscience. You don't have to give the man
a copy of the scriptures, a copy of the Ten Commandments to know
it's wrong to steal. He knows that. The law is written on his
heart from birth. But that conscience, that sense
of right and wrong and justice and fairness, it gets very seared
very quickly. And one of the worst things we
could possibly do is rely on our own intuition to find out
whether something is right and good and just. If you want to
know what the very standard of what good is, of what right is,
what just is, it's very simple. If God did it, it's good. It's
right, it's just. If God said it, it's the truth.
It is the absolute truth and anything that is contrary to
that is man's lie. Let God be true and every man
a liar. He said it. That's the very first
reason the scripture gives as to why this is right. He is the
very standard of what is right and wrong and good and truth. Here's another one here. Look
at verse 16. So then it is not of him that
willeth, him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." Now
that is a blanket statement on His sovereignty. It is not of
Him that willeth. Salvation is not up to a man,
up to him accepting or rejecting some gift He has offered. No,
if the Lord purposes to show mercy to a man, mercy He will
have. He will be saved. If He does
not purpose to show mercy to a man, He will not have it. It
is not up to a man's will. Nor is it of Him that runneth,
It's not a competition. It's not about a man meeting
some sort of standard. No, it's up to the sovereign
mercy and will of God. But that's a reason too. Because
if it was up to him that willeth. The Lord said, I'll save anybody,
absolutely anybody, that is naturally willing to be saved under my
terms, those terms where Jesus Christ gets all the glory in
salvation. That man has to admit that he
is a filthy sinner before God, undeserving of this great salvation
that he provided. Nobody would. Nobody is willing, not by nature. You have to be made willing to
be saved in that manner. You see, the sovereignty of God
is absolutely necessary. It is not of him that runneth.
If it was, if salvation was based on man meeting the standard,
you run the race, you win, you make the time, you get salvation. Who'd be saved? Nobody, because
God's standard is perfect righteousness. And if we're talking about a
race, we can't even make the first step in the race. We go the opposite
direction. That's what he's talking about
here. But because it is all up to the sovereign will and mercy
of God, him finding the reason to show one mercy outside of
that object, a people will be saved. And they're called the
elect. Now look down here, he goes on.
Look at verse 17. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for the same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth. Pharaoh,
the days of Moses, the Lord told Moses, go to Pharaoh, say, let
my people go. And Pharaoh said, no. He was doing exactly what he
wanted to do. He was warring against God. Who
is God? Who is your God that I shall
obey him? He was warring against God and doing what he wanted
to do. And it says time and time again,
interchangeably, Pharaoh hardened his heart and the Lord hardened
Pharaoh's heart. Both are true. He hardened his
heart. He did what he wanted to do.
He warred against God and the Lord was sovereign over every
bit of it. He empowered that man for a very short time to
stand against him. Literally, he built him up as
a villain so he could conquer his villain and he might make
his great power known. That's who we're dealing with
here. This is the God that Christ preached right here. He's preaching
himself, by the way. This is Christ speaking. Now,
if there's any other objection, Paul has a blanket answer. Look
at verse 19. That will say then unto me, why doth he yet find
fault? For who hath resisted his will? If we're all just doing
the will of God, either as a vessel of mercy, making his great mercy
known, or a vessel of his perfect justice, if we're all just doing
the will of God, how can it then find fault? Here's the reply,
verse 20. Nay, but O man, who art thou
that replies against God? shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? This is the
answer, the final answer. You're not God. You did not create. He created, and he is God. And as the created being, you
are subject to his will. When one creates, he can do as
he wills with his creation. And because of your status, Because
you did not create, because you are not God, you don't rate and
answer. That's the end of it. I find
it interesting that this is the point in the message where they
wanted to throw him off a cliff headlong. Now, this life would
be an anxious agony though if there was no certainty in salvation. God is sovereign and you have
absolutely no way to know whether He has chosen you or not. You
have absolutely no way to know whether He's going to show you
mercy and has shown you mercy or not. You just have to wait
to the end. If that was the case, think about the anxiety. Think
about the agony that would be this life. But you know what?
It's not like that at all. There's absolute certainty of
this thing of salvation. I wish we could get a hold of
that. This is a certain salvation. Everything God says is certain.
It must come to pass. It's already come to pass. That's
where we're at. It's absolutely certain. Somebody
can have full assurance. No reason to ever have a bad
day. And Christ himself is going to
tell us who the Father has purpose to show mercy to. And each one
of these people, every one of them, They will have mercy, it's
guaranteed. Look back up at verse 17 of your
text. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 66, 1. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me. Now, I don't know how many countless
people have read this scripture over the years, but this is the
first time someone said it in first person. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, and he was talking about me. He was talking about himself.
I am the Messiah. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to who? the poor. He has sent me to heal
the who? Broken hearted. To preach deliverance
to who? The captives, the prisoners.
And recovering of sight to the who? The blind. To set at liberty
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. You'll notice there is absolutely
no uncertainty in any of those statements right there. If you
want to know whether the Father's purpose to show you mercy and
you have it, it's very simple. You meet this description right
here. Poor, what does that mean? It means you lack means. You
don't have the means to satisfy God. I cannot make my peace with
God. I cannot keep the law. I can't
even take the first step towards it. All I've ever done is break
God's holy law. I can't make up for what I've
done. I can't make atonement for my own sins. I cannot be
my own intercessor. You are poor. You have nothing
to bring to the table. You are spiritually in righteousness
bankrupt before God. That's what poor means. Broken
hearted. What's a heart? It's in nature. The nature is broken. What's a nature supposed to do?
How's it supposed to function? It should be pure and holy, thinking
only good thoughts, having only good imaginations, saying only
good and holy things, doing only good works. But to those whose
nature is broken, it doesn't do what it's supposed to do.
It does evil. It thinks evil. It says evil.
It has evil motives. It has evil intentions. Everything
is touched with the need for self-glorification. It's broken. That's who he's talking about
here. Captive. Prisoner. Someone who cannot
not sin. It is my nature. It is my name.
It is what I do. It is what I think. The blind. One who looks inside himself.
And he cannot find any reason God will look upon him in mercy. In the bruised, it literally
means smitten through. And the idea is this, a man is
sitting there with an open wound, he is bleeding out, and he cannot
heal himself. If nobody comes along and nobody
intervenes for him, and no one seals him up and patches him
up, he is going to die wounded in the fall. If he doesn't come
to me and do something for me, I can't get to him. I can't do
anything for myself. If he doesn't sovereignly, of
his own accord, of his own will, come to me and do something for
me, I'm going to bleed out. I'm going to go to hell. That's
the people he is talking about here. And if you wanted to sum
these people up with one word, Just one. The scripture uses
it time and time again. Sinner. Claire read this Wednesday
night, and this has quickly become my favorite verse of scripture.
If you take the whole book, and you left me with just one thing,
the only thing I could read for the rest of my life, it would
be 1 Timothy 1.15. For this is a faithful saying
and worthy of all acceptation. that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Notice the certainty
of that. He came to save sinners. Did
He do it? He absolutely did. That means if you're one of these
poor, broken-hearted, blind, bruised, He saved you. It's finished. It's over. Now let's look, let's back up
here and look at what else the Lord said. He said in verse 18,
he opens this way, he said, "'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because He hath anointed me.'" Now, every believer, every elect
child of God, we have the Spirit. We have the God, the Holy Spirit.
We have it in measure. It differs in influence from
person to person, from time to time. But he had the Spirit without
measure. Everything God had, Everything
God was was given to this God-man, Jesus Christ. Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit dwelt in a body, the body of a man, Jesus Christ. Everything God had went to Jesus
Christ. All things are in His hand, and
it was for this reason because God anointed Him. What does it
mean to be anointed? I'm always kind of weirded out
by that word. What does that mean? What does it mean to be anointed?
It's really simple. One who is anointed, all those
three offices I talked about before, all had to be anointed.
It means you're chosen by God. You're chosen unto a particular
task, being sent to accomplish a particular task. That means
he gives you all power and all armament to complete the task,
so much so that you cannot fail. He was anointed by God for this
purpose. The Father said, go and save
my people. These chosen ones, these ones
I loved in you, these ones I have purpose to show mercy to, you're
going to go and you're going to make it to where I can show
mercy to them and will do me absolutely no damage to my perfect
sense of justice. That's what you are going to
do. He was anointed to that task, and because God was with him,
because he had the spirit without measure, because he was and is
God himself, he could not fail. It was an impossibility. Now,
let's see how he did it. Verse 18, he said, he preached
the gospel to the poor. Not only did he preach the gospel
to the poor, He is the gospel to the poor, and he did the gospel
to the poor. But if you wanted to sum that
word up, somebody ever ask you that? I remember one time, Todd,
we had a conference, and he had each one of the speakers think
on this question, what is the gospel? What is the gospel? And
I think that was some of the best preaching I've ever heard
in my life. Everyone focused on that, what is the gospel?
It means good news. What is the message of that good
news? Let me give you a really simple
answer. Turn over here to Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter 10 and look at verse
34. Acts 10, 34, then Peter opened
his mouth Instead of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter
of persons. He's absolutely right. There
is no wavering standard. His standard between one man
and another man is the same, perfect righteousness. That's
it. But in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness
is accepted with him. The word which God sent unto
the children of Israel, preaching. You see that word preaching?
That is the very same word used as gospel in our text. If you
wanna know what the gospel is, here it is in just a few short
words. Preaching peace by Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all. If you want a very simple definition,
for the poor, for the broken hearted, for the blind, for the
bruised, for sinners, HE MADE YOUR PEACE WITH GOD. ONLY ONE MAN COULD MAKE PEACE
WITH GOD. ONLY ONE MAN COULD ACT AS THAT HIGH PRIEST AND GO
BEHIND THE VEIL AND ACTUALLY MAKE APPEASEMENT WITH GOD WITH
HIS OWN BLOOD. AND THIS LORD JESUS CHRIST DID
JUST THAT FOR HIS PEOPLE. IT SAYS IN ROMANS 5-1, THEREFORE
BEING JUSTIFIED BY FAITH. BY WHOSE FAITH? DOES MY FAITH
JUSTIFY ME? Oh, no, my faith is a symptom.
No, being justified by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. Therefore, being
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Justified, past tense, peace
present for every poor, needy sinner. That is the case right
now. I know Clare said this coming into it, peace. That was a big
word he used, peace. You know why he used that word?
Because that's the gospel. for sinners because of what Christ
has done, that wedge that was between us and the Father, His
people. He bore that sin, that wedge
in His body, and He removed it, putting it away. And now we are
truly reconciled to God. That's today. That's the truth
for every needy sinner who all they have is Christ. Need Him
to come do something for them. That's it. We have peace with
God right now. Now be ye reconciled to God.
That's the message. It says this in verse 18, And
He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to those that are broken, those
who do not work, those who cannot meet the standard. He sent them
to heal them. And here's what He said, Isaiah
53, 5, But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised
for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him, and with His stripes we Are. Right now, are. Nothing to be added to, nothing
to be supplemented. We are right now, presently, healed. For a man who is broken, a man
who cannot work, a man who cannot get the job done, for a man who
cannot contribute, it's over. You have been healed. It's already
taken place. says he was sent to preach deliverance
to the captives and to set at liberty them that are bruised."
Now, there's two types of bondage men are born into. Every man
born in this world is born into two types of bondage. Number
one is a bondage to sin and a sinful nature to where you cannot believe,
you cannot repent, you cannot come to God, and you can do nothing
but sin. Something had to be done about
that sin and that nature. Now, that word is captive, right?
Listen to this. I've always found this scripture
very interesting, but listen to this. This is Ephesians 4,
seven and eight. But unto every one of us is given
grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ, wherefore
he saith, when he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive
and gave gifts unto men. Do you get what he's saying there?
That captivity that held us, that captivity of sin, he held
captivity captive. He took that which held us captive,
and he held it captive in his own body. He was made the sins
of his people, bearing them in his body, and through his death,
he put them away. He took captivity off of us,
bought in his body, and took it away, and now we are free. That's what he said to Bartimaeus.
He said this. He said, go thy way, Thy faith
hath made thee whole. You remember what Bartimaeus
said, what he did? And he followed Jesus in the way. This is what
happens when you're released from the captivity of sin. Folks,
we will always be somebody's captive. We're always gonna be
somebody's prisoner. You're either a captive to sin
or a captive of Christ. But a man who's captive of Christ,
saved by him, here's what he wants to do. Wherever he goes,
that's where I wanna go. Wherever he says, that's the truth. Whatever
he did, that's just perfect. That's just fine. That's exactly
the way it should be. We're always going to be somebody's
prisoner. It's just whose prisoner are
you? And the other one is this. Well, actually, he makes this
curious statement. Look back in your text and look at verse
23. I thought this was interesting. And he said unto them, you were
surely saying unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever
we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country.
And he said, verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in
his own country. Now he said, you're gonna say
that to me. You're gonna say unto me, physician, heal thy
self. When did they say that to him?
Matt just said it on the cross. This is Mark 15, 31, it says,
likewise also the chief priests, mocking, said among themselves
with the scribes, he saved others, himself he cannot save. Now,
they were a bunch of reviling God-haters, but one thing they
weren't was wrong. He saved others. He saved his
people through that suffering death from holding captivity
captive in his body and suffering under the wrath of God. But there's
one person he couldn't save, and that was himself. It was
either us or him, and he chose him. Send me that they might
be spared. This is love in action. Now the
other captivity we have is this, what all men are born into. Captive
to a law we cannot keep. But Christ kept his custom. And
we talked about that earlier. He was a man of custom. He kept
God's holy law. And now for everyone that God
chose, everyone the Father gave him, now this is what we have. This is how Paul refers to it.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets. We have righteousness. We meet the standard of God of
perfect righteousness, and we have it without the law, without
us having to do anything to earn it, just being freely given,
obtaining it, having it, being it, simply because of geographically,
spiritually, where we're at in Christ. That's it. Now, he says
also this. He says, I was sent to recover
the sight of the blind. Now this is the only good blindness,
the only good one that there is. For every man who looks inside
himself and he cannot find one reason that God would be merciful
to him. There is no reason in here. He
recovers their sight and he shows them how God can be merciful
to them and do absolutely no damage to his perfect sense of
justice. And that word blind, you know
what it means? It means obscured by smoke. Turn over here to Exodus
chapter 20. This will be one of the last
things I'll show you. We're talking about being recovered
of sight, obscured by smoke. Let's see what the children of
Israel saw. This is Mount Sinai when the Lord gave the law. Let's
see what they saw. Look at verse 18 of Exodus 20. And all the people saw the thunderings
and the lightnings and the noise of the trumpet and the mountain
smoking. And when the people saw it, they
were moved and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, speak
that with us, and we will hear, but let not God speak with us,
lest we die. Here's what they saw. They saw
the utter unapproachableness of God. They saw the thunders,
they saw the lightnings, they heard the law being given out
of that great mountain. They said, we know one thing,
we want nothing to do with him. We cannot approach unto him,
we cannot stand before his presence, that one hates sin. That one
deals in perfect holy justice. We can't come before him. We
need an intercessor. He said, you speak to him and
you come back here and you tell us what he said and we'll do
whatever you say. But we need an intercessor. We can't go there.
We can't stand before him. Moses is the type of Christ here.
And look what he said, verse 20. And Moses said unto the people,
fear not for God has come to prove you. and that his fear
may be before your faces, that you sin not. And the people stood
afar off, and Moses drew near under the thick darkness, the
smoke, where God was. Now when he recovers your sight,
this is what you see. That's an unapproachable God.
I cannot stand before him. Somebody has to stand before
me and this is how God can deal with me in mercy. This is the
only way. Christ had to enter that darkness on my behalf. He
had to step into that violence and wrath of God to stand in
that thick smoke, that thick darkness, and he had to take
every single bit of it, that wrath that was reserved for me,
and he had to swallow up the darkness to allow that there's
light between me and God. That's the only way. When you're
given sight, that's what you see. Either he did it for me,
and if he did, everything is fine, and if he didn't, That's
the end of it. But we have this great hope.
We know exactly who He did this for, sinners. And finally this. In verse 19 of your text, it
says, He was sent to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. You don't have to turn there. This is the end of it. This is
speaking of the year of Jubilee. Now, you remember every 50 years,
the Children of Israel were commanded to observe this law, the year
of Jubilee. And here's what happened in the
year of Jubilee. If you're a prisoner or a slave, you're returned to
your families. If you had a debt or lost anything
due to poverty or debt, it was restored to you. And this is
the big one. This is the one I want to focus
on. For one solid year, nobody did any work. They just rested
the entire time. Nobody tilled the ground. No
one picked a grape. None of those things were done.
Everybody just rested. Now these right here, the poor
and the broken hearted and the bruised and the blind, all these
people share this in common. This is what they are commanded
to do. And this is what they all do. They rest. They are completely and utterly
content to be saved by Jesus Christ alone, and they trust
him to do it. This is what Hebrews 4.10 says.
It says, for he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased
from his own works as God did from his. My hands are off. I have nothing to bring to the
table, and I'm bringing absolutely nothing to the table. I'm simply
resting and trusting. that what the Lord did is what
he promised he would do. He saved sinners. That's it. Now, I'll remind you how these
people reacted to this. They took him, they wanted to
kick him off a cliff, just like that. They were gonna try to
murder the Son of God. And all he had done is tell them
the truth. I am that Messiah. I am that Christ. I am that anointed
one of God. I'm absolutely sovereign. I'm
gonna save whom I will, and I will pass by whom I will. Everybody's
doing the will of God. But I'll tell you exactly who
I'm gonna show mercy to, sinners. That's it. Oh, by the way, I
have done absolutely everything necessary. I have made their
peace with God. Now just rest. Don't move a muscle. Just rest. Just trust me. That's
it. And I still want to chuck them
off a cliff. I deduce from that only one thing.
They weren't sinners. They weren't poor. They weren't
broken hearted. They weren't blind. They weren't
bruised. Because for a sinner, for one who can't come up with
the goods, this is the best news you have ever heard. I'll leave
you there.