Let's turn tonight to Luke chapter
4. Luke chapter 4. I did, in fact, recently return
from a nine-day trip, and the day I left I saw something
that troubled me. On the last day of my trip, I
saw something else that gave me pause. It actually was pretty
astounding. I want to tell you about both
those things. I left and was heading towards Pennsylvania
and got about to Grayson, Kentucky on I-64. Right before, maybe a mile or
two before the exit, over on your left is a religious building
And it has a big stone facade that faces the highway. And this
is what it has written on it in big carved letters. It says,
where the love of God is found to be real. Now, to some that might sound
okay. But let me tell you what that
group is actually saying. They are saying that the love
of God is not real in other places. I've got news for those folks.
The love of God is real. Period. The error here is the universal
error of modern religion. They think God needs them to
do something. That without them, God's love
is wasted or ineffectual. That they make the difference.
They have let God do what He wants to do. They've let Him
love them and accepted His love. And that's just completely backwards
and upside down, as we'll see. The second thing I saw was Sunday
morning I was on the way to Greg Elmquist's church Orlando and
I this huge intersection six lanes this way and for the other
way and have one of those new billboards have you seen them
they light up and Then it's like a big LD screen or something
it flips and another message comes and they have several messages
and they stay up there for a little while and then it flips and you're
at that sign and you almost can't not look at it and I looked up
there as it flipped over and here was this this nice-looking
couple there and It had on the left their names and address
and what time they met. And in just massive letters they
had written three words, Making Jesus Famous. You know, that's the same blasphemous
message that's in Gratian. Their Jesus needs them. Otherwise,
he'll never, ever get any real notoriety. Those folks apparently
think God needs them to make Jesus famous. They really think
that what they do is what this is all about. And again, that's
upside down. Let me show you in the scriptures
the point I'm trying to make. Turn in Luke 4, look at verse
1, and read some verses along here of Luke's account of what
happened, and then we're going to ask a few questions. Luke
4, verse 1, And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned
from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being
forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat
nothing, and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the
devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command these
stones to be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying,
It is written that man should not live by bread alone, but
by every word of God. And the devil, taking him up
into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of
the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him,
All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them. For that
is delivered unto me, it is mine to give, and to whomsoever I
will give it. If thou therefore wilt worship
me, all this will be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto
him, Get thee behind me, Satan. For it is written, Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And
Satan brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of
the temple, and said unto him, Thou be the Son of God, cast
thyself down from hence. For it is written, He shall give
his angels charge over thee to keep thee, and in their hands
they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot
against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto
him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when
the devil had ended all the temptation, He departed from the Lord Jesus
Christ for a season. Here's my first question about
what we just read. Who was there? Well, the devil was there, right?
Satan. And he's the archenemy of all
mankind. And Jesus Christ was there, the
Son of God. Was any other man or woman there? I didn't read about anybody else
there, did y'all? Did any man beside Christ, the God-man, do
anything? Who was in the wilderness? It
was the Lord Jesus Christ. Who did not eat for forty days? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who hungered? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who was
taken up to a mountaintop? The Lord Jesus Christ. Who was
brought to Jerusalem? and put on the temple roof, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who was offered power over and the glory of the
whole world. Who was offered that? The Lord
Jesus Christ. Who was tempted? The Lord Jesus
Christ. Only one man who resisted all
temptation, yet sinned not, it says, the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me ask everybody here
this question. Do we think for a minute that
if we had been there and had been tempted with all the power
and the glory combined of Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, the Queen of
Sheba, Cleopatra, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Joseph
Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, the President of the United States,
and the First Lady, all combined, it sure as all you've got to
do is bow down. Does anybody here think you could resist that
temptation? Bless your heart if you do. You're
a fool. Just a complete fool. We don't know much about ourselves
if we think we'd resist that kind of temptation except for
the grace of God. You see, man can't resist temptation
and won't. But the Lord Jesus Christ did. Did Christ then or now You need
a man to be there with him? That's ridiculous, isn't it?
It's absurd. So look what happened after all
this occurred. And Satan departed. Look at verse
14. What happened? And Jesus returned
in the power of the Spirit unto Galilee. And there went out what? A fame. He was famous. All the way back
there, he was famous. And was there any man there or
woman who made it happen? Do we see how ridiculous such
a thing to say is? A fame went out, a fame of him
through all the region round about and he taught in their
synagogues being glorified of all. He was famous not because of
what any man or woman or any devil did. That was true then
and it is still true now. The fact is Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, will be famous and will get glory, not because of
what some man or woman does in Florida or anywhere else, but
He will be famous and He will get glory despite what we do. In spite of what we do. And I
hope we can see tonight that God never has and never will
need man, but oh how we need desperately need the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see how upside down the religious
world's got it nowadays? It's upside down. Our Lord often
gave parables. I looked this up just to be sure
I sort of knew what I was talking about. In that big thick concordance,
when you look up the word parable every time our Lord gave one,
this is what He was doing and what it means by definition.
A parable is a fictitious A make-believe, kids, a make-believe narrative
or story of common life occurrences that convey a moral, teach us
a lesson. And I want this evening to give
you a parable. Here we go. There was a man who was convinced to go to a
doctor, and after some tests, this doctor told this man that
he had a disease which would destroy him. It was fatal. It
would destroy him from the inside out. And as he reached the final
stages of that disease, he'd be blind. Well, he left the doctor's
office and received a phone call and was told by his financial
advisor that he lost everything he had. He was bankrupt. He was on his way to a family
reunion and got there and found out there were policemen and
firemen everywhere. And he found out that every member
of his family had died in an explosion that was caused by
his negligence. And the police took him into
custody, arrested him, put him in jail where he would await
his trial and execution. And he suddenly realizes as he's
sitting in that cell, he's gone blind. Well, a fellow came to see him.
He said he was an advocate. And he said to this man in the
prison, he said, you know, I know the cause of all that's happened
to you. And I know one who can cure it
all, make it like it never happened. And the man said, well, I can't
pay anything for this. What's the fee? Could I work
it off over time? Because I'm broke. And the applicant
said, no. He said, no fees required, nor
will any be accepted. He said, all you've got to do
is simply express your need of the one I represent. You know
what this fellow said to him? He said, well, Now, he said,
I think I'll work this out on my own. I don't want your help. Now, you may be saying, that sounds ridiculous. That's
no parable. That's no common story. And what's
the moral? Well, let's see. This story may
be more common than you think, because it fits by nature every
one of us in here tonight. We're not only in the same grievous,
afflicted condition of this man, we not only by nature won't accept
any help, we don't want any help. Now, we might want to believe
that we're not as bad off as that man in this parable, but
in truth, we better hope we're in this very same condition,
and let me show you why. Are you still in Luke 4? Only folks who are in this condition,
the condition of that man in the parable, do you know that's
the only one the Lord Jesus Christ came to preach the gospel to?
And here's the proof of it. In verse 16 we read, ìAnd he
came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as his custom
was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood
up for to read.î And there was delivered unto him a book of
the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written. Now listen to this.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me
to do what? Preach the gospel. To who? To
the poor. He has sent me to heal who? The
brokenhearted. He sent me to preach deliverance
to who? The captives. And recovering of the sight to
the blind. and to set at liberty them that
are bruised." Sounds a lot like that guy in the parable to me.
And he said in verse 19, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And then he closed the book and gave it again to the minister
and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue
were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them,
This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Jesus Christ is
saying He came to preach the gospel to the poor, to beggars. And if we're not poor, let me
tell you, if you're not poor, He didn't come to preach it to
you. Jesus Christ was sent to heal the brokenhearted, and if
we're not brokenhearted, we won't be healed. He came to preach
deliverance to the captives, and if we're not prisoners and
slaves, He didn't come to preach it to us. Says he came to recover
the sight of the blind. If we're not blind, he won't
give us eyes to see. Says he came to set at liberty
the bruised. If we're not bruised, if we're
not sick and crushed, then we won't be delivered. Why would
not everyone want Jesus Christ to do these things for them?
Why not? That's a good question, isn't
it? Why wouldn't the man in the parable plead for help? The answer
can only be found in God's Word and only by the revelation of
God's Spirit. The man in the parable is a son
of Adam, and we are just like him. You see, when Adam fell
in the garden, he was lost. And he lost his ability to see
things as they truly are, especially ourselves. When Adam ate, he
disobeyed God. And here is what changed. Listen
to me. Adam was rich. He wanted for
nothing. He had fellowship with God. But
he ate of the fruit and he became poor. Adam was happy. He was happy. The Lord would
come walking in the cool of the day and talk to Adam. He talked
with the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. He was content and satisfied.
Then he ate the fruit and he became miserable. He was never
satisfied. Can we imagine the heartache
Adam and Eve experienced when they found out that their son
Cain had killed their son Abel? Oh, they were brokenhearted now.
And so are we. Adam was free. And then I ate
the fruit and he was cast out of the garden. He became a captive
of sin. All his motives and actions were
ruled by his captor. the law of sin and death, and
were captives just like him. Adam communed with God. He saw
God as He is, holy and righteous. And then Adam and us became blind
to the truth and reality, dead wrong about everything and anything
pertaining to God. Blind. Adam was healthy, perfect
physically and spiritually. Perfect. Now he and us We're
sick, all right, we're sick in the head, we're sick in the heart,
dead spiritually, and just waiting. We're just going through this
life waiting for death. Eternal death. Adam communed with God,
loved God, worshipped God, was completely dependent on God.
Then he and us suddenly despised God, had no fellowship with God,
had no need of God. And the cause is sin. One word, sin. The cause of our
problems, while we're blind, broken-hearted, sick, destitute
and slaves is sin. Turn the page to Luke 5. The saddest thing is that we
will refuse to believe that we're in this condition. We by nature
do not call upon Christ because we don't really think we're sick.
In Luke 5, verse 31, our Lord said unto them, they that are
whole don't need a physician, only those that are sick. When
do we go to the doctor? When we're convinced we're sick,
who here likes to go? Nobody does. Nobody does. And by nature, we don't want
to go to the great physician either. And turn a couple pages
over to Luke 7. There is ample proof in the Scriptures
that Christ was able to do all these things. Could He heal the
blind? We all know that he healed blind
Bartimaeus, but there were many others. In Luke 7, verse 21,
we read, And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities
and plagues and of evil spirits, and unto many that were blind
he gave sight. Could our Lord make a poor man
rich? Well, here was Lazarus sitting
in the gate, just a beggar, and a rich man would go by and ignore
him every day. What happened to Lazarus who was poor, a beggar?
Oh, he was made rich. He was taken to glory with the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the rich man, what happened
to him? He was in hell looking at Lazarus and his wealth. Christ
cured Jairus, his child. You know, I don't think there's
anything, no greater heartbreak, I don't think. Now, I know it's
tough if our parents die brothers and sisters die, or spouses die,
I'm not saying that's easy. But I cannot imagine the death
of a child. If you want to be broken hearted,
I think that's probably the proof of that is our understanding
of what God sacrificed when he gave his son. That's why it's
so heartbreaking to lose a child. But can Christ cure the broken
hearted? I tell you what he did, Jairus came to him and as he
was speaking to the Lord, a servant showed up and said, he's dead,
don't bother him. And yet our Lord raised him from the dead,
didn't he? He cured that child. He cured Jairus' heartbreak.
And if he can cure the greatest heartbreak of one man, he can
cure us all. Now, can Christ cure the sick?
Whether it's a head sickness like the man in the tombs of
the Gadarenes? Remember that fella? He cut himself, he jumped
in the fire, he did all these crazy things. And we do all realize,
don't we, that we're more than just a little crazy ourselves?
Don't we? I mean, we're just more than
a little out of our minds, aren't we? Maybe I'm the only one that
does all this crazy stuff, but I don't think so. What other
reason can there be for the foolish things I think and do than being
sick in the head, sin-sick in the heart? But Christ healed
that man. He put him in his right mind,
it says. And you know, whether we are
sick in mind or sick in body like the woman with the issue
of blood, Christ is the great physician. He can cure this.
Find Acts 16 with me. Is Christ able to set the captives
free? Whatever it takes, Christ is
able to do it. And here is the proof in Acts
16. Have you got verse 16? It came to pass as we went to
prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met
us which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying, and
this woman who was possessed and out of her head followed
Paul and the rest of us, and cried, saying, These men are
the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way
of salvation." You see, even the wicked spirits and the demons,
they know who the Lord Jesus Christ is. They are not as blind
to sin as we are. This spirit caused this woman
to say who this was, a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
in verse 18, and this she did many days, but Paul, being grieved,
turned and said to the Spirit, I command thee. Did he do it
in his own power? Did Paul do something here? No,
he said in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her. And
that spirit came out the same hour. That's proof he can do
that, isn't it? But then look what happened.
And when her masters saw that the hope of her gains was gone,
they caught Paul and Silas and drew them into the marketplace
and to the rulers. and brought them to the magistrates,
saying, These men, being Jews, do exceedingly trouble our city.
And they teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive
neither to observe, being Romans. And a multitude rose up together
against them, and the magistrates rent off their clothes and commanded
to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes
upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to
keep them safely." They were made prisoners. who being received
such a charge, the jailer put them into the inner prison and
made their feet fast, tied them up in the stalks. And at midnight,
Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God. And the other
prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great
earthquake. so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and
immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone's bands
were loosed. And the keeper of the prison,
awakening out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors open,
he drew out his sword and would have killed himself rather than
face those who gave him the charge to keep these men, supposing
that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice,
saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. We are still
here. And the jailers sprang in, called for a light, and sprang
in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, and
brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And
they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt
be saved, and thy house. And they spoke unto him the word
of the Lord, and to all that were in his house." Here is the
point of that story. Christ can do anything. even break the heart, bend the
knees of a sinner, a rebel against God. You and I can't do that. We can't even do it for ourselves,
much less anybody else. And what happened here? How did
it happen? What did it take to convince that jailer that Jesus
Christ was Lord? An earthquake! My goodness, an
earthquake! Do we see how hard our hearts
are? What the problem is here? We got a stone. We got a heart
that's a stone. It's a rock. We can't break it. We can't fix it. We can't do
anything. Jesus Christ, He doesn't need
us. We need Him to do something about
that. And thanks be unto God do we
see the extreme to which He would go to accomplish His purpose.
One man, earthquake, the whole earth shook. one who would call
on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't need us. We need Him. Our Lord, in His earthly ministry,
did all these things as pictures of what He accomplished spiritually.
You know, it really doesn't matter, not eternally, if during this
life I'm rich, or whether I'm poor, whether I'm happy or brokenhearted,
whether I'm a slave or a free man. And don't misunderstand,
I don't want to be those things. I don't want to be a slave. I
don't want to be a beggar. But it really doesn't matter
eternally whether I was blind in these eyes or have vision
or whether I'm sick or whether I'm well. You may be thinking,
what do you mean it doesn't matter? You seem to be working pretty
hard, Bob, at making money and doing stuff. Yeah, I confess
it does matter in a certain sense. I understand that. But listen
to me. The fact of the matter is it
matters way too much for most of us. You want to know what the root
of all this evil, what our problem is in sin? It's the love of money. It's wanting that stuff. And
if God doesn't show us what we really are and our need of Christ,
you know what we'll do? We'll spend our whole life trying
to get rich, stay healthy, stay out of jail, be happy all the
time. Because our two eyes work, we
think we see everything just like it really is. And that's
just all backwards. The truth is, we are by nature
sicker than a dog with rabies, spiritually bankrupt, we're prisoners
of sin, we're blinder than bats, and we're already dead waiting
for the undertaker to come pick up our body and take it to the
graveyard. The truth is, we need help in the worst way and won't
ask for it. You will not come to me that
you might have life. That's not a warning. It's a
fact. Do you hear that? It's not a
warning. It's a fact. We will not come
unless God sends us an earthquake. And God didn't need us or anything
we have, but we need the Lord Jesus Christ. As Matt sang, He's
all I need. All I need. And the proof is
in the Scriptures, the Word of God. Turn to Ephesians chapter
3 with me. Don't take my word for it that
Jesus Christ can do these things. I'll show them to you in the
Scriptures. We think because we have some stuff that we're
rich. Well, our Lord is so rich. Do you know how rich He is in
goods? What we regard as one of the most precious things in
the world, gold, You know what the Lord Jesus Christ does? He's
so rich, he uses that stuff to pave the streets in glory. It's
no more an asphalt to him. Look here in Ephesians 3, verse
8. "'Unto me, who am less than the least of all the saints,
is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles,' what?
The unsearchable riches of Christ. It's a good thing his grace is
unsearchable, because my spiritual poverty is so vast it's incomprehensible. But his grace is sufficient.
He's rich, and I need Christ. Look at John chapter 1 with me. John chapter 1. By nature, we're all blind, spiritually
blind, and in total darkness. And Christ is the cure for darkness.
He is what we need. John 1, verse 6, we read, ìThere
was a man sent from God whose name was John, and the same came
for a witness to bear witness of what? The light.î You have
capital L in your Bible? That is not a thing like light
coming from that bulb up there. This is a person. John came to
preach this person that all men through him might believe. John
was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.
And a man in darkness needs what? Light. That was the true light,
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was
in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew
him not. He came into his own, and his
own received him not. But as many as received him,
to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on his name. Now, did you read down there?
Did it say that man let him do this? It doesn't say that, does
it? No. It said, no, he gave the
power. The form of the power for the
jailer was an earthquake. And if we're one of his own,
you know what? No matter what power it takes, he'll employ
it. Because he's the light. He'll shine the light into darkness.
Turn to Psalm 146 with me. Each of these scriptures illustrates how our Lord in his earthly ministry,
or his disciples, accomplish these things. We are captives,
prisoners of our sin, and we need to be loosed. In Psalm 146,
verse 5, we read, ìHappy is he that hath the God of Jacob for
his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.î which made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that therein is, which keepeth truth
forever, which executes judgment for the oppressed, which giveth
food to the hungry, the Lord looseth the prisoners." There
it is. "'The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind, the Lord raises
them that are bowed down, the Lord loveth the righteous, the
Lord preserveth the strangers, he relieveth the followless and
the widow, but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.'" Turn to Ezekiel 36 with me. At Calvary, the Lord Jesus Christ
took our sin, served our sentence of death that we could go free. He needs us? I don't think so. But oh, how we need him. We have a broken heart. It can't
be repaired or patched up. In Ezekiel 36, verse 25, ìThen will I sprinkle clean water
upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, and
from all your idols will I cleanse you.î And look at this, ìA new
heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh,
and I will give you a heart flesh and I'll put my spirit within
you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep
my judgments and do them and you shall dwell in the land that
I gave to your fathers and you'll be my people and I'll be your
God." Christ had a perfect heart. He's
Jesus Christ the righteous. He's perfect and he gives us
a new heart. It's his heart. So that God the Father sees us
as perfect and righteous, He died that we might live. Does
He need us? No, we need Him. And 1 John 2,
look over there. Just a couple more and we'll
wrap it up here. 1 John. We're by nature bruised or crushed,
diseased, helpless to do anything for ourselves. But there's one
who can help. His body was crushed so we would
not be bruised any longer. 1 John 2, verse 1, My little
children, these things write unto you that you sin not. And
when you do, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. We have a representative. And
he is the propitiation for our sins, and not ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world of believers. He's the
propitiation. That's just a big word that means
he's a substitute, that he took our place. at Calvary and gave
us his righteousness. We were sick and he made us well.
And then finally turn back to Luke 4 with me. Do you see the phrase here in
verse 19 that says, Our Lord told him what he had come to
preach. And then he says, To preach the
acceptable year of the Lord. Let me tell you what this does
not mean. It does not mean that there is a time when you accept
Jesus as your personal Savior and let him into your heart.
That is not what that means. This declares that what Jesus
Christ did is finished. He accomplished the purpose God
sent him for and Christ's work is acceptable to the Father.
This is my Son in whom I am well pleased. The gospel is not telling
good folks what God needs them to do for Him. Preaching the
gospel is telling sinners what God has done in Jesus Christ
for His people. He has made some poor folks rich.
He has healed some folks with broken hearts. He has delivered
some captives. He has recovered the sight to
some blind people. He has liberated some folks who
were crushed and bruised to death. Who are his people? Who are they? They're called
the sons of God, the elect, God's chosen people. And I'll tell
you how they're described. They realize they came into this
world, and except for his grace, they're blind, they're sick,
they're bruised, they're captives of sin, and they have no hope
or help in this world except for the grace of God. That's
who they are. You see in verse 21, it says,
ìAnd he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears.î Jesus Christ preached to these folks and said, ìThis
scripture is alive, and I am the fulfiller of these promises.
We need Godís Spirit to show us our need of him. He is our
very present helper in time of trouble.î He doesn't need us. One more scripture, Revelation
3. Why did the man in the parable not want help? Why doesn't everyone cry out
to Christ? Now, listen to me here. The reason
is simple. We like it the way it is, by
nature. We like it the way it is. It's sad, but it's true. We think
that we can see. We think we're rich. We feel
okay. Our heart's still beating okay.
And we're not in jail. Life is good. Life is good. That's why folks don't need the
gospel, don't need the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me warn you, when
it turns bad, it may be too late. And it will turn bad. It will
turn bad. Over time it may take, or in
a single beat of one's heart, but it will turn bad. The day
is approaching. It will come. And why, why don't
men Turn to Christ. Look at Revelation 3, verse 17. Because, here's why, because
thou sayest, I'm rich, I'm increased with goods, I have need of nothing,
and yet knowest not thou that thou art wretched and miserable
and poor and blind and naked? He says, I counsel thee. You want some advice from the
Lord Jesus Christ? Here it is. He says, I counsel
thee to buy of me gold fried in the fire. You know what the
price of that gold is? Simply feel your need of him. You don't even have to ask him.
You don't have to cry out. Just beg him for a new heart.
Cry out. He says, I counsel thee to buy
of me gold tried in the fire. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He was in that fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That's
who he is. He can be purchased here, as
this implication gives. Just express your need of him.
That thou mayest be rich, really rich, and in white raiment, pure,
righteous, that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of
thy nakedness do not appear, our sins gone, and anoint thy
eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see. As many as I love
I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice
and open the door, I'll come in to him, and I'll sup with
him, I'll eat with him, and he'll eat with me. to him that overcometh
will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame
and have sat down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an
ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. Let us not become the living
parable. God forbid that we hate the message
or the messenger. We need Christ. Ask him to reach
in our chest and remove that stone and give us a new heart,
his heart. Then and only then will it be
well with our souls. And that knock on the door, I've
heard these guys on TV that call themselves preacher, they make
it like the Lord is just pacing up and down on the banisters
of heaven and he just comes up and Oh, let me in. Please let
me in. Oh, let me in. Was that how he
did that jailer? He shook the whole earth with
an earthquake. He didn't knock like this. He tore every door in the jail
down and said, I'm coming in. I'm coming in. And it's a good
thing, isn't it? It's a good thing. And it's a
good thing to know our need of him. Well, after that message
in Luke 4, our Lord closed the book and sat down. And I'll do
the same. May the Lord bless his Word.