trusting Jesus, that is all.
Good evening, let's open tonight's service with hymn number 236,
Amazing Grace. Let's all stand together, 236. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. ? Was grace that taught my heart
to fear ? ? And grace my fears relieved ? ? How precious did
that grace appear ? ? The hour I first believed ? ? Through many dangers, toils and
snares ? ? I have already come ? ? Tis grace hath brought me
safe thus far ? ? And grace will lead me home ? When we've been
there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no
less days to sing God's praise than when we'd first begun. Please be seated. Life without end. Glory without time. When we've
been there 10,000 years, no time will have passed. Let's
open our Bibles to 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 13. We'll begin reading in verse
nine. For we know in part, and we prophesy
in part. But when that which is perfect
is come, than that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as
a child. I understood as a child. I thought
as a child. But when I became a man, I put
away childish things. For now, Paul's saying right
now I'm still a child. My understanding is very limited,
for now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then
shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith,
hope, and charity, these three. but the greatest of these is
charity. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come before Thee in the name
of Thy dear Son, thanking You that there is a throne of grace
to which we can come boldly. and find help in our time of
need. Lord, we are a needy people. We're needy in that our understanding
is so small and, Lord, we know in part. And we ask, Lord, that
you would reveal more of your glory. We pray that you would
open the scriptures to our understanding that you would reveal to us more
of our need for Christ and comfort our hearts in his glorious person
and his accomplished work. Lord, thank you for your Holy
Spirit. Pray that you would send him in power. And Lord, we pray for Lauren
and ask Lord the you would bring these babies into the world safely. And Lord,
that your hand of strength and comfort would be on her. We ask
it in Christ's name. Amen. Tom. number two in the Spiral Hymn
Book, number two. Let's stand together again. Lord, we come before thee now,
At thy feet we humbly bow. O do not our suit disdain, Shall
we seek thee, Lord, in vain. Lord, on Thee our souls depend,
In compassion now descend. Fill our hearts with Thy rich
grace, Tune our lips to sing Thy praise. In thine own appointed way, now
we seek thee, here we stay. Lord, we know not how to go. till a blessing thou bestow. Send the message from thy word
that may joy and peace afford. Let thy spirit now impart Christ's
salvation to each heart. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to Matthew
chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12. We've been looking at the miracles
of Christ on Wednesday night and began with the water being
turned into wine and saw from that miracle a wonderful picture
of our Lord's work in fulfilling the law. We saw the cleansing
of the leper, a picture of what the Lord has done in cleansing
us of our sin. We are spiritual lepers from
the top of our heads to the sole of our feet. Now the Lord makes
us clean by his grace. We looked at the casting out
of the legion of demons from the man in the gatherings and
saw how the Lord delivers us from the bondage of that power
and puts into our hearts a desire to be with him. Even in the feeding of the 5,000,
when our Lord showed his compassion toward the multitude and revealed himself as the one who
is able to provide all that his people need in this life and
in the life to come. The miracle tonight, found in
Matthew chapter 12, is summed up in one verse. And I've called it the greatest
miracle in that in this verse we're told what the cause and
the nature of our lost condition is. And we also see what the purpose of our Lord
was in coming to this world. John tells us in 1 John chapter
three, for this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, for
this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy
the works of the devil. In Matthew chapter 22, Matthew
chapter 12 at verse 22, then was brought unto our Lord one
possessed with the devil, blind and dumb. And he healed him in so much
as the blind and the dumb both spake and saw. And all the people were amazed
and said, is not this the son of David? The simplicity of our condition
and the cause of our condition could not be more clear than
what our Lord has given us in these few words. When Satan rebelled against God,
The Lord cast him from heaven and he came to Eve in the garden
and tempted her to eat of the forbidden fruit that her eyes
might be opened and that she would be like God. The Lord tells
us in the book of Revelation that when he was cast out of
heaven that with him went one third of the heavenly host. And they are the cause of sin. They are the liars. Satan is the father of lies and
the deceiver. This man was blind and dumb because
he was possessed with the devil. Now, we often think of demonic
possession as some sort of wild-eyed madman acting irrationally, but
that's not how the scriptures always present him. He's called a wolf in sheep's
clothing. He's called a minister of righteousness
and an angel of light. And the Lord said to those Pharisees,
you are of your father, the devil. And they were the most highly
esteemed and outwardly moral men in the community. But the Lord said, you're of
your father, the devil. The cause of our lost condition is that until
the Lord delivers us from the power of the devil we're held
captive, we're blind to the things of God and we're deaf to the
Word of God. And that's demonic. Now, before we look at a couple
of verses, let me make clear what we're not saying. Because
most people, when they try to explain good and evil, end up
with a dualism. two opposing forces that are
fighting one another for dominance. We see it in Chinese philosophy
between the yin and yang. We see it in Greek mythology
with the gods fighting one another. We see it in most forms of what
men would call Christianity today. God and the devil fighting over
the souls of men. You hear people talk about, well,
you know, there's an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the
other shoulder, or there's a white dog and a black dog, and whichever
one you feed is going to be the stronger of the two. And this
is all dualism, that's all it is. It's man trying to explain
these forces of good and evil in the world, but he's doing
it apart from the truth of What the Lord tells us, the devil's
God's devil. He's God's devil. He can only
do what God allows him to do. God's got him on a chain. And
one day the Lord's going to take that chain and wrap him up with
it and cast him into the fiery lake of hell. We, uh, We read, we sing that
hymn. I forgot to bring the hymnal
up with me. I was gonna quote the third verse in Martin Luther's
hymn, A Mighty Fortress. And I can't quote it, but you
know the words to it where he speaks of, you know, one little
word shall fail him. We have a, We have an enemy in
this world but not one for us to be afraid of. He's under the
authority and the domain of God Almighty and he can only do what
God allows him to do. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. Look at verse three. 2 Corinthians chapter four, verse
three. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid from them that are lost, in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believe not. And somebody
recently told me that that's a reference to God Almighty because
he's the God that controls the world. No, it's not. This is
the prince of the power of the air. This is the God of this
world, this unbelieving world. He's blind in the minds of them
which believe not, lest the light of the gospel, the glorious gospel
of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. because of our unbelief and our
lost condition is spiritual. And until the Lord delivers us
from that spirit, it doesn't matter what we look like outwardly,
I feel certain that Satan is probably leading to hell a lot
more people on the road of morality and religion than he is on the
road of immorality and degradation. It just doesn't matter to him. As long as we remain deaf and
blind. And we know from what the Lord's
told us that the hearing ear and the seeing eye, they are
both of God. They're of the Lord. He has to
open the eyes of our understanding. He has to unstop our ears. He
has to speak from heaven and cause us to hear his voice. And if he doesn't, we are under the power of an evil spirit
that will hold us captive, but not one that the Lord doesn't
control. I love in Revelation chapter
12 the Lord gives us a picture of the devil when he's cast from
heaven into the earth and he brings one-third of the angels
out of heaven with him and the scripture says that he persecutes
the woman, the church, and her child, the Lord Jesus. that God prepares for his bride,
for his church, a place in the wilderness. And that he gives
to his church, he makes of his church a two-winged eagle, Revelation
chapter 12, so that she can fly into the wilderness, into this
place where the Lord has provided for her. What is the two-winged
eagle that the Lord has provided for his people that they might
be delivered from the devil who has come into this world to hold
men captive and to keep them blind and deaf? It's simple. It's the Word of God and the
Spirit of God. God takes his Word, which is
what we're doing right now, and in the power of his Spirit, He
opens the eyes of his children, he gives them faith. When they
hear, faith comes by hearing. And he causes them, just like this miracle that we
just read about in Matthew chapter 12, he causes them to be delivered
from the evil one. The woman fled into the wilderness
where she had a place prepared of God. And then Revelation chapter
12 says, and the serpent sent a great flood of water into the
earth and that the earth opened up
its mouth and swallowed the water. that the woman not be drowned. And there's a, all that Satan
does and all that God has allowed him to do cannot touch the people
of God. The Lord will open up the earth
in his providence and he will swallow up those things The devil has no authority over God's people. Let's go back to our text of
Matthew chapter 12, verse 22. This is such an encouragement
to me, brethren, and I hope it will be to you. Because by nature,
by nature, nature I looked up this word
nature. It is the fundamental quality
of a thing or a person. It is the thing which identifies
the essential character. And by nature, we're blind. By nature, we're deaf. We're
blind to the nature of man. We're blind to the nature of
God. We're blind to the nature of the gospel in our lost condition. By nature, we think far too highly
of ourselves, we think far too low of Christ, and we think far
too legal of the gospel, making it a matter of works. We can't
hear what God says, nor see what's true. We have no real understanding
of who he is. in his holiness and in his justice
and in his righteousness, why? Because we're blind, we're dumb. Look at the verse again, verse
22. Then was brought unto him one possessed with the devil. That's us. That's where we are by nature. Blind and dumb. And he healed
him. He healed him. He gave him eyes
to see and ears to hear, insomuch that the blind and the dumb both
spake and saw. We've got everything upside down
by nature. Satan has done that. He's turned
it all backwards. The greatest example we have
of everything that we believe is the cross and the greatest
example that we have of God's dominion over Satan is the cross. Satan thought that he had gotten
the victory. Don't you know that there was
great Great, great celebration taking place among the demons
when our Lord bowed his head and said, it is finished. And
yet God used the devil. God used the devil to accomplish
the salvation of his people. Oh, he turns everything upside down.
God turns it right side up. By nature, we think too highly
of ourselves. And when the Lord opens the eyes
of our understanding, we realize you can't make man low enough. By nature, we think too low of
Christ. And when the Lord opens the eyes
of our understanding and gives us ears to hear his word, we
know that you can't exalt Christ high enough. By nature, we make
the gospel a matter of works. That's what we always do. And when the Lord gives us eyes
to see and ears to hear, we know that you can't make the gospel
free enough. It's all of grace and it's all
to his glory. And he did all the work from
eternity past to eternity future. He accomplished it all. When is it that we see our sin
most clearly? Well, once again, at the cross,
don't we? When we see what God did in order
to put our sin away. When we're able to believe whatever
sin is, there's what God thinks of it. When the one who is himself
holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners is made
to be sin, when it pleased God to bruise him, when the sword
of God's justice required the blood of the sinless Son of God,
we see what God says about our sin. And if the only sin that ever
had to be atoned for was the one that we considered to be
the least offensive, that's what it would have taken to put that
sin away. We also see our sin when as believers
we try to find comfort and hope and peace outside of Christ. Is there not a time when sin
rears its ugly head more than when we're trying to look within
in order to try to find some evidence of our salvation? And
we are recovering. Pharisees were tempted to try
to... We've got this old nature that's so so firmly planted in works that
he's going to take us back to the law. And what does the Bible
call, what does God call Satan? The accuser of the brethren. And that voice of evil causes
us to, well, Look at you, you can't be a Christian, look what
you thought, look what you said, look what you did. You're just
a repeat offender. Well, that's who grace is for,
grace is for repeat offenders. Heard a story about a father
who went to court to stood before the judge to plead the court's
mercy for his son. And the judge looked at the father
and said, sir, your son is a repeat offender. He's been here many
times. He doesn't deserve mercy. And the father said, oh, your
honor, with all due respect, if he was worthy of mercy, it
wouldn't be mercy. It wouldn't be mercy. Mercy by its very definition
means that we don't deserve it. We're not worthy of it. And thank
God it's full repeat offenders. But we try to find, that's when
our sin becomes clear to us, isn't it? When we're trying to
look for some hope and some evidence of salvation apart from Christ
and all we can find is our sin and then we come to that conclusion
once again. When the elder son serves the
younger son, and causes us to flee to Christ. Lord, I've got
to have mercy. I can't find any hope of salvation
outside of Christ. We're blind to that. We're deaf
to it. Nothing less than the death of
the Lord Jesus Christ could satisfy God's justice. No one other than the Lord Jesus
could put away our sin, separate it from us as far as the East
is from the West, and that's what he accomplished. And God
says, I remember it no more. It's gone. It's finished. Oh, is there not still something
in us that we have to keep hearing that, don't we? As simple and
clear and as much as we know that's true, We have to hear the old, old
story over and over and over again. We have to have our eyes opened
again. We have to have our ears unstopped
again because of all these demonic influences and voices
in this world. And the Lord's not going to allow
His children. I've listened to some guys who
claim to be Calvinist. Hugo and I were talking about
a guy before the service and he claims to be a Calvinist but
you listen to him preach and then he slips in what's called
lordship salvation. You know and You only accepted
Jesus as your Savior, but you haven't made him Lord, so you're
not saved. And how do I know if he's Lord? Well, you gotta
inspect your life. And he presents himself as the
standard of what it means to have Jesus as Lord of your life. The problem is, it's not whether
he's just Savior or Lord. If you got the right Christ, These guys that get you to look
to yourself to find the evidence of your salvation, I fear that it's not a matter
of Savior versus Lord, it's a matter of little Jesus versus the Son
of God. If God ever brings you to bow
before him, By nature we, and under the influence
of the devil, we think far too low of Christ. God made him sin that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. You know, all of those who are
unrighteous believe themselves to have some righteousness. I mentioned a man I was talking
to recently in my driveway, his name is Ray. I don't think I
mentioned that this man was completely irreverent and irreligious. I mean, he used the Lord's name
in vain, he had no interest in anything concerning the things
of God whatsoever. And yet after I talked to him
about what happens after you die, he looked down at his feet
and he said, well, I don't think I've done anything bad enough
to go there. You see, you don't have to be don't have to be outwardly religious
and to be to be self-righteous all men are self-righteous and if they why because they're
blind to the righteousness of God Romans chapter 10 If they can't identify something
in their life that is righteous, they believe themselves to have
the potential for doing something righteous. You know, one of these days I'm
gonna do something that's gonna be really good. Being ignorant of the righteousness
of God, they go about trying to establish their own righteousness,
Romans chapter 10. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. We can't see
that. We can't hear that. I'm talking
about men who spend most of their lives in the Bible and they'll
still preach a legal gospel. Why? Because they're blind and
they're deaf. And if we're able to see and
we're able to hear, that's a miracle. That's a miracle. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 3. 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Verse 12, seeing then that we
have such hope, the only hope that we can have is in a successful
Savior who accomplished the salvation of His people once and for all. He provided all the righteousness
that God required and satisfied all the justice that God demanded
once and for all by His death on Calvary's cross. And we can't
add anything to it or take anything away from it. And if we have
such hope, let us use great plainness of
speech. Let us speak clearly and boldly. And not as Moses, which put a
veil over his face that the children of Israel could not steadfastly
look to the end of that which is abolished. What is that which
is abolished? The law. They couldn't look to
the end of the law. So Moses had to put a veil over
his face. He came down off the mountain
of the law and the radiance of the glory of God was such that
they couldn't even look upon Moses so they had to put a veil
over his face. And in having a veil over his
face, they have a symbolic picture of the veil that's over their
hearts and look. But their minds were blinded,
for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in
the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ."
Only when the Lord Jesus is lifted up, only when he gets all the
glory is the veil taken away. Otherwise,
we just keep going back to the law. But even unto this day,
when Moses is read, the veil is upon their hearts. Nevertheless,
when it, and that's the heart, shall turn to the Lord, the veil
shall be taken away. How do I get this veil removed? How do I get, the heart's got
to be turned to Christ. Now the Lord is that spirit and
where the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. There's
freedom from the law. But we all with an open face
beholden as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into
the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit
of the Lord. Here's what the spirit of God
does. And this is the boldness that
we have in the day of judgment. That as he is, so are we in this
world. Perfectly righteous before God. Left to myself, nothing but sin. I couldn't see that. I couldn't
see that. When Satan had me blinded, I
couldn't see that. Until the Lord Jesus came. and
enabled the blind to see. Couldn't see myself as a sinner.
I had some righteousness. Couldn't see the success, the accomplished work that the
Lord Jesus had done. Couldn't see the gospel as it
was. Good news. Good news. Free. Turn with me to Romans 11. Verse 6, for if by grace, then
it can no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace.
But if it is of works, then it's no more grace. Otherwise, work
is no more work. Works and grace cannot be mixed. And what men do in religion is
they, you know, you put oil and water and And if you shake it
really hard, it'll look like one thing for just a little bit,
just a little bit and then it'll start separating again, won't
it? And the oil will come to the top. And if you try to refresh
your thirst by drinking from that glass, all you're going
to get is a mouthful of oil. You know, that's what men do
in religion. They try to mix works with grace. And all the religious activity
is nothing more than enthusiasm trying to shake it up. But he
lets it for just a little while and it goes right back to separating.
You can't put the two together. Verse 7, what then? Israel hath
not obtained that which it seeketh for, but the election hath obtained
it and the rest were blinded. According as it is written, God
hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should
not see and ears that they should not hear unto this day. Now that's a reference to Isaiah
chapter six, the most often quoted verse I think in the Old Testament
to the New Testament. When the Lord told Isaiah, They will have ears, but they
will not hear. Eyes they will have, but they will not see. They'll hear some things, but
they're not going to be, they're not going to see themselves as
sinners. They're not going to hear what
God has to say. They're not going to see Christ
for who he is. They're not going to believe that the gospel is
all of grace. They're gonna make work out of
it. They're gonna hear the law and try to earn favor with God through
the keeping of the law. Let's close by going back to
our text for just a moment, Matthew chapter 12. Verse 23, and all the people
were amazed. They were amazed and said, is
not this the son of David? Now we've been looking at the
life of David on Sunday mornings and we could take a lot of time
and consider many things in the life of David that Picture the Lord Jesus, but just
for the sake of time, one. One. Saul and the army of Israel
were hiding behind rocks, scared to death of Goliath. David shows up on the battlefield. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine? that blasphemes the God of Israel. What was the offer? If our champion wins, one man
against one man. If our champion wins, then Israel
will serve the Philistines. If your champion wins, then the
Philistines will serve Israel. What do we have? We have the
forces of evil against the forces of good. And the one representative,
David, went to battle and defeated that giant, Goliath. And that's exactly what our Lord
did. He destroyed the works of the
devil. He came to set captivity, to
make captivity captive. He brought down the gates of
hell. Don't you know what he said? He said that, told Peter, Peter upon this rock
I shall build my church. What rock? The confession that
Peter made. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. We know and are sure. You alone
have the words of eternal life. We've heard, we've seen. Blessed
art thou Simon the Barjona, flesh and blood didn't give that to
you. And upon this rock, I'm gonna build my church and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Now, this isn't a
matter of two opposing forces trying to
get dominance over one of the other. It's not a matter of the
devil and God fighting over the souls of men. The Lord's got
his people and he's gonna give them ears to hear and he's gonna
give them eyes to see and until then they are under the influence
of the evil force but the Lord's gonna send Well, he's going to
bring every one of them to himself, isn't he? So thankful. Tom? 488. 488. 488. Let's stand
together. I will sing of my Redeemer and
His wondrous love to me. ? On the cruel cross he suffered
? From the curse to set me free ? Sing, oh sing of my Redeemer
? With his blood he purchased me On the cross he sealed my
pardon, paid the debt, and made me free. ? I will tell the wondrous story
? ? How my lost estate to save ? ? In his boundless love and
mercy ? ? He the ransom freely gave ? ? Sing, oh, sing of my
Redeemer ? ? Oh, say, Redeemer ? He purchased me, with His blood
He purchased me. On the cross, He sealed my pardon,
paid the debt, and made me free. I will praise my dear Redeemer,
His triumphant power I'll tell, How the victory He giveth over
sin and death and hell. Sing, oh, sing of my Redeemer. With His blood He purchased me. On the cross He sealed my pardon,
paid the debt, and made me free. I will sing of my Redeemer and
His heavenly love to me. ? He from death to life hath
brought me ? Son of God with him to be ? Sing, oh sing of
my Redeemer ? Of my Redeemer Come on, keep going. ? He purchased
me On the cross, He healed my pardon, paid the debt, and made
me free, and made me free, and made me free.