Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 145 and your hardback timbrel
145. Let's all stand together. ? Hail thou once despised Jesus
? ? Hail thou Galilean King ? ? Thou didst suffer to release us ?
? Thou didst free salvation bring ? ? Hail thou agonizing Savior
? Bearer of our sin and shame, By thy merits we find favor,
Life is given through thy name. ? Paschal Lamb by God appointed
? All our sins on thee were laid ? By almighty love anointed ?
Thou hast full atonement made ? All thy people are forgiven
? Through the virtue of thy blood ? ? Opened is the gate of heaven
? ? It is made twixt man and God ? ? Jesus, hail, enthroned
in glory ? There forever to abide ? All the heavenly hosts adore
thee ? Seated at thy Father's side ? Therefore sin thou art
feeding There Thou dost our place prepare, Ever for us interceding,
Till in glory we appear. Worship, honor, power, and blessing,
thou art worthy to receive. Loudest praises without ceasing,
? Meet it is for us to give ? Help ye bright angelic spirits ? Bring
your sweetest, noblest lays ? Help to sing our Savior's merits ?
Help to chant Emmanuel's praise Please be seated. Good morning. We're going to be back in John
chapter 4 this morning, this first hour. If you'd like to
open your Bibles there with me, I've titled this message, The
Honor of a Prophet. The Honor of a Prophet. I want us to go before the Lord
and ask His blessings on our time together. And Diane Etheridge
is having surgery this Wednesday in Lakeland. They're putting
a rod in her leg. She's got a cracked femur. So
I want us to pray for Diane. All right, let's pray together.
Our Heavenly Father, once again, You have brought us joyfully
to this place where you've called us and enabled us to worship
thee. Lord, we thank you for the truth
of that hymn that we were able to sing. We thank you for the
truth of thy word that we are about to consider. We thank you
for the power of your Holy Spirit that enlightens the eyes of our
understanding, enables us to worship thee, and in his power,
the power of his Spirit, and according to the truth of
thy word. Father, we thank you for the gift of salvation that
you've given us in thy dear Son. We pray that our hearts would
be fixed on him, that you would cause him to be lifted up, that
we would be brought by the miracle of your grace to look upon him
and to live. Lord, we live in a world that
is spiritually dead. We walk in a body of death. Lord, you've promised to be with
us even as we walk through the shadow of the valley of death,
that we would fear no evil. Lord, we pray that you would
cause your love to remove all fear from our hearts, for we
know that perfect love casteth out fear. Lord, that The fear
of your wrath and judgment, the fear of our circumstances, the
fear of ourselves, Lord, would be replaced with faith. Lord,
that you would make your word living and effectual, that you
would give faith to your children. We ask it in Christ's name. Lord,
we do pray for Diane and ask Lord that you would give her
and Michael special measure of your grace and comfort their
hearts and pray for the positions and enable them to perform their
duties well. And Lord, we pray for your hand
of healing to be upon her. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. The last few weeks we've been
in this somewhat of a parenthetical period of our Lord's ministry
as he goes to Samaria. And now, after spending two days
in Samaria, fulfilling what the Father sent him to do, he is
going to leave Samaria and go back to Galilee. And he makes
this profound statement. If you'll look in John chapter
four and verse 43, and after two days, he departed thence
and went into Galilee. The Lord was hated by the Galileans He had
already announced himself to be the Christ in his hometown
of Nazareth in Galilee and they wanted to murder him. He went
down to Jerusalem and they wanted to murder him. And now he's gone
to Samaria amongst these half Jews and he's been received warmly
and believed on. If that was me, I would have
just stayed in Samaria. But I'm thankful that our Lord
followed his father's will perfectly. And he didn't stay in Samaria
where he could have remained and been received. No, he had to go to those places
where he was hated, those places where he was not believed on
in order to fulfill his purpose. And so he says in verse 44, before
going to Galilee, for Jesus himself testified that a prophet hath
no honor in his own country. He knew that going to Galilee,
that they would not honor him as a prophet of God. They would
not believe on him. That is how a prophet's honored. A prophet is honored by believing
what he has to say. A prophet is honored by believing
that he's been sent of God. And the Lord Jesus is the fulfillment
of all prophets. John tells us in the book of
Revelation that Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophets. And we read in Hebrews chapter
one, God who at sundry times and in divers manner sent to
our fathers by the prophets, by the prophets, hath in these
last days revealed himself in the prophet. the Son of God. Our world, the world in which
you and I live, is filled with competing voices, all vying for
our attention and for our trust. We have politicians telling us
that we need to trust them, we need to believe in their policies
or in their personalities. We have financial advisors and
economists telling us that we need to trust them and invest
our money here and there. We have doctors telling us that
if we'll take this medicine or do this procedure, we'll get better. Now you and
I can't be experts in Everything. So we're stuck with having to
wade through all the information that bombards us. And we have
never lived in a time when that information has not been more
prolific than it is now. Surely we have increased in knowledge
and become fools in our hearts toward God. I'm afraid that much
of the information that we have today is just too much information,
just too much. Fortunately, if the experts that
we listen to are wrong, the consequences of their error is only temporal. If our financial advisors are
wrong, we run the risk of losing money. If the politicians are
wrong, well, we can maybe right the ship in the next cycle of
elections. If the doctors are wrong, the worst case scenario
is that our bodies quit working and we die. When it comes to the matters
concerning our soul, we are dependent upon an infallible, an infallible
source of truth that we don't have to wade through and we don't
have to try to figure out what's right or what's wrong, what's
true and what's not true. We don't have to add our opinion. We are rightfully skeptical when
it comes to the things of this world. I was thinking about when
children get to a certain age and they discover for the first
time that their parents don't know everything. They might be
wrong on something. Children at a young age think
that you know it all. Everything you say is right.
But there comes a point where they realize maybe there's something
you don't know and then there becomes a period of time when
they conclude that you don't know anything. And then the older
we get, the more skeptical we become in terms of who to trust
and what to believe. And there's a right place for
a lot of that skepticism when it comes to the things of this
world. But when it comes to the things
of God, We're to have the faith of a
little child, believing everything that our
Heavenly Father tells us. There can be no place for our
opinion. And by God's grace, there will
be no skepticism as to what God has revealed. And by God's grace
we'll be able to rest our hearts, our lives, our immortal souls
on the promises of God. Now in our text the Lord's going
to go to Galilee and he's going to say to the Galileans You won't
believe what I say unless you see miracles. And even when they
saw the miracles, they didn't believe him. And the Lord Jesus is saying,
a prophet hath no honor in his own country. He's not believed. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
13, Matthew 13. What an unspeakable blessing
it is. An unspeakable blessing it is
to have an inspired, infallible word from God. To be able to just respond to
whatever God says with truth, Lord. Truth, Lord. I don't have to, on the most
important matter of all, we don't have to try to figure
out who's right and who's wrong. The faith that God gives just
bows to what he has said. You have your Bibles open to
Matthew 13. Look at verse 53. And it came to pass that when
Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence, and when
he was come into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue
inasmuch that they were astonished and said, whence hath this man
this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's
son? Is not his mother called Mary
and his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his
sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then has this man
all these things? And they were offended in him.
But Jesus said unto them, a prophet, is not without honor, save in
his own country and in his own house. And he did not many mighty
works there because of their unbelief." For God to give us faith to believe
that the Lord Jesus, unlike the Old Testament prophets, and we
know that all scripture was given by inspiration of God and all
scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be thoroughly
furnished unto all good works. We know that the revelation that
God has given us in his word through these prophets of old
was given to holy men who were moved by the Holy Ghost. It did
not come by private interpretation. It was not their opinion. They
were moved of the Holy Ghost to write the infallible Word of God. But when the Lord Jesus came,
those men in the Old Testament were only infallible when they
were inspired and anointed by the Spirit of God to write and
record the Word of God. The rest of the time they weren't
infallible. David was a prophet, he wasn't infallible. Solomon
was a prophet, he wasn't infallible. There were so many times in their
lives where they're shown for what they are, sinners. And yet
there were periods of time in their lives when the Holy Spirit
came upon them and they wrote the infallible inspired word
of God. When the Lord Jesus came into
the world, he came as the anointed one. He came as the Christ. So that
every word that he spoke and everything that he did was nothing
short of the infallible, inspired, inerrant word of God. The Word of God became flesh. The Word of God dwelt among us
and we beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of
the Father, full of grace and full of truth, full of truth.
Everything he said. So when the Lord Jesus says,
a prophet is not without honor saving his own country and these
people who were all familiar with him thought, well, he's
one of us. And he did no miracles because
of their unbelief. What is the greatest miracle
of all? It's the miracle of hearing. It's the miracle of believing. It's the miracle of salvation. And what a blessing it is when
the Lord just shuts your mouth and enables you to see. You see, those people in Galilee
were offended by him because he was claiming to be the anointed
one, he was claiming to be the Christ and they saw him as just
another one of them. He's just one of us. How can
he be who he says he is? The blessing of salvation is
to be sat down and to be brought to believe that Jesus of Nazareth,
the Galilean, is the Christ, the son of the living God, that
he is the fullness of the Godhead bodily. That's what the father
said when he spoke audibly on the Mount of Transfiguration
and said, this is my beloved son. In him, I'm well pleased. Hear ye him, hear ye him, hear
whatever he says is truth. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are truth. They are the words of
life. What am I saying? The evidence of faith, the evidence
of your faith and my faith is that the Lord Jesus Christ
has honor. He has all honor and he gets
all glory. And we believe everything he
says. I quoted part of Hebrews chapter
one a moment ago. Let's turn in our Bibles there
a moment. Hebrews chapter one. A businessman told me one time when he needed some advice that experts were considered
to anybody that lived more than 50 miles away from where they
were located. You know, just bring in a fresh
voice and that's an expert. Why? Familiarity breeds contempt. These people were familiar with
the Lord Jesus. They thought, well, he's just
one of us. We need an expert to come in. We need someone who we can rely
upon and someone who, like the, what did Samaritan,
what did Samaritan woman say? We know that when Messiah come,
When Messiah come, he's gonna tell us all things. Come, meet
a man who told me everything that ever I did. Is not this
the Christ? You see, brethren, faith is just
believing God. It's that child, lest you become
as a little child, you should not enter the kingdom of heaven. You take our little children
running around here. You point out the moon to a three-year-old and you tell
them that moon is made out of cheese and they're gonna believe
you. Will they not? Suffer. the little children to
come unto me for such is the kingdom of God." This is what
faith is. God gives faith. We just want
to know what God says. We hang all the hopes of our
mortal and immortal life on the Word of God. And we You know, we don't say,
well, show us a sign. We need evidence. We need proof.
A wicked and perverse generation seeketh after a sign. No sign
will be given unto it except for the sign of Jonah. What is
the sign of Jonah? It's the resurrection. The Lord Jesus is raised from
the dead. He's proven himself by his resurrection
to be the Christ Hebrews, you have your Bibles
open to Hebrews chapter one, look at verse one. God who at
sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the
fathers by the prophets. What is a prophet? Prophet is a man that's been
anointed with the spirit of God to speak the infallible word
of God. And the anointing that these
men had was temporary. It was given to them to give
us this word, but they were sinners. But now, but now in these last
days, he has spoken unto us by his son. whom he hath appointed heir of
all things, by whom also he made the worlds. And that's how John begins his
gospel, isn't it? When he says the Word was, in
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God, and all that was made was made by him, and nothing
that was made was made without him. So he's the creator Oh, what, what grace, what comfort. We just, we just rest in everything
that he tells us. Who being, who being the brightness
of his glory and the express image of his person and uphold
of all things by the word of his power. when he had by himself
purged our sin, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty
on high. He's raised from the dead, he sat down, he finished
his work. And all the voices of this world
that are competing for our trust and all the skepticism that we
have We put all that aside and we
come before the Lord Jesus and we just say, truth, Lord,
truth, Lord. This is the simplicity of faith. The simplicity of faith is just
believing God. Being made so much better than
the angels, he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name
than they. For unto which of the angels
said he at any time, thou art my son, this day I have begotten
thee. And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be
to me a son. And the angels, he's not just
talking about the angelic host, he's talking about messengers,
talking about these prophets. An angel is a messenger, and
so these prophets, which of the prophets did he say, thou art
my son? And again, when he bringeth in
the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels
of God worship him. And of the angels, he saith,
who maketh his angels spirits and his ministers flames of fire,
but unto his son." See, the messengers of God are ministers of righteousness,
they're voices, but oh, but none like him. You know, the Lord
Jesus said of John the Baptist, never was there born of a woman
a man greater than he. John the Baptist was a prophet.
He was a prophet. And he had the Holy Spirit from
inside the womb of his mother, Elizabeth. But was he anointed like the
Lord Jesus? The Spirit of God inspired John
To say things, the Spirit of God inspired him to point to
the Lord Jesus and say, behold, the Lamb of God was taken away
the sins of the world. But John, the greatest man who
ever lived, compared himself to the Lord Jesus and he said,
I'm not worthy to take his shoes off. I'm not worthy to wash his
feet. He must increase, I must decrease. I'm but a voice of one crying
in the wilderness. See, John saw no comparison between
him, the greatest man that ever lived, and the Lord Jesus. John
had one objective, one purpose, and that was to point to Christ,
as was the purpose of all the prophets, to point to him. Verse eight. But unto the Son,
he saith, thy throne, O God. The Father is calling his Son,
God. Is forever and ever a scepter
of righteousness, is the scepter of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved
righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore, God, even thy God,
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Now the fellows being referred
to here are the prophets. Now we could put ourselves in
the fellows. If we're believers, we have the
Spirit of God. If we have not the Spirit of
God, we're none of His. But we have only but a small
measure of the Spirit of God. And what a blessing it is when
the Spirit of God inspires us. and reveals to us the glory of
Christ and enables us to enter into a spirit of prayer and into
a spirit of worship. But none of us can say we stay
in that state of spirit-filled joy. No. No, we don't, do we? But he did. He did. That's all he knew. This is what it means to be the
Christ, the anointed one. He came with the full anointing
of the Holy Spirit. To not only speak the word of God, but to accomplish the purpose
of God, You and I, we always have to say, Lord,
I believe, oh, help thou mine unbelief. There's a body of death that
we drag along with us. There's a spirit of doubt and
unbelief that our old nature is constantly plaguing us with. But when it comes to knowing
who we believe, Paul said, I know whom I have
believed. And I am persuaded that he is
able, he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him.
I'm trusting him for the salvation of my soul. I'm trusting him
for my circumstances. I'm trusting him and he is able. I'm full of fears and full of
doubts, but he's the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. He's the anointed one. As great
as those Old Testament prophets were, he's nothing like them.
You see, here's what our Lord's saying. When he said in John
chapter four, verse 44, a prophet is not without honor saving his
own country. Why? Because those people that
are familiar with him have erred in thinking that he's just one
of them. We know him. He's not an expert. He's not
even from 50 miles out of town. What can he tell us? He's one
of us. And that's the attitude of unbelief.
And the attitude of unbelief is that they'll take God's Word
and they'll say, yeah, but, and they'll call God into question. Faith. Saving God-given faith
believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One. the Son of
the Living God. And it doesn't try to add an
if and or but to what he said or what he's done. It rests,
it glories in, it rejoices that salvation is of the Lord. It
doesn't want to add anything to his work. If any man adds to the words
of the prophecy of this book, the curses of this book will
be added unto him. Faith dare not look anywhere
but to Christ. And we, you know, so many, so many go to the Bible to prove
what they believe. And well, I'll give you an extreme
example. I know some men personally that
have identified 75 verses in the Bible that they say proves
that the earth on which we live is flat. They went to the Word of God
to find proof of something that they believed to be true. And
people do that all the time in so many other examples. We go to God's Word to find out
what to believe and who to believe. And when we go to God's Word,
Our attitude is always, Lord, if I'm not understanding this, Lord,
change my heart, you know, give me, you know, make me, make me
to believe. Let me close with this one passage.
Turn with me to 2 Samuel 6. 2 Samuel 6. You remember Uriah. The ark of
the covenant has come back from the Philistines on a cart. And
I'm certain that that cart was, well it tells us in the scriptures
that there were gifts and gold and you can just imagine the
decorations that would have been on that cart. The Philistines
were getting rid of this ark because it had brought curses
upon them. I mean you see these displays of Hinduism in India
and all the flowers and ribbons and stuff. I'm sure that's what
the cart looked like and it was impressive when it came back
from the Philistines. David got the idea that, you
know, that was pretty cool. Let's put the ark on a cart.
And God had forbidden that the ark ever been carried on a cart.
It was to be carried with poles through the side and on the shoulders
of men. But David was impressed with what he saw and he thought,
let's just, let's do, that's better. And you know what happened? The cart hit a rut in the road
and the cart jilted and the ark threatened to fall off and Uzzah
was standing there and he put his hand up and touched the ark
to keep from falling off. God killed him right there on
the spot. David was grieved. David learned right then that
that was his fault, putting that ark on the cart. It's a picture of you and I putting
our hand to the work that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
for us. And it'll result in our death.
We have honor for the Lord Jesus because we give him all honor
and all glory and all praise for having done all things well. And we don't wanna put our hand
to it. But now David's gonna carry the ark properly. And this
time he's going to worship God while the ark is being transported. And at the end of 2 Samuel 6,
in verse 17, verse 17, yes. And they brought in the ark of
the Lord and set it in his place in the midst of the tabernacle
that David had pitched for it. And David offered burnt offerings
and peace offerings before the Lord. And as soon as David had
made an end of offering burnt offerings and peace offerings,
he blessed the people in the name of the Lord of hosts. And
he dealt among all the people, even among the whole multitude
of Israel, as well as the women as men, to everyone a cake of
bread. and a good piece of flesh and
a flagging of wine. So all the people departed, everyone
to his own house. Then David returned to bless
his household. And Michael, the daughter of
Saul came out to meet David. and said, how glorious was the
king of Israel today who uncovered himself today in the eyes of
the handmaids of his servants as one of the vain fellows shamelessly
uncovered himself." Michael is offended that David is the king. If you read back before verse
17, you'll see that David was dancing and He took off his royal
garb and he was worshiping God amongst the common folk, the
servants. And Michael, the king's wife,
is offended that David would make himself so plain and so
common and uncover his royalty and his glory to become such
a shame to her. And here's the point I want to
make. Look at verse 21. And David said unto Michael,
it was before the Lord which chose me before thy father, before
all his house to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord,
over Israel. Therefore, will I play before
the Lord and I will yet be more vile than this and will be base
in my own sight and of the maidservants which thou hast spoken of, of
them shall I be in honor." David's speaking prophetically
of what the Lord Jesus would do when though he was equal with
God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made of
himself no reputation. He became vile, he became vain,
he became empty. He emptied himself, the scripture
says. And the Pharisees and the unbelievers,
they looked and said, if he'd be the Christ, let him come down
and save himself. And the maidservants, the lowly, they believed on him. I will yet be more vile than
thus, and I will be base in my own sight, and of the maidservants
which thou hast spoken of, of them will I be held in honor. In honor. We honor Christ. A prophet is not without honor, save in
his own country, among those who thinks he's one
of us. But the maidservants who see what he's done to uncover
himself, to bear my sins in his body upon
that tree, to them he's held in honor. We either honor him
or we dishonor him. All right, let's take a break.