Thank you, Joy. It's nice having
Joy and Delphus back. Let's open tonight's service
with number 36 in your spiral gospel hymnal. Let's all stand
together. Number 36. ? Behold my soul the love of God
? Behold the grace most free ? Before all worlds His purpose
stood ? His heart was fixed on me Elected by eternal love, the
covenant firm and sure, the triune God agreed in love, salvation
to secure. My soul was given to the Son,
He promised to redeem. By blood and righteousness my
own, He would my soul reclaim. In the due time Emmanuel came
to live and die for me. He lives today and bears my name. Christ is my surety. In love he sent his spirit down,
who gave me life and grace. He drew me and I followed on,
my Savior to embrace. Now I rejoice in covenant love,
amazing grace I see. I now am conquered by his love. My Savior is my King. Please be seated. Good evening. Let's open our Bibles to Psalm
130, Psalm 130. And I remind you that these Psalms
are the prayers of our Lord as well as ours. When we read this very first
verse, out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord, we're
reminded of how the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous
man availeth much and the Lord Jesus is that righteous man and
his prayers were so effectual and so fervent. Out of the depths have I cried
unto thee, O Lord, Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquity, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with
thee that thou mayest be feared. Notice the order in verse four. There is forgiveness with thee
that thou mayest be feared. That's not a That's not a fear
of judgment, a fear of wrath, that's not a sinful fear or a
cringing fear, that's a loving fear. And that's a fear that
comes as a result of grace and mercy and forgiveness. We... I wait for the Lord, my soul
doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waited for the
Lord more than they that watch for the morning. I say more than
they that watch for the morning. Let Israel hope in the Lord,
for with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from
all his iniquities. Let's pray. Our glorious and merciful Heavenly
Father, thank you for sending your Son to fulfill for us as our surety
what we could not do. fear thee and trust thee with
all of his heart. Lord, bear our sins in his body
and put them away once and for all by the sacrifice of himself. Lord, we're so thankful that
that your forgiveness is also your justice. Lord, we Thank
you that we have one who is able to satisfy all the demands of
your righteousness and your judgment and justice. Lord, we pray that
you would enable us tonight to look to him, enable us to just
simply believe on him, to rest our hearts, our minds, our souls
in him. that he would be glorified and
that his glory would be our our fear and our love and our faith. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Number 226 in the hardback teminal. Let's all stand together again.
226. I am not skilled to understand
what God hath willed, what God hath planned. I only know at
His right hand is one who is my Savior. ? I take him at his word indeed
? Christ died for sinners, this I read ? For in my heart I find
a need ? Of him to be my savior ? That he should leave his place
on high and come for sinful men to die. You counted strange,
so once did I, before I knew my Savior. And oh, that he fulfilled, may
see, the travail of his soul in me, and with his work contented
be, as I with my dear Savior. Ye living, dying, let me bring
my strength, my solace from this spring, that he who lives to
be my king, once died to be my savior. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to John
chapter 9. John chapter 9. We've been looking at this miracle
of our Lord for several weeks now and the more I read it and
think about it and try to prepare messages from it, the more I
love this brother. his simplicity, his innocence,
his honesty, his lack of fear. He just, he wasn't intimidated
in the least by these self-righteous, self-appointed religious leaders,
even with their threats of excommunicating him. He just simply spoke the
truth. And I've titled this message,
The Simplicity of Faith. The Simplicity of Faith. You
know, believing the gospel really doesn't have anything to do with
IQ. It has everything to do with
I will. And we won't unless the Lord
makes us willing. But when he does make us willing,
It's as simple as this man saw it to be. And I love the simplicity
of truth. You know, when you hear the truth,
you just know it's true. And it's not complicated. And
how the gospel stands in contrast, we're gonna see as we read these
verses that these Pharisees had no trouble contradicting themselves. They had no trouble embracing
things that made no sense whatsoever. And so it is in man-made religion. Man-made religion is very complicated,
it's inconsistent, it's convoluted. And in contrast to that, the
message of the gospel is so simple. And it's so clear and it can
be summed up with this statement that we find in the book of Colossians,
Christ is all. Christ is all and he is in all. Christ Jesus the Lord is in my
election. The scripture says that God chose
us in Christ before the foundation of the world. and everything
in sovereign election and everything in the eternal covenant was in
the person and for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ
is all in revelation. In the volume of the book, it
is written of me. And these are they which testify
of me. And so when we go to the scriptures,
Christ is all. He's all. And we look to the
scriptures to find him in redemption. In redemption, the Lord Jesus
Christ is all. He bore all the sins of all of
his people and put them away once and for all by the sacrifice
of himself. Hebrews chapter one says, when
by himself he purged our sins, bearing them all in his body
upon the tree. All of our redemption, God made
him to be all our wisdom, all our righteousness, all our redemption,
all our sanctification. Everything is in him. And that's the simplicity of
the gospel. It's not a complicated message. But like these Pharisees, men
won't hear it because it gives to the Lord Jesus all the
glory. All the glory. In our sanctification,
we are sanctified through the offering of the blood of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all. For by one offering, he
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. In our regeneration,
Christ is all. When the Holy Spirit comes and
breathes life into our hearts and makes us willing in the day
of his power, what does he do? He points us to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He gives us faith in Christ. It's not complicated. It's very,
very simple. That's why the Lord Jesus said,
Father, I thank thee. that thou hast hid these things
from the wise and the prudent, and revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, it seemed good
in thy sight, except you become as a little child, you should
not enter the kingdom of heaven. Suffer the little children to
come unto me, for such is the kingdom of God. Here's the reason
why men won't believe the gospel. They won't be humbled. They left
to themselves, well, none of us would left ourselves believe
on Christ. We've got too much of our own
pride and dignity to lose. And until the Lord makes us to
be a sinner and strips us of our pride and our righteousness,
we won't come. The gospel is just simply too
simple. It's too simple for a proud sinner. Let's read these verses together,
the simplicity of faith. The Pharisee said in verse 24,
give God the praise. They couldn't deny the fact that
this man who was born blind has been given sight. And never in the history of mankind
has this miracle been known to happen. And we can only imagine as difficult
as it would be to be blind today, how much more difficult it would
have been He had never seen the light of day. He never saw the
face of another man. He never saw the stars at night
or the moon. He never saw the trees. He never
saw anything. More importantly, he never saw
the Lord. And that's the purpose of this
miracle. is the Lord is saying to me and
you, we were born blind and we couldn't see. And in verse 25, this man says
he answered and said, whether it be a sinner or no, I don't
know. I don't know anything about him. All I know is that once
I was blind and now I see. The simplicity of that statement,
you wanting to interrogate me with your theological debates
but I'm just going to tell you where I am. There was a time
when I couldn't see, I spent my whole life physically blind
and now my eyes have been opened and I see clearly. Then said they to him again,
what did he do to thee? How opened he thine eyes? And
he answered them, look at the boldness of this simple brother,
this believer. I mean, we can, these Pharisees
had everybody intimidated. Everybody was afraid of them.
They were afraid of their knowledge. They were afraid of their righteousness,
they were afraid of their religious power and this man sees through
every bit of it. He sees the hypocrisy of it,
he sees their ignorance and he's not ashamed, he's not afraid
to tell them what he sees. He answered them, I have told
you already and you did not hear whether you would hear it again.
Will you also be his disciples? You see the sarcasm in that?
I mean, here's a man that just, he's been a beggar all his life.
These Pharisees were powerful men and he's, got the boldness
and the simplicity of what he's seen, he's got the boldness to
say to them, what, do you want to be his disciple? And they reviled him and said,
thou art his disciple, but we are Moses' disciple. We know
that God spake unto Moses, as for this fellow, we know not
from whence he is. And the man answered and said
unto him, why herein is a marvelous thing that you know not from
whence he is, yet he opened mine eyes. He's mocking them. This is a marvelous thing. You're
all supposed to know everything. You're all supposed to have all
the information, all the knowledge. Something as simple as a man
who was able to give sight to the blind and you don't know
where he's from. See the simplicity of truth,
the boldness of truth, the clarity of truth, the honesty, the honesty
of truth. I think this is what the Lord
meant when he said, if you know the truth, the truth will set
you free. You're just free. Free from the opinions of men.
Free from the intimidations of the world. Of course, we're free
from the rigors of the law. We're free from the wrath that
is to come. We're free from our sin. We're
free from judgment. We're free to love. We're free to believe. Those
are the glorious freedoms, but with that freedom comes all,
everything's free. There's liberty where the Spirit
of God is. There is liberty. And the Spirit
of God is working on this man. Just like he works, you know,
there is a thing called prevenient grace. And that's grace before
grace. That's the work that God does
in the life and hearts of his children before he brings them
to faith in Christ, preparing them. And that's what's happening
here. The Holy Spirit is dealing with
this man and giving him light. And he's responding to the light
that he has. And he says to these Pharisees,
now we know that God here is not centers, but if any man be
a worshiper of God and do with his will him, he hereth since
the world began was that not heard that any man opened the
eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God,
he could do nothing. He's he's teaching the Pharisees. He's. He's instructing them in
the truth. He's just speaking the simplicity
of the truth to these men who want to complicate everything
and intimidated by him. Now they're intimidated by him
and so what do they do? Well, they resort to name calling
and false accusations. Look what he, they answered and
said to him, thou was altogether born in sins. See, some of the things these
men said are true, not in the way in which they meant them. They didn't know that they were
altogether born in sins. This man doesn't object to the
accusation that he was altogether born in sins. That's how we come
into this world. David said, in sin did my mother
conceive me. We come into this world drinking
iniquity like water, speaking lies from the womb, we're sinners. And this man didn't have any
reason to have to defend himself against these Pharisees in what
they were accusing him of. The problem is they were too. and they couldn't see it. What
they were saying was, you're all together born in sin and
you're gonna teach us? You're gonna tell us the way
things are supposed to be? And they cast him out. They excommunicated him. They, in their religious authority,
declared him hell-bound. The length that unbelief will
go to to justify itself, to protect its position and to promote the
pride and the glory of man is blatantly dishonest. It's just
dishonest. Turn with me to Isaiah 63. Isaiah
63. You see, this brother's experience is
every believer's experience. It's every believer's experience. We're not going to be drawn into
their their debates and their discussion. We're just gonna
stick with the truth as it is revealed in Christ. And look
what the Lord says in Isaiah chapter 63 at verse eight. For he said, surely they are
my people, children that will not lie. So he was their savior. Children who love the truth.
Children who aren't interested in trying to promote themselves
for something that they're not. Children that are willing to
bow to the revelations that are made to them, given to them by
God. Children that are not trying
to protect their position in the world. by pretending to be
something that they're not. When a man lies to himself about
the truth, the reason he does it because of his hatred for
the truth, he runs the risk of God turning him over to a reprobate
mind and being sent a strong delusion by God. If God deludes a man, he's deluded. He'll believe that lie. These
Pharisees believed what they were. Turn with me to 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. These men believed themselves
to be better than this blind man. Their hatred for Christ because
of what the Lord Jesus did in robbing them of their position,
their power. They even met together, the Sanhedrin
got together later on and said, we've got to do something. If
we allow him to continue, the Romans will come and take away
our position and our power, our place and our power. They'll
strip us of all that we have. When God strips you of your righteousness
and he reveals the simple truth of the gospel, you don't care
what other people think anymore. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what they say.
of what they think. Look at 2 Thessalonians 2, verse
10. And with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish, their unrighteousness,
they've been deceived by their unrighteousness. They think that they're, that their righteousness is what
they're doing and what they're not doing. And they've been deceived
because what they're believing to be their righteousness, God
is saying is your unrighteousness. Depart from me. Remember when
the Lord separates the sheep from the goats and, but Lord,
we did all these wonderful things in your name. Depart from me,
you workers of iniquity. All the things that you thought
you were doing that were righteous were iniquitous before me. I
never knew you." And the simplicity of the gospel is that, you know,
in the end of this chapter that we're studying in chapter 9, The Pharisees are going to ask
the Lord, are you suggesting that we're blind? And the Lord
said to them, if you were blind, you could see. But because you
say you could see, therefore your sins remain. And we are blind to finding any hope
of our salvation outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't We can't look anywhere
other than to him and find the hope of our salvation. Find our
righteousness, our wisdom, our sanctification. Christ is our
life. And so we, you know, they were
looking at their righteousness and here's what the Lord says,
with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish because they
received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.
They had no love for Christ. Their love was for themselves,
their love was for their own works and their own power and
their own glory. And here's what, Here's the simplicity
of this man. He's just like every believer. He's just saying, yeah, I was
born in sin. Yeah, all I know is I could...
And then, you know, we see through the hypocrisy and the inconsistency. You know, these... Look at verse
11. And for this cause, because they
had no love for the truth, and for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion that they should believe the lie. God sends a strong delusion.
You're going to believe it. But he didn't send it until they
expressed their hatred for Christ. that they might be damned who
believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
These men took pleasure in what they thought was their righteousness
and God says it's your unrighteousness. Look at verse 13. But, and here's
the contrast of this young man But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord. You love
the truth because he loved you. Because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief in the truth. This is the reason why you've
you've come to Christ and you've believed on him. Wherein he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ in you is now your hope
of glory. And what you long for and wait
for and look to is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to be
made complete and whole in him. Therefore, brethren, stand fast,
hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by
word or by epistle. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ himself
and God, even our father, which hath loved us, have given us
everlasting consolation and good hope through grace. Through grace. It's a free gift. Here's how
we have our hope. not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but by that accomplished work of redemption
that he did. Here's our hope, and God, it's
a good hope. It's not a, it's a, it's an expectation
held by faith. And it's our comfort. Look at
verse 17. Comfort your hearts and establish
you in every good word and work. This is where we stand. And we
cannot lie. We wait patiently for the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ to take us home. And we have his promise. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God, believe also in me. For in my Father's house
are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I would have told you, simple. I go and prepare a place
for you. And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again. and I will receive you unto myself
so that where I am there you may be also. When the Lord Jesus
was received back into glory and took his rightful place at
the right hand of the majesty on high, everything required,
everything necessary for our salvation was made sure. It was made sure right then.
We have an advocate with the father. We have a successful
savior. It's the simplicity of the gospel.
Christ is all. From our election all the way
through to our glorification, Christ is all. I want you to
go back with me to our text and notice that they reviled him.
This word, is really not strong enough in the English language
to define what they were doing. They were hurling insults at
him, curses and slanderous names. You know, the last resort to someone losing an argument
on substance is to resort to personal name-calling. If the message can't be defeated,
then attack the messenger. That's what they're doing. They're
attacking him. They can't defeat the simplicity
of what he's experienced. They can't defeat the simplicity
of what he said. How could he be a sinner? How
could he do what he did? If God wasn't with him, this
doesn't even make sense. Paint your opponent as illegitimate
and you can discard all of his positions. For those who are unwilling to
admit that they're wrong and have no real interest in the
truth, this is a very effective method. shutting down an argument. It's dishonesty but those who have been sent
a strong delusion by God will embrace it and think nothing
of it. The Lord Jesus ate with sinners
and they called him a glutton and a wine-bibber and a friend
of sinners. Well, they got one of those right. He cast out demons and they said
that he was Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. And here, there They're discounting the Lord
himself by saying, this one. You see the word fellow in verse
29 is in italics. It's really the word one, this
one. We don't know where he's from. Well, truth is in another place,
They said, he's a Galilean. He can't be the Messiah. We know where he's from. The Messiah, we don't know where
he's gonna come from. He's gonna be like Melchizedek
without father, without mother, without descent. Isaiah chapter
53 verse 8, who can know his generation? You see, they knew
that when Messiah came, he was just going to appear on the scene
and that no man would know his natural lineage because he would
be sent here from heaven. And now they're saying, And they
knew, that's what they said. They said, we know where he's
from, so he can't be the Christ. Now they're saying, we don't
know where he's from. You see, whatever argument is
convenient at the moment in order to shut down the truth and the
simplicity of the truth, you've had it, I've had it happen. You
try to share the gospel with people, what do they do? They
can't argue with you from scripture and prove their point, so they
resort to name-calling. Well, you're just a hyper-Calvinist.
You're just an antinomian. You all are a cult. You think
you're the only ones that are saved. You're just proud. And they hurl insults. Why? Because then they can They can
walk away and feel like we don't have to enter into a debate or
an argument over truth. We'll just discount the messenger
and then the message will die. They said of this man, you are
his disciple. The man didn't object. You are
his disciple. You see that in verse 28? You're
a follower of Christ. A candle cannot be hid under
a basket. and a city that sitteth on a
hill cannot be hid. What is the Lord telling us?
Let your light so shine before men. If you believe the simplicity
of the gospel, it's gonna come out. People are gonna figure
it out. They're gonna come to this conclusion.
You're a disciple of Jesus Christ. We don't have to wear odd clothes
or display crucifixes and all sorts of religious trinkets. Just be a follower of Christ
and it will be obvious to the people that you're around that
you have a different master, you have different values, you
have a different love, You're different about everything.
Changes everything, doesn't it? We don't have to advertise it.
You walk in the light as he is in the light and we have fellowship
one with the other and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of
all sin. and the darkness. You can't walk
through a dark room with a light and anybody in the dark recesses
of that room not be able to see that light. They're going to
see it. And ultimately, we let people
know who we believe and what we believe and the simplicity
of it They'll hate you for it. And what did they say? They said,
we're Moses' disciples. Well, the Lord Jesus had already
said to them, you say that you believe Moses, but Moses wrote
about me. If you believe what Moses said,
you would believe me for he wrote of me. What are they saying when they
said we're Moses' disciples? They're saying, they're proudly
admitting that we're under the law. And when we declare the
simplicity and the clarity of the gospel and the accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that we're saved
by grace and we live by grace and walk by grace and men want
to, what do they want to do? They want to say, yeah, but Faith
without works is dead and they wanna try to bring their works
into the equation someplace. And what are they saying? We're
disciples of Moses. We have a set of rules and regulations
that we can look to and we can measure our progress and monitor
our lives and we're motivated by these laws. And you're saying
that you don't need the law to be motivated? No. No, we're motivated by love.
Love is the end of the law. You don't have to put a man or
his wife under the law if they love each other to be faithful
to one another. You don't have to make a law
for that. They do that out of love. The law is for the lawless. That's what the Lord said, the
law is for the lawless. And they're saying, we're Moses
disciples, we've got to have the law. And we're gonna put heavy burdens
on you that we're not able to carry. And the Lord Jesus said,
he said, what they tell you to do, do it. Because they're just
telling you right from wrong. But don't do what they do. Do
what they say, but don't do what they do. Why? Because they don't
keep the law. and they're promoting the law
as a means of righteousness. Don't do that. Don't do that. We are Moses' disciples. You mean you don't have to have
the law to measure your progress? No. No,
I look to Christ. I look in faith and in love to
the Lord Jesus Christ and I follow after him. And he is my motivation. And the closer I get to him and
the more I look at him, the more I realize how much unlike him
I am. I can't measure myself by the
law. But I have one. I have one who
stands in my stead before God, one who is the end of the law
for righteousness, one who has satisfied all of the demands
of God's holy law. And as he is, so are we right
now in this world. Oh, the simplicity. We are his
disciples. And we talk to our friends and
coworkers and family members, and what do they say? Well, my
family members will say, well, I'm a Catholic. I'm a disciple
of Moses. And they take comfort in the
fact that they're under a label. Or I'm a Methodist, or I'm a
Calvinist. Or I'm a Lutheran. and they don't
believe anything that Calvin or Luther believed. But men do that. I'm a disciple
of Moses. You see, they find comfort in
attaching themselves to another man. And our only comfort is that
we're bound to Christ, bound to him, the God-man. The Lord Jesus Christ. The sovereign. All powerful. Merciful Savior. He's all in our salvation. The Lord is going to ask this
man. After they cast him out, look in verse 35, Jesus heard
that they had cast him out. And when he found him, he said
unto him, dost thou believe on the Son of God? And he answered
and said, who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? Lord,
my heart is to believe on him. I just need to know who he is.
The simplicity of that. You know, he doesn't ask for
Credentials, he doesn't ask for theological doctrine and things
to, who is he? And Jesus said unto him, thou
hast both seen him and is he that talketh with thee. It's
me. And he said, Lord, I believe.
That's so simple. Lord, I believe. Oh, I believe that you're the
Christ. I believe that you're everything
in my salvation. And he worshiped him. He just
worshiped him. You know, it seems like we live
in a time when information is at our fingertips
and everything gets fact-checked, doesn't it? People ask lots of questions
when it comes to everything else in life until it comes to the
most important subject of all. matters of the soul, the nature
of God, the means by which God saves sinners. And when it comes
to that, they will embrace nonsense. They will embrace such complete
inconsistencies. They will say, yes, God is sovereign,
but his hands are bound by the free will of man. They will say
that Christ died for everybody on the cross, but most for which
he died are going up in hell. They'll embrace complete inconsistencies. They'll do no fact checking.
They'll not want to know what the scriptures say. And they'll hang their hopes on the
words of another man without testing them by what God has
said. And here's the simplicity of
our faith, brethren. We just believe God. And our
gospel is so simple. Paul said to the church in Corinth,
you know, the Judaizers were coming behind Paul. Everywhere
he went, there was a group of Jews that were preaching that
Jesus of Nazareth was the long awaited Messiah. but that in
addition to believing on him, one had to submit to circumcision
and the laws of Moses in order to be saved. So it was a faith
plus works gospel. And they came in behind the apostle
Paul at Corinth. And these men said, Paul wasn't
a real apostle. We're the ones that have come
with the truth. And Paul said in 2 Corinthians
11, he said, I fear, I fear for you. I just want to present you a chaste
bride to Christ. so that you've got nothing, no
other husband, no other place to go, nothing else to look to
but the Lord Jesus Christ. And I fear, lest by any means,
as the serpent beguiled Eve in the wilderness, that your minds
might be corrupted by these Judaizers from the simplicity that is in
Christ Jesus. the simplicity that is in Christ. This dear brother shows for us
the simplicity of faith. He shows for us our own experience
in just simply believing God. And these Pharisees stand in
a stark contrast to those who refuse to have any love for the
truth. And consequently, they've been
sent a strong delusion. And they believe the lie. They
believe the lie. But oh, brethren, let me read
this verse again. In 2 Thessalonians 2. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you in Christ to salvation through
the setting apart of the Spirit of God and your simple, childlike
belief of the truth. The simple truth. Christ is all. He's all. Tom? Number 27, let's stand together,
number 27. Free from the law's great curse,
in Jesus we are free. For Christ became a curse for
us and died upon the tree. The rituals of the law and all
the laws commands have been fulfilled in Christ the Lord established
by his hands. No covenant will