Good evening. Let's open our
Bibles together to John chapter 15. John chapter 15, just going
to read the first five verses of this chapter. Our Lord is speaking here and says, I am
the true vine, which tells me right away there's other vines
that aren't true vines. I am the true vine. And my Father
is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth
not fruit, he taketh away. What's the fruit he's talking
about? He's talking about the fruit of the Spirit. Every believer
has the Spirit of God, and every believer has the love of Christ
in their hearts. This is the work of the Spirit
of God in the believer's life. Every branch in me beareth not
fruit, he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit, he
purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now you are
clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide
in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit
of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except
ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, you
can do nothing. Deanna surgery scheduled for
in the morning. I want us to pray for her and
Lord will give that success. They're doing a knee replacement
7 o'clock outpatient surgery. It's a it's a surgical center,
so. Let's pray together. Our glorious and merciful Heavenly
Father, we come before thy Holy Presence. Thanking you that. We have a throne of grace that
we can approach knowing that thy dear son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, has gone before us, that he has satisfied your demands
for holy justice by his obedience even unto death. Lord, that we
have an advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. We plead his
name, we plead his shed blood, we plead his glory that you might
have mercy upon us sinners. Lord, we pray for our sister
Deanna and we ask that you would comfort her heart with your presence,
that you would give her that peace of God, which is better
than any understanding. Pray that you would give the
medical staff that ministers to her tomorrow just an unusual
skill to do their work well and that your hand of healing would
be upon her and that you would recover her strength and enable
them to be back with us soon. We ask it in Christ's name, amen. Number 176. Number 176. If you
could please stand. Lord, to me. As Thou didst break the loaves
beside the sea, throughout the sacred page, I seek Thee, Lord. My spirit bends for Thee, O Lady. Bless thou the truth, dear Lord,
to me, to me, as thou didst bless the bread by Galilee. Then shall all bondage cease,
all fetters fall, ? And I shall find my peace, my all in all
? ? Thou art the bread of life, O Lord to me ? ? Thy holy word,
the truth that saveth me ? Give me to eat and live with Thee
above. Teach me to love Thy truth for
Thou art love. O send Thy Spirit, Lord, now
unto me, that He may touch my eyes and make me see. Show me the truth concealed within
Thy Word, What a perfect hymn for the message
I want to try to preach from Acts chapter 9, if you'd
like to turn with me there in your Bibles. to see the Lord
in his word is to acknowledge the fact that God has given him
preeminence, that he has made him to be our all and in all,
that in the volume of the book it is written of him, that God's
made him to be our wisdom, All our wisdom is bound up in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Our righteousness, our sanctification,
all our holiness, and whatever, all the hope of our redemption
is in Christ. There were some men with Saul
of Tarsus when the Lord revealed himself to Saul that the scripture
says they heard a voice, but they saw no man. They saw no man. The miracle of salvation is that
when the Lord opens the eyes of our understanding, as we just
sang, enables us to set our affections on things above where Christ
is seated at the right hand of God. where the Lord causes us
to know that he really is all our righteousness before God
and that any hope that we have to have our sins forgiven would
have to be accomplished by his successful work of redemption
on Calvary's cross. If you've got your Bibles open
to Acts chapter nine, I want you to see the difference between
Saul of Tarsus And these other men, I've titled this message,
They Saw No Man. They were all traveling together
as we are traveling on this broad road that the scripture calls
destruction. And if the Lord doesn't take
us off of that road and put us on the narrow road and put us
through the narrow gate will be just like everyone else. He
has to make us to differ. Notice in Acts chapter nine, after Saul fell to the earth
in verse four and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus,
whom thou persecuteth. It is hard for thee to kick against
the pricks. And he, trembling and astonished,
said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto
him, Arise, arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told
thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with
him, stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. Here's an example of people who
were given the word of God without the spirit of God. They heard
the voice, but they saw no man. How do we know if we have the
spirit of God? Well, we see the man, the God-man. There's one God and one mediator
between God and man, Christ Jesus, the God-man. He's the man. He's the one that all of scripture
points to. And when the Lord is pleased
to reveal himself to us, then we come to the same place Saul
was. They traveled with him. There's
a lot of people traveling on this road that we call life in
this world. Turn to me, if you will, to Matthew
chapter seven. Matthew chapter seven. This road from Jerusalem to Damascus
was a well-traveled road. It was a trade route from the
capital of Israel to the capital of Syria. And many, many people
traveled on this road. It is symbolic of the road that's
being referred to here in Matthew chapter 7. I love the way James
says, you sell and you buy and you say we'll go to this city
and that city. Everybody's just traveling through
this world seeking what they might acquire in terms of trade. And spiritually speaking, religiously
speaking, men are trying to trade things with God. they're offering
God certain things in hopes that he will reward them for their
offerings. And so it seems that all of mankind
is in this bid for trading. And that's exactly what was happening
here. Look what the Lord says in Matthew
chapter seven at verse 13, enter ye in at the straight gate. And we know what that gate is.
It's a very narrow gate. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only gate into the sheepfold. No man can come to the Father
except by him. And the Lord says, enter ye in
at the straight gate for wide is the gate and broad is the
way that leadeth to destruction and many there be which go in
thereat. He's talking about all of human
race, the entire human race. They're on a big wide road that
leads to destruction. That's the picture here. They traveled with Saul on this
very busy highway, this trade route between Jerusalem and Damascus. and the Lord was pleased to single
out Saul of Tarsus and to reveal himself to him. That's our only
hope. Our only hope is that the Lord
would make us to differ, that the Lord would single us out
from humanity and get us off this broad road which leads to
destruction. Look at the next verse, verse
14. But straight is the gate That's the gate into the holy
city of Jerusalem, the gate which is made of one pearl. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
gate. He said, I am the way, the truth
and the life. Straight is the gate and narrow
is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find
it. I can remember years ago, when
I learned from other men Calvinism. And there was a man, some of
you know him, who followed us onto the road of Calvinism. And
then some years later, The Lord taught me the gospel and revealed
Christ to me and he came to me one day and he said Greg he said
when When we left that last church, he said I thought you had narrowed
the way but now it's too narrow for me to get through and he
left us haven't seen him since and The Lord said it's easier for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a
rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And the disciples said,
oh Lord, who then can be saved? With man, it is impossible. It's impossible. But with God,
all things are possible. What did we just read in John
chapter 15? Without me, you can do nothing. But if the branch
abides in the vine, then it will bear much fruit. And the father
will prune it and do whatever's necessary to keep it abiding
in Christ. How do we know we've seen Christ
as my life? He's my only righteousness. He's
my only wisdom. He's my only holiness. He's my
only redemption. And he's all in the scriptures. You see, these men heard the
word of God, but they saw no man. They saw no man. Oh, but the Lord would open our
eyes, even as he did for Isaiah. And we're not talking about,
you know, I mentioned this past Sunday that the Lord calls us
by name. He calls, Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me? And some people might think,
well, I'm waiting to hear an audible voice from heaven. I've
never heard an audible voice from heaven, and you won't either.
This is the ear of faith that when the gospel is preached,
you know it's for you. You know that it's all about
your salvation and your sin and it's all about, you know, it's
nothing that you can put off on somebody else. You can't accuse
anybody else. You can't, you're the one who's
in need. Lord, you're speaking this truth
to my heart, and that's how you know. Well, the same thing's
true in terms of seeing Christ. When we talk about seeing the
Lord Jesus Christ, I'm reminded of the sign we have on the back
of the wall here. Sir, from John chapter 12, when
those Greeks came to Philip, and Philip went to Andrew, and
what'd they say? Sir, we would see Jesus. We just
want to see Christ. And I think about the prophet
Isaiah when he said in the year the king Uzziah died, I saw the
Lord. Where did he see him? He saw
him high and lifted up. He saw him sitting upon his sovereign
throne. You see, this is the eye of faith
that Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus that the Lord would
give them the understanding as he reveals Christ to our hearts. And even Paul said when he spoke
of his own conversion, he said, when it pleased God who separated
me from my mother's womb to reveal Christ in me, in me. We're not looking for an experience.
We're not looking for a feeling. We're not looking for a light
to shine from heaven. We're looking for the light of
the gospel that shines in our hearts, enabling us to say, yes,
Lord, yes, this really is all about you. And yes, you really
are all my life and all the hope of my salvation. You see, these
men heard a voice. but they saw no man. And that describes most of the
people of this world. They hear the word of God, but
they haven't seen Christ. They look to the word of God
as a rule book for Christian living. They find in the laws
and precepts of scripture some hope of earning favor with God
by their obedience. That's what Isaiah chapter 28
is all about. They've made a covenant with death. And the Lord said,
line upon line, precept upon precept, that they might stumble
and fall. And that's what men do. They
go to the Bible and they stumble and they fall over the word of
God because they saw no man. They heard the voice, but they
didn't see the man. It's what the Lord said to the
Pharisees. You search the scriptures because
you think in them you have eternal life, but these are they which
testify of me. You know, it's like we saw Sunday
when Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water to Jesus. What did he do? He took his eyes
off of Christ and looked at the water. Now we oftentimes have
seen the turbulence of that sea as being the trials and troubles
of life. But if the water is a picture
of the water of God's word, then is it not a picture of a man
looking to the word of God for something other than the Lord
Jesus Christ? Looking for, you know, some relief
from his troubles by making application of some principles that might
deliver him. Oh Lord, give us grace to always
just look for Christ. If we see him, then we have everything. We have everything. In him is
everything. If we abide in him, then we have
everything. We need Christ. And if we're
looking, if we, you know, we look to the water of God's word
for anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ, we're going to
start sinking. And it's got, you know, the confusion sets
in, doesn't it? See, when it points to Christ,
it's just so simple, isn't it? Peter said it, or Paul said it
at one point, he said, he said, I fear, lest as Eve was deceived
by the serpent, that you might be drawn away from that simplicity
which is in Christ. The simplicity of the word of
God. It always points to Christ. And
they saw, they heard the voice, but they saw no man. They saw
no man. Lord, don't let me settle for
anything less than Christ. Show me his glory. That's what
Saul saw. He saw the Lord Jesus Christ.
No evidence that he had a physical sight of the Lord Jesus in his
resurrected body, but the light did shine from heaven, which
is symbolic of what the Lord does for us when he shines the
light of the gospel in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ in our
hearts. You see, if the Lord's pleased to show us the man, then then we won't be like these who
were on the broad road and the wide gate which leadeth to destruction. Lord, take us off of that road
and put us on that. You know, nobody wants to travel.
You see, the broad road's very safe to the flesh. It's safe
to the flesh. Men can walk on the broad road
and they can be proud. They can be self-righteous. And
they'd be comforted in knowing that everybody else is on this
road with me. But you get on the narrow road and it's, to
the flesh and to our experience in this life, there's a lot of
dangers on that road, aren't there? And yes, the only road
that leads to life, the only road. Notice the posture of these
men that were walking with Saul. In verse 7, and the men which
journeyed with him stood speechless. Where was Saul at the time that
they were standing? Where was Saul? Yeah, you're
right. He had his face in the dust of
the dirt. And they were standing in the
presence of a holy God. without any fear of God, without
any reverence, without any bowing, without any brokenness, without
any humility. They were standing because they
saw no man. You see, if you see the man,
what did Isaiah say when he saw the Lord high and lifted up and
his train filled the temple? And his voice shook the doorpost,
and what did he say? And the angels, he saw the angels
hovering over the throne of God, crying, holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God of hosts. And we see the wings of cherubim
over the mercy seat where the blood of Christ is put. There
God will meet with me, and the only hope that I have is to be
hid under the shadow of his wing. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
his glory. And what did Isaiah say? Oh,
woe is me. Woe is me. I'm undone, man of
unclean lips. Who's gonna save me now? Who's
gonna save me? These men stood. I looked up
this word stood. It means to be established, firm,
or fixed in your position. It means to stand upright without
wavering. The first mention of this word
is found in Matthew chapter two, when the scripture says the star
that came from the east that led the wise men to the birthplace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the scripture says that when it got
over Bethlehem, it stood still. It didn't waver, wasn't flickering,
it wasn't trying to decide where, no, it stood exactly right over
where the Lord Jesus was. God had sent that star and it
took its place and it was fixed in its place. That's the way
men are. They're like that innkeeper who
had no room in his inn for the Lord Jesus. not knowing that
he was the man. He was the man. The Lord said in Matthew chapter
six, when you pray, don't be like the hypocrites for they
love to pray standing in the synagogue. Oh, they stand up
and they put out their chest and they call attention to themselves
and they boast in their piety and in their self-righteousness.
And other men reward them for that. They glory in them for
that. And you liken that to the publican
who would not so much as even look up but smote himself upon
their breasts and said, oh Lord, depart from me. Have mercy upon
me. I'm the sinner. I'm the sinner. But men have no fear of standing
in the presence of God. The scripture says that a certain
lawyer stood up tempting the Lord Jesus saying, master, what
must I do to inherit eternal life? Oh, what arrogance for
a man to stand in the presence of his creator and to put him
on trial and to think that he can trap him in some sort of
question. And yet men do it all the time.
You share the gospel with an unbeliever and he'll stand in
your face and he'll call into question the very authority of
God's word. You see, they're doing exactly
the same thing. The Lord doesn't have to be here physically for
men to stand up to him. In Psalm chapter two, the scripture
says, Do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? What do people do? They imagine
that they can make things right with God by something that they
do. And God says, that's a vain thing. Why do the heathen rage? Why do the people imagine an
empty thing? They think that they can present
something to God that they're going to be rewarded for. And then the scripture says,
they set themselves against the king of the earth. Now when that
passage is quoted in Acts chapter four, when the disciples after
they were persecuted, the word set themselves is translated
in the New Testament as they stood up. They stood up against
the king of the earth. Why do the heathen rage and why
do the people imagine a vain thing? Why do the kings of the earth
set themselves against mine anointed one? But that's what men do.
They have no fear of God. They stand in his presence. What sort of posture do we see
of the one who has seen the man? Well, Saul of Tarsus is a perfect
example of it. He's He's bowed in the presence
of God. We have so many examples of that.
Remember when Ruth, Ruth is a picture of the church, and Boaz is a
picture of Christ, her kinsman redeemer, and Naomi told Ruth,
she said, you go to the threshing floor. What's the threshing floor?
That's where the wheat is separated from the chaff. The threshing
floor is the church. It's where the gospel's being
preached. And God's separating the sheep from the goats and
the wheat from the chaff. And what did Naomi tell Ruth?
She said, that man, he'll not quit until he finishes the work
of redemption. You go lie at his feet. And she uncovered his feet at
the threshing floor and she laid down at the feet. You know, When
we could not see the man, back in religion, we looked at that
story and we thought of all sorts of awful things that, you know,
that the flesh may have been, you know, it was blasphemous. But now that we see the man,
we know what that's a picture of. We know it's the child of
God lying down at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, pleading
for him to become their redeemer. That's what this book's all about. You remember when Esther had
to go before King Artaxerxes in order to save all the Jews
from destruction? Mordecai told her, he said, Lord
has raised you up for such a day as this. And she said, but the
king has not bid me to come unto him. And she said, but it's the
only hope that we have that you would go before the king. And
so she went and she said, if I die, I die. If I die, I die. And she walked into the presence
of the king with her head bowed, seeking his mercy. And what'd
he do? He stuck out his scepter. What
do you want? Up to half my kingdom. That's
how we come before the Lord. Just like Ruth did, just like
Esther did. We see the difference between the
way Balaam was. You remember when Balaam was
disobeying God. Balaam's a false prophet, no
question about it. And he was riding upon an ass. And the ass all throughout the
scriptures, the jawbone of the ass, the ass that the Lord rode
on going into Jerusalem. The ass is a picture of that
beast of burden who carries the gospel. I'm your ass right now. You know, that's it. I'm God's
ass. That'd be okay. Because that's
what we do. We bear the weight of Christ
and we bring him to the people of God. And Balaam's riding on this ass
and the ass sees the man. He sees the angel of the Lord
and he sees the sword of God, which is a picture of the word
of God. But Balaam doesn't see it. And three times the ass stops
and says, no, you can't do, you can't go there. And what's Balaam
do? He beats the ass. He beats him. And that's what men do with their
tongue. They beat the preachers of the gospel and anyone else
who carries the burden of the gospel to friends and family
members. Why? Because they can't see the
man. They can't see the man. And then
the scripture says that the Lord opened Balaam's eyes in Numbers
22, and here's the description of what happened to Balaam. He
fell flat on his face. You see, one's posture tells
you a lot about whether or not they've seen the Lord or not.
When the Lord appeared to the disciples after the resurrection,
Thomas wasn't there. And Thomas showed up later and
they said, we've seen the Lord. And Thomas said, I won't, I've
not seen him. I've not seen the man. Unless I put my hand into
the wounds of his side and into the wounds of his hands, I'll
not believe. And then the Lord appears and
Thomas falls on his face before Christ. Oh my Lord and my God. He saw the man. It's the difference,
isn't it? Job in all of his justification
and self-righteousness and anger towards God, that's what it,
many, many chapters in Job's all about, you know, people think,
well, the book of Job's all about suffering. No, it's not. No it's
not. It's about law and grace. It's
about the same thing everything else in this book is about. It's
about the Lord Jesus Christ and it's about a man who thought
he could prove his innocence before God and justify himself
in the presence of God until God spoke to him and revealed
himself to him. And what did Job say? Oh Lord,
I spoke without knowledge. I repent in dust and ashes. His
posture changed, didn't he? He changed from a man thinking
that he could stand in the presence of God to a man who was bowing
in submission in the presence of God. He went on to say, surely
I spoke without knowledge. I didn't know what I was talking
about. How do we know if we've seen
the man? Well, you can look at a person's
posture. Not their physical posture, their
spiritual posture. And not some feigned piety where
people go around acting like they're so spiritual. That's
offensive, isn't it? Talking about a brokenness before
God. Lord, I'm completely dependent. I can do nothing without you.
You said, abide in the vine, but if you don't keep me, Lord,
I won't be able to abide. You see, everything the Lord
requires, everything he requires, he has to provide. And so when
the Lord says, abide, we say, Lord, keep me and I'll abide. When the Lord says, come, we
say, Lord, call me, bid me to come unto thee and I'll come. The Lord says, believe. Oh Lord
help thou my unbelief, give me faith. You see there's a difference
in the posture between those who were traveling with Saul
of Tarsus and Saul of Tarsus. Second thing we see is the response
of these two individuals. The ones that were traveling
with him, look at our text again in Acts chapter nine and verse
seven. And the men which journeyed with
him stood speechless. Stood speechless. I say you think, well, that's
a good thing. No, it wasn't. It wasn't a good thing. It's
the same speechlessness that that the Pharisees and the Sadducees
had in Matthew chapter 22. Turn with me to that passage.
Let me show you this, Matthew 22. You remember the Sadducees who
did not believe in life after death. They did not believe in
the resurrection. They did not believe in angels.
They did not believe in heaven. They just thought, you know,
eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you shall die. And they posed this question
to the Lord. They said, well, what's going
to happen in the Resurrection? They were being sarcastic. trying
to trap the Lord in their trickery. And they said, well, what's going
to happen if a man has a wife and he dies and the wife goes
to another man and then goes to his brother and that brother
dies and passed on to the next brother? That was the law. And
she's been married now to seven different brothers and then she
dies. Whose wife will she be in the resurrection? And the
Lord said, oh, you do err, not knowing the scriptures nor the
power of God. For in the resurrection, there will be not marrying and
giving in marriage. We're not going to, our love
is going to be so pure and perfect for every person in glory that
we're not going to distinguish one person above another like
we do here. It's not the way it's going to be. And, and so the Lord, the Lord
answers their question and look at verse 33. And when the multitude
heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine. And the, when
the Pharisees heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, these are men who heard the word
of God, but they did not see the man. And they were put to
silence by the response of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the
Pharisees took, took courage in the silence because they were,
they were at at odds with the Sadducees all the time. Well,
look, he shut the Sadducees down. Now let's take advantage of this
opportunity for our own advancement, thinking that they wouldn't be
able to trap the Lord. So when they heard
that he had put the Sadducees to silence, then one of them,
which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and
saying, Master, what is the great commandment of the law? The Lord told him, I shall love
the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and
with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment
and the second is like unto it. I shall love thy neighbor as
thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. While the Pharisees were gathered
together, Jesus asked them saying, what think ye of Christ? Whose
son is he? Well, he's the son of David.
Well, if he'd be the son of David, then why did David say in Psalm
110, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou here at my right hand
until I make thine enemies thy footstool. For if David then call him Lord,
verse 45, how is it that he is his son? Look at verse 46. And
no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man
from that day forth ask him any more questions. The Lord Jesus
Christ silenced them. They could not defend their position
with scripture. And so they were silenced. We
see the same thing today. Oh, occasionally you'll get some
sort of response from a person who will either twist the scriptures
or they'll try to defend their position with reason, with human
reason and logic. How is it that God couldn't love
everybody? Why, what do you mean that God, that's not fair. You
see, they try to, defend their position with human reason or
with dead theologians. I say, well, that's not what
Dr. Sounding Brass used to say back, you know, in my commentaries. But they can't defend themselves
against the gospel from the scriptures. I can't tell you how many People
come here, I know they've never heard the gospel before. I've
preached the gospel to large groups of unbelievers over the
last few years. And it's amazing. They won't
even look at me when I'm finished. I mean, it's like I've got COVID,
you know, I've got the plague or something. They won't, they
won't come near me. They won't look at me. They've
made no response. They are left speechless, speechless. And we have people walk out that
door every Sunday who are speechless. They won't bow, they won't confess
Christ. They're like those 5,000 who
after the Lord told them, if you're gonna be my disciples,
you must take up your cross, deny yourself, take up your cross,
follow me. And they walked away speechless. They couldn't say a word. It's
what the gospel does. Psalm 31 verse 17 says, let the
wicked be ashamed and let them be silent in the grave. Let them be silent in their own
spiritual deadness. That's where men are. They heard
the voice, but they saw no man. And they stood in the presence
of God and had nothing to say. They couldn't say, Lord, save
me. They couldn't say, with Saul of Tarsus, who art thou, Lord? They couldn't confess him as
Saul did. Right after he got his sight,
just a couple of verses later, Ananias is going to go and lay
hands on him three days after he is confronted with the Lord. And he gets up and he's baptized
and he goes into the synagogue and he preaches Christ. He confesses
that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. He is the Son of
God. He is the fulfillment of everything that God promised
to send a Savior to deliver Israel from their sins. You see, there's
a difference between those who have seen the man and those who
haven't seen the man. Those who haven't seen the man
have got nothing to say. Those that have seen the man,
Oh, they've got plenty to say. Turn with me to 1 Peter 2. I'm
going to show you this. 1 Peter 2. This will be an encouragement
to you. If they do say something, they'll
say something like this. what you're preaching is going
to lead to lawlessness. It's going to lead to just giving
men a license to sin and indulging themselves in all the pleasures
of the world. Don't you know that we've got
to promote the law in order to control men's behavior? If they say anything, they say
something like that. But they don't say that very
long. They don't say that very long. Why? I'll show you right
here. Look at 1 Peter 2 at verse 15. For so is the will of God that
with well doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men. You see, they look at your life
and they think, That message, that gospel they believe hasn't
led them to some sort of perverted indulgence of the flesh. And
that's what the Lord said. You've silenced them by your
life. They may think, well, that message,
I've heard people say, well, if I believed what you believed,
I'd live any way I wanted. And the believer's response is,
oh, I wish I could live like I want. I do wish I could live
like I want. I want. We sang in that hymn,
birth that you led us in before the service, you know, about
sending no more. We get the glory that we'll send
no more. That's our hope. Men are left speechless. What did David say? I will not
be silent. Oh Lord my God, I will give thanks
unto thee forever. Those that believe in their heart
must also confess with their mouth. For with the heart man
believeth unto salvation and with the believeth unto righteousness
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. See,
we're not silent. When we see the man, we're not
silent. We're constantly crying out for
mercy. Lord, save me. We're listening to the message
of the gospel, and we're saying amen. And we're sharing with
one another what the Lord has done for us, and encouraging
one another, comforting one another with these words. Isn't what
the Lord said? With what words? With God's word. The Lord spoke
to me, and it's what an encouragement it is. You don't know what a person
believes if they don't speak, for out of the heart flows the
issues of life. People listen to the gospel,
they're left speechless, and you wonder, what have you heard? Have you heard anything at all?
I'm not suggesting that I need affirmation. But believers speak to one another
about Christ and about what they've heard and about who they believe,
and they rejoice together. Listen to Colossians 3, verse
16. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another. Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another. Paul said in Romans
chapter 15, I myself am also persuaded of you, my brethren,
that you are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and able
to abound one to the other. In Ephesians chapter one, he
speaks of praying for the church that their eyes of their understanding
might be opened. And the scripture says, I have
believed, therefore I have spoken. If God's revealed the man to
you, the God man, showed you his accomplished work of redemption,
what did Saul say? Who art thou Lord? Who art thou
Lord? He acknowledged him as the sovereign
omnipotent God. I am completely at your mercy. You can do with me whatsoever
you will. You're God, that's obvious. That's
how we, we know if we've seen the man, we know that he's God.
What that Ethiopian eunuch said, I believe that Jesus Christ is
the son of God. I believe that he's the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. He has the sovereign control
over my life and over my circumstances and over everything in all of
creation. He's God. And his name is Jesus. the successful sovereign savior
of sinners. He actually accomplished the
salvation of his people on Calvary's cross. When he bowed his mighty
head and shed his precious blood and said, it is finished, everything
that God required for the salvation of his people was accomplished
by that man, that man. You see, Saul saw the man. They
heard a voice, but they saw no man. And they stood speechless. And Saul, on the other hand,
is trembling. He's trembling. Why? Because he saw the man. He didn't
just hear some words. He saw who it was that was speaking
to him. The eyes of faith, in his heart,
he knew that this Jesus was God. One heard, one only heard the
voice, and the other saw the man. After Pilate had the Lord
Jesus flogged and scourged, he brought him out. He's a bloody
mess. And what did Pilate say? He didn't know he was speaking
prophetically. What did he say? Behold the man. Behold the man. Now what, same
thing John the Baptist said, behold the Son of the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sins of the world. Oh. Does the prophet speak of himself
or is he speaking of another? Isn't that what that Ethiopian
eunuch said? Oh no, he's not speaking of himself. He's speaking
about the Lord Jesus Christ. How glorious it's been to study
the Psalms and see that they're all about Christ. They're not
about David. They're not about Solomon. They're about the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the man. If the Lord gives us eyes to
see, we won't stand speechless. We'll bow and we'll say, Lord,
what would you have me to do? All of scripture. The earth was
without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
That's us. We're without form and void and
darkness is upon the face of the deep. And God said, let there
be light. And there was light. And that's
what happens. That physical creation is a picture
of the new creation, the new birth that comes. And all through
the scriptures, all through the scriptures, the Adam and Eve,
Christ and his church, Abraham and Sarah's Christ in his church.
Isaac and Rebecca's Christ in his church. Jacob and Rachel's
Christ in his church. Joseph is all about the Lord
Jesus Christ. David is all about the Lord Jesus
Christ. You see, we don't read about
these people thinking, well, you know, I've heard the word.
No, we look for the man. We look for the man. and all the way to the end of
the book, I come quickly. And what's the
church say? Come Lord Jesus, even now, come,
come. Our heavenly father, bless your
word to the hearts of your people. We ask it in Christ's name and
for his sake, amen. 340, let's stand together, 340.