hymn number 62. Let's all stand
together. ? Crown Him with many crowns ?
? The Lamb upon His throne ? ? Hark how the heavenly anthem drowns
? ? All music but its own ? ? Awake my soul and sing ? ? Of Him who
died for thee ? and hail him as thy matchless king through
all eternity crown him the lord of love behold his hand Rich wounds yet visible above
In beauty glorified No angel in the sky Can fully bear that
sight But downward bends his wandering eye At mysteries so
bright ? Crown Him the Lord of life ? Who triumphed o'er the
grave ? Who rose victorious to the strife ? For those He came
to save ? His glories now we sing Who died and grows on high,
Who died eternal life to bring, And lives that death may die. Crown Him the Lord of Heaven,
one with the Father known, one with the Spirit through Him given
from yonder glorious throne. To thee be endless praise, for
thou for us hast died. Be thou, O Lord, through endless
days adored and magnified. Please be seated. Good morning. We'll be in Matthew chapter 11
this morning. Matthew chapter 11 and verse
25. And the title of this message
is revealed unto babes. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank the old father, Lord of heaven and earth. that
thou hast hid these things from the wise and the prudent, and
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for it seemeth
good in thy sight. This has occurred three times
in the scriptures that I can think of that the Lord has brought
a message like He's brought here in Matthew chapter 11. The first
time was in Nazareth. when he told them that Israel
is not number one, the children of God are number one, and they
tried to kill him. In John chapter 8, when they
said, we be Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any
man. When the Lord finished that message,
they went about to kill him. And it's basically the same thing
here. But there's a question here that's
either in the multitude's hearts and mind, or it was asked. Because
in verse 4, whenever John sent his disciples to ask him, art
thou he that cometh, do we look for another? Scripture says,
Jesus answered and said. So anytime you see that, there's
been a question asked. And verse 25 starts out with,
at that time, Jesus answered and said. And the question that
was asked is going to show us what is hidden from the wise
and the prudent. And if we know what's hid from
the wise and the prudent, we'll know what's revealed unto babes.
Chapter 11 starts out, the Lord Jesus Christ has sent his 12
disciples out to preach the word, to heal the sick, to raise the
dead, and do all of these things. And he is going out through the
countryside preaching in the towns and the villages and multitudes
followed him. And scripture says that John
was in prison and he sent two disciples to ask the Lord Jesus
Christ, art thou he that cometh or do we look for another? Now,
there's two schools of thought about that, real quickly. One
is that John has gotten despondent in prison. He knows his ministry
is about to end. He knows he's going to lose his
life. And he doesn't know for sure that Christ is the Messiah.
The other is that John knows that he's going to die. But John
has his disciples. And these disciples need to follow
Christ after he's dead, or even then. This is the man that pointed
at the Lord Jesus Christ and said, behold, the Lamb of God.
that taketh away the sins of the world. So I doubt that John
would not know for sure that Christ was the Messiah. But he sent two witnesses down
there to talk to the Lord. These two will come back and
he'll tell all the rest of the disciples, this is the Messiah. I think that's what that's for,
the account of it. And the Lord said, go back and
show John the things that you've seen. The blind see. The deaf hear, the lame walk,
the dead are raised, and the gospel is preached to the poor.
And they left. And he told the multitude, he
said, you went out in the wilderness to see John. And what did you
go out there for? Did you go out to see a reed
shaken with the wind? Did you go out to see a prophet
that couldn't be sure of who I was or of the will of God? Did you go out there to see somebody
with fancy clothes on? No. Fancy clothed people live
in kings' houses. He said you went out there to
see a prophet. And I say unto you, more than
a prophet. Out of all the prophets in the
scripture, John was the only forerunner. He was the one sent
to prepare the way of the Lord. And the Lord Jesus Christ said
there's not been a greater in the prophet since the beginning. But the least in the kingdom
of God is greater than he. What in the world would that
mean? You got the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
yet we're greater than he? Because we have all of revelation. We have the entire word of God
right here. And John didn't have it. That's
the only reason we're greater than he is. And the Lord went
on to tell them, you're like little kids in a marketplace,
running through the mall, yelling to each other, having a ball,
knocking things over, just in general being unruly little children. Because you see these things
and you don't know what they mean. And you don't search to
find out what they mean. You just take life a day at a
time and that's it. You're like little children screaming
at each other and hollering at each other because John came
not eating and drinking and you say he hath the devil. They went
out in the wilderness, they saw this man. He's a Nazirite. He's
got hair as long as anybody you've ever seen in your life. He's
never had a sip of wine. He's got a camel skin wrapped
around him. And he lives on locust and wild
honey. And you didn't see the forerunner. You saw a crazy man out in the
wilderness. You said he had a devil. And
the Son of Man came eating and drinking. And you say, behold,
a man gluttonous, a winebibber, and a friend of publicans and
sinners. And then the Lord Jesus Christ
addressed us. He said, but wisdom, and that's
Christ, but wisdom is justified of our children. The Lord Jesus
Christ showed us that there is liberty. To stand fast in the
liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. It's a wonderful
thing to be able to sit down and eat a nice meal with those
you love, with other people in the church. There's not a thing
in the world wrong with that. And there's nothing wrong with
drinking wine in moderation. And Paul told Timothy, take a
little wine for that tummy's sake. And he was a friend of
publicans and sinners. If he was not a friend of publicans
and sinners, he wouldn't be our friend. Because that's what we
are, publicans and sinners. So we justify the Lord Jesus
Christ when he says you're not under the law. Touch not, taste
not, handle not. We're done with that. You have
liberty. Liberty to enjoy life as a child
of God. If anyone in the world could
have a good time, it should be us. We've got no problems. We know who loves us. We know
who orders all things for our good. So we'll justify the fact
that Christ came eating and drinking and was a friend with publicans
and sinners. And it goes on to say that He
upbraided the cities wherein he'd done most of his mighty
works. To upbraid means to chastise or criticize. And he said, woe
unto thee, Beth said, if the mighty works had been done in
Tyre and Sidon that were done in thee, they would have repented
long ago in sackcloth and ashes. And he said, woe unto thee, Capernaum,
thou that was lifted to heaven. Why would Capernaum be lifted
into heaven for this reason? Capernaum is where the Lord Jesus
Christ healed a centurion servant. It's where the woman with the
issue of blood touched the hem of his garment and was healed.
It's where he raised the widow's son. that was already on the
way to the graveyard. It's where he raised Jairus'
daughter from the dead. Now those are mighty works. He
said, if the works were done in Sodom that were done in you,
it would still be here. And it's going to be more tolerable
for the land of Tyre and Sidon and the land of Sodom than it
is going to be for you in the day of judgment. And then it
says, and Jesus answered and said. So what is the question? It's the same question. It's
always been with the Jewish people. Who do you think you are, Jesus,
to tell us that John is more than a prophet? Who do you think
you are to tell us he's the forerunner? Because if that's true, you're
the Christ. Who do you think you are to tell us we're like
a bunch of little kids running around the marketplace? And who
do you think you are to tell us that the people of Tyre and
Sidon are better than we are? That God thinks more of them
than he does of us, but especially Who do you think you are to tell
us that a bunch of perverts and sodomites are going to be better
off in judgment than we are? We be Abraham's seed and we're
never in bondage to any man. We're not like other men are.
We give tithes of all we own. We fast twice in a week. We're
not like publicans and sinners that you're friends with. We
are the seed of Abraham. Where do you get off telling
us all these things? Scripture tells us in second
Thessalonians chapter two and verse 10. With all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish because they received
not the love of the truth. And for this reason, God will
send them strong delusion that they should believe the lie that
they all might be damned who believe not the truth but had
pleasure in unrighteousness. Don't never ever doubt how strong
this delusion is because these people stood right in the presence
of the Son of God and watched him give blind people their sight
They stood in the presence of the only beloved of the father
and watched him give deaf people hearing. And they stood in the
presence of God himself and watched him raise people from the dead. And yet they despised him and
they rejected him and they went on to murder him and crucify
him. So don't never doubt. how strong
the delusion is. The delusion is not just something
that started after the Lord was crucified, it's always been here.
There's always been people that went after unrighteousness. Romans
chapter 10 and verse 1, talking about these very people. Paul
said, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel
is that they might be saved. That means they're not. For I
bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according
to knowledge." This multitude is out in the wilderness with
nothing to eat and nothing to drink, no place to sleep. They
went out there to hear the Lord Jesus Christ. They went out there
to see John the Baptist. They had a zeal for God, but
not according to knowledge. For they, going about to establish
righteousness of their own, they've not submitted unto the righteousness
of God. For Christ is the end of the
law for righteousness to every one that believeth." These are
natural men. They looked at the law of Moses,
they looked at the Son of God, and they said, I'll keep the
law. So the question is, who do you think you are to tell
us we're wrong? So what's been hidden? What's
been hidden from the wise and the prudent? And the answer is
what's been revealed unto babes. Now, what I'm about to tell you
doesn't happen to every child of God, but in a sense, some
stronger, some lesser. What's the first thing, the first
thing that's revealed to a child of God after he's born again? After the Holy Spirit gives us
eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to believe, we look
back on our lives and I say, I cannot believe this. Everything
I ever did in my entire whole life, I did it for a selfish
reason. I am a sinner. That's the first
thing. that the Holy Spirit reveals
to us when we're called. And we'll stand there and we'll
look over our lives and we'll think about this and we will
realize how terrible sin is. Trillions and trillions and billions
and millions of people have died because of sin. Wherefore by
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so that
death passed upon all men, for that all has sinned. Now we'll
know how bad sin is, but we'll never really know how really,
really bad it is until God opens our eyes to a few things. It
tells us in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7 that the Lord God formed
man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils
a breath of life and man became a living soul in all of creation. In the whole universe, man is
the only creature that has an immortal soul. That's the man
that God made. A man with an immortal soul and
he called him Adam. red earth. And Adam had fellowship
with God. Now we don't, we'll never be
able to understand really truly how important this was because
we've never had it like Adam did. Adam walked with God. Adam talked face to face with
God Almighty. He was God's friend. God brought
all the animals before Adam and Adam named them all. Adam was
in perfect harmony with Almighty God, and God only gave him one
commandment. And the Lord God commanded the
man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely
eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not
eat of it, for in the day ye eat thereof ye shall surely die. And yet Adam did. Remember the
Israelites that were out in the wilderness, and they were tired
of eating vegetables, and they were tired of manna, and they
wanted meat. They murmured against God. They
wanted meat, and God sent them quails. I'm talking three foot
deep and covered a whole area. Scripture says they went out
and got them, and they cleaned them, and they prepared them,
and they cooked them, and the minute they went in their mouth,
they died. And that's what happened to Adam.
The minute that fruit touched his lips, Adam died. Now this
is the beginning of the fork in the road for truth and error,
believe it or not. If you're wrong on this, you're
wrong on all of it. The left side, the wide gate
and the broad path, many there be that go there. They say that
Adam very clearly did not die. I mean, after all, Scripture
says in chapter 5 that he lived over 900 years and begat sons
and daughters. It's just something that God
said to scare him, probably. That's probably what happened. And they still believe that.
We're on our own. We're not any part of Adam. But
the right side, the truth side, the narrow gate and the straight
path says this. Adam died. The minute that fruit
passed his lip, Adam died spiritually. He's no longer Adam, the friend
of God. He's Adam dead in trespasses
and sins. He's no longer the same man that
named all the animals and walked with God every day. He's Adam
carnal, he's natural man, he's Adam carnal, and scripture tells
us that the carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can be. He's not the same Adam. He's spiritually dead, even though
he's physically alive. Oh, you say, I can't see that
in there. Sure you can. Look at spiritually dead Adam's
answer when God comes to the garden. And the man and his wife
heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day, and they hid themselves amongst the trees
of the garden. And he, God, said, Adam, where
art thou? And the man said, he's no longer
Adam. He's the man. And Adam said,
I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was
naked and I hid myself. Spiritually dead, Adam couldn't
even abide to hear the voice of God. He's got a conscience,
no doubt, killing him. He's spiritually dead. He don't
want nothing to do with God. So he hid himself. But it gets
worse. Because when God pinned him down,
he really showed that he was spiritually dead. Who told thee
that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof
I commanded thee? Thou shouldest not eat of it.
And spiritually dead Adam, natural Adam, carnal Adam, opened his
mouth and said, the woman, the woman you gave me, God, she did
give me and I did eat. But it gets worse. It tells us
in Habakkuk chapter one, that God is of pure eyes and to behold
iniquity. The garden's not big enough for
God and two sinful people anymore. The universe is not big enough
for God and even one sinful person. Scripture says, and the Lord
God drove the man from the garden. But it gets worse. And God placed
a cherubim at the gate. No more access to God. God has put a barrier up between
him and mankind that's still in place today. Adam and Eve
and all of us are Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 12. We're without
Christ. We are aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel. We're strangers to the covenants
of promise. We have no hope and we're without
God in the world. But there is an answer. Because
verse 13 said, but you who sometimes were far off are made nigh by
the blood of Jesus Christ, for he is our peace. If we're going
to get through that barrier, we have to be in Christ because
he's the mediator. He's the one between us and an
almighty God. We're not going to make it through
that barrier unless we're in Christ. So you see how bad sin
is. You see how terrible sin is when
God opens our eyes to the truth. So now we know that the most
terrible thing in the world is sin, and we're guilty of it.
We're standing there thinking about all the things we did we
shouldn't have done. And we need help. And some little
shirt-tailed free-will preacher will come up and tell you, Jesus
loves you, son, and he has a marvelous plan for your life. I don't need
a plan for my life. I don't need a Savior with a
failed plan of redemption. I need a Savior that works. I need a Savior that's strong
enough to come in and bind the strong man and take me away from
him. Colossians 119, who has delivered
us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom
of his dear son. I need a savior that can take
my responsibility for being a sinner. To fear God and keep his commandments
is the whole duty of man. Ecclesiastes, I've not done it.
I'm responsible for every sin I've ever committed in my life
that's got to be taken care of. I need a Redeemer that will take
on my responsibility, but it's not enough. He must also pay
the penalty for my sin. Now, it's not enough to say,
OK, son, I've paid for your sin. You're sin free. It's not enough. I've got to have a savior that
will take on the responsibility for what I've done. He'll pay
for my sin and he'll remove my guilt. Because I can never ever stand
before God, holy and without blame. as long as there's one
little bitty smidgen of responsibility left in me. If there's even the
least little bit of sin, I'll never see the Lord in heaven.
If there's any guilt left, I'll never see the Lord Jesus Christ
until it's taken away. And this is revealed unto babes. Why would they call us babes?
because we're born again. Peter said, as newborn babes
desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby.
The Lord Jesus Christ told the disciples, He said, suffer the
little children that come unto Me, because of such is the kingdom
of heaven. Now simple-minded people will
tell you, well, all He's talking about there is children will
believe anything you tell them. They will obey immediately. That
don't even make sense. Kids are like a bunch of little
wild animals. They don't obey and they don't
believe. The reason we're called babes is this. Babies can't do
anything. A baby can't change his diaper.
A baby can't warm up his milk when it's time to eat. A baby
can't dress itself. The Lord Jesus Christ said, without
me, you can do nothing. And that's what babies do, nothing. I need a savior that will take
care of everything. And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why they call us babes. Now, to have this revealed to
you, sometimes it takes a while, it takes longer than others to
really be brought to what you might call a full revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some people go on like this for
quite a while, knowing they're a sinner, knowing they can't
please God, desperately needing a savior and not knowing for
sure who's right, who's wrong, what to do about it or anything
else. But then the Lord said, all things are delivered unto
me of my Father. He has all power. Everything
belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he said, no man knoweth the
father, but the son knoweth the son, but the father. And that's
true because only God, the father knows the only begotten. They've
been together forever. I'm not going to try to separate
the Trinity. I'm just telling you, they've
been here throughout all eternity. So that only God the Father knows
the Son. And only the Son knows the Father. And he to whom he will reveal
him. Now, when the Lord Jesus Christ
reveals God the Father to us, what happened? When for the first
time in our lives, We're brought face to face with God Almighty. What happens? It happened to
Job. He said, I've heard of thee with
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes see thee and I hate
myself. How did you feel the first time
you really found out that we were sinners? It's hard to deal
with. It's hard to give up on the idea
that we were not that bad after all. But I want to tell you right
now, all of the things we did in our past life don't amount
to nothing. Because they'll be gone when
we die. Only Christ will remain. And we are in Him. So the first
thing you're going to do when the Father is revealed to you,
you're going to hate yourself, or hate myself. Isaiah said,
I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and His train filled the
temple. And I said, woe is me, for I'm
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips. We're going to know that every
word that ever came out of our mouth before God called us was
blasphemy. And you turn on the television
set for two minutes, you'll know that the whole world is blaspheming
God. We're going to know that. Peter
said, whenever the Lord Jesus Christ said, cast the net on
the other side of the ship, and they broke the net pulling the
fishes in. What did Peter say when the Lord
came to him? He said, depart from me, Lord,
for I'm a sinful man. I'm not in there. Centurion said,
I'm not worthy that you'd come to my house. Just say the word
and my servant would be healed. Have you ever considered the
fact that Peter and John went to the gate? Beautiful. There's
a cripple man. They said, I command thee in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, rise up and walk. But the Lord never did that.
He didn't call on anyone. He did it by his own power. I say unto thee, arise, thy sins
be forgiven thee. That's how much power that he
had. We'll say with the man whose
son was afflicted with whatever it was. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. And when we stand there and our
whole lives are upside down, You won't think about wife, children,
mother, father, job. You won't think about anything
but your position before God at that minute. And I can tell you from personal
experience, it is terrifying when you stand there and you
know That there's no hope. I've been wrong all my life.
There is a God and he's angry. And he's angry at me. And there
is a lake of fire. And if God doesn't intervene,
that's where I'm going. And at that particular time,
nothing in my life is important except my relationship with God. And then something happens that
happens to every child of God that's ever been born. In the middle of all of the turmoil
and all of the doubts and all of the fear and the tears, if
there are tears, you'll hear a still, small voice that says,
come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn
of me, for I am meek of lowly in heart, and I'll give you rest
unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light. Then everything will be all right. The sin will be lifted off of
you. No more responsibility. That
was another life. No more guilt because Christ
has done all of this and I am in Christ. No more anxiety. No more fear. You know, as well
as I do, that that's not true. We're going to have anxiety.
We're going to have fear. I could not count the time when
I didn't really know if I was saved or not. But you will always hear the
voice come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden. You
see, the thing about it is this, and this is what's hid from the
wise and the prudent. Salvation is not by invitation. It's by reservation. We have
a place prepared for us that was prepared before the foundation
of the world. We have a place that we're going
to be that was always foreordained from us. In the book of life,
my name is written down. No one can take it out. No one
can draw a line through it. I am a child of God. I was a
child of God before the foundation of the world. God brought me
into this life and protected me my whole life. And he brought
me to a day of grace. And I went through all the things
that I've just talked to you about. And I heard the voice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we're after all just human.
We just That's how we are. We don't change that much when
God calls us. We change here in our mind, here
in our heart. But we're still prone to do the
same thing we always did. But I want to bring you to mind
of one scripture. Whenever the Apostle Paul was
on his way to Damascus, and the Lord knocked him right off of
that horse, And he said, who art thou, Lord? He said, I am
Jesus, whom thou persecutest. And he said, you find it hard
to kick against the pricks. Whenever you yoke oxen and you're
training them, there's a bar that hangs behind them about
that far, and it's got sharp objects, nails all through there,
stick out about that much. And they're called pricks. And
when young oxen are yoked, they'll kick against the bridge, trying
to run, trying to get away. It doesn't take them long to
learn that you don't do that. And that's how we are. God limits
our inequity, even though we're still sinners, even though we
still do stupid and sinful things. God limits them. He watches over
us. Pearson used to say that Satan
was God's monkey. That means he's a little organ
grinder and they got the monkey with a chain around his waist.
If he got too far, that organ grinder would jerk him back.
We're like that. God will jerk us back if we get
unruly. We don't have anything to worry
about. He not only saved us, he's going to keep us. He's going
to keep us safe forever. That's the kind of a savior we
need. One that can take care of everything.
We have a savior that hung on a cross and said it is finished
and he meant it. We're just babes. We're not supposed
to be doing all these things. We're not capable of doing anything.
It's so hard. It's so hard for people that
are under a delusion to understand what we've just went through. because it's in the nature of
man to think that they have to do something to make God happy. But never forget what I told
you, salvation is not by invitation. Come unto me all ye that labor
and are heavy laden is not an invitation, it is a command to
a child of God. That's exactly what it is. I
would not serve a Savior who didn't have strength enough to
take me away from the devil and keep me. I don't need a free
will Savior that died for everybody and it didn't quite work out.
I don't need that. Seeing we are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses, Let us lay aside every weight. That's what we're doing here.
The job is not important in here. Our family problems are not important
in here. We've laid aside every weight. And the sin which does so easily
beset us. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. That's the Christian life. Father, we thank you for being
gathered here together this morning. We'd ask father that you'd watch
over us. You'd give us assurance. You'd
give us grace father. You give us a need father to
be with other Christian to fellowship one with another to love one
another to patiently wait on the coming of the Lord. Be with
Greg as he preaches away from us. Bring him safely back father.
We ask these things in Jesus name, Amen. Take a break.