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 rose 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. glorious day that'll be when
we're able to do this in his presence, in his physical presence
for all eternity. I like that hymn. That's, uh,
that's a very hopeful, hopeful truth. Let's, uh, let's pray together.
Ask the Lord to bless his word. Our heavenly father, We thank you for putting into
our hearts a longing for that day when you will be glorified
in our sight in ways that we cannot even begin to understand. We pray, Lord, that you would
give us a taste of that glory. Pray that you would send your
precious Holy Spirit in power speak to our hearts, point us
to Christ, pray for the gift of faith that we would see him
seated at thy right hand. Lord, that you would open the
windows of heaven and that we would find him to be our all
and in all. Oh, father, give us hope in Christ. Cause us to rejoice in his glorious
person. and in his accomplished work.
For we ask it in his name. Amen. January 15th, 16th and 17th will
be here before we know it. If you have space in your home
that you'd like to have some guests stay with you, please
let me know. We've had calls from folks from
out of town that are going to be coming, and we look forward
to that. I don't know exactly if we'll
be turning to a particular passage of scripture this morning. I'm
going to try to recount several very well-known stories in the Bible. And my point to this first hour
is that we are not to look to the symptoms of sin. We are not to look to the symptoms
of sin. whether we be, whether those
symptoms manifest themselves in self-righteousness or whether
those symptoms manifest themselves in, as they did in the demoniac,
the symptom of sin is not our problem. It's the cause of our
sin. Now, let me illustrate what I'm
trying to say like this. If there was a doctor that prescribed
the exact same medication to every one of his patients. Whether
you went to him with a broken leg, whether you went to him
blind, or whether you went to him with terminal cancer, he
gave to you the same exact prescription. Your first thought might be,
that's not a very capable doctor. He obviously is not aware of
the complexities of the human body to be doing such a thing. And then you find out that every
single one of the patients that he treated that received his
medication was made whole. Now your attention is not on
the doctor. Now your attention is on the
medication. The miracle drug. The one thing
that he's prescribing to every one of his patients. How do I
get my hands on that? What is it? What's it cost? And then you find out that it's
absolutely free. It's absolutely free. You see,
it really doesn't matter how sin manifests itself in our lives. It changes from person to person. It changes from day to day. The problem that we need dealt
with is not the symptom of sin, but the cause of our sin. And
the Lord Jesus Christ is called the balm in Gilead. The scripture says that the leaves
of the tree of life are the medicine for our soul. The Lord Jesus
Christ himself is our medication. He is the solution to every single
one of our problems. You see, The problem is that
if we go about treating the symptoms, now think with me as we carry
on this illustration of the doctor, if you knew of a doctor that
all he did was treat your symptoms and he never got to the cause
of the problem, well, in fact, Most medicine that's practiced
today is nothing more than that. The vast majority of medicine
that's practiced is treating the symptoms until the body heals
itself. You ask any doctor, they'll tell
you 90% of what they do is treating symptoms until the body heals
itself. Here's the problem. Our souls cannot heal themselves. And yet man-made religion is
just like modern-day medicine. It's treating the symptoms in
hopes that somehow the soul will cure itself. Now, I want for
you and for me to get to the heart of the issue. I want us
to get to the source of our sickness. The scripture says that it's
unbelief. It's unbelief. That's your problem. That's my problem. The sin that
doth so easily beset us is the sin of unbelief. And what you need and what I
need from God is faith. Faith to trust Christ. Now faith is not believing that
God's gonna do everything you ask him to do. Faith is believing
that God has done everything he promised he would do. Faith
is casting your care, your soul upon the Lord Jesus Christ and
resting all your hope in Him. Don't look to the Bible for anything
other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, you end up turning
the Word of God into a rule book for Christian living. line upon
line, precept upon precept, here little, there little. This book
was given to us in order to reveal the glorious person and the accomplished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one we need. He's the
one we need. And if He gives us the faith
to look to Him, to trust in Him, well, the source of our problem
will be dealt with. The outward effects of sin differ
for each of us, and as I already mentioned, they differ from day
to day, the outward results of sin. The cause of every problem
that we have is lack of faith. It's lack of faith. It's unbelief.
It's our need for the Lord Jesus Christ. And only as he reveals
more of his faithfulness and more of his glory to us does
our faith increase as we go from, as the scripture says, faith
to faith. Now it doesn't really matter
if the outward manifestation of sin has affected you like
it affected Mary Magdalene. The Scripture says that the Lord
Jesus Christ cast from her seven demons. Can you imagine what
she was like? I mean, her life must have been
an absolute train wreck. I mean, it must have been just
a total mess. And yet the Scripture says she's
the very first one the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to after his
resurrection. It doesn't matter if your life
is like Mary Magdalene or if you're like Mary the mother of
the Lord Jesus Christ who when Gabriel came to her the scripture
says she was afraid why was she afraid how can this be she asked
the angel how can it be that you say this that that I'm gonna
bear a child I've never known a man and she was gripped with
fear why was she afraid same reason Mary Magdalene was possessed
with demons Unbelief. And it doesn't really matter
which one of those lives illustrates your life or my life. Our need
is the same. Our need is for the Lord to say
to us, like he said to Mary, fear not. You have found favor
in God's sight. God has graced you with his presence. That's your hope. He is your hope. What did the
Lord say to Abraham? He said, Abraham, fear not, for
I am thy shield and thine exceeding great reward. He's the one we
need. He's the one we need. If we focus
our attention on our symptoms, then The source of our problem
will never be cured, oh, but if the Lord causes us to realize
my need is for Christ. My need is to know Him. This
is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. Lord, that's what I need. I need to know you. Paul, at
the very end of his life, he said, I've not yet apprehended
that which has apprehended me. I've not yet gotten a hold of
him like he's got a hold of me. I don't love him anywhere like
he loves me. But this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind, I press towards the mark for
the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus, that I might know him. that I
might know Him, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship
of His sufferings. Oh, that I could be more thoroughly
convinced that when the Lord Jesus Christ hung on Calvary's
cross, that I was crucified in Him. Nevertheless, I live, yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me. The life that I now live, I live
by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and died for me. That's my hope. And that when
the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead, by virtue of my union
with Him, I was raised in a new life. He was offered up for my
offenses and raised again because of my justification. He is my
need. Now this doctor has one prescription. one prescription. That's it.
It's the only one I've got. And if the Lord's pleased to
enable us to see that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only medicine
for our sin sick soul, then no attention will be given to the
doctor. All the attention will be placed on that miracle drug. That miracle drug. It doesn't
matter if you are Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus was an educated
man, obviously. He had learned under Gamaliel. He was a member of the Sanhedrin.
He was a Pharisee. He was a tribe of Benjamin concerning
the law. He was blameless. He had so many
outward characteristics, highly educated, yet he was self-righteous. He thought that the things that
he had achieved were his righteousness before God. He needed to be knocked
off his high horse, didn't he? He needed for God to open the
windows of heaven. He needed for the Lord Jesus
Christ himself to shine the light of the gospel in his heart and
to speak to him and say to him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
me? Saul. needed exactly what you
need. He needed exactly what I need.
He needed God to speak to his heart. He needed faith. Who art thou, Lord? That's what
he said. Why? Because he had no faith. He didn't know who the Lord was.
I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It doesn't matter if you're a
Saul of Tarsus, self-righteous, religious, educated. or if you're
like that Philippian jailer, a pagan who beat the apostles,
put them in chains, had no regard for the things of God, had no
interest in the things of God, had no knowledge of the law of
God. He was completely separated outside of the tribe of Israel.
He had no understanding. He was a pagan. Yet, the Lord
met him where he was, didn't he? He was just about to fall
on his sword when the apostles stopped him and said, oh no,
don't do that. Don't do that. And what did he
say? What must I do to be saved? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thine
household. The Philippian jailer needed
exactly the same thing as Saul of Tarsus needed. Faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what you need. And
that's what I need. And we need more of it, don't
we? We need more of it. If the Lord's given us any light
at all, if He's given us a taste of His grace, then we want more. It's the sweetest thing we've
ever experienced, and we want more of it. Lord, we cry with
tears, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. Doesn't matter if you are like
Lydia, who the apostle Paul found down by the river, meeting with
some other women in a prayer meeting. in a prayer meeting. Scripture says that she was a
God-fearing Jewish woman. She knew the law of God. She
knew something about the teachings of Scripture. And she knew that
there was a God. But she was in need of, as the
Scripture says, the Lord to open her heart so that she could believe. All of her, she was also a very
successful businesswoman, obviously. She had traveled all over the
world and was a seller of purple, the scripture says. And yet, She didn't have faith. Her heart
needed to be opened. The Lord had to open her heart.
And in that regard, she stands level on the same ground with
that Samaritan woman at Sychar that had been married five times,
had probably never left that little community of Sychar. She
was notorious in her city so that she wasn't even able to
go to the well. At the time when the other women
went there, out of shame and embarrassment, she had to go
in the middle of the day. And yet, she met the Lord Jesus Christ
on the same exact ground that Lydia met the Lord on. Oh, if you knew who it is that
saith unto thee, give me to drink, you would ask of him, and he
would give to you living water. And she still didn't understand.
Oh Lord, give me that water that I need not come to this well
anymore. And the Lord Jesus Christ had to explain to her, I am the
living water. I'm the one that's going to cause
rivers of water to flow from your soul. Oh, come meet a man,
she said, that told me everything that ever I did Everything I
ever did in the Lord Jesus Christ is absolutely perfect. Perfect
obedience to the law of God. Everything that I've ever done
outside of the Lord Jesus Christ is perfectly sinful. Come, meet
a man who told me, she met the same man, didn't she? You see,
it doesn't matter. The outward manifestations of
your sin don't matter. The source of our problem is
that we need the Lord to reveal Himself to us. I've been thinking this week
about preaching and why God's preachers preach. Why is it that
God's preachers preach? You say, well, they've been called
of God. Yes, if they're God's preachers, they have been. And
they preached that God might be glorified, yes. But God, when
He calls a man to preach, puts into his heart the hope that
through the ministry of preaching, God Himself will speak to someone's
heart. That's His hope. That's the hope
behind His preaching. that the Lord would be pleased
to make himself known through the preaching of the gospel to
somebody's heart. Lord, would you save one? Would
you make yourself known to your people through the preaching?
That's my hope. That's, if you will, that's my motivation for
preaching. And preaching is responded to in so many different ways.
Some people get angry. Others, I've preached to people
for years and years and years and never heard one peep out
of them about anything that God may have said or not said. You
know, some people are just absolutely completely silent about preaching.
I don't know. God's preachers are not going
to be affected by the response that men have to preaching if
they've been called of God. They're going to remain faithful
in season and out of season. Some will be angry. Some will
be completely silent. Some will think that they need
to add something to the preaching by being critical. Others will
seek to praise the preacher by giving him their approval. He's
not preaching for that reason. He's not preaching for your approval.
He's not preaching for accolades. He's not preaching for disagreement. He's preaching in hopes that
God's going to speak. Oh, and how encouraged preachers
are when one of God's people says, God spoke to me. God spoke to me. God revealed
himself to me. Oh, that's That's why we preach. It doesn't matter if your sins
have manifested themselves to you like they did to that demoniac
in the Gadarenes. You remember the apostles and
the Lord crossed over the Sea of Gennesaret and met with that
man. He lived in the tombs. They had
him chained. In that change would not restrain
him, the scripture says, he was so wild. And he cut himself with
knives and stones and completely out of his mind. And yet, the
Lord met him there. The only thing the Lord did when
he went there, it's the same story where the Lord cast those
demons, there's so many demons in this man that he cast him
into a herd of swine and the swine ran off the cliff into
the sea and the people from the town saw what the presence of
the Lord Jesus Christ cost them and they begged him to leave
and no one else in that town was blessed but that demoniac
was. He was clothed and put in his right mind. Why? because the Lord spoke to him.
And it doesn't matter if sin has manifested itself in that
way to you, or whether you are more like Cornelius. Cornelius,
the scripture says, was a devout man, one that feared God and
gave much alms to the people. He was a centurion of the Roman
sect, the Italians, the scripture says. But he didn't know God. He didn't know God. And the Lord
had to give Peter that vision of those unclean animals coming
down when he was there at Simon the Tanner's house in Joppa.
And Peter saw those unclean animals and the Lord said, Peter, take
and eat. And Peter said, oh no, Lord. Nothing unclean has ever
touched these Jewish lips before. And what'd God say? Do not call
that which I've made clean unclean. The Lord was about to make Cornelius
clean, wasn't he? And the Lord was preparing Peter
to go preach the gospel to this Gentile. Never before had the
gospel been preached to a Gentile. And Cornelius gathered his whole
family together and he said, we're all here. We're all here
to hear what the Lord has given to you to speak to us. and the
Lord met them, and he manifest his praise, his glory by the
presence of his Holy Spirit. And that experience with Cornelius
was the defense that Peter gave in Acts chapter 15 to say, no,
no, this gospel is not just for the Jews, it's for the Gentiles
also. The evidence of that is that
the Lord saved that dead dog Cornelius, as devout as he was,
See, it doesn't matter. The outward manifestation of
sin is irrelevant. The source of the problem is
our need to know Christ, our need for Him to speak to us,
our need for Him to give us faith. Simon Peter, a simple, Uneducated. He had no education. What are
these unlearned and ignorant men doing here? Preaching. They don't have the right to
preach. Fishermen. Impetuous. Rude. Unlearned. Unbelieving. Peter needed to
be saved. in the same exact way that the
Apostle John, who by personality was so different from Peter.
John was of a tender spirit. He was quiet. The disciple whom
the Lord loved, who leaned upon his breast. He was warm and devoted. He was an affectionate man, not
like Peter in any way. And yet, he needed to know Christ. He needed to have faith. He needed
to experience God's saving grace in his heart. It doesn't matter if you're like
the blind beggar by the name of Bartimaeus who stood by the
roadside. He heard that the Lord Jesus
was coming his way. And he began to cry, Son of David,
have mercy upon me. Shut up, Bartimaeus. You're embarrassing
yourself and everyone else. You're a dirty, smelly, blind
beggar. Just get outside on the outside
and leave... Oh, Bartimaeus, no, wait. Be of good cheer. He calleth
for thee. Bartimaeus dropped his only garb
that he had, that old smelly, holey robe and left it there
on the roadside and ran to the Lord. Bartimaeus, what would
you have for me to do for you? Oh Lord, that I might see. That's
my need. You see, the truth is that each
one of us can identify with every single one of these characters
and every single one of these stories, as different as they
are. Why? Because the application
doesn't have anything to do with the outward examples. The application has everything
to do with the spiritual application, the spiritual truth of salvation.
And so it doesn't matter if you're like blind Bartimaeus or if the
outward manifestation of sin is more like that woman with
the issue of blood. who had spent all that she had
on physicians. What a picture of a person who
goes from religious persuasion to religious persuasion, goes
from preacher to preacher, goes from church to church, spending
all they have trying to find some hope for their sin sick
soul. And then they hear that the Lord
Jesus Christ is in the crowd. Oh, if I could but touch his
garment. And she crawled to get to him.
And she did. And our Lord said, who touched
me? And the disciples thought, that's
the most ridiculous question I've ever heard. Who touched
you, Lord? Everybody in the crowd is touching you. Oh, no. No virtue has gone out from me.
All these other people are just curiosity seekers. But this woman
who had an issue of blood, that's your issue, that's my issue.
We've got an issue of blood. We were born not like the Lord
Jesus Christ conceived of the Holy Spirit. We were born of
our father Adam. Our problem is in our blood. You know, a person can have a
disease. Once it gets in the blood, it's
throughout the whole body. I've heard physicians say, we
can treat this, but it's in the blood. Every part of the body
is affected by this. Doesn't matter. That crippled man 48 years. He had gotten up and gone
every day to the pool of Bethesda, waiting for the stirring of the
water, that the first one into the water might receive healing. And our Lord said, Would thou
be made whole? Oh Lord, I would, but I've got
no man to help me to get into the water. Oh no, that's not
your problem. That's not your problem. What
do you mean it's not my problem? 48 years I've had to have people
carry me around. I can't do anything. That's not
your problem. It's a lot more serious than
that. It goes a lot deeper than that. Would thou be made whole? And He was. He was. Oh, He was healed physically,
but greater healing was the saving of his sin sick soul. The revelation
that the Lord made of himself to this man. Doesn't matter if
you like that or if you like Tabitha, who was also known as
Dorcas, the scripture tells us in Acts chapter 9, she did many
good works. She served the church. When Peter
came and she had gotten sick and died, all the women were
crying in grief over her death and showing her, showing Peter
the coats that she had made for everybody. Oh, this woman was
beloved. But she was dead. She was dead. Scripture says Peter made everyone
leave the room. He knelt down beside this dead
woman's bed and he prayed. And then he spoke to her and
said, Arise. And God raised her from the dead.
That's what you and I need. We need to be raised from the
dead. In all of our works, Whatever praise men might give us for
whatever good we've ever done is of no value to our souls. God's got to heal us. He's got
to speak to us. He's got to raise us from the
dead. A certain man, the scripture says,
we don't even know his name, who was lame from his mother's
womb. He was born deformed. Never took a step in his whole
life. And now he's a grown man, and
he goes every day, and he sits by the gate called Beautiful,
going into the temple. And Peter, James, and John, going
into the temple, they see him sitting there, And he's begging,
like he did every day. He's lost all dignity. All he can do is beg. And Peter
looked at him and said, silver and gold have we none, but such
as we have, we give unto thee. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth,
stand and walk. And the scripture says, immediately
he leaped to his feet. praised God with joy and for
the first time in his life was able to go into the temple and
worship Jehovah. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if you are a Nicodemus
who came to the Lord by night Obviously, he had no understanding
of who the Lord Jesus Christ was when he said to our Lord,
We know that you're a son of God, for no man can do the things
that thou doest, except God be with him. He didn't know he was
speaking to God himself. He couldn't know. Why? Because
he was blind. He couldn't see. The Lord told him, he said, Nicodemus,
unless you're born of the Spirit, you can't see the kingdom of
God. You're spiritually blind. You're spiritually dead. All
of your understanding of the Bible has given you no insight
whatsoever to the gospel. You're in need of being born
of the Spirit. And it doesn't matter if you
have the life of Nicodemus or if you are like that Ethiopian
eunuch. who had traveled all the way
from Ethiopia to Jerusalem because he heard that there was a God
in Jerusalem that could save men. And he spent the whole time
in Jerusalem seeking after Jehovah with no more understanding when
he left than he had when he got there. But he had a copy of the
Scriptures with him. He could afford that. And so
on his way home, he's reading from the book of Isaiah. And God sends Philip down to
Gaza to meet up with this Ethiopian. And here this man who obviously
is not, the Ethiopian was, he was the treasurer of the Queen
Candace of Ethiopia. I mean this guy had an entourage,
he obviously was very wealthy, a very powerful man. And here
comes this Bedouin walking up to him in the desert. and says
to him, Understandest thou what thou readest? And most men in
this Ethiopian's position would have looked down to Philip and
said, Who are you? Can't you see who I am? Can't
you see I'm an educated man and I'm reading? Don't bother me.
No, he didn't say that at all. He said to Philip, how can I
unless some man should guide me? Come up here and tell me
what this means. Is the prophet speaking of himself or is he
talking about another? And Philip, beginning right there
in Isaiah chapter 53, preached unto him Jesus. What doth hinder
me to be baptized, he said. He heard the whole gospel. What
did Philip say? If thou believest with all thine
heart, if God's given you faith to trust Christ for your salvation,
thou mayest. I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. That one you just preached to
me, I believe that He is, who you say He is. You see, it doesn't
matter. Sin, the symptoms of sin is not
the problem. It's the source of our sin that's
the problem. And the solution to that problem
is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. There was a widow. Scripture
says she was four score and four years old. Eighty-four years
old. And here's what the scripture
says about it. It says, she departed not from the temple day or night. She devoted her entire life to
prayer and service in the temple with a man by the name of Simeon.
And Joseph and Mary bring the Lord Jesus Christ as an eight
day old infant into the temple and God opens both Simeon and
Anna's eyes and they see the this is the consolation of Israel
Lord you take us home now you take us home now we've seen thy
salvation have you seen him? has he revealed
himself to you because that's your need That's my need. No question about it. We get
all of our attention on our symptoms, don't we? It doesn't matter if you're Anna
in the temple serving the Lord, Or, if you're like that Syrophoenician
woman, who had never worshipped God or served God a day in her
life, and the Lord called her a dog. And what'd she say? Just like Anna. She bowed to
the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. She said, truth Lord, and she
worshipped Him. And the Lord met her there, and
revealed Himself to her, and saved her. All different, just like each
of us are different, and yet all the same. The Lord Jesus Christ said, it's
expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come. But when he comes, when he comes,
he will convict the world of sin. of righteousness and of
judgment. And that's what we need. We need
for the Lord Jesus Christ to send His Holy Spirit to convict
us of sin. Not sins, not symptoms, sin. And the Lord interpreted that
word when he said of sin because they believe not on me. There's
your problem. There's my problem. Unbelief. It's the sin that does so easily
beset us and it's the source of all the symptoms. You wouldn't
go to a doctor that would treat your pain with pain medicine
and ignore the source of the problem, would you? of righteousness. Of righteousness,
the Spirit of God will convict the world of righteousness. Why of righteousness? Because
I go to my Father. The Lord Jesus Christ was accepted
back into glory. Why? Because He had pleased the
Father in being the end of the law for righteousness. For who? For everyone that believeth.
everyone that believeth, the Jew first and also the Gentile. The rich, the poor, the Greek,
the Roman, all of them, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Barbarian,
bound or free. And of judgment, of judgment because the prince of this world
has been judged. When the Lord Jesus Christ bowed
his mighty head on Calvary's cross and cried, it is finished,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, Satan, the Lord Jesus Christ delivered
from Satan all those who were held captive by him. He accomplished
the work of destroying, the scripture says in Hebrews, the works of
the devil. What's the work of the devil?
Death. What's the work of the Lord Jesus Christ? The reversal
of death. Life. Eternal life. And he exercised the judgment
of God when he became our sin bearer on Calvary's cross and
satisfied God's justice once and for all. of sin because they
believe not on me, of righteousness because I go to my father, of
judgment because the prince of this world is judged. Has the Spirit of God ministered
the grace of faith to your heart to trust Christ? The religion of this world would
have you to think that your sin problem goes no deeper than the
way in which it manifests itself in your outward behavior. That's going to change from day
to day. The problem we have is unbelief. And the bomb that's in Gilead
and the leaves on the tree of life that are for the healing
of our sin sick soul is always the same. Always the same. Never changes. Don't go to even the Bible looking
for solutions to particular problems. You see, do you understand what
I'm saying about that? If you're just trying to solve
the symptoms, people do that all the time. Well, you know,
we'll just attack that problem with a particular verse of scripture.
We'll apply this principle to that area of life and we'll fix
that problem. No. The source of the problem is unbelief. And the solution
to that problem is Christ. May God give us grace to see
beyond what the, you see, the physical eyes, all they can see
is the physical outward manifestations. This takes faith, doesn't it?
It takes faith. Our heavenly father, we ask that
you would bless us with your spirit, enabling us to trust Christ. For it's in his name we pray,
amen.