Thank you, Bird. Joy. My text this morning comes from
Isaiah chapter 9. Chapter 6. Hold on just a minute. Chapter 9, verse 6. Very familiar
verse of scripture. Chapter 9. Verse 6 of Isaiah. I want to thank Michael and Hugo
again for bringing clear teachings and gospel messages to you here
last Sunday. I was very encouraged to be able
to listen to those right after you heard them and was blessed
by them. very, very good services in Sarasota. I mean, well, we have in Sarasota
also, but in Charlotte last weekend. We met on Saturday night and
then twice on Sunday morning, and the room we met in was actually
full. They couldn't have gotten anybody else there. And several
unbelievers that came and the families that are part of the
group that's been there seem to have a renewed commitment
to the gospel and to the church. And so I'm just very, very encouraged
with what the Lord's doing there and excited to see what he's
going to do. They're going to start bringing
in live preachers on a regular basis and praying the Lord will
raise them up a pastor. So Dennis, Eugene, and Natalie
send their love. We stayed with them. And Dennis,
their son, is coming next weekend. He'll be here for our services
next Sunday and be here for the preacher's class next Saturday
morning. So I'm just very encouraged with
Dennis and with Jason as well. All right. Let's ask the Lord to
bless His word to our hearts this morning. our Heavenly Father, to be drawn
closer to Thee is the desire that You have put into our hearts.
We know, Lord, that You don't cause us to desire that without
a willingness and an ability to fulfill that desire. And so
we ask, Lord, now that we might experience in our hearts being
drawn closer to thee, that you would take your word and by the
power of your Holy Spirit, that you would reveal the glory of
Christ to us, that you would cause us to find our rest and
our peace and all the hope of our salvation in his accomplished
work and in his glorious person. We thank you for the evidence
of your grace on the believers in Charlotte, and we ask, Lord,
that you would bind their hearts together in Christ and that you
would provide for them and that you would give them the ability
to be a witness there in that city for Christ. We thank you
for the work of the gospel in Sarasota and for the way, Lord,
you've stirred the hearts of your people there. We ask for
your mercy upon them, and we pray, Lord, that the witness
of Christ and your gospel would go out from that place. We pray
it in Christ's name. Amen. Well, I said the passage is very
familiar where this is a verse of scripture that is most often
read, I suppose, in religion around Christmas time. But it
tells us so much about the Lord Jesus Christ when God says to
us, unto you is born a child, a son has been given. And he
goes on to tell us about His names, He says, the government
shall be upon His shoulder and His name shall be called Wonderful,
Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince
of Peace. The Lord Jesus Christ is so infinite
in His person and so glorious in His accomplishments that the
Holy Spirit gave to us in His Word over a hundred names to
describe different aspects of Him to us, to reveal Christ to
us. We have four of them right here
in this one verse. But the one that I want us to
focus our attention on is the name, the Mighty God. The Mighty
God. We saw a couple of Sundays ago from
Revelation chapter 1 where the Lord Jesus Christ calls himself
the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, saith
the Lord, which is, which was, which is to come. And then the
last title that he gives of himself in that verse is The Almighty. the Almighty. The Lord Jesus
Christ time and time again reveals Himself in the Scriptures as
God. Now, the central doctrine of
every group in the world that calls themselves Christian, whether
they be liberal or whether they be conservative, whether they
be traditional or whether they be contemporary, Whether it be
formal or whether it be informal, they would all claim that the
central doctrine of Christianity is the deity of Christ. Once that doctrine is denied,
then they would not consider you to be Christian. It's considered
by everyone to be the non-negotiable doctrine necessary to be considered
a Christian church. They would all agree that Christ
himself is, at least in word, the fullness of the Godhead bodily. They would agree with what John
said in John chapter 1, in the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. Unfortunately, they
fit the description that our Lord gave of those who honor
Him with their lips, but their hearts are far from Him. In other words, they say, Lord,
Lord, with their lips, but in fact they've redefined the very
essence of God. They would say that Jesus Christ
is the Son of God, the brightness of His glory, the express image
of His person, that He Himself holds up all things by the word
of His power. They would agree that He is the
second person of the Trinity, the triune God, God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit being all equal in their
nature. in their essence, and yet different
persons. This is just the central doctrine
of what the world knows as Christianity. When the Lord was accused of
blasphemy because, as they said, He being a man makes Himself
out to be God, The Lord Jesus Christ did not refute that accusation. He did not attempt to correct
them. He did not say to them, oh no,
you misunderstood me. No, that is in fact who He claimed
to be. The mighty God. The almighty. The omnipotent God of all of
creation. the creator and sustainer of
all of life. That's who He is. When we call
Him that, we're not calling Him that in word only. The greatest absurdity in all
the world is to call a being God and then say in the next
breath that he is not able or does not do as he pleases. That's a nonsense statement. And yet, people are so lacking in knowledge and so absurd in their thinking that
they have no trouble in calling Jesus God and then in the very
next breath denying him of the very essence of deity by saying
that he's not able to fulfill his desire or his purpose. They will say that he is omnipotent. He is the irresistible force
of all of creation. until he comes up against the
immovable object of your free will. And then his hands are
tied. At that point, he's no longer
God. At that point, you're God. And that's exactly what the Lord
tells us in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, that God has given to them
a strong delusion so that they would believe a lie. They don't
only believe a lie, they believe an absolute nonsensical absurdity. That God would be somehow subject
to man? that God's hands would be tied
that he would not be able to fulfill that that's what they
say God loves everybody Christ died for everybody God wants
everybody to be saved but you know bless his little heart he
just he just can't get it done why because man has set himself
up on the throne of God when we say when God says that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the mighty God when he calls himself the
almighty when he says in the beginning was the word and the
word was with God and the word was God we just believe to say that a being is God but
that He is not able to do as He pleases, is more absurd than
to say that water is not wet. It's more absurd than to say
that fire is not hot or ice is not cold. It just doesn't make
sense. By His very nature, God is absolutely
sovereign. He's omnipotent. He is free to
do whatsoever He wills. He's God. And God's people like
it that way. They like it that way. He has
caused them to come down off of their lofty throne and to
place their face in the dirt and to acknowledge Him for who
He is, the mighty God. the Almighty in every aspect
of their life. In creation, in providence, and
most especially in salvation. He's just God. The Lord Jesus
Christ is God. We don't put any conditions on
that. David said in Psalm 115 verse
3, Our God is in the heavens, and He hath done whatsoever He
pleases. He hath done it. Notice the verb
tense is past tense. He's already done it. As God,
He's ordained before the foundations of the world all things that
shall come to pass. So that there's not a molecule,
there's not an atom, there's not a neutron that's out of place. From the microscopic to the telescopic,
everything is in order. When He spun the galaxies into
existence, they are following His purpose perfectly. Now if that's true, if that's
who He is, then that's who He is in the microcosm of your life
and in my life. In every detail. And most especially
in our salvation. That's exactly who He is. God's people just believe that.
You know, we were talking this morning in the study before the
service and I made the statement, we really don't understand anything
we believe. We don't understand anything
we believe. Nothing. But we just believe
it. Now people say, well that's foolishness. No, the fool has said in his
heart, no God, Wise man just bows to what God says and believes
it whether he's able to understand it or not. And he knows that
God is so great and glorious that there's no aspect of him
that can be fully understood anyway. So he just bows to what
God says. He just believes. And he can't
not believe. When we say that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the mighty God, He is the Almighty. He is the Second
Person of the Triune Godhead. He is the Creator and Sustainer
of all of life. We rejoice in that and we don't
condition it. And we don't say, well then how
could it be? And we don't try to explain what He does. Has
evil come into the city and God has not caused it? The most horrendous
things that take place in this world The things that we are
grieved over, the things that destroy people's lives, and we
know that God is God. He's on His throne. Someone asked
a pastor, where was God when my son died? As awful as that
is, as terrible as that is. And the wise pastor said He was
in the same place He was when His son died. Exactly the same
place. He hasn't gotten off His throne.
That's who He is. That's His essence. That's His
glory. And though we can't understand
all that He's doing, we rejoice in bowing to Him and trusting
Him and dependent upon Him and waiting on Him because He's God. He's God. Psalm 135 verse 3, "...whatsoever
the Lord pleased." did He in heaven and in the earth and in
the seas and in all deep places. Whatsoever He pleased, that hath
He done. I'm so thankful that we have
a God that's almighty, a God that truly is omnipotent without
any conditions whatsoever. We don't try to take the edge
off of that. We don't try to explain it. We don't try to compromise
it. We just bow to Him. Bow to Him,
believing that that is who He is. Look at all that Job went
through. He lost all of his children.
His wife told him to curse God and died. His friends all turned
against him. He lost all of his possessions.
He was afflicted with such turmoil and such grief, even in his flesh. Job was able to say in Job chapter
23, What his soul desireth, even that he doeth. What his soul desireth. Nothing
has happened that God didn't desire to happen. And everything
that he ever desired to happen has happened. Perfectly according to his purpose.
That's who He is. He's the Almighty. We don't sit
in our pride on our lofty paper throne and call God into question. We just don't do it. We say whatever
He does is right. Whatever He does, however painful,
however confusing, however little I understand it, He's God and
I'm not. And I'm so thankful for that.
He's the Almighty. God tells us in Ephesians chapter
1, He worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. Men pride themselves in saying
or believing that somehow their will is the determining factor
in things. And particularly they'll hold
to that opinion when it comes to their salvation. When we say that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the Almighty, when we say that He is the Mighty
God, we're confessing that His will is always done. And that
our will, well, it's really kind of the weakest thing about us,
isn't it? It's the weakest thing about us, our will. How many
times do we will to get things done? We will this and we will
that. It just doesn't get accomplished, does it? Why? Because we don't
have the power to accomplish the things that we desire. Not
so with our God. He's omnipotent. He's almighty. He wills it, He purposes it,
and then He accomplishes it. Nebuchadnezzar had to be humble,
didn't he? Nebuchadnezzar was turned into a beast, sent out
into the field to eat the grass. in order to teach him what? That
all flesh is as grass. And the glory of flesh, the strongest
of the flesh, the beauty of the flesh is like the flower of the
grass. Oh, it's there for a little while,
we observe it, but then the heat of the sun comes and it's eventually
mown down. It's all grass. When Nebuchadnezzar
was finally taught that lesson, God knows how to abase the pride
of man. That's what he said. He knows
how to make his children humble. And then he went on to say, He
doeth according to his will in the armies of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth and no man can stay his hand
or say unto him, What doest thou? We don't call God into question.
We cry for mercy when He does things that hurt, things that
we don't understand. We ask Him to, Lord, give me
mercy, but we don't ask Him why He's doing what He's doing. We
don't say to Him, God, you're wrong. We don't accuse Him of
wrongdoing. Who art thou, O man? He's the
potter, we're the clay. He has the right. Oh Lord, help
me. Attend my heart with these trials
with your grace and with your mercy. Comfort me by convincing
me that what you're doing, though I don't understand it, and though
it's extremely painful, help me to understand that what you're
doing is right and good for me and will ultimately be to your
glory. Lord, give me the faith to believe
that. The natural man cannot receive
the things of the Spirit of God. He can't go here. He'll raise his fist to heaven.
He'll call God into question. And then ultimately he'll deny
the very deity of Christ by saying, God didn't do that. God didn't
send that. I would much rather the child have resentment in their heart
toward God for some painful thing that he brought into their life. I'm referring to Sometimes you
hear people say, well you can't tell a child that God took their
brother, their sister, or their mother, their father. You just
can't do that. They'll hate God for it. They'll resent God for
it. Let them resent God, knowing
that He's omnipotent, rather than loving Him, thinking that
He's not. He's all-powerful. He's the Almighty. He's God. If He's pleased to
bow our knee to Him and to cause us to acknowledge that, we'll
say with Nebuchadnezzar, He hath done whatsoever He wills. We'll say with Job, The Lord
gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Oh, man has to somehow reconcile
things in his mind. God says, these things are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them. Why? Because they are spiritually
discerned. Only as the Spirit of God ministers
grace to our hearts can we believe what we're saying right now. Otherwise, we're going to grit
our teeth and we're going to ball our fist. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
9. Verse 27, And when Jesus, let me remind you again, The only time in the scriptures
that our Lord is referred to as Jesus is by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks of His
activity. He often refers to Him as Jesus. When His children speak to Him
or of Him, they speak of Him as the Lord Jesus Christ, their
Master, their Lord. I just had to go in one of those
bookstores again this week, sorry. I needed another Bible. You just
hear people throw His name around as if it was just a common name. Two blind men followed Him, verse
27, crying and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. Oh, the Son of David was a title
for the Messiah. They knew that when these blind
men called the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of David, they were calling
Him the Christ. They were calling Him the Mighty
God. They were calling Him the Almighty
One. They were calling Him God. They were looking to Him as the
Almighty. That's what they believed. That's
what the Scriptures taught. that one like David would come
and reign on his throne and establish Israel for all eternity. And
that's the son of David. That's who they spoke. That's
how they spoke to the Lord. Son of David, have mercy on us. We know you can if you will. Now the unbeliever says, God
wants to, He wills to give you sight, but He's not able to unless
you let Him. And that's just a denial of Christ
being the Son of David. And when He was coming to the
house, the blind men came to Him, and Jesus saith unto them,
Believe ye that I am able to do this. You just called me the son of
David. Do you believe what you just said? It's kind of like the rich man
saying to the Lord, good master, and the Lord said, why callest
thou me good? You know there's none good but God. Are you referring
to me as God when you call me good? Do you understand that
this title, Son of David, is a reference to who I am in my
essential nature as God? And if you believe that, what
you're saying, if this isn't just something that you're honoring
me with your lips but your hearts are far from me, if you really
believe that I'm God, Then you'll answer this question right. Am
I able? Am I able to do what you're not
able to do? And they said unto him, Yes,
Lord. Yes, Lord. Are you blind? Left to yourself,
unable to see the truth of God? unable to believe. You're born
blind and the Lord reminds you all the time how dependent you
are upon Him to give you your sight. Do you believe that He's
God? And that He's able to save your
soul? To give you eyes to see? To open
the ears of your understanding? To give you life? Do you believe that He's able
You believe that you're dead. You believe you're not able.
You can't see. You can't believe. You can't
do anything for yourself. Do you believe that He's God?
And as God, He's able. Believest thou that I am able
to do this? Can you join your voice with
these blind men and say with absolute confidence and faith,
Yes, Lord! Yes, Lord! I believe. I'm not going to condition your
deity. I'm not going to soften it. I'm not going to change it. I'm
not going to try to explain it. I'm not going to try to defend
what you do or what you don't do with men. You're God, and
I believe that, and you can do with me whatsoever you will.
I believe that. I believe you have the power
to save me. Yes, Lord. Yes, If you can join these men and
God's word in that, you have reason to have great hope in
your salvation. Great hope. What else is there? When the Philippian jailer asked
the apostle Paul after that earthquake experience and he was about to
kill himself, he was going to fall on his sword thinking that
all the soldiers had left and Paul had to say, don't harm thyself.
Oh, what must I do to be saved? That's what the jailer said.
Paul didn't say there's nothing you can do. Paul didn't say,
you know, just sit around and wait and see if God zaps you
from heaven. You know, maybe it will happen, maybe it won't.
I had somebody tell me Friday night, you know, when I listen
to some people's preaching on God's sovereignty, I think, well,
you've got a 50-50 chance. That's what they said. Maybe
you will, maybe you won't. No. He said, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thine household. Anybody
that believes on Christ, The Ethiopian eunuch said, I believe
that Jesus is the son of God. I believe that he is. I believe. Yay, Lord, you're able. I've got no place else to go.
You're God. You see, the bottom line is that
men do not believe that Jesus Christ is God. They don't believe
it. They call him God, but they've
redefined God. They don't believe that he's
God. Your question from God is, do you believe that he's God? When that Ethiopian said, I believe
that Jesus you just preached to me from Isaiah chapter 53
is the son of God. He's baptized right there on
the spot. The natural man can't see it.
Why? Because in his own unbelief,
he's trying to reconcile his will to God's will, and he's
trying to reconcile the circumstances that he sees in life to what
he perceives to be an all-loving God. And since he can't reconcile
those things, he denies the deity of Christ. He just denies it. And the one essential doctrine
that all of Christianity would use to hold themselves together,
they don't believe it. They don't believe it. They do
not believe that Jesus is God. They don't. If they did, they'd
just bow to Him. What did the Lord say? Verse 29, Then touched He their
eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it unto you. Why? Because the faith that they had
to believe that Jesus was able was faith that God had given
to them. We don't read something like
this, well see you got to believe, God will reward you for your
faith with salvation. Oh no! Faith is the reward of
salvation. You see, if you believe that
Jesus is God, I mean really believe it, Not some perverted view of
it, but believe it as the scripture reveals him. It's because God
gave you that faith. And that's the evidence of your
salvation, not the cause of it. It's the evidence of it. The only reason for you to doubt
your salvation is if you think that your salvation has something
to do with you. Yeah, Lord, I believe you gave me the faith to bow
to you as the almighty God. Let's let's take a break.