Good evening. I want to read
a passage from 2 Corinthians chapter 3 this evening, if you'll
turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. It's good to be home. We had
a We got a good trip up to Lexington and had good services. Brethren
there send their love back to you. And I know you had good
services here. I've listened to both messages
that Hugo and Michael brought Sunday, and I'm so very thankful
for that, for them and for the Lord blessing you by His word
Sunday. We'll begin reading in 2nd Corinthians
chapter 3 at verse 5. Paul says, not that we are sufficient
of ourselves to think anything of ourselves. Was a lot in that statement,
isn't there? but our sufficiency is of God." Now he's speaking
of the ministry of preaching the gospel and he says, who is
sufficient for these things? Who can stand and speak for God?
Our sufficiency is of God. Who also has made us able ministers
of the New Testament, the Testament of grace, the message of the
accomplished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's made us able
ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the
spirit. For the letter killeth, but the
spirit giveth life. And the letter of the law says,
don't do it or you'll die. And the spirit of the law says,
you've already done it. Flee to Christ. for your salvation. And that's the difference between
the letter and the spirit. The spirit of God says you've done
it, you're guilty. The law is our schoolmaster. It exposes us for what we are
and it condemns us as being guilty before God. All mouths might
be shut and we might all stand guilty before God. And so the
spirit tells us that the spirit reveals that to us and causes
us to know that we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ
the righteous one one who has fulfilled all righteousness for
us the spirit leads us to Christ the law just condemns but if
the ministration of death that's the letter of the law the ministration
of death That's all it does, it just condemns. Written and
engraven in stone was glorious so that the children of Israel
could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory
of his countenance which glory was to be done away. The glory
of the law is done away by the spirit of grace. How shall not the ministration
of the Spirit be rather glorious, much more glorious? For if the
ministration of condemnation, that's the law, the law condemns,
the law kills, the law slays, the law says you're guilty. If
the ministration of condemnation be glorious, much more doth the
ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. Oh, how much more glorious is
the finished work of Christ. For if that which is done away,
we're not under the law. We're not under the law. We're
under grace. That which is done away is glorious. Much more,
that which remaineth is glorious. Seeing then that we have such
hope, we use great plainness of speech. great boldness and
great simplicity of speech. We're not as those who would
pervert the Word of God. We just declare it. Preaching
is just telling God's people what God's already said. That's
all we're doing. We're not adding to it or taking
away from it. We're just declaring what God's already said. Here
it is. not as Moses which put a veil
over his face that the children of Israel could not steadfastly
look to the end of that which is abolished. Now he's talking
about the law we're not under the law that's what's abolished
and the children of Israel because the veil that was over the face
Moses type of Christ he had a veil over his face and they could
not see the end of the law. What is the end of the law? They
couldn't see Christ. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. The veil was put
over his face. And so it is today. Men look
at the law, they can't see Christ. Why? Because they're under the
letter of the law. They're under the curse of the law. They don't
have the spirit of God to use the law to cause them to flee
to Christ. So he says, they could not look
to the end of that which was abolished, which was Christ,
but their minds were blinded, for until this day remain at
the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament,
which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day when Moses
read, the veil is upon their hearts. Nevertheless, when it,
the heart, shall turn to Christ, the veil shall be taken away. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we ask that you would send your
spirit to this service in power and in grace to turn our hearts
to Christ, to agree with the law that we're guilty and to
find in the Lord Jesus Christ all our righteousness, all our
hope, and all of our salvation. We ask it in His name. Amen. Let's all stand together again
to sing hymn number two. Will you open your Bibles with me
to the fourth chapter of Luke, Luke chapter 4. Very familiar
passage of scripture where our Lord begins his public ministry
as a preacher in Nazareth. And he announces his purpose
and his intent in the message that he has to preach. Now, life
is full of choices. Thousands of times a day you
and I have to make choices. We have to choose what we're
going to think. We have to choose what we're
going to say. We have to choose what we're
going to eat. We have to choose which way to
turn when we get to an intersection. We have to choose how to act
and what to do and what not to do. Life is just full of choices. Now the problem for me, and I
suspect that it may be as well for you, is that most of the
time that I'm given a choice to make, I make the wrong one. One of the reasons I like flying
is because there's no choices to make. If I'm going to go somewhere,
I want to get there quick, and I want to get there on a plane.
Ticket's already paid for, seat's already assigned, I get on the
plane, I sit down, and I've got no decisions to make. I don't
have to worry to pull out the GPS or the MapQuest and figure
out how to get there. I just sit down and let somebody
else take care of it. And, you know, perhaps on an
airplane a flight attendant might have an occasion to say, is there
a doctor on board or is there a pilot on board? But one thing
I'm never worried about is a flight attendant saying, is there a
preacher on board? Just you know, just never never have never have
considered that I like the exit seats They exit aisle seats because
you have a little bit more room in them But the one thing I don't
like about them is you got to sit there and think about now
I've got to make a choice about how to get that door open, you
know You know, I like having no choice in that situation You
know, that's exactly what the gospel does I The gospel shuts us up to Christ. Coming to Christ is never a choice. If you have a choice to make,
you'll always choose the wrong one. People confuse their ability
to make choices in so many different ways every day with some sort
of power of the will to choose Christ. Can't I choose him or
not choose him? The will, man does have a will. He has a will. His will is the
animation of his nature. That's what man's will is. It's
not free. It's in bondage to his nature.
Whatever his nature tells him to do, his will does. Man's will
is his nature in action. and he cannot choose against
his nature. A man cannot choose against his
nature. You will not come to me that you might have life.
You see, in order for a person to come to Christ, they have
to be given a new nature. They have to be born again. Because
man left to himself, does he have a choice to come to Christ
or not come to Christ? Yeah. Yeah? Will he in his old
man ever choose to come to Christ? No. Why? Because he doesn't want
to come to Christ. And it's just like everything
else. You can't do what you don't want to do. You just always will
that which your nature desires. That's what the will is. So we're
in need of being born again. We're in need of the Spirit of
God to give us a new nature. Do we choose to come to Christ?
Well, yes and no. Yes and no. Coming to Christ
is never a choice. It's the only option we have. But do we say yes? Do we desire
to come to Christ? Do we get on the plane? Yes! Yes! Only as He reveals to us
that that's the only plane getting to where we need to be. And gives
us a desire to the destination of that plane. when he does that
then we come he makes us willing is what the scripture says he
makes us willing in the day of his power he causes us to come
he gives us a new nature but until he does that we won't come
we won't come now being shut up to Christ is
what preaching is The Lord said, when man by wisdom
knew not God, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching
to save them which believe. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the word of God. God uses the ministry of the
declaration. That's what preaching is. Preaching
has nothing to do with the tone of voice, with the delivery of
the message. It has everything to do with
the content of the message. That's what preaching is. And
the content of the message shuts sinners up to Christ. Now let
me ask you a question. Have you ever felt offended by
someone that was preaching to you about something that they
were very passionate about but you didn't agree with them? Perhaps it was a political position,
perhaps it was some sort of life Issue you know a health thing
or some you know something people get on their hobby horses about
certain things and they become very preachy about it don't they
and they want to shut you up to their opinion and the truth
is that that when you feel preached to You feel as if you are being
shut up to another person's point of view There's no room for dialogue. No room for discussion. No room
for debate and You're offended. You're offended because you're
being told by this person that your opinion doesn't matter.
You have no input. Then that is an offensive thing,
isn't it? We've all been in that position where we've been offended
by such a person. We've either said or we thought,
don't preach to me. Don't preach to me. I've got
my own opinion about that subject and it doesn't agree with yours
and you're shutting me up to your opinion and I don't like
to be shut up to your point of view. You know that's what preaching
is. The only time that you won't
be offended by preaching is if you're a believer and what's
being preached to you is the Word of God. And in that case, you want to
be shut out. You don't want to have any choices. You don't want any options. You
don't want to make any decisions. You want to sit down in that
plane, and you want to enjoy the ride, and you don't want
to have to make any contribution. You don't want anybody to ask
you for your opinion. You don't want to dialogue with
anybody. You don't want to debate it. You don't want to discuss
it. You just want to hear what does God say. If the Spirit of God is pleased
to attend this service or any service like this, He will cause
God's people to come with that attitude. Preach to me. Preach
to me. Don't preach at me, but preach
to me. In other words, tell me what God says. Don't give me
your opinion. Don't say, well, it seems to
me. Don't get up there and just give me somebody else's point
of view. Tell me what God says. And if the Spirit of God gives
you the grace to say, preach to me, and the Spirit of God
gives the preacher the grace to say, thus saith the Lord,
then we'll have been preached to and we'll have been shut up
to Christ with no place else to go and that's the safest place
to be. Tell me the truth. Bind me to the altar with cords
of love. don't let me don't don't don't
don't give me any other options preach to me the uncompromising
irrefutable undeniable word of God the Lord Jesus Christ in all
of his offices and all of his roles and all of his glory he
came as prophet in that he came as the living word declaring
to us everything that we need to know about God in the word
and the person and the teaching and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ he is the word made flesh who dwelt among us and we beheld
his glory as the only begotten of the father full of grace and
full of truth The Lord Jesus Christ came to us as our priest. He came to intercede for us and
to present himself before God as our sacrifice, satisfying
divine justice, and meeting all the requirements of God's righteousness.
What a glorious priest we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he came as our king, didn't he? He's the one who established
the law and he's the one to fulfill the law and he's the one who
reigns sovereign in the hearts of his children when they are
by his grace given grace to submit to him, to bow to him, to say
yes to him. In all the glorious roles that
the Lord Jesus Christ came to fulfill he came to declare the
message of himself as a preacher. as a preacher. And he sends his
ambassadors out as preachers. There is a sense in which every
child of God, we're not talking about just the declaration of
the gospel from a formal setting, a pulpit such as this, but every
time that a child of God declares the truth of who God is and how
it is that he saves sinners, we're preaching. we're not we're
not giving men our opinion we're not giving them an opportunity
to share their opinion we're telling them what God says we're
shutting them up to the simplicity of the gospel the truth of the
gospel knowing that God's people will want to be right there I
can't tell you how many times I've had somebody I've had people
in preaching just alright preacher see if you can teach me something See if you can tell me something
I don't already know. You know, I want you to want to be preached
to. And I want to be faithful in
preaching. The Lord sent them out, the scripture
says, to preach the kingdom of God. Romans chapter 10 he says
he says that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved but how should they call upon him and whom they've
not believed and how should they believe on him and whom they've
not heard and how should they hear without a preacher you know the Bible never says
that we have to understand the gospel to be saved truth is that
you and I don't understand a fraction of what we believe. This is not a matter of convincing
someone intellectually. It's not a matter of trying to
get somebody to understand what we're saying. It's the declaration
this is what God says. And God's people just hear it. He didn't say, how shall they
call upon him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they
believe in him in whom they have not understood? I've talked to people
who said, well, you've got to get to the heart through the
mind, and you've got to deal with people's intellect, and
you've got to help them to understand. No. No. You declare unapologetically
what God has said in His Word. God's people by the Spirit of
God will hear it and they'll believe it and They won't understand but
a very little bit of it But they'll hear it and they'll submit to
it and they'll bow to it and they'll believe it because God
said it You know you you've seen the bumper sticker God said that
I believe it that settles it no God said it that settles it
God's people will believe it just just just will for Christ
Paul said in first Corinthians chapter 1 verse 17 sent me not
to baptize but to preach the gospel not with the wisdom of
words we're not here to present convincing
arguments we're here to just simply declare what God has said
we don't have to apologize for it we don't have to defend it
we don't have to explain it we don't have to try to get people
to understand it we just tell it as God said it and God's people
will be shut up to it and they'll just believe it when they hear
it they'll believe it the Spirit of God confirms to your heart
that this is true you just say yes Lord amen two responses to
the gospel yes and no the one who says no had a choice and
he chose according to his nature the one who said yes was shut
up to Christ and he was left without a choice
he had no place else to go but to come to Christ In Luke chapter 4, beginning at verse 14, Jesus
returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and there
went out a fame of him throughout all the region round about. And
he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. This is after the in the 40 days
in the wilderness he came in the full power of the Spirit
of God he is the Christ the anointed one and he came declaring the
truth of who God is in the power of the Spirit of God and he came
to Nazareth his hometown they all knew him this is Joseph's
son why he's Mary's son we know his brothers Joseph and his and
his sisters we know them he's just one of us where he had been brought up,
and as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath
day and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written, Isaiah chapter 61, the
spirit of the Lord is upon me. Now, four quick questions I want
to ask. How did the Lord Jesus Christ preach? He was a preacher. How did he preach? The second
question is, what did he preach? The third question is, to whom
did he preach? And the fourth question is, what
was the response to his preaching? Those four questions are answered
in these next couple of verses. The first question is answered
in the first phrase of verse 18. The Spirit of the Lord is
upon me. Somebody told me recently, he
said, you know, Peter, when he preached on the day of Pentecost,
didn't go into a lot of detail about the accomplished work of
the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross. Why? I said, because he
didn't need to. All he had to do was identify
Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ. He was preaching to a Jewish
congregation. They all knew what Christ meant. They knew that Christ was the
Messiah. They knew that Christ was the
anointed one. To this day you won't find a
Jew that thinks of a Christ as a failure. That's a Gentile heresy. The Jews never thought that,
even the Samaritan woman who had lots of problems with her
theology, didn't she? She said, we know that when Messiah
comes, he'll lead us into all truth. Peter didn't have to go into
a lot of detail about what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
on Calvary's cross. All he had to do was say that
that man which you took by your wicked hands who was ordained
of God to die and crucified is the Christ. And their hearts
were smitten. Why? Because the Christ cannot
do anything but succeed in what he comes to do. Why? Because
Christ means the anointed one. It means that he came from God
with the full blessing of the Spirit of God to accomplish the
purpose for which God sent him. There's no way he can fail. That's
how the Lord Jesus Christ came. You know what's so glorious?
is that he gives to us the same spirit he had. Oh, he had the
Spirit of God without measure, the scripture says. He was anointed
with oil of gladness above his fellows. He had the full anointing
of the Spirit of God. We have the Spirit of God in
portion, yet it's the same spirit. It blesses us with the same gospel,
tells us about the same Christ, And that's how preaching is to
be done. And that's how preaching is to
be heard. And that's why I say, if the
Spirit of God attends our service, He will cause each of us to say,
preach to me, and He will enable, not through the sufficiency of
a man. We just read that in 2 Corinthians 3. Who is sufficient for these
things? Our sufficiency is of God. But if He gives the preacher
the Spirit of God to just declare what God has already said without
any of his opinion then God's people will be blessed the windows
of heaven will be opened and will be led to Christ by the
Spirit of God the Lord told Nicodemus why he had spent all of his life
studying the scripture he knew the Bible He was a man mighty in scripture,
very well respected in Jerusalem, wasn't he? What the Lord said
to Nicodemus, Nicodemus, you can't see the kingdom of God
unless you're born of a God. Unless you're born again, unless
you're born from above, unless the Spirit of God comes and opens
the eyes of your understanding, you won't see it. You can't see
it. And when Ezekiel was called a
priest to that valley of dry bones, Remember what he said? The hand of the Lord was upon
me and the Spirit of God spoke unto me. What did he say? Prophesy, preach. Preach to the
dry bones. Son of man, can these bones live?
Lord thou knowest, if they're gonna live, you're gonna have
to make them live. I can't do anything about it. I can't make
you live, you can't make me live. We are completely dependent upon
the Spirit of God, aren't we? Oh, and how pleased our Heavenly
Father is to give His Spirit to them who ask Him. Lord, give
us Your Spirit. What did the Lord say to Ezekiel?
Prophesy to the wind, son of man, preach to the Spirit of
God, and ask Him to come. And then those dry bones took
life, didn't they? all that God would cause us to
realize that this matter of preaching the gospel which is the means
by which God saves his people whether I'm doing it up here
whether you're doing it with a friend or family member we're
just declaring what God has already said and shutting men up to Christ
stripping them of any option that they have or any input or
any contribution and declaring who Christ is and what he's done
The gospel is very offensive to men. For the same reason that
someone preaching to us their opinion about something else
would be offensive to us. It's offensive because it doesn't
give any man any room to make any contribution. How does the
Word of God end? How does it conclude in the end
of the book of Revelation? If any man add to the words of
this prophecy, the curses of this book will be added unto
him. If any man take away from the words of this prophecy, his
name shall be taken away out of the book of life. In other
words, God just closes the whole thing up by saying, this is it.
God's saying, it's my way or the highway. And that's offensive to men,
isn't it? Men don't want to hear that.
You mean I don't have any say so? See, the gospel can't be,
you can't be neutral about the gospel. It says, Michael, as
you said, someday it's either going to cause a revival or a
riot. And it's one way or the other. And we're going to see
that in this text. So the Lord Jesus Christ came
as the anointed one in the power of the Spirit of God. How do
we preach today? The same way, the same way. This matter of preaching is why
does God use preaching to save his people? Trust me on this
one. Trust me on this one. It is the
most humbling experience that you and particularly the preacher
can have. You think you're humbled by having
to sit there with your mouth shut and make no contribution
to the message? It doesn't compare to the humbling
that God puts his preachers through when he prepares them to stand
and speak. You see, this matter of preaching,
it's the means that God uses because it humbles everybody.
It humbles everybody. and it gives to Christ all the
glory. What did Christ preach? We see how he preached. He preached
in the power of the Spirit of God. What did he preach? Go back
with me to our text. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel, the gospel. I got a text Sunday morning at
5.30 from Phil, telling me about William's birth. I think that
was Sunday morning, wasn't it? 5.30 Sunday morning. I thought,
who in the world is texting me at 5.30 in the morning? And I
texted Phil back, right back, and I said, best news I've heard
today, so far. Well truth is, I'd been up for
a while already and I'd been thinking about what I was going
to preach Sunday morning and Phil would not be offended by
me telling him that wasn't really true. It wasn't the best news
I'd ever heard. It's great news and we're so happy for them.
But there's something a whole lot better than that. A whole
lot better than that. I like one preacher said, he
said, I haven't heard any bad news since I heard the good news.
That's the gospel. That's the gospel. The gospel
of God's free grace in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The mystery of godliness that God Almighty was manifested in
the flesh. that He dwelt among us so we
beheld His glory, that God would come into this world, be born
of a woman, be born under the law to redeem those who were
cursed by the law, that He would live out a perfect righteousness
before God as our substitute, and present Himself on Calvary's
cross as our sacrifice? And that God would be pleased
to pour out His wrath and satisfy all of His divine justice in
the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary? That's good
news! That He would take blind, dead
sinners and cause them to see and to hear and to come to Christ? Give us faith to believe? That He would not leave us to
ourselves? And that He would continue to
keep us from falling? That He might present us faultless
before His throne with great joy? That's good news! It doesn't matter what else happens.
It really doesn't. If you've heard that, if you've
heard it, and God's given you the faith to believe it, if you've
been shut up to Christ, What else is there? What else
is there? God would choose a people before
the foundations of the world. That's good news. Because you
know and I know that had He not chosen us we would never have
chosen Him. Our will was in bondage to our
nature. If God hadn't chosen us before
the foundations of the world, we would never choose Him. Never. We would remain dead in our trespasses
and sins. We would remain rebels against
God. We would remain in that attitude of, no God, I'm not
going to do it. Why? Because that's our nature. Look at verse 19. The Lord Jesus
Christ came, he said, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Now you know what that is? That's the year of Jubilee. The
Lord had commanded the children of Israel, seven times seven,
every 49 years, that 50th year, that all debt was to be forgiven
among Israelites. All who were in bondage to servitude,
slaves, who had had to sell themselves into slavery in order to pay
a debt or in order to provide for their families, whatever,
all slaves were set free on the year of Jubilee. And all the
land that had been sold and transferred from person to person went back
to the original family on the year of Jubilee. That was God's
law. You know there's no evidence
that the Old Testament Jews ever practiced the year of Jubilee.
Why? Because those who were in control
were the ones who owned the land. They owned the slaves. They held
the debt. They weren't gonna just give
that up. So they never practiced it. What did the Lord say? I have come as the year of Jubilee. to preach the acceptable year
of the Lord. Everything you lost in your father
Adam, fellowship with God, I'm going to restore back to you
the land that you lost. The debt that you owe God that
you can't pay. Paid. Paid in full. Finished. Your bondage to sin, your slavery
to the law, your obligation to the law, free. Free. Where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. And if Christ has set you free,
you're free indeed. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
came to preach. And that's exactly what he's
called us to preach, isn't it? We're not here to tell Bible
stories. We're not here to entertain people
with anything else. to you know to tickle men's ears
tell them what they want to hear well it could be this way it
could be that way why don't you just think about it hey there's
a popular preacher lives here in Orlando closes every one of
his Bible studies and every one of his preaching with you think
about that you think about that you know
I'm talking about no No. You believe that. Come to Christ. The Spirit and the Bride say,
Come. Come to Christ. It's not something
to think about. It's not something to negotiate. It's something
to believe. To come. Aren't you glad it's
that way? Aren't you glad that you don't
have any contribution to make? Aren't you glad that God's not
looking to you for anything? that he's already done it all? The ticket's been bought, the
seat's been assigned, you just get on the plane and sit down. To whom did Christ preach? We
saw how he preached. He preached in the Spirit of
God. He's the perfect preacher. What did he preach? He preached
the gospel, the acceptable year of the Lord. To whom did he preach?
Look at it. Ask yourself, do I fit this description
of those to whom Christ preached? Am I poor? Am I poor? I mean, poverty stricken. I mean, you don't have anything.
No righteousness. No understanding. No thoughts. You're like blind Bartimaeus.
The only thing you've got is a filthy robe. And that needs
to be dropped even as Bartimaeus dropped his and ran to the Lord
naked. That's who he came to preach
to. Oh, the one that's like the Laodiceans? What'd the Laodiceans say? I'm
rich and increased in goods. I have need of nothing. And what'd
the Lord say? Do you not know that you are
wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked? You know, the Beatitudes in Matthew
chapter five begin with what we don't have. Blessed are the
poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God The whole
the whole blessing of God begins with us coming to God with nothing
with nothing And men don't come like that They won't come with
nothing the Lord the Lord's got to strip you naked before you'll
come with nothing Otherwise you're gonna want to debate it. You're
gonna want to to make some Free will offering. No, I've got a
will. I can choose God if I want to.
I'll make my decision. No, you won't. Lord, I can't
come to you. I can't decide for you. I can't
choose you. And I certainly don't have anything
to bring you. I'm poor. Poor. He's anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. Why does the Lord heal the brokenhearted?
Because he's the one that breaks the heart. A broken and contrite heart,
David said, thou wilt not despise. And the reason why the Lord doesn't
despise it is because he makes it. Men's heart won't be broken. And when I'm talking about a
broken heart, I'm talking about a heart that doesn't work. Something
breaks, it breaks, it doesn't work. What does the scripture say?
That the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked,
who can know it? That every imagination of the
heart is only evil and that continually? Lord, I can't trust my heart. When I have choices to make all
day long, which I have, what to think and what to say and
what to do, my heart leads me astray. My heart, Lord, is broken. Create in me a clean heart, O
God, and renew a right spirit within me. Lord, give me a new
nature. Give me a heart. that's pure
and perfect and holy before you in Christ. He came to preach the gospel
to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives. Are you captive? Captive to the law, captive to
your own inability to keep the law? At the end of the book of Job,
when Job finally heard God speak to him, and was brought by the
grace of God to believe the gospel, the scripture says that God set
the captivity of Job free. What? And that's before there's
any evidence that Job was healed of his physical problems. Is
there any evidence that God had restored to him his family or
that his possessions have been restored? None of that had happened,
but the scripture says God turned the captivity of Job. What was
Job captive to? I'll tell you what he was, he
was captive to self-righteousness. He was captive to justifying
himself before God. Job's the one who said to God,
let me bring my case before your, before your tribunal and I'll
prove to you that I'm innocent. I don't deserve this. Job was
captive to his self-righteousness. He was captive to his justifying
himself before God. And what did God do? He turned
his heart. Lord, I had heard of thee by
the hearing of my ear, but now my eyes have seen thee, and I
repent in dust and ashes. Surely I spoke without knowledge.
Lord, I didn't have a clue what I was talking about. When I said
to you, I have made a covenant with my eyes that I should not
look upon a maid lustfully, I didn't know what I was talking
about such self-righteousness in Job's life the Lord turned
his captivity that's what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do
he came to set the captives free he came to do well he said the
gates of hell will not prevail against this gospel I'm going
to lead captivity captive. I'm going to go into the very
belly of hell and I'm going to drag out of hell my children
and make them captive to me. And he's the strong man. He's
the one who did like Samson did. You remember that story of Samson
going down to the Philistine city and taking those huge iron
gates. They're described in the scripture
how big and heavy they were. Puts them on his back and carries
away the gates. Provides open access for the children of Israel
to route the Philistines. That's what the Lord... Samson's
a type of Christ, isn't he? He tore down the gates of hell.
Why? Because that's where you were.
And that's where I was. Held captive by Satan. Blinded by the God of this world. Unable to see. That's our nature,
isn't it? And if the Lord doesn't do something
to change that nature, that's what will remain. Lord Grace texted me, my granddaughter,
she's in the 10th grade, she texted me Monday of this past
week. And she said, Granddad, my teacher
has given our class a project. We have to decide, we have to
choose, are men inherently good or are men inherently evil and
why? And she said, I know the answer
to the question. She said, me and a Jewish boy and an atheist
in the class are the only three that said men are inherently
evil. All the rest of the kids in the
class said they're good. And she had some verses of scripture,
but she wasn't sure that anybody would give any weight to that.
So she was asking me, do you have any suggestions on what
I can do? I said, well, you could propose to your class an experiment. I said, they won't take it, but
maybe the proposition of this experiment will be enough to
prove your point. Say to the class, for 30 days we're going
to strip the teachers and the administrators in the school
of all authority. We're going to remove all the
guards and policemen off the campus. We're going to say to
all the kids, you can do anything you want. No retribution. No consequences to your actions.
You can smoke what you want, when you want, where you want,
whenever you want. You can go to class, not go to
class. Talk, not talk. You can beat up who you want
to beat up. You can do whatever you want. Wear what you want.
Don't wear anything. Just propose that to the... For 30 days, we'll
do that. She said, Granddad, we'd be on
national news tomorrow. Wouldn't take 30 days. Are men good or are they evil?
The law is for the lawless. The natural man is held checked
by the law. The believer has the spirit of
grace that causes him to know that he has violated every one
of God's laws and forces him to flee to Christ for his safety
and for his salvation. captive. None of those kids in
that class believe themselves to be captive. I'm not captive.
I'm free. I've got a free will. I can choose.
Yeah, you'll choose according to your nature and all we've
got to do is restrain the consequences of your behavior from you. Take
away the law for a little while and we'll find out what your
nature looks like. He came to give recovery of sight
to the blind. For judgment came I into the
world, that they which see not might see, and they which see
might be made blind. And the Pharisee said, what,
are you suggesting that we're blind? Are we blind? And what the Lord say, if you
were blind, your sins would be forgiven. But because you say
you can see, your sins remained. Lord, are you blind? Are you blind? If God's not pleased
to shine the light of the gospel in the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ in your heart, you won't see a thing. I don't care how
dedicated you are, how intelligent you are, how much effort you
put forward, God has to remove the scales from our eyes. We're
blind. to set at liberty them that are
bruised. Come ye sinners, poor and needy,
bruised and broken by the fall. If you tarry till you're better,
you'll never come at all, will you?" Oh, we're bruised by the
fall of our father Adam, and we're set free. If the Son therefore
shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. And I'll just
briefly answer the last question. What was the response to our
Lord's preaching? Well, some said, look at verse 22. And all bare him witness
and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of
his mouth. Look at verse 32. and they were
astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power." No
man never spake like this man before. Oh, they were just shut
up. They were just forced to say,
with that Syrophoenician woman, truth Lord, whatever you say
is right. You've caused me to hear, I just
believe it. It's a saver of life to me. Our
Lord asked a blind man in Matthew chapter 9, believe ye that I
am able to do this? And what did he say? Yea Lord,
yes. You see there's only two responses,
yes and no. Those who say no have had a choice
and they chose according to their nature. Those who say yes have
been given a new nature and have been caused to come shut up to
Christ Look at Look at verses Our Lord's preaching
is It's not just really I had a man say to me one time. He
didn't like my preaching at all He said why don't you just get
up there and just read the Bible would be better off just read the Bible.
I Well, preaching is comparing the spiritual to the spiritual
and explaining what it means, isn't it? And so the Lord, after
he tells them that he's come to fulfill, look what he says
in verse 21. And he began to say
unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. I've
come to fulfill this prophecy. And now I'm going to tell you
what it means. Look what he says in verse 25. That I tell you
of a truth, for truth came I into the world. Pilate said truth? What is truth? For this cause
was I born and for this reason came I into the world to bear
witness unto the truth. My sheep, they hear the truth
and they believe it. But I tell you of a truth, many
widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens
were shut up three years and six months, when great famine
was throughout all the land. But unto none of them was Elijah
sent, save unto Sarepta, city of Sidon, unto a woman that was
a widow, a Gentile." So now the Lord's going to interpret what
he just declared. He's saying, I'll give you an
example. Back during the days of Elijah,
remember that? That famine and that drought? And how many people
suffered and died during that time? And the prophet that God
sent was sent by God to a Gentile to save her. Now look at the next verse. And
there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet,
and none of them was cleansed saving Nahum, the Syrian. You remember that? There was
lots of lepers during the days of Elisha. And God sent his prophet
to a Gentile and healed him. And all they that were in the
synagogue when they heard these things were filled with wrath
and rose up. to kill him. What was he doing? What was he saying? What was our Lord saying? Here's
the interpretation of what I came to do. I came to save them which
I was pleased to save. Have mercy upon them who I'll
be pleased to have mercy upon and harden them who I'll be pleased.
In other words, salvations of the Lord. It's my sovereign choice. It's my will. It is not of him
that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth
mercy. I'm going to save who I want,
when I want, how I want, whenever I want. And I'm going to save
every one of them. But I'm going to be the one making
the choice. And they were filled with wrath.
Why? Because that message shut them up. as it does you and me,
so that we've got nothing to say, no contribution to make,
no debate. All we can do is say, Lord have
mercy upon me, the sinner. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we're so
very thankful that our salvation is a work of sovereign grace,
free from any contribution that we could make, that it gives
to the Lord Jesus Christ alone all the glory. We ask, Lord,
that you would open the eyes of our understanding, set our
captivity free, Heal our broken hearts. Give us, Lord, faith
to believe. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. All right, we'll dismiss. We'll
dismiss. Thank you. That's good. Very good.