There was a woman in the city
who was a sinner, and she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the
Pharisees' house and brought an alabaster box of oil and stood
at his feet behind him weeping and began to wash his feet with
tears. and did wipe them with the hairs
of her head and kissed his feet." Now, you are positive that I
read this a little bit ago. And when the Pharisees, which
had bidden him, saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This
man, if he were a prophet would have known who and what
manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto
him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith,
Master, saith on. There was a certain creditor
which had two debtors. One owed 500 pence and the other
50. And when they had nothing to
pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore which
of them will love him most. Simon answered and said, I suppose
that he, I suppose that he to whom he
forgave most, and he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned unto the woman,
and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou
gavest me no water for my feet. but she hath washed my feet with
tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest
me no kiss, but this woman, since the time I came in, hath not
ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not
knowing, But this woman hath anointed
my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her
sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loveth much, but to whom
little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto
her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at me with
him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins
also? And he said unto the woman, Thy
faith hath saved thee. Go in peace. Thy faith hath saved thee. Faith is a gift of God. I know that the ordinary interpretation of the source
of faith is attributed to the sinner. It is within every man's power
to exercise faith that he has a sort of built-in faith that
every man, this is the common interpretation
or translation of faith, is that every man, woman, boy, or girl,
has an inbred faith, and they exercise that faith. But the truth of the matter is,
we as unregenerate sinners, we have no faith. The Bible says
that faith is a gift of God. Faith is that unseen but felt
attribute that belongs to God and God alone. And it is a gift. If a man has faith, it is the
result of a gift given to him by God. When Adam fell, he lost
everything. He didn't fall halfway down the
ladder or two or three rungs down the ladder, but when he
fell, he fell all the way. He was like Humpty Dumpty had
a great fall. What's the rest of it, Pat? Humpty Dumpty, when he fell,
he had a great fall. And all the king's horses and
all the king's men couldn't put them back together again. And
when man fell, He felt like Humpty Dumpty, couldn't be put back
together again. He was void of anything, any
inclinations, anything that would incline him to cry after God. Faith is outside of the alien
center. When I say alien sinner, I mean
one who is a stranger unto the covenant of promise, a stranger
unto God. He is outside of the arc of safety. He is a stranger. And he does
not have within him an innate faith, an inbred faith. that he can call upon, he has
no faith. Faith is a gift of God, lest
any man should boast, the Bible says. So a man is without faith. The individual in his natural
state, in his fallen state, he's lost everything. He has no connections
whatsoever with God. He does not have an in-wrought,
built-in constitution that makes up faith that he can exercise. Faith is a gift of God. He must have this faith given
to him outside of him, and faith is A gift of God-faith is that
which connects us to the object of faith, and the object of faith
is the Lord Jesus Christ, and faith is a gift of God. A man
cannot be saved apart from faith, and God must give faith, and
when man fails, He fell all the way. He's like Humpty Dumpty.
He just didn't fall two or three steps, but he fell all the way
and every part of his being was broken. His conscience was seared. His understanding was darkened.
There was nothing left of that which was innocent and without
sin. Adam, who was our representative,
had come from the hand of God and he was innocent. Adam pleased God in his innocency,
but when Adam disobeyed God, then he lost all and forfeited
all rights to God. Adam being our representative,
the first man, the first Adam, he represented all of us. We
all were in the first Adam. And Adam was innocent before
God, and God had fellowship with him, but when Adam disobeyed
God, he lost his innocence and lost everything. And now we,
being of Adam's race, are far off from God and we have no inclination
to return to God. We do not even give God a thought. If we do think of God, we think
of a God of our own manufacturing, a God that we like to make up
for ourselves. We won't permit the God that
we know to do so and so and so and so. We kind of put him in
a little ring or a little mold and mold him as we think that
he is. But he's not like we think he
is. And when Adam fell there in the
garden, he lost all. He lost all. He didn't have no
faith. He didn't have nothing else.
He didn't have nothing. that could recommend himself
to God. In order for him to become linked
up with God, he must be given what? The gift of faith. He must
be given the gift of faith in order for him to repent, in order
for him to believe. He must have this gift. Faith
is a gift of God. It is not an inward thing that
we can turn on or we can shut off. It's a gift that God gives
us, and when he gives us faith, faith causes us to lay hold of
the object of faith, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
said here, to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee. She didn't
have a built-in faith. Faith's the gift of God. Thy
faith. Her salvation depended upon this
faith that connected her with God. Her salvation depended upon
this connection. She didn't have faith in herself,
that is, this faith was not inwrought in her soul, it was something
outside of her. God gave her faith. God does not give everybody faith. If God gave everybody faith,
everybody would be saved because the faith that God gives, which
is true faith, joins our souls in living faith to the Lord Jesus
Christ, whom God has sent as our Savior and our Redeemer,
as our sin-bearer, as our forgiveness, as our righteousness, as our
guide, as our hope, which is eternal life. All this is outside
of ourselves. And when God gives us faith,
that faith hooks us up, joins us up with God. So it said unto
the woman, Thy faith, thy faith, God-given faith, faith is a gift
of God. It's not something that you're
born with. You're born without faith. You're
alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, born in sin, conceived
in iniquity, and far off from God. You're so far off you'll
never come back on your own. Wherever you are and whatever
your condition is, God has got to go where you are and bring
you back. He's got to give you faith. You can't believe without faith.
You can't be saved without faith. Faith is a gift of God. You're
void of faith. You lost all that in your representative,
the first Adam. When Adam acted, he acted on
my behalf. What he did, I did. He forfeited
his right and title to fellowship with God by his sin against God,
and when he fell, then all of his people, all of the race to
come, all humans that were to come out of Adam's seed, they
fell with him. They fell with him. And when
you say that they died, they fell and they died a spiritual
death, and you can say, and it is true, that when they fell,
they become dead as a doornail, dead as a doornail spiritually,
dead in conscience, dead in their soul, and before Before they
can hook up, before they can be connected with the Lord Jesus
Christ, they've got to have faith, and faith is outside of them. Faith is a gift of God, the Bible
says, lest any man should boast. It's outside of them, and God
has got to give them the gift of faith. And he told this woman,
he said, Thy faith hath saved thee. Now, her faith didn't save
thee. Her faith was not that that saved
her. The Lord Jesus Christ saved her,
but faith, which was the gift of God, hooked her up with the
Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see what I'm talking about?
Her faith didn't save her. Faith's the gift of God, but
it joined her to the Lord Jesus Christ. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. So all men born of woman are
born without faith. God, the Holy Spirit, must give
the alien, he that is not a citizen of the kingdom, He that is a
stranger to the covenant of grace, he has no faith, and God must
give him the gift of faith that will connect him with God the
Father. Faith that's unseen, faith that
works in our souls and brings us to a knowledge of who the
Lord Jesus Christ is, what the Lord Jesus Christ done, where
the Lord Jesus Christ is, and what he's doing, and what he
will do. It connects us with him, the
Prince of Faith, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So, thy faith
hath saved thee. Now, if a man's saved, he's not
saved by his good work. He saved the same way that this
woman saved. This woman that showed, that
gave evidence of faith. There is a dead faith and there
is a living faith. And a living faith gives evidence. A dead faith does not give any,
has no evidence to give but a living faith. Now, this faith manifests
itself in what she done. Simon answered in that 43rd verse
and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most, and he
said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. And he turned to the
woman and said unto her, Simon, seest thou this woman? Now, faith
in wrought, which is a gift of God, that worketh in our soul,
when it's given to us, it gives evidence. It displays itself. The Bible talks about this faith
that joins us to the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior is a what?
Not a dead faith, it's an active faith, it's a living faith. Living
faith that joins us to the object of faith, which is the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this woman, and he turned
to the woman and he said unto Simon, he said, you see this
woman? I entered into thine house, you see this woman here, don't
you? I said, well, you remember when I came into your house?
I entered into your house, you gave me no water. You gave me
no water for my feet. Much less wash my feet. You didn't
even give me any water. But she hath washed my feet with
tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Now this is
an expression of living faith. This is a faith that's active. This is not a dead faith. This is a faith that believes.
This is a faith that works. He said, I entered into your
house, Simon, as your guest. You didn't give me no water for
my feet, but she has washed my feet with tears. Her heart was
broke. And wiped them with the hairs
of her hands. This certainly is an evidence
expressed that denotes love, the love of this woman to the
Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, he said to Peter, he
said, Lovest thou me, Peter? Peter said, Lord, thou knowest
that I love thee. He said, Well, Peter, feed my
sheep. For this is the evidence of her
faith. She has washed my feet with the
tears that flowed from her cheeks, and she has wiped the tears,
and that is mixed with the water, the liquid of the tears, the
dirt on his feet. She has wiped them with the hairs
of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this
woman, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my
feet. That's devotion. That's what
faith produces. Faith produces devotion to a
person, and that person is the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's
what I've been trying to say all these years. I've been trying
to say that you come here from Sunday after Sunday and Wednesday
after Wednesday and you study your Bible You read with me as
we go along through the Bible and you sing the hymns of Zion
from your heart and you give of your money and your life is,
for the most part, without spot or wrinkle. You walk before your
fellow men with your head up and your eyes looking straight
out and give a good witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. And all
of that is the result of The result of faith, the result of
love, love to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's this woman
here. Why, she said, he said, you haven't given me no kiss.
You haven't greeted me. But this woman, this woman, this
woman here that was, oh, bad. But this woman, since the time
I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. And my head with
oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet
with ointment." That's evidence there. That's the evidence of
a new birth. That's the evidence of a man
in repentance and faith and some knowledge of who the Lord Jesus
Christ is. That's evidence of Salvation,
that's what being saved is. Being saved is loving the Lord
Jesus Christ, and serving the Lord Jesus Christ, and being
identified with the Lord Jesus Christ, following the Lord in
baptism, living for Him the day after you're baptized, and the
day after, and the day after, and the day after. You stumble,
you fall, you get up again, you keep on going, but the whole
bent course of your life is going in one direction, it's going
after Christ. This is what she done. This woman
hath anointed my feet with oil. Wherefore I say unto thee, Simon, her sins which are many, are
forgiven. Oh, that's the best news that
a heavy-hearted sinner will ever hear. That's the best news he'll
ever hear in this life. If he lives to be a hundred years
old, there'll be no better news to fall upon his ears than, Thy
sins are forgiven thee. It's good news if your loved
one is in the hospital, sick, looks like he's going to die,
maybe your child, maybe your only child, maybe a loving aunt
or uncle, maybe your father, maybe your mother, maybe the
dearest child you've got, laying in there ready to die, and the
Lord comes to your rescue and helps you out. Oh, what a feeling! Wherefore I say unto thee, her
sins, which are many, she hath a lot of them, they are forgiven,
they are gone. Oh, when we come to the knowledge
and realization that God hath forgiven us of our sins for Christ's
sake, for His sake, on His account, on account of who He is, on the
account of what he's done, and on the account of what he's doing,
and on the account of where he's at, forgiving us of all of our
sins. All of them. Oh, what a wonderful
thought. Not in part, but in whole. A
forgiven sinner. Oh, a forgiven sinner is the
most admired person in heaven apart from God himself. A sinner
that's been forgiven. washed in the blood, and this
poor woman here, he said, You gave me no water, but she hath
washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of
her head, and anointed my head with oil. Thou didst not anoint,
but this woman hath anointed my feet. I say unto thee, Her
sins, which are many, they are forgiven. Oh, what wonderful
words spoken to her! Has that ever dawned on you? Has it ever been made real to
your heart that the sweet whisper of the Spirit of God has come
into your heart and said unto you, I've forgiven you. I've forgiven you for Jesus'
sake. Oh, that's the sweetest words that you'll ever hear. Her sins, which are many, are
forgiven. The Lord hath forgiven her, for
she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little. But he said unto her, Thy sins
are forgiven. The past, the past is forgot
about. When a man is forgiven of his
sins, our Lord expresses it this way. He said he casts them behind
his back, never to remember them anymore. Aren't you glad to see
me? You're a sinner, but you're a
safe sinner. And some of your sins and some
of my sins I wouldn't want anybody in this world to know about it. Some of the deeds that you've
done and some of the black, vile, awful, detestable sins that I've
committed and you've committed, I wouldn't want anybody to open
the pages of the book and look and say, Well, look at this fellow.
I'm so ashamed of my sins. But listen, these sins are forgiven,
my sins for Jesus' sake, on his account, because he took my place
and bore my punishment and robed me in his righteousness and made
me accepted in himself before the throne. He bore all that. He paid the penalty that was
due me and paid it in full, 16 ounces to the pound, 100 pennies
to the dollar. He paid it all, no less, no more. He paid it all and cast it behind
his back and he said to us, I'll not remember these sins against
you. And this is forgiveness, a full
forgiveness to have to have the Son of God, God manifest in the
flesh, the true and the living God, to say with His own lips,
I'll not remember these sins against you. They're gone. I've cast them in the ocean of
my forgetfulness, and I'll never revive your sins. Oh, that's
forgiveness. That's true forgiveness. I might
forgive you, but I might get mad at you before I die and revive
those sins. But God won't do that. And I'm
glad, aren't you? That makes me glad that God will
not display my black heart before people to just expose me to what
I am and what I was. I'm glad, oh my soul, if I never
loved him in the past, I certainly love him tonight, that he hath
forgiven me, not for anything that I've done or can do, but
he hath forgiven me on Jesus' account for his sake. He saith unto the woman thy faith,
He gave her faith. He demands faith, and you can't
produce it. You can't produce faith, can
you, Pat? Only God can produce faith. He
demands faith out of you, and then He provides it for you.
He calls it your faith. It's not your faith. It's outside
of you. He gave it to you. There was
a time when you were alienated from God and had no faith. But
if you believe here tonight, if you believe in the testimony
of God concerning His Son, that He came to this world to save
sinners, and you know that you're a sinner. And so your ears prick
up here and you begin to listen and say, well, what is this?
that God Almighty, the Almighty God that can't be contained,
that God will stoop so low that He'll find me in the ditch and
He'll forgive me of my sins. He'll do that. That's how He
saves sinners. He comes where they are. He meets
them on their own terms. He comes. All His love and purity
and beauty and loveliness. He said, Thy sins be forgiven
thee. He said to that woman, Thy faith
hath saved thee. And then He said, Go in peace.
And when that's said unto our hearts, Go in peace, that's assurance. That's assurance. All is well.
We're able to sing all's well with my soul, with my soul. Well, I've tried to say a few
things about this, but when I started I had no idea that I would.