says when Jesus departed Thence, Thence is where he had just healed
this ruler's daughter. She died and the Lord took her
by the hand and healed her, raised her from the
dead. And when he had done that, it
says in verse 26, the fame thereof went abroad into all that land.
I imagine so, don't you? Somebody was raised from the
dead. I imagine word got around pretty quickly about that. And
then it says when he departed there from healing that little
girl, raising her from the dead, those two blind men followed
him. They heard about him and they
came where he was and followed him and they cried. They cried. Saying, thou son
of David, have mercy on us. And the Lord asked these two
blind men a question in verse 28. Believe
ye. Key words in that verse right
there, believe ye that I, do you believe that I? And boy,
that's the question, isn't it? In the word of God, that's the
question. Remember John chapter nine, that man who was blind
from his birth and the Lord healed him and all of the Pharisees
and religious people were asking him all these questions. Insinuating
things and making accusations against the Lord. They said we
know he's a sinner All this and that blind man just kept saying
all I know is I couldn't see and now I can This man came along
and now I'm able to see And the Lord came after he had answered
a lot of questions And asked him one question Do you believe
on the Son of God? Do you believe? Christ himself
is the object of saving faith. Faith that saves has one object,
and that's the Son of God. Believe ye that I, do you believe
on the Son of God? That's the question. And that's
what this story is about, is salvation. When I say saving
faith, this is a story of salvation. Blindness is a picture of our
condition by nature. Except you'd be born again, you
can't see Isn't that what he said? Isn't that what he told
Nicodemus? You can't see the kingdom of God and you can't
enter in it because you can't see it. And so Christ is the
object and faith by grace through faith is how he saves. We're
blind by nature. Sin has blinded us as to who
God is. You've got to know God and you
can't. You can't do it. You're not going to learn. You're
not gonna figure it out. You're not gonna decide to. It
takes a miracle. That's what happened in our text,
a miracle. And that's what happens when God saves a sinner. It's
blinded us to what we are. We think, well, you know, of
course I'm an old sinner, but my good outweighs my bad. I've
tried to be good to my mama, you know. We don't know what
we are. We're filthy, vile, and wretched
from head to toe before God. It doesn't matter what we do.
It's what we are. It's why we do what we do. And
until we're changed, until we're a new creation in Christ Jesus,
God can't have anything to do with us except wrath and condemnation. We're by nature, even his elect,
by nature are the children of wrath, even as others. It blinds us. Sin has blinded
us to how we can get back to God. Sin not only took us, separated
between us and our God, but we don't know how to get back. We
don't know how God saves a sinner. We don't know how we can be reconciled
to God and can't figure that out either. It's by the precious
blood of Christ. It's by the righteousness that
he lived for us, as us, as his people, And it's by the precious
blood that he shed on Calvary. We are lost and blind and no
way to find our way back to God. Christ is that way. And faith
sees him, lays hold of him, bows to him, believes on him, trusts
him, falls in love with him. And when I say faith, I'm saying
the sinner that is given faith by God does all those things. We can't find our way. Christ
is the way and we can't see him. He is the kingdom of God. Except
you'd be born again, you can't see the kingdom of God. Nor enter in. And so believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. You remember what Paul told that
old jailer? What must I do to be saved? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And listen, I don't care how
accurate your doctrine is, doctrine won't save you. Doctrine is not
gonna save you. The word of God now is able to
make you wise into salvation. But when people say, well, here's
what our doctrine is, it's something that they wrote or somebody 200
years ago wrote. What God wrote is our doctrine.
And what God wrote is Christ and him crucified. But doctrine
won't save you, think about that. People actually trust in their
ability to figure out things in the scripture and formulate
their own set of doctrines that they believe is their salvation. That's just self-righteousness
is all that is. You're trusting your ability
to understand some facts. And somebody else can't. Oh,
you don't get it? Oh, I'm sorry, you can't be saved. That's self-righteousness. The doctrine points to Christ.
Christ don't point to doctrine. Doctrine points to Christ. It's
him. It's his doctrine. He's the one
that said it, and what he said is him. Come to me, believe on me. I'm
the door, I'm the bread, I'm the life, the way, the truth. And you don't trust your faith.
We don't have faith in our faith. A lot of people are that way.
They have faith. Well, I made a decision years ago. I believe
on Christ, and so I'm saying, Christ is my salvation. Christ
is my salvation, he himself. Your faith and your ability to
understand truth is not saving faith. That ain't the faith God
give you. That's natural. A lot of people just do that,
right? They just want to be smarter than everybody else, and when
they get to the point that they think they are, they'll let you
know. That's just natural, that's not a miracle. Putting all of your trust and
hope of righteousness and trusting as your sin offering the Son
of God, putting all, leaning all of your weight on Him. Being
able to sell all you have and give it to the poor and just
have one thing. If I just need one thing, I don't
need all that. I need one, one thing is needful. That's a miracle. You're gonna
be just like that rich young ruler unless God works a miracle
in your heart. Faith in your ability to grasp
things, faith in your faith, faith in your anything won't
save you. Faith in your works. Saving faith is in the person
of Jesus Christ himself. It's knowing him. And think about this passage
of scripture now in Acts 8. Turn over there with me to Acts
chapter 8. Verse 26. You're familiar with
this. You'll recognize it. The angel
of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward
the south, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto
Gaza, which is desert. And he arose, and went. And behold,
a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority, under Candace,
the queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all of
her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship, was
returning, and sitting in his chariot, and read Isaiah the
prophet. Then the Spirit said unto Philip,
Go near and join thyself to this chariot. And Philip ran thither
to him, and heard him read the prophet
Isaiah, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? And he
said, How can I, except some man should guide me? And he desired
Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The place of
the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to
the slaughter. And like a lamb done before his
shearer, so open he not his mouth. In his humiliation, his judgment
was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? For his
life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answered Philip
and said, I pray thee, of whom speaketh the prophet this, of
himself or of some other man? Now think about that for a second.
This man went to Jerusalem to worship, and he didn't even know
who Isaiah was talking about in Isaiah 53. That's us by nature. That's where we're all gonna
be until God reveals himself to us. People go into worship
this morning and don't even know what the scripture's talking
about. That was this man, but listen. Then Philip opened his
mouth. Here's how God saves sinners.
This is how he does it. And began at the same scripture
and preached unto him Jesus. Jehovah Savior Jesus for he shall
save his people from his scene from their sins Preached unto
him one thing Jesus and As they went on their way they came unto
a certain water and the eunuch said see here is water What doth
hinder me to be baptized and Philip said if thou believest
with all thine heart thou mayest I Oh my, there ain't much to
my heart. But all of it has to believe
on him, doesn't it? Whatever that is. Oh boy, that
doesn't add up to much faith. But it's all in him. By his grace. You trust anything else? Anybody
else? If you trust him, you don't.
You got to trust him to the exclusion of yourself and everybody else
and everything else. That's how he saves now, it's
him. And he answered and said, listen,
think about what had happened before this now and what his
answer would be. Do you believe with all your heart? He could
have said, yeah, I believe that's talking about Christ there where
you read, I believe that. That's not what he said. That's not what he said. He didn't
say, I believe that that Jesus of Nazareth that died on the
cross, That's who that's talking about. Didn't say that. I believe that
Jesus Christ is the son of God. Since Philip preached to him,
Jesus, the person, he believed on a person, not an event, not
facts, not his own intellectual ability to process truth, I believe
I know who He is now. And by His grace, I believe. Everything else, once you know
who He is, everything else falls into place. If He's the Son of
God, if He's God the Son, if He's the
Christ taught all through the Old Testament, Then whatever
he came down here to do, of course he did it. He's God. Everything
else falls into place. The doctrine of the sovereignty. That's what God means, sovereign. That's what it means to be God
as defined in the scripture. My God's in the heavens. He does
whatever he pleases. He said, I'll have mercy on whom
I'll have mercy. That's how that works. It's not up to you. God
will have mercy on whom he will. He does. He does it by grace
through faith in Christ. Since he's the son of God, then
whatever he was doing on that cross is done. The doctrine of
limited atonement, or whatever you want to call it, effectual
atonement, limited atonement, it just simply means this. Whoever
he died to save, he saved. He didn't die to save everybody
and then kind of, well, you know, can't always get what you want,
you know. How do people believe that? Well, that's what we would
believe, apart from God's grace. But once you know who he is,
you can't believe that. You can't believe that, that
he would fail. Whatever he died to accomplish,
he accomplished. Whoever he shed his precious
blood for is redeemed by that blood. He's the son of God. Not only is Christ the only object
of saving faith, but he's the giver of faith. Faith is his
gift, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. If you want to jot these down,
most of y'all know them, but if you don't, faith is his gift. And that's not one way of interpreting
Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. If 1 plus 1 equals 2, then faith
is his gift. He gives it. Faith is the fruit
of his spirit, Galatians 5, 22. Not your spirit. Fruit of his
spirit. Christ Jesus is the author and
finisher of faith, Hebrews 12, 2. That word author, if you care
to look it up, it means he That which that by which anything
begins to be My faith began to be when he
authored it Without faith it's impossible
to please God That's what Hebrews 11 6 says and the gospel will
not profit you unless What I'm doing this, what we're doing
this morning now, this is the way God saves sinners, by the
preaching of the gospel, but it's not gonna profit you unless
God gives you faith in his son. Hebrews 4, 2, listen to it. For
unto us was the gospel preached, Paul wrote, as well as unto them. Talking about Old Testament people. But the word preached did not
profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard
it. Would you say faith is vital? When the Lord said in our passage
this morning, be it according to thy faith. There's a lot of
people, I know people that just flat refuse to believe that.
They'll just tell you straight up, faith doesn't save. If the
son of God says your faith saved you, then that's what happened. If that don't fit your doctrine,
you need new doctrine. Of course, he gives it. He's
the author of it. He's the finisher of it. Don't
forget that word, finisher. You can't get it and you can't
keep it without him. It's not up to you. And I guarantee
you, when you find out the truth of that by his grace, you're
going to thank him and praise him for it, that it wasn't up
to you. Do you believe on the Son of
God? If the gospel doesn't do anything
for you, he said the gospel that was preached to them didn't profit
them. You're a goner. What else is
gonna profit you? If it pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save, then if the gospel doesn't profit you,
you're a goner. It's how God's pleased to save
sinners, but it's gotta be mixed with faith in the one that hears
it. And we just saw in these three
scriptures, and there's a lot more, where those came from.
That faith is his gift, it comes from him. So this is the question,
do you believe on the Son of God? He asked these men, do you
believe that I, that I, Remember what the Lord said to Jairus
in Mark 5, 35. While he yet spake, there came
from the ruler of the synagogue's house certain which said, thy
daughter is dead. Why troublest thou the master
any further? This man named Jairus had come
and asked the Lord to come and heal his daughter. And some folks
come from his house and said, it's too late. It's too late. I tell you when
it's too late, it's too late when he says it's too late. There
is such thing as too late. But it's not until he says so,
is it, Bob? As soon as Jesus heard the word
that was spoken, he said unto the ruler of the synagogue, don't
be afraid, only believe. Isn't that beautiful? That's
the most beautiful thing. you just lost that which is most
precious to you he says don't be afraid only believe that's a miracle if you can now
what was this man to believe when he said only believe what
was he to believe that just everything's gonna work out okay whatever
that means people like to say when you're in trouble and look
I don't want to Criticize somebody that means well, I understand
people just don't know they just don't know what they're saying.
Well, everything's gonna be okay Sometime I just want to ask them
did God tell you it would How do you know? How do you know
they just think everything's gonna work out, you know, if
you have enough faith everything that's not faith Faith is believe
in what God said if God said it's gonna work out That doesn't
mean that things are gonna happen that you want to happen Because
you believe they will. Faith is believing God. Faith is not believing in God.
Do you believe in God? That's the question people ask.
That's not what our Lord asked. But this man, what would you,
What did Jairus believe? That it's okay, everything's
gonna work out. They already had not worked out
based on what people are talking about when they say that. No, he was to believe simply
that the Lord Jesus Christ was gonna work him out. Whatever
he was gonna do would be right. It's not believing in God, it's
believing God. That's the same thing Chris.
No, it's not. No, it's not James 2 23 the scripture was fulfilled
which saith Abraham believed God It wasn't about believing in
God the devil believes in God Abraham believed God and it was
imputed unto him for righteousness And he was called the friend
of God Notice that it doesn't say his faith was his righteousness. That's not true. Our faith is
weak. When people say faith doesn't
save, the sense in which that's true is our faith is not meritorious. But we need to find out what
the Lord Jesus meant when he said, what he was saying, when
he said your faith has saved you. That's the way he saves. We'll talk about that a little
bit more. But notice that these two blind men, they cry. They didn't have a little talk
with Jesus. They begged at the top of their
voice for mercy. This has got to be an urgent
thing. This is what saving faith causes a sinner to do, cry out
to God from your heart. Once you believe God concerning
your sin and believe God concerning his son, You're going to press
through the throng to get to him, like the woman with the
issue of blood. You're going to cry the more
a great deal, like old Bartimaeus did. They told him to shut up,
and he just got louder. When you believe on Christ, that's
what you'll do. You've got to have him. You'll say with Jacob, I can't
let go. I'm not going to let you go.
People with God-given faith are desperate for Christ. Desperate. Psalm 42, one, as
the heart, H-A-R-T, the little deer, as the little deer panteth
after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, oh God. Water's
kind of vital, isn't it? Christ is more vital. It's just
a picture. of how vital he is, calling him
the son of David. They cried, now son of David.
That meant that they knew he was the Messiah. They knew he
was the Messiah. A lot of people knew that. I
mean, it was pretty, he made it obvious, didn't he, going
around raising people from the dead. I suspect the Pharisees
knew in their head, this is, you know, this isn't an ordinary
man here. They followed him and asked him
for healing because of who he is. How did they follow him? You ever think about that? They
were blind. Maybe somebody helped them, you
think? That would be according to scripture,
wouldn't it? Remember those men that let down their friend through
the roof to get him to the Lord Jesus? The Lord uses people. to bring people to Christ. Not
because it's necessary, not because he needs anybody or anything,
but he's pleased to use people. Somebody may have helped
him or they may have just been so desperate, you know, they're
bouncing off of stuff and running into things. Can you imagine? I suspect they
weren't the only two following him at this point. It doesn't
talk about a multitude right here in that specific passage. But he had just raised a little
girl from the dead. And his fame, everybody heard
about it. Somehow these blind men got to him. They were desperate.
They had to. They had to. And it wasn't easy.
It wasn't easy. But it didn't stop them. And
look at the beginning of verse 28. Back in Matthew, I'm in Acts
2. When he was come into the house,
the blind men came to him. They were crying after him in
the previous verse. And when he was come into the
house, he didn't stop. when they started crying to him. He kept
going until he got where he was going. He stopped when Bartimaeus
cries. These are all spiritual lessons,
aren't they? With Bartimaeus, of course he
hears the cry of his sheep. He's loved you with an everlasting
love. The day the sun stood still. Somebody preached on that. When
Bartimaeus cried, the Lord Jesus Christ stopped in his tracks.
A sinner. But here, we're taught something
different, aren't we? He just kept going. Kind of like
with the woman of Canaan, who was crying for mercy for her
daughter, and he just said it wouldn't be right. He didn't
make it easy on these two, but they still got to him. And so-called preachers stand
up in so-called churches and beg people, won't you please
come down and make a decision for Jesus? They'll sit there,
and the invitation is longer than their message was. Just
trying to work on people's emotions and get them. If you ever believe on him, I
couldn't keep you away from him with a baseball bat. Oh, isn't that beautiful? That's
just the truth now. He didn't stop when they cried.
He went on to where he was going and they came in the house. He
doesn't make it easy to follow him. He tries faith, doesn't
he? He starts trying faith as soon as he gives it. As soon
as he gives it. It wasn't easy for Isaiah to
raise that knife above his son and commit in his heart that
I'm gonna kill my son today. You think that was easy? But he did. his only son whom
he loved, but he believed God. He believed God. It wouldn't
have been easy for the rich young ruler to sell all he had and
give it to the poor and come follow Christ, but if he had,
he would have never lacked a thing, and he'd have had eternal life, and been forever blessed. Look
what they were crying for. They wanted to be able to see.
Now, there's no doubt about that. That's what they were. They wanted
to be able to see. But that's not what they said. This is a
spiritual lesson, isn't it? It's a spiritual picture. What
did they cry for? Our blindness is just a symptom
of our real problem. You know what we really need?
We need to be able to see, of course. But how is it that sinners
are able to see God, see the kingdom of God, and live, see
the Lord Jesus Christ? How are they able to do that?
Mercy. Verse 27, have mercy. We need righteousness before
God. We need that. We need our sin put away. We
need peace with God, acceptance of God, the acceptance of God,
and all of that is contained in this one word, mercy. I need
God to have mercy on me. Mercy confesses sin, doesn't
it? People that need mercy are sinners. We're not worthy of
what we're asking for, or it wouldn't be mercy, would it? If you don't make us see, if
you don't give us what we need, you'll be right. Otherwise, it's
not mercy. They didn't say, we hear that
you heal people, and we've come to get some of that. That's how
religion presents this. I've come to make a decision. We're gonna have to wait on God's
decision, aren't we? They didn't say, we have decided
to follow you. Mercy, mercy, what a difference. And look how the Lord answered
him with a question. Salvation is a question of debt,
isn't it? We owe God an unpayable debt. That little chorus we hadn't
sung in a long time. He paid a debt he did not owe,
and I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash
my sins away. It's a question of debt. It's
a question of righteousness, isn't it? God's holy, and we're
sinful. We've got to be just as righteous
as God in order to be with God. It's a question of righteousness.
It's a question of acceptance, and it ain't you accepting him.
Salvation's a question of him accepting you. It's a question of how sin is
dealt with, how that God can't, he can't receive anyone with
any sin. He's got to make us perfect in
order to accept us. But it's also this, and this
is what our, this is the lesson in our text this morning, It's
a question of ability. It's a question of ability. You
lack the ability to get to God. You lack the ability to see.
You lack the ability to hear. You lack the ability to walk
in a right way before God. You lack the ability to even
live. You're dead while you live if you don't have Christ. You lack the ability to please
God. You can't get to him, so he's
got to come to you. You lack the ability to please
him, so Christ has got to please him for you. That's what he did
as he lived on this earth and died in our place. You lack the
ability to pay your sin debt. Christ paid it all. Christ Jesus
alone is able, able. able to pay, able to save, able
to cause you to see, able to give you faith to see, to walk,
to hear. These blind men were desperate
and helpless, but they believe that Christ is able. Oh my, Lord,
if you will, you're able. to make me clean. That's what
that old leper said. Matthew 8. He's not only able
to make them see, but he's able to have mercy on them. Mercy. The only one able to show
mercy is the one who's been offended. I can't forgive you somebody
else's death. The death that you owe somebody
else. And in order to obtain mercy from God, it's gonna take
satisfaction. God can't, God's not gonna be
the loser here. He's gonna receive everything
he requires, but just not from you. Just not from you. He's gonna receive satisfaction.
The law must be satisfied. He's gonna receive payment of
your sin debt. He's gonna receive redemption.
There's gonna be, redemption is the price for the release
of a slave. Got to be paid. And only Christ
is able. You see what he's asking here?
Do you believe that I'm able to have mercy, the mercy you're
asking for? What a beautiful picture. Look
at their answer. This is the faith that God gives.
Yes, Lord. Not just yes. The Lord, if he's the Lord, then
he's able. If he's the son of God, then
he's able. Yes, Lord. Their faith was based
on who he is. He's the Lord, and then yet,
so yes. Yes, because of who you are. Religion asks this question.
I've heard this before. I've seen it, I think I saw it
on a billboard or a bumper sticker or something. It's been a while
since I've seen it, but they asked, isn't it time to try Jesus? Have you ever seen that one?
And my answer is no, it's not. If that's your attitude, it ain't
time. Try Jesus. Hmm. Can you imagine if they
had answered this way? If they had said, well, you know,
we've tried a lot of doctors and they couldn't give us our
sight back. We've gone to miracle workers and they were frauds.
They didn't do us any good. Nobody else could help us. So
we thought we'd give you a shot. You think they'd have been able
to see that day if they had answered like that? We thought we'd give
you a shot at it. We've tried everything else.
Time to try you. That's not the answer faith gives.
Yes, Lord. We know who you are. That's why we came to you. We
know who you are by your grace. And you're able. In verse 29, then touched he
their eyes, saying, according to your faith, be it unto you.
There's that touch again. Remember when he laid his hands
on those little children that came to him and blessed them.
He touched their eyes, saying, according to your faith, be it
unto you. He mentions their faith because
when God gives you faith, it's your faith. Didn't he say your
faith? It's God given faith, but he
gives it to you and it's your faith. You're not gonna work
it up. You're not gonna produce faith.
It's the fruit of his spirit. He's the author of it in you.
But as love is the fruit of the spirit, did the Lord ask Simon,
does the spirit love me? No, he said, do you love me?
It's got to be you, doesn't it? That's why he gives it to you.
You've got to believe on him. The question is, do you believe
on the son of God? Well, the fruit of the spirit
is that too. You're not gonna be able to work
it up. So does faith save? Well, it depends on where you
got it, doesn't it? If you got it from him, it'll
save. You know, I was thinking of a way to illustrate this on
the way here, and I've used this before, but I think maybe I have
a little bit More to say about that, and I hope it's a good
illustration. What if I asked you, does rain
make the flowers grow? Does rain, if it doesn't rain,
is anything gonna grow? Of course rain makes the flowers
grow. Where does rain come from? Where does rain come from? If
I'm talking to somebody that knows a lot about growing things,
and I say I've got this flower here and I don't know a lot about
it, you know, I need to know, you know, what I'm thinking to
myself is I need to know how much water does it need, does
this need to be, if I water this every day, some things it'll
kill it if you water it every day. Some things you need to
water a couple times a week. Cactuses and stuff like that
you water them about once every week or two. So I need to know
that, how much sun does it need, you know, some things won't,
tomatoes won't direct sunlight pretty much as much as they can
get. They love that. Other plants, you've got to put
them in the shade or they'll die. Some, if you put them in
the shade, they'll die. So I'm asking, you know, how
can I make this plant grow? And it's a matter of life and
death, isn't it? If I don't do the right things, it's gonna
die. That happens to me a lot. And if they say this, well, God
makes it grow. That's true, isn't it? That's
true. You need to know that. But does that answer my question? I believe that's a good illustration
of what we're talking about here now. If somebody says, what must
I do to be saved? And you just say, well, God saves
whoever he wants to save. That's the truth. And you need
to know that. Don't get me wrong. I'm not minimizing that. You
need to know that. But did it answer your question? No, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. You're gonna have to have faith
in God. You've got to believe on him
and you can't do that. The way he says that happens is by hearing
the gospel. That's good to know, isn't it?
It's a matter of life and death. That's how good it is to know.
We've got to understand that. It's just the means though. Well,
Don't neglect the means that God has ordained to save sinners. If you do, you're a goner. He
said here and your soul shall live. And so you see what I'm
saying? These are means, of course, the
rain is just a means by which God does make the flower grow.
That's the truth. That's the truth and we need
to know that. He gets the glory. He's gonna get the glory one
way or the other. So does faith save? If he says
it does, it does. He gives it in order to save
people. He makes the rainfall and the sunshine so that things
can grow and we have something to eat. It's a matter of life
and death, and so is faith. Faith is vital. He's the giver
of it though, see? He's going to get the glory.
It's by grace through faith and that not of yourselves. It's
the gift of God, lest any man should boast. God's the rainmaker, and he's
the faith giver too. According to faith that is desperate
for Christ, be it unto you. According to faith that perseveres
in following him, because It's faith that came from him. Be
it unto you. According to faith that is authored
and finished by Christ. Be it unto you. According to
faith whose object is Christ himself and Christ alone. Be it unto you. Amen.