Luke chapter 14. Luke 14. It came to pass as he, the Lord
Jesus, went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to
eat bread on the Sabbath day that they watched him. And behold,
there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. And
Jesus answering, spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying,
Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him,
and let him go and answered them saying, which of you shall have
an ass or an ox fallen into a pit and will not straightway pull
him out on the Sabbath day? And they could not answer him
again to these things. This man had the dropsy, all
of the diseases and infirmities that our Lord healed sinners
of are pictures of our spiritual condition before God. The Lord
did these miracles to confirm who he was and that the message
that he preached was from God but also the miracles themselves
were a picture of what he came to do to save his people from
their sins. So these diseases, leprosy, from the crown of your head to
the sole of your foot, no soundness but wounds and bruises, putrefying
sores, that's how we are in our sinfulness before God. wretched
and vile and horrible. Paralysis he healed
many from. That withered hand the man had. Blindness and even death the
Lord raised the dead. These all picture his saving
us from our sins. Now this dropsy is what we would
now call edema. You might have heard of edema.
and maybe not dropsy, but this is the same thing. It's a swelling
due to the accumulation of excess water in the body. It's a symptom
of an underlying disease. Liver disease can cause it. Congestive
heart failure can cause edema or dropsy. Kidney disease and
other things can cause it. And the word dropsy is a compound
word with two meanings combined. The first one being water. And
the second one to see, to appear, or be seen. And so when someone
has the drop, see it's an accumulation of water in the body. You can
see it, you can tell that they have it. It's made visible, changes
the way they look. It makes itself known. It's interesting
that water could be a problem at all in the human body if you
think about it. We need water. Water is good. But this is the
spiritual picture. Your body is 60% water anyway,
so how can water in the body be a problem? The spiritual picture
here is that we are creatures of excesses. Even that which
is good is bad in us. Now think about that. Knowledge
is good, for example. But Paul wrote to the Corinthian
church, your knowledge has puffed you up. The law is good. Paul said, if a man use it lawfully,
but that's the problem. We don't. We use the law as a
system of works where we think that we measure up to God's holy
standard. So even the law in us is an evil
thing. God forbid that the law Itself
is not but but even that which is good in us like water Water
is necessary. It's good But it's a bad thing
in the diseased We are creatures of excesses It caused the Corinthians to
be proud the more they knew it said he says knowledge puffeth
up That's what happened to the body when you had dropsy. It
puffed it up. Pride is called a swelling. It's
a swell up with pride. And Paul also said, love buildeth
up. What's needed is love. The love
of God in the heart, love for him, love of him, by him, the
spirit of the fruit of his spirit, which is love. Love buildeth
up. But even that which is good,
the excess water in the body caused it to puff up, and sinners
are puffed up because of their knowledge, their supposed power,
their riches, different things cause sinners to puff up. The
Lord said in Jeremiah 9.23, let not the wise man glory in his
wisdom. Don't be puffed up if you have any wisdom at all. Let
not the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory
in his riches. But let him that glorieth, glorieth
in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the
Lord which exercised lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in
the earth. For in these things I delight, saith the Lord. The scripture says in 1 Corinthians
13, 4, love suffereth long and is kind. Love envieth not, love
vaunteth not itself. is not puffed up. So someone
with a spiritual dropsy is someone devoid of the love of God in
their heart. In fact, like physical dropsy,
spiritual dropsy is just a symptom of the real problem. The underlying
cause is heart disease. You got a bad heart an evil nature
sinful hardened nature before God and the symptoms can be seen
this is something that's visible it's evident when someone does
not love God and they're puffed up with pride it's not hard to
tell that and there's no human cure With
men, it's impossible. But that's who Christ cures,
the incurable. I can say without hesitation
from the word of God that Christ will not cure you unless you're
incurable. That's the only way he'll do
it. And you must come to know it. Somewhere in the process
of him saving you, it's going to dawn on you. If Christ does
not save me, I'm a goner. I am forever dead. I must suffer
the wrath of God forever. If Christ doesn't cross my path,
there is no hope for me. And that's what happened in our
text. And this is another example in scripture of how Christ saves
you in spite of you. Our text. This man is not said to have
said anything. or inquired or came for any good
reason. Think about this with me for
a second. There are instances in scripture where people came
to Christ. They came to him for mercy, cried
for mercy. The woman with the issue of blood,
she was incurable. And she found out. She had spent
all that she had and grew only worse. And then she realized
she was incurable. Think about that for a second.
Would she have spent everything that she had if there had been
no hope in her heart of a cure? As long as she's spending money,
she has hope that's not him. But then once she had spent it
all and was more sick than before, she not only gave up on everybody
else, but she had full assurance when she heard of Christ that
he was her savior. Listen to it, a certain woman
which had an issue of blood 12 years and had suffered many things
of many physicians and had spent all that she had and was nothing
bettered but rather grew worse when she had heard of Jesus came
in the press behind and touched his garment for she said, she didn't say like religion
does, isn't it time to try Jesus? No, it's not time for that. Here's
what she said, if I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole. You have to come with God-given
faith in Christ. Not give him a shot. Just go
away, if that's what your attitude is. Come back another time. That's
not how sinners come to the Lord Jesus. We're going to give you
a shot. We've tried everything else. We'll just give you a shot. You don't try him. He'll bring
you to the place where you got to have him. That's how he saves
sinners. And straightway the fountain
of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she
was healed of that plague. It's obvious when you had the
dropsy you could see it. And when the Lord heals you,
you will know that too. You can see that too. You can
feel it. You can see it. Now sinners do despair of self
and all other means and they come to Christ. There are many
examples of that in scripture. They come to the Lord Jesus Christ
for mercy. They hear of him and they come.
He said my sheep hear my voice and they follow me. He speaks
with power. He affectionately calls them.
He says, come unto me with the same voice with which he said,
let there be light. And there was light, and they
do come. And this teaches us to hear the
gospel and obey it. Come to Christ. He is your only hope. You are
incurable by nature, but He, though it's impossible with men,
all things are possible with God. When Christ doesn't try to save,
He saves. And so we're taught in that.
Come to Him. Come to Him. We also have stories in the Scripture
where someone comes on behalf of someone else. Think about
that. These loved ones who lowered
that man on his couch through the roof to the feet of the Lord
Jesus Christ. They said, we're bringing him
to you. We're bringing him. And the Lord
healed him. The Lord forgave his sins and
healed him. This teaches us to bring our
loved ones in every way we can. By prayer. Bring them to the
worship by example in every way we can. Bring them to the Lord
Jesus Christ. That woman of Canaan, she said,
my daughter is grievously vexed with the devil. Lord, have mercy
on me and save her. Oh, what a mercy of God it would
be to me to see all of my children saved by him. at all of yours. In every way we can, we're taught
to bring them to Him. He doesn't have to save them,
but we're to set them before Him and say, Lord have mercy. Mercy. When James said, you have not
because you ask not, that cannot be one of my children. By God's grace, that will not
be one of my children. You see what I'm saying? I'm
going to ask. By the grace of God, I'm going
to ask. It cannot be. But we also have examples like
this one, and there are others, where the Lord just comes and
heals somebody. They didn't come to him. They didn't cry out.
They didn't ask. They didn't even know him. Didn't
seem interested. The lame man at the pool of Bethesda.
The man with the withered hand. He didn't come there that day
to be healed, but he was healed. And perhaps the greatest example
of all of this is Saul of Tarsus. You think he hit the road to
Damascus to go meet the Savior? Au contraire. But he met the Savior, didn't
he? And what does this teach us?
That salvation is of the Lord. If you come to Him, He came to
you first. And here in our text, it says
the Lord took him, healed him, and let him go. That's what happened to me. All of the examples teach this
same thing, but this emphasizes it. Salvation's always of the
Lord. When those friends brought that
man, he didn't have to forgive that man's sins, but he did it,
and he said, I've got power to forgive sins on this earth. He
didn't have to, but he did. He's the Lord. And he saves whom he will. And
this emphasizes the freeness of his grace. If you ever come
to Christ, he must come to you first. No man can come to me
except the father which has sent me, draw him, and I'll raise
him up at the last day. And in verse 65 of that same
chapter, John six, he said, therefore, I said unto you that no man can
come unto me except it were given unto him. of my father. He said to his disciples, it
is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
To them it's not given. Now it says in the text, the
Pharisees watched him. They were looking for something
to accuse him of, specifically on the Sabbath day. I suspect
they invited him over on the Sabbath day on purpose to see
if he'd mess up in their eyes. And he knew what they were thinking,
because look what he said to them in verse three. Is it lawful? He knew exactly what they were
thinking, but they couldn't answer him. But you know what? He answered
the question for them. Think about this with me for
a second. You might say, wait a minute, he didn't answer the
question. He didn't address that. Yes, he did. He answered the
question, is it lawful, is it right to heal on the Sabbath
day by healing on the Sabbath day? Yeah. They couldn't say, they
couldn't answer anything. He asked them now, is it lawful?
They couldn't answer. But he did by doing it. If Christ does it, it's right,
it's lawful. Just because he did it. Rightness
and wrongness is not a standard that the Lord measures up to.
He is the standard. He is rightness. And wrongness
is everything else. Everything must measure up to
Him. And the only way you're going
to measure up to Him is to be in Him. Found in Him. Not having your own righteousness
which is of the Lord. But the righteousness of God
which is by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. You're not going
to measure up to Christ by being like Christ. Not in this world. Not going to happen. One day
that may be true. It will be true if you're a believer. But
not on this earth. Not in these bodies. You're not
going to measure up to Christ by being like Christ. I want
to be like him. But it's not going to happen
that way. Your righteousness is not being like Him. You're
not like Him. Your righteousness is Him. Or
you don't have one. It's really that simple. What
is lawful is Him. Who He is and what He did. Everything He did. That's what's
lawful. And if I am to measure up to
that, he himself must be my righteousness before God. Now our Lord did
many miracles on the Sabbath day knowing that it infuriated
the Pharisees. Why did he do that? To infuriate
the Pharisees, that's why. They taught error regarding that
and he exposed their error. He deliberately exposed their
error as he does all error, but he did it for another reason
too. The Sabbath day is the day of rest. That's what Sabbath
is. It comes from when the Lord created
the universe in Genesis chapter two. It says he rested on the
seventh day. I rest because I get tired. God don't get tired. So why did
he rest then? Because he was done. That's why. That's why God rests. And our
Lord saved these people on the Sabbath day. He showed this picture
of salvation on the Sabbath day to show that finished salvation
is accomplished by Him. Once He saves, there ain't nothing
left but the resting. Right? That's all that's left,
the resting. As far as salvation is concerned
now, It's done. And like the old creation, He
finished it without our help. And then He rested. The new creation. We are a new creation in Christ
Jesus. It says in Ephesians 2.10, we
are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works
which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
And He didn't need our help with that either. He didn't need our
cooperation. He makes sinners new all by Himself. just like he created the universe
all by himself. When he said in the beginning,
let there be light and there was light, there was light because
he said so. And Paul said in 2 Corinthians
4, 6, there's light in my heart because he said so. The same
God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness on day
one, shined in my heart and gave me light. to see His glory in
His Son. He saved us. He lived our righteousness. His precious blood was shed to
wash our sins away. And then what did He do? He sat
down. You see why He did these things on the Sabbath day? That's
teaching us something very important. When He does something for you,
it's done. And it's all over but the resting. He washed us from our sins. He
cried, it's finished. And then he sat down on the right
hand of God. On the right hand of the majesty
of God. Now, in the Old Testament, there
weren't any chairs in the tabernacle. The priest could not sit down.
There was all kinds of other things, furniture and objects,
but no chairs. The priest was busy all day.
And they could never rest because it was never finished. These
sacrifices that were just shadows of the Lamb of God that was to
come could never take away sin. But this man, when he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down until his enemies be
made his footstool. And he sits down, he rests because
the work is accomplished. And you know what? It's time
for us to rest too. If he did the work and sat down,
what are you going to do? You going to pitch in somehow,
you know? Put your two cents worth in? No, you better sit
down. Better sit down now. We can rest
in his finished work. We can only rest there. There
is no other rest. That's why he said, all you that
are weary, that labor and are heavy laden, come to me and I'll
give you rest. You're not going to find rest
anywhere else. You're never going to be done. If you've got to
measure up, if you're going about to establish your own righteousness,
don't ever rest. You're not there yet. Keep going. Just quit it and come to Him
and find rest. In the crucified Son of God,
salvation is His finished work and we are His new creation. He healed me on the Sabbath day.
How about you? It was rest time when He saved
me. And by His grace, I rest fully
and forever in Christ Jesus and His cross. Look what the Lord
did for this poor sinner. He took him. The word took means to lay hold
of, to seize upon. Now you think about what that
looked like in this scenario. I don't know. Did he embrace
him? Was it just a spiritual thing? You're mine now. He laid hold
of him. I don't know what it looked like
exactly, but I know what it is. It's the son of God claiming
one of his own. One of his purchased ones. One
of those that was given to him from before the foundation of
the world by his father. And he meets him face to face
and says, you're mine. And he lays hold of him. He seizes
upon him. And what a beautiful thing. Our Lord said, as I quoted a
moment ago, no man can come to me except the Father which hath
sent me, draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
That word draw there means to drag off. It's the same word
used in John 18.10. Then Simon Peter, having a sword,
drew it and smote the high priest's servant and cut off his right
ear. And his name was Malchus. Simon
took hold of his sword and drew it Same word. To lay hold of. To seize upon. This is what happened
to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. He was seized upon.
He was arrested. He was apprehended. That's the
way he described it. How were you saved, Paul? I was
apprehended. You could say I came to Christ.
That's how I was saved. I believed on Christ. That's
true. But before that, you were apprehended
like Paul. Paul said, I'm a pattern of all
believers. Every believer is saved like I was. That's what
Paul said. Now that was his testimony. And
he said I was apprehended. Listen to it. Philippians 3 12
not as though I had already attained either were already perfect,
but I follow after I'm pursuing him if that I may apprehend that
for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus That's what our
text is talking about. He laid hold of me. He apprehended
me I Was seized upon Paul said by Jesus Christ and now what
are you doing Paul? Counting everything but loss
and dung that I may win him and be found in him. That's what
I'm doing now You're gonna seize upon him But
first he's gonna seize upon you If you're gonna be saved now
He took him Bless God He had loved that sinner with an everlasting
love, with loving kindness. He drew that sinner to himself
and he seized upon him, just like I would if I hadn't seen
Vicki for a long time. Or maybe if I thought that I'd
lost her and she was restored unto me, I would lay hold of
her and I wouldn't let go. And our Savior's love is so much
higher and greater than ours, as the heavens are high above
the earth. His love is higher than ours. He says, to his own
though a nursing mother forget the baby feeding at her breast,
I will never forget you. I hold you in my hand and no
man can pluck you out. I will never leave you nor forsake
you. I will give men for you and people for your life. The
very definition of God's holy love in his word is that he loved
us and became the propitiation for our sins. Having loved his own, he loved
us to the end. And it's this eternal, infinite
love that causes him to take us, to lay hold of us, to seize
upon us. And he don't let go. When Simon
Peter was sinking beneath the waves and he cried, Lord, save
me, it says immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and,
same word as our text, only this time it's rendered this way,
caught him. It's the same word. He caught
him. That's what happened to this
wretched sinner. He was falling. He was sinking. But the Lord
caught him. When that man in Luke chapter
10 was bleeding out in a ditch and no one cared anything about
him. One person wouldn't even look
at him. The other one looked at him. and went his way, but
here comes the good Samaritan. As he journeyed he came where
he was and when he saw him he had compassion on him and went
to him and bound up his wounds pouring in oil and wine and set
him on his own beast and brought him to an end and took care of
him. And on the morrow when he departed
he took out two pence and gave them to the host and said unto
him take care of him and whatsoever thou spendest more when I come
again I will repay thee. That story defines the word in
our text. He took him. He did everything
for him that needed to be done. He took him and he healed him. I'm thankful that the Lord would
save a wretch like me. It is the wonder of all wonders
that he would embrace a leper like me. But I'm glad he doesn't
leave me a leper, aren't you? He healed me. He does not leave me in my wretchedness.
He's made me whole. Every wit, hope. That's his words. Every wit. The sin that infested my whole
being and made me miserable and hopeless and helpless and vowed
before God is put away. It's gone. My sin is gone. It's removed from me as far as
the east is from the west. That's God's word. It is cast
behind the back of God, that's God's word. And sunk to the bottom
of the sea, it's washed from me in his own precious blood. How many ways has God said to
us, our sins are gone, and what beautiful ways. He knows how
to say it, doesn't he? My sin is gone. Because of Christ. And I'm made
whole. Now when the Lord Jesus Christ
heals a sinner, he doesn't just treat the symptoms. Religion
tries to do that. People are proud so they preach
on humility. Preaching humility is not going
to cure pride. Preaching Christ might just do
it. if the Lord is pleased. It will
do it. People don't just need to be
humble. There are people who don't know God who are relatively
unassuming people and you can go to hell just as surely that
way as you can outwardly proud. Sinners need Christ and then
when you know Christ you'll bow to God and you won't be so puffed
up anymore. But you can't just treat the
symptoms. People do bad things so religion loves to preach on
sin. What they call sin anyway. Don't have a clue what sin is.
And so they preach on sin and people are motivated to clean
the outside of the cup. But inwardly they're still full
of corruption. But our Lord exposed that as
treating the symptom and not the disease. All of the symptoms
proceed from the heart. The problem is what you are,
not what you do. You do what you do because of
what you are. And Christ changes who you are. When the Lord heals
you, He cures you of your soul's disease. He heals you on the
inside. He heals you of your sin. And
then everything else is changed. Not perfect yet, not holy in
ourselves because we still have the old sin nature too. And sin
is mixed with all that we do, the things that we would do to
honor God. We find not how to do them, just
like Paul in Romans 7, but old things are passed away and all
things are become new. There's not one thing that's
not affected by Him saving you. Everything's different. The old
man now hasn't changed, but his effect on you has. He has
not dominion over you anymore because of Christ. Everything has become new because
He gives you a new heart. A heart that loves Him. A heart
that bows to Him. A heart that believes on Him. And everything is different.
Now we still have the symptoms of the disease of sin because
we still have a heart. of sin, a sin nature. But we
also have a new heart created in righteousness and true holiness.
So what then? Don't look to the symptoms for hope. Look to the cure. And the cure
is a person. Don't look to the symptoms. If
you start looking at yourself and say, well am I healed? Am
I made whole? Am I righteous in Christ? And
then you start examining your life and you say, my goodness. If you're a true believer, you're
not going to look more holy as time goes on. You're going to
look less holy. You're going to look less righteous. You're
going to see more of your evil the longer you live. Don't look
to the symptoms. Look to the cure. Look to the
cure. Only by faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ can we see ourselves as he does We see him as he is and
when you see him as he is you see yourself as you are in him
That only happens by looking to Him. Looking unto Jesus. The author of our faith. The
finisher of our faith. Who for the joy that was set
before Him endured the cross. There's our cure. There's the
washing of my sin. There's my holiness. There's
my righteousness. He endured the cross for me.
Despising the shame. And only by faith in Him. Don't
look to yourself. You'll despair, you'll be discouraged.
Always and only look to Christ. How did he do this? How did he
heal me? How did he make me whole? He healed me. Through his own self, bear our
sins in his own body on the tree. that we being dead to sin should
live under righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. That's how he did it. And then thirdly it says he let
him go. He was set free. That's what that literally means.
He released him. He set him free. He loosed him
and let him go. That's what it said about Lazarus
at the tomb. that he just walked out of. He
said, loose him and let him go. Throw off the grave clothes of
sin and death and live in Christ, live for Christ, live by Christ. Listen to the old blind Bartimaeus.
Here's what happens. If the Son shall make you free, You'll be free, free indeed. Barabbas was set free for one
reason. We saw this in another lesson recently. He wasn't set
free because he had done anything to make amends for his crime.
He wasn't set free for time served. He wasn't set free on good behavior.
He was set free simply and only because Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, took his place. That's how we're made free. We're let go because the wrath
of God, the condemnation of God against us fell on Him. And we are set free. When the
Lord lets someone go, where do they go? You remember Blind Bartimaeus? Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. And they told him to shut up,
quit crying. He must have been in a real nuisance
crying out for mercy. He began to cry and when they
told him to shut up, you know what he did? He cried the more
a great deal. And Jesus stood still and commanded
him to be called. I heard somebody say in a message
recently that that's what gets the attention of the Savior.
You talk about your good works before him. You know what he's
going to do? Say, get away from me. But you cry for mercy. And he stops. That gets his attention. Jesus stood still and commanded
that he be called. And they called the blind man,
saying unto him, be of good comfort. Rise. He calleth thee. And he
casting away his garment. rose and came to Jesus and Jesus
answered and said unto him, what wilt thou that I should do unto
thee? That's salvation. It's what he
does for you. I wish people would shut up about
what they've done for God. I wish I would shut up. I hope
I never even imagine for a second that I've ever done anything
for God. If I worship Him, that's Him
doing something for me. If I serve Him in some way, that's
Him doing something for me. What wilt thou that I should
do unto thee? And the blind man said unto Him,
Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him,
Go thy way. He set him free. He released
him. He said, Go your way. Thy faith
hath made thee whole. So where did he go? It says, immediately he received
his sight and followed Jesus in the way. When the Lord lets
you go, that's where you go. You go to him. You go to him. The Lord did all of it, didn't
he? He took him. He took him. He took him. He healed him. And he let him go. And that's
exactly what happened to me. Let's pray.