Luke chapter 13 Verse 10 Luke chapter 13 verse
10 And he was teaching in one of
the synagogues on the Sabbath and And behold, there was a woman
which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed
together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus
saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou
art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her,
and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue
answered with indignation because that Jesus had healed on the
Sabbath day and said unto the people, there are six days in
which men ought to work, in them therefore come and be healed,
and not on the Sabbath day. Can you imagine that? Here's
our Lord in the only place that even pretended to worship God
in that day. You think about that. the only
public place that even pretended to worship Jehovah God. There
he is preaching there and what he did was so contrary to what
they were doing that made the leader mad. Can you imagine that? I wonder if we're doing anything
that's contrary to what the Lord would do if he was here or what
he did do. If we're doing anything contrary.
I hope not. I sure hope not. But this religious world is contrary. They say they worship in God.
They're using the name of God. But they hate His Son. And if
you don't honor the Son, you don't honor the Father. If you
don't honor the victorious, invincible redeemer of sinners,
you don't honor God. He saves who he wants to and
when he wants to. I hope we're in line with that. And he said, the Lord then answered
and said unto him, you hypocrite. There he is again in the religious
place of so-called worship. And he has to stand toe-to-toe
with the leader there and say, you're a hypocrite. Boy, I'd
like to see him do that. You know, these days, wouldn't
you? And I just hope he wouldn't have
to say that to me. Does not each one of you on the
Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away
to watering? You reckon that man did that that very morning
before he came to church? That's just me speculating, but
clearly it was common practice on the Sabbath day for them to
break the Sabbath. according to their thinking of
what it was anyway. And ought not this woman, being
a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound low these eighteen
years, ought she not be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath
day? And when he had said these things,
all his adversaries were ashamed, and all the people rejoiced for
all the glorious things that were done by Him. There was worship in that place
this morning in spite of the religion there. Oh boy, I hope that if there
is anything in us that it's in spite of. I hope He'll grant
us worship this morning anyway in spite of us if He has to.
May we worship. I'll tell you what, It's going
to be what's done by Him, isn't it? If we're going to worship.
All the glorious things done by Him. That's worship. To rejoice in what He did. Done. Well, this woman had a
spirit of infirmity, and that word there, infirmity, is asthenia,
which means weakness. She had a spirit of weakness.
And not coincidentally at all, it's the same word used in Romans
chapter 8. Listen to it. You're familiar
with this passage. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. And here's why. For the law of
the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from
the law of sin and death. And here's why that. For what
the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh.
The law cannot save you but it's not because there's a problem
with the law. It's because of you. Weak through the flesh. There's our word right there.
Asthenia or a form of it. Weak. It's about what she could not
do. It's about what we could not
do, cannot do, never have done, never will do. That's where the
gospel starts now. That's where the gospel starts.
This is important teaching now. The inability of the flesh to
please God. Don't you die thinking Jesus
did most of it. Don't you come before God thinking,
well, he met me all the way. I just had to take one step and
he met me. Don't don't die like that. Don't live like that. Salvations of the Lord now. What
you could not do, God sent his only begotten son to do in your
place, if you were his. And he did every bit of it. You
didn't take a step, you laid there helpless until he came
where you were and saved you. That's what happened if you're
saved this morning. And if you're saved this morning, you know
that. You know that's right. Weak through the flesh, God sending
His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us. I've fulfilled the righteousness
of God's law by Christ coming. for me, in
the place of me, and doing what I could not do for myself. God helps those who help themselves.
Blasphemy. Blasphemy. If you can help yourself,
you're on your own. And guess what? It's a delusion. So the need There in Romans 8,
in that passage, the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us. We've got to be righteous before God. The need in that
passage is righteousness, for us to be righteous. The law honored,
sin put away, and God's righteousness satisfied in us. The problem
is, in that passage, our flesh, and particularly The weakness
of it. And this is what our text pictures. This is what our text proclaims.
The weakness of it, the flesh's inability to satisfy the law. What's the solution? God sending
his own son. Is that complicated to anybody?
God sent His Son. And we have a beautiful picture
of that in our text in Luke 13. How are you going to stand before
God when you can't even stand? How are you going to walk upright
before God when you can't even pull yourself upright? Not even
before men. She could in no wise, it says,
lift herself up. That's called being shut up to
Christ. And spiritually speaking, you can in no wise lift yourself
up. It's the same word also used
in Romans 5, 6. For when we were yet without
strength, when we were yet afflicted with the infirmity of weakness,
no strength, no wise could we lift ourselves up. What did God do about it? Well
in due time Christ died for the ungodly. That's what he did about
it. When you can in no wise lift
yourself up then yet you have to stand upright in the presence
of God? How's that going to happen? God
sent his son and he lived for us and died for us. And stood
before God for us. Stood upright. Walked upright.
Before God in our place. Again, the problem? Our weakness. Our inability. Somebody said, man imagines that
his free will can solve his sin problem before God when his free
will can't even... If he had a sore little finger,
his free will couldn't even fix that. How's it going to fix your
sin problem before God? The problem, our weakness. The
solution, Christ died for the ungodly. And it is enough that
Jesus died and that he died for me. When you see these miracles,
the Lord Jesus Christ speaks the word or touches someone and
the person is healed, we understand that the spiritual power of Christ
to heal is His sin-atoning sacrifice at Calvary. Paul said there in
Romans 5, what God did about our weakness was He sent His
Son to die. Christ died for us. That's the
cure. And that's what is pictured when
these ones came with these infirmities and he called her to himself
and he touched her, he laid his hands on her. His power to do
that is in his atoning, his sin atoning, satisfactory, successful
sacrifice for sinners. That's the spiritual teaching
of that. There's power in the blood, the precious blood of
the Lamb. He can say thy sins be forgiven
thee. He did say that. And they were. How can he say that? Same reason,
same way. By virtue of his precious sin
atoning blood shed on Calvary. The cure is Christ crucified. Ephesians 1.7, in whom we have
redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of sins. So when he says your sins are
forgiven, that's by redemption through his blood. It's just
another way of saying the forgiveness of sins. According to the riches
of his grace, just because he wanted to. He could forgive that man's sins
because he died for that man's sins according to the scriptures.
That's the only way sins are, without the shedding of blood
there's no remission of sin. So if he says your sin's forgiven,
somebody shed some blood that was worth enough to make that
happen. And it was the one who said it.
But you say, but he hadn't died yet when he said that. His blood's
eternal. Don't ever doubt that for a second.
He's the lamb slain from the foundation of this world. His
blood is eternal before God for his people. And His blood is the difference.
If He died for you, you are saved, whether you even know it yet
or not. Now you're going to have to believe on Him. That's not unnecessary. He's
not going to save you apart from faith in Christ. But if He shed
His precious blood for you, that's the difference now. If you're
not saved yet, if you don't know Christ this morning, well, we'll
see you then, won't we? I haven't given up on you yet. As long as you're breathing. But if you die in your sins,
Christ did not die for you. His blood is the difference because
all for whom he died are without sin. He bore it. He put it away.
and you don't have any so as we're looking at this we realize
that it is Christ in him crucified that is salvation of which this
is a picture that weakness that spirit of infirmity weakness
Paul said what God did about that was he died for you if you're
his spiritually we see that in many
other places where this word infirmity is used so notice that
Satan has a role in this infirmity Do you see that in the text?
And that's true spiritually too. Satan hath bound her with this. And this is true spiritually.
2 Timothy 2.25. I can't think of anywhere where
it's any more clear than that in the Word of God. Paul is speaking
to Timothy and he says, In meekness instruct those that oppose themselves. They don't know it, but they're
their own worst enemy. Instruct them. Teach them. If
God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the
snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will. The Jews said, we've never been
captive to anybody. When the Lord said, if the Son
will make you free, you'll be free indeed. They said, we're
already free. Nothing could be further from the truth. and the snare of the devil. Notice
it says, taking, deliver themselves out of the snare of the devil
who are taken captive by him. And our text mentions this woman
being loosed. So that picture of a snare is
very instructive. It's very real. Remember what
we've said recently in our Proverbs study about snares and how people
get out of them. The more you do, the tighter
you're caught. The more you struggle, the more
you work, the more you say, as long as my good outweighs my
bad, the snare is just getting tighter and tighter. You need somebody to get you
out. And you don't need to struggle while they're there. The best
thing you can do if you're caught in a snare, Just shut down. Just be as still as you can.
Don't do anything. Be still and see the salvation of the Lord,
Moses said. That's how sinners are saved,
right there. Just stand there. Just be still. And see the salvation
of the Lord. Only Christ can get you out of
the snare you're in now. That snare is not going to break
on its own. And you're not getting out of it. And that's what he
did for this woman. You are loosed. That's how you get out of the
snare of the devil. In the words no wise, again I want to stress
this now because this is a big difference between the false
gospel of our day and every day and the truth. The words no wise
speak of her and our utter inability This is what Proverbs 2 20 says
that thou mayest walk in the way of good men and keep the
paths of the righteous for the upright Shall dwell in the land
and the perfect shall remain in it. That's who's going to
dwell with God the upright that wasn't her It's not you either Not by nature So of course this verse in Proverbs
is talking about moral spiritual uprightness, but this is what
this woman pictures. In her bowed over inability to
raise herself up, she pictures that she couldn't walk upright.
And the scripture says only those who walk upright before God are
ever going to see God. So we've got a problem, don't
we? And we see clearly the inability of man to walk upright before
God. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in
his sight. Romans chapter 3 the Lord Jesus
Christ said no man can come unto me except God's got to do something
for you. She couldn't even look to Christ. And thus he first came where
she was. And in the story We don't know for sure why this
woman was in this shape. Maybe she was born okay. For
18 years, we know that she'd been bowed over. We don't know what happened if
she caught some kind of a disease or maybe some kind of an injury.
I don't know, but we know why we're that way, don't we? Spiritually,
we know why we're that way. Ecclesiastes 729, lo, this only
have I found, that God hath made man upright. It's not God's fault
if you're not upright. But they have sought out many
inventions. It's our own willful rebellion
and sin that has made us twisted and infirm before God. unable
to lift ourselves up. We can in no wise. And it's all our fault. But if we're ever going to see
God now we have to walk up rightly though we in no wise can't. Psalm
15, Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell
in thy holy hill? Who's going to come before, who's
going to heaven? Who's going to be with God forever? He that
walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the
truth in his heart now, in his heart. You may say some true
things with your mouth, even if the truth's not in your heart.
But you're going to have to have the truth in your heart if you're
ever going to see God. That only happens one way. And
there's only one that fits that description, really. It's Christ.
Now, He's going to raise us up. But I don't want to stand before
God without Him in any posture. Do you? He stands before God
in our place. When He said, no man cometh unto
the Father but by Me, that doesn't mean that now that He's come
before the Father, you can come before the Father too. That's
not all that's saying, although that's true. We're going to see
God because He went first. He's the forerunner. But what
that's saying is when He stood before God, that was me standing
before God. Or else I'm never going to. He
is my righteousness. He is my uprightness. He didn't
just give me some. It's Him. So it's a necessity now. Only those who walk uprightly
are going to dwell with God. So it's a necessity and yet we
in no wise can. That's called being shut up to
Christ. And by the way, that's the best place you can be. If
God ever shuts you up to His Son, you've arrived. Imagine this woman bowed over
and she couldn't walk straight. It sounds like she could walk. We're not told that she was lame
or unable to walk at all. But if you can't look at anything
but your feet, you'd think it would make sense to walk straight.
Well, I'm going to look at my feet to make sure they go straight.
That's the worst thing you can do. You're going to be all over the
place if you're looking at your feet. Well, I've got to make
sure my feet walk straight. Don't look at them then. Don't look
at them, and that's a picture now. You want to walk straight
before God, don't look at your walk. It's not ever going to
be straight. And the more you look at it,
the crookeder you're going to walk. To walk before God. This woman
started out this passage only able to look at her own feet.
And I'm sure she didn't walk real straight without some help.
But then, you know what I think she saw next? And this is just
me talking. This is just a picture. And really kind of me speculating,
I guess. But I'm pretty sure when he called
her to him, you know what she saw next? She saw his feet. She's
still looking down. But don't you reckon that she
wanted to acknowledge who was talking to her in some way and
see something? Now you're looking in the right
place. Don't look at what you do. Look at what he did. Look at his walk. And I don't want to speculate,
but Christ comes to her and she's still bowed over, but even looking
down, she'd want to see what she could of Him who spoke to
her. And so I suspect there's little
doubt that she saw His feet, His walk. Now that's our hope. Look at Galatians chapter 2.
There is a righteousness in which you can stand before God now.
It's not yours. And it's the only righteousness
there is. When you talk about your righteousness, that's just
a misnomer unless you're referring to Him. That's just a contradiction,
unless you're referring to Him. Galatians 2.14, But when I saw that they walked
not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto
Peter before them all, if thou being a Jew livest after the
manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou
the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? And you know I suspect
the Apostle Peter was a believer. But Paul said you're not walking
uprightly. Do you still have that problem?
Well I'm a believer Chris, of course I walk uprightly. Nah,
you don't. You know what you still need
to be doing? Looking to Him. And that's what Paul said, look
at it. We who are Jews by nature are not sinners of the Gentile,
knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but
by the faith of Jesus Christ, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. By the work, the will, the way
of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified. That's how you're going to walk
upright before God. By grace through faith in Him
who did. The only one who did. The only
man who ever walked upright before God and is ever going to. In
this world. not by the works of the law,
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if,
while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also
are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God
forbid! For if I build again the things
which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I, through
the law, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God."
How am I going to live unto God? How am I going to be upright
before God? I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. And the life which I now live,
I live in the flesh. I live by the faithfulness of
the Son of God, who loved me. and gave himself for me, I do
not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by
the law, in other words, if righteousness is done by me, then Christ is
dead in vain. God forbid, I am crucified with
Christ. You know that's a very mysterious
verse. I'm crucified with Christ, yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. You know,
I'm not sure I understand everything about that. It's mysterious,
isn't it? But you know what I do understand?
Not I, but Christ. I got that part, didn't you? By God's grace I got that. We'd
miss that if not for His grace. I know this, it's Him. He's my
life. He's my life right now. He's
going to be my life then. He was my life when He first
said, He was my life before I ever knew Him. He's my life. So like this woman, we've got
to look away from our walk and look to His. And where does she end up this
passage looking? I don't think this is even speculation. I'm pretty sure she's looking
right at his face. Don't you think? Right at his face. You reckon he did this for her
and she didn't look at him? She couldn't see His face before.
You can't see the glory of God. You know nothing. We can't enter
into the kingdom of God. We can't see the kingdom of God
until we're born again, until we're given life and faith in
God's Son. And she ended up looking into
His face. And when the story began, though,
she couldn't see Him. But it says, he saw her. Did
you notice that? That's my testimony. He saw me. And he had compassion on me.
And he called me to himself. And I imagine she wasn't a very
noticeable person being bowed over. And there's a crowd there
at the synagogue, I'm sure. Quite a few people in there.
It was rough times for the Jews, you know, and people, when things
are hard, people like to go to church. I imagine there's a pretty
good crowd there. And she was bowed over. A lot of people probably
didn't even see her. If anything, she was just in
their way, but the Lord saw her out of all the others. It doesn't
say he saw anybody else but her. Even the idiot that confronted
him, it doesn't say he saw him. And it never says that she asked
for help or acknowledged the Lord in any way. Now often sinners
did in the scriptures. Bartimaeus cried out to the Lord
as he walked by. But we have cases like this woman's. And like the lame man at the
pool of Bethesda who the Lord just walked up to out of a crowd
of people that were waiting to go down into that water after
the angel stirred the water because whoever would get down there
first would be healed of whatever disease or infirmity they had.
And that man was just laying there among many and the Lord
just walked up to him and said, would you be made whole out of everybody else there?
And the man in John 9, it says that the Lord Jesus saw a man
which was blind. He saw a man who couldn't see. That's my testimony. A man which was blind from his
birth. And we have these examples, these pictures to show how that
Christ comes to us first. We're going to come to Christ
if we're His. We're going to cry out, Jesus, Thou Son of David,
have mercy on me. Like the prodigal son, we're
going to come to ourselves and realize we're sitting in the
pig pen. When we have a father who feeds his servants better
than this. But also, like in that same parable, we're the
lost coin that's just going to lay there. until the place is
swept and we're found. Like the sheep in that same parable.
You know there's no such thing as the parable of the prodigal
son. There's the parable of the son, the coin, and the sheep. And in the other two parts of
that parable, Christ comes where we are. We're
going to come to him, but he comes first. He comes first,
and that's pictured here beautifully in this text. In our experience, we see him
and we cry out for mercy. But what we don't see is that
God had his eye on us from eternity. I see that now, but I didn't
then. We're bound to give thanks always
to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God, beloved
of the Lord, when did that happen? From the beginning, He picked
you out, chosen you to salvation through the means of sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. He picked you out from
the start. And then it says, He called her
to Him, whom He did foreknow, Then he also did predestinate,
and whom he did predestinate, them he also called. Sure did. Called her to him. And this is
the gospel call that must be obeyed. This is the powerful
gospel call. Many are called, but few are
called and chosen. And I didn't misquote that. It's not that those who are chosen
are not called, they are. Many are called though with a
general call, with just the gospel goes out to many. But some of
those who are called are also chosen of God and brought to
Christ. He said, my sheep hear my voice.
He didn't say, I hope they will. They hear me and they follow
me. That's what this woman pictures.
And it's simple isn't it? Simple. My sheep hear my voice
and they follow me. Well doesn't everybody have a
chance to follow him? Salvation not by chance. It's
by choice and not yours. It's by his choice. At first all she could do is
follow the sound of his voice. She's all bowed over, but she
heard Him. And that's a picture too. There's a lot of instruction
in it. Because that's how He calls us to Himself. By His Word. You might see a vision or something.
Just ignore that. You probably ate the wrong thing
the night before. If you're going to see Him, it's going to happen
this way. Faith cometh by hearing. And
hearing by the Word of God. The message of the gospel is
Christ calling his people to himself. Come to Christ for rest. Come to Christ for righteousness.
Come to him for forgiveness, for life. Come to Christ. And she did. I just quoted 2 Thessalonians 2.13.
Listen to this now. I just quoted Let me remind you, we're bound
to give thanks all the way to God for you, brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth. You're gonna hear the gospel
and believe it, but it's because he chose you a long time ago.
And listen to the next verse. Whereunto he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what happened in our text.
He saw you. He knew you. He chose you from
eternity. And then one day he called you
to himself by the preaching of the gospel of himself. He said in verse 12, woman, you
are set free. You are loosed from your infirmity. You are set free from your weakness. He wasn't asking. He wasn't inviting. He was saving. That's what our
Savior does. He saves. He don't offer. He don't invite. He don't make
available. He saves people. He may just
save somebody here this morning. I have high hopes that He will. May just save somebody this morning,
but I tell you this. It's by His power. It's by His
grace. It's by His gift. It's Christ. Saving. You're loosed. You're
set free. It's done. And then He laid His
hands on her. You remember what our Lord said in
Luke 8.46? It says Jesus said, Somebody have touched me. That
woman with the issue of blood, she pressed through the throng
of people. And she was weak. She had been sick for years. It was just getting worse. She
had spent everything she had, and she had gotten worse. And
she said, if I can just touch the hem of his garment, I'll
be made whole. That's faith that he gives now.
And she pressed through that throng, and she touched him,
and he said, somebody touched me. For I perceive that virtue is
gone out of me. I'll give you three guesses what
that word virtue means. Strength. What was her problem? Weakness. What was the answer? Strength. Whose strength? His. Now this is just about as
simple as it gets. That's the gospel now. Seeing
we have such hope. Seeing that this real, wonderful,
vital hope is so precious and so, I started to say life-changing,
but you can't change somebody's life who don't have life. It's
life-giving. See, and we have a hope like
that. Paul said, we say it just as plain as we can. Because that's
the way God has declared His Gospel. You can in no wise, but
here He comes and He can. You can't be saved. Did you know
that? Our Lord said that. I wouldn't
say that if He didn't. The disciples said, who then can be saved?
And He said, it's impossible with men. But with God, all things are
possible. Strength, strength has gone out
of me. And we know now that in order
for his strength to be transferred to us, and this is a picture
now, remember, spiritually speaking, what's transferred to us is righteousness,
holiness before God, life before God. But we know in order for his
strength to be transferred to us, our sin has to be transferred
to him. He had to take my weakness, my
sinfulness, my guilt. Who his own self bear our sins
in his own body. His strength came into that woman's
body. And that was just a picture now.
That was just the healing of her body. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness
By whose stripes you were healed he was punished and you were
healed And immediately it says immediately
She was made straight What a picture. Don't you love these beautiful,
simple pictures of the gospel? Of the power of Christ to save. His willingness to save. The
man there that day who was supposed to be speaking for God didn't
want to see this happen. Who cares what he wanted? Immediately she was made straight.
Not straighter. straight. Everything that made
her bowed and helpless and twisted, all that that pictures was done
away with. It was gone. And she was straight. She was something that only he
could be. But because of him, she was now. Before God, she
stood straight before God. Upright before God. That's the picture now of those
who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation,
no crookedness, nothing to condemn for those who are in Christ Jesus
now. And listen to this. The Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord will give grace and
glory. No good thing will he withhold.
Boy, that sounds good, doesn't it? God's going to give grace
and glory to somebody. He's going to be their sun. He's
going to be their light and their warmth and their life. And he's
gonna be their shield, he's gonna protect them and encompass them
about and not let anything, not even let a hair of their head
fall to the ground without his will. Not even a dog will wag
their tongue at them because of him. And he's gonna give them
his grace and his glory and not one good thing, not one good
thing will he ever not give them. Who's he talking about? Them
that walk uprightly. Those who are in Christ. spiritual
blessings in heavenly places Ephesians 1 3 to those who are
in Christ Jesus in no other way are you upright before God except
in Christ Jesus and nothing is more true than that which is
true in him you remember that there is nothing more true than
what is true in Christ And she glorified God. Have you
done any of that lately? Have I? She glorified God. Everybody who He saves does.
They won't glorify this flesh. They're not going to say, look
at my wonderful works, look what I did, I made a decision, I did
this. No, they're going to glorify God. Of course this religious leader
didn't like Christ saving people. Religious people love Christ
giving everybody a chance. Now this is just the simple truth
now. And you know it and I know it. They love it when Jesus gives
everybody a chance. They don't like him saving anybody.
Oh no. No, no, he can't do that. That's
not fair. How can he save some and not others? Those who are
saved by Him, you know what they ask? How in the world could He
save anybody? How in the world could He save
a worm like me? Why didn't He throw every one
of us in hell where we belong? That's just the truth, isn't
it? That's what we deserve. He said that to that woman of
Canaan. It wouldn't be right to have mercy on you. She said,
boy, that's the truth, Lord, but I want some anyway. Don't
you? I sure do want some. I need it. I've got to have it.
Got to have it. Everybody who gets saved by Christ
glorifies God in Christ. But it was a problem for somebody.
The most religious person there. Religion hates God's son this
world's religion Especially religious people hate and God's son who
saves who he wants to save he can't just walk up to somebody
and save him that ain't fair That doesn't seem fair to you
because you don't know God and you don't know who what you are
you don't know yourself If that's the way you feel about it Now
if this man could have taken some credit for it it would have
been different wouldn't it If he could have taken some credit
or benefited in some way, he'd have been fine with her being
healed on the Sabbath day. That's what our Lord called him
out on. You'll take your oxen and take
them down to the watering hole on the Sabbath day. Why? Because
that benefits you. We can't have our oxen getting
sick. That's my livelihood, hypocrite. The Lord calls us out, doesn't
he? Notice in verse 16 that the Lord
said she ought, she ought to be saved. You know what that
word means? You look it up. It means it's
necessary. There wasn't any question. This
was already, her name was written in the book. The Lord had an
appointment with her from before the foundation of the world. Not only was it the right thing
to do, it had to happen. It was necessary. Because the
Lord had ordained it. And he gave one reason for that,
and I know I've gone too long. He gave one reason, you know
what it is? She's a daughter of Abraham. You reckon there
were any other Jews there that day? You think that may have
confused anybody? It was in the synagogue. She's
a daughter of Abraham. Well, everybody around here is
a Jew. That's not what he's saying. Galatians, Paul said in Galatians,
look at, well, in John 8, 39, Jesus answered the Jews. They
answered and said to the Lord Jesus, listen to this, this is
John 8, 39. The Jews said, Abraham is our
father. And Jesus said unto them, if
you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
They said, we're Jews. And he said, no, you're not.
You're not Jews. He said that to the Jews. You're
not Jews if you were. And then in Galatians 3 6 Paul said
even as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for
righteous know you therefore that they which are of faith
the same are the children of Abraham. It don't matter where
you were born. You believe God. You're a spiritual Jew. You're
God's elect. You're that you're a Jew in the
real sense of the word. Galatians 329, and if you be
Christ's, if you belong to him, then you are Abraham's seed and
heirs according to the promise. That's written to the Galatians. It don't matter where you're
born. What matters is are you born again by the Spirit of God,
born from above. Verse 17, when He had said these
things, all His adversaries were ashamed, and all the people rejoiced
for all the glorious things. Look at those last beautiful
words, that were done by Him. That's what Paul said in Galatians
6, 12. He said, many desire to make
a fair show in the flesh. That's this ruler of the synagogue
that the Lord dealt with. He's wanting to make a fair show
in the flesh. They constrain you to be circumcised. They require
you to keep the law for righteousness, only lest they should suffer
persecution for the cross of Christ. They're not going to
preach the truth because they'll suffer for it. For neither they themselves
who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised,
that they may glory in your flesh, in your works. Glory in their
own, and they glory in yours. But Paul said, God forbid that
I should glory in your flesh, my flesh, any flesh. God forbid
that I should glory, save in what he did. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom the world is crucified unto me. and out into the world. May we rejoice this day in the
things done by Him. In the wonderful redeeming work
He accomplished on that cross for us. Now let's pray together. Our gracious Lord, thank you
for your word, and I pray, Lord, that every word spoken in this
message would point us to our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
away from self, away from our works and will and way, and cause
us to look unto Him, who is the author and finisher of our faith. I pray you'd shut us up, Lord,
and keep us shut up. to the Son of God. May we not
ever glory in anything or anybody else. Thank you for this church,
Lord. Bless us. Be with those that
are sick and troubled in other ways. Bless this food, Lord,
that you've given us that we're about to enjoy. We know it's
directly from your hand. And all these blessings, Lord,
are ours in Christ Jesus. In his precious name we pray.
Amen. Amen. You're dismissed. you