If you would turn with me this
morning to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 4. Luke, chapter 4. After being tempted of the devil,
the Lord Jesus returns into Galilee, where He had been raised. And verse 14 tells us that Jesus
returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee. And there
went out a fame of him through all the region round about. Everybody was talking about Jesus. He was the talk of the town,
hometown boy done good. There was a fame of him, the
scripture says. Fame. He had become famous throughout
all the region. His name had become a household
word. But very few knew who he really
was. And it's the same today. A lot
of folks talk about him. He's famous among multitudes. But very few really know Him. Verse 15, we're told, and He
taught in their synagogues, being glorified, and that word means
honored or magnified of all. And He came to Nazareth, where
He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went
into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read. Now this is where the Lord had
spent His childhood days. This is where the Lord had grown
into a man. Everybody knew Him and His family.
Just a hometown boy. When the Lord came to Nazareth,
we're told as His custom was, He'd done this many times, the
last part of verse 16, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath
day, and he stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written. Now he deliberately
chose this place to read. He found the place where it was
written, which by the way is Isaiah chapter 61, verse one,
which read, verse 18, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. because
he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath
sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to preach, to preach, the acceptable year
of the Lord. And he closed the book and he
gave it again to the minister and sat down. And the eyes of
all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them,
this day is this scripture. fulfilled in your ears. Now we
need to understand what has just happened here. The Lord Jesus,
a local boy, had just returned home. He had left quietly and
returned famous. Many had known him, but now everybody
wanted to see him. There probably wasn't any empty
seats in the synagogue that day. Everybody wanted to see him.
And it was because of the things that they had heard One says
to another, I heard he turned water into wine. Another said,
I heard he made a blind man to see. Someone else said, I heard
that he cast out devils. And another said, I heard he
raised the dead. They all wondered what he would do here. This was
his hometown. Surely he would do some great
miracle there. Now I'm not sure of all the miracles
that the Lord had done up to this point, but it appears that
this was not the first of our Lord's ministry. He had preached
elsewhere and had wrought miracles before he came back home to Nazareth,
which undoubtedly the people had heard and they desired for
him to do the same miracles here. And that becomes even more apparent
when you think about what the scriptures say when they speak
of all the Lord's miracles. The Scriptures say that if they
were all written down, the whole world couldn't contain the books
that would be written. So, what happens next? Remember, all eyes are upon Him.
The Lord goes into His hometown synagogue in Nazareth, and He's
handed the scroll of Isaiah, and He reads a portion of the
Scripture that He deliberately picked, a passage of Scripture
that they'd all heard before, There was only one thing that
the Lord added this time that was very, very different. This
passage in Isaiah spoke of the coming Messiah. And when the
Lord read it on this day, He added this. He said, today, this
day, is this scripture fulfilled in your ears? In other words,
I am the Messiah. I am the Christ of God. And verse 22, we're told, and
all bear witness and wondered and marveled and admired the
gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. But understand
this, just because they wondered, marveled, and admired the gracious
way he spoke does not at all mean that they believed him. I think that's very obvious by
the question that they ask next. They said, is this not Joseph's
son? Where did Joseph's boy get all
this education? Joseph couldn't afford that kind
of formal training. Where did a carpenter learn to
speak so convincingly? Where did he learn such deep
doctrinal letters? This was astonishing to them.
They wondered at his gracious words. Yet in the back of their
mind, they're thinking, that's the boy that fixed my table in
the carpenter shop. I went to school with his sister
while I used to hang out with his brothers. And then in verse
23, and he said unto them, ye will surely say unto me this
proverb, physician, heal thyself. Now this was a saying, a proverb
among the Jews. It basically meant you tend to
yourself. We're doing fine on our own. Start your healing process at
home with your own family. We're doing okay. We're not poor
and brokenhearted. We don't need deliverance. We're not blind. We can see fine.
We're not being held captive by anyone or anything. You did
miracles in Capernaum. You showed them honor and respect
as a prophet of God. And then you come here and you
read a few verses of Scripture and tell us how poor, wretched,
blind, and lost we are. Physician, heal thyself. And
in verse 24, he said, Verily I say unto you, no prophet is
accepted in his own country. Now our Lord openly rebukes them
and He blames them as the very cause of preventing Him from
exercising His power and working of miracles among them. They
simply did not believe Him. They didn't accept Him. For no
prophet is accepted in his own country. Now these hometown folks
couldn't get past their feelings and their thoughts toward Christ. The Lord Jesus had declared that
He was the Messiah who had come from God to save His people from
their sin, but they didn't believe Him. What's the first thing out
of their mouth? Well, isn't this Joseph's son?
How could He be the Messiah? The Lord declared that He had
been sent to bring the gospel, good tidings of good things. That's what the word gospel means,
good tidings of good things. that He came to heal the broken
hearted, to give deliverance to their captive souls. And what
did they say? No thank you. We're doing quite
alright on our own. And then He tells them something
that changes everything in this hometown homecoming. These are
the comments that changed this homecoming into a lynching. What
were they? Well, I'm going to tell you what
it is up front. It was the Lord's comments concerning the sovereignty
of God in salvation. Who does the saving? Who gives
the mercy? Who has the compassion? Who does
the calling? You're going to bow to this glorious
truth or remain in your sin. You cannot deny this fact and
still be saved. God is going to cause a believer
to say unequivocally, salvation is of the Lord. Those of you
who know God, those of you who trust Christ will be the first
to say salvation is of the Lord. It's all His doing, none of mine.
Now here's what the Lord said that filled them with wrath.
Verse 25. He said, But I tell you of a
truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three
years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the
land. But unto none of them was Elias sent. save unto Sarepta,
a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow." God passed
over all the widows in Israel. God sent His prophet to a Gentile
woman. And all the widows of His chosen
nation were passed by. And God fed and saved one Gentile
woman. Do you know why the Lord did
that? because He was pleased to do so. Even so, Father, it
seemed good in Thy sight. Salvation is God's prerogative. It's God's right to save whom
He will. It's God's choice to save whom He will. His choice
is not based on anything in the center. Have we learned that
yet? How do I know that? Because that's
what this book teaches. You've got Jacob and Esau being
not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, the scripture
says. That the purpose of God, the
purpose of God, according to election, might stand. Not of
works, but of Him that calleth. Does anybody talk or care about
the purpose of God anymore? The gospel's never been about
what the sinner wants. The gospel is all about what
God wants. He works all things after the
counsel of His own will. And all those things He predestinated
and predetermined. Oh, that's a word to fill people
with wrath. God always gets His way in the
armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. Sadly,
men and women don't like the idea. Now, if there's one thing
that a sinner needs to learn, it's this. God saves whom He
wills. His choice is based on nothing
more than His own sovereign will. Do you believe that? The Lord
did not set His love upon you nor choose you because you were
more. More in number, more in talent,
more in anything. It simply pleased the Lord to
make you His people for His own great name's sake. That's where we have to start
in this matter of salvation. The Lord God is sovereign in
salvation. He saves whom He wills. He has
mercy on whom He wills. Isn't that what He said? Look
at verse 27. He goes on to drive this point
even further. He said, and many lepers were
in Israel in the time of Elijah the prophet, and none of them,
none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian. In the days
of Elijah, oh, there were many suffering with the loathsome
disease of leprosy all throughout Israel. But God sent his prophet
Elijah to one Gentile man, Naaman the Syrian, and he made him whole. Now, what does this tell us? Same thing. God saves whom He
wants to. God has mercy on whom He'll have
mercy. I think about that poor leper.
I love to think about him so much because I can identify with
him. He came to the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you remember what
he said? He said, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. So the first thing that we have
to consider concerning salvation The first thing that has to do
with a leper being cleansed is the will of God. Salvation is
of the Lord. Lord, if you will, you can. I know you can, but will you? The will of God is the first
thing required. Is God willing to have mercy
on you? Is God willing to cleanse you?
If God wills, He can make you clean because He can do anything.
and He can do everything. That's the God with whom we have
to do. You're going to have to understand that, first and foremost.
Men will eventually and yet reluctantly agree that God is sovereign in
creation. After all, God was the only one
in the beginning. He was the only one who could
have created the universe and all within. And men will eventually
yet reluctantly agree that God is sovereign in providence. Every
man and woman at some time in their life confesses that everything
happens for a reason. I hear people say that all the
time, that I know don't have an idea who God is. They'll say,
well, you know, everything happens for a reason and have no idea
why. Have you heard folks say, well,
this or that, it'll work out for the best. Well, maybe it
will and maybe it won't for you. I know this much, it'll work
out for the best for God's people because that's the promise of
God. All things work together for good to them who love the
Lord or who are the called according to His purpose. When it comes
to God's sovereignty in the matter of salvation, men and women will
fight you tooth and nail to prove that they had a hand in their
salvation. They don't think that God will
save a sinner apart from the sinner's cooperative will. I
don't understand that. And this is why I don't understand
it. God's word says, you will not come to me that you might
have life. You will not. You don't have
any desire, no will to come to me. God plainly says, so that
it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. How can it have anything to do
with the sinner's will, with man's will? God gave to some
the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe
on His name, which were born, born spiritually, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God." Now, is there anything about those verses that we don't
understand? Simple, simplicity. The problem
is we don't believe it. We don't believe it. Man, by
nature, doesn't believe that God is sovereign in the matter
of salvation. What must I do to be saved? It's
the first question I always ask. What must I do to be saved? And
when the Lord Jesus here showed them that God is not influenced
by any sinner's work of righteousness, but only because of His own sovereign
will, pleasure, and purpose, we see what happened next. Look at verse 28. And all they
in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with
wrath." How many of them were filled with wrath? All of them
in the synagogue. 100%. All of them. What filled them with wrath?
The things they heard. What did they hear that caused
such anger and such wrath? the sovereignty of God and salvation,
the words that God saves whom He wills. What did they do when
they heard these things? Verse 29, and they rose up and
they thrust Him, the Lord Jesus, out of the city and led Him up
unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they
might cast Him down headlong. They wanted to kill Him. You
tell sinners that God saves only those that He pleased to save
before the foundation of the world. That God saves only those
that He gave to Christ. And I'm telling you, it'll upset
them greatly. And we see here what man is capable of doing
if God leave a man to himself. But how will God's elect react?
I love the story of that woman of Canaan whose daughter was
devil-possessed. She came crying for mercy. What'd
the Lord do? He ignored her. I don't know
about you, but I don't take too well to being ignored. Not that
I think I'm special or anything, but I just confess to you that
when I say hello to somebody and they don't say hello back,
it kind of angers me a little bit. Like, well, you know. Say hello to somebody, they don't
even look at you. Have a good day, no response. But she came crying for mercy.
Why? Her daughter was devil-possessed.
And the Lord ignored her. He answered her not a word, the
Scripture says. And the disciples, they're over
there, they said, send her away. She crieth after us. No, no. She wasn't crying after them.
She was crying for mercy. She was crying for the grace
of Christ. She said, Lord, That's her cry. And what did
the Lord say to her? He said, I'm not sent, but unto
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. You know, I was thinking
about that verse as I read it. I wish those who believed in
universal salvation, universal redemption, would think about
that statement there of the Lord. The Lord plainly and simply said,
I am not sent, but unto I'm sent unto a particular people. I'm
sent unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And that's spiritual
Israel that He's talking about. Our Lord's talking about a specific
people. He's talking about lost sheep.
They are from the spiritual house of Israel. Not all of Israel
was saved. You know that and I know that.
But all were saved that were of spiritual Israel. And the
Lord also said to her, He said, It's not fit. It's not fit. It's not right for me to take
the children's bread. Whose bread? The children's bread. There's a distinction made here.
He said, It's not fit to take the children's bread and cast
it to dogs. Do you see the distinction? Those
whom God saves are children. Those to whom God has mercy are
children. Those who are not are dogs. I'm
so thankful that God made this dead dog sinner a child of the
King, just like He did old poor Mephibosheth. He said, you're
going to sit at my table the rest of your days. And that's
where I'm sitting. You remember what that poor woman
said when the Lord called her a dog? She agreed with him. She
said, yes, Lord. That's exactly right. I'm a dog. I'm a dog for certain. Truth,
Lord. Truth, Lord. That's the truth, Lord. Yet the
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the master's table.
Oh, friends, I'll take the crumbs of a dog if they're the crumbs
from the Lord's table any day. Won't you? I certainly will. And then the Lord said this,
O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou
wilt. And her daughter was made whole
from that very hour. Now I want to briefly tell you
what the gospel is. We talk about the gospel. Does
he preach the gospel? Are you hearing the gospel? What
is the gospel? I want to tell you what the gospel
is and I want to tell you who the gospel is for. Now in verse
18 here, we have the Gospel. The Lord is reading from Isaiah
chapter 61. And remember that our Lord preached
from the Old Testament. That was all that they had. And
in Isaiah 61, in prophecy, the Messiah speaks before He ever
came in the flesh. And then when Christ came into
the world, He stood this day and He read this very same passage
in Scripture, and He said when He was finished, this day is
this Scripture, this very minute is this Scripture fulfilled in
your ears. We see that in verse 21. Now it's very important to
understand that the Gospel, and I want to be careful how I say
this, but it's not a doctrine, it's not a teaching to be debated
and discussed. The Gospel is a proclamation. The Gospel is something that
is preached. Something that is published.
When the Lord says in verse 18 that God had anointed Him to
preach the Gospel, it's the same Greek word used in many other
places in the Scripture. And I am not good at pronouncing
Greek words, The word is euangelizo. Euangelizo. That's probably not
right. But it means to announce. It
means to declare. It means to bring. Remember the
angel said, I bring unto you good tidings. It means to show. It means to publish. In Luke chapter one, verse 19,
when the angel said, I'm Gabriel that stands in the presence of
God and am sent to speak unto thee and to show thee these glad
tidings. God sent me to preach. God sent
me to show. God sent me to bring you glad
tidings. I came to preach. I came to proclaim. I came to show, to bring you
the gospel, the good news preached. Now the gospel, can only be preached. And preaching is only preaching
when it's the gospel. In Luke chapter two, we're close,
turn there. In verse 10, the angel of the
Lord said unto them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good
tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. You know, I
found it remarkable It's as if the two words gospel and preached
cannot be separated. They are the same Greek word.
Gospel and preach cannot be separated. And then I think about what Peter
said. He said, being born again, not
of corruptible seed, but incorruptible. And then he added this. He said,
by the Word of God. which liveth and abideth forever."
We preach the Word of God. Christ is the Word of God according
to John 1.1. Christ, the Word of God, is the
Gospel we preach. We preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. It pleased God by the foolishness
of what? Preaching to save them that believe. I heard someone recently say
that in their church service, the Spirit of God moved in such
a great way that the preacher never got around to preaching.
You know what I say to that? Don't blame it on the Spirit
of God. If the gospel wasn't preached, no one was saved. If
the gospel wasn't preached, no one was born again. I can assure
you of that. You know how I know that? Because
preaching is the means that God uses to save His elect who believe.
If there's no true preaching, there's no true saving. If there's
no incorruptible Word of God preached, there's no corruptible
sinner saved. Our message is a targeted message. Yes, it's preached to everyone
that'll hear. I know that. but it has a targeted
recipient. It's preached to the poor, the
spiritually poor, those who are in a poor spiritual condition. Our message is preached to the
broken hearted. Christ came to heal the broken
hearted. Friends, my heart is broken. It's not just contrite,
not just sad and sorry for the sin that plagues it, though it
certainly is that. I think sometimes to myself,
how can someone who professes to know God have such corruptness
in my heart? Do you ever feel that way? My
heart's messed up. It's broken over my sin. But
my heart's also defective. It's broken. It doesn't work
right. It's deceitful above all things.
It's desperately wicked. Every thought and imagination
of my heart is only evil continually. That's a heart that's broke.
My heart's so broke that it can't be fixed. It can't be reformed. People talk about reformation.
I can't reform it. It can't be fixed. It can't be
rebuilt. It can't be remodeled. This heart's
got to be replaced. God's got to give me a new heart.
And friends, this targeted message of the Gospel is for the captive. That's what I'm preaching to
you. I'm preaching to you deliverance from your captive state of sin. Deliverance from sin. Deliverance
from death. Deliverance from hell and the
grave. Like Israel and Egypt, by nature we're in bondage to
our sin. Israel was in slavery for over
400 years. That was all they knew. Israel
was in bondage to Pharaoh's law. Pharaoh was never satisfied.
There was always more to be done. There was never enough bricks.
Heavy, hard, rough, and burdensome bricks. Pharaoh always wants
and requires more bricks. The law of doing cannot be satisfied. The bricks are never enough.
The bricks are never good enough. I had a man ask me not long ago,
he said, well just how far do you think Adam fell? I said,
so far he couldn't get back. The Gospel is good news. There's
none good but God, so then this message of the Gospel had to
come from Him. It's called the Gospel of God.
Every good and perfect gift cometh from above. and cometh down from
the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, nor shadow
of turning." What is the subject of the Gospel? Good news. Good
news for the poor, for the brokenhearted, for the captive. Good tidings
of good things. It's good in its results. What's
the result of the Gospel? Eternal salvation. This is good
what? It's good news. News has to do
with publishing. Publishing has to do with reporting. And I'm not going to debate,
argue, or discuss the gospel like a good news reporter. I'm
just going to report it. I'm just going to publish it.
What I'm publishing to you today is a report of a finished work. It's a finished work. If you
don't believe it, then I'm telling you there's no hope for you.
Why? Because it's already settled. Christ died for the ungodly.
And if you don't think that you're all that bad, then you've rejected
the only news that'll save you. The gospel is for the ruined,
the gospel is for the rotten, the gospel is for the poor, the
sick, the blind, the lame, the helpless, the hopeless, the useless,
and the lifeless sinner. Does that describe you? If it
is, then I have good tidings of good things for you. We have
no righteousness to cover ourselves. We have no goodness to claim
for our own. You know what we've got? All
we've got is a debt of sin that we cannot pay. That's all we
have. The one thing that we have that
we can call our own is sin. And if you see that you are poor,
that you're needy, that you're helpless, that you're captive,
then maybe God has sent you a prophet, a preacher, to report and to
show and to bring and preach good tidings of good things to
you. Oh, I pray that's the case. Who hath believed our report?
Only those whom God sovereignly gives grace through faith. And
faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word, and the revelation
of Holy Scripture. Oh, how I pray that God may be
pleased to save a sinner today. Lord, would you save a sinner
today for your own glory and honor? Maybe He will.