Let's be turning to Luke chapter
13. Luke 13. What we're gonna do is we're
gonna begin by reading through this passage here, and I'll make
a few remarks, and then we're gonna go back through it a second
time, and you'll see why. So let's begin in verse 10. Luke
13, verse 10. And he was teaching, our Lord
was teaching, in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 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." Here's a woman with a severe
infirmity, something that you can imagine would be very challenging
to have in this life, to be productive and to do the things that you
need to do and to be able to live on your own. She had this
infirmity, and she would have looked very pitiful, very pitiful. When it says that she was bowed
down, what that means is that she was bowed forward. She would
have been like this. and you're walking like this
all the time, just like that, just bowed down. It would have
been very pitiful looking to see her in that shape. I actually remember seeing a
woman many, many years ago in my 20s like that. And she was
at a place working where it looked like they, if I remember correctly,
they made wood chips and things like that. And that's where she
worked. She was one of the workers. bent down in a 90 degree shape
like that. And so you can imagine this woman
had some physical obstacles, physical challenges to deal with
just for her to be there in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. And yet there she is. There she
is. She came in to the synagogue
in that pitiful looking state. because she wanted to be there. She wanted to be there to hear
and to worship the Lord and to be with the people of God. And you can imagine what that
would be, what kind of an encouragement that would be to the brethren
to see her, that sister, come in week after week though she
has that infirmity, she's coming. She's coming, and she's bearing
it. And she's bearing this infirmity, as it says, for 18 years. And so, in one sense, let that
be an encouragement to us, who have various infirmities, various
sufferings, various difficulties in this flesh, and yet, you're
here. You that suffer. you that struggle,
you that have reasons that this world has no problem making for
themselves, to excuse themselves. And it's far less than what keeps
many of the people of God from being here. But she came. And in that hard, horrible-looking
condition and the difficulties that would present to her being
there, And so our Lord shows us this woman, bowed down, bowed
together, unable to lift herself up, an infirmity of 18 years,
and she didn't let it stop her from coming to the synagogue
to worship the Lord. You that have your infirmities,
your difficulties, your reasons, it's a mercy of God to give you
the strength and to bring you here, and whether you realize
it or not, it's an encouragement to your brethren. It's a help
to the body for you to be here. It's an encouragement. It's an
encouragement, and I'm thankful for that. And you think of what
a constant faith that was that she had. which is given to her
by the Lord, right, to strengthen her, to keep her coming patiently
to worship the Lord and to make her, to show us this, to do this
in her. for us even today to be encouraged
and strengthened by this faith which he gave her. I'm reminded
of this warning that our Lord gave when he said, and shall
not God avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto
him? though he bear long with them. The Lord bears long with us,
often in our infirmities and the difficulties that we have
according to his purpose. And the Lord said, I tell you,
he will avenge them speedily, speedily. And when he comes,
it'll be like that. and all is well. But he asks,
nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith
on the earth?" And I'm just reminded by that statement when our Lord
says to us, O ye of little faith, little faith, and how patient
he is, how gracious he is, how loving, how long-suffering he
is with his children while he teaches us in the way for our
good, and to help us and to strengthen us as we go. So when you're tempted
to despair, I say this not to discourage you, but to encourage
you. It's an encouragement to your brethren to be here, and
it's a strengthening to the body. It's a healing to the body. Though
you bear with your infirmity, it's a help, and it's a comfort
to the body of our Lord, you being here. And then, we see
the grace of our Lord, who before she sought him, he sought her. He sought her. It says that he
saw her and called her. And when he called her, he declares
the first thing out of his mouth. The first thing he does is he
declares to her, her deliverance. He declares to her her accomplished
salvation. He declares to her that she is
loosed from her infirmity. It was already accomplished before
she ever knew it. Woman, thou art loosed from thine
infirmity. And then, then he brings it home
to her experience. You see the order there? She's
already delivered. She's loosed. And then he lays
his hands on her, and she stands up straight and glorifies God.
That is the way of salvation. We are delivered by the grace
of our God. We are delivered by the work,
by the accomplished redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ, though
we don't know it. until he reveals it to us, and
then he makes us to experience that deliverance. He brings that
home to our hearts, and he delivers us from our sin infirmity. And then we see that speediness
that the Lord spoke of when he says, when the Lord does come,
he'll avenge them speedily. It says that immediately, right,
she was made straight and glorified God. It was an immediate impact. There was an immediate work of
his grace. As soon as he touched her, she
stood up and immediately glorified God. We see the work of our Lord
in doing this. And all this then brings out
the hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of the self-righteous religionist. Seeing this, hypocrisy in the
heart of man is witnessed. Look at verse 14. And the ruler
of the synagogue answered with indignation. He didn't like this
at all. He wasn't glorifying God. He hated this. Because that Jesus
had healed on the Sabbath day. and said unto the people, there
are six days in which men ought to work, and them therefore come
and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. You notice how religion
attracts the self-righteous, right? Religion brings in the
self-righteousness. And out of that, the hard view
that we see of that woman, what's more ugly, what's more horrible
is the hypocrisy in this man's heart that was revealed there.
That's where the true horror is. That's where we see the awful
condition of man. is in this man's heart and what
he says. He's seeking to defend a day
while despising the Lord of the Sabbath. He's despising him of
whom this day testifies and pictures and witnesses. It speaks of Christ,
where sinners, burdened with the infirmity of this flesh,
the infirmity of sin, find rest for their souls. The Sabbath
day was given as a day of rest. And it pictures him who is the
rest of the people of God. Him in whom we cease from all
our labors trying to justify ourselves. So the Sabbath rest
isn't a day. It's a person. It's a person. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. And this man despises Christ. He wants to work for himself.
He wants to labor for his justification. He wants to strive and spend
and show God what he can do to justify himself rather than than
looking to the salvation that God has provided in his son Jesus
Christ. And so the other thing we see
here is just the cruelty of this man. This ruler of the synagogue
is a cruel man. He's got a cold, hard, wicked
heart. He's just very cruel to despise
the grace of God shown to this woman. And the Lord points out,
she's a daughter of Abraham, in verse 16. We'll see that.
She's a daughter of Abraham, who waited 18 years. And he says,
well, let's let her wait a little longer. Let's put her out. Let's let her wait a little longer,
if he had his way. And then he sought to discredit
and shame Christ in it, as though Christ had done something wrong. pouring out His grace and love
upon this woman, this salvation wrought for her. But our Lord
comes to the defense of His people. Look at verse 15 and 16. The
Lord then answered him and said, Thou hypocrite, Doth not each
one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall
and lead him away to watering? Aren't you doing a work to show
mercy and kindness and care for your animals that are under your
care? Don't you do that, even though
that's a work? And ought not this woman, being
a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound lo these eighteen
years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? And so who
is it that silences the accuser? The Lord Jesus Christ. If your
sin is laying into you and showing you what a wicked, wretched,
fallen creature you are, and the ugliness of your sin The
way that voice is silenced is in and by the Lord Jesus Christ
alone. He silences the accuser. We're
no match for the accuser. We crumble before the accusations
and the guilt and shame of our own sin. We know what we are
in this. But Christ and Christ alone is able to silence the
voice of the accuser that comes against us. and would shut us
up in darkness and in a prison of sin and death and keep us
there and never let us out. Christ is the one that delivers
his people. Christ is the defender of his
people. Christ is the savior of his people. He silences the voice of the
accuser so that his people rejoice in him. Verse 17. And when he
had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed. They were ashamed, they were
silenced, they had nothing more to say. And all the people rejoiced
for all the glorious things that were done by him. Now, this is
what the Lord did for this woman in that day and for those people
to see in that time. That being said, our Lord still
works and accomplishes this miracle in His people to this day. This is the miracle of salvation
being pictured to us, being shown to us of how the Lord Jesus Christ
saves His people to the uttermost. And so, I want to look at these
words again, to see and behold the miracles which our Lord is
accomplishing in his people, by his power, by his grace, by
his word, and by his hand, doing for us what we cannot do for
ourselves. And he does this. So I want to
show you this, how the Lord delivers us, his people, from the bondage
of sin and death that we see pictured here in this woman.
So let's go back and read verses 10 and 11. Luke 13, verse 10
and 11. And he was teaching in one of
the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman
which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed
together, she was bowed forward, bowed leaning forward, and could
in no wise lift up herself. This is a picture of the awful
state of man. This is what we are in Adam. We are bowed down in sin. We are bent down in sin. If you notice, I was thinking
about this 18 years, the Lord says. Why 18 years? And I kept
thinking about it and thinking about it and 18 years and then
it struck me Three sixes make 18, right? And 666 is the number
of man in Revelation. It's the number of man. And what
is the number? If number seven is perfection,
if it's completeness, if God is 777, as it were, his perfect
righteousness, holy, holy, holy perfection, man is, we're told
that man's number is 666, means he's always coming up short. He is less than perfect. No matter
what he does, he comes up short of the holiness and the perfect
righteousness of God. That's what's being declared
here. She is coming up short of perfection. And that's us,
brethren. We have an infirmity of sin. The scriptures declare that we
are all, by nature in Adam, dead in trespasses and sins. We're
dead in trespasses and sins. What does a dead man do? Nothing. He can't get up. He can't worship
God. He can't make things right. He's
dead. And that's our spiritual nature,
dead, dead. Sure, you see the physical bodies.
And that makes you think we can do something. But spiritually,
we are dead in that. And we are 666. We come up short
of the perfection and the holiness of God continually. No end. This woman, like this woman,
we are bowed down. We are weighed down with sins
and infirmity and the pollution of it. And that horrible picture
is what the Lord sees in the people of Adam, those born of
Adam, in their nature. that bent towards sin, that leaning
over, unable to lift ourselves up, unable to look upon God,
unable to do what is right, unable to heal ourselves, unable to
cure ourselves, unable to make ourselves straight and presentable
to the King. Paul said it this way, For to
will is present with me, but how to perform it, that which
is good, I find not." And he's speaking as a believer there.
In this flesh, we're not even able to straighten ourselves
out. Even after faith has come, we can't straighten ourselves
out. We need the grace of God. We need him to cover our sins,
to cleanse us of sins, to give us a spirit to turn us and to
keep us. We need him to do that because
We don't do it. We can't do it in this flesh.
Now think of how incompetent this woman must have been with
so many things in her life. I mean, she probably figured
things out. She made it. She did what she could, but she
was incompetent to just do the things that other people could
do. And that's how we are with the
things of God, unable. We might try. We might try to
do our best. but we keep coming up short. And the scriptures tell us that
all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Romans 3.23. And the scriptures tell us that
there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none good, none
righteous, no, not one. There's none that seeketh after
God. There's none that does right. before the Lord. The prophet
Jeremiah asked it this way. He said, can the Ethiopian change
his skin or the leopard his spots? Can that happen? No. Then may
ye also, if that can happen, then you can also do good that
are accustomed to do evil. And the prophet says it that
way. Jeremiah said it that way. Because
man thinks, well, if I got to fix something, if I got to straighten
up, I'll straighten up. I can straighten up for God.
Well, this woman couldn't straighten up, and that's us by nature.
You can't straighten up. I can't straighten up. God isn't
waiting for us to repent of all our sins before we can come to
Him. The repentance he gives is to turn from that nonsense,
to turn from thinking I can turn myself and start doing good.
That's not what saves us. Jesus Christ saves his people.
He turns us and he turns our eyes to him in faith to see him. That we would go to Him for all
our life. Not first fixing ourselves. If
you have to fix yourself first, you'll never come. You'll never
come because you'll never fix yourself. You'll never do it. You might change a few things.
You might make it look prettier or smell prettier. It's still
garbage. It's still dead. It's still your
works, which you cannot save. So we need a Savior to save us. And the one whom the Father sent
is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Savior given to us
by God to save us from our sins. He said in Luke 5, verse 31 and
32, they that are whole, right? He's talking to sinners. He's
come for sinners. And he said, they that are whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. It's his glorious
work. Just like he came, he went past
the ruler of the synagogue and didn't do anything for him, because
that man's not sick. But he went to the poor woman,
bent down, unable to straighten herself up and look upon God. He did it. He did it for her.
That's who he came to save. There's many in religion who
are certain they know God. But Christ is revealing who he
came for. He came for the sinner. Not to
encourage you to go and do more sin, but to stop and to hear,
to look to him who is so merciful and gracious and patient for
his people who are yet dead in their sins. And He's able to
give life. He's able to straighten us up
by His grace and power, not in an outward hypocritical sense
like so many in religion are, but in a true heart by His Spirit
of grace to believe Him and to confess Him and to cry out to
Him for grace and mercy, because we cannot save ourselves. Now,
verse 12 and 13. 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. You see, we see here how Christ
came to her. He came to this woman. He passed
by many in that synagogue and went to this woman because our
God has a people whom he chose. We don't know who they are, but
he knows who they are, and he comes to them, and he brings
this word effectually to their hearts. In Ephesians 1, verse
4 and 5, it says that it's according as God hath chosen us in Christ
before the foundation of the world. So we would know it's
not because you did good or did better or fixed yourself. God
chose us before the foundation of the world, before we did any
good or evil. God chose whom he would, that
we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself according to the good pleasure of his will. So that
God predestinated that we with all the others in Adam would
all fall in sin, that we might be adopted, delivered, saved
by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we don't know
who the chosen are, but God does. And he reveals who they are by
revealing faith in their heart to look to Christ. to see their
need of Christ. That's how the children know
the Father, and know that He has called them by Him doing
the work. He does it in us. He's the one
who brings us to pass in our hearts as it pleases Him, so
that we come with different-looking infirmities, but we're all trophies
of His grace. This one comes from that way.
This one has this struggle and trial. This one comes from this
family. This one comes from this part
of the world. We all come from different backgrounds,
and yet it's all by the grace of God that we are each delivered
from our sin and saved by him as a trophy of his grace. So
that where one person uses their troubles and trials as an excuse,
The child saved by grace glorifies God and says, the Lord, it didn't
stop me. I mean, it didn't stop them because
God worked it in them. God was gracious and reveals
his grace in the hearts of his people. And so the point here
is that with this woman, Christ didn't wait for her to see him
and come to him. He went to her first. He sought
her out, and that's how the Lord does it. We don't seek him, he
seeks us, and then we begin to have an interest. It may seem
like you had the interest first, but he caused things in your
life to show you your sin, to show you your weakness, to show
you your need of him, to show you that you're dead, you're
condemned, that you're not just before God. that you might then
hear the grace of God in Christ. Our Lord tells us that no man
can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.
And those that come to him, he says, I will raise them up at
the last day. I will save them. I will bring
this home to their hearts. And so calling her to himself,
he tells her the good news that she is loosed from her bonds. This is as the gospel. This is
the word of the gospel, which is made good news to you that
are sinners, to you that are infirmed in the flesh with sin. Bent down, unable to save yourselves. This is good news to you that
are crippled, corrupt, defiled, ruined by the fall. The Lord
makes himself known. to sinners, to his people, to
deliver them from that sin. The bent of this woman describes
something of our nature, which is bent over, face away from
God, won't look at him, won't cry out to him. That's us by
nature. She's just bent down with her face down. And that's
a picture of the will of man that will not come to Christ,
except Christ come to them first and draw them to himself. And so even though we're dead
in trespasses and sins, though we are rebels, look at the grace
of God. It didn't stop him from coming
to save those chosen of the Father and given to Christ before the
foundation of the world. He still came and faithfully
served for his bride. bore the shame and the sin of
his people to put it away forever, to loose them and to deliver
them from the prison of sin and death, all right, to save us. And so by his grace and power,
we declare to you the free grace of God to save sinners. As Paul
said to the people when he preached that through this man, The Lord
Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent, is preached unto you the
forgiveness of sins. And to know that by him all that
believe are justified from all things which you could not be
justified by the law of Moses, or by the religion of this hypocrite
that we saw. We can't be justified by that.
But we are justified and delivered in the day of His grace by the
Lord Jesus Christ. So when that day is today for
you, when the Lord brings it, and don't delay, cry out to Him.
Seek Him. Go to Him. If He shows you your
need, it's because He's called you. Go to Him. Confess your
sin. Cry out to Him for grace and
mercy, because He's poured out a spirit of grace and supplication
on you that know your need of Him. that desire him and hunger
and thirst for his righteousness. He gives that. That's his witness
born in your heart, born in that spirit, in that inner man which
he gives. Though it's weak and small, though
you don't see it and you don't feel it in yourselves, you that
need Christ and know your need of Christ, cry out to him. cry
out to him. He says he has mercy upon all
that call upon him. And so he made her straight. And that's what he does. That's
a picture of the new birth wrought in his people, in the inner man,
which is able to worship God and sins not. This flesh is still
sinful. Don't expect your flesh to turn
it around. This flesh is always going to
be a problem. But that inner man, which is born of Christ,
That inner man believes and that inner man sins not. All he can
do is believe Christ and cry out to Christ for grace and mercy. And so we see a picture of him
delivering his people and giving his people a heart and lips to
praise him and glorify him. That's of the spirit. That's
his work of the spirit. And then listen, compared to
that, listen to how hollow and dead sounding religion is. Listen
to this man in verse 14, 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, and them therefore come
and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. seeks to bottle up and hide Christ. It's always trying to put something
between you and Christ and tell you, well, you've got to do this.
You've got to come here. You've got to do it this way.
You've got to do what we say. And it's all form and religion.
It's all things that are just an outward form. We declare unto
you, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.
And he gives the heart. He gives the heart to seek him,
to glorify him, to worship him, to want to be with the people
of God. He's the one that gives that heart. And you that come
and you that want to worship him with the people of God, it's
because he's given you his spirit and given you a new heart. And
so the Lord tells us, that what you see there in that man is
just hypocrisy. It's just hypocrisy. And so he
said, thou hypocrite, verse 15, doth not each one of you on the
Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away
to watering? You have compassion on the beasts
of burden under your care. Ought not God to have compassion
and mercy on us who are no more than beasts in our nature? And
the way we act, and the things we think, and the violence in
our hearts by nature, isn't God merciful to us? Then so ought
we to be merciful to others, and kind, and gentle, and patient
with one another. And so we are to worship God,
and I encourage you, come, worship the Lord. By all means, come
with the people of God and worship God for what he has done for
you. But beware that religion which
makes your heart hard and callous and cold and violent towards
those that are weak and struggling and unable. Bear with them, pray
for them, be patient and be kind based on how the Lord has been
kind to you. Paul's prayer for the Ephesians
was this, and I believe this gives us a right heart. It's
in Ephesians 3, verse 16 through 19. He prayed that God would
grant you according to the riches of his glory. We never diminish
the glory of God. It's according to his riches
that we're benefited, to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the
inner man. There's gotta be a new birth.
If all it is is flesh, all you'll be is like that hypocrite. But
if he's given you life by his grace and by his spirit, there's
an inner man there that is strengthened by his spirit, that is strengthened
by his word of comfort, by this gospel, that hungers and thirsts
for this gospel, that wants to hear Christ, that wants to feed
on Christ, that wants to be with the people of God, to worship
with them, to worship our Lord. And he says in verse 17 there,
that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye being
rooted and grounded in love, in love, may be able to comprehend
or understand with all saints what is the breadth and length
and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ, which
passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness
of God, right? The love of Christ, exceeds our
understanding about many things. There's a lot of things that
we don't know or understand to the degree that we would, but
the love of Christ surpasses that, far exceeds all that, and
keeps you in the Spirit, looking and trusting Him and walking
by faith in Him. And that's how you'll be gracious
to others. who need grace, and we need grace and mercy. And
then we see the power of our Lord's words and his work in
the midst of the people, in silencing the enemy that accuses you, and
in bringing forth that joy and rejoicing and glory in the heart
in truth, in truth, not manufactured by the flesh, not made up, but
in truth. And it says, verse 17, 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." So brethren, do you have something to rejoice
in today? Has Christ released you from
your burden of sin? You may have infirmities still
in the flesh. You may struggle and have difficulties. but has
he given you liberty, loosed you in spirit, all right, brought
you out of that prison of darkness where you were shut up in death
and not knowing the things of God and brings you out into the
light, the light of Christ and reveals himself to you to encourage
your heart to bless you today what you cannot do for yourselves.
Our Lord did this. It's all because he willingly
came and sacrificed himself to the Father, paying the debt that
we owed to satisfy justice that we might go free. Because he
paid it all that we might go free in him, in him to the glory,
praise and honor of his name. So I pray the Lord bless that
word to your hearts. Amen.