I was telling Brother Norm Wells, he said he was going to join
us for a Bible study, and then something came up where he couldn't.
And I told him, I'm thankful that you didn't. He goes, why?
I said, because I would have bragged. I was all excited about
bringing the Bible study. It would be my first one since
I got out of the hospital. I was excited about it. I couldn't
wait to do it. I got in there, and boom! Lord gave me liberty. I laid it all out on the table.
I was pretty proud of myself for that. And I realized afterwards
when Norm wasn't there, if he'd have been there, I'd
have been bragging to him about it. And you think to yourselves
that that's not that big a deal. But folks, it doesn't matter
what we brag about. It doesn't matter whatever pride
self-righteousness we can think of in our own selves, that is
against the Lord. That is a sin against God. It's what I do. And if I didn't do it, then I
wouldn't need a Savior. So I'm thankful that I need a
Savior. I'm thankful and reminded that
I need the Lord to be my Savior. I pray this morning. I pray that
the Lord will have a message for us today. Our text will be
in the book of Matthew. I'd like to ask you to turn in
your Bibles to the 9th chapter of Matthew. The title for today's message
is, Grace for the Guilty. My question for you this morning
is have you been made guilty? Has God come to you in your self-righteous,
loving yourself, prideful flesh and made you guilty? Before I join you in Matthew
chapter 10, allow me to read from Psalms 34, 18. It says,
the Lord is nigh unto them. Let me repeat that. The Lord is nigh, near, close
to, unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth. Not only is He close to, not
only is He right next to, He saveth such as be of a contrite
spirit." A broken heart is a contrite spirit. Are you with me in Matthew
chapter 9? Let's look at verse 10. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house,
behold, Many publicans and sinners came
and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees,
when those who were religious of that time, when those who
were supposed to lead the people to a Savior, when those who were
supposed to tell the people about the Christ, the righteous one,
But instead told the people, oh, what good people you are.
Look at what you've done. You've been doing this. You show
up for church on Sunday. You help the poor. You do all
this. You've made a decision for Jesus.
Oh, how wonderful you are. Instead of telling them who Jesus
Christ is, they talk about themselves. These very ones, these Pharisees,
saw and they said to his disciples, Why does your master eat with
publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, or
in other words, that he knew what they were saying, he said
unto these religious people, these religious leaders, these
Pharisees, they that behold, now listen to this, folks. We're
talking about grace for the guilty. Grace for those who have bet
a broken heart and a contrite spirit. They that behold, says
the Lord Jesus Christ, they that are well need not a physician,
but they that are sick. Go ye. Go ye and learn what this
means. People that are well, they don't
need a doctor. Six people don't go to the doctor. Kathy and I
were both sick with the COVID, and we had been sick for a little
over a week. It hit me on a Wednesday, and
the following Saturday, Kathy finally convinced me to get up
off of what I thought I was dying in and go to the hospital. Probably
would have been smarter if I had gone a couple days sooner. May
not have been as bad, maybe, I don't know. All I know is that
from Wednesday to Saturday, I was on my deathbed. I didn't go to
see a doctor until I thought I needed one for sure. Ain't
that true of you? You go to a doctor just to say,
hey, what's going on, doc? Am I doing OK? Yeah, we do once
in a while, don't we? We have our checkups. For the
most part, we don't go unless we're sick, do we? He says, after that, I will have
mercy, not sacrifice, for I am not come. Listen. Listen to what
the Lord is saying here. For I am not come to call the
righteous, those who are immoral, those who are good, those who
have no need of the good, to repentance. But I have come to
call sinners to repentance. Now, I want you to consider something
for just a moment, if you would. When does a person first take
their first step towards the Lord? When does a man take his
first step towards eternal life and towards heaven? Is it when he begins to have
an interest in religion? Or is it when he begins to believe
the Bible or thinks he believes in the Bible? Is it when he begins to have
an interest in a religion? Or is it when he attends church,
maybe? Or maybe it's when he accepts
Jesus Christ into his heart, as the world says in today's
world. I'm here to tell you this morning, it's none of those.
Not one single one of those answers is correct. A man takes his first step towards
salvation, and a man moves towards a saving interest in Jesus Christ
when that man or woman understands that they are a sinner and they
need a Savior. Oh, John, I was looking for a
church when I came here. I was looking to find God when
I came to rescue. No, you weren't. Not the true
and living God. Had you heard about the true
and living God anywhere else in the world? Or did you hear
about a Jesus who wanted you to help Him out? Now, I'm not trying to say Rescue
is the only place that that's taught. We know that there's
folks over in Marysville, up in the Dalles, Oregon, down in
San Diego, and many other places. Some that I don't even know about.
that teach the true and living God. Most, they just want to
teach about some Jesus who's there to help you if you'll just
get up and do something to let Him help you. Man does not come to the Lord
Jesus Christ until they have been brought to the knowledge
that they need a Savior. And that's what our Lord is saying
here. That's what He's saying back there in His words. I will
have mercy, not sacrifice, for I'm not to call the righteous
to repentance, but I have come to call sinners to repentance. When one realizes that they have
sinned against God, and they desperately need a Savior, that's
when the Lord has done a work in their hearts. That's what
Christ is saying. Sick people need doctors. People
who are well, they don't need a doctor. A person that is sick
needs a physician, therefore he goes to the physician. When
does a person move toward the physician? He moves toward that
physician when they find out they're sick. And that's when
they start looking through the yellow pages to find one. Now
let me give you an illustration of that, shall I? In God's Word. Our Lord Jesus Christ came down
from a mountain at one time in His ministry, and there were
multitudes of people around about Him. Multitudes. And when He
came down from the mountain, the Scripture says, a leper.
A. One. There were many lepers in the
day of Naaman. It says in Scripture, He saved
one. There were multitudes of people
about. And when he came down from the mountain, the scripture
says, a leper, a person that had a dreaded disease, one who
was sick, ran to meet him. This man who had leprosy fell
down at the feet of Jesus. And he worshiped him and said
unto him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And Christ
the Lord put his hand on that leper and said, I will be thou
clean. And from that moment on. From
the very moment the power of God was spoken through the body
of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, he was whole. Let me give you another one.
Here's another illustration. Our master walked down the street
among a multitude of people. Once again, people all around
him. So many so that they were brushing up against him. You
couldn't tell. The other day, I saw something
on TV. I can't remember what it was now, but there was thousands. I did notice they weren't wearing
masks. Thousands of people crowded around, just a bunch of. How are you going to know who's
touching you? There were people pushing and
shoving. Yet a woman who had been sick,
did you hear the words? She had been sick for 12 years
with an issue of blood. She came behind him and she reached
out and touched the hem of his garment. And she said to herself,
if I could but touch the hem of his garment, I know that I
will be whole. For 12 years, she had been sick.
And for 12 years, she had tried every kind of healing. Does this
not describe what we're going through with this virus? Folks,
I don't know about you, but I've had every kind of. kind of concoction that people
think that they can put together. John, take this. This will make
you feel better. John, take that. I've had people stop by with
little jars of brown stuff and say, if you take this, it'll
get rid of everything. No problem. Or if you take this
horse stuff over here, that'll help you. This is what this lady
was doing. She had followed all the advice
of her friends. She had given all of her money
to the doctors to try to heal herself, yet nothing gave her
any relief. She was still no better, but
she only grew worse. And when she reached out and
touched Christ, the scripture says she was made whole immediately. Did you notice that when God
does something, he does it perfectly immediately? We're not saved in progression,
folks. We don't get any better because
there is no better in this flesh that you see before you. My perfection
is in my Savior. And if you belong to the Lord
Jesus Christ, your perfection is in Him. Your decision would
drag you somewhere else out into the world. And I'm thankful that
it wasn't my decision. I'm thankful the Lord didn't
lead me to my decision. Because for 40 years, I walked
this earth making my own decision, and it was against God. But by
His mercy and His grace, grace to one who needed to be healed,
grace to a sinner, He brought me under the Word of His preaching
and I heard the Word of Truth for the first time. Oh, what it is to know that you need
a physician. Let me give you one more. One other illustration, then
I'm going to ask you a question. Just like the leper, when our
Lord came down from a mountain, the leper ran, he fell down at
the feet of Jesus, and he worshiped him. And the leper said, Lord,
if you will, you can make me clean. And just like the woman
with the issue of blood who had been sick, she said, if I can
just get to the hymn and touch the hymn of His garment, I'll
be made whole. Our Lord was walking through a city one day in Jericho,
and there was a great multitude, once again, round about Him.
Our Lord drew all kinds of crowds. Everybody wanted to see the miracles.
Everybody was looking for a sign of who the Messiah was. And there
was a man who was blind. He was the son of Timaeus. His
name was Bartimaeus. And he was on the wayside of
the path that the Lord was coming down and he heard the All the
jumbling, rustling, all the stuff. People are coming. He couldn't
see anything, but he could hear it. He could hear, what's going
on? What's happening? Lord Jesus
is coming. What? The one who's saving people,
the one who's healing the sick, the one whom I need, is coming down the road? Jesus, thy Son of David, have mercy on me. Isn't that
what the Scripture says He said? And then the Lord stood still.
God Almighty came to a stop. He stood still. Who's that? I know who that is. He's calling
me. The Lord already knew that Blind Barnabas was there. He
already knew that this was all going to happen. He knew it was
going to happen before a star ever twinkled in the sky. He's
God. He knows everything. Yet our Lord was going to prove
to a bunch of people that I have the power. Our Lord has the power
to heal. He stood still and commanded
him to come. And Barnabas rose and threw away
his blank, and he ran towards the voice of the master who called
him. And then the Lord said this, what do you want me to do for
you? And the man said, Lord, that I may see. And the Lord
Jesus touched him, and he was made whole. So here's the question
for you. The leper, the woman, and the
issue of blood, and Barnabas, what do all these people have
in common? What do they have in common? What is the one vital and central
thing that all three of these folks had in common? Now a person
may, they may say that they all had heard of Jesus and they heard
of His power to heal and His power to give sight to the blind
and to make the lame walk. And that's a good point because
no doubt you have to hear the Word of God to be saved. How
are you going to call on the true and living God, if all you've
ever heard about is a Jesus who wants something. How are you
going to call on the One who doesn't want anything, but takes
what He wants, takes what He desires, including those who
He has loved from before the world began? Sovereign ruler over everything. including our hearts, our souls,
our minds, every speckle of dust. Everything belongs to the Lord
Jesus Christ. How are you going to call on
Him? How did Barnabas call on Him? How did the lady with the
issue of blood call on Him? How did the leper call upon the
Lord? Someone else might say that they
all had one thing in common, they all came to Christ. They
all came to Him, didn't they? They all got up and came to Him.
The blind man, he couldn't see, he could hear the voice. He came
to the Lord Jesus. That's absolutely correct. You'd
be right in saying that. But there was something else
before that, wasn't there? Someone else may say that they
recognized his power to heal. The woman said this, didn't she? She said, if I could just touch
the hem of his garment, I might be made whole. So she did recognize
that he was Christ, that he was the Christ. She did recognize
that he was God. He had a power of some kind that she had never
seen. So did the blind man. Why else would he have cried
out if he had never heard of who the true living God is? So
to be able to say that, you would also be true. But they all recognized
his sovereignty and power over all diseases and all afflictions. Someone else might say that they
believed on him. To each of them, Christ said
to each one of those three, he says, thy faith, thy belief hath
made thee whole. So again, true. They did believe. But back of all of this, back
of the very first point, the very first thing that is necessary,
what did they all have in common? What was the most important factor
in every case? And that was the one thing that
they all had in common. The one great thing that led
each of these people to seek the Lord Jesus Christ was that
they had a need. I need a Savior because I'm a sinner. I need a physician because I'm
sick. I need a healer because I can't walk. They had a need. Do you see what I'm saying? That it's what brought the leper
to Christ, his leprosy. That is what brought the woman
to Christ was her sickness. That is what Bartimaeus was brought
to cry out, Jesus, thy son of David, have mercy on me. Have you been brought not just
once, Not just one time and I'm saved
and that's it, I can go about doing whatever I want to do.
No, God brings us every day to the feet of Jesus to cry out,
Lord have mercy on me. When you go in for dinner, How often do you go in just because
there's food sitting on the table? Do we not go in for dinner because
we're hungry? Some of us more than others. What brings us to the table of
food? Hunger. What brings a man to
a well? Thirst. What brings men to a
doctor? Sickness. There are some of you
going to the doctor maybe tomorrow. I know I am. Why? Because I was
sick. What brings you to a doctor?
Your illness brings you to the doctor. What brings a man to
Christ? Sin brings men to Christ. To know that you are a sinner.
The reason people cry out for mercy is because they need mercy
from the Lord. It says in Luke 9-11, He healed
all that needed healing. In Luke 19-10 we read these words,
The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost. Imagine
that. Somebody comes walking up to
you in the middle of the store and says, I found you. We've
been looking all over for you. Man, you've been lost. No, I'm not. I'm in Safeway. I know exactly where I am. Now,
if they came up to you when you were out in the woods and you'd
been wandering around like a little child who had been told by his
parents, don't go out in the woods, Don't go out into the
woods out there. You're going to get lost. And
the little boy decides, I'm going to go hunting, bring home some
dinner for Mama, make her real happy. And he goes out. And all
of a sudden, he realizes, how do I get back home? And his parents
find him. And they say, oh, Daddy, I was
lost. I couldn't figure out how to
get home. How can you be found if you're
not lost? How can you see? if you've never
known that you were blind. Our Lord says in 1 Timothy 1
verse 15, this is a faithful saying. In other words, it's
sure, it's true, and it's worthy of acceptation that Jesus Christ
came into the world to do what? Save sinners. Amen. He came into
the world to save sinners. And then Paul says this, of whom
I am chief. I don't know about you folks,
but I can say that about myself. Pastor Gene said that the other
day. He quoted the scripture. He says, this is the only religion
in the world where everybody in it is a chief, the chief of
sinners. You aren't going to get any better. If you're thinking to yourself,
I'm going to get more holy as I go along, you're going to be
sadly, treacherously mistaken. Our only holiness is in our Savior. Faithful is He. Great is His
faithfulness to His people. He says, they will be my people
and I will be their God. No ifs, no ands, no buts. No
empty seats in heaven. Every seat that Christ went to
the cross for and laid down His life for shall be filled. That's why the Lord says, all
that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Not maybe, not might,
but shall. Pay attention to the shalls in
Scripture. It'll blow your mind. I know that there's a lot of
people seeking after maybe a better financial position or maybe a
bigger home, benefits or blessings from going to church. You know,
I can just be a better person. Everything's just going to be
so much better for me. If I could just go to church on Sunday mornings
and follow after that Jesus that fits my desires, follow after
that Jesus. I don't even have to worry about
it, because the guy up in the pulpit, he ain't going to talk about
Jesus anyway. He might mention his name. Why don't we do this
in the power and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? That's
about all they're going to say. I was talking with a man. Do
you mind if I share with him a conversation we had in your
car on the way home? I hadn't had a chance to ask you that,
so I apologize. I was talking with her brother. You all know
I was in the hospital for four days. I was sick for, what, three
weeks? Couldn't preach. We shut the
church down. And so her brother James went to his daughter's
church, the Doxa church down there, that really big old huge
one. And he was, man, the guy just preached a good message.
It was all about, correct me if I'm wrong, it was all about
something about how we could do a better job of inviting people
to church, that kind of thing, wasn't it? What I remember in
the conversation most of all was, and he's taking me home
from the hospital. And I remember about the conversation
most of it was this. I said, so he didn't talk to you about
what Jesus did? All he did was talk to you about
what men could do? Yeah, you're right. You see, folks, it's not what
people say in the pulpits. It's what they don't say. The religions of the world don't
want to tell you about a God who rules over everything. They
want to tell you about a God who's waiting for you to do something.
They want to raise you up and make you feel better about yourselves.
Oh, the God of Scriptures, the God of Scriptures tells you you're
a worm. Tells you you're a dog. A woman came to, and she said,
but Lord, if I could just get a little crumb, If I could just get a little
crumb from your table, even a dog deserves a crumb, right? You
say, well, John, it's just you're all full of sadness. Everybody
wants to look down on you. Folks, it's all about grace. The good thing. We deserve damnation
and our Lord took it for us. By His grace, we are saved. I don't know about you, but that
makes me happy as can be. Am I a dog? That's it. Yes, I
am. I'm a dog, but I'm God's dog.
Are you? We're talking about grace. I
can't believe I have to do this. We're talking about grace for
the guilty. Those who are guilty of their sins. Those who need
grace. We're talking about the difference
between a poor beggar who's sitting afar off and he's
pounding on his chest, Lord have mercy on me. The difference between
the beggar And the self-righteous person who stands before and
says, I'm glad I'm not like him. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for
all the wonderful blessings that you've given me. And I'm not
destitute like him. The one who stood before God
and bragged on what he was took that to hell with him. And the one who stood over, kneeled
down, pounded on his chest, said, Lord, have mercy on me, is now
in heaven with the Lord. What are, I ask you this today,
where are the publicans in today's world? Where are the thieves
that cry out, oh Lord, remember me when thou comest into your
kingdom? We know that our Lord said to that thief, today shalt
thou be with Me in paradise. Where are the Canaanites who
come to Christ and say, Lord help me, have mercy upon me? Where are those who cry, sirs,
we would see Jesus? Not a Jesus, but the Jesus according
to Scriptures. I'll tell you where they are. They're not there in those churches.
They're not here because they have no need. I'm not that bad of a person.
I'm okay. I've never killed anybody. You know that a man who goes
out and plows a field, Doesn't do anything else wrong.
He just goes out and he plows the field out there. Walking
behind the horses or cows, whatever he's got. He goes out and he
plows that field. If he doesn't know the Lord,
everything he's doing is in sin. Because he's not giving God all
the glory. And you and I don't either. The gospel is good news to the
guilty. Grace is for the guilty. Mercy
is for the miserable. Christ died for the ungodly is
what scripture says. Oh, we have heard of Jesus by
the hearing of the ear. Did you know that Job said the
same thing? Listen to the words of Job. I have heard of you by
the hearing of the ear. I ask you, have you heard with
the ears of the heart? Has God given you ears to hear
of the heart? We may attend our church services,
our religious services, and some of us attend pretty faithfully,
pretty regularly. Some people even talk about His
power to heal the body, His power to help them with their troubles.
I have a friend that I play golf with. Oh, yeah. I know the Lord's
in control of everything. He takes good care of me. Everything
I have is of Him. He says that. He says that. He says that very thing. But he doesn't worship the Lord
at all. He has no desire to go to God's Word and hear about
the Lord. I've heard him say, I'm not as
bad as that guy. I'm not as bad as that guy over
there in the corner, begging for mercy. There's one thing, and I want
you to hear this, there's one thing, there's one thing that
keeps the average religionist from genuine repentance towards
God. Our Lord said these words, except ye repent, ye will perish. That's the Word of God. There's
one thing that keeps the average religious from the true saving
knowledge of Jesus Christ, and our Lord says this in His words,
He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. That means if the Son of God
doesn't dwell in your heart, you don't have life. He that believeth not on the
Son of God shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth
on him. One thing keeps the average religionist
from repentance, and that one thing keeps him from the heart
of love for Jesus Christ. He may be devoted to his denomination. He may be devoted to a creed. But one thing keeps him from
the heart of love for Jesus Christ, which affects all he does, all
that he says, and all that he might think. There is one thing
that keeps a man from the heart of love of Jesus Christ and from
the vital living union with Christ, even though that they may be
joined to a church, joined to a denomination, joined to a program,
or maybe even have a moral principle, there's only one thing that keeps
him from being joined to Christ. And that is that he has never
seen himself as a sinner. Have you? Not just have you, but do you. I was talking with Brother Kevin
in text this morning. And he said, I'm praying for
you and I, we were both struggling last night. Did I already tell
you this? I think I said it in Bible study.
I'm going to say it again. And we were talking about that.
The struggle that it is to put together a message. I never knew
how hard it was to think about, what am I going to preach to
the dear folks tomorrow morning, until the Lord put me in a position
where I have to do it. So I'm going to assume that most
of you probably don't either. You know how often we read through
scriptures, and you just look through? When Jesus heard it, he marveled
and said unto them, follow. They followed. And I'll read
something like that, and I'll say, Lord, I just don't know
what I'm going to preach. OK, let's go to a different one.
We'll look over here. Or we may listen to messages
from other preachers. I'll tell you, point blank, up
front, this message today is from Henry Mahan. And I'll tell
you another thing. If you asked Henry Manning, and
if he was here live today, he would tell you this message is
from another preacher. One day, there was a young man
somewhere down in South America, Southern United States, I think
Alabama or something like that, preaching a message. And one
of the people heard it, and they ran back to Henry's church. And
they said, brother, what's his name? He's stealing your messages.
He preached the same message you preached a week ago. Exactly
the same message. And he said, oh, all right, well,
that's very nice, because that's the same message that Charles
Spurgeon preached 100 years ago, or however long Charles Spurgeon's
preached. He says, I got all of Charles. I got 20 books of
his. You know how often I go in there
and just read one of his messages and make it my own? There's no new message. It's
the same message that's been preached since the beginning
of time. Christ must save His people. He must shed His blood. The remission of sins, there
must be the shedding of blood. And it has to be Christ's blood
for His people. It can't be anything you do.
It's the same message. If you've never thought of yourself
as a sinner, a true, hell-deserving sinner, you'll
never call upon the one who saves sinners. We sing that song, Amazing Grace,
how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was
lost, but now am found. I was blind, but now I see."
Do those words mean anything to you? I don't all the time, but I still
cry when I sing that song, because my Lord's grace is amazing to
me. It's amazing to me that He would
lay His life down for me, love a sinner such as I, It's amazing
to me that not only would He come to me when I am dead in
trespasses and sin, shaking my fist at Him, saying, I'll not
have that one rule over me, and He yet took that cold, stony
heart that said that, pulled it out, threw it away, discarded
it, and gave me a new heart that says, I love you because you
first loved me. Our Lord said these words. He
says, it is not what you put in your mouth that defiles you.
You know what that means? That means it's not outward things
that can defile the heart, because the heart is already defiled.
It's born that way. We come into this world dead
in trespasses and sin. Now, I know a lot of preachers,
they try to get folks to quit smoking, quit drinking, quit
gambling. Folks, those things are just
proof of sin. Sin is a nature. It's not what
you put in your mouth that defiles you. The sin is not in a bottle.
It's in the man. It's in the woman. It's in us. Do you see your need of Christ? Here's the good news. Good news
if you know you're a sinner. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the
good news for sinners, is not good news to anyone else, though.
It becomes a routine, maybe, a ritual, a formalism, a ceremony,
a religion. But here's the good news for
the guilty. Christ said these words, the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to who? To the rich and famous? To the
righteous? No, he says, I came not to save
the righteous. I came to preach the gospel to
the poor. He, the father, hath sent me,
the son, 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. Christ came
to reconcile sinners unto God, and I ask you this morning, are
you a sinner? Don't look at your neighbor.
Don't look at the person across the way from us. Look at yourself. You can't see what is in them
anyway. They may be going to church and doing all the right
things and just as nice as Grandma herself, but that you can still
not see their heart. Look at the heart within you.
Our Lord says in 2 Corinthians 13, 5, Examine yourselves whether
ye be in the faith. Prove your own self. Am I in
the faith? Do I believe who the Lord Jesus
Christ is? Do I believe that He is God Almighty
in the flesh? Do I believe that He came and
perfectly shed His own blood, paying for all the sins of His
people throughout all of time? Folks, when the last child is
born again and saved from their sins, when they have been brought
to an understanding to know who the Lord Jesus Christ is, that's
the end of time. That's the second coming of Christ.
He doesn't have any reason for people to be walking the earth
anymore. He's coming back to take all of His people to be
with Him for eternity. Prove your own selves whether
you are in the faith. Do you believe that Christ paid
it all? All to Him I owe. Sin had left
a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Do
you believe that Jesus sits on his throne right now, doing exactly
what he's always done, ruling everything according to
his own counsel? He doesn't need us, folks. We
need him. Am I a guilty sinner? If I am,
and I know it in my heart, I'm saved by his grace. Grace for the guilty. Have you been made guilty?