But let's look in Matthew 3. Matthew 3 and verse 15. I've
been asked quite a few times. People's worried to death about
when I was baptized. And the Lord's working with me
right now. And sometimes when He gives me
a message, it's quick and easy, and other times it takes a long
time. I think I'll have a message on baptism soon, but y'all may
not know this, we was baptized on the same day. Did you know
that? Look in Matthew 3 verse 15, we
were talking about us this morning. We went to John the Baptist for
John to baptize Christ. And he said, you don't need to
baptize me, I'm in need of you baptizing me. In verse 15 it
said, suffer it to be so now, For thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness." It becometh us. We're one with Him. Isn't
that precious? And so once we're one with Him,
we see Him, we know Him. Let's turn over to Matthew chapter
11. This will be our text for today. Once we see Him and know
Him, He's talking in the back. When a witness in a courtroom,
you tell what you know. If you're telling the truth,
if you're a true witness, all you do is just talk about what
you've seen. That's all you have. Matthew 11, we'll begin in verse 1. And it came to pass when Jesus had
made an end of commanding His twelve disciples, He departed
thence to teach and to preach in their cities. Now when John
had heard in the prisons because he's already incarcerated. In
the prison of the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples
and said unto him, as I spoke to Christ, art thou he that should
come or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said unto
them, go and show John again those things which you do hear
and see. Tell him what you witnessed.
The blind received their sight. That's a miracle. The lame walk. The lepers are cleansed, the
deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the gospel
preached to them. Blessed is he who shall not be
offended in me." In our culture, we take our language and we make
it fit our situations instead of reflecting our situation through
our language. We change words to suit us. And over time, that changes our
language. And in my old job, which was a subculture of this
nation is a pretty big environment. They use the word caveat in everything
and they would say a caveat to that and they meant it as in
addition to. But that's not what the word
means. It's a warning. It's to set certain conditions.
The Latin meaning is to let a person beware. And that got on my nerves
every time they said it because I knew the meaning. And they
were using it wrong. went to, had a little bit of
college in, thought they were better than us, and they was trying
to show off some, and they was showing off wrong, showing how
simple they were. But in our society, miracle is
used loosely and on a daily basis. And I've used it wrong. There's
a lot of things that I would probably call a miracle. I've
seen a lot of close calls physically at work and driving up and down
the road, especially up in New Jersey and New York. Make it
at home sometimes is a miracle. I've seen a lot of sick people
recover quickly, and I would probably call that a miracle.
At the end of the month, sometimes my checking account's not in
the negative, and I consider that to be a miracle. But I consider
a lot of things that aren't true miracles. But once the Lord shows
us what His miracles are, then we'll see that term, how it really
is. It's not used in ignorance. And
if we hear somebody use it incorrectly, it kind of wears on us, doesn't
it? So we just read this here in Matthew 11. I'm hopeful the
Lord will teach us something out of this text. I think He's
taught me something. And I pray that on His purpose and for Christ's
glory, through the Holy Spirit, it's a blessing to you all as
it has been to me. But there's a lot of things to be seen in
this passage. Many of the commentators say that John, they have a few
different things to say, John had sent these disciples to give
himself comfort in his greatest trial, his final trial on this
earth before he was killed. And they also, the commentators
have said that John sent these disciples for their comfort so
they could see Christ and Christ could teach them. And both of
those are Probably true and can be preached and have been preached
thoroughly to glorify Christ. But I'm not gifted enough to
go that deep and that broad to be able to explain those things.
And I normally, I learn things backwards. So I'm going to start
with the answer. And then I'll try to go from
there. We'll start backwards. So I'm going to focus only on
the answer that Christ gives. Now, these two disciples of John's,
they wanted to know if Jesus was the Christ, if it was truly
Him that they needed or they need to go look for someone else.
In verse 4, Matthew 11, 4, our Lord says, Go and show John again
those things which you do hear and see. Go be a witness to John.
But what did they see and hear? So in this text he lists six
miracles that he has, he is, and he will continue to perform
until this earth is done. So the first miracle, the blind receive their sight.
Now each of these miracles listed here that shows a physical work
in the flesh that the Savior performs and there's a spiritual
work in the heart that he performs. So first the Again, I'm sorry
for last night. I had you turn a lot. We might
turn quite a bit this morning too, but it would be important
to see it. Let's turn to Luke 18. Luke chapter 18 and we're going
to look at verse 35. It's 1835, and it came to pass
that as he was coming on to Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the
wayside begging. And hearing the multitude pass
by, he asked what it meant. And they told him that Jesus
of Nazareth passes by. And he cried, saying, Jesus,
thou son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before
rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried so much
the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood
and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he was come
near, he asked him, saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto
thee? And he said, Lord, that I may
receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive
thy sight. and thy faith hath saved thee."
And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying
God and all the people. Glorifying God and all the people,
when they saw it, gave praise unto God. So physically, Christ
healed this man of blindness. That'd be something to see. If
we were physically healing blind people here, they'd be staying
in room only and they'd be outside looking through the windows.
But spiritually cross-gift side as well. Let's look over to 2nd
Corinthians verse 4. 2nd Corinthians chapter 4. 2nd Corinthians 4 beginning verse
3. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost. in whom the God of this world
hath blinded the minds of them which believed on, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves,
but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus'
sake. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure and
earthen vessel, that the excellency of the power may be of God and
not of us. It says the spirit of this world,
the prince of this world blinded the minds. The mind in the New
Testament means the whole of me. All of it. It says let this
mind be in you. By nature we're blind to see
ourselves as we truly are. We're blind to see Christ in
His glory. But through Him given sight,
we see who He is and we're drawn to Him. And by His gift of faith,
we're made to see Him as He is. We're made to see things which
are not seen, things that are eternal, the eternal God and
His eternal work. Look down at verse 18. While
we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which
are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal,
but the things which are not seen are eternal. We look at
those things because we can now see. Alright, the second miracle
is the lame walk. We'll turn to Luke 5. Luke chapter
5. Physically, Christ healed the
lame. He really did that. Luke chapter 5 will be in verse
18. And behold, men brought in a
bed a man which was taken with a palsy. He was paraplegic. And they sought means to bring
him in and to lay him before him. And when they could not
find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude,
they went up on the housetop and cut a hole in the roof. And
they led him down through the tiling with his couch into the
midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith,
he said to them, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. And the scribes
and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh
blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone? He is, isn't He? But when Jesus perceived their
thoughts, He answered and said unto them, Why reason ye new
hearts? Whether it is easier to say,
Thy sins be forgiven, or to say, Rise up and walk? Which one's
easier? It's easier to say. In our minds,
it's easier for Him to say Oh, your sins are forgiven because
we can't see that. Because they'd have blinded spiritually. They
only had physical eyes. Verse 24. But that ye may know
that the Son of Man hath power upon the earth to forgive sins.
He says that to the ones watching. Now he's speaking to the man
with the palsy. I say unto thee, arise, take up thy couch, and
go into thine house, and immediately He rose up before them, and took
up that whereon He lay, and departed to His own house, glorifying
God." And they were all amazed, and they all glorified God, and
were filled with fear, saying, we have seen strange things today. It would be awkward to see, wouldn't
it? It would be a strange thing. So physically, the Lord healed
that man. It was lameness. But spiritually,
He makes us whole. That was the first thing He did
to the man with the palsy. He forgave his sins. He did the
most needful thing first. And then to prove a point, to
show others, He did it physically. But physically, He was healed.
Spiritually, He makes us whole. We'll look at Psalm 51. This
old, dead, lame heart that's in my flesh is now able to walk
with Christ in the Spirit. That's how we're made to walk.
Psalm 51. Look in verse 5. Behold, I was
shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold,
thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part
thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop and I shall
be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness.
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy
face from my sin and blot out all my iniquity." We're brought
to see what our flesh really is, our sin and our iniquity. And the Spirit shatters what
we think is our strongest part. That's the strongest part of
our body is our bone. The femur is the strongest bone in our
body. That's what we stand on, isn't it? We rely on it. And
He comes and He shatters those bones. Why? that we're capable
that we may rejoice. Great physician is able to hear
our broken lame spirits and he's the only one that can. The third
miracle in the text is the lepers are cleansed. So physically crossed
hills and pharmacies. We'll look back in Matthew chapter
8. Matthew chapter 8 verse 1, When
he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord,
if thou wilt, thou can make me clean. And Jesus put forth his
hand and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was
cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, See
thou tell no man, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest
and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto
them. As a side note before I go on,
the cross fulfilled all of the law. We always think of the law
as the Ten Commandments, but we have the Levitical law. 47 or a whole bunch a whole bunch
of laws one of them was if someone was planned as cleansed of leprosy
And to take I think it was two doves to the priest. I just thought
of that But it's Christ was so effectual at accomplishing law,
and we're so one with him That he cured that man because why
would they have a law you couldn't cure? Leprosy is not a curable
disease at the time. There's nothing you do for it
So why would you have a law that you had to fulfill that law?
What's impossible thing to do in the first place you have to
have leprosy to do it? And he sent him and said, you
go give the offering that Moses commanded. I bet the priests
that day were pretty confused when that man showed up because
they knew him. I bet they had to go look it up. But leprosy
is a communicable bacterial disease of the skin. And in those days,
there wasn't a treatment for it. And it was severe. And like
any other severe disease, it will overtake the body and it
will lead to death on it. Sin is our inward disease. That's
our issue of blood. It's hereditary. If two zebras
have a baby, it's a zebra. If two sinners have a baby, it's
a sinner. It's internal. So Christ physically
healed that leper, but spiritually, He heals our internal illnesses.
We'll turn over to Luke 5. Luke chapter 5, verse 29. And this is right after the Master
called Levi to follow Him. Luke 5, 29. And Levi made him
a great feast in his own house. And there was a great company
of publicans of others that sat down with them. But their scribes
and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do
you eat and drink with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answered,
said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician, but
they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance." We don't have to be aware that you
have a life-threatening illness or disease to have a life-threatening
illness or disease, do you? You can have cancer and you don't
know you have cancer until they tell you you do. But once you're
made aware of it, normally by the doctor anyway, you know that
you have a need of somebody that can cure you. If I found out
I had a unique disease and it was life-threatening, I didn't
know it until I did know it, and then as soon as I found out
I had that knowledge, I would want to find out who could help
me. And you see that there's One
that's capable. And how wonderful it is that our Physician comes
to us. He shows us that we have a need. And He shows us He's
the One that can heal it completely and wholly. So the fourth miracle
is the death here. Turn to Mark 7. Physically, Christ made the death
to here. Mark 7.32. And they bring unto Him one that
was deaf. and had an impediment in his
speech. And they beseeched him to put his hand upon him. And
he took him aside from the multitude, and he put his fingers into his
ears, and he spit and touched his tongue. And looking up to
heaven, he sighed and said unto him, Ephatha, that is, be opened. And straightway, immediately,
his ears were opened and the strings of his tongues were loosed.
And he spake plain. And he charged them that they
should tell no man But the more He charged them, so much the
more a great deal they published it. And they were beyond measure
astonished, saying, He hath done all things well. He maketh both
the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak." Physically, He cured
that man, made him talk, made him hear. But spiritually, Christ
makes His elect to hear of His worthiness. Isaiah 29, 18 says,
And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and
the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. So if the deaf hear the words
of the book, what's the Word? In the New Testament it says
Christ is the Word. And in the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was God. That's Christ. The Word is Christ. And when we are given ears to
hear, what do we hear? The Word. We hear Him. That's
who we hear. We hear what He has finished.
You don't need to turn to these, I'm sure you probably know them,
but John 10.24 said, And then came the Jews round about him,
and said unto him, How long dost thou make us doubt? If thou be
the Christ, tell us plainly. They think they want to know
who Christ is, and He's there with them. Jesus answered and
said, I told you, and you believe not. The works that I do in my
Father's name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because
ye are not of My sheep. As I said unto you, My sheep
hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I will
give unto them eternal life, that they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." He says, My
sheep hear My voice. That's spiritually being able
to hear. That a father's voice to a child. We're talking after
services. I may have used this last night.
I was a little jet-lagged and slap-happy. So if I repeat something,
just act like I didn't say it. But we can, after services, I've
got four little children. And there'll be a whole bunch
of people talking and visiting. And my children come be over
here, a couple be over there. And I'll say, hey, load up. And
out of all that noise and racket, they didn't hear. I could be
talking all day. They don't pay attention. I'll say, load up in the car.
And all four of them will stop what they're doing and look,
and they'll go get in the car. Why? They're mine. They know
my voice. Out of that crowd, they hear
me, and they do what I say, don't they? They fear me physically
when they're little, and now they fear me, they honor me.
They're growing up a little bit. Those with a quickened spirit
are given eternal life. Those that are His are given
by the Father. They were dead, but they're risen up. That's
who Christ makes to hear spiritually. Fifth miracle, the dead are raised
up. Physically, Christ raised the
dead. We read this yesterday, didn't we? Turn back to John
11. We'll read it again. John chapter 11, verse 41, when
Christ was brought to where Lazarus was, they'd already laid him,
already buried him. And they took away the stone
from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up
His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me.
And I knew that Thou hearest me always, but because of the
people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that
Thou hast sent me. And when He thus had spoken,
He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth.
bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was bound
with a napkin. Jesus said unto them, Loose him, let him go. Physically, our master raised
Lazarus from the dead. But spiritually, Christ raises
us from the dead. He gives us everlasting life.
We'll turn over to Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2, verse 1. And you have he quickened, you
have the given life. That's what quickened is. Who
were dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein in time past he walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our
conversations in time past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we're by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. That's spiritual deadness.
Verse 4, But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love
wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and
sins, hath quickened us together in Christ, hath made us alive
in Christ. So of these five miracles, Christ
physically and spiritually healed the saints. Several times in
the New Testament, it's recorded him saying, your sins are forgiven.
And then he says aloud, paraphrasing, Father, I know you hear me always,
but I'm going to say this out loud just so everybody else around
knows it. So they'll know that I'm doing
this. But physically, these miracles would be a wonderful thing to
happen to us, wouldn't it? If I had a broken arm and you
could come up and, Lord, heal my broken arm, that'd be nice.
That'd be handy, convenient. It would be a miracle, a wonderful
thing. And it would be something that
what a sane person would consider, it would be something that we
would want. But spiritually, that's what we need. Physically,
we want to be healed. We want to hear. We want to see.
We want to have sight. Spiritually, we need to have
sight. We need to hear. So how is it
that we can come to that knowledge? Does God leave us alone? You
just sit out in a cave somewhere and read and study real hard
until you find how you're given sight and eyes and spiritually
healed? Of course not. It's just the
opposite. He accomplishes these acts by sending servants to preach
to Him and to those that are His, comfort them. I may have
told you this last time, but they say that the preaching of
the gospel, if the Lord enables man to, it comforts the disturbed
and disturbs the comfortable. That's what it does. So we went
through five miracles, and a lot of times this is read over quickly.
I read over it for years. About two years ago, I was reading
this passage of scripture for this church, and as I read it,
I thought, that's a miracle, and that one's a miracle, and
that one's a miracle. Well, at the end, the sixth one, the poor
have the gospel preached to them. That's a miracle. Physically,
the good news of the work of Christ accomplished is preached
to the poor, the poor and needy. And it's true that the followers
of Christ were all publicans and fishermen, and many were
destitute by world standards. And many nowadays are the same
condition. But many people take this verse
to mean that we need to go to homeless shelters and preach,
and we need to go to impoverished countries and preach, and have
basketball programs for them. And we should, not the basketball
programs, but we should find those that are physically destitute
and physically in need and be kind to them and tell them who
Christ was. However, if humans focus more on who is being preached
to instead of who is being preached, we've got a problem. We've missed
the good news. We're looking inward to what
we are doing instead of looking at what Christ has already done.
So who are these poor that's spoken of? We'll turn to Luke
chapter 4. In chapter 4, verse 18, Christ
was reading a temple. He was reading Isaiah 61. Here in Luke 4, 18, it says,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor. Semicolon. So that's a
complete thought, but there's going to be more with it. He
has sent me to heal the broken hearted, preach deliverance to
the captives and recovering of sight to the blind and set liberty
them that are bruised. Comma. Don't pay attention to
the markings there, the verses to set liberty them that are
bruised to preach the acceptable year of the Lord to recover their
sight. to deliver the captives, all
those miracles. That's what he was sent to do.
Isaiah prophesied that, didn't he? And to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord. The meek, the broaden-hearted,
the captives, the prisoners, the blind, and the bruised. Those
are physical states. But it's revealed to the elect
of God that that's our spiritual state, isn't it? We're broken.
We're deaf. We're blind. We're unable. So
physically, Christ preached, and we now preach to the poor,
but spiritually He preaches to us. How is that accomplished? By preaching the acceptable year
of the Lord. The year of Jubilee. The year
of forgiveness, isn't it? Through Christ's completed work,
He's purchased us, He's cleansed us, and will bring us to Him
in glory when our final day comes. And when Christ has preached
to His sons and daughters, it's a miracle. Because we were blind
to His righteousness and He makes us see. We were lame in our ability
to come to Him, and He heals us and brings us to Him. He draws
us. We were plagued with disease. We were regenerated. We were
deaf to His Word being proclaimed, and now we hear His victory.
We were dead in our sins, and He's made us alive in the light
of His glory. And with the sweetness and compassion
that only He can have, He makes us to know these things as one
of His servants tells us about it. They witness, don't they?
They just tell what they know. I know we were speaking about
this the other day, Cass and I were. I know you all don't
do this, but I do. There's a lot of times I convince
myself we'll be up Sunday morning getting ready for service and
I'll be worried about my job or something going on with the
children or I'm tired or there's something going on with me and
I think I ain't going to be able to listen. I think I can go,
but I'm not going to get anything out of Clay's preaching today. And I think, well, I'll just
go so I can be a good example for the children, or I'll go
to be an example and encouragement to the brethren, or for Clay.
Because if Clay and one of his pastors get up to preach and
nobody's, they don't show up, that'd be disheartening, you
know? Isn't that awful? Isn't that horrible of me? And
many times I think those things, and I think, well, I'll just
show up just to go through the motions, and boy, the Lord gets
a hold of me. He wakes me up and takes my minds
off those things and teaches me something. But sometimes the
old man in me hardens, and I can't concentrate for anything. But
other times, when I'm convinced I can't hear nothing, the message
from me from the Lord is sent to me. It opens my heart. And
the only thing that amazes me is the success of the cross to
Christ. I'm not expecting that going
into it. That's what I'm given. And how
thankful I am that God the Father looks only at Christ instead
of looking at me. I look at me and I get despair,
but when I look at Him, I'm encouraged. That's who the Lord looks at.
He looks at His works, His faith, His heart, and sees His precious
Son, not just this filthy rag that's standing here. So what
should we do? Should we look to our frailty,
or should we look to Christ? Matthew 11, 6, the end of our
text there, it says, And blessed is He whosoever shall not be
offended in Me. Blessed is he who shall not be
offended in me." Christ is speaking there. Not be offended in Christ.
Are you offended by the miracles? Physically or spiritually? Are
you offended by the one who performs them? Are you in need of a miracle? If you find yourself in need
of Him who can perform the miracle, that's the most important. If
our Master is pleased to feed His people order, draw one of
his elect who hasn't yet known him, that's truly a miracle. And as it pleases him, let us
call out to him to heal us, to provide for us, and to make us
acceptable. And then we will be made whole
spiritually, too. That physical won't matter as
much, will it? I hope that'll be a blessing to you.