Matthew chapter 9 and verse 32. As they went out, just after
Jesus had healed the blind men, as they went out, behold, they
brought to him a dumb man. A man who couldn't speak. A dumb man, possessed with a
devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake. And the multitudes marveled,
saying, It was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees
said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils. And
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing
every sickness and every disease among the people." And now if
you would turn to Luke chapter 11. same account of the man out
of whom this devil was cast is given in Luke 11 with more detail,
beginning at verse 14. It says, "...and he was casting
out a devil, and it was dumb." We use the word dumb so often
in our everyday speech that we think of a dumb person as being
stupid, ignorant. But it really just meant that
he couldn't talk. Although when someone can't talk
we may often think that there's something mentally wrong with
them. But it's an affliction where they couldn't speak. So
he was casting out a devil and it was dumb, he couldn't speak.
And it came to pass when the devil was gone out, the dumb
spake. And the people wondered. And
some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub,
the chief of the devils. And others, tempting him, sought
of him a sign from heaven. But he, knowing their thoughts,
said to him, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to
desolation, and a house divided against itself falleth. If Satan
also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?
Because you say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub. And
if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them
out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I with the
finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is
coming to you. When a strong man, armed, keepeth
his palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than
he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his
armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. He that
is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with
me scattereth. So I want to consider these verses
with you and be especially focusing on the verses from Matthew chapter
9, a very condensed version of what we find in Luke 11. I've
entitled this message today, The Triumph of Christ. And I
think you'll see here why I give it that title, The Triumph of
Christ. The first thing you see in verse
32, it says, and they went out, as they went out, behold, they
brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. The word they,
who are they? These are they who knew the dumb
man. They knew the man who was speechless,
who couldn't speak, he was mute. And they were the ones who also
knew the Lord Jesus Christ. They were the ones who knew that
He heals all sickness and delivers from demon possession and raises
from the dead. They knew the Lord Jesus Christ. And they were the ones who could
speak to the blind man, though he couldn't speak for himself,
and bring him to the Savior and speak to the Savior of this man's
need. And so they brought him to Jesus.
They were the ones who believed that Jesus could deliver the
dumb man from the devil. And so you see the same thing.
Remember the man who was paralyzed, brought by four? They believed
that Jesus could heal him, could raise up this man who could do
nothing for himself. And this is the way, remember,
in the Gospels you see featured here how the Lord comes to sinners
and how sinners come to Christ. And here you see how a man who
is dumb, unable to speak, he can't ask for himself. And yet
someone else brings him and asks for him. And the Lord Jesus Christ
honors the faith of those who bring their friends and their
loved ones to Him. And I'm so glad that He does. because it gives us great hope
that the Lord will save those that we bring to Him, both in
prayer and in the hearing of the gospel. This is the privilege
we have. This is the faith that we have
that Christ can heal every sickness, every disease, every consequence
of our sin. And the second thing here is
that that these men who brought the
dumb man to Jesus, they brought him to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those who know Christ know that their help and the help of any
sinner is only found in Him. If I'm sick with sin, the Lord
Jesus Christ can heal me. Remember, He came for this purpose.
He came to save sinners. He came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. If I don't hear and if I don't
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, I am yet in my sins and I cannot
speak." So the third thing you see here is the man who was dumb,
who was possessed with the devil. And this I thought about a long
time because We are familiar with blindness in Scripture.
Blindness has to do with our ignorance of the Gospel. It has
to do with our blindness to our own need. It has to do with our
blindness to Christ and His salvation. It has to do with our unbelief.
That's what unbelief is. It's a synonym for blindness
and blindness for unbelief. And faith is a synonym for sight.
We walk by faith, not by sight. And when we see and believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, we have everlasting life. We're given
that from God. And yet, when we think about
being unable to speak, we don't, at least I don't, quickly think
of the scriptures that relate to this. But if we look at Romans
chapter 3, I think you'll see how God compares our state before
we are able to understand the gospel, he compares our state
there to those who cannot speak or who speak bad things. Look at Romans chapter 3, verse
10. He says, as it is written, there
is none righteous, no, not one, not one man on earth. God looked
from heaven to see if there were any righteous, any that did understand,
and there were none that understood. He says, there's none that understandeth.
And when you think of that, think about ignorance, think about
spiritual blindness. Spiritually, we're all ignorant
of God. We can't know God. We can't receive
the spiritual things of God. There's none that seeketh after
God. Not only are we ignorant, but we're not looking. We're
lost. We're all gone out of the way. Together we're all unprofitable. There's nothing that we can do
to bring something to God. Something that God will find
profit in. And there's none that doeth good.
No, not one. But look at the next verse. Their
throat is an open sepulcher. That means death comes from within
us. Death is inside of us and what
we say is evidence of that death. With their tongues they have
used deceit. What we speak is lies. We don't speak the truth. We speak lies. The poison of
asps is under their lips. Our mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness. We're hateful, it says in Titus
3.3, and we're hating one another. And we hate God. We curse God. We're full of bitterness. We
complain against God. We don't believe Him. And so,
you can see the parallel here. Their throat... Their tongues
and their mouth and their lips are all being spoken of here.
And so you see that our condition in God's eyes under the law,
naturally in ourselves, is that we, our mouth, our inward parts,
what we say and what we speak is full of deceit, is full of
cursing and lies. It's against God, it's opposed
to the truth. And we don't know the truth.
And why is this? Well, because we fundamentally
are naturally inclined to error and to deceit. We're under the
blindness of sin. Look at Psalm 115. We read this a moment ago, and
I just want to point out some things. Maybe you caught them
as we were reading through this. Psalm 115 is comparing the worship
of idols with the worship of the true and the living God. The heathen ask this question,
where is your God? Because they can see their gods.
And the answer in the psalm is given in verse 3, our God is
in the heavens. And then the truth is revealed
about the gods of men. Your idols are silver and gold. The work of men's hands. That's
what characterizes idols. It's the work of men's hands.
It means they construct them. It means they hold them up. It
means they are gods that they made in their own image, out
of their own imagination, out of their own thoughts. That's
what we do naturally. Our heart produces an image of
God that we want God to look like. A God that we can manipulate. A God we can control. A God that
will listen to us. A God that will receive from
us and accept us by what we do, what we are, what we think. some
intention that we have. I remember I used to think this
as I was, even as I was trying to become a good Christian. I
thought, if the Lord could just look at my heart, He would see
that I really want to do what's right. No, He wouldn't. He wouldn't
see that at all, would He? He would see a heart that's deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. But this is the deceit
that we have. We construct God and we imagine
that He's like us. And so, He says in verse 5, "...the
idols that we make have mouths, but they speak not." What He's
saying here is that idols are dumb. and in other places he
refers to them as dumb idols, meaning idols that can't speak.
The one thing that characterizes the true and living God is that
He speaks. He's called the Word of God.
He speaks. And what He says produces life. He created the worlds. All things
are upheld by His Word. But idols have mouths, but they
speak not. And they have eyes, but they
see not. They have ears, but they don't hear. They have noses.
They can't discern. between good and evil. They have
hands. They don't do anything. They don't walk. They don't do
anything. They can't speak through their throat. But look at verse
8 of Psalm 115. Now if an idol is blind, he has
eyes but can't see. Hands, but he can't produce anything. Feet,
he can't walk. All these things that describe
an idol, it's just a, not only is it an unspeaking thing, but
it's a stupid piece of art that man has made. But men have idols
that are not just visible things, but they're things that they
imagine, truths that they create. And so it is that we do. We want
to create God in our image and we think of that. We think of
that and we worship that. We worship a false gospel. A
gospel that allows us to come to God and give us some credit
for our salvation or put salvation dependent upon us. And so everyone
that makes them is like them. The result is this, that if the
idol is blind, if the idol is unable to produce life, to do
anything, so are we. That's our condition. And in
Matthew chapter 9, the man was possessed of a devil. And the
devil kept him from speaking. Because we're all unable to speak
spiritually. We're unable to say spiritual
truth. in our heart, and with our mouths,
we're unable to understand it until God puts it in our heart
and gives us a mouth to speak it. This describes not only the
idols, but they who worship them. This describes us. Naturally,
our mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Our throat is
like a sepulcher, and with our tongues we use deceit. The idol
can't speak, we can't speak. We have nothing good to say,
nothing true to say. That's what it means to be spiritually
dumb. We're all in this condition by
nature. We're all spiritually without
the ability to speak. Well, if that's what it means
to not be able to speak spiritually, then what does it mean to be
able to speak? Because here's a man that the
people brought to the Lord Jesus Christ, and he cast the devil
out of the man, and then the man was able to speak. It says
in verse 33 of Matthew 9, the dumb spake. and the multitudes marveled.
What does it mean to speak spiritually? Well, it means to speak the truth.
It means to speak the truth about what God has said. It means to
agree with God about who I am and who Christ is. Until God
saves us, until He puts His Spirit within us, until the gospel comes
to us in power, we're unable to speak the truth from our heart.
Because we don't know the truth. We don't believe the truth. If
we believed it, we would speak it. And what is the truth that
we profess to believe? The truth that we speak, once
God has loosed our tongue and given us this ability to speak,
is that we say, everything God requires from me to say to Him,
in order for Him to accept me, has been spoken and done by the
Lord Jesus Christ. A man who speaks spiritually
speaks about Christ only. A man who speaks spiritually
says Christ is all. Just like a blind man, when he
sees, all he sees is Christ. The eye that is single is full
of light. But if your eye is evil, it's
full of darkness. And how dark is that darkness?
Just so, with our mouths, if we speak about Christ only, if
we confess with our lips, all my salvation is in what God thinks
about His Son. All my glory is in what Christ
has done. All my hope for eternal life
is in what Christ has done. Everything rests upon Him. God
receives from Him for me. That's what we speak spiritually.
A man who is dumb, he can't say these things. He might repeat
some of these things because he's heard them, but he doesn't
believe them in his heart. He might say them for a moment,
but then they fall away. But the one who has been given
life, out of whom God has cast The devil and the deception of
the darkness that he brings in his influence over our minds,
what we are naturally, is converted so that he only speaks of Christ.
This is the way we know. Look at Psalm 116. You're at
115. It's not far away. A famous, well-known verse, Psalm
116. I'll get there. He says in verse
10, he says, I believed, therefore have I
spoken." You see that? The same thing is spoken of in
2 Corinthians 4.13. He says, I believed. In fact,
look at 2 Corinthians 4.13. Paul quotes this, speaking about
what we say. He says in 2 Corinthians 4, he
says, Verse 13, we have the same spirit of faith. And what is
the spirit of faith? It's the spirit of God that points
us to Christ so that our life comes to us in seeing that God
has put our sins upon Him. laid all of responsibilities
upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and that He has suffered for those
sins under the wrath of God, has provided satisfaction to
God's justice, has fully fulfilled the will of God in all that He
did. That's what the spirit of faith is. The spirit of God pointing
us to Christ, looking away from ourselves, looking only to Him.
And so he says, we have the same spirit of faith. According as
it is written, I believed and therefore have I spoken. We also
believe and therefore speak. You see, this is the opposite
of being dumb. We speak the truth. We confess
with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that
God raised Him from the dead and that He is all of our salvation. We're justified by what God thinks
of Him, by what God received from Him. And having received
it from Him, He received it from Him for His people, for us who
believe. That's life. That's the eyesight. And that's the loosing of our
tongue. That's the deliverance from darkness. We speak, we confess
the Lord Jesus Christ and we confess only Him. And so God
gives us this faith to see Him and to confess Him and to own
Him as our Lord, to own Him as our Savior, to own Him as everything
in our salvation. And we can't run from this. We
can't get away from it. When God saves us, we cannot
We cannot leave the Lord Jesus Christ. We cling to Him because
we've been delivered from darkness. We've been delivered from deception. We've been delivered from thinking
that something that we do or that we are, that we can be someday,
something that God finds in us gives Him a reason to save us.
No, it doesn't. The only thing God receives is
what He thinks of His Son. God takes all the credit and
puts all the glory on His Son. And when we've been loosed from
the devil, we see the Lord Jesus Christ as being beautiful to
God and beautiful to us. Because by His righteousness,
He saved us according to God's will. And He saved us out of
our sin. And what a glory it is. We speak.
We tell. We're glad to have been saved
by grace alone. by grace, and we gladly confess
it. I was a sinner, bound by Satan, under the deception, thinking
that somehow God would find something worthy in me that He would save
me. No. No. When the Lord comes to us,
we confess freely, I'm a sinner, and I'm full of sin. There's
nothing but sin in me. None good. No, not one. Nothing
profitable in me. I'm opposed to God, and if it
weren't for His grace, I would be opposed to my salvation and
damn myself. But God saves us by His grace.
He's pleased to give us repentance. And then the second thing we
see here in Matthew chapter 9, in verse 32 through 34, is that
the way this man was delivered We see what it means to speak
spiritually. We see that we are all naturally
unable to speak spiritually, just like we're blind and unable
to do anything. We're dead in sins. We're under
the bondage and the dominion of Satan himself. But I want
to take you now through what we see here in the rest of this,
is that the one who gave this man, who delivered this man from
the devil, the one who gave him the ability to speak, is the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, throughout Scripture, and
this is not the first place you see this, but throughout Scripture,
one thing you see is that, when you see from the beginning of
Scripture to the end, is all of Scripture, from beginning
to end, is connected to, is related to, is about, its subject matter,
is the Lord Jesus Christ, and His triumph over the enemies
of God and His people. This is what the scripture is
about. Now I want to just take you through the history of time. And I want to break it into four
partitions. I want to describe each of these
partitions of time, God's dealing with men in time. In order to
reveal the glory of His Son, I want to divide it into four
partitions, and I want to describe each of these by a preposition.
The first one is the word to, T-O. A simple word, T-O. The second one is for, F-O-R. The third one is in, and the
last one is with. Each of these things describe
for us how God deals with His people. Christ coming to them. Christ dying for them, Christ
in heaven sending his spirit in them and in his church, and
then finally the last era is Christ with his people in glory. And this describes these four
partitions all of time really can be summarized by Christ coming
to his people, for his people, dwelling in his people, and then
finally in glory with his people. And it describes for us the triumph
of Christ throughout history. Because when we see this, what
we see is that this event here, where the Lord Jesus Christ delivered
this man from the devil and freed him from his dumb spirit, it's
just an indication of what he's been doing throughout time and
will be doing until eternity begins and time will be no more,
which is to put under his feet His enemies, and His arch enemy
is Satan. He's going to do this, and you
see it. Now, from the very beginning,
the Lord Jesus Christ was promised to come from heaven. Remember,
right at the fall, right when Adam and Eve sinned and God judged
them, He said to Eve, He said, the seed of the woman is going
to bruise the head of the serpent. Remember that promise in Genesis
3.15? This was the promise, the first clear promise of the Lord
Jesus Christ coming to his people. That's the first era. And you
see throughout the Old Testament the history of Christ coming
to his people. He was promised, but he hadn't
come to them yet. Not in his incarnation. Sure,
He came to them in His Spirit, by His prophets, and in all the
Scriptures. But, not He Himself. Not in His incarnation. And so,
when God promised to Eve that the Lord Jesus Christ would come
as the seed of the woman, then throughout time, God's people
looked for the fulfillment of that promise. The Messiah is
coming. God's chosen. The one God chose
to deliver his people, God's appointed, the one God put in
that place for them to act as their head and their surety and
their substitute to deliver them, to redeem them. He was coming. He's the Messiah. And then Eve
expected, no doubt, that when Cain was born, that this would
be the promised seed. But it wasn't. Cain rose up and
killed Abel. So it couldn't be Cain, it couldn't
be Abel. And then Seth, whose name means
substitute, he was born. This was the one through whom
God would bring the seed of the woman. Seth was born. But then
you see the enemy attacking. You see the enemy at work, behind
the scenes, because the sons of God married. They saw the daughters of men.
The sons of God are the believers, the elect of God. They saw the
daughters of men, the unbelievers, and they took of them wives.
The sons of God began to marry the unbelievers. And so it looked
as if Satan had triumphed, and that the promised seed would
be put under the wrath of God, and God would destroy the whole
earth. And so God looked upon, and He said, the earth is filled
with violence. I'm going to destroy the whole
earth. But grace triumphed because Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And grace triumphed and God's
promise succeeded through Noah. God gave the promise of the promised
seed to come through Noah and his children. And so even though
you see that it looked as if the promised seed was going to
fail and Satan was going to somehow triumph, we see that God preserved
His seed and grace wins. Christ is triumphant because
even though God destroyed the world with a flood, God saved
His elect in Christ, in the ark. He saved them out of the flood.
And then again you see the promised seed promised to Abraham. Remember?
God said to Abraham, in thee and in thy seed all the nations
of the earth will be blessed. And yet Abraham and Sarah couldn't
have children. and they grew older and older,
and it looked as if because their bodies were dead that nothing
could be done and God's promise would fail. In fact, Abraham
and Sarah took it upon themselves by the works of the law to try
to bring about the fulfillment of the promise, which can never
work. The works of the law don't bring about the fulfillment of
the promise. Our personal obedience doesn't
fulfill God's promise. The promise hangs entirely upon
what God would do. And so, even though Abraham took
Hagar and had Ishmael, and it looked as if the promise couldn't
come through Abraham and Sarah as God prophesied, And it looked
as if the whole thing would fall apart. Yet at the end of Abraham's
life, when he was 99 years old and Sarah was 90 and their bodies
were now dead, then God worked a miracle and Sarah conceived. And in her conception, she carried
in her the son of promise, Isaac. And through Isaac, God then would
bring the promised seed. And so we see that out of the
death of Abraham and Sarah, God brings life. Out of the death
of Christ, God brings justification of His people and eternal life
through Him. And so Christ wins again. Christ
justifies His people in type through Abraham. But then we
see Isaac. He takes Rebekah to wife. And
Rebekah is barren. She can't conceive. And it looks
again. The promise can't go forward
because Rebekah can't bear children. Isaac is the son of promise.
Where's the promise going to come from if it doesn't come
through him? But God hears Isaac's prayer and blesses Rebekah and
her barrenness is taken away. In fact, she conceives with twins
in her womb. And even while the babies are
in the womb, God prophesies and says, the elder shall serve the
younger. He chose Jacob and he rejected
Esau. But yet, Though God had made
this commitment that through Jacob God would bring the Christ,
yet Esau was the favorite of Isaac. And it looks like the
promise is going to fail, because what if Isaac gives all of the
blessings to Esau? But no, God worked again. In
justice, God had Isaac bless Jacob because Esau had rejected
the inheritance that God gave to Abraham. He had rejected Christ
for a bowl of pottage. And so again, you see that God's
promise to bring the seed of the woman is triumphant. Christ triumphs through eternal
election. God chose Jacob and he rejected
Esau. And then again, you see another
apparent impasse, where there's the children of Jacob, through
whom the promise must come, were put in Egypt. And they're all
under the bondage to the king of Egypt and the people of Egypt. They're made to slaves, to serve
them for 400 years. And it looks as if they're going
to be destroyed. Pharaoh commands, kill the son, save the girl. kill all the male children, but
save the young women and children alive. And it looks as if the
king of Egypt, this evil monarch, is going to wipe out the godly
seed again. And yet, God sends a man, Moses,
He brings this man to Pharaoh, and He gives Moses the rod of
God, so that He commands the plagues to come on Egypt and
upon Pharaoh. And even though these monstrous
Judgments come upon the nation over and over again. Egypt never
repents. Pharaoh's heart grows only harder.
And God's people, on the other hand, are kept in the light.
And they're delivered. They're redeemed by the blood
of the Lamb. And so grace triumphs again through the redeeming blood
of the Lamb of God. sprinkled on the house where
the people of God are. Their firstborn are saved. And
yet Pharaoh and his firstborn, the seed of Pharaoh, and his
armies are destroyed in the sea. Right when it seems as if the
whole nation of Israel is going to be destroyed and swallowed
up by the king of Egypt and by his armies, God opens the sea. They walk through on dry land.
They follow the Israelites. God swallows them up in the sea.
And all of the Egyptian army and the king of the Egyptians
are destroyed in the sea. Grace triumphs once again. The
strong man, Pharaoh, is defeated. The strong man is destroyed.
The children of God are redeemed by blood out of bondage and out
of the hand of them that hated him. But then we see the people
themselves bring themselves unto judgment. Remember at Horeb?
They make a calf. Aaron takes their golden earrings
and casts it into the fire and out comes this calf. And the
people ascribe to the calf the works of God. They say, these
be thy gods, O Israel. They brought you out of Egypt.
And they began to praise the gods of gold. They worshiped
the gods of Egypt. And it looked as if God said
to Moses, I will destroy them. And it seemed as if Satan has
surely won at this point because that's exactly what he wanted.
He wanted God's justice to destroy his people so that his promise
would fail and the seed would not come. And yet, God found
a mediator in Moses, and Moses stands up and he says, Lord,
forgive their sin, and if you will not forgive them, then blot
me, I pray thee, out of thy book. Interceding for God's people,
pleading God's glory, pleading God's covenant, pleading that
He would spare them, and damn Him, if necessary, in order to
forgive them, that God would bring forth His Christ out of
that nation. And yet the intercessor and the
mediator wins again. And Christ is triumphant. And
then Israel occupies Canaan. And they see the kings of the
nations around them. And they themselves desire a
king. They look for a king. They want
a king. They reject God. They reject the Lord who brought
them out of Egypt, the Christ of God. And they ask for them
a man, a king. And so God gives them a man,
Saul, after their own hearts. He gives them a man just like
them, one that they could trust in. But Saul was unfaithful. Saul served himself. He amassed
wealth and servants out of the nation to himself and was only
concerned about his own agenda. And so he didn't trust God. He
didn't come to God through the offering and didn't wait for
God's man, the prophet of God. And God said, because of this,
I'm not going to allow Saul to remain king. I'm going to find
a man after my own heart. So he found David. He found David,
a man after his own heart. And he says, I've chosen David,
and I've exalted David, a shepherd boy, a nothing. He brings him
out and Saul and his armies are in the battle. And there's a
Philistine, a giant. All the armies of Israel are
against all the armies of the Philistines. And this one giant
defies the armies and God himself. He says, bring me a man that
I may fight with him. And if I win, then you are all
ours. And it looks as if Satan is going
to win because this man is huge. And there's nothing, all of Israel
is trembling before this man and nothing can be done. And
yet, David steps up and he says, I'll fight for him. Who is this
Philistine, this uncircumcised Philistine who defies the armies
of the living God? And the Philistine came with
his sword and his shield and his spear. But David came in the name of
the Lord. And it looked as if the Philistine
could win because David was just a puny little lad. And the Philistine
was huge and he had an armor bearer that ran before him. But
David took a single stone and cast it. with his sling, and
God guided that stone, and it sank into the head of the giant,
and the giant fell down, and David took the giant's own sword,
and cut off his head with his own sword, and it foreshadowed
what Christ would do in the cross, that by his own death, he would
defeat the one who had the power of the fear of death over his
people, and he would defeat him through the death he meant to
bring on his people. And so Saul saw David exalted
by the people in their praises, and Saul sets himself against
David. And it looks like, again, because
God had promised that through David God would bring forth Christ
and give all to His Son, the kingdom forever. And Saul sets
himself against David, and he swears, he said, I'm going to
with my javelin I'm going to pin him to the wall." And again
and again Saul misses and finally orders his whole army to kill
David. He hunts for him like a bird in the field. And David
escapes because of his righteousness. He doesn't take up his hand against
the Lord's anointed and God delivers David. Showing how God would
deliver his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, out of the hand of Satan
and all who followed him. And so the shepherd The shepherd
again wins against the man of war. The Lord Jesus Christ triumphs
again. But God is holy, and David is
just a man, and he succumbs to the lust of his flesh. And you
would think that God would destroy him in justice. And yet God says
through Nathan the prophet, when he had sinned with Bathsheba,
the Lord hath put away your sin. And so you see again, grace triumphs
through the redemption that's coming in the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the Lord Jesus Christ will come. And then again, Athaliah,
a wicked daughter of parents Ahab and Jezebel, determines
to kill the seed royal. She says, I'm going to kill the
only son, Joash, that's left. And she goes out to kill him.
But then it says that Joram, the sister of Ahaziah, took Joash,
the son of Ahaziah, and stole him from among the king's sons
which were slain, and hid him from Athaliah. And so the story
goes that Athaliah herself was killed, and not the king's son.
And so the wicked queen dies. And the Lord's promise seed continues
because Christ triumphs again. So you see the repetition? Then
much time goes by and the children of Israel have been delivered
to the hands of their enemies and they're under the rule of
the king of Persia, the king Ahasuerus. And he has a wicked
servant whose name is Haman. And Haman hates the Jews. And
he convinces the king that these people were against and opposed
to the king. And he has the king set a decree
and take his ring and put a seal on the decree that on a certain
day all the Jews would be killed But behind the scenes, grace
triumphs once again because God raised up Mordecai, a Jew. And
Mordecai was faithful to the king. And he reported the evil
doings of those who meant to overthrow the king and his kingdom
to the king. And it was written in a log,
in a report. And meanwhile, Mordecai's niece,
Esther, is seen by the king and his servants, and she is taken
to be the king's wife. And she's a Jew. And so Haman
approaches the king, and he's furious about Mordecai. He's
furious about the Jews, and he builds a gallows to kill Mordecai,
because Mordecai will not bow down to him. But just before
the decree goes out to kill the Jews, the king is troubled. He can't sleep. And he asks for
the newspaper to be brought to read about what has happened
recently. And here it is in his own newspaper that Mordecai reported
about how his enemies were going to take the king's life. And that Mordecai had saved him.
And so the king has you ear as he brings in Haman the next day.
And he says, What shall be done to the man whom the king delights
to honor? And there's Haman thinking, it's
got to be me. Who else would the king delight
to honor but me? He only thought of himself. And
so he says, well I know what should be done. Put the man on
the king's horse. Put the king's robe and his royal
apparel on him. And set the crown on the man's
head. And then have the greatest servant of the kings lead him
through the streets of the people. And cry before him, this is what
shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor. And
the king was pleased with that and he said to Haman, take and
do this to Mordecai. And then Haman knew that he was
in trouble. And also along with that, Esther
had invited the king to a banquet of wine. And the king came and
she invited Haman and eventually she discovered Haman to the king
that it was his intention to kill all the Jews. And the king
saw Haman pleading for his life before Esther the queen and thought
he was trying to force the queen. And the king's servants came
in and put a hood over Haman and took him out and hung him
on the very gallows he intended to kill Mordecai. And so Christ
triumphs again. The enemies of Christ are put
down and the people are spared. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
this era, comes to his people. Finally, Christ is born. The
wise men come. They come to the king, evil king
Herod. And they say, where is he who
is born, king of the Jews? And Herod says, I don't know.
But if you find him, tell me. And so they go out, and the Lord
leads them to Jesus, and they worship Him, they give Him gifts.
And God warns them in a dream, don't return to Herod. And so
they don't. And Herod says, I'm going to
kill all those in Egypt under the age of two, and he wipes
out all the children in Israel. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
spared, taken to Egypt, so that in the appointed time He would
be brought out of Egypt, and the promise would be fulfilled,
that out of Egypt have I called my Son. And God triumphed again,
the Lord Jesus Christ, all this time, through endless Assaults
by the kingdom of Satan. Christ triumphed and there was
no possibility that God's promise could fail. He came at the appointed
time. And this leads us to our second
part. He came for His people. He had come to His people, but
now He comes for them. And for them, he comes against
Satan, and Satan tempts him, and he says, if you're the son
of God, then command these stones to be made bread. And Jesus answers
him as a man, and he says, man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word of God. And he defeats Satan. He is not
tempted by him. He found nothing in our Lord
Jesus Christ. All through his life he was assaulted
by the Pharisees and the scribes, those who carried God's Word,
who copied God's Word, who preached God's Word, who proselytized
and tried to get converts to their way of thinking, their
works, religion. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
exposes them for their hypocrisy. And they hate Him. They envy
Him. And they want to destroy Him. They cast all manner of
accusations against Him. He did them only good. And they
only want to kill Him. And so they deliver Him into
the hands of the Gentiles, the rulers. And they crucify Him
by their will. And the Jews destroy the one
God had promised. And yet, in His death, In His
suffering, it was God's predetermined will. You, by wicked hands, have
crucified and slain the Prince of Life, the King of Glory, according
to God's predetermined counsel. You've done all that God wanted
to be done. And for His people, He died.
He took their sins and was made under the law and God cursed
him with those sins for his people. And those sins were the satisfaction
from him was given to God for those sins. And all that God
required of his people was fulfilled by him. So that everything that
they needed to come to God was given by the Lord Jesus Christ
for them. This is Christ for His people. During His life, during His sufferings,
during His death, He did all that He did for His people according
to scripture, according to promise. Isaiah 53, all of scripture testifies
to the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow.
And so you see Christ triumphant. But triumphant in a way that
we don't expect. Triumphant in His death. Because
you would think, and turn with me if you would to John chapter
12, you would think that in his death he would have been defeated.
But this was his design, his wise design, that in death he
would destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the
devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage. Now look at John chapter 12 and
verse 27. Jesus says in John 12, 27, "...now
is my soul troubled." As He contemplates becoming sin, and going to the
cross, and coming under the wrath of God, and the assaults of the
ungodly, with their false accusations, being subject and judged by God's
law, He is troubled by this. And He says, "...what shall I
say? Father, save me from this hour?"
But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy
name." Glorify thy name because it was in Christ's redemption
of his people that God would glorify his name. He says, then
came there a voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified
it and will glorify it again. He glorified it all throughout
history. We've just reviewed it. He glorified
it in His birth. Angels announced it. He glorified
it in delivering Him from temptation, at His baptism, in His transfiguration,
and now He's about to glorify it again. And He says, In verse
29, when the Lord spake from heaven and said, I have both
glorified it and will glorify it again, the people therefore
that stood by and heard it said that it thundered. Others said
an angel spake to him, and Jesus answered and said, this voice
came not because of me. But for your sakes, now is the
judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out." Do you see that? The Lord Jesus Christ knew
that in His death, He would overturn every accusation of the devil
against his people. He would provide a substantive
answer to God's justice and righteousness, so that God, in His righteousness,
would be able to satisfy His love toward His people in grace,
calling them out and delivering them out of Satan's kingdom.
So much so, that the devil lost all standing, all ground, whereby
he might accuse God's people, who Who shall condemn us if God
be for us? Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. And so Satan was cast out of
heaven. The accuser of the brethren is
cast out. The strong man is bound, one
stronger than he comes, and destroys him by his death. Just like Samson.
In His death, He slew more in His death than He killed in His
life. And so the Lord Jesus Christ,
He defeated Satan in His death. And you see it in verse 32. If
I, He said I, if I be lifted up on the cross from the earth,
I will draw all unto me. That's the victory. It's the
crucifixion and it's the resurrection. You see them both in the same
verse. He came for His people and now you see what's going
to happen after He rises from the dead. He will draw all men
unto Him. And this is the third phase.
Christ in His people. Because after the Lord Jesus
Christ rose from the dead, He ascended to heaven and was seated
on the right hand of God. And from heaven's throne, because
of his success, because of his triumph, having nailed all the
accusations of the law against his people to his cross, and
triumphing over Satan in it, he sits on his throne and he
commands his spirit to go to his people and to bring them
from darkness to light, Christ in his people. And this is why
it says in Ephesians chapter 2, He says this in Ephesians
chapter 2. He says, "...you who were dead
in trespasses and sins, were in time past. You walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children
of disobedience, among whom we all had our conversation in time
past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others. But God who is rich in mercy
for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us, made us alive together with
Christ, raised us up with the same almighty power that God
raised Christ from the dead. Christ from glory sends His Spirit
commands life to his people through the preaching of his word, and
God's Spirit gives them life, Christ in his people now, opening
their eyes, loosing their tongues, causing them to see that Christ
is everything in their salvation, coming to God by his Spirit,
speaking to him from their heart, confessing that they're nothing
but sin, and yet Christ has redeemed them from the power of their
own sin and Satan. And they say with their heart
and with their mouth, Christ is everything. He's everything
to God and He's everything to me. And my tongue is loosed and
I'm free. I've been redeemed. I've been
delivered. Inheritance has been secured to me and given to me
in faith in Christ. And I see it and I speak of it
because I believe. Now I speak. And then you see
Christ with His people in this final era because He that redeemed us at the cross,
He that sent His Spirit to dwell in us and gives His Spirit to
His church to send the gospel throughout the world so that
the gates of hell cannot prevail against building His church,
against His mighty power and reign in heaven and glory, giving
repentance and faith to all His own, finding them, His sheep,
bringing them, Then he says in John chapter 17, Father, I will
that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am,
that they may behold my glory. God's people are gathered. When
the Lord Jesus Christ comes from heaven that second time, it will
be to fulfill the final era. And He will command His people.
He will command those whose bodies have died or are asleep in Jesus,
whose spirits have gone on to be with the Lord. He'll raise
them up. And then we which are alive will be gathered together
with them, and there will be a great shout of triumph, because
Christ reigns, and the devil is put under his feet, and under
the feet of his people, and they will reign with him. And they
will judge angels, and all of creation will be given to them,
and they'll reign with Christ, because he conquered death and
sin. And He satisfied the law and
fulfilled it for them, and the world has been overcome. And
nothing can stop the fulfillment of God's will for His people,
which He put in Christ to redeem them, to bring them to Himself,
His sons to glory. This is what Christ did when
He delivered this man from his dumb spirit. He's showing us
that He triumphed over Satan's kingdom. He's the strong man. He's the one who we look to.
He's the one we trust in. He's the one we come to. And
we glory in Him, don't we? Saved by grace, saved by grace,
that is our plea, our cry of joy and peace before God. We're
saved by grace. What a glory it is to be saved
by the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ triumphs,
and He triumphed over our enemies. And we are so glad, we're so
thankful. It says in Jeremiah 17, 12, In
fact, take a look at this, Jeremiah 17, 12. It's really a testimony to all
that we've said. And throughout Scripture, Jeremiah
17, 12, a glorious high throne from the beginning is the place
of our sanctuary. Father, we thank you for the
Lord Jesus Christ who reigns in glory in his success, in fulfilling
your eternal will, in bringing full satisfaction to your justice,
so that the law and judgment now side in righteousness with
your grace and love and mercy, and command the salvation of
your people, to bring them unblameable, without fault, with exceeding
joy before the throne of your presence and glory, And we stand
amazed that you would save us in spite of ourselves, despite
our enemies, in spite of our opposition in our natural selves,
our ignorance and foolishness and our complete dominion by
Satan. Yet you've saved us, Lord, to
the glory of your name. Father, we thank you for this,
your word. Teach us, dear Lord, to find our Lord Jesus Christ
to be all of our comfort, our peace, and our assurance. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.