so much here, too much to take
in in one message and don't want to rush through any of these
verses. And although we've seen them
many times, Hopefully, we see something new.
But this morning, we're going to look at this one chapter in
both messages, this hour and the next. And then, Lord willing,
Wednesday night, we'll look at those wonderful last three verses. Come unto me, all ye that labor,
heavy laden, the yoke of Christ, take my yoke upon you. How could
you rush through those verses? Those are so vital too. I said Wednesday. I meant next Sunday. Wednesday night, Lord willing,
we're going to look at Malachi chapter 4. And Roberta, you don't
know this, but you're the means by which this message came, I
believe. Malachi 4, 2 says, Under you that fear my name, shall
the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wing. Roberta
was talking to me on the phone. She called me, and it was a great
encouragement, to thank me for a message that she listened to
recently. We were talking about the weather.
Do you remember that? Do you remember our conversation?
If a person would just go out and sit in the sun, they'd feel
better. And that verse immediately came to my mind. The son of righteousness
with heaven in his wings. So, Lord willing, Wednesday night
we'll look at that. I've been thinking about it for
days. But this morning, Matthew 11, how many times have you heard
me quote my pastor who said, The Word of God is full of promises
lest we despair, and warnings lest we presume. The Word of
God is full of warnings lest we presume, promises lest we
despair, and neither in neither particular order. And no one
preached more warnings than our Lord Himself, especially in these
verses. No one preached more comfort
than our Lord Himself. The words from His mouth were
both, weren't they? And we need them. We need them. Little children need chastening. They need chastening. We have
our two granddaughters with us, and some need more chastening
than others. But they need it. If they didn't
have it, what would they be like? Hellions. Yes, our children would
be hellions. Why? Because they're just like
us. They came from us. And so would we. So were we.
But God, in great mercy, chastens with His Word, chastens with
trials and encouragement, comfort. We need that. Little children
need that desperately. Our Lord just spoke to the merely
curious. Those who were just curious,
they came to hear or see the preacher, John the Baptist. And that describes most people
today. They come out of curiosity. People
go to church, so to speak. They go to hear the preacher,
see what's going on. It was no different then. John
the Baptist was a celebrity, a well-known preacher of his
day. one of the most famous men of
his day. And so everyone went out to hear him. Even Herod heard
him. And so the people were curious. And our Lord said of John, he's
the greatest man on earth. Greater than kings and rulers. A preacher. Our Lord said his
preacher was the greatest man on earth, that his job was the
most vital, the most important, the one thing needful. And then
they heard a message, they heard him preach, and it wasn't just
a sermon. Our Lord said, this is my messenger.
He sent from me with a message from me. Not just a sermon that
you can take it or leave it, but a message. Words of life
or death. Life or death. And then he said
they went out to sea out of curiosity. Then he talked about the kingdom
of heaven suffering violence. How God's people were assaulted by
the God of this world, held captive. What it takes to deliver them
from this captivity or else they will perish for eternity. What
it took was the Lord Jesus Christ to go through what He did. Just
a sermon. Christ crucified bearing a wrath
of God against the sins of His people. And then what takes place when
God does, when the Holy Spirit of God moves on a human being
to take them from darkness to light, from death to light, deliver
them from the captor, a new birth, a violent act. It's a violent
thing. It's a violent thing, like birth. Like birth. It's not an easy
thing. It's not easy believing. It's not a thing you do. It's
something you do when you accept Jesus, you know, or join the
church or all that. No, no. This is the forces of
heaven and hell doing battle in the soul of a man. And our
Lord said, In verse 15, he concluded those words to the curious by
saying, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Did you hear
what I said, he said? No, most didn't. Some in here didn't hear what
I just said. Why? It's that captivity we're
talking about. And unless God gives us ears
to hear, And then he gives a word to the
curious, or to the, I'm sorry, the critical. He gave words to
the merely curious, and then he said something to those who
are critical. It came to hear without any response,
just sitting in judgment of the message. And the message had
no effect on him. Verse 16, he said, Whereunto
shall I liken this generation? And perhaps the title of this
message should be, This Generation. What in the world is this generation
like? And every generation has been
evil. But the Lord said in the last
days it would be exceptionally evil. perverse, reprobate, just
darkness. And this untoward generation,
this evil, our Lord called an evil generation. Wicked and adulterous
and evil generation seeks after a sign. This generation, what
should I liken it to? He said it's like children sitting
in the markets, calling unto their fellows, and saying, we've
piped unto you and have not danced. We've mourned unto you and you
have not lamented. They used to take their goods
to the market. The people would take their goods
to the market. The adults would go and they'd set up stands and
sell their goods. And while they did that, the
children would go play in the marketplace. They still do that
in Mexico all day long. We were down there one time and
there were some children all the way from Chiapas. Remember
that, Minnie? Those little Chalupa Indians dressed in black. But
they came there while their mothers sold their goods. The children
would play. And the Lord said, This is what
it's like, these children sitting in the market, calling unto their
fellows and says, We piped and we played some music. You haven't
danced. We've mourned unto you and you
have not lamented. In other words, there was no
response, no reaction. And most do not react to preaching,
especially if you hear it over and over again. People that keep going to church,
so to speak, they don't react with any joy. They don't react
with any sadness. They don't show any smiles. They
don't show any tears. And that's the people of this
world who are, the Scripture says, dead. That's how a dead
man does not respond. A dead person does not respond
to anything. They're dead. They're dead. You can tell them something funny,
they won't laugh. You can tell them something wonderful,
they won't rejoice. You can tell them something sad,
they won't mourn. That's the way dead people act.
Go with me to 2 Corinthians 2. That's the people of this world.
You preach the gospel to them. You preach God's Word to them.
Words of warning. They're not afraid. Words of,
should be great rejoicing. They're not interested. 2 Corinthians
2. But incredibly and sadly, it
happens in the house of God. Our Lord was talking to people
And then they were hearing the Son of God preach without reaction. You think about
that. They were hearing the greatest
preacher that ever lived, John the Baptist, and then the Lord
Himself, without a reaction. Imagine that. How dead can you
be? The preaching of the Word of
Gospel is both a joyful sound It ought to be the greatest news
we ever heard. Cause us great rejoicing. And it's the saddest
thing. It ought to make us weep. Make
us weep about what we are and what we did to cause Christ to
go to that cross. Laughter, weeping, joy, sorrow,
happiness, sadness. Look at 2 Corinthians 2. But
it always does. The Gospel always does. God has
the people who are alive. Verse 14, 2 Corinthians 2, thanks
be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ. That
is when we preach Christ. That's a lesson to a preacher. Preach Christ. Christ said, if
I be lifted up, I'll draw all men to me. If I be lifted up,
the sun will rise. There's healing in His way. He
always, though, causes us to triumph in Christ. Whenever we
preach Christ, he makes them manifest, makes it clear, and
it reveals the savor, savor. It's a sweet savor. Some people
are going to taste the Lord's aggression. Some people are going
to smell that sweet savor of his sacrifice. Somebody is. It's not going to return void,
our Lord says. He said, you preach the Word,
Timothy, in season, out of season. The Word will not return void.
I have a people. Whenever the wind blows where
it listed, they're going to hear my voice. I'm going to open their
ears. I'm going to open their heart.
They're going to rejoice in that gospel. They're going to mourn
over their sin. They're going to rejoice over
the good news. They are. Because they're alive. There are times when they feel
dead, but they're going to feel that deadness and mourn their
deadness. Times when they feel cold, but
that's a sign of life. To feel cold. And they're going
to want to be warm. Hunger. Blessed are they that
hunger and thirst. Can you eat the same food over
and over again? If you're hungry, you can. And if you're hungry,
you'll eat the same thing and it will taste better than the
first time you ever tasted it. If you're really hungry. That's
what determines it does. Hunger and thirst. Blessed are
they that hunger and thirst. He said that he will make manifest,
or make it clear, the savor of his knowledge by us in every
place, in every place, wherever the Gospels preach. For we are unto God a sweet savor
of Christ and them that are saved. My, my, that's unbelievable,
for lack of a better word, unbelievable. Gabe and I were talking about
this weekend. We were with them over the last
of the week. And he and I were talking a lot
about preaching and the ups and downs of it and the encouragements
and the frustrations and the times when you want to quit and
times when you can keep going and times of great discouragement,
times of discouragement. Already, he's going through all
of those things. I encouraged him and he encouraged
me. There are a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved. Like I said, you called me and
it made my day. You called me. That was probably
one of those times when I was ready to quit. I felt like a
failure in preaching. Why are you doing this anymore?
You can't do this. And somebody called me or somebody
write me. And I think, well, maybe I am
called to do this. What a blessing. What a blessing.
Sweet Savior of Christ in them that are saved. And in them that
perish. You know, the persecution is
a sign. Our Lord said, blessed are you
when men persecute you and revile you and say all manner of evil
against you falsely for My name's sake. Those that hate you for
the truth's sake. You're blessed if people hate
you. My dad used to say, something's
wrong if everybody loves what you're saying. Something's wrong
if you're not saying it clear enough. If there's not somebody
that despises it. Same thing with you going out
there. If somebody doesn't get mad at you, maybe you're not
telling the truth clear enough. Verse 16, we're a saver of death
unto death. To some, when the preacher stands
up and preaches or when you witness, talk to them about the Word of
God, they don't hear what you're saying and they're ready for
you to quit. They don't want to hear what you're saying. Isn't it amazing how when you
talk to people, you can talk about anything and they'll be
enthused about it? Anything. Any subject. Whatever
it is. And then immediately when you
bring up, you mention God's name, or you mention Christ, you mention
the Gospel, the Scripture, it's like you throw cold water all
over them. Let's get off that subject. Death. We don't want to talk
about death. Death to death. But to the other,
a savor of life unto life. What would you believers, those
of you who know, what would you rather talk about than anything
else? What would you rather talk about
than anything else? When you get together and there are times
when the Lord allows you to have some fellowship around the gospel,
there's nothing like it, is there? You're hoping when you get together
that the conversation will come around to that, to the things
of God, because that's what you rejoice in. That's the savor
of life. Life responds to life. In life
there's laughter. In life there's weeping. If you can't laugh, something's
wrong with you. If you can't weep, something's
wrong with you. Joy, sorrow, happiness, sadness,
that's a sign of life. If there's no response, there's
no life. Now, our Lord just talked about, go back to, and He said,
who is sufficient for these things? No man. There are sufficiencies
of God. So He tells me, He tells you,
He tells me to just preach the Word, just preach. That I'm not
responsible for the reaction, I can't get a reaction. Don't
try to get one. I talked about emotion in the
pulpit. Don't do that. Don't do that. You don't want them looking at
you. You don't want them touched with
how tender your heart is. You want them touched with the
tenderness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And even when our Lord
was bearing that cross, He said, don't weep for me. weeping can be deceitful. A hard heart against God can
weep. Well, but it's a sign of life
nonetheless. And the Lord just is sufficient
for these things. The Holy Spirit is the one who
makes it sufficient. Now, back here, our Lord said,
He just talked about the blind receiving their sight. And I can't imagine what it would
be like if you'd been blind all your life and then suddenly see. I can't even enter into that.
Can you? I've never been blind. I have been blind spiritually.
And I do remember my eyes being first opened. I do. And there
are times, even now, when I have gone through a period of blindness
and the Lord opened my eyes again. It's a wonderful thing. Would
you be happy if you got your eyesight all of a sudden? Would
you be happy? Imagine the joy of a deaf person
that never heard anything in all their life, never heard one
word, never heard one note of music, never heard one voice,
to all of a sudden one day hear beautiful music, hear a bird
sing. Can you imagine the joy? And
the times we go through deafness, There are times when we don't
hear a word of the gospel. And the preacher wonders. And
you wonder. And then, bless God, he opens
those ears again. Oh, my. Can you imagine what
it would be like to be lame all your life and never walk? Like
that man sick of the palsy. And let me tell you this, that
story again, they brought him to the Lord, and before the Lord
gave him legs to walk, the Lord said to him the most wonderful
words heard by human ears. And before that man's legs leaped,
his heart leaped. He said unto him, Son, your sins
be forgiven. And his heart leaped. After that,
I'm sure he didn't much care if he ever walked. Now he's going
to walk by faith. But on top of that, the Lord
being greatly merciful said, now take up your bed and walk. And it says he's leaping. What
if you just start walking for the first time? Leaping, like
a heart leaping. He says he went leaping and praising
the Lord. Praising the Lord. This wasn't
some stupid, ridiculous, hypocritical, Pentecostal, fake emotional service. Oh, praise the Lord, all this
stuff they're putting on today. This was a man who heard from
the Lord Jesus Christ that his sins were gone. That, I believe,
was what he was leaping over more than anything. Praising
God, it said. for his great salvation. Oh my,
may the Lord give us ears to hear, hearts to leap. The gospel
is a joyful sound of free, full, free, eternal pardon, forgiveness
of sins, mercy, grace, their sins and iniquity. I remember
no more. The iniquity of Israel shall
be sought and it shall not be found. It's gone. To the one
who was under legalism, the handwriting of ordinances against you, the
law that was against you, you're not under it anymore. It's kept
completely fulfilled. You're not under that law. I
kept it for you. Just trust me. To the weak, I'm your strength.
To the unrighteous, I'm your righteousness, Christ said. Good news. Good news. He said, John came, not eating
or drinking, they said he had the devil. Those legalists, you
know, they said, no, I'm sorry, the Libertines,
that's what they were, said he has the devil. He has the devil. The Pentecostals. He's dead.
John, too dead. I'm sure people come into this
service, after having been in religion and the world, and they
think, this place is dead. All they ever sing is, how firm
a foundation, and come thou fount, and there is a fountain, and
rock of ages, same old tones over and over again. There's
no life to this place. I'm sure they think that, don't
they? If they don't know that joyful sound. See, it's both
full of mourning. The hymns we sing are both full
of mourning over sin and rejoicing over Christ. It's not a bunch
of emotionalism. These hymns aren't meant to get
you excited. They're meant to convict us of
sin and give us comfort in Christ and glorify God. That's what
they're meant to do. But then Christ came, it says, eating
and drinking, it says, a gluttonous man, a wine-bibber, he's an antinomian. To the legalist, he's an antinomian. And our Lord said this, he said,
wisdom is justified of her children. Wisdom is justified of her children.
God's people, God's children, They justify God. They know, they understand why
John came, who John was and why he came. They understand why
he did what he did. He was a Nazarite under the Lord.
They understand why Christ came. Why Christ came, who He is and
what He did and why He came. Why He did what He did. Friend
of publicans and sinners. Ate and drank. He did all this
to show us. It's not what goes into the mouth
that defiles it. He showed us these things clearly.
And wisdom is justified of our children. Christ himself is our
wisdom. He's justified of his people. He's understood of his people.
He's believed of his people. They see how God can be just
and justifier of the ungodly through Christ our Lord. They
see. They know. Then, in verse 20, the Lord began
to upbraid the cities. Now listen to these, and we're
going to close with it. Because what he was saying of
Corazon can be said of Rocky Mount, Virginia. What he said of Capernaum, where
he spent a great deal of time, can be said of Rocky Mount, Virginia. He said he began to upbraid,
reproach, condemn the cities wherein most of his mighty works
were done because they repented not. He said, Woe unto thee,
Corazon! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida, if
the mighty works were done in you, had been done in Tyre and
Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ash.
I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon
at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which
are exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell. If the
mighty works had been done in thee, had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day." And I say unto you
that it's more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day
of judgment than for thee. More tolerable. Now, we do not
believe that there are degrees of reward in heaven. We know
that. We know that for a fact. All
who get to glory. Get one thing. Christ. Don't
get all these things that religion talks about, you know, crowns
and rewards and so forth. No, no, no, no. Because nobody
deserves to be there. Nobody earned the right to be
there. Christ did. He gets the crown. To Him be
all the praise, honor and glory and all things. But we get salvation. We get the privilege of being
there. That's enough of being with Him, beholding His glory.
But there are degrees of punishment. The Lord spoke of that very clearly. And He said, amazingly, the Lord
said, it's going to be easier for homosexuals and harlots than
for those who hear the gospel over and over and over again and don't believe it and don't
respond or else grow lukewarm to it. That's serious, isn't it? My, my. Thieves and homosexuals, it will
be easier for them than gospel-hardened churchgoers. My, my. Repentance. He said they
would have repented long ago. The gospel, as far as I know,
San Francisco, California, I don't think there's a gospel church
there. I know there's one close to there. But I don't think there
is one there. Los Angeles, California, Miami,
Florida. Think about the most wicked places
you can think of. But there is one in Rocky Mount,
Virginia. Why? Of all places. Of all places. Why? Ashland, Kentucky. Pikeville,
Kentucky. Claremont, West Virginia. Why?
Even so far as it seemed good enough there. Oh, we have a great
privilege, don't we? A gift, an unspeakable gift,
the message, the truth. Lord, take it not from us. Take
not Thy Holy Spirit from us. Take not Thy Gospel from us.
There are some that still need to hear this desperately, still
need to hear it. Don't take it from them.