Go to Matthew 9 with me now.
Matthew's Gospel, chapter 9. Read verses 35 and 36 with me. Matthew 9. 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 when he saw the multitude,
he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted
and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd The
Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to seek and to save that
which was lost. And here it says He went into
every city. All the cities. Bethlehem, Bethany,
Bethsaida, Capernaum, Chorazin, Caesarea, Caesarea Philippi,
Samaria. Too many to name. He went into
every one of them. Every city. walking, going about,
it says, mostly on foot. Every city. He didn't have to,
but he did. Every city. And the villages,
it said. He went into every village, not
just the big cities, but the little tiny villages that are
not on the map. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad
the Lord goes seeking his lost sheep in places
that, obscure places there, not on the map. Anybody know where
Corn Valley is? Aren't you glad the Lord knows?
Anybody know where Palmerdale, Alabama is? Palmerdale? Anybody? Aren't you glad the
Lord knows where Palmerdale, Alabama is? Grundy? Virginia? Ever been to Grundy? You don't
go there on purpose. Well, the Lord did. All the villages. We went to
Mexico. Anybody know Tachibichin? Zit-Zan-Dun? Tecate-Venegas? Opichin? The Lord does. He has a people
everywhere. Went about all the villages,
all the little obscure places, teaching and preaching. Teaching and preaching. What's
the difference? Well, there is a difference because the Scripture
says so. Teaching. Instructing from God's
Word what we did this morning. Teaching. Line upon line. Precept upon precept. Instructing. And preaching. Declaring. Declaring. Seeking his lost sheep. And then
verse 36 says he was moved with compassion. Moved with compassion
because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he came
saying, Good news, the shepherd's here. Of whom Ezekiel wrote,
and Ezekiel says, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I, even
I, will both search my sheep and seek them out. They're not
looking for me, but I'm looking for them, and I will find them. I'll find them. As a shepherd
seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep,
the flock that are scattered, so will I seek out my sheep and
will deliver them out of all places." Bring them out of those
obscure places, the one foal. I have one shepherd, one foal.
I'll bring them out, he said. and said, I will feed them in
a good pasture. I will feed my flock, and I will
cause them to lie down, saith the Lord, and rest while I feed
them. And by them the Lord did. He
went in every city, every village, and he found them, one over here,
one over there, two over there, one by a well, two in a boat,
two by the wayside, He found them and He fed them. Feed them He did. Teaching, preaching,
feeding with the sincere milk of the Word every waking hour. He said a man has to work while
there's twelve daylight hours and He did. Feeding, teaching,
preaching the meat, the milk, the honey, the bread, the water
of His Word. He fed them with His body and
His blood and laid down His life. Go with me to Mark chapter 1.
Mark chapter 1. And we read how the Lord went
about all the cities and villages teaching and preaching and healing
all day, every day of His earthly life. Every day, every waking
hour of His earthly life. life was spent looking for His
sheep and teaching and preaching His Word, which is the power
of God. Mark 1, look at this. This is
good. Verse 32, and following that,
"...evening, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all
that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils,
and all the city was gathered together at the door." This was
Peter's house, the same place back there. But that evening
they brought all these people and a whole city was gathered
together and he healed them. He healed many that were sick
of diverse diseases and cast out many devils and suffered
not the devils to speak because they knew him. And then in the
morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed
into a solitary place in their praise. So he was preaching and
teaching and healing all day long. into the evening and then
wake up very early and pray until the sun came up. You know, when the sun sets in
the evening, what do you want to do? You get home from work. What do you want to do? You sit
in your chair and the sun is down. If your wife comes to you
and says, honey, would you... anybody besides me? Say, I just
sat down. The day's over. It's eight o'clock. It's time to read. Not the Lord.
Not the Lord. Not the Lord. Never. He put himself through a great
deal of trouble. He put himself through a great
deal of trouble. All day, every day. But you can't trouble Him. I tried to say that Wednesday
night. Maybe it didn't sink in. They
said to the man, Jarius, they said, don't trouble Him. You
can't trouble the Lord. That's why He came. He came for
those in trouble. That's why He came. He can't
trouble them. He never then, He never turned anyone away.
Ever. In the evening, they came. The
whole city came. He didn't turn anybody away.
What does that say? What I'm trying to say, what
I'm trying to bring out is His compassion for the multitude.
Come one, come all. He never turned anyone away,
not then and not now. He never said to anyone, I don't
have time for you. I need to make time for myself.
We do that, don't we? We're human. Not him. He never said that. I don't have time for you. Not
then, not now. Never will. It says he was teaching
and preaching in our text. Back in Matthew 9, it says he
was teaching and preaching all day and he was full of compassion. You know he grew tired. He did. When he said, I must need to
go through some area. But all the time they were trying
to get him to eat, trying to get him to rest. And he would
say, though he wasn't eating food like we do, he said, I have
meat to eat that you know not of. My meat is to do the will
of the Heavenly Father. This is the will of the Heavenly
Father, that everyone to see of the Son. So he's going out
and they're going to see him. I've come to meet them. I've
come to find them. And he grew tired, though. He
said, I must need to go through some area. And it says, when
he was wearied with his journey, he walked on foot a long way,
a long way out of the way. I know one woman who was mighty
glad he went out of the way. But he was wearied with his journey.
He sat down on the well. He was wearied. The Lord had compassion upon
the multitude. They saw that they fainted. And
though he himself was nearly faint, he had thoughts only of
them. The Lord Jesus Christ was sent
by the Father to this earth to do a great work, a work that
only he could do. A great work of salvation at
a great cost. All his life. is every moment
for 33 years, hard labor. He had to come to this earth
and fulfill every jot and tittle of God's law. Do you know how
many precepts and ordinances there are in God's law? You must
keep them all. Do you know how many there are?
No, you don't. I don't either. But he did. And the Scripture says, now it
shall be perfect to be accepted. You better keep the law. But
the Scripture says, by his knowledge, by his knowledge of the law shall
my righteous servant justify many. He knew the law. We don't. To offend in one point
is to be guilty of it all. He didn't offend at one point.
He said His Scriptures must be fulfilled. He came to do that. Not to show us how, but to do
it for us. He came to this earth to establish
righteousness. This is not just a doctrine.
This is why He came. This is the doctrine of Christ.
Why must Christ come? Why must He live? He must establish
righteousness as a man. God is displeased with man. God
must be pleased with us. It must be holy like Him to be
accepted. And Christ lived on this earth
for thirty-three years. And every thought, every word,
every deed that He did was perfect, holy, just, righteous. He was holy, harmless, separate
from sinners, undefiled, full of love, mercy, grace, truth. Nothing but truth came from his
lip. Nothing but grace poured from his lip. Nothing but service
came from his hands. His feet were not swift to shed
blood, they were swift to show mercy. His hands weren't guilty,
his hands were pure. His heart wasn't deceitful like
ours, it was pure. And God from heaven said out
loud, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Hear
Him. The Lord is well pleased for
His righteousness sake. Because God hath made Him to
be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made for the
righteousness of God in Him. That's what I get. To do this
great work. It cost Him greatly. But it didn't
cost us a thing. Didn't cost us a thing. Freely.
Came to do a work. How would you like to work for
33 years for someone else and not take it down? Give it up. That's what he did. That's what he did. And so he came. And he went about
all cities and villages teaching and preaching the gospel of the
kingdom. Our Lord said to his disciples,
let's go in the other villages to preach, for there unto am
I sent. I am come to preach what the
world calls foolishness, the Son of God. That was his vocation,
a preacher. I've come to preach. Teaching
and preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Good news of a spiritual,
heavenly, eternal kingdom. A kingdom, a realm, a world unseen
but very real. That's what he preached everywhere.
You can't see it. He says the kingdom of God doesn't
come with observation. But I'm telling you right now,
barely, barely, I say to you, it's here. I'm here. He didn't have a crown on his
head, but the stars were his crown. His kingdom is not of
this world. It's not of the observations,
not an earthly kingdom. It's the kingdom of heaven. He
went about preaching the gospel, the good news of the kingdom
of God, the kingdom of his dear son, the kingdom of heaven. What
he was saying was, to a people in captivity, a people that were
in bondage, a people that had been taken captive to Babylon
by the God of this world, he said, I'm here to set them free.
This day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears. I've come to set
at liberty them that are bruised. Open the eyes of the blind, ears
of the deaf. I'm here. The King is here. You know, this little government
we have troubles me. to trouble you, to trouble you
the direction that our country is in, to bother you, those of
you with children that should or grandchildren. It bothers
me greatly, troubled by it. Well, you know, back in the times
of the kings of Israel, I looked this up. There were 19
kings in Israel. The kings of Israel after Solomon. Remember, David was the king
and then Solomon was the king. King of all of Israel. They were
undivided. David, then Solomon, and after Solomon, it was divided,
right? Jeroboam and all that, the sins
of Jeroboam, such a picture of religion. There were 19 kings
in Israel. All of them were bad. Every single
king in Israel, over 11 tribes, were bad. I mean like the worst. The worst. Men like Omri and Ahab and Jeroboam. There were 20 kings in Judah.
20 kings in Judah. Twelve of them were bad. Only
eight of them were any good. Some of them were very good.
Some of them were very bad. The point being, we can be under a bad king, like
Paul was under Nero. And yet he said, I'm the prisoner
of the Lord Jesus Christ. You're not supposed to speak
evil of a king. I'm just telling the facts. He's just like Manasseh. And
he's bringing this country into ruin. Is that okay to say that? Well, I did. And you know it's
so, don't you? Good news. Jesus Christ reigns. Don't worry about your children.
He has compassion. He's a God of all compassion.
He's King. He sits on the circle of the
earth. He reigns and He rules. Say that to the heathen. The
Lord reigns. The Lord reigns. The Kingdom
of God is among us, though we can't see Him. A good King. We have a good King. And this
is an eternal Kingdom. And he's not going to sit on
some throne over there. He's sitting on a throne right
now, with the right hand of the Majesty on high. And someday
we will go to be with him. It's just a matter of time. It's
just real short, real shortly. We're all going to go, some sooner
than others. We're going to see the King. We're going to see
the King whom we speak of and sing of right now. So he went
about preaching and teaching, teaching and preaching, and healing
every sickness that set. And every disease, it began with
preaching and teaching and healing came next. Look at chapter 10.
Look at verses 7 and 8. Chapter 10, he called out his
preachers who said to them in verse 7, Go preach saying the
kingdom of heaven is at hand. The king is here. Tell them that. Heal the sick. Cleanse the lepers. Raise the dead. Cast out devils.
Freely you have received. Freely give. Go preach and heal. The gospel is the power of God
and salvation. And every single story of somebody
being healed in the scripture is a gospel story. Every single
person. We've looked at it many times
over. The Lord in chapter 9, that's
all He did in chapter 9, was heal, heal, heal. He became a
lame man. We looked at that. The Lord began
with him and healed him. A man consumed with money. Which
is easier, to make a man walk or make a man walk away from
his money? Well, the Lord did that. He was
possessed with a devil called greed. And a woman with an issue
of blood, 12 years. She tried everything. A woman
in religion for 12 years. Tried everybody. All these positions.
All these people with all the answers. Tried them all. And
she grew worse. She was no better. She was worse.
Well, the Lord healed her. Brought her out of that. Brought
her where? To Him. And then two blind men. We saw
Wednesday night. Two blind men given sight. Both
of them born blind, yet they followed Christ. And they found
him, and he gave them eyesight, a girl raised from the dead,
a dead daughter raised to life, all by Christ. Every one of them
by his Word, by his Word, by his power. Christ is the power
of God and the wisdom of God. All by him. And I've seen, and
you've seen the gospel do those very same things today, haven't
you? He's still healing every sinner and every disease, in
every city and every village. He's still doing it. The gospel is the power of God.
We've seen the lame walk, haven't we? A man who won't walk by faith
will not walk. Walk into the house. Walking
with God. Walking with Christ. Consume
those consumed with this world. Leave it all. That takes the
power of God, doesn't it? Someone consumed with this world.
Someone with an issue. Oh, my. The Lord did that. Here's
another story in the end of this chapter of a dumb man. Verse
32. Look at that. Verse 32 says,
As they went out, that is, the two blind men. As soon as the
two blind men left the house, received their sight, they brought
to him a dumb man. The Lord was in this house. I
believe it's Peter's house. And they found out where he was.
I thought of this house. This house is the Lord's house,
I believe, and this is a house for blind men. This is where
the blind, the deaf, and the dumb need to come and hear from
Him. Verse 32, as those two blind
men went out, behold, they brought to Him somebody concerned about
this dumb man who couldn't speak. They brought him to Christ, this
dumb man possessed with the devil. Dumb. People take offense to
that term now, but it's scriptural. It's not meant to be derogatory. It's just a fact. It's dumb. David said, I was dumb with Silas. When you see something or something
happens, you become dumbfounded. You don't know what to say. It's
not a derogatory term, but it's just a fact. Dumb. He could not
speak. He was possessed with the devil.
He couldn't speak. You know that most people, well,
no people can speak right, can speak the things they ought to
speak until God does something for them. Over in Mark chapter
7 is the story of a deaf man who was also dumb. Usually they
go together. If you can't hear, you can't
speak. If you try to speak to a person
that can't hear, it doesn't come out intelligibly. It doesn't
come out plainly or clearly. They think they know what they're
saying, but you can't understand them. They have an impediment
in their speech. Most people who can't hear can't
speak either. Wisdom comes from above, comes
from God's Word. Men and women speak about many
things, but they don't speak about the things of God. God is not in all their thoughts,
nor in their speech. The natural man receiveth not
the things of God. There is foolishness to him,
neither can he know them. Men and women and young people
mostly speak about themselves. A very small-minded person likes
to talk about themselves. That's what Dad one time said,
he said, great minds speak of concepts and theories and average
mindspeaks of things and events and small mindspeak of people. Most people talk about themselves.
Most people talk about the things of this world. The things of
this world. That's what they're all taken
up with. That's what they talk about. Did you see this? Did you see
that? You go here, you go there. When all this is vanity, it's
all going to fade away. It's not worth talking about
any length of time. Is it? Things that are higher,
things that are lower. Most people talk about other
people, try to lift themselves up, other people. They cannot
and do not speak of things of God, eternal things, things that
are not seen. Cannot and do not speak of His
Word, don't know it, His glory. Are you with me? Huh? The truth. The truth. Cannot. It does not speak of
Christ. You know, the whole universe
speaks of Christ. But men don't know anything about
Him. Can't speak. Can't speak. Until the day that
Christ comes, like this man. Somehow, someway, they're brought
to where He is preached and proclaimed. And they see Him. And then their
loosened tongues he employed, and they began to talk of him,
not themselves. They began to talk of the things
of God. They were enamored with things
of this world, lowly, grovelling things. Now they're talking about
lofty things, the things of God. Some of us, we were invited to
dinner last night. Someone fixed us dinner. And
we were sitting on the porch talking about the Scripture,
talking about the Lord. And I said to a brother, I said,
20 or 30 years ago, a Saturday night, all your friends came
over. What would you be talking about? We used to be sitting
talking about the Lord. And in the other room, some were
sitting around the piano singing the hymns, songs of Zion. Have
you been sitting around singing the hymns of the glory of 20
or 30 years? Why is that? Who made you to
do that? Who created this new creature?
Who gave you a tongue? Who made man's mouth? Oh, my. Thank God. When Christ comes,
we speak. Not of ourselves. Not of our
own glory. Listen to this. Listen to this
psalm. In His temple doth everyone speak
of His glory. That's how you know who God's
people are. That's how you know His temple. That's how you know
where He is. They're not talking about themselves.
They're not talking about one another. They're talking about
Him. He made this man speak. That's how you know. So He came.
He came. Look at verse 34. The Lord didn't
deal with these fellows this time. He does later. These Pharisees
who were those false shepherds that Ezekiel spoke of that didn't
feed the sheep and scattered them. Here the shepherd came
to get his scattered sheep, and these false shepherds were feeding
off of them. The Pharisees said, He cast out devils through the
prince of devils. They were jealous, weren't they?
They were jealous, because they were in it for themselves. They
were in it for their own glory. They wanted the crowds to come
to them. And they were jealous that people were following Christ.
And the Lord doesn't deal with them then, but he does later. And he says, this is a sin against
the Holy Spirit. Well, our Lord came, and it says
he had compassion. They fainted. They were scattered
abroad. They were sheep having no shepherd.
Well, they've got one now. He said, I'm the good shepherd,
the great shepherd, the cheap shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want. He's the great shepherd. He's
never lost a sheep. He's a cheap shepherd. He said,
I'll give you pastors and they'll feed you. That's what they'll
do. That's how you know he's a pastor. They do one thing.
They feed him. Then he said in verse 37, and
I'll close with these two verses, he said unto his disciples, he
had compassion on the multitude, sheep without shepherd. He said
unto his disciples, harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers
are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of
the harvest, that he'll send forth laborers into his harvest.
Pray that the Lord will send out men and gathered his harvest,
bringing his sheaves in. Pray. Who's the Lord of the harvest?
He is. So what did he do? The very next
chapter, he called twelve men. And then a little while later,
seventy. The harvest is great. And he
sent them out. Twelve were sent out first. Then
later, seventy others. And Scripture says, it didn't
stop there. It says, when he ascended on
high, led captivity captive, he gave gifts to men. He gave
some prophets, some apostles, some evangelists, some pastors,
and some teachers for the perfecting of the saints. Till we all come
into the unity of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect
man. Some apostles, some prophets, some pastors, some teachers.
I'm so thankful I had one. So thankful. I'm here today because
the Lord sent a faithful pastor to heal this dumb man, to heal
this deaf fella, to heal this, not him, but the gospel, if you
pray. And open my blind eyes and call me out by his gospel.
You pray that the Lord of harvest will send forth labor. How blessed
we are in this little place the Lord sent out of. the laborer
from our little midst. Church I came out of, the Lord
sent out several. Some of you know, Joe Terrell,
John Chapman, Todd Nybert, Tom Harding, and on and on the list
goes. I'm so thankful to Darvin Pruitt. That's why I came, and that's
why I send out preachers in the gospel. I don't believe the field
is white with harvest anymore. That was 2,000 years ago. That
was the former harvest. That was the early harvest. This
is the latter harvest. But thank God it's obviously
not over. Here a little, there a little.
I'm thankful. I'm thankful. As long as the gospel is being
preached, he's going to call out his sheep. He does it this
way. This is what the Lord uses. Come, come, he said. Come unto
me. Oh, you labor in a heavy laden.
I'll give you rest.