Well, good morning and welcome
to our continuing study in the Gospel of Luke. We're in chapter
10, and today we'll be looking at verse 20-24. We have to back
up a little bit just to keep things in context and review
a little bit of our last lesson, which as you'll remember, the
other 70 had been sent out by the Lord declare the kingdom of God is
nigh you and to heal and those things in the cities that he
himself would come to. And then they had returned and
they said, Lord, even the, they rejoiced. They said, Lord, even
the devils were subject unto us. And he said, rejoice. Notwithstanding,
rejoice not that the devils are subject unto you, but rejoice
that your names are written in heaven. We spent the bulk of
our last lesson on that, and we're going to consider that
a little bit more today, but as it applies to the next block
of Scripture here, starting in verse 20, and we'll read verse
20 through 24 this morning of Luke chapter 10. Notwithstanding
in this, rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you,
but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.
And in that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank thee,
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them unto babes.
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things
are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son
is but the Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and he
to whom the Son will reveal him. And he turned him unto his disciples,
and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see, and the things
that ye see. For I tell you that many prophets
and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and
have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and
have not heard them." Boy, he was with them. Our pastor is
always saying, in the Old Testament, someone's coming, and in the
New Testament, in the Gospels, he's here. And then from Acts
on, he's coming back. So we're in the he's here mode,
and he's referring there to those that, in the Old Testament there,
that he's coming. And you know, this block of Scripture
kind of reminded me of, if you turn over to John chapter 11
for just a brief moment, John chapter 11, because the Lord
prays, He rejoices, He says these things to the disciples. And
then he goes into a conversation with the father. And I thought
it was appropriate that we would kind of look at that for just
a second. Because it's recorded for a purpose. It's recorded
for our admonition, for our edification, for our learning. In John 11,
he's about to resurrect Lazarus from the dead. And starting in
verse 42, after they had taken away the
stone, in verse 41 it says, he began his prayer and he 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 the same thing is applicable
here. He's rejoicing to the Father,
and He says, I know that you always hear Me, but I'm saying
it because it's necessary that the church hear Me, that these
disciples, these people nearby, would hear me and know that I
came from thee. So I think that's very applicable
here to what we're reading in Luke chapter 10. In that hour,
Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank the old father
of heaven and earth. Boy, the statements that he makes
here are just so tremendous. And there's just a number of
blessings for the church in these few verses. There's a number
of doctrinal truths that are stated. And more importantly,
is a message from Christ's heart to ours on a deeply spiritual
level. And there's personal application
if we were to view these things that he's saying as personally
applied to each one of you. Rejoice. If you've been born
again, rejoice that your name was written in heaven. Apply
that personally. These things are not new. They're
not New Testament things as we mentioned in our last lesson
that Moses and Daniel spoke of. of the names written in the Lamb's
Book of Life. And so they were very evident
in the Old Testament, your names written in heaven. So some things
that we want to consider today, and I'm just going to kind of
go through my list here, and then we'll kind of delve into a couple
of them more deeply. But starting with your names
written in heaven. He says, don't rejoice in these
physical things. Rejoice in this great spiritual
truth that your name's written in heaven. And then he talks
about things that are hidden from the wise in their own sight.
He said, I rejoice that thou hast hid these things from the
wise and prudent and revealed them unto babes, in verse 21. For so it seemed good in thy
sight. So we see things hidden from
the wise in their own sight, things revealed unto babes, those
that are born again from above. And that's how we start out.
We're born again and we don't know or recognize a lot of things
until that has occurred. They're spiritual things and
we can't understand or know them until we've been born again.
And then they're revealed to us as it pleases God. All these things it says. It
says this word things. All these things hidden and revealed. Jesus said, all these things
are delivered unto me by the Father. And I think it's good
to kind of keep that in context here because some important things
are coming up. Your names are written in heaven.
Things are hidden. Things are revealed. All things
are delivered unto me of my Father." And then he says, those things
include that by nature, no one but the Father knows or can know
the Son. And that by nature, no one but
the Son knows or can know the Father. And the absolute declaration
that the only way to the Father is by revelation of the Son,
and conversely, the only way to the Son is by the drawing
of the Father. And Jesus says, and we are one. They are united in thought, spirit,
in motive, in all things. They are one. So it's important
to kind of keep that in context here as we go through. Jesus
said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father, but by me, John 14, 6. And you know, this encompasses He says, all things are delivered
unto me by the Father. And that encompasses all things
from sovereign choice through electing eternal love to final
redemption of the church by the Son and then revealed to the
church through the process of the new birth and culminating
in the presentation to the Father of the church that's made spotless,
without spot, without wrinkle, and righteous by the blood of
the Lamb of God, and that He shed in their place to the glory
of His grace, it tells us there, and whereby He hath made us accepted
in the Beloved, from Ephesians chapter 1 verse 6, if you can
plucked that one verse out of that whole page of just wonderful
truths there that says that He chose you in Christ before the
foundation of the world, and so on. So the church is just
blessed by God in being able to see the things which the disciples
are. We have them recorded right here
for us. He said, many people desire to
see those things which you see. I remember Norm several times
has said, man, I wish we could see all those things. And he
says, we can, we have it right here for us. And so we're blessed
with that. And in verse 24, it says, they
desire to see those things which you see and have not seen them
and to hear those things which you hear. that have not heard
them. And so these things are recorded
for us in the scriptures, and really they can only be truly
seen and believed by the effectual work of the Holy Spirit. They're
just there, and we were talking this morning about things are
there, but they're just words on paper without spiritual application. And so, we have things hidden,
things revealed. These things, they're brought
to a deeply personal level for everyone that's born again by
the Spirit. Because when that occurs, then
they realize where they were and how they got to where they
are. And, you know, it's most interesting
that after we go through this block of scripture that outlines
all these acts of grace and From the very beginning, before the
foundation of the world, he chose you in Christ. Your name was
written in heaven. And then the very next thing
we'll get into the next time is a lawyer stands up and says,
what must I do? So that's an interesting contrast
that we have there between these two. blocks of scripture. So what a humbling, you know,
I was thinking about these disciples. They just come back and they're
all, they're all pumped up because they've had success in It was kind of interesting that
they didn't mention how many people received the gospel, but
they were really pumped about how many demons they cast out
and stuff. And then the Lord says, you should
be rejoicing because your names are written in heaven. We all have that revelation,
and then we all say, I had no idea. You know, people that are
kind of against the things that we believe always say, well,
you just think that there's no, as Norm mentioned, there's no
use even preaching because you're just automatically, you're a
robot, and it's all an automatic process that the Lord will save
you and take care of all these things. Well, nothing could be
further from the truth. Rejoice because your names are
written in heaven. They were. I didn't know that. But it's
true because it's he said it. So what a revelation. And, you know, the natural man,
I was thinking about this this morning. The natural man takes
offense to that. Well, he chose you. Well, that's
not fair. in our scheme of things. He only chooses you after you
believe. So it's up to you, up to that point. But you know,
Ezekiel recorded that very same situation back in Ezekiel in
several places. I'll just read this one verse
from chapter 33. But I think it's in like three
different places in Ezekiel. The Lord says, Yet you say the
way of the Lord is not equal. You take exception to how I'm
sovereign. You take exception to that. He
said, if I was equal, you would all be charcoal. That's the truth. If I was equal, if I treated
everybody equally, you would all be just lumps of black rock. You would all be gone. You say
the way of the Lord is not equal, O ye house of Israel. I will
judge you, everyone, after his ways. And you know what? Without grace, there's just doom. That's just all that's left.
If He judges us according to our ways, and we stand before
Him, we just say, I'm guilty, but I have the blood. I'm not
standing here on my own merits. I'm standing on the merits of
Christ who died, bled, and died to save me. He paid my penalty,
imputed His righteousness to me. I don't know why I didn't
do nothing to deserve it. That's what you find in the scriptures.
I was reading a few places, and we kind of bring these up from
time to time. You read almost everybody that's
written anything in the Bible, and they say, I'm not even worthy
that thou comest into my house. And I'm a man of unclean lips. When Isaiah saw the Lord, he
said, uh-oh. I'm a man of unclean lips. That's
how he saw himself. But you know, the very next block
of verses says the Lord touched his lips with a coal of fire
and cleansed him and said, thy iniquity is taken away. Don't
worry about it. So the disciples, I think, are
typical of the church in that they, as we by nature, really
have no knowledge of a lot of these things until they're spiritually
revealed. As you know, we were talking
about the Apostle Paul this morning on that road to Damascus, and
he had a lot of intellectual knowledge about the Scriptures
and the Old Testament, but no spiritual knowledge of them. But he said, you know, in Galatians
1, verse 15-16, he says, you know, when it pleased God to
reveal His Son in me, When it pleased God, then the
light came on. When it pleased God to reveal,
and then that's what it says here in the Scriptures that we're
looking at today. It says they're hidden from those
wise in their own size, revealed to babes, even so, Father, for it seemed good in
thy sight. It's a statement of sovereignty
that's just unparalleled in the Bible. For it seemed good in
thy sight to do it. He said, who can stay my hand
or saith unto me, what doest thou? Or all those scriptures
that we love to read about his sovereign majesty. None can thwart His will or His
purpose. So God reveals things to us through
the Son, by the Spirit, at the time appointed according to His
sovereign purpose. In 1 Corinthians 2, verse 10,
if you want to look there, it says, you don't have to, but
I'll just read this. Sentence from that it says God
hath revealed them unto us by his spirit. That's what it says The word of God here which solidifies
this force found there in verse 21 and the hiding of things, the revealing
of things, is by His sovereign will. For so it seemed good in
thy sight, and for no other reason than apart from divine sovereignty." He's not unfair in hiding them
from people that don't want them. And that's where we all are by
nature. We'll look at that here right now. A condition, things
that are hidden, are hidden to those who consider themselves
wise in their own sight. And that's how we're born. we're
wise in our own sight. I was just thinking, we were
talking yesterday, I think it was Yvonne and I about, boy,
when you're young, you think your mom and your dad are dumb
as a box of rocks, you know. And then later on in life, you
say, well, I guess they were pretty smart after all, you know.
But when you're young, you're kind of wise in your own sight.
And that's typical how we are as in our natural condition before
the new birth. And it's a condition we're all
in by virtue of our nature through the fall. And Ephesians 2, verse
3 says, we were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
There was no separating difference between us and anybody. We're all the same except for
divine grace, and that not by any merit, which we've done. The scripture is very clear on
that. By nature, the wisdom of man
deceitfully represents that man is capable of securing his own
way to God, or whatever he considers God or that religious circumstance. Yet the truth is plainly stated.
John 6.37 says, No man can. No man is capable. No man can,
has the ability to come unto me, except the Father which sent
me draw him. And no man cometh unto the Father,
but by me. Those two truths are inseparable
They're irrevocable and they're united. They're combined. And, you know, this is, this
condition that we're in, it's manifested in various ways in
our natural mind, beginning with the scripture
refers to it as darkness. And that word really means it
kind of, you look that up and it really talks about error. An erroneous concept of the holiness
and righteousness of God. And the issue then is sometimes
in natural men, in their mind, it's eliminated. You know, it's
funny that one of the things that we get by the fall is the
ability to rationalize things to come out the way we want them. But we're able to eliminate certain
circumstances by simply declaring that There's no God. That comes from Psalm 14. The
fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Or, if there is, as
in hitalics, but if you take it out, the meaning is pretty
much the same. The fool has said in his heart,
no God, or no to God. Both have the same consequence.
He said, they're corrupt. That line of thinking is corrupt,
and you know what that means. Corrupt is a pretty simple term.
Something is corrupt, it is no good. It's worthless. And that's
what the fool says in his heart. No God. Then if you say that
there's no God, or you have the ability to say no to God, to
what He has determined is right, then by implication there's really
no sin. It's only what we determine sin
to be in our own minds and we're pretty liberal in that definition
and it changes all the time. Things that were pretty sinful
in my lifetime, now they're just commonplace and they've been
justified and rationalized by society to the point where that's
the normal now, and if you subscribe to the old definition, then you
are deplorable, I think they call
you. You're irrational. So, no God, no sin. No sin, no judgment. No consequence. all things that we come up with
in our natural mind, then the things hidden then are hidden
to those who willfully and purposely and steadfastly refuse to hear,
see, or believe the very Word of God. And they cannot, absent
a divine work of grace in their hearts, they can't. Norman, I was kind of going through
my notes with him a little bit, and he says, Zechariah 7-11.
Zechariah 7.11, they refused to hearken and they pulled away
the shoulder and stopped their ears that they should not hear. That's willful to determine.
I know what you're saying is probably right, but If I don't hear it, it doesn't
apply to me. My dog's like that. If I don't hear, I just pretend
like I don't hear him calling me. That's just the way we are. You believe not? Because you're
not of my sheep, that's what the Lord said. It's the same
principle. Those that he was talking to,
those Pharisees, They were taking issue with him, and he said,
you shrugged the shoulder away. You pulled the shoulder away.
You stopped up your ears, because you're not my sheep. This is
my sheep. they hear. And not because they willingly,
naturally hear, it's because there's been a work of divine
grace in their heart, in their life. The psalm says, blessed
is the man whom thou causest to hear and approach to thy throne. It's causative by God. So how then can one be delivered
from this erroneous, this darkness, this deadly self-deception? Can we deliver ourselves? That's
this next question that this lawyer asks. What can I do? Give me a list of stuff that
I can do. Well, it doesn't involve the repeat after me or the sign
here or all those things that are emotionally invoked by a
lot of religious systems. The answer begins to unfold for
us in verse 20. He says, Rejoice because your
names are written in heaven. And when you're born again, you
say, oh man, that's wonderful. I had no idea. And then you have
to pause and think, well, who wrote that? Well, God. God the Father wrote those names
in the Lamb's Book of Life. You know, John 17 says, thine
they were, and thou gavest them to me. to redeem. John chapter 17, another
one of those prayers that was, he says, I know you hear me all
the time, but I'm saying this out loud and I'm having it recorded
so that you will know some things. So the church will see some things. So the church will hear some
things that are spiritual in nature that are so powerful and
so wonderful and so timeless. This writing was in the purpose
of God in eternity. And we quoted that scripture
from Ephesians chapter one where he says, blessed be the Lord
God who chose you in Christ from before the foundation of the
world in that eulogy there in Ephesians chapter one. And you
know, in this writing was based solely on his sovereign electing.
And that word just means choosing. We elected a president just seven,
eight months ago. We chose—well, God does that. He chose And it was based on his sovereign
electing love from before the foundation of the world. And
quite often we read this scripture from Jeremiah 31 3. The Lord
has appeared of old unto me saying I've loved thee with an everlasting
love or that word just means eternal. Therefore. with lovingkindness have I drawn
thee." Isn't that a powerful verse? I loved you with an everlasting
love when you were pretty unlovable. And isn't that what all the...
Jacob said, I was the chief of stinkers. And that's what Paul
wrote. He was a little bit more forceful. He says, I was awful. I persecuted the church unto
death. I was on my way to arrest more
of them, to have them thrown in prison, possibly killed, when
it pleased God to stop me and reveal His Son in me. It just says, not of him that
willeth, not of him that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. And
from Romans 9, verse 11, the children, not even having been
born yet, neither having done any good
or evil. They weren't even born yet. That the purpose of God,
according to election, might stand, might be solidified in
our minds, in our hearts, in the truth of that. Not of works,
but of simply of Him who sovereignly calleth." And so it's not this
writing, having your names written in heaven, it's not based on
any merits or foreseen activity on the part of those whose name
was written. They clearly didn't, don't know that their names are
written in heaven. You go up to any person that's ever been
born again, or saved, or whatever terminology you want to put on
it, and say, did you know beforehand that your name was written in
heaven? And 100% of the time, they're going to say, I had no
idea, and I still don't understand why, what he saw in me, and it
was nothing. The only thing that he saw in
you was that he electively chosen to set his love on you from before
the foundation of the world for no other purpose than he's God
and he can do what he wants. And the fact that he didn't do
that on everyone is his sovereign will too. And the only difference
being in the ones that he sovereignly puts his electing love on, He
causes them to believe the gospel where we would not by ourselves. We would just reject it right
down the line, just like everyone. So the psalm says, my people
shall be willing. In the day of thy power. And and we don't say, man, you
know what happened yesterday, I felt kind of like a robot or
a puppet. No, that's never the way of it. We just say, boy,
what a magnificent God we have that can effectually apply grace
to us in such a loving way. And we fight Him tooth and toenail
right down to the end. And then we finally come to,
he says, when I give you a new heart to love me, then that will
happen. So those whose names were written
in eternity, though really unbeknownst to them, neither having done
any good or evil that the purpose of God might, according to election
might stand. God through the Spirit draws
them to his son, the word of God. He chose by the foolishness
of preaching the gospel to save them that believe. And He causes
them to hear the words of life. And He causes them to believe. That's what it says in Ephesians
1.19. It says, we believe according
to the working of His Mighty power, which He wrought in Christ
when He raised Him from the dead, Ephesians 1, 19 and 20. We can't
do that on our own. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that, not even of yourselves, it's a gift of God,
not of works, lest any man should boast. He supplies everything
that He requires, because on our own we can't do that. And
that's all contained in this one sentence. Rejoice that your
names are written in heaven, and these things are hidden to
some and revealed to some. You know, and there's two things,
there's two results which come from the things hidden and the
things revealed. To those whose names are written
in the Lamb's Book of Life when it's revealed to them, The manifold
wisdom. Boy, I just always loved that
time we spent looking at that. I think it's from Ephesians 5.
It talks about the manifold wisdom of God. And we looked at that
word manifold. In the Greek of that is variegated. multi multicolored and we and
remember we looked at the rainbow and how we can only see seven
colors with our natural eye But there's an infinite spectrum
of color and light Going from all directions That we can't
see It's it's beyond our capacity to see it, but it's there nonetheless
and that what a what a What a great analogy to the grace of God and
the wisdom of God. There's so much of it that we
can't see. But we just, like Paul said, we could just kind
of see a little bit. We see through a glass darkly
right now. We can only get a little bit
of a slice of it. But boy, there's so much there.
And the more he reveals to us, it just lets us know that there's
more and more and more. And we never could get to the
end of it. So when it's revealed to them that manifold wisdom
and grace of God, uniformly their response is one of humbling gratitude
mixed with the sure knowledge that they were unworthy. We did nothing. And it just leads
us to the conclusion that it must be of grace that they obtain mercy. It has
to be of grace. It has to be unmerited. It has
to be just by the grace of God. And to those whose names are
not written, to whom God says, I never knew you. to those who
pull away the shoulder, who won't hearken, who purposely stopped
up their ears so they would not hear, who said, no, God, who
would not and could not believe, apart from interjecting their
own works. That's the only thing that they
can do is interject their own works. To them, it's hidden.
And their response is uniformly, what didn't I do? I did everything. I did this. I did that. I'm glad
I'm not like that other guy. I pray all the time. I fast.
I tithe. I ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. I, I, I, I, I, I, I. And you
know, on the other shoe, they're saying, I did nothing. It was
him, him, him, him, him. And boy, we always like to get
to those Scriptures like in Ezekiel and we underline all the I wills
of God, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will do all
these things, and then you shall be the recipient of those things.
And that's just the way it is. There's those two results. We did all that. And in Matthew,
they said, when did we not do all that stuff? And to the saved,
they say, man, I don't remember doing any of that stuff. But
in the religious world, we did all that stuff and I have it
all written down right here. And here's my receipt from the
building where I go to pretend to worship you. I get a check
off on my box that said, yeah, I did this, I did this, I did
this. That doesn't wash. So you can
read all that in Matthew chapter 25. We'll not go there just because
we're out of time, but there's a lengthy block of Scripture
there from Matthew 25 beginning in verse 31 where you can read
all that stuff about the redeemed of the Lord. It says, when did
we do all that? And he said, you know, in Christ
you did it. You know, Jacob, we talk about
the response of the redeemed when they find these things out,
when they find out that grace has been bestowed on them. I just want to read this one
statement from, well, I'll read two. Jacob and Job. Jacob in
Genesis 32.10 said, I'm not worthy of the least of
all the mercies and of all the truth which thou has showed unto
thy servant." The more grace is manifested to us, we just
shrink down and say, oh man, I had no idea. I'm just not worthy
of that, but thank God He loved me with an eternal electing love
and wrote my name and gave me to the Son to redeem. And they
did all that regardless of my unworthiness. Job's account of
himself, he said in chapter 42, he said, I heard of thee by the
hearing of the ear. I heard about you. But now my eye seeth. What a
difference. Wherefore, I abhor myself." Isn't
that an unusual response compared to what, well, I learned all
about God. I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm
pretty knowledgeable, like Paul was on that road to Damascus.
And then he said, uh-oh, I'm a man of unclean lips. I abhor
myself and repent in dust and ashes about all the things that
I thought about God in darkness and in error, and about His holiness,
about His righteousness, about His grace, about His mercy. to one that's born again from
above who learns by grace that God set His electing love on
him or her before the foundation of the world, apart from any
merit whatsoever, that simply God chose to love them and wrote
their names in heaven, that He called them to His Son by the
gospel at the time that pleased Him, that He revealed things
to them as it pleased Him, reveal the Gospel at a time that
pleases Him. How humbling! What a great cause
to give praise to Him who called us out of that darkness and into
His marvelous light. So that's our lesson for today.
Things hidden, things revealed. Be free in grace.