Matthew 14, verse 34, look at
this with me. I love preaching the gospel,
and the reason I do is because it's the only thing that God
uses to save sinners, and it's the only thing that God uses
to edify and encourage His people. And look what he said here in
verse 34, And when they were gone over, they came into the
land of Gennesaret. And when the men of that place
had knowledge of him, they sent out into all that country round
about, and brought unto him all that were diseased, and besought
him that they might only touch the hem of his garment. And as
many as were touched were made perfectly whole. You know, we look at mountain
ranges. You know, you look at a mountain
range and you just see as far as you can see. And you can't
see, you just see the high spots. Well, that's the way it is in
the Scriptures. It's just like a huge mountain range. But down
in those little valleys and things, there's things that's real precious
if you can get down in them. And that's what we'll do. Often
times we'll miss the most glorious things looking at the big things.
And they're small words and phrases hid in a verse that are such
a blessing to us. And I know a lot of folks who
find it difficult to understand the scriptures. And I wouldn't
want them to ever despair because the scriptures are spiritual.
They're spiritual. And there's only one person who
can enlighten your understanding and that's the Holy Spirit. So
what you need to do if you find it difficult to understand is
just ask the Holy Spirit. Give me understanding. Give me
enlightenment. And also you can ask Him to help
you have the desire to want to understand. You see, holy men
of God's faith as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. These are
spiritual words. And you remember our Lord Jesus
Christ, after His disciples had been with Him a little over three
years, after He resurrected on the man's road, the Scripture
said He opened their understanding. After all them years with Him,
He had taken, opened that poor little old brain of theirs. That's
what He's got to do for us. He's got to open our understanding.
And so that's what we do. We often make the mistake of
digging for something deep, profound. Well, the whole Scripture is
that. But many times we'll misland right on top of the surface.
The glorious truths are right on top of the surface. And that's
what we have right here. And that's what it says there
in verse 35. And when the men of that place
had knowledge of Him. That's the first thing I want
to mention. Right on top of the surface. When the men of that
place had knowledge of Him. You know where salvation starts?
It starts with the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Man
can't be saved without knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. It's impossible
for him to. And salvation begins. And when
they had a knowledge of Him, they set out. And I'll tell you,
salvation... Look over here at Matthew 16
with me for just a moment. I'm not sure what I'm talking
about. Salvation begins with the knowledge of Him. Well, everybody
says, well, I know who Jesus is. Well, we'll see. We'll see. Everybody knows that Jesus is...
loves everybody, well, we'll see. Everybody knows Jesus is
dying and just worrying himself to death, trying to get you to
let him into his heart. Well, we'll see. Salvation begins
with the knowledge of Him, and we may add a knowledge of Him
when He comes to that place. Look in Matthew 16, verse 13. When Jesus came into the coast
of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, Who do men say
that I, the Son of Man, am?" Oh, there was people talking
about him. There's everybody and their brother was talking
about this man. Who is he? The prophet? What
is he? What did he come to do? And they said, some say, you're
John the Baptist. That's what O'Hara said one time
when he heard about the Lord Jesus. He said, John the Baptist
has risen from the dead and he's performing these words. And some
say you're Elijah or one of the other, or Jeremiah, one of the
other prophets. Everybody has some kind of opinion
of who Jesus was, and what he was doing, and what his purpose
was. But he says unto them, now let's get down to where the rubber
hits the road. Who do you say I am? Everybody else is saying
things about me, but I want to know what you've got to say.
I want to know what you've got to say about who I am. It don't
make no difference what them other fellows says. Now, we know
what they're saying. You've heard what they've got to say. But
I want to know what you've got to say about me. Who do you think
I am? What do you think? And they said
unto him, Simon Peter answered and said, Well, thou art the
Christ. You're the Messiah. You're the one that's been promised.
You're the one that God said that should come. You're the
son of the living God. And look what our Lord said to
him. And our Lord answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou,
Simon son of Jonah. Flesh and blood hath not revealed
this unto thee, but thy father which is in heaven. You know
what flesh and blood reveals to you? It reveals to you a weak,
impotent, helpless Jesus. That's what flesh and blood does.
Flesh and blood makes you think that you can accept Him anytime
you want to. Flesh and blood thinks you can
walk the aisle and get to Jesus. Flesh and blood thinks you can
open your heart and let Him in. Flesh and blood says that, you
know, one of these days I'm going to make Jesus, I'm going to go
and I'm going to patronize Him and I'm going to accept Him one
of these days before I die. going to patronize him. And I
tell you, beloved, let me show you another over in John. You
keep Matthew 14 there, and I'm going to show you something else
over in John. Look in John chapter 6 with me for a minute. You know, if you miss Christ,
you've missed everything. And if you know Christ, you know
everything that you need to know. If you miss Him, and I tell you,
the church can't save you. A priest or a rabbi can't save
you. There's nobody can do anything
for you, can't even make you know who Christ is, but Christ
Himself, the Holy Spirit Himself. And look what it said here now
in John 6, 65. And he said, Therefore said I
unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given
unto him of my father. You see, our Lord told them back
up in verse 64, there are some of you that believe not. He just
looked right at them and said, some of you do not believe. Jesus
knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who
should betray Him. He said, therefore, I said unto
you that no man can come unto me except my Father which giveths
draw him. And from that time, listen to
this now, from that time when our Lord told them these things,
His disciples, many of them, went back and walked no more
with Him. Oh, my! Ain't that something, you walking
with the Lord Jesus Christ and hearing Him preach, hearing Him
teach, seeing His miracles? And you walk with Him a while,
and you hear Him preach, and He starts talking about the new
birth, and He starts talking about eating His flesh and drinking
His blood. He starts talking about that bread that came down
from heaven. He starts talking about all the things. He says,
the words that I speak unto you, they're spirit and life. Anything
else is flesh. And you know what? They said,
boy, that's awful hard. That's awful hard preaching.
Said, I just don't believe I'll walk with him anymore. I believe
I'll just go about my business. I believe I'll go back to the
world. I believe I'll just forget about this business of accepting.
I just believe I'll quit. Now, the Lord turned around and
look what He said then. Then He said to the twelve, Will you
also go away? Oh, will you also go away? How many
people have went away? How many people have went away
over the years? How many people have went away
because the preaching got too hard, the preaching got too close,
the preaching got, you know, they understood that commitment
to Christ was from the top of your head to the sole of your
foot. Look what he said then. This Simon Peter asked him, Lord,
to whom shall we go? Listen to it now. You have the
words, the words of eternal life. Oh. So our Lord Jesus Christ,
salvation, when they had a knowledge of Him, you remember in Isaiah,
and you'll have to turn there, but Philip, as Ethiopian eunuch,
went up to Jerusalem, went for days and days and days to go
up there to worship Him. That is the place where everybody
went to worship. Went up with the great priest and on the Passover
and all that. He was on his way back home.
He was sitting in a chair and he was somebody. He was a wealthy
man. He had the book of Isaiah in his hand, a scroll. They came
in scrolls, and he'd scroll that damn down, and he was reading
it. And the Spirit said, Philip,
go and join yourself to this fellow. Go up there and start
talking to him. Philip walked up, and he seen him sitting there
reading. Walking along the side, he carried out I'll see you read. What are you reading?" And he said, well, I'm reading
over here where it says that, that, that he was led as a lamb
to the squatter and a sheep before his shears was done and he opened
out his mouth and nobody declared his generation, nobody declared
his judgment. He said, who is this man talking
about, himself or some other man? Philip got in the chariot
with him and he took that very place. And you know what he done?
He preached unto him Jesus. And they went along for a while,
and he preached to them that he was the Son of God, that he
was the One Promised, he was the Sacrifice, the Substitute,
the Sin Offering, the Lamb slain, the Lamb that doth not His mouth.
He began to preach to them, and they come up to some water, And
they come up to a little old pool of water, and he says, what
does him to me for being baptized and confessing my faith in this
Jesus? I believe he's the Son of God.
And he says, well, if you believe what I do, I do, I do, I catch
my rock with him. He said, got out of that chariot,
got baptized, and got up and went on home. Oh, my, we did have a knowledge
of him. Let me tell you something. I don't want to take too long
on this point, but I do want to stress this. A man must be
convinced of the reality of Christ. The reality of Him. Do you know
how many people just don't have the reality of Christ? You know
what they said about Him? They said, the Jews said, if
you be the Christ, tell us plainly. If you be the Christ, tell us
plainly. Just tell us. He said, I have told you. I told
you, but you believe not, because you're not of my sheep." And
now you know what they'd say about him? And show you how the
reality of him, they'd say, well, isn't this just a carpenter's
son? A man was telling me the other day that there used to
be a fellow on the radio, and he was selling autographs. You
know, he was so blasphemous that he was selling autographed pictures
of Jesus. He called himself Melvin or Mervin,
and just make fun of him. A man don't have to be convinced
of the reality. If you ever get convinced of the reality of Christ,
you know what you'll do? You'll bow down, and you'll worship
Him, and you'll submit to Him, and you'll say, Lord, You've
got all power in heaven and earth. You're the only one that can
save me. You're the only one that can put my sin... You're
the only one that can... You're not the carpenter, son.
You're the Son of God! They said He has a devil. No!
You're the Son of God! They say, He does miracles by
days of old. No, you're misunderstanding God. And I've got no place else to
go. Where am I going to go for my
sin? Where am I going to go for my salvation? Where am I going
to go for my peace? Where am I going to go for my
acceptance with God? Where in the world am I going
to go that I will be accepted of God? And where am I going
to go to get a righteousness that will give me standing before
God? There's only one place I can
go. That's the end. That's the only place I can't
go over is hell. And let me tell you some things about the 11th.
Saving faith, talking about the reality of Christ, knowing Him,
having the knowledge of Him. Saving faith. Now listen to me. There's no such thing as blind
faith. Saving faith is founded upon knowledge and understanding. You've got to know some things.
You've got to know a person. But what I'm saying, it's all
knowledge and understanding. Romans 10 says this, he said,
Whosoever, 10.13, said, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved. I love that verse of Scripture. It said,
Whosoever, that includes me. I can call on the Lord, and I
can be saved. But then the next verse says
this, How shall they call on Him of whom they have not believed? How are you going to call on
somebody you don't believe in? And how are you going to believe
in somebody you've never heard? And how can you hear without
preaching? And so you see, beloved, you
can't call on somebody you don't believe in. You ever call on anybody you
didn't believe in? I mean, we're talking about salvation.
Whosoever is called upon in the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not feel good about themselves. Not those who have joined the
church, but those that call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved. How shall you call on Him in whom you have not believed?
Where's your faith? Where's your knowledge? How shall
you believe in Him of whom you have not heard? And, O beloved,
who is Jesus Christ? Well, He's God, God in man and
one undivided person. I mean, you know, people can
depict him in all these pictures and predict him, you know, this
weak helpless thing. But he was God. He's God. Philip
said, show us the Father. And he said, I've been with you
all this time, Philip, and don't you see me? He said, he that
has seen me has seen the Father. No man can come unto the Father
but by me. And what do you do? Listen, you
know the angel says now shall call his name Jesus for he shall,
that's what he does, he shall, shall, shall save his people
from their sins. He's not going to try, he's not
going to make a value effort, he shall save his people from
their sins. Oh, listen. Why did he do it? That God might be just. and justify
them that believe in Jesus. Here's what you've got to get.
This is where the gospel, the heart of the gospel is right
here, what I'm about to say. How can God, how can a holy, righteous,
infinite, just God save you, the awfulest sinner that ever
drawed a breath? I mean, just pick It's so part
and parcel of us. It's so fractured. And, oh, my
sin, sin, sin. David said, my sin is ever before
me. Shaman and iniquity conceived
in sin. How can God have anything to
do with a sinner like you, like me? Born sinners practice sin,
love sin by practicing choice. How can He do that? I'll tell
you how He did it. He took His Son, the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, and He took our sin and He placed them
on Christ, charged them to His account. And when Christ was
dying on that cross, He was dying not for His sin, The penalty
of sin, the wages of sin is death, and when our sin was found on
Him, God killed Him. He was crucified, and the wrath
of God, the justice of God was satisfied on Him, and if my sin
was on Him, then God turned around and gave His righteousness to
me. So God can be just. Sin's been punished, and He can
be just to justify you that believe on Christ who bore your sin in
His own body on the cross. There's no other way that God
can accept us. And where is He now? Oh, He's standing right here. He's
standing right there. He's just waiting for you to
come down here and take Him. Now, where is He now? After He
by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of
God. Oh, my. Oh, my. A lot of folks, they say, well,
I've never heard of substitution before. Well, see, that's what
I'm talking about. You've got to have the knowledge.
Somebody's going to have to be punished for sin. Your sin, my
sin. Either I'm going to pay for it
through eternity, or somebody's going to pay for it who is eternal.
Somebody's going to pay for it that can actually satisfy God
for sin. Somebody powerful enough, worthy
enough, virtuous enough, meritorious enough to bear our sins before
a holy God. And the only person who can do
that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And if He bore your sin, and
I'll tell you this, this is the wondrous truth of the gospel
and I never doubt, if He bore your sin, and you come to believe
Him, and trust Him, and cast your life with Him, and call
upon Him to be saved, then God Himself will say, I justify you,
and as far as I'm concerned, you have no sin. And I tell you,
not only that, but I'll give you His righteousness, and you'll
be righteous as my own son is before me." See, the Lord Jesus is not a
myth. He's not a martyr. He's not a
mystical figure from history or an influence, more than just
an influence. He's not an influence. He's not
an ideal man. He's not an idealistic teacher.
He's not just an example, but he was God manifested in a person. And we know that he has come
to give us an understanding that we may know him that is true.
Even Jesus Christ, the true God. Huh? Oh, my conviction. Have any of y'all ever been under
conviction of sin? Oh, conviction. Conviction's
born of the knowledge of the law, whenever you understand
it. Was there ever a time... I mean,
this may be the only point I get to today. Let me ask you this. Was there a time that sin was
dead to you, that you was not conscious of sin, you wasn't
aware of sin? When did you become aware? and conscious of being a sinner. When did you become aware that
you sinned against God? When did you become aware that
sin was your nature, that you had such flesh, that you had
no problem with self-righteousness and self-destruction? You had
no problem with sin. Sin never bothered you. You could
do what you want to, and it would never bother you. If you got
caught doing something, you was bothered over that. But if you
could not get caught at it, you'd keep on doing it, and doing it,
and doing it. Why do we lie? Why do we steal? Why do we brag?
Why do we talk so good about ourselves? What is it about us? You see, when did you become
conscious of sin? That's what I'm asking. And if you've never become conscious
of sin, then you couldn't possibly know Christ. You know, conviction of sin,
conviction is to be made conscious of your sin. And I understand
that when God saves us, He saves us from all our sin. But yet,
beloved, sin gets more despicable and more horrible as the older
we get. And, beloved, have you ever been
conscious? When did you become conscious
of your sin? Let me put it this way. You never
had any problem with sin until God made you know what it was. Huh? You know you when
you're convicted of sin and you have a knowledge of sin when
you want to be saved from it. You don't want to be saved from
hell. You want to be saved from sin. You don't want to be saved
from some bad things you do, and you want to be saved from
sin. You don't want to be safe from watching bad movies. You want to be safe from sin.
You don't want to be safe from being
a drunk. You want to be safe from sin. And once you want to
be safe from sin, you'll spend the rest of your life saying,
Oh Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. Please, oh God, please,
oh Lord, my sin is ever before me. Save me! And I'll tell you, repentance.
Oh, whenever you're convicted, you'll repent. What repentance
is, is whenever you know you're a sinner, you turn to God and
say, Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. David said, Yes, you
and you only are sin. And I'll tell you, even faith
is born when you see and know Christ. That blind man said,
Lord, He said, Do you believe on the Son of God? He said, Who
is He? He said, I am He. He said, Oh, I believe. I believe. Oh, to know the Lord Jesus, I
do know this, is to trust Him, to seek the excellency of the
knowledge of Him. Let me move on back over here
in our text again. I took way too long on that.
But look what it says here. Not only did they have a knowledge
of Him, knowledge of Him, and when they had a knowledge of
Him, They knew him. They knew what he could do. They
knew the power he had. They knew his ability. They knew
his nature. They knew what he would do. And
you know why we know that? Because look what they went out
and everywhere, and they brought unto him. What kind of people
did they bring? They brought diseased
people. Oh, listen. Come on, old boy,
I know you're a good fellow. Let's take you over here and
let's see what I want to go over there. Ain't nothing wrong with
me. But everybody who had disease. Everybody who had a disease.
And let me tell you something, that's who they brought to him,
all that were diseased. And, you know, beloved, God treats
sin as a disease, as an awful disease. And man wasn't created
with this disease. God made man upright and he sought
out many evictions. And you know what this disease
does? It affects everything about us. All our faculties, all our
emotions, it affects our will, it affects our reason, it affects
our understanding, our conscience. It affects what we love, it affects
what we hate, it affects our loyalty, it affects everything
about us. And oh, beloved, let me tell
you something. Sin is God's. By His stripes,
He says, you're healed. See, God treats sin as a disease. You see, sin is so powerful,
it takes away all power from the soul. Romans 5, 6 says, when
we were yet without strength, Christ died for the undone. Sin,
and I know people make light of it. You know, we make a lot
of it. You know, somebody hands us a
piece of cake and says, boy, that's got to be sinful. You
know, that's the way we do with things. You know, we'll make
some of the dumbest things. Say, boy, that ice cream is good.
That's got to be sinful eating. We make a lot of it. I was up
in West Virginia one time preaching about man's utter and absolutely
inability to do anything. The preacher and everybody got
to making fun of us. Boy, you know that preacher said
that we were so sinners. He said, you know how they started
making fun of us. Started ridiculing me. He said,
boy, that preacher told us. He said, you did no use for me
engaging. You made fun of us. I wouldn't
be in their shoes for 10,000 words. To make fun of sin? The line of sin? When God nailed
His Son to the tree for what? Sin. You can't say sin without
hearing the hiss of the sermon. When Paul would describe sin,
you know what he said about it? It's exceeding sinful. That's
all he said. And sin, this horrible disease,
and you know what it does? It increases in a man. It just
gets stronger and stronger and stronger. And one day it'll prove
fatal to you. It'll destroy you. Everybody
talks about terminal illness. Terminal illness. They give you
a diagnosis. You've got this cancer. You've
got this brain tumor. You've got this heart disease. And you've got six months. Let
me tell you something. Every single one of us in this
building this morning are terminal. We got a terminal illness, you
know what it is? D-I-S-I-N. I was going to spell
disease, S-I-N, that's it. And let me tell you something,
when you get that terminal illness, it's an awful disease, and you
say, boy, I sure would like to stop this. I'd like to stop it. You go and you spend all kinds
of money, go here, go there, go to foreign countries and try
things. But when you get that diagnosis, you can't stop it. You say, boy, I'll just tell
your body, stop that! Stop it! Don't spread no more!
Well, that's the way sin is. You can't stop it. You can't
stop it. And if men don't come to Christ,
they'll die with this disease called sin. And this disease
will continue until it brings forth death. Won't it? And let me tell you something
about sin. It's a contagious disease. Talk about disease.
It's contagious. I gave it to my son. I gave it
to my daughter. I passed it on to my great-grandchildren.
I passed it on to my grandsons, my great-grandchildren. My daddy
gave it to me. He gave me this awful disease.
Passed it to me. And his daddy passed it to him.
As far as you can go back, sin's hereditary. And let me tell you
something. You can't breathe it out. You
know, people take a big deal about breeding animals. You know,
they breed dogs, and they breed cows, and they breed cats, and
they breed hogs, and they kind of breed all the perfections
out of them. They breed them for this particular thing, that
particular trait, and breed, breed, breed. Now they're breeding
corn, and wheat, and all that stuff. They're breeding. Trying
to get all the imperfections out of them. Make it this way,
that way, and another way. But boy, I'll tell you why. You can't
breed this out. You can't breed it out. Not only
that, but in a place you can go on the face of the earth where
this disease is not there. You can't go to a place that's
not. And I'll tell you the second, third thing about it, it's incurable.
It's incurable. By anybody. And I'll tell you,
death will end all bodily pain. And boy, I'll tell you, I'll
be wonderful when I don't have to deal with this body anymore.
Death ends all bodily pain. When death comes, pain's gone. The ache's gone, the fear, everything's
gone. But death does not cure this
awful disease called sin. Death doesn't do it. That's why
our Lord said, He that's filthy, let him be filthy still. Whatever
eternity takes you, that's the way you're going to spend it.
Sin will still reign in you after death. Sin will still reign in
a man. Death is not going to change
your nature. If you don't have a new nature here, you won't
have a new nature when you go into eternity. People say all
the time, they say, well, they're at peace now if they didn't know
Christ. They're not even close to peace. I said one of those fellas that
was staying with us a couple of days this week, he's talking
about his Grandmother and grandfather. Well, her brother died. They
took him and buried him. And they was in the car and they
was on their way back. And about five minutes later,
he said, well, I guess so. I think he said his name was
Helmer or Elbertson. He said, I guess so, Elbertson.
Hell, now, he said his grandmother hauled off and just knocked the
car out of here. He said, because it made her
mad, you know. But he never mentioned it again. But you know, he probably told
the truth, and Randy didn't want to hear it. Dad, you don't want to hear it.
One of the last funerals I had, boy, I got through preaching,
and I just preached like a... And this fella jumped up and
said, I don't want you to think for a minute that this fella's
in hell, because I know him! He's a good old boy. We used
to drink together and smoke pot together. We always talked about
Jesus when we got out. That's what he said. Preached at Feller's funeral
one time, and all of his friends went out Instead of these great,
and drank, and drank, and drank, and drank, and then stacked beer
cans all the way around the mound that was left on his funeral.
He went out there and beer cans stacked all the way around him. He said, Boyle said, this is
what he'd do if he was still here. Sin, I'll tell you, sin is so
awful that it'll make men do things like that. And if you
think you wouldn't do that without the grace of God, you've got
another thing coming. If there had been a time, I'd have done
the same thing. I'd have sat on somebody's grave and drank
a beer and set it down on top of him and said, boy, I'm doing
that in memory of him. That's what he is a woman. Now, that's
what I'm talking about. If we die lost, sin's going to
be our master all the way through eternity. And that's why, Beloved,
He that's righteous, let him be righteous still. That's why,
you know, Mary and I, with what's going on with some of you all,
with what went on with your family, we're not afraid. We're not afraid
of death. We're not afraid of pain. We're
not afraid of when we get these awful diagnoses. We're not afraid
of them. You know why? Because we have
no sin that we're going to have to face God with. We're not going
to have the judgment to face. Christ took care of all this
disease for us. They can tell you that you know
you've got a brain tumor and you're going to die in two months.
You know you're not going to rejoice in the brain tumor, but
you're going to rejoice in the Christ who saved you from your
sin. And you'll be glad when you be
put in the ground. And that's all over and done
with. That's why, beloved, we can face
whatever happens in our hands. We will say, Oh, Lord, why did
you do this to me for? And I'll have an indication of
it. I talk about disease. Let me
tell you what fixes it. What cures it. There's a cure
for this disease. But you know where it's found?
Look what it says there in verse 36. There's a remedy
for this disease, and these men knew it, and they brought unto
Him. And I'll tell you, beloved, that's
what I'm trying to do in the preaching this morning. Bring
you. to that man who could take care of this disease. If you're
diseased, I'll tell you where you go. Come on, go with me right
now. So he was wounded for our transgressions. Bruised for our
iniquities, chastisement. The Bible was laid upon him.
Our Lord cured God for this disease. He said he didn't come to call
the righteous, the sinners, to repentance. Now look what he
says now. And I tell you, this is... And they just saw him. that they might only touch the
hem of his garment. So these fellows had knowledge
of him. They only brought the disease. And when they come,
look what they said, and they asked him. They besought him.
They made no demands on him. They said, they asked him. They
besought him. And here's what they asked him for. Can we just
touch the hem of your garment? That's all we need to do. Just
touch Him and you're gone. Well, you mean you don't need
touching? Just touch Him. We're going to bring these folks, and
Lord, will you just let them touch the Him that you are? Oh, beloved, He's the only one
who can save you. Seek Him. Let me tell you something. It's not man's disease that keeps
them from coming to Christ. It's the fact that people think
they're healthy. That they're good, they're moral, that they're
righteous. They say, well, I haven't done this thing, I haven't done
that thing, and I did do this good thing. But I'll tell you
where your health is at. He said, you're healthy in pride,
in self-righteousness, and religion and traditions. But I'll tell
you, that kind of health will destroy you. But why does this
garment, he said, they destroy him, but they might only touch
the hem of his garment. That garment is his robe of righteousness.
Oh, that garment. Can I just touch that garment?
It's such a beautiful garment. And oh, to have this robe of
righteousness over it. His righteousness with His spotless
garment on. I'm as holy as God's own Son.
And you know, beloved, this is God's measuring stick of righteousness. It's His blessed Son. If you're
going to measure yourself by somebody else, you're going to
come out the best every time. You're going to come out the
best. That's just the way it is. But God don't measure us by one
another. He measures us by Christ. Either
you're going to have Him and His righteousness, or you ain't
going to have nothing. You're going to miss Him. And
oh, look what self-righteousness is against God. It's against
His Son. I don't need Him. I don't need
Christ. I have a righteousness of my own. That's what people
say. And then look what it says. Can
we touch the hem of His garment? Let me ask you something, where's
the hem of the garment at? Where's the hem of his garment
at? At his feet. Right down there. There's a hem
around the bottom of that garment. Can they touch the hem of your
garment? And the only way you're going to touch the hem of his
garment is you're going to get down to do it. And that's what
those folks, those folks was thankful that they could, they
could just touch the hem of this car. And that's where you're
going to have to go down, down, down to try to touch the hem
of that car. Oh my, at his feet. That's why
our Lord said, except you become as a little child, and all they
besought him, there was no bargaining here. Now Lord, I'll do this
for you if you'll do that for me. I'll serve you if you'll
get me out of jail, I'll serve you. If you'll save my marriage,
I'll serve you. If you'll heal my daughter, I'll
serve you. If you'll get my son off of drugs, I'll serve you.
No, no, they just, Lord, would you please? No bargaining here. No bargaining. And then look
what it says, and I'm done. And they besought that they might
only touch the hem of his garment. And as many as touched were made
perfect to hope. As many as. Boy, you're one of
those, I'm one of those many as. You know, as many as. Everything or everybody who belongs
to a certain group. There was a certain group that
went there that day. And as many as that group. And you know who
came there? the disease. And as many was
in that disease group, such to him that his garments were made
perfect to hold. Our Lord, you know, to as many as received
Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God. He
said, I give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Me.
As many as were ordained to eternal life, believe. As many as are
yours. One of them is, I'm a many as. Oh my, look what it says here.
Made perfectly whole. What in the world does that mean?
That means Beloved Dave didn't have any more disease. He's gone. He's cured. Gone. He's cured. Oh, look in Colossians
2.9 and I'm done. You need to see this. This is
Colossians 2.9. He has protected. Forever, you'll
be better saved. Completely saved. Perfectly whole. And that's what I was talking
about when Christ bears your sin, and you get His righteousness,
God regards you as righteous as His Son. Accepts you, hears
you, never charge you with sin ever again. Can't do it because
Christ doesn't want it. That's why you're perfectly whole. Look what it said in Colossians
2.9. For in him, that's where we started
out, knowledge of him, for in him, in Christ, dwells all the
fullness of the Godhead in his body. Everything that God is,
dwelt in the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every attribute,
every glory, every power, everything that God is, dwelt in the body
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And listen to this, and you are
complete in Him. And you know what that word complete
also means? You are perfect in Him. Complete in Him, which is
the head of all principalities and powers. Oh, complete? You say, I don't feel complete.
I don't even this morning. I got so much things wrong with
me and my poor brain and things, but I tell you what, a lot of
what goes on in this body and in my mind don't have nothing
to do with my standing before Christ. Complete in Him. They sing that song. You girls
sing that song, Complete in Him? Justify? Oh, my. Complete. You want to be perfect. complete and accepted before
God Almighty. There's only one place to do
it. And I have knowledge of it. You
know what I'll do? If you've got disease, come to him. How do you get to him, preacher?
He's sitting at the right hand of God. From your heart, go right
there. If you've got disease, you go
right there. If you've got a need, you go
right there. Go to Him. Go to Him. Go to Him
now. Go to Him when you get home.
Get in your closet. Go to Him.