Anyhow, we'll see if it works
out. If you would, turn to John chapter
eight, please. John chapter eight. And I want to begin reading in
verse 31 of John chapter eight. Paul Mahan mentioned this yesterday,
and I got nervous. But this is what I got, so this
is what you get, so. It's all right. Like I said,
there is nothing new. It's the same old story. And
it's a good old story. The good news. John chapter eight
and verse 31. Then said Jesus to those Jews
which believed on him, if ye continue in my word, then are
ye my disciples indeed. And ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, we be
Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man. How sayest
thou, ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, verily,
verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant
of sin. And the servant abideth not in
the house forever, but the son abideth ever. If the Son, therefore,
shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye
are Abraham's seed, but ye seek to kill me, because, because
my word hath no place in you. I speak that which I have seen
with my Father, and ye do that which ye have seen with your
Father. And I'm going to stop right there because I have to. I want to begin with a question.
I want to begin with a question, if I can. Have you ever been
asked, why do you come to church here? Why do you drive past, in other
words, several dozen churches in some of our cases to come
to this little place in Crow, West Virginia? I live in Princeton,
which is 35 miles away. And that's what I get asked.
And then people say, where do you go to church? And I say,
well, we've got a little place up in Crow, West Virginia. Where's
that? Well, it's right up by Little Beaver Park, going up
near Beckley. Why do you go there? Now, the real question they want
to ask, they don't ask because they're being polite, is what's
wrong with you? See, you get to the nub of the
matter when you realize that. Now the answer to that question
is, there's absolutely nothing wrong with me, other than myself. But the answer to that question
is, I go here, I used to say, I used to say, I go because that's
where the gospels preached. Okay? But see, nowadays that's
not really specific enough because they say, oh, well the gospels
preached everywhere. And then you have to say, oh no, it's
not. Trust me, it's not. So usually
now what I say is I go there because Christ is preached. But now, after reading this scripture,
I may add to that. The reason I come here is I am
free to come here, to hear Christ preached. So they answered him, I just
wanna, I'm gonna go through this as quick as I can. They answered him in John 8 in
verse 33. This is the Jews answered him. We be Abraham's seed and were
never in bondage to any man. How sayest thou ye shall be made
free? Well, Paul said it yesterday. They were in bondage to Rome.
They were under the yoke of Rome at that time. And they were worried
that Caesar might get offended at this man they're noising about
that this is the king of the Jews. What did they holler out when
they asked, do you want Christ or do you want Barabbas? We have
no king but Caesar. We have no king but Caesar. They
were right at that time. He came unto his own, and guess
what? His own received him not. They would not have this man
to reign over them, even though this man was reigning over them
right then. He was delivered by the determinate
counsel and the foreknowledge of God. None of this was a surprise. In other words, these Jews lied
to the Lord of glory. That's what they did. And they
were under another bondage too, but we're going to get to that,
hopefully. Then he stated it this way, if
the sun therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Now this is a flat statement. That's first thing. This is a
statement by the Lord Jesus Christ. Because if you look at it, the
second thing is, is there any question in that statement? Is there any speculation in that
statement? Are there any conditions in that
statement? Well, the answers are no, no,
and yes. There's no question. There's no speculation. There
is a condition. But it ain't on you. If, if, that word there, that
possibility word. If, if, if. Who? The Son. If the Son therefore
make you free, you're free. Indeed. There's no condition
for you to meet, there's no condition for me to meet. The condition,
the dependency, is all upon Jesus Christ. And guess what? It always is. It always is. In the scripture. In the scripture,
everything's dependent upon the sun. Now in church buildings
and in religious societies, they want to put a lot of it on you.
I don't like that. Because I'm not dependable. I
don't want anything to depend upon me. I know me too well for
that. I have been around me for too
long. And nothing personal, but I've been around you folks too. Listen, I think most of you are
a better person than I am. But that's only because I know
me better than you. I got a feeling we're pretty
much all equal. Totally depraved is kind of spread
out all among us. There's nobody who's not totally
depraved, except the one who it depends upon. And that's this
man, Jesus Christ. Being free and any freedom and
all freedom is totally dependent upon the son of God. I don't
know any other way to put that. Everything is dependent upon
the son of God. I can put it that way. Then he says, I know
that you're Abraham's seed, but you seek to kill me because my
word hath no place in you. I love this statement right here
because you get the cause and the effect. Actually, in this
case, you get the effect, then he tells you the cause. That's
why the word because. You seek to kill me. Why? Because
my word has no place in you. There is a problem with you if
his word doesn't have a place in you. Now how do you get a
place in you for his word? Well, that's dependent upon the
son of God also. He came unto his own and his
own received him not, but to as many as what? Received him. How'd they receive him? Oh, they
were born. They were born. They were born
from above. They were born of God. They were
not born of blood. They were not born of the flesh.
They were not born of anything else. It doesn't matter. They
were not born of the church covenant. They were born of God. And those
are the only ones who will receive. Those are the only ones whom
his word has a place. I know you're Abraham's seed,
but I'll tell you this. They were uncircumcised in heart and
ears. That's a great statement from
Stephen when he was being stoned. Oh, you uncircumcised in heart
and ears. What did he tell them? You do
always, always resist the Holy Ghost. How can you not hear the Lord
from glory, God manifest in the flesh, speaking to you personally? Your ears are uncircumcised,
your heart's uncircumcised, your eyes are still blind, and you
can't see, you can't hear, and you can't understand. And each
and every one of us had been in that spot. Solitarsis was
there when Stephen was saying that. So that's not the be all,
end all position. There is hope. Just because your
heart's uncircumcised and your ears are uncircumcised doesn't
mean God's gonna leave them that way. And you may hear the truth
like Saul did before you hear the truth. You know? Think about that, he
heard the truth but he didn't hear it. Then he heard the truth
and he heard it. What's the difference? Christ
was speaking to him there, not Stephen. Because if Stephen's
voice is the only one you heard, it's not going to do you any
good. If my voice is the only voice you hear, it's not going
to do you any good. When Christ speaks, you're going to hear. You're going to hear. Oh, I can
guarantee you that. When he wants to talk to you,
he's going to talk to you. And when he talks to you, you're
going to hear what? Him. Not necessarily me. You're going to hear him. Oh
yeah. I got to be short. Oh my. Okay. Now I can't speak to you about
this freedom. And there's another thing Paul
talked about the other day without speaking of that bondage because
he's going to make you free, but he's going to make you free
from something. Right. Okay. There's a bondage we are
freed from, and I can't think of any place better, because
I had gotten stuck on this a while back, than Mark chapter five,
than to look at it. This is the story, no, sorry,
this is the account. That's right, it ain't a story,
it's an account. A real account of something that really happened
with our Lord Jesus Christ and the Gadarene demoniac. Verse one, it says, and they
came over to the other side of the sea and into the country
of the Gadarenes, and when he was come out of the ship, immediately
there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit. Okay, now this literally is a
case of spiritual possession. That's what this is, it goes
on to show you. I'm not gonna get into it that fast, or that
much, because I have to be brief. That's right, Walter, I'm gonna
rub this in on you. No, it's all right. I've had this in my
head for a while, and that's actually where I started, and
then I went to that, and then it kind of reversed itself, and
I'm hoping this all makes sense. But we have a man with an unclean
spirit. Now, in this case, it is an external
unclean spirit that Christ is gonna deal with here. However,
I will tell you this. Man, as he is born, his spirit
is unclean. In Adam, all die. We are dead
in trespasses and in sins. The other comparison, and Mark,
if you want to make it, which is a beautiful thing in other
places in the gospel, you know, lepers are unclean. That's a
description of us before Christ meets us. And the only one who
can make a leper clean and actually make him whole is Jesus Christ. So here I see an illustration
of our condition before the Lord touches us, before the Lord speaks
to us, before you hear him. This man had an unclean spirit. And he had been dwelling among
the tombs. It's what verse three says. Who had his dwelling among
the tombs, and no man could bind him, no, not with chains. There's no hope outside of Jesus
Christ. No man could bind this man with
an unclean spirit. Now this man with an unclean
spirit has a dwelling. Where is it at? Among the dead. That's where you're at. Before
Christ touches you, before you are brought in, before you are
given life, regenerated, before you are given faith, face his
gift. He's the author and the finisher
of it. It's his faith that he gives us. But before all that,
you were living among the dead. I was living among the dead. We were all just like the children
of wrath. My. This man has a dwelling place
specifically made for dead people. That's where he was. The tombs
are not a dwelling place for the living. What does he tell
them at the end of this? Go home. Don't stay here. Don't stay here. Go home. Don't
stay among the tombs. Go home. That man wanted to follow
him. He said, go home. He'll tell
you where to go, and he'll put you there. I like that. I do. The tombs are not a dwelling
place for the living. It's a place which is nothing
but death. And that is where a man with
an unclean spirit dwells. He lives there. He doesn't have
any other place to go. The dead man can't go anywhere.
And I can tell you this, in this world, you can live on the highest
mountain, you can live on the deepest valley, you can go wherever
you want, but it's still a place of the dead. There's only one
place where people are to be gathered in his name, and actually
that's kind of this building. There's an assembly of the saints.
And we are, wherever we are, to join ourselves with those
who know our Lord Jesus Christ. We're not to live in the tombs,
okay? I'm sorry, I met Walter Pendleton
in an Armenian church, but neither one of us at the time knew any
better. I'm not ever going back, okay? I mean, I existed there
for about a year or whatever it was, I forget, before the
riot. This is what you get, you know?
I was there. I got to hurry up. Okay. But
I'm not going back because that's not my place anymore. I don't
want to be amongst the dead hearing a lie in the place of the gospel
ever again. I will stay home before that
happened. I got the internet. I'll get rid of my television
before I get rid of the internet, Walter, because I can stream
Gabe. Sunday mornings That's right. I have when we got snowed
and iced in around here. It's okay But here's the next
thing our bondage no man could bind him no not with chains There's
no way to bind a man with an unclean spirit Jesus Christ is
telling us this This is his gospel This is his word. Mark's writing
it down. There's no way to bind a man
with an unclean spirit. Then you read verse four. I love
this part, okay? He says, not even with chains.
But then it says, because he had often bound, been often bound. Wait a minute, you just said
no man could bind him. Then it says, because he'd been
often bound. With fetters and chains, and
the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken
in pieces, neither could any man tame him." Ah, there's the
point. He says, no man could bind him.
Now, they did bind him. Well, often. Often. You can bind a man with an unclean
spirit. But guess what? The scripture
says it won't hold. It won't hold. You'll break those
chains. The fetters mean the ankles.
Even his feet were chained. You break those. It doesn't matter
what kind of chains you want to put on a man with an unclean
spirit. It's not going to do any good. It's not going to do
any good. He'd been off and bound. Oh, my. And the chains were plucked
asunder by him. The fetters broken in pieces.
They did bind him, but it didn't take. It didn't, what, last. And neither could any man tame
him. That's a whole nother thing, the binding of him. But still,
man couldn't do it. Man couldn't do it. I like that. It's like, this is where I am. At this place, where I'm trying
to preach the gospel, I'm not trying to bind you and I'm not
trying to tame you. That's not my job. My job is
to preach about this man here and what he says about this situation.
But you go to any other place you want to, they'll try and
bind you. Oh, they'll use the law. They'll use what they call
grace. They'll use baptism. Those guys come on TV after us.
You understand? They'll use a second helping
of grace, a second work of grace, the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Pick something. The Jews used the law. If you're not circumcised, you're
not saved. Well, okay. I don't think that's
what Christ said. I thought that's what we were
delivered from, one of the things. We'll find out here. Neither
could any man tame him. And here's the thing, it's not
that he, it doesn't say that he would not be bound, it said
they could not bind him. It didn't say that he would not
be tamed, although he wouldn't, they couldn't. You understand, a man with an
unclean spirit cannot be helped by a man. Whether it's binding,
taming, whatever, It doesn't matter. They couldn't do it. They couldn't
do it. Now, who tried to tame him? Who
tried to bind him? Well-meaning church people. I
guarantee it. Well-meaning people who sincerely
believe that they could control a man with an unclean spirit.
Oh, they teach that they can. They're wrong, but they teach
that they can. And always, night and day, he
was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself. A man with an unclean spirit
is always in the same place. He's gonna be in the tombs, he's
gonna be in the caves, he's gonna be in the mountains. And what
is it, always, what? Crying and cutting himself with
stones. There's a saying out there, and
I agree wholeheartedly with it, but I agree with it in a totally
different way. And I've said it from here, and Walter said
it from here. I am my own worst enemy. But I'm not my own worst
enemy the way I used to be. Thank God for that. You know that old thing about,
Walter, your story about I'm worried about my son being around
the wrong element. And you're talking to a neighbor,
and the neighbor has to explain to you, I'm sorry, we think your
son is the wrong element. Now, I'm afraid I was the wrong
element for me, even, much less influencing anybody else. We know where this unclean man
is, and we know what he does. He dwells in the tombs, in the
place of the dead, and he cuts himself with stones, and he cries. He cries. He is his own worst
enemy. And until Jesus Christ came,
he could not be tamed. Until Christ came, he could not
be bound by any man. So here's the next thing. Here's the kicker about this
whole account. Jesus Christ did not come to
bind this man. That's what he's saying. That's
what he's saying. You see what happens here. You
read the rest of this account. I don't have time to go into
it for some reason. Jesus Christ came and made this
man free from the unclean spirits. And I can tell you this. All,
all, without exception, in one way or another, all of man's
religions are trying to bind the man with the unclean spirit. And I can tell you this, religion
can't bind a man with an unclean spirit. And here's the other thing, Paul
told the Galatians, don't go back to that. Don't go back to
that. Why would you go back to what
you couldn't do before? You can't pick and choose. It's
either all the law or none of it. I vote for none. I vote for
none. And in that case, I will be antinomian.
I'm not against the law. And I'm telling you right now,
the law hasn't gone anywhere. But Christ is the end of the
law. What? But not for everybody. To everyone. that believes. I'm free from the law. I've been
made free from the law, and if you believe him, you have been
made free from the law, but religion would love to put you under some
law or another. Maybe not, they like the Ten
Commandments, you know, like that place where we went, they
had it right on the front of the pulpit. I can't keep the Ten Commandments,
I never could. I couldn't even do the two, when
Jesus narrowed it down to two. I remember Henry Mahan years
and years ago, he said, love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, all thy soul, all thy mind, and all thy strength. He
said, you get past that commandment, then we'll talk about the other
one. You can't get past it, I can't get past it. I don't have to,
because my Lord has fulfilled all the law and all the prophets,
everything. I love that. Religion is of no
help. Christ is the only one who can
help. Every natural man is born dead to God. Every natural man
grows up dead in trespasses and in sins. And I'll tell you this,
man has been trying to bind that unclean man as long as there
has been an unclean man. What did Adam and Eve do? Put
on fig leaves. Guess what? They were trying
to cover up. What, their nakedness? No, they're
trying to cover up their sin. We start binding ourselves if
somebody else isn't around to bind us. How depraved are we? How depraved
are we? We'll bind ourselves. We don't
even need help. It still won't take. It won't last. Man cannot bind a man into the
freedom of Jesus Christ. It's not possible. It's never
been possible. It never will be possible. We
have to be made free. Man tried, but man could not
bind him. And here's the thing, bondage
is not a cure anyway. You understand? Even if it worked. I was telling my wife this yesterday
evening in the kitchen. I told her, even if it did work,
what have you got? You've got a bound man with an
unclean spirit. Woo. What a victory. No. It's of no value. And you can't do it anyway. But
we try. We try. That's how depraved we
are. We try. Because bondage is the
only answer that man has. Bondage is the only answer, binding
is the only answer that religion has. But praise God almighty,
there's a better answer. There's the only true answer.
And that's where we're at in John. If the son shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed. And we need to be made free. I like what Paul said there.
He didn't say he'd set us free. He's gonna make you free. He's gonna make you free. Oh,
we are free to believe him and his gospel. We are free to come
to him. Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Oh, take my yoke. But my yoke's easy. My burden's
light. We can freely take that. Why? Because he gives it to us. We are free to walk in the newness
of life. We are free to read his scriptures. Oh, here's the kicker, we are
free to obey. That's part of that walking in
noon, it's alive. And if you ever read in Romans, where Paul
talks about what Isaiah wrote, who hath believed our report,
to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? You read what Paul
says about it in Romans, what's he say? Everybody hasn't, what? Obeyed the gospel. The report
is the gospel, but there's an obeying of the gospel. Wait a
minute, you're talking about works, aren't you trying to bind
me? No, no, no. He's gonna work in you both to
will and to do of his good pleasure. And guess what? You're gonna
will and do his good pleasure. You're not gonna do it very well.
But you'll get done what he wants done. You understand? That's the thing, you know. My
words shall not return unto me void. It may not accomplish what
you want it to, but it's gonna accomplish what he wants it to.
And that's the only part that matters. Now, how did Christ free this
man? He spoke. That's all it took. They've been
buying him with chains and fetters. Christ spoke, and the unclean
spirit departed. Now this is where the illustration
becomes a little thing, because our unclean spirit's still in
us. We still got the old man and the new man. Now we have
the battle where we had no battle before. We have the truth where
all we had before was a lie. And when I would do good, evil
is present. Yes, but when I would do evil,
good is present. I want to serve the law in my
mind. I want to honor Christ in my
mind. I find not. Oh, wretched man
that I am. Not that I was, that I am who
shall deliver me from the body of this death. I thank God, Jesus
Christ has made me free. Christ speaks and this man is
made free from the unclean spirit. Then, and you'll notice in that
Mark 5, he never speaks to that man until after the unclean spirit's
gone. Because even if Christ is speaking,
if your ears are still uncircumcised, you're not gonna hear. Life comes before faith. As to
the timing, who knows? How quick or how fast, it can
be immediate, it can take a little while. I don't care. But the
thing is, if he speaks and gives you life, if he comes upon you
polluted in your own blood and he says unto you live, you're
gonna live. And you're gonna hear what he
says next. because that heart's gonna be
circumcised. Those ears are gonna be circumcised. These eyes are gonna be open.
And once these eyes are open, you're gonna see. You may not
see much, you may not see very well, but bless God, you'll see
and you'll know it. You may not know exactly what's
going on, but you're gonna know something's different. Why? Because Jesus Christ has spoken
to you. Why do we come here? We come
here to hear Christ preach, and we have been freed to come here,
and we have been freed to hear him. What a blessing. What a blessing. That's as quick
as I can be, Walter.