Let's look at verses 5. I'm going to read verses 5 down
to verse 13. Chapter 8, verses 5 down to 13.
The Word of God says, And when Jesus
was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching
him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy,
grievously tormented. Jesus said unto him, I will come
and heal him. The centurion answered and said,
Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof,
but speak the word only and my servant shall be healed. For
I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say
to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, come, and he
cometh, and to my servant, do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus
heard it, he marveled and said unto them that followed, Verily
I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that many
shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the
children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus saith unto
the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be
it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in
the selfsame hour. Father, Lord, we come to you
this morning and we ask him for help today. Lord, we need your
presence with us. Lord, we ask that you give us
utterance. We pray, Lord, that you would
bring to mind the recollections of things of the spirit. Lord, we pray that you would
give us understanding, that you would open up Christ to us today
in these passages. Lord, we thank you for these
brethren that you have brought today and gathered in this place. And we ask, Lord, that through
our gathering and through the worship, Lord, that you are exalted,
that you are well pleased. Lord, we ask that you would just
be our instructor today We're thankful for this message that
you have given us in this portion of Scripture as we look in and
see the wonderful works of our Lord Jesus Christ. But Lord,
we also thank you for the things that you show about ourselves
in these things, giving us understanding of not only who we are, but who
Christ Jesus is. And Father, we just pray that
even now that as we look at these things, we might not center upon
the things of man, upon the things of this world, that we might
not hone into this, as oftentimes I've heard this passage preached,
to exalt men, but that we might exalt Jesus Christ in what is
seen here. So, Lord, once again, we ask
that you would just be with us and say, Christ's name that we
pray, amen. Well, brethren, as I've just
mentioned there in my prayer, I've heard this passage preached
a lot of times, the faith of the centurion, you know, even,
even some of the titles, you know, your Bible may even have
titles over the passages and stuff. A lot of times they'll
say the faith of the centurion. in one of my online Bibles that
I was looking at this morning. It had the faith of the centurion
over there, you know. And as I mentioned, a lot of
times whenever this passage is preached, it's preached and the
whole focus of this passage is what great faith this centurion
had that was so great that even the Lord Jesus was astonished
by it. Okay? Even as I was looking,
I've seen that even in some of the other translations, the word
astonished was even in there. Okay. Now, hopefully we'll get
to that if the Lord wills, when we get there. But brethren, this
passage here, and that is all passages that we have in God's
word, is for the exaltation of Christ. It's never for the exaltation
of man. And so often the preaching that
we hear in modern day Christianity, quote unquote, modern churches,
is filled with the exaltation of man. The scriptures are there
to be a self-help book about how great you are and about how
wonderful you are and about what you can do and about what you
should be doing. And all the things that's there,
you know, you listen to these, you know, I don't know, ding-a-lings
is the only word that's coming to mind right now, like Joel
Osteen, that wants to take this and say, you know, hold up your
Bibles and I'm going to claim what this thing tells me I am,
blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, what this thing tells you
right here is that you're full of filthy rags in all that you
do. This thing here tells you that you're a sinner. This thing
tells you that your heart is deceitfully wicked above all
things, that there is nothing that you can do spiritually to
please God, or physically to please God. There's nothing that
you can do that you're totally abased. That's what the Bible
says that you are. So if Joel Olsen actually believed
the scripture, he wouldn't be spouting off all that junk that
he's talking about. But unfortunately, we see that
in most churches today, or what are called churches today, we
see the preaching and the exaltation of man. But brethren, this passage
of scripture isn't here to exalt this centurion in no wise. Matter of fact, If we would actually
take the very example of this centurion, it is not the exaltation
of himself, but the very fact that he humbled himself before
the Lord Jesus Christ. It isn't here to fuel your fire
of faith. I'm not here to preach to fuel
your fire of faith. Because we know the scripture
is very, very clear that the measure of faith of any one of
God's elect children is measured out by Christ. If Larry is full
of faith today, it's because God has given him that measure
of faith. If Michael is lacking faith today,
it's because the Lord has been pleased, has been purposing that
point of time that Michael not be full of faith at this point
that he might experience. Why did he give Peter to be sifted
by Satan and did not solidify his faithfulness during that
time of sifting so that Peter might learn from that. And we
see that Peter did learn from that, didn't he? The Lord taught
him some things and strength. This is what's amazing, brethren,
and I might be wrong on this, but this is what was amazing
to me about that situation. I don't mean to get too far off
track. In the fact of God bringing Peter to a point of faithlessness,
it helped him increase in faith. Ain't that amazing? How the Lord
brought the very sinfulness of Peter to the place where it strengthened
Peter's faith. And if you think about it, all
the times in our life that we have been strengthened in the
faith, that we have learned something, that we have grown from situations
in our life, the most times that we have grown from has been times
of what? Our failures. Our sinfulness. Our going into a situation faithless. But in that faithlessness, God
has taught us faithfulness. We see, because when we go into
a situation faithless, we realize just really how fragile we are.
How dependent upon Christ we are for faith. Matter of fact,
the Bible says All men have not faith. You say, well, pastor,
I think you're twisting those words because we know everybody
has faith. You have to have faith to be
saved, remember. Well, here's the thing, brethren.
Men do have faith, and that's not a contradiction to all men
have not faith. The only thing is, is the faith
that they have is not their faith. It isn't something that they
muster up. It isn't something that they can just produce. It
isn't something that they've just taken and placed onto another
object. The faith that they have is the
faith that is enabled in them, that is given to them, measured
to them for that time. I am completely and totally dependent
upon Christ. Even as now, standing here to
preach, I am dependent upon Christ to give me every word that I
might say. And if I speak and say anything
that is contrary to God's Word, that is because Mike was thinking
and speaking in the natural. And God didn't give me the words
to say in the Spirit. And you say, well, that's mysticism,
that's mysticism. No, it's not. It's trusting in
the Lord. It's being given faith. It is being given trust. that
God will give you what you need. That whenever we speak, that
He will give us the words to speak. Whenever we come up against
a trial, that He will give us the faith to stand, that He will
give us the courage to speak, or whatever it might be. That
in every given moment that God supplies all of our needs, not
our wants, all of our needs. All that we need for His purpose,
He's going to give it to us, right? And in some situations,
He doesn't give us that for His purpose. He doesn't give us that.
So, with that kind of being in our mind and understanding, and
I believe, if I'm not in error, I believe that that's kind of
the tenor throughout Scripture. We see that men are subject to
God for everything that they need for spiritual things. Without
Christ, working and enabling and the Spirit giving us the
ability, giving us whatever, working in us faith, working
in us hope, working in us love, working in us joy, all these
things that are spiritual works, if the Spirit isn't working that,
there is nothing my flesh can do to work it up and to do it. So that means that at every point
in time, every minute of my life, every situation I ever encounter,
everything that ever is going to happen in the future, I am
beholding to God to do for me. The Scriptures say, and I'm going
to misquote this, but I will praise God who performs all things
for me. If it's anything to do with the
spiritual kingdom of God, He performs all things for me. So
we're beholden to that. So with that doctrinal understanding
of how faith works, faith isn't something that is inherent in
natural man that we just work up or that we can build up if
we just keep exercising spiritual things. It's given by God in
His time and His purposes. He's given it to us. He works
it in us. We don't work it out, okay? Whenever
the Bible says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
it gives us how that happens. For it is God who works in you.
My working out isn't me saying, okay, I'm going to think on this.
Okay, I'm determined. I'm going to do this and this
is how it's going to happen. This is what's going to happen.
No, it's God that works in you, both the will and to do. My desire to do. My will. My will is, how does my will
function? My will functions by what I know. But how does what I know? I don't
know anything unless God reveals it to me. So see how everything
in the chain of events and how things work is all dependent
upon God. I don't know anything spiritual
unless God reveals it to me. Therefore, knowledge cannot affect
my life and my will and anything that's in me without God revealing
it to me. And once God reveals truth to
me, reveals anything to me, then I cannot even move upon that
knowledge unless the Holy Spirit first causes me to will. For it is God who works in you
both to will. Well, I can't will if I don't
have knowledge, and I can't have knowledge unless God reveals
it to me. So at that juncture, my willing is dependent upon
God. where Larry has his book over
here, The Lies of Free Will. I don't know if he still has
it in the current editions, but I wrote a forward to that thing. And in that thing, there's a
verse that I've talked about in there, that his people will
be made willing in the day of his power. It's not in the day of my power,
not in the day of your power or your choosing. We are made
willing in the day of His power. So God moves and works in us
to give us knowledge, and upon that knowledge we can't even
will to do anything unless God motivates and activates the will
to do. And then once the will is moved
upon by God, then we do whatever it is that God wants us to do.
Some people say, well, you're talking about that we're robots?
We're puppets? Well, actually, the biblical
terminology is we're clay pots, we're vessels. We're vessels. God has made us what He wants
us made of. We're tools in the hands of God.
He has designed us to do His good pleasure. So, again, with
all that said, so faith isn't something that we work out. Faith
is something that has worked in us. This centurion came to
Jesus Christ, and obviously we see he definitely was exhibiting,
displaying faith. So the first thing we realize
is that this faith didn't come from him. This faith came from
Christ, because if it was faith, and we truly know it's faith,
and we truly know that it's genuine faith, because Christ said something
about it, right? So this faith of this centurion
was given to him by God. Now that says a lot right there.
There's a lot of things that we can discuss about that. The
fact that this centurion, now keep in mind, remember, the centurion
is not a Jew. This man was not a Jew. Matter of fact, it says here,
there came to him a centurion, this is whenever he went to Capernaum,
He said, there came to him a centurion. What is a centurion? A centurion
is a Roman soldier. So this man was a Gentile. This
man wasn't a Jew. He wasn't from Israel. He was
a Gentile. And so here's this Gentile who
came and came to the Lord, and the Lord saw faith there. So God gives this Gentile faith. Now there's a lot of things here
that are coming to my mind and I'm hoping that I don't become
too confusing in my talk here. But look if you would with me. He says, there came unto him
a centurion beseeching him or seeking after him, calling upon
him, saying, Lord, My servant lied home sick of a palsy, grievously
tormented. First he called Him his Lord.
This centurion, this Gentile, now remember, he just healed
the leper, right? Jesus had just healed the leper
right before this happened. And so Jesus here had actually
did a miracle of healing somebody, laying His hands on and healing
this person. And of course we know the Pharisees, every time
Jesus did these miracles, it just riled them up. And whenever
they see Jesus doing these miracles, instead of worshiping Christ
as they should, acknowledging only God can do this, and here
this man is doing these miracles, and only God can do this, instead
of worshiping Him and giving Him the exaltation that's due
Him, What were they doing? They were being jealous of him.
They were being angered at him. They wanted to kill him. Why? Because he was stirring
the pot. He was taking away their power. He was taking the people who
they had control of through their doctrine, not the doctrine of
God's Word, through their doctrine, was taking their people. away
from them, taking their power away from them, taking their
glory away from them. Brethren, listen, it's just like
that in modern day churches today. You see in a lot of churches,
the preacher is there to get all the glory, is there to get
all the prestige. They got his name out in big
letters out there on the sign. They got any kind of degrees
that he's got behind his name. He's probably got his own nice
little parking spot to park in. Whenever he comes in, he's got
his nice big office with his library and everything. I'm not
saying some of the, you know, having a place to study and all
that stuff, I'm not saying it's necessarily wrong. But what do
we do? We put them up on a pedestal.
And they get this God complex where, you know, and I've had
a lot of people, myself, that has called us and talk to us
about church and about things that men are not able to converse
with their pastors because their pastors, whenever you question
them, they get mad and they won't even talk to you or they tell
you not to come back. These men begin to get this complex. I heard just recently, my uncle, whenever he was, I can't
remember if it was in, I think it was the church that he's pastoring
now, I think this was who it was. I won't say the name. But
anyway, he was telling me that they were saying that one of
the guys that came, that they were looking about coming to
be their pastor and was having them come preach, this guy told
them, number one, if they come, they have to be paid so much,
which to me is, as soon as I hear that, I'm like, next. If a guy cannot come and preach
God's Word without any money, then he's in the wrong business. It's not a business. He's in
the wrong profession here, fellas. God calls men to preach and then
He doesn't call them to be a CEO of a church and to be the paid
speaker. But this man, he said, I need
to have money to come. But he said, we're also going
to have to redo all these lights in here because whenever it's
time for me to preach, I want all the lights in the whole entire
building dimmed and just lights to come right down here. And
if you can't do that, then I can't come preach for you. Can you
believe that? I got to be in the spotlight. Now he would probably
say, no, we're putting God's word in the spotlight. It's all
theatrics is what it is. But anyway, we see that men are
being elevated in such a way these Pharisees had elevated
themselves in such a way that people were just loving them and following after
them and listening to every little thing and seeking them in every
little thing. And Jesus here was upturning
everything that they had established. Now, listen, what was going on
at this time with these religious leaders is not what God established
in the Old Testament. See, by this time, the Jewish
religion is corrupted. It's not the Old Testament sacrificial
priesthood that Jesus And well, that Jesus set up, that God set
up in the Old Testament. This is a Babylonian adulteration
that was going on during this time. That's why Jesus said,
you've heard it say, but I say unto you. See, all these men
were telling them exactly what they and their traditions had
said. Matter of fact, this very thing
here, remember, this Gentile, Jesus said, look at verse seven,
Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. More than likely,
those Jews that were around there probably got riled up that Jesus
was saying, hey, I'm gonna go to this guy's house. This is
a Gentile. According to their tradition,
Jew couldn't even go to a Gentile's house. They wouldn't have nothing
to do with Gentiles. And here Jesus said, I'm gonna
go to your house. That probably was very off-putting
to them. But here's something that I thought about when I was
looking at this. This centurion also knew, as a Gentile, these
folks don't have anything to do with me. These folks don't
have anything to do with anything. But he knew Jesus was his Lord. And he knew that Jesus would
probably come to my house if I asked him to come. He would
come. But he knew the stigma that it would cause among his
own people. And what does he say there in
verse 8? To send cheer and answer him, he said, Lord, I am not
worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the
word and my servant shall be healed. Now there's a couple
of things that I can see, that I see in that. And that is number
one, this man had a concern that let's not put any more undue
confusion in what's going on here among you and even your
own people. But also this man, and again talking about the faith
that was exhibited here, this man realized that Jesus didn't
need to come. The very fact that this man knew
Jesus didn't have to come to my house. Now the guy before
him, that guy Jesus touched and healed. And this guy here is
saying, hey, I don't need you to even come on the premises.
You just speak the word and it can be done. But see, this guy
is saving an issue here. What's his main concern? Well,
his main concern was that his friend be healed. Who was the
only one that he knew could heal him? The Lord. He went to the
Lord, he sought the Lord, and he trusted that the Lord could
do the very thing that he was seeking after Him to do. And
he didn't need to have Him come all the way to wherever the guy
was to be able to do it. And there didn't need to be any
uprising because Jesus was going to some Gentile's house. But this man said, let's look
at it this way. Let's do this. And that's what
was done. So part of the faith that was
exhibited was the very fact that while I know you can come, and
while I know it's not socially acceptable for you to come, you
would do it. There's no need for you to come. You have the
power. to just speak and it will be
done. Now rather than that, in and of itself, is amazing faith. But it's not that man's faith,
it's the faith that God had given him. And he says here, he said,
for I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and
I say to this man, go, and he goeth, and to another, and he
goeth, and to another come, and he cometh, and to my servant
do this, and he doeth it. What's that man meaning by all
that? Well, he recognizes that Jesus is the servant of God,
was sent by God. Look, Christ's own people were
not even seeing that. Now, I think, and this is my
opinion, okay, and judge it by Scripture, this is my opinion. And the reason I have this opinion,
and I do have Scripture referenced to back it, But the scripture
is not completely clear. So, like I said, measure the
scripture. In John chapter 3, whenever Nicodemus
came to Jesus, Nicodemus came as a leader of the Jews. He came
as a representative of that faction. And whenever he came to Jesus,
he said, we know that nobody can do these things except he
were sent by God. So my thoughts and my opinion
that I'm talking about here is that these Jews, they knew this
was Jesus, but they were rejecting him completely. They knew that
this man fit every category of Messiah. This man was fulfilling
the prophecies of the Old Testament that was given for Messiah. They were seeing it. They were
recognizing it. That's why they went to John
the Baptist and say, are you this man? They were seeing the
things being fulfilled that the Scripture was saying. This is
what's going to happen when Messiah comes. This is what's going to
happen when Messiah works, what Messiah does. This is how Messiah
is going to act and going to operate. And they've seen that,
but yet they rejected Him. And they rejected Him because
they knew if we keep letting this go, this man is going to
turn the whole world after Him. If we let this go, this man is
going to upturn everything that we've established. That's why
they sought to kill him. This centurion knew that. This
centurion understood that. This centurion came to Jesus
and said, I understand that you are one who is under authority,
as I am under authority, and that you have people under you
who serve you, but not just people. This guy here is using his illustration
of himself with people But what's he talking about? He's talking
about the healing of this man, right? He's talking about the
healing of this man. So this man here says, not only
do I know that you have people that will serve you and do what
you say, but all of creation does what you say. If you just
speak, the disease will leave this man. If you just speak,
this will happen. Why? Because this man, not only
did he recognize him as Lord, he recognized him as creator. As the king over everything. He recognized him as the sovereign. That nothing that this man says
is not going to happen. Right? If he says it, it's going
to happen. Why? Because everything, everything
in the created order is under his command. And it makes you
think about the things He's put all things under His feet. He's
made Him the head of all things. That all things were made by
Him and what? For Him. Not just people, but
everything. That squirrel running up that
tree out there, trying to get over into the bird seeds, that
squirrel is made by God for Him. And whatever He's doing out there,
He's doing for God. And people say, well, you're
getting a little I don't know about that. That's what the Bible
says. All things were created by Him
and for Him, for His purposes. Just for me, to be able to see
the squirrel out there. Who knows why He's doing it?
But He done it. This man recognized that authority. Christ had authority. Christ's
own people didn't see this authority. And that makes me think even
among professing Christians today. There are many who don't see
Christ's ultimate authority over all things. Now, if they continue
in this belief that salvation comes by something that they
do, I don't think it was they ever were given faith, that they
ever were true believers, that they were false believers, that
they were reprobate. But brethren, listen. There are
many today who don't like to hear that Christ is controlling
all things. That all of our wills are subject
to His will. That all of our thoughts, all
of our actions are subject to His control. They don't like
that because they think that makes God to be the author of
sin. Well, if you say that every action that we do is controlled
by God, then that means whenever we sin, that was controlled by
God, and then God's the author of sin. God is in control of
everything and that includes your sin. This man knew that
everything was under his control. I'm a man under authority. You are a man under authority.
I have people and things underneath me that do what I say. Anything
that you say, it's going to be done. Why? Because you have the
authority. Just speak the word and it shall
be done. And he says, when Jesus heard
it, he marveled and said unto them that follow, Verily, verily,
or verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no,
not in Israel. Can you imagine how that stirred
those religious leaders? This Gentile coming and saying
the things that he just said to Jesus, and then Jesus turning
around and saying, I have not seen this great a faith in all
of Israel. I mean, I bet you the daggers
were coming from the eyes. Well, down in verse 12 it said,
but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer
darkness, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
I believe there was probably some gnashing of teeth at that
point when that man said that. And Jesus said, I've not seen
this great faith in all of Israel. They were saying, how in the
world could this Gentile have such great faith that this man
is saying it's greater than all of Israel? Most of them don't even believe
that any Gentile was ever going to have any faith, much less
greater than anything of theirs. You remember Jesus said, unless
your faith exceeds that of the Pharisee? Why is that? Because the Pharisee
has a natural faith, but he didn't have God-given faith. See, unless
you have the faith that God gives you, you'll never believe. You'll
never come. That's kind of the whole point
of these things. This man showed that he had been
given faith by God. Therefore, being given faith
by God, where did he go to? He went to the only place where
the authority is found. He knew that there was no other
answer except to the authority that was given. He had the authority. God has given authority in Christ. I have given you authority over
all flesh. eternal life to as many as I've
given you. Jesus said, all power has been given unto
me in heaven and in earth. He has all authority. And this
man, he recognized that authority, he recognized that power, and
all of the religious leaders out there don't. Brethren, it's
just like that today. The elect of God understand,
have been given, revealed, and understand the sovereignty of
our God over all things, including sin, including evil. We understand
that. We understand God's sovereignty
in salvation, that God controls the salvation of every soul that
is to be saved. That God is the one who chooses
who will be His and who will not be His. We understand that
and we do not have any qualms about talking
about it. I know a lot of preachers who
say secretly they believe in election and predestination,
but they don't preach it because they know, you know, people just
don't really accept that and you drive people away. That's,
that's the more meatier subjects that once they get in and they're
here, then you can begin to, brethren, this is the, this is
the, this is the truth of the gospel. It's not meant for those
who don't want it because it's not for them, right? It's for
the elect of God. And whenever God opens their
ears and eyes, they will love it. It becomes their sustenance. It becomes the comfort for them
that God is controlling all things and that they don't have to work
for anything. They don't have to do anything.
They don't have to keep up religious appearances. They don't have
to keep up all this activity this law keeping to be saved
or to stay saved, that it's all done for them by Christ. This
and that becomes their food. But to the religious person,
just like in Jesus' days, that becomes a hated doctrine because
it takes away their power. See, if that was what I cared
about, if I cared about you and controlling you and wanting you
to do what I say so that So that justifies and verifies my ministry. And I'm going to preach to you
law. I'm going to hound you every
Sunday from this pulpit, beating on it, telling you how bad of
a person you are. You need to be doing this and
you need to be doing that and get out here and get out there.
You know, if you would be just like me, if you'd be like me,
if you'd do like I do. No, we don't do that. What do
we do? We abase ourselves. The people of God have learned
to abase themselves. Well, the Lord abases us by His
Spirit. But we do just like this man
does. We come in humility. Lord, we're not worthy for You
to even come into our house. The sinner who came next to the
Pharisee, have mercy upon me, a sinner. The grace of God, the
sovereignty of God, the sovereign grace of God, it abases man and
it abases the elect of God to the point where they realize
that we are unworthy. And in that unworthiness, that
being brought down low, that being humiliated into the dust, the greatest show of faith is
made. It's whenever we are brought
to the lowest point in humility that we reach out in the greatest
displays of faith. And again, that's not something
that we work up or do. That's how God works it in us.
He brings us low that He may exalt Himself in the faith of
His elect. That He has given unto us. Listen, when things are going
good for me, I don't go to the Lord as often as I do when things
are not going so well for me. So we trust in the Lord. This
man had been brought to a place where he knew his unworthiness.
But he knew that man right there, he has all authority and all
power, and I'm not even worthy to come and ask him what I'm
about to ask him. But I know that if it's to be
done, only he can do it. And so he called out for help.
But see, we have preachers in churches today, brethren, that
they think they can, by the whipping it up, they can get everybody
out there with their, again, with their self-help scriptures.
We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. They
take that verse out of its context. We can do all things through
Christ who strengthens us. What's that all about? That's
about being under persecution. It's not about you going out
and lifting weights at the gym. Not about you overcoming some
obstacle at your job that, you know, some guy that was out there
going to get your position and you overcame and got it. Whatever
it is. No, what is this all about? This
is about abasing us and exalting the Lord Jesus Christ. And this
man here, who even though the Lord looked at him and said,
I haven't seen any great faith in all of Israel, this wasn't
God saying, patting this guy on the back and lifting this
guy up and saying, everybody look at this guy, you need to
be, this is your example and you need to be more like this
guy. Jesus didn't say you need to be more like this guy at all.
He just, what did he say? And listen, this is where again,
men, Press something into this that is not there. Jesus said,
I have not found so great faith. No, not in Israel. He didn't
say, look at this man's awesome great faith. That's not what
he said. He said, I have not seen this
great of faith. He's just saying, I have not
seen this level of trust and belief on me in all of Israel. He wasn't saying how great a
faith this man had mustered up and done. No, he said this show
of faith, this trust in who I am, I haven't seen it in Israel.
He was condemning Israel. He wasn't pumping this man up
to something that he had done on his own. He was saying, listen,
my people, and isn't that what the Bible has clearly told us?
that He would be despised and rejected of men, that His own
people would not even come to Him, that His own people would
reject Him? That's exactly what we're seeing here. That He was
rejected of His own, but here this Gentile, who the Lord gave
faith to, came and believed upon the Lord, believed upon His power,
believed upon His authority, believed that He could just speak
the Word and it would be done. And the Lord said, listen, I'm
not seeing this great faith He wasn't saying, I have not seen
this great of faith. He was saying, I have not seen
this great of faith in all of Israel. He was condemning the
religious people of the day. He was condemning those who were
the reprobates among the national people of Israel. He says, I say unto you that
many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down
with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Again,
that probably just caused the skin to crawl on all those religious
leaders. These people are coming from
the east, from the west. That means Gentiles, brethren.
He's talking about Gentiles. That Gentiles are going to come
from all over the world and they're going to sit down with Abraham.
Isaac and Jacob. And they thought, this is our
place. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's table is our table. This is where
we're sitting at. And Jesus boldly tells them,
but the children of the kingdom, you Jews, you're going to be
cast into outer darkness where there'll be weeping and gnashing
teeth. What a harsh word to the religionists. Whenever they stand before the
Lord and they say, Lord, Lord, did we not in your name cast
out demons and devils, do many works of miracles in your name? Did we not keep the Ten Commandments
in your name? Did we not follow the law in
your name? Did we not abstain from this?
And did we not partake of this? And did we not? Every time the
doors were open at church, we were there. Every time there
was a revival, we went there. When we went on vacation, we
didn't even take a day off from church. We went to church wherever
we could find one. We never miss church because
you told us not to miss if you forsake the assembling of yourselves
together. So we go no matter what, no matter
where. Even if it doesn't believe like
we do, we're going to go so we can keep your commandment. And the Bible says, The Lord
will look and say, depart from me, workers of iniquity, for
I never knew you. What? Workers of iniquity? Lord, surely
you misunderstood. They cast out demons in your
name. In your name! They killed people in your name. They did all these wonderful
works in your name. They did it all for you, Jesus. And Jesus is going to say, depart
from me, you worker. Those were works of iniquity.
You know, that couples along whenever he said, all of your
righteousnesses are filthy rags. Your works for me are considered
works of iniquity. Why is that? Because there's
only one thing that God accepts, and that's the works of Jesus.
He doesn't ever accept any works of you on His behalf. He only
accepts the works of Jesus. The works of the prophecy is
all He accepts. The works of your substitute
is all He accepts on your behalf. All these people got up and talked
about what they did for Jesus in Jesus' name. And look, out
here, all these guys, all these weirdos on TV and on the radio,
talking about all the things, you know, we're out here and we're controlling all these demons
with His name, you know. I call on you, the demon of this
and the demon of that and the demon and the spirit of this
and the spirit of that. In Jesus' name, you know, Kenneth
Copeland, he just can wrangle any kind of demon or any kind
of spirit just by using the name Jesus. And he thinks that he
can control all these things, brother. Listen, I tell you what,
sometimes I would, I would, this is probably the flesh in me.
I would love like, was it the Seven Sons of Sheba? I would
love publicly to see him try to do that one day and just one
of those demons just come out and flog him to death, strip
him of his clothes and send him out running. It would just be,
I'd love to see that open display. of God bringing these men to
their knees. Now, one of these days, it's gonna happen, but
all this nonsense, it goes on. I don't even have coffee. The fact that Jesus told these
religious people that these Gentiles, who, by the way, the Bible says
were never under the law, are gonna sit down with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, And these Jews who now have died to the law
and have come to Christ alone as their salvation, they're going
to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not around the Talmud,
not around the Kabbalah, not around even the books of Moses. They're going to come And they're
going to come around like we just sang, and sing, worthy is
the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is
the Lamb that was slain. All praise to the Lamb. All praise
to the Lamb. All praise to the Lamb that was
slain. Now, the last thought that I
have on this passage is in verse 13, because I think also this
is a misunderstood and misapplied verse. It says, And Jesus said
unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so
be it done unto thee. And I've heard this preached,
and I probably may have even preached it like this at one
time. I don't recall ever preaching it, but I may have. Many people say, see there, if
you'll just believe, Jesus will get into action if you believe. Your faith causes Him to move.
How often do you see that preached and talked on TV and radio? All
on Facebook and all kinds of stuff that God moves when our
faith is great. You know, God does all this stuff
because of our faith. Our faith can move mountains.
By the way, you know that Jesus saying that didn't have anything
to do with us moving mountains with our faith. Go thy way and as thou hast believed,
so be it done unto thee." Jesus isn't saying, because you believe
so greatly, I'm going to do what you ask me to do. That's not
what Jesus said. That's not what this says. That
is reading into that thinking. That's not what Jesus said. What
is Jesus saying? As thou hast believed. How has this man believed?
That Jesus didn't have to go there. He could just speak it.
That Jesus had the authority to do whatever he wanted to do. And if Jesus wanted to heal this
man, he didn't have to go on location and place hands upon
him so that some sort of a miraculous energizing power would come out
of his hands and into the man, healing the man. He just would
say it. Why? Because all of creation, every
molecule, every atom, every little tiny speck of whatever that makes
up the creation is under his control. Whatever was causing
this man's palsy immediately would flee as soon as Jesus said,
be gone. This man believed that he had
the authority to do it and that he could do it without coming.
And Jesus said, you say that I don't need to come? All right,
well, go your way and it will be done as you believed it to
be done. In the order, in the way that you said it would be
done. Not because you believe, but the way you believed it to
be done. I will do it this way. Instead of coming and touching
them, or instead of coming personally, I'll just say it and there you
go. It'll be done. As soon as you get home, you're going to
see a guy that's not got palsy. That's what Jesus was being here.
Not because of your great faith that was so marvelous that it
made me, as the work here says, marveled. By the way, I did look
up that word marvel there because I really don't think that God
marvels at what we do because everything that we do is given
by God, is controlled by God. Do you believe that faith? I
looked at that word marvel, and it does mean admired. The word means admired. There's other places in the King
James Bible where that Greek word behind marvel is translated
as admired. And again, it's not, and the
context that's used is not in an admiration because of something
that is just so amazing and inherent in the person, but he admired
what this man was displaying in the fact that this is a work
of God on display as a Gentile to all these Jews. He admired
this man's great faith. He looked on. He didn't jump
in there and just knew exactly what the guy was going to do.
Listen, he let the guy go through all the motions of everything
that happened right there in front of everybody he'd been
talking to, in front of the people that he had been doing miracles among all
the time. that He allowed this to play
out and He admired or watched on of this man's faith. Why? So that it might be a display.
As I've said then, that's kind of the angle that the Lord brought
me to in looking at this whenever I was reading through it, is
the angle of this is to show that this goes against everything
that the religious order holds to. And brethren, is that not
how we are as sovereign grace believers? We go against every
religious thing that's out there. We go against religious liturgy. We go against the law keepers
and all that kind of stuff. We go against people that believe
in free will. We go against all this stuff
that is found in modern day religion. And any faith that we might have,
we can't boast about it. couldn't boast about it, and
the Lord isn't boasting in something that man did. He's boasting in
something the Lord did in the man. And he put it on display
for all to see. And as that man believed, so
it was done, not because he believed, but as he believed, and as thou
hast believed. Not because. There is no because
there. Go thy way, and as thou hast
believed, so be it done unto thee. And
the Bible says, and his servant was healed in the self-same hour. Well, brethren, that's all I
have to say. I just kind of wanted to bring
out the fact of looking at this at a different angle than most
times we hear and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. Not this man's
faith. This passage is about this man's
faith. It's about the authority and the ability of God Almighty
to do whatever he wants to do. And not only giving this man's
faith, but he can heal somebody without going there. He can change
a life. He can do whatever, you know,
give men legs to stand and eyes to see. And, you know, he didn't
have to wipe mud on people. He didn't have to make them go
into water and dip several times. He didn't have to do any of that
stuff. All he had to do was just say it. But he does a lot of
these things for our benefit, for us to see and to understand
and to learn from. A lot of those things were symbolic
things that he was showing and the things that he was doing.
But brethren, the fact remains when you boil all of this down,
is he is the king of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the
sovereign over all things. And he himself has the power
to give faith, to not give faith. He has the power to give life
or to keep given life. He has the power to heal or to
remain even to plague. He's the one that sends the plagues.
He's the one that sends the palsy. He's the one that sends the heart
attacks. He's the one that sends the cancers. I know people don't
like to think of that, don't like to do that, but nothing
happens apart from the Lord. Job did not get boils all over
his body because the devil gave it to him. God did that. Job didn't lose all of his wealth
and all of his family and everything that he had. He didn't lose that
because the devil did it. God sent the devil to do that. But again, it was God who did
that. And even Job said it. He said,
the Lord has done this. The Lord has given and the Lord
has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And the Bible says that in all that Job did not sin, And it
wasn't that Job didn't sin in reacting to it, it was Job did
not sin in what he said. Job accredited God for doing
all of that that he sent Satan to do. Job gave the credit to
God. God is the one who did this,
not Satan, because Satan only does what God tells him to do. The reason God put it in there
and Job didn't sin, it was he didn't sin in accusing God. because God was at the very end. And again, it goes back to how
many people accuse us of making God be the author of sin, but
do we sin whenever we say that God has done that? No, we don't
sin when we do that. Why? Because we know that God
is in control of all things. All right, anybody got anything
to add? Or anything that you want to
say? Well, 2 Timothy 2.19, I love
that passage. Nevertheless, having this seal, the Lord knows
then that it is His. And it gives me a lot of comfort to know that
we can be designed to the fact that God's on the floor over
everything. Either God is sovereign, or He's
not And there's a hymn I'd like to
sing, if you could. This kind of goes along with
what you were saying here. It's 477, similar to the other
one you sang out of the Blue Book.