Well, good morning to everyone.
If you care to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 15,
where our lesson will be taken from this morning, Matthew chapter
15. Before we begin, let's bow before our Lord in prayer. Our Father, O how we beg of Thee
that You would enable us by Thy Spirit to hear a word from thee
this morning and that you would make this, this day a special
day of worship. We pray that this might be the
day that you would show us your glory, your redemptive glory
in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. That you'd bear your
mighty right arm of power and enable us to see, to believe
on, rest in, run to our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, show us
your glory, we pray. Enable us to look into your word
and see the Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we pray you'd apply
your word to our hearts. To each individual heart, apply
your word to our hearts. Meet every need with the Lord
Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for our children's
classes that you would bless in a special way. Bless the teachers,
bless our young ones, that they might learn the Holy Scriptures,
which are able to make them wise unto salvation. Father, for those
who are hurting, sick and afflicted, those who can't be with us here
this morning, and your people that we know of in other places
that are suffering, Father, we pray for them. We pray you'd
comfort their hearts with your presence, that you'd heal and
deliver as soon as it could be thy will. Give us the faith and
the grace to wait on thee. All these things that we ask
in that name, which is above every name, the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ. All right. I've titled our lesson
this morning cast at Jesus feet. Our text begins verse 29 and
Jesus departed from thins. Now this is immediately after
the Lord healed the Syrophoenician woman's daughter. Soon as he
healed that, That girl, that little girl told that woman,
your faith has made her whole. He left. He left that place.
And as far as what we know from what was recorded in scripture,
the Lord came to the coast of Tyre and Sidon. He came there
on purpose to show mercy to one woman and her daughter. Two people who were idolaters.
And the Lord came and showed mercy on them. And then he left. Now you know the Lord often works
that way. And maybe those things are recorded
in scripture that we might learn not to take His mercy and His
grace for granted. The Lord often will come to a
place and save one out of many. The Lord will come to a place
and have mercy on one out of many. Maybe He'll come and show
mercy to one out of a family. He'll save one or two. out of
a congregation. There's a story I read about
brother Henry years ago going to preach at this place. I don't,
I don't know what was preached there. Probably not much, but
he went to hold a meeting at this place. He went and preached
there and he came home very, very, very discouraged. He was
just so discouraged. He felt like he wasted his time.
He felt like this place, nobody heard the gospel because they're
too busy bickering amongst each other. He was very discouraged.
Of that congregation, I don't know how many people were in
the congregation, but of that congregation, the Lord saved two. Paul and
Sue Patterson. Nobody else. Nobody else. You
see, when the Lord has a lost sheep somewhere, no matter where
they are, the great shepherd of the sheep, he goes and finds
them. He claims his sheep and he brings them home. He goes
and plugs one brand out of the fire, delivers it because it's
his. And when the Lord goes and He
just saves one out of their sin, out of their darkness, out of
their unbelief, the Lord just saves one. He's showing great
mercy, isn't He? Great mercy. It's great mercy
to that one. It's going to take great mercy
to save just that one. And the Lord often does that.
But then there are other times the Lord shows great mercy by
saving many, many. Sometimes the Lord saves a whole
family. We're going through our study
there in Timothy. The Lord saved Timothy, his mother, and his
grandmother. The Philippian jailer, the Lord saved his whole house.
One night. There are times that the Lord
saves many from a congregation. Not everybody, but many, many.
That happened to Pollard years ago, didn't it? The Lord moved
and saved many and brought them out of that place. And when that
happens, that's the Lord showing great mercy. Great mercy. when
he saves and calls his people. Either way, whether it's few
or whether it's many, God's greatness is unsearchable, unsearchable. In our text this morning, we're
going to see an example of the Lord showing his greatness by
showing mercy to many. Verse 29, and Jesus departed
from thins and came nigh into the Sea of Galilee and went up
into a mountain and sat down there and great multitudes came
unto him. having with them those that were
lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down
at Jesus' feet, and he healed them. Insomuch that the multitude
wondered when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole,
the lame to walk, and the blind to see, and they glorified the
God of Israel. The Lord left the coast of Tyre
and Sidon, he went across by the Sea of Galilee, He went up
to this mountain and he sat down. And that's how men taught at
that time. They would they would sit down and the Lord went up
to this mountain as the king. He sat down on the mountain and
he's drawing all of his people to come unto him. And the words
that describe the people that came to our Lord, they came to
him for healing and for help. They're very descriptive words.
Not only do they describe the physical ailments of people,
but they describe spiritually all the people who come to our
God for salvation. Thankfully, the Lord is compassionate. Aren't you glad he's compassionate
both on our bodies and on our souls? And we need that. We need
a Lord that is compassionate both on our bodies and our souls.
Matthew Henry says sin has turned the world into a hospital. Well,
this hospital needs the great physician, doesn't it? Don't
we? I'm thankful the Lord is compassionate on the infirmities
of our bodies. And any healing we experience
is because the Lord healed us. Now he uses means today. He doesn't
move miracles, somebody laying their hands on you or something
like that. Any healing we experience is because the Lord healed us.
He used means. He's the one that made those
means effectual. And we're thankful for physical
healing. I mean, if you've just ever been down, I mean, you're
thankful for physical healing. But there's a greater blessing,
a far greater mercy that we need much more. We need healing for
our souls. We need mercy upon our souls. And every time in scripture that
Lord has compassion and he heals a bodily disease, he's doing
it not just to show off his power that he can do that. He's doing
that to give us a picture of how he heals all the sin sicknesses
of his people. And I want us to look at the
words here this morning that describe the, these people that
came to our Lord for healing because they are, they are also
a description. of those who come to our Lord for spiritual healing. And the first word is multitude.
Great multitudes came unto him. The word multitude there doesn't
just mean a large group of people. It means the common people as
opposed to the rulers and the leading man, the noble people.
And it also means with contempt. The rest of the world looks on
them with contempt. They look on them as the ignorant multitude.
That's what the word means. Well, that is a perfect description
of those who come to our Lord to be saved. God saves common,
ordinary people. Common, ordinary, everyday, sinful
people. And they'll agree with the world.
They don't see themselves as great. They don't see anything
about them that makes them special. They don't see them as having
done something or being someone. who deserves God's grace. They
don't think they're so wonderful that they deserve for God to
be merciful to them. They see themselves as nothing. They see themselves as the chief
of sinners. It's not possible that anybody
else could be more sinful, more defiled with sin than they are.
That's the way they see themselves. They see themselves as undeserving
of God's mercy, and they see that they deserve God's wrath.
They're just a multitude, the ignorant multitude. But look
at 1 Corinthians 1. They became sinful in Adam's
fall. They know this. And there's absolutely nothing
that they can do to make themselves better by their works. 1 Corinthians
1, verse 26. For you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world. to confound the wise. And God
hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
that are, which are mighty and base things of the world and
things which are despised have God chosen. Yea, and things which
are not to bring to naught the things that are that no flesh
should glory in his presence. That's why God saves this, this
multitude, the ignorant multitude that is held by the world with
contempt. Now, the Lord certainly has called, saved, some rich
and powerful people, haven't He? Abraham, from what we understand,
is the wealthiest man in the world, or in that area of the
world at that time. Job, welcome him. David, Solomon. But God
usually calls common, ordinary people, sinners, to come to Him.
And if God does call a rich person to come to Him, tell you what,
the Lord's gonna whittle them down first. They're going to
see their riches don't make them any better than the pauper. God's
going to whittle them down. So even though they may have
plenty of earthly riches, they're going to call themselves poor
and needy, exactly like King David did. Everybody's going
to see themselves that way for God saves them now. And the Lord
just doesn't use many rich or many powerful people in his service.
He does some, but he doesn't do it many times for this reason,
so that he gets all the glory. You know, if all of us, you know,
tomorrow or whenever the next drawing for the lottery, if all
of us here won the lottery, I mean, things would look different,
wouldn't they? At least I hope they would. I
hope if, you know, we did that, that we'd still have a gracious
heart. Things would, you know, look different and things. But
you know what? You know why that doesn't happen? Because the Lord has a better
way to provide for his ministry, to provide for the support of
his gospel. If all of us won the lottery,
we'd say, oh, we're doing this by our might, by our power. Yes,
the Lord gave it to us, but we're, you know, we're doing it by our
might. But when the Lord uses a bunch of poor, a bunch of just
middle-class people to support his gospel and send the word
out that finds and saves and comforts and edifies his sheep,
God's going to have to get the glory for that, isn't he? There
are just people who aren't going to understand where all these
means come from. God supplied the means, that's how. And the
world calls God's church the multitude, not because they're
a large group. They're almost always very small
groups. It's because the world holds God's church, holds people
that believe on and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. They hold
them in contempt for believing Christ and not trusting the works
of the flesh. The world looks at believers
as ignorant people. They just say, you're ignorant
to trust your soul. to Christ and not think your
works can add to that and prop it up some. They just think that's
ignorant. God's people are despised by
the world, but everybody God saves is despised by the flesh,
the flesh of the world and despised by our own flesh. That new man
is despised by the old man that every believer has to lug around
with us. The flesh loves the works of
the flesh. And the flesh will despise anyone,
anything that's gonna trust in Christ alone and not what they
do. The flesh is gonna hate that. And the flesh that'll start out
the warfare is our very own flesh. That very old, that very dead
man that we carry around with us. The flesh does not like their
error being pointed out by faith in Christ alone. So they despise
that. They hold that with contempt.
But that's the very people that God saves. All right, the second
word is lame. Great multitudes came unto him,
having with them those that were lame. And that word lame means
crippled without a foot. They became lame in the fall
of Adam. Now we say that we became lame
in the fall of Adam. I want to make this very clear.
Let's not be confused about this thing about being lame and end
up thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think.
When Adam fell, you and I died. We died. We didn't become hurt.
We died. We died and we became, because
we're dead, completely incapable of doing anything to please God.
It's not like we became lame on one foot, you know, but we
can drag that old, you know, and kind of limp our way, you
know, to God and drag ourselves there. No, we died in Adam. And
since we died, we lost the ability to walk, to limp, to drag, or
to roll ourselves to God. We're dead. See, all these words,
they have to be put together and they're showing us different
facets of what it means to be dead in sin, to be dead in Adam. We are incapable of doing anything
to please God, to get ourselves to God so that we are completely
dependent on Christ at all times, forever. It's not like, well,
this one's lame and this one's blind and this one's dumb and
this one's maimed, but somehow, you know, we've all got some
goodness in us, something healthy in us that we can all use to
get ourselves to God somehow. No, we're all of these things
at once. There's no soundness in us. There's
no health in us. We're nothing but wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores that haven't been treated with
any kind of medicine. We're dead. And since we're dead,
we're lame. We cannot come to Christ. Look over at the gospel of John
chapter six. Verse 43, Jesus therefore answered and
said unto them, murmur not among yourselves, no man can come to
me except the father which has sent me, draw him and I'll raise
him up at the last day. No man can, none of us can. We don't have the ability to
come to Christ. We don't even have the desire
to come to Christ. No man can. come to Christ for
salvation because we died in Adam. Oh, but the Lord, the Lord
is rich in mercy and he heals the lame so that they walk. And
when they walk, you know what they do? They come to Christ. Look in John six, verse 45, it's
written in the prophets and they should be all taught of God.
Every man therefore that a third and has learned of the father
cometh unto me. Whenever God makes it so that
the person has, sinner has life, they walk. I can tell you where
they're going when they start walking. They're coming to Christ. They're coming to Christ because
the spirit of God draws them to Christ. And when they're able
to walk, when they are able to come to Christ, they glorify
the God of Israel. Only God could have made me walk. Only God could have given me
life and enabled me to come to Christ. And these lame people
in our texts, they glorified God. Notice they said they glorified
God. They didn't glorify and praise
this man, Jesus of Nazareth. They glorified God. You know
why they did that? Because they knew based on the
prophecies of the Old Testament scriptures, this has to be the
Messiah. Has to be, because this is what
the Old Testament scripture said the Messiah would do. He'd come
heal the lame. He'd come give sight to the blind.
He'd come give life to the dead. They knew this has to be the
Messiah. This is God's promised Savior
who's come to us. Praise God. All right, the third
word is blind. Verse 30. Great multitudes came unto him,
having with him those that were lame, and blind. Now this word
blind, you wouldn't think you'd have to look up the meaning of
this Greek word, but I'm glad I did. It does mean spiritual
or physically blind so that you can't see. But you know what
this word also means? Mentally blind. Mentally blind. Everybody that God saves is spiritually,
mentally blind. They cannot see. Spiritually,
they just can't see. They can't see Christ. What's
more, they can't see themselves. They just, you hold up the mirror
of the law in front of them and they cannot see themselves. They
hear of Christ, they hear the requirements of God's law, that
God requires perfection. And you know what they think?
They think, well, I'm not that bad. Yeah, I'm better off than
this fellow over here, you know. You know why they think that?
You know why somebody thinks, well, I'm not that bad. I'm not
totally depraved. I'm not dead in sin. You know
why somebody thinks that? They can't see. They can't see themselves. And they can't see the gospel.
They're mentally blind. They can't see it. They cannot
understand the gospel. They just can't understand how
God saves sinners by grace alone. They just can't see. They still
think their works have to be added in there. They're blind.
They're blind. They still think they, not only
do they think there is some work to do, why does somebody think
there was still some work to do for salvation? Well, clearly
it's because they haven't seen Christ who said it's finished.
They can't see. But also they can't see themselves.
If there's work left to do, they think they can do it. And I'm not making fun. I'm not
making fun. Because every single one of us
here is born just that way. Mentally, spiritually blind. We're born that way, we just
don't know it. And before God saves anybody, you know what
He's going to do? He's going to make them see that
they're spiritually blind. And everyone who's spiritually
blind and knows it will be saved. Like John chapter 9. I wanna
repeat that. Everybody who knows they're spiritually
blind will be saved. John chapter nine. This is what the Lord's saying.
Verse 39, John nine. And Jesus said, for judgment
I'm coming to this world. that they which see not, those
who are blind, mentally, spiritually blind, might see. And that they
which see, that think they see, might be made blind. And they
understood what the Lord was saying there. And some of the
Pharisees which were with him heard these words and said unto
him, are we blind also? They knew exactly what he was
saying. And Jesus said unto them, if you're blind, you should have
no more sin. But now you say we see. Therefore,
your sin remaineth. Everybody who's blind, you know,
knows they're blind. They know it because God revealed
it to them. God taught them that they're
blind and he gives them sight. And when he gives them sight,
their sin doesn't remain. Their sin's gone. Why is their
sin gone? Because when God makes a person
see, they look to Christ. Salvation's in a look. Now look
to Christ. Look. Look to him. and your sin
will be gone. The Savior here gave people sight
and they said, this has got to be the Messiah. This has got
to be the Savior God promised to send us. That's worshiping. That's worshiping. And I tell
you what a miracle it is. What a miracle when the Lord
enables us to see Christ by faith. Isn't that a miracle? What a
mystery that that is. And what a joy to be able to
see And only the Lord can make the dead see. To see Christ and
to rest in Him, there's no greater miracle. Oh, it'd be a miracle
if someone was physically blind and the Lord gave him sight,
and we'd thank God for it. But you know, it's a far greater
miracle that the Lord gives sight to the soul. He does that because
He's rich in mercy. Right, the fourth word is dumb. Verse 30, they cast, let's see,
where am I? Those who were lame, blind, and
dumb. That word dumb means a person
that can't hear or speak. And that's us spiritually, isn't
it? We can hear the gospel. You hear the words that I'm saying,
and I hope that you understand them. I try to be very sure I
use words we all can understand. I think you can understand what
I'm saying. But we can't believe it. We can't
love it. We can't speak by nature and
say anything that's true about God. By nature, we can't speak
and say anything that's beneficial to the hearts of men. We can
say all kinds of religious words, but we can't say anything that's
beneficial to the hearts of men. We can't and we won't speak. Beg God for mercy. There's anybody
here this morning that's lost and doesn't know God. If you
beg God for mercy, he'll save you. But by nature, we can't
beg. We're not able to speak. We're
not only too proud to beg, we can't speak. We can't hear the
gospel. We can't hear God speak through
his word because we're dead. We're dead. I've seen that. I've seen that happen. I've seen
people I look at faces when I'm preaching and I can see this
person. They can't hear. They don't.
I mean, it's just it's just like preaching to a stone wall. There's
nothing there. And then I see something different. Oh, they hear. Oh, they're able
to speak. What happened? God spoke and
quit hearing the preacher and started hearing When God speaks,
the dead hear his voice, and they can speak. They sing his
praises. Our Lord stood in the cemetery
one day and said, Lazarus, come forth. And those that were there
with him said, Lord, he's dead. He's been dead. I mean, he's
stinking. He's been dead so long. He's dead. He can't hear you,
Lord. He can't hear you. Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth. because God spoke. That's how
he gives, gives it. So his people can hear. Now,
if you look at Luke chapter one, I tried to find an example of
this, and this is the only place that I could find in scripture
where the Lord healed someone who could not speak. And then
it's recorded what they spoke. What did they say when the Lord
loosed their tongue? Luke chapter one, verse 20. This is when the angel came to
Zachariah and Zachariah did not believe that Elizabeth was going
to have a son. Verse 20 says, and behold, thou shalt be dumb
and not able to speak until the day that these things shall be
performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be
fulfilled in their season. Now look at verse 64. After you
know everything that happened there, and John the Baptist was
born. Verse 64, and his mouth was opened
immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake. And when he could
finally speak again, he praised God. And fear came on all that
dwelt round about them. And all these sayings were noise
abroad throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all they
that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, what
manner of child shall this be? And the hand of the Lord was
with him. And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost
and prophesied, saying, and here's what he could say when his tongue
was finally loosed, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he
hath visited and he's redeemed his people. and has raised up
a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant, David,
as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been
since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all that hate us to perform the mercy
promised our father and to remember his holy covenant, the oath,
which he swear unto our father, Abraham, that he would grant
unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies
might serve him without fear and holiness and righteousness
before him all the days of our life. Zachariah had been dumb. I'm, I'm guessing he couldn't
speak for roughly nine months. And when he was finally able
to speak, what did he tell him? What did he talk about? He talked
about the glory of Christ, the glory of the redeemer. And if
the Lord ever looses our tongue, makes us able to hear and to
speak. You know, we'll say when we read
what Zacharias said there, we're gonna say amen, amen. So be it,
that's what I believe. We're gonna amen it if the Lord
ever loose our tongues. You know what we'll speak about?
We're not gonna speak about ourselves anymore. We'll speak of the Savior. Okay, the fifth word in verse
30 is maimed, maimed. And the word means mutilated,
like you had a limb cut off. Now, like I said, now we died
in the fall. We didn't just lose a limb. You know, we didn't just
lose an arm, but we got another one. We didn't lose a leg, but
we got another one. Now when Adam fell, we died. And a limb
wasn't cut off from us. Life was cut off from us. Righteousness
was cut off from us. Now that's maimed. That's spiritually
maimed. If life and righteousness are
cut off from us, we can't enter into the presence of God. And
the Lord makes his people spiritually maimed, makes them see they're
spiritually maimed so that they have no hope but to come to Christ. And these were maimed. When they
came to Christ, he healed them. And the last word is many others.
They brought many others unto him. John Gild says that means
lepers and other various diseases. I'm not exactly sure. I didn't
go back and really look that up or anything. We'll just take
his word for it. But many others, many others, whoever has any
sin sickness, I don't care what it is, any sin sickness can come
to Christ and be healed. There's no sin sickness that's
so deep, that's so vile, that's so depraved, the Lord can't wash
it white as snow. He heals every sin sickness of
his people and makes all of his people perfectly whole. They're perfect in Christ. Now,
everyone, On this day that was brought to Christ was healed.
Everyone. And notice where they were when
the Lord healed them. They were at his feet. Their
loved ones came, they brought this helpless loved one and they
cast them at Jesus' feet. And it's not recorded that they
made a single request. They just cast their poor loved
one at the feet of the master. This was their hope. that he
would look on their poor, helpless loved one, cast down at his feet
and look on them with compassion and mercy. And he did. Now, since
the Lord did that, wouldn't we be wise to do that
for our loved ones, for ourselves and for our loved ones, especially
for our children, to bring them to the Bible classes, to bring
them to the worship services and just cast them at the feet
of Christ. And pray that he'd look on us
with mercy, compassion, and pity. If he does, we'll be made perfectly
whole. And we're not gonna be made perfectly
whole anywhere else but at his feet. Nobody else can help us. Nobody else can. Religion can't
do it. Oh, religion will make them act a little better, but
more than likely it'll just make them a Pharisee that you can't
stand to be around. The law can't do it. The law just keep telling
them how sinful they are. Morality can't do it. I mean,
I hope you're all moral people, but that's not going to impress
God. Nobody else can help us, but Christ can. Just a look of
compassion from him. Just a look of pity. Make us whole. And I have to
say this. I hope this will be a blessing
helpful to you. I've got absolutely no qualms about saying that those
who claim to be able to heal people like the Lord did on this
day, somebody says they're able to do that today and they make
a lot of money on doing it now. I have no qualms about saying
this. They're deceivers. They're not
religious. I mean, I guess they're outwardly
religious, but that's their workers of iniquity. That's what they
are. They're workers of iniquity. They're doing what they're doing.
They're saying what they're saying. They believe what they believe
because they don't know God and they don't trust Christ. And
that's all there is to it. Now, don't wish. Don't wish that
you could go back and live in those days where these miracles
were given to me. The apostles had them. The apostles
could give them to other folks. And those miracles were given
to people, not just for the well-being of folks' physical ailments. Those abilities and powers were
given to people so that when they healed somebody, people
would know this power's of God. This is supernatural power. This
is not something that comes natural to men. This is supernatural.
Maybe I better listen to what this fellow's saying. Maybe that's
why those miracles were given. Well, don't wish you could go
back and live in that day and see those miracles performed.
We have something far better. Peter said, oh, I saw, I saw
the miracles. I saw the miracle in the Mount
of Transfiguration, and we have a more sure word of prophecy,
he said. We have something far more powerful,
far more miraculous, a much greater blessing when we see God Almighty
bless His word that's preached from the lips of a sinful, helpless
man Sinful, helpless people. And He gives sight. He gives
faith. He gives light. Life. So that
we see. He makes dead sinners live. He takes that word and comforts
the heart of His people who are being crushed in this world.
And He comforts their heart. Oh, that's a miracle. That's
a miracle. I would see that in you. All
right. I hope the Lord will bless that
too.