Turn back to Matthew chapter
8. I titled this message, Repentance, Faith, and Service. And I'm going to use the three
people that are spoken of in this chapter, down through verse
15. When the Lord saves a sinner, one of the first things He does,
He grants that sinner true repentance, true sorrow over sin, true sorrow
over himself. Lord, save me from me. Save me
from me. He gives him a real change of
heart. He loves what he once hated and
hates what he once loved. That's a real change. There is
a real turning from sin to godliness, from darkness to light. There's
a real change, a real turn. And then he grants that sinner
faith. What would repentance be without
faith? First of all, it wouldn't be
repentance. They shall mourn when they look
on him whom they pierced. They go together, and I'm not
going to say which is first and which is second. I'm not going
to categorize them. But I know this, when the Lord grants repentance,
He grants faith. Faith to take him at his word.
Faith to believe him. Faith to let everything go. But Christ. Christ. He believes the Lord
Jesus Christ. He takes the Word of God and
he reads it, not as a book. He reads it as the Word of God.
And he reads it and he feeds on it. And he does what the Lord
says. And He enables that sinner to
believe Him. And then He enables that sinner,
for the first time, for the first time in his life,
to truly serve Him. He enables him to repent. He
enables him to believe. And He enables him to serve.
I want us to look at these three people here in this chapter. Now we know that all the miracles
that our Lord performed speak of his ability to heal us spiritually. But now he can heal us physically
also. All true healing is of God. He uses means. He uses medicine. But the healing
power is of God. He's given it its healing power. Now here, the first one we have,
we looked at this one last week. But I want to start back here
again with this leper. Leprosy represents sin. You go
through the scripture, it represents sin. And this man, if you go over
in Luke chapter 5 verse 12, it has this same account. It says
that he was full of leprosy. Full of it. Just as we are full
from head to toe of the leprosy of sin. And it's not something
I did that caused me to receive it. I was born with it. I was
born with this sin problem. I was born ate up with sin. Sin permeates everything I do. It touches just like this leprosy.
Everything he touched was unclean. Everything we do. as in our natural state, everything
we do is unclean, full of sin, full of this leprosy of sin.
But the Lord did something for this man. First of all, he caused
this man to know and understand his leprosy, and that drew him
to Christ. He gave him some understanding
of what he had. He didn't ignore it. He had it
and He recognized it. And He came. He came to Christ. He came to
the one who could do something for Him. Every sinner whom God
saves comes to Christ. We come to Christ for healing.
We come to Christ for cleansing. We come to Christ for everything
we need. As I said in my prayer earlier,
God has given us everything we need to stand in His presence
in the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't need to provide anything.
I do not need to bring anything. I do not need to perform a ceremony. Just come to Christ. Come to
Him. And that's what this leper did.
He came to the one who could do something about his problem.
And then he came as he was. Well, if we could just get people to quit dressing up and putting
on and just come as they are. We come to Christ as we are,
full of sin and full of need. He came as he was. No excuses. Lord, it's not my fault I caught
this leprosy. I inherited this disease. No,
it is my fault. My sin is my fault. My sins are
my sins. This man made no excuses. To
come any other way is not to come at all. We come to Christ
and we come with no excuses. We come as mercy beggars. Beggars
of God's mercy. This man sued for mercy. Oh, he was broken hearted. He
was broken. This leprosy that he had broke
him. He had no hope. He had nothing
left. Everything was gone. And he came
to the Lord, not demanding. You'll notice no one who came
to Christ came demanding mercy. He came, he stood for mercy.
He threw himself at the feet of Christ. He threw himself at
the mercy of Christ. Lord, if you will, you can make
me claim. If you will. His sorrow. For who and what
he was, was real. Don't you know, we went over
this last week, don't you know he felt his leprosy? He felt
the disease of it, the contamination of it. Nobody wanted to touch
him, hug him. He was lonely. He felt it. There was no pretense here. He
wasn't pretending to be a leper. I've met some people I believe
pretend to be sinners. There's a man I did business with. Every time I'd go up to his place,
there was another man that worked for him. He would corner me.
And he'd say, let me tell you what kind of a person I used
to be. I mean, he'd go on and on and on, pretending, pretending
to be this awful sinner. This man wasn't pretending. I'm
going to die, Lord, if you don't save me. No pretense here. He was not taught what to say
when he came to Christ. He was not going to repeat something
that somebody taught him. He was going to just cry out
for mercy. He was going to express his heart.
He was going to express his heart. He said what he felt. He completely confessed his need
of the Lord Jesus Christ. We repent. We throw ourselves
at the mercy of the Lord and completely confess our need of
Him, our need of cleansing, our need of healing, our need of
being saved. Lord, save me. Save me. Now we come to this other man.
Here's one who is an example of faith. This man believed the
Lord Jesus Christ. He believed Him. He believed
He was able with just a word, just a word, just speak a word,
Lord, my servant will be healed. A centurion, a centurion came to Him, beseeching
Him, begging Him. That's all we are at best. That's
all we are at best. Beggars. Mercy beggars. Remember what Cecil Roach called
us? Mercy beggars. We'll never get past that, do
we? I don't care how long a man has been in the faith. He's still
a mercy beggar. Lord, have mercy. But this centurion came to him
begging him to heal, listen, his servant. He came for another.
He believed the Lord was able to do this. And he came believing
the Lord could heal his servant. Wouldn't you like to have an
employer like that? And I started to write that down
last night. I started to write down, I'd love to have an employer
like that. And I erased it. I wrote down, I would like to
be an employer like that. I'd like to be that. That's what
I want. It would be great to have an employer like that, but
it would be much better if you're the employer and you're like
that. But he came to Christ. And he
came to Christ in faith. Believing that Christ could heal
his servant, his slave boy. That's what he was, just a slave
boy. Lord, you can heal him with just
a word. Just a word. This is a Gentile Roman soldier
who's coming to Christ. He's a soldier of Rome, an enemy
of the Jews, but not this one. Somewhere along the way, the
Lord did something for this man. Somewhere along the way, the
Lord did something. Even the Jews came... Let me
see where I wrote that down. Look over in Luke. Let's read
this, Matthew. Look over here in Luke. I want
you to look in Luke chapter 7. Let's read the story out of Luke. Let's read this man's story in
the first ten verses. Now, when he had ended all his
sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum.
And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear unto him, was sick,
and he was ready to die. His servant was ready to die.
This man loved his servant. And when he heard of Jesus, he
sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he
would come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus,
they besought him instantly, saying that he was worthy for
whom he should do this. You see, he sent these people,
and they were bragging on him. They said, this centurion, this
Roman soldier, he treats us like men. He treats us like we ought
to be treated. He treats us with kindness. Lord,
this man is worthy of your presence. This man is worthy of you coming
down and doing this for him. Oh, he's worthy. For he loves
our nation and he has built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went
with him. He said over here in Matthew,
he said, I'll go with you. I'll go with you. I'll come and
heal him. And it says, Jesus went with
him, and when he was now not far from the house, the centurion
sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself,
I am not worthy. Oh, I tell you what, believers are examples. Think
how to correctly say this. Believers are examples. I would
brag on you. I'd brag on you. What this church
gives. The gospel we support. I'd brag
on you. The homes you have. The way you've
raised your children. But I do believe every one of
you say, I'm not worthy. You must be talking about somebody
else. And that's centurion. He sent his friends up there
to Lord to stop him before he got not too far from the house.
He said, you tell him I'm not worthy. Oh, they said he's worthy. But he said, no, but I'm not.
I say, Lord, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy that thou should
enter under my roof. I'm not worthy for you to even
come into my house. Wherefore, neither thought I
myself worthy to come to you. But say in a word, and my servant
shall be healed. For I also am a man set under
authority, having under me soldiers. And I say to one, go, and he
goes, and another come, and he comes, and do this or do that. That's the account of it in Luke. But this man came believing,
whether he sent these people or he came himself. It's one
and the same. It's treated as one and the same.
He came believing that Christ had the power to speak the word
only. He recognized the Lordship of
Jesus Christ over all. He recognized it. He believed
in Christ. He believed in his power and
his willingness to do this. And he sent these men up there. And listen to his confessions
I just read to you. Lord, I'm not worthy. Now listen, I'm not worthy of
what I'm asking for. And you notice the scene here. He's asking for mercy on his
servant, his slave. He's asking for the Lord to have
mercy on this this young boy that he has as his servant that's
sick and about to die. And he does not say, Lord, this
servant, this slave whom I'm asking you to heal, he's not
worthy of what I'm asking for. He's not worthy of you coming
down here. He's just a slave boy. No, but
you know what he says? I'm not worthy. He doesn't put himself, he puts
himself below this servant. This man puts himself below the
servant. And he says, I'm not worthy for
you to come under my roof. And he probably had a pretty
nice house. He said, I'm not worthy for you to step a foot
in my house. Oh my, that's a work of grace.
That is a work of grace. To be brought to that place,
you know, You know in your heart you're not worthy for what you're
asking for. You know it. He knew he was unworthy and he
recognized his Lord's power superseded all power. He knew something
about authority. He knew something about it. He
knew the Lord could speak a word and his servant would be healed.
Look there in verse 9. For I am a man under authority. I have authority. I have soldiers
under me. I say to this soldier, go, and
he goes. I say to another one, he comes,
and he comes at my command. Lord, at my command. I know something
about power. I know something about what it
is to speak a word and something happens. Things happen. He said,
I know what that's about. I say to one man, you go over
there and you Watch that post and you stay there until I call
you back." And that man goes. He said, I know something about
this. Lord, you have power over all things. You can say to this
disease, you can say to this disease,
be gone. You can say to the devil, come
out. You can break the power Or is that song we sing of cancel
sin? Lord, you can break the power
of sin. You can do it. You believe that? You know someone that's just
given to sin? You know someone like that? Lord,
you can break the power of sin. You've got children, brothers,
sisters. I have brothers. Lord, you can save them if you
will. You can break that power of sin and corruption. You can
do it. That's what he said. Lord, you can save this. You
can save my son. You can do it. But listen. You
can do it with how? Ceremonies? Hocus Pocus? A word. And He's not going to
do it without His Word. He will not heal us without His
Word. Of His own will beget us with
the Word of Truth. God has never saved a sinner
apart from His Word, the Word of the Gospel. That's why He sent Paul everywhere
preaching. There were sinners he was going
to save, but they were going to be saved under the preaching
of the Word. It has pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Oh, I just love this man's faith.
He recognized the power. Here's what he recognized. By
his little limited power, he recognized the unlimited power
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is there anybody too hard to
save? As long as there is breath in them, pray for them. The Lord
might save them. He might do it. And the Lord marveled and said
to them that followed, I have not found so great a faith,
no, not in Israel, where it ought to be found. They had all the
types, pictures, the promises. They had all those. All the prophets
were sent to Israel. He said, I've never found such.
Listen, great faith. Is that great faith? He didn't
slay 10,000 like Samson or Gideon. You go over to the Hall of Fame
of Faith and you look at what they subdued armies and stuff.
You know what he did? Here's his great faith. Let me give you great faith.
He believed God. He believed. That's great faith. And the reason it's great faith
is because it was given by a great God. But here's a sobering truth. Our Lord does not take the edge
off, does He? He never takes the edge off the
sword. He said, many are going to come
from all over the earth. Let me find my verse here. And I say unto you, that many
shall come from the east. I had to think that one came
from eastern Kentucky here just a few days ago. Sit down, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. He said, they're going to come
from the east, the west, and they're going to sit down with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of
the kingdom, those who are fleshly descendants of Abraham, who call
themselves the children of the kingdom, they thought and believed
that they were the children of the kingdom. He said, they're
going to be cast out. They had the promises, they had
the prophets, they had the pictures and the types, but they didn't
believe him. They didn't believe Him. As orthodox
as they were, they missed Him. Even an orthodox religion can
miss Christ. You can be straight as a gun
barrel and still miss Him. They had it all, but not Him
who is all. They said, many are going to
come. They trusted their ancestry.
They trusted their keeping the law. They trusted their religious
services, going to the synagogue on a regular basis, doing all
those things. That's what they trusted. They
did not trust him. John said, I saw a lamb standing
in the midst of the throne as it had been slain. They sang
a new song to him. They sang, worthy is the Lamb. It's all about Him. He's everything
we need. He said they're going to be cast
out into outer darkness. They're going to be weeping and
wailing and gnashing of teeth. Torment. Because they rejected
and despised Him. And then He says to this centurion, As thou hast believed, Jesus
said unto the centurion, Go thy way. As thou hast believed. Genuine faith is going to be
proved. As you have believed. He proved his faith. And his
faith proved to be real. When he told him, he said, as
thou hast believed, he turned and he went back. No arguing. He didn't say, give us a sign.
How many times did they say to the Lord, give us a sign? Show
us a sign, who you are. Show us a sign. He didn't ask
for a sign. He got a word. The Lord said,
as thou hast believed, so be it. I thought, well, maybe that's
my troubles. As thou hast believed. Lack of
faith. Little faith. Weak faith. As thou hast believed. He believed
the word of Christ. He believed the word spoken.
And he went home. And when he got home, that very
selfsame hour, that servant was healed. That servant was made
whole. He was made whole. Now we come
to the third one, service. Look in verse 14 and 15. And
when Jesus was coming to Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother
laid and sick of a fever. She was sick. Look over in Luke
chapter 4. Let's read this event over here
in Luke. Look in verse 38. It says here in verse 38 of Luke
4. And he arose out of the synagogue
and entered into Simon's house. And Simon's wife's mother was
taken with a great fever. This fever was going to take
her life. She was going to die. She was taken with a great fever.
They besought Him. They besought Him for her. He stood over her and rebuked
the fever. And it left her. And immediately she arose and
ministered unto them. Here we have Peter's mother-in-law
sick of a fever. Have you ever had a real bad
fever? I remember I had a fever. This has been years ago. Probably
15 years ago. I had taken the flu. And I had
taken a fever. And I laid in the bed and I shook.
I mean, I just shook violently. I couldn't stop. And that whole
bed, I mean, it was just... That fever rendered me useless. Just like this fever rendered
her useless. Her service to them was useless. Useless. I'll tell you something
else a fever does. It indicates a sickness going
on. It indicates there's a real sickness
going on in the body. Just like, Mike, when you was
in the hospital, you had a high fever. And then it would go down,
then it would come back up. I'll tell you what, that's the
way sin is too. Sometimes sin burns hot and it rages and you
can feel the power of it. And sometimes it subsides. And
then it comes back. Sin's like a fever. At times
it's hot and then it subsides a little bit until the Lord rebukes
it. Until the Lord breaks the power
of sin. Until He breaks that. And then fever causes loss of
appetite. And this fever of sin that we
are born with caused you to lose an appetite for the gospel. You
don't want the gospel. You don't want it. I remember
a time that I didn't want this. This didn't interest me. I was fevered with sin. The Lord can break that. The
Lord can break that. And a fever makes us restless.
Restless. You just can't get any rest.
Just can't do it. Until the one who is our rest
breaks that power of sin. Just can't do it. When she was sick of this fever
and her service was useless, she was useless as could be.
Laying there in that bed. Couldn't do anything. Even if
she could, it would have been useless. She would have been
staggering around the house. And you don't even want to be
around people with fever, do you? They say, I don't know, but they say
that's when they're the most contagious. But when the Lord healed her, He rebuked that fever. What did she do? It says immediately. She immediately
served them. This woman And this is how perfect the healing
power of Christ is. You know, I can take medicine
and get over a fever and it takes days. You're just now getting
back two weeks ago. The natural body heals. It's
just a slow process. But when the Lord saves, it's
immediate. It's immediate. And she arose and ministered. minister to them. She served them. She was thankful. This woman who was near death,
dying with this fever, whatever it was she had, the Lord rebuked
her. The Lord saved her from it. The
Lord made it leave. Just like when He saves a sinner, He gives life. He gives life
and strength and helps spiritually. And that's when we are able to
serve Him. You can't serve Christ until
then. You can't do it. You're too ate up with the fever
of sin. You can't do it. And she served Him. Now the Scripture
says we are not our own. God didn't make me for me. He made us to serve Him, and
in serving Him, we serve one another. It says she served them. She went and jumped in the kitchen.
She started fixing some food. Oh, she was grateful for what
the Lord did for her. She was so grateful. She didn't say,
I feel weak today. I just can't do it. Because the
Lord healed her completely. And she immediately went to serving
them. And that's what happens. The Lord grants repentance. He
breaks us. He breaks us, brings us to the
end of ourselves, reveals to us our sins, our wretchedness.
He reveals that, and you know it. He grants us faith to believe
Him. Lord, You said, one of the scriptures
that I've always clung to, He that cometh to me, I will in
no wise cast out. You believe that. You hang on
to that. You grasp that. You don't let it go. It's a promise. You don't let it go because you
can't keep from letting it go. You've got a hold of it, and
it's got a hold of you. You believe Him. You weep. You're
sorrowful for your sin. You believe God. And the evidence
of it, the evidence of it, is your life of service. That's
service. You serve Him. You serve one
another. You're thankful, aren't you?
You are thankful people. Okay, Cecil.