Mark, chapter two. Mark, chapter two. Let's take just a minute, read
a few verses here in Mark, starting in verse one of Mark, chapter
two. And again, he entered into Capernaum,
and this is the Lord, after some days. And it was noise that he
was in the house. And straightway, many were gathered
together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them.
No, not so much as about the door. And he preached the word
unto them. And they come unto him, bringing
one sick of the palsy, which was born of four. And when they
could not come nigh unto him for the press, because of all
the people that were there. They uncovered the roof where
he was, and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed
wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith,
he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven
thee. But there were certain of the
scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts. Why did this
man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
only? And immediately when Jesus perceived
in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto
them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it
easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven
thee, or to say, Arise and take up thy bed and walk? But that
ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive
sins, he saith to the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, Arise,
and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately
he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all, insomuch
that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never
saw it on this fashion. Let me start this message by
proclaiming a truth about all of us. We are all doubters. We doubt everything. Everything. We doubt everything. Sometimes
we come this by nature. You know, we're sinners. I'm
a sinner. I'm a liar. So I oftentimes think
you're lying. A story of this, one day I was
in my office with a coworker and I saw something and I was
amazed by it. My simple brain was just amazed
by this little thing. And I went to him and I said,
look at this. Have you ever seen anything like
this? He goes, no. He said, that's incredible. I
said, I know it. And we talked about it for about
a minute. Someone else that worked in the office that I know well
came around the corner, walked up and said, what are you guys
talking about? I said, and I told him what it was. And he looked
at me and said, I've got one of those. Now I could have looked
at him and said, really, do you like it? Does it work? Is it
as great as it seems? How much does it cost? How long
have you had it? So many questions I could have asked him so many
statements. Do you know what I said to him? He said, I've
got one of those. I said, no, you don't. That's embarrassing that that
was my response. I didn't have a reason to doubt
him. It wasn't like this item wasn't available. It wasn't like
he didn't have the money for it. It wasn't like he was the
type of person who wouldn't have it. I just doubted him. To which
he then puts his hand in his pocket, grabs his phone, pulls
it out, takes a second and goes and shows me a picture of it.
Which you know what that picture did? It proved he was right. It proved I was wrong. It made
me feel horrible. I had to say, I'm sorry. I can't believe I'm sorry. You're
right. I say that story to say this. Thank God for pictures. In this book, there are thousands
of pictures. And by nature, we doubt. We don't believe that there is
one that is the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't believe on a God. But
our God has given us pictures to prove who he is, what he's
done, what he's doing, what he will do and everything in between. And it's glorious because without
pictures, what do we do? We make fools of ourselves. We
don't believe. When it says in the scriptures,
when we ask, it says, ask him for faith. Ask for belief. When
the disciples, when they say, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
That doesn't mean that Lord can't give us to us in many different
ways. Sometimes I think when I say, Lord, give me faith that
he's just going to like, there's a lightning bolt in the back
of my mind and I'll start believing. No, that comes from so many places.
And one of those is pictures in the word. Now, I want to take
just a few minutes to go through a few things in the word, looking
at a few pictures to prove a couple of things. Now, this message,
as I start looking at this and that concept of thank God for
pictures of Christ, it grows exponentially. There's so many
of them and there's so many great ones. I could just take a message
and just give us one line of a picture and we'd all just think
in our minds, oh, that's a good one. And we just keep listening.
But I just want to take a few pictures to make three points.
I thought here are three things that if we can grasp this this
morning, if we can look at pictures in this book, and after this,
30 minutes, we can think to ourselves, I believe those three things.
Not because this guy up here said it, not because this sinner,
this liar told me, but because in the scriptures, God gives
us clear pictures that chose us. One, the Lord Jesus Christ
came to save sinners. Two, that He did it by His grace. And thirdly, He will keep those
He saved. Now, in ourselves, in our doubting
nature, it's foolishness. None of it makes sense to the
simple human mind what the Lord Jesus Christ did for His people.
It makes no sense why He would choose a people, why Him as a
holy God would choose sinners. Why he would save them, why he
would do it all and why he would keep them. We just because that's
not who we are. That's not what we do. We don't
have mercy on people. We don't go find strangers and
decide that we are going to do something. We don't do any of
that stuff. But thankfully, he's given us pictures in his word
to show us what he's done. Now, in this story, we see this. At the top of my heading on the
page on the left, it said, Christ preacheth and healeth many diseased
persons. Then it says, he cleansed the
leper. Then it says, he healed one sick
of the palsy. And before this, he made a blind
man to see. We see all these things. All
of this just happened. It says in the first verse, and
again, he entered into Capernaum after some days. So he had been
here. So he had been to this place. He came back in and it
was noise that he was in the house. These people, everybody
in this place knew of him. We see that the press in the
building, they had somebody who needed to be healed. They couldn't
get him to him because of all the people. There were so many
people that there was a group of people. Now we see how desperate
this group of people are, right? They went in through the roof.
Have you ever been somewhere that you wanted to go and couldn't
get in and you thought to yourself, you know what we should do? Let's
tear the roof off of it so we can go in. I've never wanted
to get in somewhere so bad in my life that I would do that.
But that's how bad they wanted it. There were so many people
they couldn't get another way. But yet when our Lord, when he
saw the faith that they had, that they brought him, you know,
they had to believe that there was a chance that he might do
this. Now, it seemed they definitely believed he was able to do it,
that they thought, you know, I don't care about this person's
house. We'll worry about the damage we create later. We are
taking this one we love to the only one who can heal them. We
can learn a lot from that. But once he sees them, His comments,
he says, thy sins be forgiven thee. Now, we just realized he's
cleansing lepers. He's healing many diseased persons. So everyone that is brought to
the Lord, he is healing them. So at this point, there's no
reason to doubt that he can't do anything, right? He's doing all these things no
one else can do. But he says, thy sins be forgiven. And they
think to themselves, why does this man speak blasphemy? We've never heard him say a lie
before, but that's got to be a lie. Who can forgive sins but
God only? Well, they're right on that,
right? They don't know this is God. Our Lord shows these people
because there's no way, I mean, our Lord can do anything. I don't
mean it that way. But for us as sinners, we just can't believe
a statement that someone says. We just don't believe things.
So he then healed him to show them. And what was their response?
And immediately he arose in verse 12, took up the bed and went
forth before them all in so much that they were all amazed and
glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion. He is
so glorious and so wonderful that he does this in a certain
order that at the end of it, they're all thinking he can save
sins. Can he really do this? Now, turn
with me to Joshua chapter 2. Joshua chapter 2. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
save sinners. Joshua chapter 2. Let me read
something out of Mark real quick. Listen to these two verses. When the Lord sat with the Pharisees
and with the publicans and sinners, they said, and when the scribes
and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said
unto his disciples, how is it that he eateth and drinketh with
publicans and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he said
unto them, they that are whole have no need of the physician,
but they that are sick, I came not to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance. He came to save sinners. Joshua chapter two. This is such
a great picture. This is such a great story. I
have some people that have told me this is one of their favorite
stories in all the word. This is a story of Rahab the
harlot at the city of Jericho. Chapter 2 of Joshua verse 1 says,
So before we get further into this, our Lord does so many things. that we just don't understand.
His ways are perfect. I love thinking of the idea that
one day we'll see the whole tapestry, we'll see the whole plan of God
in every single thing that has happened, and especially concerning
to us. And we will look back, and our
genuine thought will be, it could not have been any more perfect
in every single way. There won't be one single moment
in our lives that could have been just I mean, just altered
a hint that would have done anything other than been worse. Now, think
of this. The Lord had told these people,
I am going to deliver you this place. I'm going to give you
this city. There's no doubt I'm going to
win the battle. You don't have to do anything. Just listen to
what I say. You are going to take over this city, this mighty
city with a huge wall and all these people. So why did he send
two spies into the city? He knew everything about the
city. He knew everyone in the city. He knew every single thing
about it. He knew how he was going to take
it. He knew everything in the world. Why did he send two spies? Well, among other reasons, he
had to go see this harlot. He had to go see this person
Rahab. Can you imagine the Lord had
an army about to take a city and what he did was he sent two
people into danger. They're not into danger because
he's sending them, he's in control. But he did all this over the
course of a couple days. And this is, there's a couple
chapters and a lot of things happen surrounding Rahab and
how this works. All of that for one of his children. So then it says in verse two,
and they went and came into the harlot and harlot's house named
Rahab and lodged there. There's a word in this sentence
that has no bearing except for our good. The description of
Rahab says they came into an harlot's house. Rahab is described
as a harlot. It doesn't matter to the story.
This story, it didn't matter if this was a baker, a farmer,
it didn't matter. Except one thing it does tell
us is she's a sinner. You know, there's very few occupations
that you can describe somebody with, that the immediate response
in the brain is they're a sinner. But we know she's a sinner. Not
only that, out of all the people in the city, if you'd have done
a poll, she might have been the one they'd have said is the worst. You know why that's such good
news? Because if we know who we are, we realize that we're
the worst sinner. We realize we're really, really
bad. And it's great news when you
see that he says, I saved one that was really bad. For someone
who is really bad, that's great news. That's wonderful. This
story goes on, and there's a covenant made. She protects these two
men. She keeps them. She sneaks them
out. She lies. She deceives. She does
all these things to protect these two servants of God. And some
of her words are wonderful in here. She says, we've heard about
your God, and he must be God. No one can do things like this.
But in this picture, what we see is that the Lord Jesus Christ
came to save sinners. I'll come back to Rahab in a
bit because there's even more to that story. Now, in John,
chapter nine, turn with me to John, chapter nine. We'll turn
a little bit. I thought to myself that maybe
we don't need to turn so much, but if I led this message with
we're doubters, why would I leave it open that you might think
I was changing something or maybe I was making something up, I
was saying so you can look at it, too. John, chapter nine. This is a story of a man that
was born blind and the Lord came to him and he took clay and made
this spittle and put it on his eyes and said, go wash. And the
man did, and he could see. And in doing so, he came back
and everybody was like, is that the blind guy? He can see. How's he doing this? Look at
him. He's walking around. He's doing whatever he wants.
He looks so happy. And someone said, yeah, that's him. And another
said, no, that's just somebody who looks like him. I don't think
that's really him. He was blind this morning. He's still blind.
And this goes on. And all of a sudden, the Pharisees
find out. And they call him, and they say, are you the one
that they're talking to? He said, yes, I was born blind.
And I'm healed. And they said, no. He said, you're
lying to us. He goes, no, really. And they
said, who did this? And he said, I don't know who
it was. I don't know where he is. But he told him, he just
told me to do this, and now I can see. And then they said, this
is on the Sabbath. Of course, we have to find fault
in everything. But this is on the Sabbath, and no one would
do that if they were, you know, this has to be all made up. Nobody
could do this. And he says, I promise. So you know what they do? They
say, go get his parents. So his parents come in, and they say,
is this your son? And he goes, yes, that's our
son. They go, was he born blind? They said, yes, he was born blind.
And he said, can you explain this? They say, no, we don't
know what happened. They're so scared of the church that they
don't even want to talk about it to him. So they send them
out. They go back to the man, and they said, where is this
one who did this? He said, I have no idea where he is. But they
said, no one can. Their words were all about finding
fault, all about doubt. But they said to him, They said,
this man can't be of God. They can't be. We believe Moses.
This can't be of God because it wouldn't have been done on
the Sabbath. And what he says, look at verse 35. Sorry, I'm
looking at the wrong one. I'm sorry, look at verse 30.
The man answered and said to them, why herein is a marvelous
thing that you know not from whence he is, and yet he hath
opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth
not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of God and doeth
his will, him he heareth. Since the world began, was it
not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born
blind? It's never been done before. There's no chance this is real.
If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. So this
man says all this, and they go, they answered and said unto him,
thou wast altogether born in sins. Dost thou teach us? Like, you can't tell us what
to do. You can't tell us what's right or wrong. And they cast
him out. Verse 35, Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And
when he had found him, he said unto him, dost thou believe on
the Son of God? The blind or formerly blind man
said, who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said
unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh
with thee. And this man said, Lord, I believe,
and he worshiped him. The Lord saved him. The Lord
healed him, left, and came back to him. The Lord did all this
for him. He did all of these things. The
Lord Jesus Christ came to save sinners. How bad was this man? They didn't believe him. He was
blind his whole life. They knew him. This is the equivalent
of someone that you know very well being blind, and you go
see them the next day, and they can see. They can obviously see.
And I know what we would have done. We'd have been like waving
our hand, like how many fingers. We'd have done all these tests
to try to prove that they're blind. But to then say, there's no way.
Like they think it's more reasonable that this man has somehow faked
his blindness his whole life. or that he's lying. I mean, all
these things are just it's just who we are. But listen to this. First Timothy 1 15 says, This
is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. It is worthy
of acceptation. There is no reason to doubt this,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom
I am chief. What about this story of Pharisee
and a publican? Anybody remember that one? Two
men went into worship. Two of them did. Let me read
the end of this. They went in there. One thought
very highly of themselves. One knew that they were a lowly
sinner. And the publican standing afar
off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down
to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone
that exalted himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. It is such a glorious thought
that this man went down to his house justified. A self-proclaimed
sinner walked in and said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And what happened? He was justified. The Lord did that for him. You
know, if we didn't have these examples, wouldn't we say a lot
of things about who was saved? We would read in here that it
would say something about, you know, sinners were saved. But
you know, there's a huge section of religion that actually thinks
it's the better sinners or the do good sinners or the ones who
aren't quite as bad sinners. Who are the ones who are saved?
I mean, that's the only that's the only thought process that
can be in your mind to say that if you do this, you can be saved. And if you don't do this, you
won't be saved. Well, what you're basically saying
is that everybody's right here. And if you do a little better,
you can be saved. Well, the scripture is very clear
that the Lord Jesus Christ came to save sinners. And the worst
ones. There are so many examples of
Rahab that the description of a harlot that so many of these
people do we hear stories about that make them worse. How many
times did the Lord save someone in the scriptures? And before
when we're learning about this person, do they say things like
this was a great person? They were so nice. They did only
good. No, everything that we hear about
these people is all the negatives they did. Because that's all
we do. Any of our works, any of these
actions that we so-called need to do, they're all sin. That's
all they are. We'll come to know in a minute.
That line is everyone, all of their thoughts were evil continuously. There's no gray area there. Every
thought of every person was evil continually. There's no way you
can go around that and think, well, maybe I had a decent thought
once. No, every thought was only evil continually. That's crazy.
I thank God that there is hope for a wretched sinner like me.
Romans 5 says, but God commendeth his love toward us and that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He died for sinners. Next, turn with me to Ephesians,
chapter two, Ephesians, chapter two. Christ died for sinners. And
he saved them by grace. By grace, are you saved? Look
in Ephesians, chapter two here, we could read this whole chapter.
But for time's sake, look at verse 5. Even when we were dead
in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace are ye
saved, and hath raised us up together, made us to sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. This chapter is a favorite of
so many peoples because what it does is it says, God did this
for you. because of his will, his grace. You didn't do anything. God did
this. You didn't do anything. Christ did this. You didn't do
anything. Christ did this. You were a sinner.
He saved you. You didn't do anything. He just
keeps saying it over and over again. And it's wonderful to
hear because I know I can't do anything. It's great news for
a sinner, a helpless sinner, when it says that someone else
does the saving and then when it says he does it by his grace. Abraham and Sarah in the Old
Testament, God made a covenant with him. He said, through you,
through your seed, I will have a people. Well, what did they
do? It was a few years and it didn't
happen yet. And I get it. You know, if somebody
would have told me that my 90 year old wife was going to have
a child, I would have thought, well, maybe we need to do something.
So what did they do? They thought God made a covenant
with us, but we must have to do something. We got to do our
part. So they had Hagar and Ishmael. And God came and said, no, that's
not what I said. I'll make a covenant with you.
I will do it. I didn't say we will do it. I
said I will do it. You have to cast them out. And
what happened? Isaac was born with his hundred
year old mother. And why is this the case? Because
only God can get the glory. He does it all by His grace. Hence, He gets all the glory.
We can't take any. Because you know what we would
do. If this was a 99.1% or 99.9999 and we were 0.00001%, what we
would say is, I and God save me. We'd put our name first, not
just put us together, we'd put us first. Somebody would ask
us, how were you saved? We'd say, well, we'd start right
here. We'd be like, well, you know what I did? That's what
we would do. He is 100% of salvation. It's his grace. What about Jacob
and Esau? In Romans 9 it says, Jacob and
Esau, I'm sure I've said this here before, it's a story as a child
I hear and I think to myself, Esau's a pretty darn good guy.
He seems a lot better than Jacob. Why does God hate him? And at some point, the Lord makes
you realize and you say to yourself, I get why he hated Esau. How
in the world did he love Jacob? That's where the glory is in
this story. We all, by nature, are sinners. We're all awful.
We all, because of our sin, we're damned to an eternal damnation
because of our sin. So, of course, God hates sin
and he hates those who commit sin. But he loved Jacob. Why is that? Because he chose
Jacob. Not of works, but of him that calleth. It's of God. Children
not being yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the
purpose of God according to election might stand. He chose one of
them and he loved him. Now, why did he love him? Because
he's in the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll get more to that in a minute.
We're saved by his grace, what he has done, because he's the
only one who can do it. We can't do anything to save
ourselves. It has to be him. What about Noah? In the scripture
right before everything there with the ark, it says there's
none good, no, not one. That line that I just said a
minute ago, all the thoughts of every single person, every
man, woman and child, all of them were only evil continually. That's a verse in a portion of
the scripture that I just sometimes want anybody who wants to argue
anything about being a sinner or how bad of a sinner, anything
like that. I just want to look at that verse and be like, how
can you explain that? Because that's us. It's not like
the flood killed all those really bad sinners and everybody else
is okay. Noah and his family were included in that. It said
everyone. It didn't say, but Noah. It said Noah. And then
it said, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Not
because of what he did, but because of what God did. What about Nebuchadnezzar? We see so much of him. He had
this great kingdom. David pre-warned this to him.
He had a dream. Daniel interpreted it to him
and he told him, listen, this dream is saying that you have
this great kingdom that God has given you. But what you're going
to do is you're going to have pride and you're going to give
yourself the glory for the kingdom. And if you do so, you're going
to fall. Well what happens? Time passes
and one day Nebuchadnezzar says, look at this great kingdom that
I have created. In the moment he fell. And this is a picture of what
happens to those of us who have sin if we don't have a savior.
In a matter of moments his mind was clouded. His hair grew, his
nails grew, and he went out into the field and started eating
grass as a beast. And it says that no one knew
him and he didn't know himself. And the writers, this amazes
me, they say this was for seven years. And at the end of seven years,
it says that God caused him to look up And his his mind came
to him. And what did he do? He said,
God, he said, you are God. You are the only one who gets
the glory. You are the only one who gets the credit. You've done
all this. God came to save sinners and
he saved them by his grace. And this is a very scary thought
of what is done to this man for him to see who God is. But that
pales in comparison to what is going to happen to someone that
the Lord does not show who he is. And that person is not found
in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, seven years of eating
grass and no one knowing me, me not knowing anyone sounds
about as bad as it could possibly be. It is nothing compared to
an eternity in hell. It's not. And so with fear and
trepidation, I say this for all of us, Lord, do whatever you
must do to make us understand that you are God and we are completely
in your hands. Don't let me get to that moment
in judgment, standing before a holy God, thinking that I have
a hope apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't let me think that. Don't let these children think
that. Lord, please teach them who you are and save them by
your grace. Save them by your grace. Finally,
the third thing, the Lord Jesus Christ came to save sinners.
He'll say he saved them by his grace and the Lord Jesus Christ
will keep his children. He'll keep them. Look at actually,
I'll just read this one to you. You know that. It is a wonderful
thing. And we spend a lot of time thinking
about how wonderful it is that the Lord Jesus Christ chose a
people that he chose sinners to save and that he saved them
by his grace. But, you know, if the Lord Jesus
Christ saved me by his grace, he did it all. He saved me, but
he wasn't going to keep me. I mean, I don't mean obviously
when the Lord Jesus Christ saves someone, they're saved. This
isn't one of those things where I'm saying that that a person
could fall. If you're in Christ, you're in
Christ. You never won't be. But to think
that I would have to keep myself, that's just as scary to think
that I had to save myself. But he tells us that in Jude,
it says. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise
God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both
now and ever. Amen. To him that is able to
keep us from falling. and to present us faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." In 2 Thessalonians,
it says, the Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep
you from evil. It is a glorious thought to think
he will keep me from evil. And oftentimes when I'm driving,
I hear advertisements for churches and things like that. And it
is inevitable that at least every once in a while I don't hear
a comment such as, and there's a On serious radio, there's a
certain advertisement that comes up all the time that I hear.
And it says, you know, good news is coming. You just wait. That
promotion's right there. You know, it's going to be better.
Life's good. All these things. And I think
to myself, what in the world in this book has made someone
to think that because I'm going to church, all of a sudden, everything
in life is going to be great for me? This verse that says
the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and keep you from
evil. Everything in this book, there's so many applications
to it, but everything in this book is speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ and what he's done for his people in salvation.
That's what this means, keep you from evil. There's no evil
greater than our sin. There's no worse punishment.
There's no worse punishment than hell. All of this. And the Lord
keeps us from evil in this life. He hedges about. He protects
us. But you know what all of it is? It's all for his glory
and for our good. Now, this is a very crude example
of this, but if your house was on fire and the firemen came
to your house and they came inside and they could only do one of
two things, do you want them to come in there and save you?
Or do you want them to come in there and save your clothes?
I mean, I mean, it's foolishness, right? Well, for a man to think
that this flesh and this body, the covering of our soul, is
what we really want to strive to make better, what we really,
I mean, all of our lives, this world is focused on this flesh,
everything about it, the comforts of the flesh, the look of the
flesh, the coverings of the flesh, all of it. Everything is about
the soul. Everything is about the Lord
Jesus Christ saving his people for eternity. This flesh, this
flesh is like grass. It withereth, it fadeth away. Turn with me to Daniel chapter
3. We just have a couple more places to turn. Daniel chapter
3. Give me just a couple more minutes,
we're almost done. In Daniel chapter 3, this is another story
we all know so well. This is Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego. Nebuchadnezzar, who we talked
about earlier, decided to build a statue of gold of himself just
enormously. And they started to play music,
and they said, if the music's played, everybody bows down.
Well, these men wouldn't. That's not our God. We're not
bowing down to this statue of this king, no matter the threat.
And it was said, if you don't bow down, we'll throw you into
the fiery furnace. Well, these men wouldn't. So
in Daniel 3, they'd been thrown into the furnace and everybody's
there watching. And it says in verse 23 of Daniel
3, And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego fell down,
bound into the midst of the burning, fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar,
the king, was astonished. He was astonished. and rose up
in haste, and he spake and said unto his counselors, Did not
we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered
and said, O true king, yeah, that's what we did. He answered
and said, Lo, wait a minute, I see four men loose walking
in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form
of the fourth is like the Son of God. He says, hang on a minute. We tied up three guys really
tight. We turned that furnace as high
as we could possibly turn it. It was so hot that the people
who threw them in died. You couldn't get close to that
thing. But I'm looking in there and I see four people. And they're
not bound anymore. They got no bindings. They're
not restricted at all. They're walking around. But there's
a fourth one in there. And I love this. It says in the
form of the fourth is like the son of God. I've always wondered
how in the world did he know what the son of God looked like?
And eventually I just came to this thought, if anyone sees
the son of God, They are going to know what he looks like and
who he is if he allows them. Remember the women went to the
tomb and they and she thought he was the gardener. And all
of a sudden he just opens her eyes and she sees who it is and
he disappears. but that he showed himself. These
men were bound. They were cast into the eternal
fire. This is a picture of our life
when we die, thrown in to die right there, to burn in the flames.
But the Lord Jesus Christ came and he consumed the fire. He
took our sins. He bore the burden. He died on
the cross bearing what we were going to die for. He took it.
He took it. And what it says? Four men loose
walking. And then it goes into Pass it
and it says, they didn't even smell like it. I love that. We'll sometimes have a fire at
the house and we all have a good time. Then we come in and someone
will necessarily give me a hug and they'll go, they'll back
up and they'll be like, you smell like the fire. Well, these men
were in the fire and the fire had no effect on them. The child
of God, their sin, because it is paid for, because it's gone,
it has no effect on us. That's an amazing thought. In
the same way that I have no idea how these three men were in a
thousand degree fire, tied up, bound in there, and the fire
and the smoke and the smell and none of it had any effect on
them, I think the same thing of how in the world did the Lord
Jesus Christ take my sin, put it on himself, die for it, take
the punishment for it, all of it, I don't have to. That's an
amazing thought, but I can't doubt it because it says it in
this word. It shows us, this picture tells us, the Lord Jesus
Christ died for his sheep and they will not be punished. The
fire, the wrath of God has no bearing on them and has no claim
on them. What a glorious thought. In these stories, these pictures
of I've said, They often support and provide evidence for different
parts of this. It's not like one story in the scripture. We
looked at Rahab. It's not like that story just
tells us that Christ came to save sinners. That's all we can
get out of it. What about the fact that He will keep us? You
think about Rahab in that situation. Those men came and they said,
if you put this scarlet thread out the window, you'll be safe.
We'll come back and get you. And we'll look at the picture
of that in a second. The next so many days had to be so difficult
waiting for that. At some point after they left,
all of a sudden she's in her house and all of a sudden thousands
and thousands and thousands of soldiers are marching around
the city yelling. I'm sorry, they're not marching,
they're playing music. Can you imagine the eeriness of an army
that is marching around the city for seven days? Then all of a
sudden, they shout. At the Lord's command, they shout.
And this was a shout that every person in the city heard. And
the walls started crumbling down. Her house was on the wall. Every
single brick, every single block of the wall around the city,
and it's a big city, every single brick fell to the ground except
her house. Can you imagine the moment when
the brick started falling, the wall started crumbling? I mean,
apart from the Lord giving us great faith, in that moment,
you think doubt creeped in? You know, I honestly think that
she had to have gone over to that scarlet cord over and over
and over again, guarding it. Nobody take this thing down.
This is my hope. This is our hope. If this scarlet,
this red thread, this blood of Christ, if that's not here, we're
in trouble. The Lord kept them. And then
the army comes in and slaughters all of them. Can you imagine
that moment? They're in their house. Looking
at that that rope, that red rope, thinking to themselves that this
is all we have to save us from these men. But God made a covenant
with her and his covenant is sure it is safe, he will keep
his people. What about Noah? I'm sure Noah
in the ark had many moments. of being a fear and trepidation. You know, they didn't have any
experience with this rain and stuff before. And the rain kept
falling and the rain kept falling. And it's dark. And they're in
this ark. And it's all he has is this ark protecting him. That's
all he's got. God told him, build an ark, get
in it and I'll save you. And he's in there scared to death,
but he's in the ark. We will be scared so many times
throughout our life. I don't know if I make it an
hour. I mean, if I actually have any pondering of the word of
the Lord, any of that stuff, that's the only time I don't
have fear. You know, the only time I don't have doubt and fear is
when I'm thinking of something of the world that's irrelevant.
The moment I think of the word, the moment anything comes to
me, I start doubting things. I doubt myself and all that stuff.
But the Lord Jesus Christ keeps us. He keeps us. Last place we'll
turn. Luke 23. Luke 23. You know, when it. Learning and
seeing things in the scriptures is a. As a former teacher, it's
a very popular thing to say that every student learns differently.
Everybody has a different way of learning and everybody learns
at a different pace. Well, it's a very true thing with us, with
the scripture and with the word. You know, sometimes we have people
that we see and they hear the word and it's just like the Lord
blesses them with understanding and then others of us, I can
read the same chapter, I can read the same psalm a million
times and then all of a sudden one day something will happen
and someone else will read it or something and they'll be like,
that's amazing. Have you not heard a verse in
the scripture before? You're sitting in a message and someone reads
a verse and gives you a two minute explanation on it and you think
to yourself, I must be really dumb that I never understood
what that meant. But the greatest teacher is the one who wrote
this book. And every single one of his children, he has the exact
perfect way in this book to show them exactly what they need to
know. No, there's not a child of God that will not be taught
in the perfect way for them. In this one we're getting ready
to read right now, some of his children won't know anything
of him, might hate him for their whole lives until just that last
moment. Others might be blessed with
more, but it doesn't matter. Because as long as he saves you,
as long as he calls you, as long as you're kept in him, all the
rest of it doesn't matter. Look at this. Luke 23 verse 39. And one of the malefactors which
were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself
and us. But the other, answering, rebuked
him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing that we are in the
same condemnation? And we indeed justly, we deserve
this, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. But this
man hath done nothing amiss. And he turned to the Lord, he
said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily,
I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. What a glorious thought to end
on. He told this sinner, he told this man who's obviously a sinner. Today, shalt thou be with me
in paradise. He came to save sinners. He chose
them once he chose. He called them. He saved them
by his grace and he'll keep us. You know, he keeps his children
before and after they even know they're his children. This thief
on the cross had been kept his whole life. Now, for those of
us, humanly speaking, you know, I don't know about the job that
was done keeping this guy, all this stuff he did, all the trouble
he was in and all that stuff. All of it, every single second
of his life, led up to this moment where the Lord put him in a situation,
put him in the place and put it on his heart to look at that
other thief and did you not say that we're sinners, we deserve
this, but he doesn't, he didn't do anything wrong. And look at
him and say, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.
May I have enough, may the Lord give me enough faith and enough
belief to say that line when it counts. Lord, have mercy on
me. And what does the Lord do for
all his children? He says, today you will be with me in paradise.
In Exodus, the Lord said, I send an angel before thee to keep
thee in the way and to bring thee into the place which I have
prepared. I didn't keep it. I didn't send
an angel. I didn't protect you so that you can have all these
things. What I did was I did it all so that you would be brought
into the place which I have prepared. You know where that place is?
That's in Christ. And if we're in Christ, you know
where that is? It's in glory. It's in heaven. It's in him.
I started this talking about how doubting we are. We're such
doubters. That's who we are. We doubt everything.
You know, it's OK to doubt yourself. It's OK. I have to say this to
my kids. Don't believe everything you
hear. And then they do something and you're like, well, it's OK
that you couldn't do that. It's all right. It's OK to have
doubt and fears. It's all right. Just don't have
doubts and fears in him. This book has taught us he has
chosen a people. He will call those people and
they're sinners and he'll save them by his grace and he will
keep them. We should have no doubts about
our Savior. He's a glorious God, omnipotent,
all powerful, all knowing, every great adjective we could give
him. He's done all of this. And may the Lord show us this,
show us that he gets all the glory because he did the saving.
All right.