Morning, everybody. If you'd
like to, turn over to Mark chapter 7. It's nice to see somebody else tear
up for a change. It makes me feel like less of a baby. Mark chapter 7, when you get
there, pick up in verse 31. I want to read a few verses here. Mark 7, 31, and again, departing from the
coast of Tyre and Sidon, he, the Lord Jesus Christ, came under
the Sea of Galilee through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.
And they bring unto him one that was deaf and had an impediment
in his speech, and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. Now, consider that for a moment.
This man was both deaf and dumb. He lived in a world of absolute
and utter silence, and the fact that he can't speak leads us
to believe that he was probably this from birth. He has never
heard before, and since he cannot hear, he cannot speak. You cannot
say what you do not know, what you have not heard. He can't
communicate at all. He's never heard a word before
in his entire life. And I find this interesting in
this story. In this state, this death and this dumb state, he
doesn't even know where to go. His friends, his family, whoever
brought him to Christ, they had seen Christ do the miracles.
They had likely there when he put his hand on that leper and
he said, I will be thou clean. They saw that. They knew there
was one place to take him that he might be healed. He didn't
know where to go. He had to be brought to that place. But look what happens. Look at
verse 34 or verse 33. And he took him aside from the
multitude. He separated them and put his fingers into his
ears and he spit and touched his tongue. Very strange things
that are happening here. The Lord is reaching out and
he puts his fingers in those man's ears and then he spit on
his hand and he touched that man's tongue, just like that,
and look at the end state. Verse 35 and, or verse 34, and
looking up to heaven, he sighed and saith unto him, a fatha,
that is, be opened. And straightway, immediately,
his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed
and he spake plain. And he charged them that they
should tell no man, but the more he charged them, so much the
more, a great deal, they published it. It shows you what the Lord
Jesus Christ was doing on this earth. He wasn't trying to gain
a following. He wasn't trying to get people to follow him around
and things like that. He was here to do his father's will.
He was here to save his people. But when you're taught of God
and the Lord reveals himself, don't tell anybody. You tell
everybody all the more. You can't stop. telling people
about him. Don't tell them about me, I'm
gonna tell them about you. Verse 37, and were beyond measure astonished,
saying, listen to these words, he hath done all things well. He maketh both the deaf to hear
and the dumb to speak. I want to read you one verse
of scripture that you're very familiar with. Listen to this. This is
1 Peter 3 15. It says, but sanctify the Lord
God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every
man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear. How would you answer? Let's say someone who is in your
sphere of influence, someone who does not know the Lord, they're
going through some great heartbreaking time and they come up to you
and they say, you're always hopeful. You always have a positive attitude.
It always seems as if it's always well with you. Why? Can you give me some comfort?
Why are you like that? What is your answer for that?
Have you thought about how you'd answer that? Because the Lord
says, be ready. I'm ashamed to admit no one has
ever asked me this question, but I did have a friend ask me
recently, if someone did, what would you say? What would be
your answer? I believe I'd answer with exactly
what these people, this multitude who saw the Lord perform this
miracle, what they said. This is my hope. He hath done
all things well. The hope of every believer, and
I think I can speak for all of us here, is this. It's really
twofold. Here's the first part. My hope is this, is that when
I lay down this body, and I stand before God in judgment, despite
all the evil I've done, and despite all the evil I've thought, and
despite all the evil I've said, despite all that, He's going
to receive me as a son. Because I'm going to be perfectly
conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and I'm actually going
to hear these words Well done, thou good and faithful servant,
enter into the joy of thy Lord. That is my hope. And here's my
second hope. Here's twofold. That everything
that happens between now and then is ordained and purposed
carefully by my God to bring him the utmost glory and to bring
me to that expected state. That is my hope. Now, what's
the hope within the hope? Well, here's the hope within
the hope. He hath done all things well. That's why it's a good
hope. Now, three things here. Three
things. Number one, he, that's where we have to begin. Paul
said, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. Our hope does not rest in a doctrine. And I'm thankful
for doctrine. I'm thankful for these concepts
that show up in the scripture over and over and over again,
that we might know that is the truth. You see it time and time
again, I'm thankful for that doctrine, but doctrine did not
bear my sins in his body. and doctrine did not offer himself
as a sacrifice for me. I'm thankful for the gift of
faith and repentance. There's no salvation or part of it, but
faith and repentance did not die on a cross. My work certainly
haven't done anything for me. What is the hope? You have to
begin here. Our hope is in a man. It's not a set of facts and circumstances.
It is a man, a God-man, Christ Jesus. And the question is this,
what is he like? Who is he? We got to begin there. Now, we could spend all day and
all night talking about his attributes and what he is like, but we don't
have that kind of time. So just a couple right now, just
a couple is what we'll talk about. But here's where we have to begin.
that he is absolutely sovereign in all things. He is omnipotent,
he has all power, and no other creature has any power. He has
all power, he is the almighty God, and everything that happens,
what is going on in all things is simply his purpose and his
will coming about. And why? Why do we have to start
there? I'll tell you why, because I can tell you that he is savingly
kind to sinners. I'm going to use that word sinner
interchangeably with another word, elect, throughout this
message, and I get to do that because they are one and the
same. You want to know you're one of the elect? You're a sinner. and you've got nothing before
God, I can't come up with the goods. He's savingly kind to
sinners, I can tell you that. I can tell you he's merciful
to sinners, that he is gracious to sinners. But here's the thing,
if he's not sovereign, if he's not omnipotent, that means he
can purpose to be merciful to me, and he can purpose to save
me, and he can purpose to be gracious to me, and none of it
matters because he's not in control, but thank God he is. He is absolutely
100% in control. Therefore, if he has purposed
my salvation and yours, and if you're a sinner, he has, it must
be. It cannot not be. Listen to some
of these scriptures here. This is a familiar one to you.
Daniel 4.35, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as what?
Nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? Even if there was a creature
that did not want us to be saved, nobody can stop him. Nobody can
rein his arm in. He will have his people. How
sovereign is he? Psalm 115, two and three, wherefore
should the heathen say, where is now their God? You know what
I envision? I envision a man who hates God.
who rebels against God and yet he has all the advantages of
this world. He's rich, seemingly powerful, healthy, and he's standing
on the neck of the Lord's people. And he's saying this, I have
rebelled against your God every single day and nothing has happened
to me up to this point. Where is your God? Where is he? Because right now I'm getting
away with it all and nothing's happening to me. And this is
the answer. Our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever
he hath pleased. Even those wicked and what they
do, it is all Lord in control of it. How sovereign is he? This, Amos 3, 6, shall a trumpet
be blown in the city and the people not be afraid, shall there
be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it. He's sovereign
over all of it. The very fall of man, when Adam
ate that fruit and he disobeyed God, and the entire human race
was plunged into that great darkness. That is Adam's fault, that is
my fault, that is your fault, and the Lord was sovereign over
all of it. Purposed by God that the great cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ would come to be. That's how sovereign he is. And
that's why he is so utterly reliable. Look at the first two words of
verse 31 there. Did you catch them? It starts
with this, and again. You know why it starts that way? Because it's pointing out that
Lord Bush was just doing what he was always doing. What was
he doing while he was here? He was giving sight to the blind,
and he was giving hearing to deaf people. and he was raising
the dead back to life, and he was cleansing diseased lepers.
This is what he was known to do, and it starts here again
and again. He was just doing what he was always doing, what
he could be relied upon to do. And all those things he did physically,
he did it spiritually. He went along raising the dead
and cleansing the lepers and saving his people. That's exactly
what he did, and he could be relied upon to do this. Listen
to scripture. Luke 9, 11, and the people, when
they knew, followed him and he received them and spake unto
them of the kingdom of God and healed them that had need of
healing. You know what that means? If
you have need of healing, he healed you. Past tense. It's already done. Who does he
heal? Who can he be relied upon to
heal? Them that had need of healing.
Sinners have need of healing. I have a disease, a sin disease.
It has to be dealt with. Something has to be done about
my sin. He healed them that have need of healing. Now, if you
don't have any need, or you just have a partial need and you can
do the rest, No healing there, but for them that have need of
healing, he can be relied upon. He has done this. He healed them
that had need of healing. Now, he, that's where we have
to begin. Our hope is in a he, and here's
the second part of the hope. He hath done all things. Turn over to scripture, turn
over to Colossians chapter one. He and he hath done all things. What's my hope is that everything
God requires of me, Jesus Christ already has done. Now in this
passage of scripture, we're going to look at in these verses, if
I've counted right, the Lord Jesus Christ is referenced 14
times. through pronouns, he, him, himself. He is referenced
14 times in these verses, and here's what I'll have you notice.
When it talks about him taking action, every single time it
is always talking about it's either done, it was done in the
past, historical, or it is presently done. It's in the active tense,
right now. Never, he's going to do this.
It's always, it's done right now and it was done before. Read
this, look at verse 16. For by him were all things created
that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers,
all things were created by him and for him. He hath done all
things. He has created all things, everything
we're looking at right now, everything we can touch, everything we can
taste, everything we can smell. He created all things, and as
the creator, he exercises his sovereign rule over his creation,
but he's also sovereign in this thing of salvation. Look down
at verse 17. And he, Christ, is presently
before all things, and by him all things consist. He's before
all things in salvation. Revelations 13.8 refers to him
as what? The lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. That means salvation for God's
people. It is a historical event. It's already taken place. It
is over. It was done before the foundations
of the world were ever built because Christ has always been
that acceptable surety for his people. That covenant of grace
that he engaged in with his father where he agreed to be the surety
for his people. It's an eternal covenant without
beginning or without end. That means the elective always
been secure in Christ. He is before all things and by
him all things consist. You know what that word consist
means? It means to be established. By
him, all of his people are established. Established in righteousness,
established in holiness, established in sinlessness, established in
perfect acceptance before his father. Why? By him. Not by him and by their works. Not by him and something that
came from them. 100% it is done, they consist
by him. Look down here, verse 18. And he is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have the preeminence. You see, his
father engineered this thing of salvation this way, to where
he did all things. Christ did all things in salvation
for his people for this one reason, for that he might have the preeminence,
that Christ would get all the glory in their salvation. That's
what this is all about. That's what the salvation of
God's people is about, is the glorification of the Godhead
in the person of Jesus Christ. That's why it's engineered this
way. Look at verse 19. For it pleased the Father that
in him should all fullness dwell. And having made, past tense,
peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all
things unto himself, by him I say, whether they be things in earth
or things in heaven, there is the means of the salvation for
every member of the elect, the blood of his cross. And what
did it do? It made peace. It didn't make
peace available. It didn't make halfway peace.
It made 100% peace between God and his people by the removal
of that sin that separated us. Verse 21. And you, up to this point it's
been who? Him. He. Christ. Now we're gonna get to us. What
do we contribute? And you, that were sometime alienated. and enemies in your own mind
by wicked works. Yet now hath he reconciled in
the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." The you is mentioned
now. And what did the you contribute
to this great salvation? You alienated yourself. and made
yourselves the enemy of God through your wicked works. You provided
the sin that made the salvation necessary, and that's it. But
you also receive all the benefits and awards of this great salvation. If you're a believer right now,
this is your biography. You are holy, and you are unblameable,
and you are unreprovable right now. in the very sight of God
because of what the Lord Jesus Christ hath done. That's it. He hath done all things, sinner.
It's over. Just rest him. Just trust him.
That's it. And this, he hath done all things well. Now, I told you the hope is twofold.
My hope is when I die, I'm going to be accepted by God in the
person of Jesus Christ because of Him and the fact that He hath
done all things. And the other fold of it is this,
that everything that happens between now and then, it's all
working to His glory and for my eternal good. He hath done
all things, everything we experience well. It is all well. It is all good. All things. Romans
8, 28. And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them who are the
cold, according to his purpose. You see, all things are well.
They are done well. What kinds of things? Joyful
things, things we enjoy, things that are edifying, happy things,
all those. And folks, we're very, very quick
to give the Lord the credit and the glory in those. And that's
good. We should. but also the hard things, also
the heartbreaking things. And when I say this, you're going
to understand the things we don't understand. Here had something
happen, you thought, how could this possibly be good? How can
this possibly be done well? How is this edifying for me?
How is this bringing glory to God? How could this possibly
be good? You remember the story back in
Genesis 42, Joseph has Simeon kind of halfway
held captive, and the brothers have gone back to Jacob, and
they've said, Simeon's with this man over in Egypt, and now he
wants us to come back with Benjamin, and he's not going to let Simeon
go unless we go back with Benjamin. Jacob said, Joseph's dead, Simeon's
probably dead, and now they want Benjamin too. And he said, all
these things are against me. That's what he said. And that's
exactly what he thought. He believed that in his bones.
Everything is against me right now. He had no idea that it was
Joseph, his lost son, who he thought was dead, that was actually
holding Simeon captive. And the whole reason he was doing
that, because he wanted the whole family to come up there and be
with him. And Jacob, in just a little while, was going to
be reunited with all of them. Would he would have thought that at
all, considering his circumstances? No, he thought all things were
working against him, but all things were well. Everything
was working for him. He's utterly reliable, folks.
He's worthy of our trust in all things because he has done all
things well. Now, that's our hope, isn't it?
If you had to identify your hope, he hath done all things well. Let's see that illustrated. And
this deaf man in this story, it illustrates it. Go back to
your text, look at verse 32. And they bring unto him one that
was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech, and they beseech
him to put his hand upon him. Now consider this man, he is
deaf and likely from birth. He lives in this world of absolute
silence and he cannot hear. Now, this is talking about the
natural man. the way all of us are born in this world, dead
in trespasses and sins, that we cannot perform the acts of
spiritual life. We can't hear. We don't have
that spiritual hearing ear. Now, what do I mean by that?
Take a natural man where the Lord has not done anything for
that man. He has not given him a new spirit. He has not revealed
himself to that man. He can hear audibly a gospel
message, the best gospel message that's ever been preached. He
can logically understand that this book claims to be the very
inspired Word of God, which it is. And logically, he can line
up that what's being said from that pulpit comes from this book. That's it. Just reiterating things
that God has said in this book. And he can logically say, yes,
it comes from this book. But he doesn't like it. That
which he hears, he disagrees with. That which he hears, he
does not like. That which he hears, he will
not believe because he hates the one that the gospel and the
scriptures declare, Jesus Christ. And I'll give you some examples
of this. Election. Let me read you a passage of
scripture here. Ephesians 1, 4-5, according as he hath chosen
us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. Is there any mistaking what that
is saying? He chose us. Before the foundations of the
world were ever built, God the Father chose a people, a particular
people in Christ. He chose them unto salvation.
They will be the only people that will be saved. That's not
hard to get a hold of. Logically, you can wrap your
head around that. You just may not like it. But I tell you this,
this is what a natural man always does when he hears of election.
He immediately misrepresents it. He immediately says, what
that means is there's all these people out here who want to be
saved by Christ, who want to be saved by grace, and they can't
be because they're not elect. It has never once happened. In fact, the opposite is true.
All men by nature, not one of us by nature, want to be saved
by Christ under his terms where he gets all the glory. And we
stand there, a condemned sinner saved by him and him alone. No
man wants that. No man desires that. That's why
election must be. That's why for there to be a
salvation at all, it must be by a sovereign God, because election
is that arm that comes out and says, you are coming with me
one way or the other. And it makes that thing willing
that didn't want to come before. No, this is absolutely necessary.
It takes a new nature to love that and to need that. I'll give
you another one. The fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ died only for his elect. Teaching of this world is simple,
that Christ died for every man. He wants all men to be saved,
and it's up to them to do their part to make his work effectual
for them. And that is not what the scriptures
teach. Matthew 121, and he shall bring, or she shall bring forth
a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, Savior, for he shall
save his people from their sins. He died for one particular group
of people, his elect. They manifest in this world under
this banner, sinner. And when he did, when he died
for them, he completely and utterly ransomed them back to God. They
are eternally secure because of that shed blood. Now you may
not like that. You may disagree with that, but
it is so. But you know who loves that?
A sinner. That's the best news I've ever
heard. If Christ died for me and he laid down his life for
me, that means there is nothing left to do and there's nothing
I can do to mess this up. I am eternally secure in him
because my salvation is based on the actions of that man, not
based on my actions at all. It's the best news I've ever
heard. The fact that God's grace is both invincible and irresistible,
when the Holy Spirit calls, you come. He draws you to Christ. And I find it very interesting
in this story, this man has to be brought to Christ. He's deaf,
and he can't talk, and he doesn't know where to go. His friends,
his family, they bring him to Christ, just as Christ has to
bring us to Christ. Yes, we come to Christ. We believe
on him. We beg for mercy. The only reason
we do that is because he comes to us, because he reaches out
with that arm of invincible, irresistible grace, and he draws
us to himself. You may disagree with that. But
it's the absolute truth. And for a sinner who would not
choose Him, who would not come to Him, it's the best news you've
ever heard. Now, not only was this man deaf,
he had an impediment in his speech. We'll see what that is. Look
at verse 35. And straightway his ears were
opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake
plain. That word string, you know what
that means? It's referring to bondage. His tongue is in bondage. If all you have is that old,
wicked, sinful nature, you're under the dominion of sin, under
the bondage of sin. You know what that means? It
means you'll have a speech impediment. And you know what that impediment
sounds like? I. I allow Jesus Christ to be my
personal savior, and now I'm saved. God grades on the curve. And I'm better than most, so
I'll be saved. I've done this. I've done that.
Whatever it is, this is the speech impediment. It always begins
with I. I have done this. Therefore,
I have been saved. That is the impediment. That's
the impediment of the old man, that law. Because I've done,
I will be received. You can't be saved by your works. But this is interesting. I want
you to turn over to a story. Turn to Judges chapter 12. While you're turning there, I'll
give you the back story here. The Gileadites and the Ephraimites
have engaged in a little skirmish, kind of a little civil war. And
the Gileadites won. And the Ephraimites, they got
to cross the Jordan to get back home, right? So the Gileadites
go down, and they set up outposts on the Jordan where they're going
to cross over. And they're going to wait for the Ephraimites to
cross over, and they're going to kill them when they try to cross over,
right? And here's the problem. You can't tell a Gileadite from
an Ephraimite just by looking at them. They look absolutely
the same, so they come up with a plan. The Gileadites do. They
said, we're going to know them by their speech. We're going
to put a test out there by their speech. Look what happens. Look
at verse 5 of Judges 12. And the Gileadites took the passages
of Jordan before the Ephraimites. And it was so that when those
Ephraimites, which were escaped, said, let me go over, that the
men of Gilead said unto them, art thou an Ephraimite? If he
said nay, then said they unto him, say now Shibboleth. And he said Sibboleth, for he
could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him
and slew him at the passages of Jordan. And there fell at
that time of the Ephraimites 40 and 2,000. Now I ask you,
what was the difference? Shibboleth and Sibboleth. What's the difference? It's an
H. In the Hebrew, that H, when it's inserted in a word, it's
what they call the breath of life. So I give an example of
this. Abraham, what was his name originally?
Abram, no H. When the Lord revealed himself
to him, what did he do? Change his name to Abraham, the
H. When a new man is given, you get a new name. His wife, Sarah,
S-A-R-A-I, that's how she started. When the Lord revealed himself
to her, S-A-R-A-H, she was given the breath of life. You see,
here's the point. To speak right, to speak, and
this be your confession, he hath done all things well. Not I,
but he. It takes a new nature and it
takes a new man. You have to be born from above. You have to have the H. The Lord
has to give you a new man and a new spirit, and that new man
is going to fight with that old man every single day of your
life. But he always comes out ahead.
And this is always your confession. He hath done all things. Well, it takes a new man to do
that. God has to birth a new creature in you for that to be
your confession. Now, let's look at what he did for this man.
Turn back to your text and look at verse 33. Verse 33, and he took him aside
from the multitude and put his fingers in his ears. And he spit
and touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven, he sighed and said
unto him, Afafa, that is, be opened. Now consider these things
the Lord did with this man. Number one, he took him to the
side. He was separated from that multitude. When the Lord deals with his
people, he deals with them personally and individually. You get separated. You get separated from that multitude
that's saying, I, I did this, I did that, I'm good enough,
I, I, I. That's where you were and you
get separated from all that and he deals with you particularly
personally away from the multitude. And you find after this, you
just don't fit in with the multitude anymore. Second thing he did
was this, he put his fingers in his ears. I'll give you a
related passage of scripture. Let me read this to you. This
is Luke 11 20. But if I, with the finger of God, cast out devils,
no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon me. At finger of God, fingers, it
speaks of his divine power. The salvation of a sinner is
completely and utterly up to the divine power of Christ himself,
his divine power in the election of a people, the fathers, his
divine power in the justification of a people. his divine power
in the sanctification of a people, his divine power in the preservation
of a people. You see, every aspect of salvation,
what a large word with so many moving parts. It is all up to
his power and his power alone. It takes the divine omnipotent
power of God. This is the next thing he did.
He spit and he touched his tongue. I want you to consider what's
happening here. Lord spits on his hand, he touches this man's
tongue. Something from him was transferred
to that man. Something from that man was transferred
to him. This, folks, is the means of
salvation. For his people, something had
to be transferred from Christ to us. and something had to be
transferred from us to Christ. Second Corinthians 521, for he
hath made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be
made the very righteousness of God in him. He is a merciful
God. He is a forgiving God. He is
a gracious God, but at no expense to his perfect sense of justice. The sins had to be taken off
of us and put in Christ and punished. and his perfect righteousness
is transferred to us so much so that it really is ours. Now, question for you. Why spit? Why is this symbolized in spit
here? I looked at this through the scriptures. This is one of
three times the Lord had a man come in contact with his own
spit when he's healing, when he's performing a miracle. It's
another one of those reoccurring concepts. Why spit? If you went to the doctor with
a disease, and the doctor said, I can cure you, but there's only
one cure, and here's what it is, open your mouth, I'm gonna
spit in your throat. What's your immediate reaction
to that? You're disgusted. It's gross,
isn't it? The means of salvation is grotesque,
and it is messy, and it is disgusting. Now folks, what this world wants
to talk about is love, and building communities and making this world
a better place. But what we need to talk about
and what you and I need to hear is blood. It's gross and it's
messy. I want you to consider in Genesis
22, when the Lord told Abraham, you take now Isaac, your only
son, and you offer him up as a burnt offering to me. And Isaac
is laying there on that altar, voluntarily bound, a willing
sacrifice, and Abraham is looking down on him with that knife,
fully ready to plunge that knife into his son's throat. He loved that boy more than anybody
else on the face of the earth. He was ready. He had already
done it in his mind, fully knowing that the Lord was going to raise
him from the dead. He knew what he was going to have to do. He
was going to have to stab his own son in the throat. He was going to
have to quarter his body. He was going to have to light
him on fire and watch that smoke go up. Now you think about that
being your kid. How gross, how grotesque. What you're feeling
right now is nowhere near what God the Father experienced when
he offered his own son. How messy, how gross. You think
of Isaac, that willing sacrifice. Abraham said, God said to sacrifice
you. Isaac said, what are you waiting
for? Take me. And he's looking up at that man
he loved, so much so. And what he's looking at is the
last thing he thinks he's going to see, which is his father holding
a knife over top of him. And the last thing he thinks he's
going to experience is him choking on his own blood because his
father's going to drive that knife into his throat. So much more
the son having the father turn his back on him, that one he
loved. that one he lived for. How much
worse, how much more grotesque was that? This is a messy business. This
thing of salvation, the means of it, absolutely grotesque,
absolutely messy. It is the most glorious thing
that has ever taken place because that's when, and it's because
of that, every member of God's family was saved. That's what
I'd spit. All right. What else did he do?
Next thing he did is this. He looked up to heaven. And the
reason he did that was because what he was about to say and
command, he wasn't speaking to the man. He was speaking to his
father. You see, this is one of his people,
and he's going to make intercession with his father for one of his
people. Be opened. And the ears were
straightway immediately opened, and he spake plain. And this
is the intercession Christ makes for all his people. He speaks
to his father as equal, saying, save them. And then he simply
presents his scars and his wounds. And the father says, they're
received. They're redeemed. I'm paid up in full. Bring them
in. I will have them right now. Then
he did this. And I love this. He sighed. Was he frustrated with his man?
No, not at all. He was empathetic to this man.
You see, we have a high priest who can be touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. He experienced what this man
was going through. He felt for him. And so he sighed in empathy
for this man, how much Christ loves his people, that he would
give himself for them. And finally this, he commanded,
be opened, a fatha, and straightway, immediately, he could hear, And
he spake plain. And this is what his statement
was. He hath done all things well. As soon as the Lord says, be
opened, that will be your confession. Now, I ask you this. What is
your confession? Be ready to have an answer. What
is your answer? Is it I? Or is it this? Is it he hath done all things
well? And if it is, understand this,
you have been born from above. You have the very spirit of God
dwelling in you. You are a saved person. And that can't change. I'm gonna
leave you there.