The lesson this morning will
be taken from Luke chapter 11 and verses 27 through 32. And I believe the message in
these verses, in which I titled the lesson this morning, Blessed
Years of Faith. Let's read these verses together
and then I'll make some observations. Luke chapter 11 verse 27, And
it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman
of the company lifted up her voice and said unto him, Blessed
is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou suck'd. But he said, Yea, rather, blessed
are they that hear the word of God, and keep it. And when the
people were gathered thick together, he began to say, This is an evil
generation. They seek a sign, and there shall
no sign be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was a sign unto
the Ninevites, So shall also the Son of Man be to this generation. The Queen of the South, that
is the Queen of Sheba, shall rise up in judgment with the
men of this generation and condemn it. For she came from the utmost
parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And behold,
a greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh shall rise
up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn
it. For they repented at the preaching
of Jonah. And behold, a greater than Jonah
is here. Now let me see if I can paint
us a picture of what's going on here in our text. Back in
chapter 8, we're given a whole list of names which followed
him and ministered to him, including several women, one of which was
his mother, and some of the other ones were brethren. And in all
likelihood, they were in this crowd and probably near the front,
and it was a large crowd. When our Lord spoke most of the
time, He was just thronged with people. There was thousands. And there was a woman there who
saw the miracle that he performed, and heard his rebuke of the Pharisees,
and was amazed at the wonderful parable he gave on how God saves
sinners. He basically had told them that
he was the King of Glory. He was the strong man. The reason
this satanic influence was removed from this The dumb man upon whom
he performed that miracle was because he was stronger than
him. He ordered that demon. He took
away his power and cast him out. And he also told him this. He told him by what power he
worked these things. the finger of God. He said, if
I with the finger of God cast out demons, no doubt the kingdom
of God has come unto you. Satan's powers taken from him
and then he went on to expose those great religious men of
recognition as hypocrites and whitewashed sinners. And because
she'd seen these things and perhaps remembering what the Lord had
done for her, she broke that, how would you say, that parliamentary
etiquette for women and spoke up. She spoke up. and said, blessed is the womb
that bare thee. Now I don't know if she knew
Mary. I would say because of Jesus'
fame in the land that most people knew who Mary was and his brother. And you remember they were at
a wedding or something was going on and they came and told him,
said, your mother and your brethren are with us. They followed him
pretty much everywhere he went. And people knew who they were.
And she may have looked at her and looked at him and made the
statement, I don't know. But I don't believe this woman
was trying to lay any kind of foundation for Mary worship. I just don't believe that. I
don't believe that at all. She was doing no more than what
you and I do if we saw someone's child excel in their behavior
and their work. We'd say, how blessed are their
parents? And we'd say it without a thought.
We wouldn't be trying to do anything wrong. Just stating the fact. And the Lord, in this parable,
I want you to see this. He does not deny the blessedness
of his mother. He didn't say, now she's not
blessed. The angels had already proclaimed
that she was blessed. Blessed art thou among women.
Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, also prophesied of that
and said that she was blessed. She was blessed. My soul, of
all the women in the world in all the ages, one, one was used
as the instrument to bring Christ into this world. But rather the
Lord rectifies this woman's view. The ground of her blessedness,
as it is with all who truly believe, is the Word of God. If you can understand what I'm
saying to you this morning, you're blessed. You're blessed with
God. Because most people don't. If you can hear what I say this
morning, and what I read to you from the Word of God, if you
can do that, and rejoice, You're blessed. You're blessed. I believe the ground of her blessedness
as it is with all who truly believe is the Word of God and the Word
of the Gospel, which tells us that by way of a virgin birth,
a child is born and a son is given. Mary's blessedness did
not arise from the fact that the Son of God was in her womb,
but from the fact that the Son of God was in her heart. Listen
to this, Luke chapter 1 verse 46. Mary said, My soul doth magnify
the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. Christ was in her heart. In Luke
2, Mary went to the temple according to the law of Moses and offered
a pair of turtle doves or pigeons for a sin offering for her sin. She did not, as the Catholics
contend, without sin. She was a sinner saved by grace.
And I may not get through all of these things this morning,
but if I can, I have four things plainly given by our Lord to
this generation of which I hope I can give to mine. I want us
to see the blessedness of faith and the dangerous demands of
unbelief and the one sign given of God. And then I want us to see the
awful consequence of unbelief. So let's observe this first of
all, the blessedness of faith. I think, I've heard others say
this, and I believe it so, that the greatest blessing apart from
Christ that any son of Adam could ever have is faith. Faith. Why? Well, I'll give you several
reasons. First, because it's the distinguishing
mark or evidence of our election of God. You have no way of knowing
if your name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life before the
foundation of the world, except God gives you faith. Paul said,
I know your election of God. How'd you know that, Paul? Our
gospel came not unto you in word only. But it came in power, and
it came in the Holy Ghost, and it came with much assurance.
That's how I know your election. You believed. You believed. All God's elect are going to
come to Christ. There's another reason. They're
all going to come to Christ. How are they going to come? By faith.
There is no other way to come. We come by faith. John 6.37,
all that the Father hath given me shall come to me, and him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And then thirdly,
all God's elect shall believe. I don't know if you've ever seen
that in Acts chapter 13, but Paul goes up to preach at Antioch,
and the Jews were jealous of him because of the multitudes
that gathered to hear. And mixed in with that group
was Gentiles. And we already know how the Jews
felt about the Gentiles. They were dogs. They were heathens. And so Paul preaches to them,
and these Jews were spreading rumors about them, and just talking
bad about them, and just trying to make them look bad in the
people's eyes. And finally, Paul just turned
to them, and he said, seeing you judge yourselves unworthy
of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. And he quoted
an Old Testament scripture concerning the Gentiles, and it said, when
they heard this, Oh, they were glad. They were glad. And as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. You see what I'm saying? That's
the blessedness of faith. All God's elect are going to
believe. It's the mark or distinguishing
evidence of our election with God And then secondly, it's the
gift of God. By grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of
works, lest any man should boast. Faith has to be given. Has to
be given. I tell you, we'll be a lot more
patient and a lot more tolerable with unbelievers when we get
this in our head and in our heart. Faith is the gift of God. I can't
give it to you. He may use me as the means to
give you some understanding, but I can't create faith in you.
Only God can do that, and it's His gift. It's His gift. And then thirdly, faith is an
evidence of blessedness because it's how God keeps us and preserves
us. Peter said, we're kept by the
power of God through faith. Unto salvation ready to be revealed
in the last day. We're kept by faith. Huh? Kept by the power of God
through faith. How does that power work? It
works through faith. And then fourthly, we're blessed
with faith because without faith it's impossible to please God.
We couldn't please Him here this morning. We couldn't please Him
with a prayer. We couldn't please Him with our preaching. We can't
please Him with our lives. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. And fifthly, because God said
it is by faith, that it might be by grace. Oh, my soul. The grace of God. Faith sees
the redemption of God in Christ. It sees God's glory in Him and
His accomplishments. And it knows by these the love
of God for chosen sinners. And it rejoices in Christ their
Savior. That's what faith does. So that's
the blessedness of faith. Blessed are they that hear the
Word of God and keep it. Over in Luke 1, in verse 45 or
43, I can't read my own writing. It says, blessed is she that
believed, for there shall be a performance of those things
which were told her of the Lord. And Mary said, my soul doth magnify
the Lord. Mary believed, she believed. And then the second thing I want
us to see here is the dangerous demands of deceived men. And more and more, as I live
and minister the things of God, I'm beginning to sympathize more
and more, and I mean by that to show sympathy toward deceived
men. I know what they are, and I know
why they are, and I know the way they are. God saved me. out of the same pit. Listen to this. Paul said, I
have great heaviness. These men hated him. They tried
to stone him twice, beat him with a whip, within one more
lash of death. Despised him everywhere he went.
And Paul said this, I have great heaviness. That is a heavy burden,
continual sorrow in my heart. and could wish myself a curse
from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the
flesh. And my friend, may God give us
all ears to hear this. This world and everyone in it
is condemned of God. They're not in limbo. They're
not in a vacuum. They're condemned of God. Over in Ephesians 2, when Paul
wrote this, he said, you hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and sin. And when he finishes all of his
statements, and he tells us what that death is, and he said, we
were by nature children of wrath, even as others. This whole world
is under the condemnation of God. In Adam, all died. And there's
only one thing, one hope, one remedy for this condemnation,
and that is the intervention of God for His elect. He's been
intervening for His elect before they were ever created. He made
a covenant of grace, an eternal covenant of grace on their behalf
long before they were ever created. Long before Adam ever came. And then of the Jews who were
just, oh, they were just falling, just falling, falling, falling
before him, unbelief, rejection of Christ. And Paul said, except
the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we'd been like Sodom
and Gomorrah. And even of us, he said, even
so now. as a remnant according to the
election of grace. Man without the intervention
of God is doomed. He'll wax worse and worse. His
thoughts and ideas about God will just go farther out and
farther out. His beliefs, his politics, his philosophy, his
will, and his morals will decline until he lives like a beast. saw himself falling from favor
with God. He wasn't falling from favor,
but he saw himself that way because of his sins. And he said, I was
as a beast before they. Satan takes fallen men captive
at his will. And where God does not intervene,
deceived men flourish. They abound. Scripture said many
false prophets are gone out into the world. And one of the many
dangers of such men is that they seek after a sign. Look at verse
29 of our text. When the people were gathered
thick to gather around him, he began to say, this is an evil
generation. Why? They seek a sign. They want something more than
the Word of God. That's what he's talking about.
They want something more than the Word of God. If I have a hope this morning,
the foundation of that hope is right here. It's right here. If I can't find
my hope here, I don't have a hope. All I've got is a false refuge.
In both Matthew and Luke's account, our Lord takes His gospel corner
and puts it upon the demand they put upon God for a sign. Unbelief always demands something
more than the Word of God. They wanted something they could
see, something they could touch, something they could feel, something
they could prove. They said we'll believe God if
God will prove Himself in the court of human reasoning and
experience. Then we'll believe Him. And the first thing they ask
someone is how they feel having preached their lives to them. How you feel? Well, feelings
got nothing to do with it. It has to do with this book.
It has to do with the Word of God, the promises of God. And knowing what they want, Satan
gives it to them. You want tongues as a sign? He'll
teach you how. He'll teach you how. You need
a miracle for a sign? He'll give you one. Lying wonders. Lying wonders. Oh, my son. He'll allow you to be overwhelmed
with strong delusion, and if you believe not the truth, and
you receive not the love of the truth that you might be saved,
God will give you over to it. And then thirdly, I want us to
observe now that there's just one sign, one evidence is given,
that of the prophet Jonah. There's only one sign given that
faith can rest in and that is the accomplished redemption proclaimed
and revealed in the gospel, which was demonstrated in that prophet,
when they threw him out of the ship, and a whale that God had
prepared swallowed him up, and they both went down to the belly
of hell, and they both rose back up. And then he spit Jonah out
on the ground, alive, alive, and he went and preached. This
is the word which is preached unto you by the gospel. That's
what Peter said. That's that word by which we're
born. Born. And as Jonah was a sign
to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man is to this generation.
One preacher said the sign of Jonah was both a declaration
of grace and a prophecy of the redemption accomplished in Christ.
And his message when he got to Nineveh was salvation of the
Lord. Prophet Jonah being raised to life again after three days
in the belly of hell is a prophetic picture of the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ. And having risen from the dead,
he goes forth in the preaching of the gospel to proclaim grace
to hell-deserving sinners. And then lastly, I want you to
see the awful consequence of unbelief. Our Lord gives to them
two examples out of their own history to paint a picture of
the awful judgment of God on those who will not believe. The
first is the Queen, the Queen of Sheba. She came from afar
to hear the wisdom of Solomon, but a greater than Solomon was
there that day. And the men of Nineveh shall
rise up in judgment and condemn you, he said, for they repented
at the preaching of Jonah, and a greater than Jonah has spoken
to you. Now listen to me. Divine justice
will make everything that should have been a means of blessedness
to your soul. And it'll make it an instrument
of torment to you, and it'll be an instrument of torment in
hell forever. We're only given one little picture
of hell. That was the rich man. Lazarus,
he had nothing. He was a poor beggar, but he
bled. And now in heaven, the rich man
looks up from hell. And here's what he tells them,
son, remember, remember, that's what our Lord's telling these
people. Every opportunity, every circumstance,
every message you ever heard and you just rejected it, clenched
your fist, set your jaw, pulled your shoulder, it'll be with you forever. Forever. But it won't be a hope. Now it's
gonna be a torment. Gonna be a torment. Oh, if I'd
just listened. If I'd just listened. He told
me. He told me. And I didn't listen. I didn't
listen. God's gospel and his preachers
and the sweet providence of his grace will be to the believer
a saver of life unto life. But to those who believe not,
it'll be a saver of death under death. And every opportunity,
every circumstance, every word you ever heard will torment your
soul forever. This being so, that man looked up at Lazarus
and he said, could you send a man from the dead and warned my five
brothers. Could you do that? And Abraham
said, they have Moses and the prophets, the word of God. If
they will not hear then, neither will they be persuaded, the one
rose from the dead. Blessed ears of faith. I pray
today that for Christ's sake and your name's glory, his name's
glory, that God will be pleased to use
these things which I've said and his word that I've read to
you and give us this blessed thing. Amen. Thank you.