The lesson this morning is going
to be taken from Luke chapter 11, verses 14 through 20. Luke chapter 11, verses 14 through
20. And my subject this morning is
the finger of God. Let's read these verses together
and then I'll make some comments. Luke chapter 11, verse 14. And he, that is Christ, was casting
out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the
devil was gone out, the dumb spake, and the people wondered. But some of them said, he casteth
out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of devils. And others,
tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven. But he, knowing
their thought, said unto them, every kingdom divided against
itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a
house falleth. If Satan also be divided against
himself, how shall his kingdom stand? Because you say that I
cast out devils through Beelzebub, and if I by Beelzebub cast out
devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore shall
they be your judges. But if I, through the finger
of God, cast out devils, no doubt, the kingdom of God is come upon
you. Now, it's an interesting study,
if you'd like to do it sometime, to go back in the Bible, get
your concordance and go back in the Bible, and come down through
the Bible and see the context in which he talks about the finger
of God. The priesthood, which is a picture
of Christ, was always commanded to take the blood with his finger
and put it on the horns of the altar. And then you remember
when Moses went up on the mountain and God gave him the law, how
did he give it to him? He took his finger and he wrote
those laws into tables of stone. And then you remember in Babylon,
And the evil king was in Babylon and he was using the vessels
of the temple and just desecrating all the holy things of the temple. And all of a sudden he seen a
man's hand and it began to write on the wall. You've heard that
expression, he saw the writing on the wall. That's where it
came from. His time was up. And you can go on and on with
these references. There can be no doubt about it.
What God's talking about here with His finger, He's talking
about His presence. Without His presence, nothing's
going to happen. Nothing effectual in your heart,
nothing effectual toward that sacrifice, nothing effectual
is going to happen until He causes it to happen. Now in the beginning of chapter
11, our Lord gives to His disciples an outline for prayer. And it
begins with our acknowledging that we have a Heavenly Father.
We have the presence of God. We have a Heavenly Father. And
then He tells us to carefully meditate on that great and glorious
name. And when we do, we'll say, Hallowed
be thy name. Holy. Holy. And then secondly, we see our
concern for His kingdom, that His kingdom is coming according
to His redemptive will. That's the whole reason for creation. It waiteth upon the manifestation
of the sons of God. All of creation, it was created
for this purpose. for the salvation of his elect.
And then thirdly, we ask for our daily provision, both natural
and spiritual. We need both kinds of bread. And then we ask for forgiveness
of sins, a daily washing, a daily reminder of how our sins were
forgiven, and a remembrance of how they were forgiven. And then fifthly, our providential
deliverance from temptation. deliver us from evil. Actually,
that means deliver us from the evil one. The evil one. All the things in this world
that can take you away from God, take you away from Christ, and
I'm not talking about taking you away permanently, but taking
your mind and heart away from God, is of the devil. Every one of them. That's where
he operates in the realm of religion. And then sixthly, we pray for
deliverance from Him. He takes men captive at His will. No angel would confront Satan. They said, let God rebuke thee. They're not going to tackle with
Him, and you sure ain't going to tackle with Him. And then in Matthew 6, He closes
that prayer, acknowledging that all things are of God. Thine
is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. And then
in verses 5 through 13, he gives us a parable to further illustrate what prayer is all about. We mediate for others. And we practice the use of prayer
on their behalf as preachers of the gospel. We pray for them. Intercession for poor hungry
sinners that come to you believing you to be their friend. Nobody's going to come to a preacher. Now hear what I'm saying, until
God makes him hungry to eat. He may come in here for a thousand
other reasons and come in and circle out and go out the door
and you'll never see Him again. But a hungry sinner will come
into the house of God believing that man that's speaking to them
to be their friend. He's up there to help me. They come to you as a friend
and understanding that you might be the source for that bread
that they so badly need. And then being fully instructed
about prayer, he now gives them a living demonstration of how
God saves sinners through the preaching of the gospel. And
the gospel is what? The power of God unto salvation. That's the power of God. I hear
people talk about that power. in this, and in that, and in
something else, and in their experiences, and in visions,
and I don't know what else. They'll go back to try to convince
you that their salvation was effectual. They'll go back and
they'll pick up on all of these things. The effectual work is
in the gospel of Christ. Christ is the gospel. And all
we're doing when we preach the gospel to you is point you to
Him. Tell you who He is, and why He came, and what He did,
and where He's at. He gives us an illustration.
And I have five things this morning I want us to think about. And
the first thing is this, a confrontation. Every sinner saved by grace is
going to be confronted with Christ. Every man present that day was
confronted with Christ, but one was confronted in a special way. One heard what he was saying.
One was enabled to look on him and rest in him. One was confronted by mercy and
grace and the effectual power of God. In John 6.36 he said
of the others, just talking about those who came for whatever reason
and left. And here's what he said, John
6.36. He said, But I say unto you,
that ye also have seen me, and believe not. Now he said that
right after he told them he was the bread God sent down from
heaven. Many that day saw him, They saw
his work and they were filled with wonder. That's what it says
there in the verses. They saw it. They saw this dumb
man. They knew he was speechless.
They knew he was unable to talk. And yet he did. And it said,
and they wondered. They were filled with wonder
when they saw what he did. But they would not believe on
him. This confrontation With this
man, this sinner, was an effectual confrontation. It was a saving confrontation
when Christ comes to chosen sinners and they both know where they
stand. Christ knew who he was. He knew who he was. You didn't
have to tell Christ. You might not know this, but
you're the Christ. You didn't have to tell the man. He knew.
He knew who he was. He knew who sent him. And he
knew why he came. He knew what he was to do and
where he would go after it was done. He was God come into the
flesh. God manifested in the flesh,
justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached to the Gentiles.
believed on in this world received up into glory. One in whom the saving name of
God is revealed to chosen sinners. None other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must believe. And the sinner knew
who he was. He was dumb. He was unable to
speak. Unable to ask. for mercy and
grace. Did you know the natural man
is dumb? I don't mean not intellectual. I mean he don't know how to communicate
to God. He's unable to communicate to
God. His depravity has left him with
this infirmity. Just as this man was. Unable to ask for mercy and grace. And my friend, being dumb or
unable to speak is just one of the infirmities by which God
declares our depravity. No one infirmity can describe
your depravity. It takes all of the infirmities. Blind. Are we not blind before
we're born of God? You must be born again. You cannot
perceive the kingdom. You can't see! It's going on
all around you, but you don't see it. Every disease, every infirmity,
every demon possession, death, all together, casting out demons,
all together, picture the sinner unseen. And this man, His cannot
was his will not. Or his will not was his cannot,
whichever way you want to say it. The natural man, it says,
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Why? Why? He's got a mind. He's got a mind. Why can't he receive them? He
has a will. Yeah, but it ain't a free will.
His will is in bondage. It's in the bondage of His nature.
Not only does it say He receiveth not the things of the world.
And what are those things? The preaching of the gospel.
The Word of God. He's not going to receive those
things. Why? There's foolishness under Him. He has to reason with a natural
mind. A mind that don't know God. I was listening to an Armenian
preacher, just a clip of him, I don't remember what I was watching,
a movie, and they passed by one of these little halfway houses,
you know, and there was somebody in there, I think it was a woman,
and she was in there preaching, and she was going down through
Romans 10, and trying to tell him, you know, whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Won't you do
that right now? But that's not what Romans 10
says. Romans 10 is a quotation from
the Old Testament. And it said, Whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are you
going to call on Him in whom you have not believed? And how
are you going to believe in Him of whom you have not heard? And
how are you going to hear without a preacher? And how on earth
is He going to preach? Or even know who to preach to?
except God sent Him. It's in His will. I know you
Christ said that you will not come unto me that you might have
life. The inability of man is what
keeps him from calling upon God and even worse This man was possessed
by a devil, but so were we. Read Ephesians chapter 2. You
have the quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. What's
that mean? Well, we're in and time passed.
You walked according to the what? The prince of the power of the
air, the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience.
Oh, you didn't know it, but you were. You were. And I challenge you, you go through
the scriptures and see if this is not so. The devil works in
the realm of false religion. He don't need to work in a bar
or a brothel. Man's fault in nature. He craves
those things. And he tells us that. We're in
our conversation and times past was in the lust of the flesh.
That's what we crave. We crave money. We crave fame. We crave whatever. Satan don't
have to do anything to get you to do that. That's your nature.
That's your nature. Satan works in the realm of religion. So here we have a confrontation
of Christ. Who He is and who the sinner
is. And then secondly, I want you to see the sovereign, effectual
grace of God demonstrated. There's nothing in any text I've
ever read where Christ is said to be trying to do something. And I hear it all the time in
religion. It's repulsive to me. It's repulsive. God wants. If he did, he'd have it. He'd
have it. He's sovereign. Who's going to
stand in his way? Who's going to keep him from having it? You're
not going to find that kind of language in the Bible. This man,
Jesus of Nazareth, is God. God come into the flesh. If He
comes to save, He saves. Huh? He has His way, don't He? If He comes to call, He calls. He told those Pharisees, you
believe not because you're not of my sheep. He said over there in Acts 13
when Paul went to Antioch and preached to them, and finally
he said, seeing you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life,
I turn to the Gentiles. And he started preaching to the
Gentiles. And they gladly received it. He showed them where the
Bible has included them in salvation. Oh my soul, a mystery hidden
from the foundation of the world. And then you know what it says?
As many as were ordained to eternal life believed. He said my sheep hear my voice. And man cannot, angels cannot, the very gates of hell cannot
resist the power of God. His work is effectual. And it's
always demonstrated in that fashion. Here's Lazarus. And he's in that
tomb. And his sisters knew. They'd
been in funerals before. They didn't embalm them back
then. They carried Lazarus over and they put him in that tomb
and they sealed it up. And the Lord said, take away
that stone. Oh, Lord, don't do that. Don't. By now, he's stinking. He's corrupted. Don't do that. But they did. And they smelled
the corruption. And then he said, Lazarus, come
here. What'd he do? He come. I don't
know how he got out there. He was wrapped head to toe in
grave clothes. I don't know how he come out,
but he come out. And God said, loose him and let him go. And
the grave clothes fell off of him. Effectual. That's an effectual
work. Well, He does the same thing
spiritually to the sinner. I like what old Ralph said one
time, old Ralph Barnard, evangelist. He said, God saves men against
their will with their full consent. And that's exactly what He does.
His people shall be willing in the day of His power. When Christ comes in power, inability
vanishes away. He told that old man he'd been
paralyzed for 30-some years. He's laying down there at the
Pool of Bethesda. Had to be carried out there. He had no... I just
imagine, because I've seen folks this way who've been paralyzed,
and their little limbs just looked like bones with a little skin
on them. And there he laid, and he said,
Take up your bed and walk. He couldn't, Winston, but he
did. Inability vanishes away when
Christ comes. Vanishes away. Giving thanks
unto the Father, Paul said, which hath made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of saints and life. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. And when Christ
sets His heart on a sinner, He's gonna save him. He's gonna save
him. The death of our Lord on that
cross will never be discovered a miscarriage. Never. And then thirdly, The quick and almost instant
denial of antichrist religion. They were standing there. You
read about it over in Acts chapter 2 when Peter brought that glorious
message on the day of Pentecost. He told them, he said, he did,
God confirmed his son in this world by miracles and wonders
and signs which He did right in your midst, that you yourselves
also. You were standing there that
day watching when He called Lazarus out of that tomb. You were standing
there on that day when He took that leprous man and made him
clean. When He took that man of palsy
and cured him. You were there. You saw it. You
saw what happened. Oh, my soul. But here's Antichrist. And they start to deny this miracle. This man couldn't speak. People
knew him his whole life. They knew he couldn't speak.
But all of a sudden, he spoke. And they were filled with wonder.
And immediately, Antichrist religion jumped up and said, oh, no, no,
no, no. They said, what? You see, it's not so much the
sinners that deny the work of Christ as it is religious folks. That's who deny. It was not the needy that contested
this miracle, it was religious men, Pharisees, self-righteous
men. Needy sinners are desperate for
a Savior. They've been humbled by their
depravity, brought low by their ignorance. lost confidence in
themselves. They're willing to hear, and
willing to reason, and willing to submit, willing to follow.
Paul said, I know your election of God. He told those Thessalonians.
Because our gospel came not in word only, but it came in power,
and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. Now watch this. Here's the second reason he gave.
And you become followers of us and the Lord. Antichrist religion is anti-Christ. They want Christ in their will
all stirred up together. They're anti-Christ because they're
anti-grace. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ, and if you're anti-Christ, you're most surely anti-grace. What's the first point of a sinner's
rebellion? The grace of God. The grace of
God. There's no submission. He's anti-submissive. There's no submission. in false
religion. They'll argue black is white
and down is up. It don't matter. I've talked
to people in religion. I was raised in it. I know what
I'm talking about. And I would talk to them about things that
I'd read in the Bible and they said, well, where'd you read
that? And I'm like, you've been going to church for 20 years
and you never read the book of Acts? You never read the book
of Ephesians? But they'll argue with you about
it. They're anti-substitution. They
say he died for everybody. If he died for everybody, then
he did not die a substitutionary death. A substitute dies in the
place of another. And if he died for every soul
in this world, every soul in this world is redeemed. Whatever
he bought, he paid for. And he has in his possession. He bore our sins, the scripture
said, in his own body on the tree. He died the just for the
unjust to bring us to God and a good shepherd giveth his life
for the sheep. That's what the Bible says. He
was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. And then to be anti-Christ is
to be anti-union. Somebody asked me the other day
when we're going to have communion. Do you know what communion is?
It's two words. Common union. Uh-huh. Like Brother Mahan used to say,
fellowships fellows in the same ship. We're one with Christ. God put us into an eternal union
with His Son before the foundation of the world. And being in a
union with His Son, He was able to bless us way back then with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus according
as He had chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. was saved by our eternal union
with Christ, quickened together with Him, raised us up together
with Him, and seated us in heavenly places in Him. There's no other
way that can be except by union. Listen to this. This is over
in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, right down to the end of the chapter.
He said, Are you in Christ Jesus? Who
of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. How was he made that? We're in
Christ Jesus. That's how. Oh, this poor dumb sinner would
have died in his demonic silence, but for the mercy and grace of
God in Christ. And Antichrist wrote the whole
work of Christ off as the work of the devil. He did that by
Beelzebub. And then, fourthly, I want you
to see the wisdom of God here. Christ said if Satan is divided
against himself, he can't stand. Satan will never cast himself
out. And I'd love to know how many
testimonies I've heard over the years of people saying that they
were saved in religion, false religion. That listening to free
will works preaching, self-righteous law preaching, good works preaching,
they were born of God. Satan not going to cast out Satan.
It ain't going to happen. No preaching and no knowledge,
they were unable to see. But he's not divided against
himself. Satan doesn't cast out Satan.
And that's what he's showing us here. And then lastly, I want
us to see God's sovereign, irresistible grace. Verse 20 of our text.
But if I, with the finger of God, cast out devils, no doubt
the kingdom of God is come upon you. Grace reigns in believers. He said, if sin hath reigned,
how did it reign? Irresistibly, didn't it? Irresistibly. If sin hath reigned unto death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now hear me. If grace doesn't
reign in you, You've never experienced the grace of God. His grace reigns. It don't try to reign, it reigns. Grace enables dumb sinners to
call on Christ. It enables proud rebels to bow
at his feet. Grace enables the deaf sinner
to hear, and the blind sinner to see, and the dead sinner to
rise and walk. That demonic influence was taken
from him, cast out of him, and he was enabled of God to call
on his Savior. Believers are recipients of a
divine work. Well, how do we even know that
God did a work in this man? He spoke. How do I know God did a work
in me? Oh, I called on him. I never
called before. I did about everything you could
do to be religious, but I never called on him. I never rested
in him. I didn't trust in him. You're listening to a man who
done by satanic influence and by the irresistible grace of
God in Christ, He'd given me the power to speak, to call on
Him, to call on Him. And when God does the work, everybody
that sees it stands in wonder, in wonder. That's how God works.
His work is effectual, and people see it, acknowledge it. Oh, may God be pleased to do
that work in me and in you, for Christ's sake. Thank you.