Luke chapter six, verses six
through 11. I titled the lesson this morning,
And It Came to Pass. Let's read these verses together.
Luke chapter six, beginning with verse six. And it came to pass also on another
Sabbath. If you go back and look, several
times where he's dealing with these people on Sabbath days
about various things. It came to pass also on another
Sabbath that he entered into the synagogue and taught, and
there was a man whose right hand was withered. And the scribes
and the Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the
Sabbath day that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts. And
he said to the man which had the withered hand, rise up and
stand forth in the midst. That man with the withered hand.
And he arose and stood forth. And I wanna point this out before
I go any further. When the Lord commands a man,
when he's enabled that man to bow to him and submit to him
and seek him, when he tells him something, he does it. There's
no pause, there's no delayed reaction or what. When
he tells you something, you do it. Because now, you know who
he is. You know that this is the Lord.
It's not this little fictitious Jesus that people talk about.
This is the Lord. God come into the flesh. He stood, he arose and he stood
forth. Then Jesus said unto them, I
will ask you one thing. Now they hadn't said anything
to him and he hadn't said anything to them. He just told this man
with a withered hand to stand up, and these guys are sitting
there silent, thinking, if he heals this man on the Sabbath,
we're gonna prosecute him. We're gonna get him. Then said
Jesus unto them, I'll ask you one thing. Is it lawful on the
Sabbath days to do good or to do evil? To save life or destroy
it? What does it say in the law of
God about these things. And looking round about upon
them all, he said unto the man, stretch forth thine hand. And
he did so. And his hand was restored whole
as the other. And they, that is the scribes
and Pharisees and doctors of the law, were filled with madness,
frustration, Oh, they were so frustrated. They wanted this
man dead. They couldn't stand him. They
hated him. They were filled with madness
and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus. Now, I wanna remind you that
these things done by our Lord to heal the sick were not just
a exercise in sympathy. Our Lord was sympathetic to sinners. He tells us to be sympathetic
to sinners. In fact, He tells us to love
our enemies. Pray for them that despitefully
use you. If it wasn't for grace, you'd
be just like them. If it wasn't for Him and His
love for you and the means that He's ordained and put in place
and the power that He exercised to call you, you'd be doing the
very same thing that they're doing. No difference in you whatsoever
except that difference that the Lord caused to come to pass. These things were divine confirmations
of his person and work, these miracles. If you don't believe
me, he said, you better believe for the very work's sake. These
miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in our midst. They were divine confirmations
of his person and work, and they were pictures of how God saves
sinners. So anytime you read about these
miracles of God, you keep that in mind. That's what this is.
These things are picturing how God saves sinners. And these
diseases in themselves, taken all together, are pictures of
sin and the condition of the sinner. Now I have four things
I want us to see this morning in these verses. Four things
that always come to pass. He said, and it came to pass.
And he says that quite a few times here in Luke chapter six. These things always come to pass
as the work of our saviors manifest in this world. And the first
of these things is a confrontation. There's gonna be a confrontation.
And then they're gonna come to face him whom they have confronted
or been confronted with. You go face him. And then there's
gonna be an unhindered work. I don't care what, you bring
your lanterns and staves and whatever else you got, you can
bring all Satan's deceit, you can bring all the power of the
world, but you're not gonna hinder him in his work. He's gonna do
what he purposed to do. He ruleth, that's what old Nebuchadnezzar
said, in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand, none, or even question
what he does. And then the last point I want
you to see is a necessary division. There was a division. So let's
begin with the confrontation. The preaching of the gospel is
always a confrontation. It's always, you're being confronted
this morning with the word of God. You're being confronted
this morning with the preaching of the gospel. It's a confrontation. Never imagine that because you
sit quietly in a pew and you don't say anything, you just
sit there quiet. Never imagine that because you
sit quietly in a pew that you're not being confronted by the Lord,
you are. There is no gray area. There is no Sweden, so to speak. Neutral place. There's no vacuum. Listen to this. The Pharisees
never opened their mouth. They never said one word. They
just sat there. They'd already talked. And they
just sat there and what was on their mind was to watch him and
see if he's gonna heal somebody. But they never said that. They
never said anything. They just sat there quiet in
their seat. And they watched him. They watched
him. They never uttered a word, but
discerning eyes knew their thoughts. And that's the thing. He understandeth
our thought, the scripture says, afar off. When was that? From the beginning. In 1 John 2.25 it says, and he
needed not that any should testify of man. This is in John 2.25,
I'm sorry. He needed not that any should
testify of man for he knew what was in man. He already knew what
was in man. That's why he came. He came to
save sinners, didn't he? Well, how do you know you're
a sinner? He knows all things. And some of the apostles had
a discerning spirit to know the thoughts of men. Peter knew that
Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Ghost. He knew it. But we don't need all these things
today. We have the word of God. Now
I want you to listen to this. This is in Hebrews chapter four,
verse 12. Now I looked at this for a long time and I was thinking
to myself, this is talking about God the Holy Spirit. But that's
not what it says. It says for the word of God. The word of God is quick. It's the living word. And powerful. and sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow, now listen, and is
a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. I don't need a discerning spirit
to know what's on men's minds. The word of God tells me what's
on their minds. It exposes our false motives.
It brings the hidden things of darkness out into the light.
Paul said, God be thanked, which always causes us to triumph in
Christ and maketh manifest the saver of his knowledge by us
every place. For we are unto God a sweet saver
of Christ in them that are saved and in them that perish. Either
way. Either way. Preacher stands up
and preaches and nobody does anything. Everybody just stands
up and goes home. All the visitors they brought,
everybody just goes home. Say, well, that was a failure. No, no, it was a victory. He did what God sent him there
to do. He warned sinners. And they wouldn't heed his warning.
And it was a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved and in
them that perish, to the one we're the savor of death unto
death, and to the other the savor of life unto life. And those
things being true, who is sufficient for these things? The gospel's
not preached for entertainment, and it's not the repetitious
words of mere ceremonial form. I hear, I watch these, What's
the word I'd want to use? Very formal types of religion. And they stand up and they go
through all these things and they say the same words, the
same things repetitiously every time you hear them. If you went
to a Catholic mass, you'd understand exactly what I'm talking about.
It's all form, it's all words. But the gospel's not preached
for entertainment and it's not the repetitious words of mere
ceremonial form. The gospel is a declaration which
confronts all those who hear it with God's testimony. It's
a confrontation. And it's a confrontation of God
who commands faith and submission to Christ. I'm not just here to Fill your
heads with facts, I'm here as an ambassador for Christ as though
God did beseech you by us, be ye reconciled to God. God's already
reconciled. All God's elect, Christ reconciled
us unto him in his body through death to
present us holy, unblameable, unreprovable in his sight. God's already reconciled. The
message of the gospel is be you reconciled. You be reconciled
to his reconciliation. That's what he's telling us. The gospel not only manifests
truth, but it also exposes lies. It reveals not only the righteousness
of God, but also the false refuges of deceived men. That's why Paul
said our weapons are spiritual. They're not carnal. We don't
take up banners and march up and down the road. We preach
the gospel. Our weapons are spiritual. They're spiritual. And these
weapons are sufficient to bring down strongholds, refuges, tear
them apart. expose sinners so that they see
who they are and what they are before God. So the gospel is
a confrontation. And our Lord didn't do things
by chance and circumstance, he did everything he did on purpose
and nothing's changed. His gospel still comes providentially
just as it did then. And all of us are here today
by the providence of God and we're all here being confronted
by God And this is the meaning of the words, it came to pass,
and it will, it'll come to pass. He worketh all things, Paul said,
after the counsel of his own will. And he said that, having
already told us that we found an inheritance being predestinated. Now what he says in Ephesians
111, in whom we've also obtained an inheritance, being predestinated
according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will. And then secondly, I want us
to see here who they're confronting or who's confronting them. He's
actually confronting them. Who is this man, Jesus of Nazareth? This man, Jesus of Nazareth,
he raised the dead. You reckon any of them Pharisees
ever raised the dead? No. They couldn't cure the hiccups. This man raised the, I think
I'd stop and listen to him, don't you? Here's a man, he died. Very possibly there's three or
four people here who watched him die. They knew that he was
dead. And our Lord raised that man
from the dead. Nobody had any doubt that Lazarus lay in that
tomb dead. He'd been in there for three
days. When the Lord mentioned rolling the stone back, they
said, oh, Lord, don't do that. By now, he's stinking. He's already
beginning to, don't roll that stone. Lazarus, come out of that
tomb. Boy, when the Pharisees saw that,
they said, we gotta do something. We're gonna lose our jobs, and
we're gonna lose all of our people. We gotta do something about him.
Never dawned on them to submit to him. I think I'd listen to a man if
he could raise the dead. He gave sight to the blind. He
caused the deaf to hear. cleansed lepers, cast out demons,
enabled a paralyzed man of 38 years, been paralyzed, no strength
in his body, every muscle shriveled up to nothing, and here he lay
waiting on somebody to put him into the waters when the angel
of God came down to trouble him. And the Lord said, take up your
bed and walk. He couldn't, but he did. I think
I listened to that man, don't you? Yet deceived men continued to
treat him as a mere man. And not only as a man, but as
a base man, an imposter, one pretending to be the servant
of God and pretending to be the Christ, the promised Messiah.
This was no mere man, this is the God man, God manifest in
the flesh. And listen to this, verse eight.
He knew their thoughts. He knew their thoughts. You reckon
God knows our thoughts? Huh? He knows exactly what you're
thinking. And we can look all pious. And
we can look all, everything just fine, you know. He knows your
thoughts. He knows what's on your heart,
Russell. And you may even be deceived, but he ain't. He ain't. He could measure the darkness
in them to the full depth of the fall. You can't do that. Only thing I know about my fall
is what he tells me. That's all I know. These little
experiences that we have, that doesn't measure the depth of
your fall. That just shows you a little bit. Just a little bit. He could measure the darkness
in them and the full depth of their fall. He knew their hidden
motives and hidden agendas. And that's who we come here to
worship. Jesus of Nazareth, God our Savior. And his disciples
called him that, God our Savior. God, over all, blessed forever. That's what Paul said. And most
of us don't think of Christ as God. And if we do, we wouldn't
walk the way we walk, would we? We need to remind ourselves constantly,
our Savior is God. He's God. He's all we know about
God. I don't know anything about God
except what Christ has revealed. That's all I know. And I think if men really did
that, they wouldn't talk about him with such familiarity. I think everybody in here has
heard that phrase, that little ditty somebody made up, me and
Jesus got a good thing going. You reckon you'd talk that way
if you knew he was God? I'll tell you, the disciples,
they called him Jesus. That was his name, they called
him that. That's how he introduced himself to them. But they called
him the Lord Jesus after they come to know who he was. He's
the Lord. He's the Lord. I hear men talk about the man
upstairs. You wouldn't talk with that kind
of familiarity if you knew who he was. And these men in their ignorance,
they sat in the very presence of God devising a way to accuse
him. Can you imagine? Making plans on how to trap God
Almighty. Is there anything that he don't
see? He sees everything. He sees the end from the beginning.
Is there anything he don't know? He knows all things. I came there to confront a man,
a man pretending to be somebody he wasn't. But our Lord surprised
them and he confronted them. And then here's what he told
them. He said, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to
do evil? To save life or destroy it? But they held their peace. Now
they either couldn't answer him for fear of exposing their own
evil intentions, or they wouldn't answer him because they didn't
want to lose favor with the people. This is who they were confronting,
the Lord. And that's why I insist on certain
things here during worship, because I know whom we came here to worship. And a lot of these things that
the world does that's appealing to the flesh won't appeal to
a believer once he knows who Christ is. All this dancing and
carrying on, that's ungodly, it's ungodly. And then thirdly,
I want us to see this unhindered work as it's used in the salvation
of sinners. I want you to see that here.
Let's read again verse eight of our text here in Luke chapter
six. But he knew their thought and
said to the man which had the withered hand. Now try to get
this picture in your mind. He's not looking at the man.
He was looking at the crowd when he commanded the man to stand
forth in the midst. He never turned around and looked
at him. He knew he was back there. His call is irresistible. When
he tells an enlightened sinner to do something, he does it.
He didn't turn around and look at him. He knew he was back there.
And now, he's about to do this unhindered work, and he looks
right into the eyes of those who came there to accuse him.
He's still not looking at the sinner. He's looking right in
their eyes. And he said to the man, stretch
forth thine hand. And the man did. And it was as
perfect as the other one. The man was just standing there
in awe. Look, and this hand now that
was withered, couldn't do that. Now he's doing it, the same as
the other one. Got all the strength, fresh, lashes, same color, completely
healed. And the Lord never looked at
him. He looked right at that crowd. He looked right at that
crowd. What an unlikely scene and situation
for manifesting God's mercy and grace. Seemed that way, didn't
it? A hostile group in the crowd. Surely the Lord won't do anything
today. Oh, yeah, he will. Yeah, he will. And actually that's the way it
is all the time. All the time. There's always
unbelievers in the mix. There's always somebody there
under a false intent. Somebody hiding like a serpent
waiting for the victim to get where they want him to be. And this situation was created
by the providence of God and carried out to show the sovereignty
of God and the salvation of His elect. They didn't hinder him
one bit, not one bit. Looking around about on them
all, he said to the man, stretch forth thine hand, and he did
so, and his hand was restored whole as the other. My friend, God's work in this
world goes unhindered. He said, all power in heaven
and earth given unto me. Now you go preach. Yeah, but
what about them Pharisees? All power and heaven and earth
given unto me. Go ye therefore and preach. Yeah, but I'm getting up in age
and I can't. All power given unto me and heaven
and earth. Now you go preach. But all my
income's been taken. All power and heaven and earth
given unto me. Go ye therefore and preach. Is
something gonna hinder his work? No, it's not. It's not. God's work in this world goes
unhindered. And look at the sinner. What's
the sinner doing in all this? Is he back there making decisions?
Is he back there exercising his will and rejoicing in his worth?
What's the sinner doing? exactly what the Lord tells him
to do. Huh? That's right. Somebody invited
a man to come one night, and was down at the old church, and
the guy come in, sat around, and he got his times messed up.
He was here too early. And he sat around there forever,
and finally he stood up, and he said, Preacher, he said, come
here. He said, here's what we're gonna do. He said, all y'all
that are here are gonna gather around me, and I'm gonna kneel
down, I'm gonna give my heart to Jesus. And he said, I want
you to pray over me, and everything's gonna be fine. And I said, no,
that's not what we're gonna do. No, sir, it ain't. I said, what
you're gonna do is sit there and listen while I preach. Maybe
the Lord'll do something for you, maybe he won't. I don't
know what the Lord's gonna do, but we ain't doing that. You
don't dictate things to the Lord. You do what the Lord tells you
to do. Well, what does the Lord tell
a sinner to do? Tells him to believe, doesn't
he? Tells him to believe. Tells him,
obey him. Obey him. No, you're not to whom
you obey, his servant you are to whom you obey. Obedience,
that's what he commands men to do, be obedient. What's the Lord
tell sinners to do? He tells them to hear. How you
gonna call on Him and whom you've not heard and how you gonna hear
without a preacher? No, we're not gonna do it that
way, we're gonna do it this way. Better listen to what the Lord
tells you. See the sinner, he does everything
that Christ told him to do. Told him to stretch forth his
hand. He stretched forth his hand. Told him to stand in the
midst. He got up and stood in the midst.
What's that got to do with anything? The Lord told me to do it. That's
what he did. Told him to stretch forth his
hand. And I'm gonna tell you something.
You can worship a God like that. He's God. He's God. This poor little Jesus, boy,
people talk about today, he'd been preached in most of the
churches. He couldn't be worshiped if he wanted to. You can feel
sorry for him, and that's what they really want you to do, feel
sorry for him. Men will do something if they
feel sorry for you. If they can make men pity the Lord, then
they'll do something for him. You listen to their messages
and see if I ain't telling you the truth. Our Lord said, if I was hungry,
I wouldn't tell you. What a thing to say. What a thing
to say. When you say something like you're
gonna do something for him, you're gonna help him out, and he just
looks you in the face and he said, if I was hungry, I wouldn't
tell you. He said, all these cattle out here that you're talking
about giving me one of, they're all mine. They're all mine. Feel sorry for Jesus? My soul,
he's God. He's seated victorious at the
right hand of God. And then lastly, and this always
comes to pass when our Lord manifests his glory, there's a necessary
division. In Matthew chapter 10 verse 34,
if you're taking notes, write that down. Matthew chapter 10
verse 34. He said, think not that I'm come
to send peace on earth. Pastor, don't preach that. Don't
preach on alcohol when I bring somebody in here that's got a
problem with alcohol. Don't preach on adultery if I
bring somebody in here. Don't do that. Don't say those
things. He said, Think not that I'm come
to send peace on earth. I'm not come to send peace, but
a sword. For I am come to set a man at
variance against his father. That happened to me. I don't
know if it did to any of you, but it happened to me. This gospel
was contrary. He was a Nazarene preacher for
50 years. I'm come to set a man at variance
with his father, and the daughter against her
mother. That happened to us too. And the daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law. That happened to us too. And a man's foes shall be they
of his own household. And that certainly has happened
to everybody in here. if they know what you believe.
And that man, woman, boy, or girl that receives this gospel
must submit himself or themselves to the Lord. You're gonna line
up with him or side with the enemy, and there's no middle
ground, no vacuum, no neutral place. When Koridathan and Abiram withstood
Moses, And they did all this behind his back, and they already
had all their cronies lined up, and everybody already knew what
they were gonna do and when they were gonna do it. That's what
happens when a division comes. The enemy, he's already planned
out all his moves like a chess game. He's already calculated
what you're gonna say, and they got it all worked out. And they
all come up there, and they stood this big multitude against Moses,
and Moses said, everybody's on the Lord's side. Line up right
here. And they did. They said, everybody on their
side, line up over there. And they no sooner formed that
line that God opened up the earth and swallowed them and took them
to hell with their shoes on. Whose side you on? Huh? Well, I'll tell you this. If
he brings you to him, you're on his side. You're on his side. There are vessels of wrath and
vessels of mercy. There's wheat and tares, saved
and lost. And these are all contrary, the
one to the other. And we, as our God does, we endure
these vessels of wrath, bid you to destruction. We have no common
ground with them except our fallen Adam. I can have compassion on
them because I was a fallen son of Adam too. I know where they're
at. And there's a danger to us, and
we need to be cautious around them. But who knows, perhaps
among them be one like Paul, or one like you, or one like
me. Who knows? Maybe the Lord set
his mind, set his purpose in his heart to save your soul.
Who knows? But of this, I'm sure when he
does, it'll come to pass. That's what he's telling us in
these verses. It came to pass. All right, thank you.