The lesson this morning, Luke
chapter four, we'll be looking at verses 21 through 32. Luke
chapter four, verses 21 through 32. And my subject, which I believe
is the subject of these verses, is Christ the stumbling stone. The gospel's not difficult to
perceive. People tell me, well, that's
deep. That's complicated. No, it's
not complicated. It's not complicated. A child could understand the
basic doctrines of the gospel. God chose a people. What's so
hard about that? Man's a sinner. That's not hard
to perceive, is it? I know people perceive what I'm
saying because they get mad. They get mad sometimes, stomp
out the door. And the reason they get mad is
because they understand what I'm saying. Facts are straightforward in
the gospel, easy to be understood. The difficulty is that it runs
contrary to our nature and contrary to our traditions and contrary
to our minds. And the problem arises because
our hearts are filled with worldly perceptions of God. We've been
hearing them since we was that old. And they stick. You don't think they're there,
but they're there and you form I guess what you could call an
opinion, but you form a belief in your head about who God is.
And all these things are contributing, all these things. The Jews knew that the holy scriptures
foretold a coming redeemer, a deliverer, a messiah. They knew that. They
looked for him. They chose a council and trained
them carefully in all the messianic prophecies called the Sanhedrin. And their one business was to
look for the coming redeemer. That's what they were to do. Problem was they didn't know
who was coming. They didn't know why he was coming.
They didn't know what he was going to do when he got here.
And they knew nothing about his death and his resurrection or
the necessity of his ascension back into glory. They knew nothing
about any of these things. They thought that the coming
Messiah was going to be like Moses. God was gonna raise up
a deliverer and he would deliver them out from under worldly bondage,
out from under the rule at that time of the Romans. And he would
exalt that nation once again to its former state of glory.
At one time, Israel was the foremost nation in the world. All the
other nations were subject to Israel. They were at the top.
And now, they weren't even recognized as anything. under Roman bondage. They didn't know what he was
gonna do, they didn't know, they thought he would be a worldly
king. You remember when he fed the 5,000 men plus women and
children on the side of that mountain, he fed them and they
would have taken him by force and made him king. Because they
believed that that's what God was gonna do. So let's read together Luke chapter
four in these verses, beginning with verse 20 or verse 21. And he began to say unto them,
this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. Now this was a
messianic prophecy. This was concerning the coming
redeemer. And all bear him witness and
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And then they said, is not this
Joseph's son? And he said unto them, you will
surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever
we have heard done in Capernaum, do also hear in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto
you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you
of a truth. Many widows were in Israel in
the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up for
three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all
the land. But unto none of them was Elijah
sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was
a widow. God selected a Gentile widow,
and that's where he sent his prophet. All these widows in
Israel starving to death in this famine, he didn't send his prophet
to them, sent them to a Gentile widow. Many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Eliseus, that is, Elisha. And none of them were
cleansed, save Naaman the Syrian. Here's another Gentile. And all they in the synagogue,
when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. They were angry. They understood
exactly what he was saying. And they rose up and they thrust
him out of the city and they led him out onto the brow of
a hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him
down headlong. Now if you wanna see something
interesting, get on your computer this afternoon and look up Nazareth. And this cliff there at Nazareth
was 1,000 feet tall. Straight down, nothing but solid
rock. It's called the Mount of the
Precipice now. But that's where they took him.
They took him out on the edge of that cliff, and they were
gonna throw him headlong off of that cliff. But he passing through the midst
of them went his way. And he came down to Capernaum,
a city of Galilee, and he taught them on the Sabbath days. and
they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was with power. I wanna read you also just a
few verses from Isaiah chapter eight, beginning with verse 13. He said, sanctify, that is set
apart in your mind, in your heart, set apart the Lord of hosts himself,
and let him be your fear and let him be your dread. And he
shall be for a sanctuary, but for a stone of stumbling
and a rock of offense to both the houses of Israel, for a gin
and for a snare to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among
them shall stumble and fall and be broken and be snared and be
taken. Now Jesus Christ himself is to
all them that believe not a stumbling stone. He's a stumbling stone. They can't get past his person. He's a stumbling stone. He's
a rock of offense and he's a gin and he's a snare. Now gin is
a trap for a small game. Usually you've seen it in movies. They got a little box there like
they used to ship stuff in and somebody put a little stick up
there on one end of it and raise it up and put some lettuce in
there and a string and he'd go over here and hide behind a rock
and wait on a squirrel or a rabbit or something to come up under
that and pull the stick. That's what a gin is. A snare
is a rope or a string with a noose. Steps in it, sets the trigger,
pulls him up feet first, and there he hangs. Christ himself is all these things
to all them that believe not. In 1 Peter 2, 7 it says, unto
you therefore which believe he is precious, Christ is precious. He's all. There's nothing else
besides Christ. There's nothing in you, there's
nothing in this world. Your only hope is Christ. Unto
you therefore which believe he's precious, but unto them which
be disobedient the stone that the builders disallowed. In other
words, they were examining these stones. examining these prophets,
examining all these things that were coming to pass. And they
come to Christ, and they took the stone, and they looked at
it, and they said, this won't do. And they threw it aside.
He's the stone which you builders disallowed. You called it out. The same God made the head of
the corner. And he made him a stone of stumbling
and a rock of offense, even to them that stumble at the word. They stumble at God's declaration
of who his son is, God's statement, God's word. They stumble at it. Well, we think this and we think
that. Well, here's what God says. Maybe we ought to take his word
over this guy. He was just born 30 years ago. He ain't seen much. God's been
around for all eternity. Maybe we ought to listen to him
rather than him. What do you think? That's what
Peter told them when they, a little bit later on in the book of Acts,
that I'm gonna preach from this morning, right after that, they
said, now you don't preach in this name anymore. He said, well
whether or not it's right to obey God rather than men, you
go debate that. As for me, I'm gonna preach the
word of God. I'm gonna preach his word. And
this stone was stumbling, is for those who stumble at the
word being disobedient, and it says, whereunto also they were
appointed. Now there's two things I want
us to consider in these verses that we've read here today. I
want us to consider the will of God in gospel preaching. That's
what our Lord read. He sent me to preach deliverance
to the captives. He was a preacher. And the second thing I want us
to see is the absolute sovereignty of God as to the effects of that
gospel on the hearts of men. How shall you hear without a
preacher? Now listen, how shall he preach except he be sent? Well, if God sends him, does
he send him sovereignly? Does he send him knowingly? or
does he just throw him out there? That's what this world says.
We're just throwed out there. But that's not what God says.
So let's consider first of all the will of God in the preaching
of the gospel. Our Lord had just read to them
Isaiah chapter 61 concerning his anointing to preach to sinners. He then closed the book and he
began to say unto them, this day is a scripture fulfilled
in your ears. God sent me here to preach to
you. Faith cometh by hearing, hearing
by the word of God. You can't believe without hearing. This whole generation don't believe
that. This is contrary to everything
they believe. They believe you can just go
in a closet one day and be cleaning your house one day or be up on
the side of the mountain one day and God just opens up your
head and pours it in. All of a sudden, I've got this
revelation. Well, you may have, but it ain't
from God. How shall they hear without a
preacher? That's what the Holy Ghost asked
that question. He said, this day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears. The God of glory has anointed
me with his spirit to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal
the brokenhearted, preach deliverance to the captives, recovering a
sight to the blind, to set the prisoners free, and proclaim
the great and acceptable day of the Lord. And he said, all
these things have been fulfilled in your ears. You've just heard the gospel
of God. You've just heard the good news. You've just heard
the trumpet of jubilee. You've heard. You've heard. What he's saying to them, God
has sent me this day to say it is to be received that way. That way, just as God said it.
I don't, you know, you get something bad tasting, you have to put
a lot of seasoning on it. There's things out there you
just don't throw it on the stove and cook it. It just don't taste
right. You have to season it. The worse
it is, the more seasoning it takes. The gospel don't need any seasoning
as its own. It's good just like it is. The
word of God don't need to be seasoned. It's good just like
it is. Just like it is. It's to be believed that way,
it's to be rejoiced in that way. This gospel's not of my invention. It's the ordained means of God.
It's not my take on the holy scriptures, not my interpretation,
but the plain teaching of the word of God. And I very seldom
say anything to you that I know is controversial without having
you turn and look at it for yourself. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth. To the Jew first, also to the
Greek. For therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. That is, as it is written,
the just shall live by faith. And all bear him witness, and
they wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of
his mouth, but they had a problem. They said, we know you. We know
you. You grew up right over there,
that little house right over there. We used to watch you work
in your father's carpenter shop. We knew you when you was a little
kid. I've known some of you children here. You was little when I come
here. You was little. Some of you wasn't even around
yet when I come. They couldn't get past that. They knew him. They saw him before
he could walk. We know you're Joseph's son. You're Joseph's son. You're the son of the carpenter. In another place, they said this.
We know your brothers. We know your sister. We know
you. We know you. He's no ambassador
of God. He's no minister. Where's his
diploma? That's what somebody asked me
one time. Where's your diploma? If you got one, you need to hang
it up on the wall somewhere. Where's his ordination papers?
Who ordained him? Now, I was ordained. I can show
you my ordination papers. He didn't have any. He didn't
need any. God himself ordained him. We can't believe his preaching
because we can't accept his person. If God was sent, if God has sent
you, do hear what we heard you did in Capernaum, because we
don't believe what we heard you did. We want to see it. We want to see the blind made
to see. We want to see the lepers cleansed. We want to see the dead raised.
We want to see you take a few fishes and feed the multitude. You do here where you grew up. You do this. You do this. If God has sent you, you do hear
what we heard you did in Capernaum. Men despise the whole concept
of gospel preaching. You mean I have to listen to
a man? That's what God said. That's
what he said. And I tell you why. I tell you
why I believe that he's made it so necessary. Because he is
gonna manifest his sovereignty. and you're gonna do it his way
or you're not gonna have any of the benefits. Period. Grace is sovereign grace. There is no other kind of grace.
It's sovereign grace. Love is sovereign love. Hail
sovereign love that first began. The plan to rescue fallen man. Huh? It's sovereign, isn't it?
Mercy, sovereign. I'll have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. Gospel preaching addresses all
men as ignorant of God. It assumes that because it's
so. It addresses all men as bankrupt
beggars. We've got nothing to offer to
God. Would you take, let me ask you
something. Would you take the best prayer, I mean the best
prayer that you ever raised, would you offer that to God? Huh? Without that prayer being washed
in the blood of Christ, my soul, it'd be enough to condemn
you for all eternity. Huh? You can't sit here and go
through a message without your mind wandering over here on this
and wandering over there. It addresses all men as captives
of sin, under the bondage of sin. You can't get rid of it,
Luke. It's there, it's there every
day. It's 24-7, you can't get rid of it. Somebody's, you know,
you're guarding and you've been pretty good all week. You've
been guarding against this and guarding against that and then
you get blindsided. Boom, boy, that temper flares
and away we go. Start spitting out words that
you wouldn't have said for anybody. And there they are, now they
see it. Sin, we're captives, captives. Sin reigns unto death. And it addresses all those who
hear it as blind to the will and the way of the Lord. And that brings me to the second
thing I want you to see here. They despise the sovereignty
of God. in the salvation of sinners as
Christ declared it to them in the scriptures. He said there
was many widows dying in Israel. I know you think you're special,
you think you're somebody. I know that you got that piece
of paper at home that's got all your lineage going all the way
back to Abraham. This one begat that one, begat
this one, and I'm his great, great, great, great, great, how
many greats there is grandson. And so I'm a child of God. No,
no you're not. And he said there was a lot of
widows in Israel starving to death. God didn't feed any of
them. Now if they were his children,
he would have fed them, wouldn't he? He didn't feed any of them. He went over there, over yonder.
Over there, them people, you can't stand. All we gotta do
is talk about Iranians or talk about People from Iraq, boy,
we get all flared up inside, don't we? That's the way the
Jews were toward the Gentiles. Heathens, idol worshipers. God went over and fed a widow
over there. Did something to that meal barrel,
it never run out. They just kept fixing cakes.
The oil didn't run out, meal didn't run out. All these over
here in Israel, they starving to death. And he said there was
a lot of lepers in Israel, bunch of lepers in Israel. God didn't
cleanse any of them, not one. Old Gentile king over there didn't
know anything at all about God, cleansed him, cleansed him. They began to voice their disapproval
of him, and he said unto them, no prophet is accepted in his
own country. There's a natural familiarity
with people we know. They just couldn't vision this
one they saw laboring in his father's carpenter shop, speaking
on God's behalf. My relatives can't either. They
can't either. And for the same reason. Same
reason. Both the message and the objects
chosen to receive it are of God's choosing. He sets the time. There's an acceptable time with
the Lord. He sets the time. He sets the
place. He picks the person. He brings
you together. Now that's how God does it. That's
how he saves sinners. That's how he calls them. and
salvations of the Lord. And the Lord gives them two well-known
examples of that, Elijah and Elisha. And the sovereign God of glory
passed up those self-righteous, stiff-necked rebels and sent
his prophet to receive this suffering, to relieve the suffering of this
poor Gentile widow. Well, after he said it, what
happened? Look down at verse 21 of our text. All they in the synagogue, when
they heard these things, were filled with wrath. They were filled with wrath.
They got mad. They got mad. It wasn't a silent
raging. That's silent raging. Now, you've
had that look before, ain't you? I don't know why you women shake
your head. You died at the same time. It wasn't silent, right? They
didn't just sit there glaring in the face. Wasn't a quiet anger,
but the scripture says they rose up, now listen to this, and thrust
him out of their city. Boom. Get on down the road. Get out of here. And they kept
on doing it. They didn't just want him out
of Senegal. They wanted him out of the city. And the more they
did it, the angrier they got. And they led him out to the brow
of the hill. And they said, we're going to be done with this guy
once for all. And they're going to throw him
headlong down off that cliff. Well, why don't they do that
today? Because we're not a threat. We're like those two dead prophets
laying on the street that he talks about in his prophecy.
They're just laying there. They're not affecting anything.
This little church is not affecting anything to speak of. Ain't no
multitude running down the road to get in here. If they were,
these churches would raise up around here. They'd rise up around
here and they'd be opposed to you because their sons and daughters
and their relatives are coming down here. And they think you're
a cult. They knew him. They marveled
at his speaking. They acknowledged his gifts.
Acknowledged his talents. They wondered at the gracious
words that came out of his mouth. until he began preaching to them.
He didn't just read the scriptures, Brian. He told them what those
scriptures meant. He applied it to them. That's
when they got angry. It wasn't his miracles or his
kindness to the poor that offended them. It was his preaching. It
was his preaching. Someone said to me one time,
preacher, he said, I felt as though you were preaching right
at me. And I said, boy, I hope so. I hope so, had your face
before me when I was preparing the message. Had you on my mind when I was
preparing the message, I hope. He didn't send me here and gather
people here for me to preach to somebody in Nebraska. He sent me here to preach to
you. Maybe he'll let that person in Nebraska hear it too. But
that's not who he sent me to preach to. He sent me to preach
to you. And when I prepare my messages, I have your face before
me. I have your name on my heart.
And I hope that I can say something that's gonna help you. These people got mad because
they understood he was preaching to them. You talking to me? I'm talking to you. Talking to
you. Another thing that enraged them
is they couldn't deny the word of God. But they could, so they thought,
get rid of this man. But the scripture says, he passing
through the midst of them went his way. God's people, as well
as his ministers, Brother Mahan told me this one time, he said,
you're immortal until God takes you out of this world. And it's so, it's so. They took Paul out, stoned him
to death. And he lay in there motionless,
he wasn't breathing. They said, you're dead. And they
just left him there for the coyotes to gnaw on. And they went back to the city,
but he wasn't dead. And if he was, God raised him
from the dead. They beat him within one stripe
of his life five times. But they couldn't kill him. God
sent a storm out, absolutely destroyed the ship. And he spent
three days out there floating around on a board. Somebody told
me that was the only missionary board they ever read about in
Scripture. Paul floated on that board over to an island. But
he wasn't dead. And he'd build a fire to dry
off, and a big old viper come out, man nailed him right, shook
him off in the fire, went right on. Everybody look and see what
he was gonna fall over, but he didn't fall over. You're immortal
until God takes you out of this world. And when he gets ready to take
you out of this world, there ain't enough doctors and hospitals
and people in the world to save your soul, or save your life.
When you've done your part in this world, the reason he left
you here, he's going to take you home. And that's the way
we ought to look at it. We're not leaving anything but
sin. All around us, that's all there
is. All around us. To die is to go home. It's to
go home. This was the beginning of Christ's
ministry, not the end of it. Our sovereign Savior passed through
the midst of those clenched fists and glaring faces, and he just
passed right through the midst of them, and nobody even laid
a hand on him. Beloved, our Lord speaks just
as truly and just as sovereignly through me as he did in that
day through the Lord at Nazareth. if I'm his minister. If I'm his
minister. They saw in Jesus only a man
and one raised in poverty at that. The scripture warns us
time and again, be careful how you hear. Be careful. Be careful. If God'll speak to
you, he's gonna do it through a man. And our Lord made this
known. before he ever preached another
message. His debut as a minister was followed by this, and he
laid this, call it a rule or a law or whatever you want to
call it, it's the way it is. When men hear the gospel, they
despise it, and especially your own family. Your enemies shall
be they of your own household. Why? Because they know you. They
know you. All right, thank you.