The lesson this morning will be taken from Luke chapter
2, verses 32 through 35. Luke chapter 2, 32
through 35. The title of the lesson this morning is Simeon's Sermon. We had a pretty good look last
week at this man, Simeon, and the providence of God that arranged
for him to be there, and for Mary and Joseph to be there with
their firstborn child, and that he was of a good character, one
who frequented the temple. and a man of good character,
sound faith, and a true saint of God. He knew something about
the coming Redeemer. Today, I want us to focus on
the words he spoke to Mary and Joseph, and whoever else were
gathered there. The scripture doesn't include
any others, but it's during these times of dedication, just like
it is in our day, many would have been there to attend, many
relatives and friends and so forth. And old Simeon holding the Christ
child in his arms had some things to say. So let's read these verses,
Luke chapter 2 verse 32. He said this one that he held
in his arms, the Christ child, was a light to lighten the Gentiles,
and he was the glory of thy people Israel. And Joseph and his mother, hearing
these things, marveled at those things which were spoken of him. And Simeon blessed them and said
unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall
and rising again of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be
spoken against. Yea, and a sword shall pierce
through thine own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts may
be revealed. break these verses down into
three categories this morning, three areas for us to think about
and hopefully be enabled of God to see and worship Him from these
things. So let's begin here concerning
these words that old Simeon spoke. And the first thing I want you
to see here is that what he spoke, they consider to be a marvelous
thing. They marveled at what this man
said. They looked upon this old man,
a complete stranger to them. They didn't know Simeon from
man and moon. And he's holding up their son,
Jesus, and he's saying things that they'd only heard from a
privileged few. She had heard these things from
an angel. God sent her an angel to declare
that she would be that she would bear the Christ child and what
to call him, call his name Jesus. She heard that from an angel.
And then she was visited by some shepherds that the angel of God
came out and told about the Christ child and then the whole heavenly
host joined in to sing about his glory, this glorious appearance
of the promised redeemer. So she had heard something. She'd
heard some things. But here's a man standing here
holding up this little baby and saying things that they'd only
heard by just a privileged few. And it is indeed a marvelous
thing that any man, any woman, any angel should know and speak
of the will of God. Huh? Don't you find that a marvelous
thing? "'Cause I have not seen, nor
ear heard, "'neither have entered into the heart of man the things
"'which God hath prepared for them that love him. "'But God
hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. "'The Spirit searcheth
all things, yea, the deep things of God.'" And it's a marvelous
thing that any man, any woman, any angel should know and speak
concerning the will of God. Isn't that something? God has
made known his will. How'd he do it? Through men.
Through men. In 1 Corinthians chapter two,
verse seven, Paul said, but we speak the wisdom of God in a
mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the
world under our glory. And then in Ephesians 3, 8, he
said, unto me who am less than the least of all saints is this
grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable
riches of Christ. Paul considered these things
to be a marvelous thing, a glorious thing, and him to be the least
of the saints. and God to grant such things
unto him. And here was one in this temple
who could have said the same thing. It's a marvelous thing
that any man, any woman, any angel should know and speak the
will of God. And it was equally marvelous
that this stranger was in harmony with both the angel's message
and the shepherd's message, and the message given to her by her
cousin, who's the mother of John the Baptist. She prophesied to
Mary. So Mary had several witnesses. And it was even more marvelous
that Simeon's word surpassed the word of the angels. His word
surpassed the word of the shepherds. His word surpassed the mother
of John the Baptist. Here's a stranger. She'd never
met him, never saw him. He was just there in the temple
and the Holy Ghost had had led him there, and the Holy Ghost
was upon him. And he revealed to him that he
should not see death, though he'd seen the Lord's Christ.
And so here's this old man, he's waiting in the temple, and they
come in to do after their child Jesus, after the manner of the
law, and they brought him into the temple. And this old man
came over and took him up in his arms, And he began to speak,
Russell, began to talk. This is a baby. This is a baby. You know, we sit here and argue
over points of doctrine. I listen to men and they argue
and argue and argue over points of doctrine, this, that, and
the other. And I'm not saying that doctrine is unimportant.
But arguing over doctrine ain't going to do anything for you.
You have to know what this doctrine is about. And this doctrine is
the doctrine of Christ. And if it don't reveal Christ,
if it don't declare Christ, it hasn't done you any good. And
that's why I refuse to argue about it. I'll sit up here, and
to the best of my knowledge, I'm going to tell you what I
believe, and I'm going to tell you every week. I'm trying to show
it to you in the word of God. Maybe God will reveal it to you,
maybe he won't. Maybe you'll be one of them,
argue, argue, argue over this, that, and the next thing. It was marvelous that Simeon's
words surpassed what she and her husband had already heard.
This man, whom they'd never met, holding up their firstborn son
and talking to them about the future of Israel. Now picture
this. He's holding up a baby. Just
a baby. And he's holding it there in
his arms and he's looking at it and the tears are running
down his face. I know they were. Just at the
bare revelation of Christ, I just bawled. I mean, it so overwhelmed
me. But here he is, and he's holding
a Christ child in his arms. And he's talking to them about
the future of Israel. No wonder they marveled at his
words. He's talking to them about the
future of Israel and the calling of the Gentiles. He should be
a light unto the Gentiles. Nobody up until that point had
even considered such a thing. No Jew, no Pharisee, no studier
of the scripture had ever even conceived anything like the calling
of the Gentiles. But here's this old man and he's
looking at this baby and he's talking about this baby being
the light of the Gentiles, Russell. And then he talks about him being
a mysterious sign which should be spoken against. What in the
world is that? Well, Jesus Christ is a sign
of God's everlasting love. Herein is love, not that you
loved him, but that he loved you. And his father sent him
here to save our souls. That's love. He's sent here for
a sign of God. When he was born, what'd those
angels say? Peace on earth. Not peace to everybody, but peace
on earth. There's gonna be peace. He made
peace. He is our peace. He's a sign
of God's everlasting love, of God's favor, of God's will, and
his saving provision for his people. He's the greatest proof,
evidence, and demonstration of these things, but nevertheless,
he'd be spoken against. And that's something. He never
sinned. Which one of you accuses me of sinning? They couldn't accuse him of sinning
because he didn't sin. They couldn't accuse him of anything
except being an intruder or an imposter. And they did that not
because of the Word of God, but because of their own feelings.
their own deceit. He's the greatest proof, evidence,
and demonstration of these things, but nevertheless he'd be spoken
against, despised, and rejected of men. Goodwill toward men. That's what the angel said at
his birth. Goodwill. Goodwill. The will
of God. And there's only one will that
I know of, and that's God's redemptive will. That's the will of God. He said, I come not to do my
own will, but the will of him that sent me, and this is the
will of my father which has sent me, that of all which he hath
given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the
last day. God's revealed that to us, Winston. That's good will,
good will from God. It's a sign given at his coming
into the world, but not so by the world, and especially by
the self-righteous Jews. They despised him. They heard
Simeon say what even the angel wouldn't say, and they heard
him, believed him, and rejoiced in his words. They marveled.
They said marveled as he spoke. Now Simeon, he was just a man,
but he was a man who came by the Spirit of God. He was led
there by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God was upon him,
the scripture says, this old man. And back in Luke 2.25, it
says that the Holy Ghost was upon him. And they marveled that
he saw all these gracious and wonderful things in this child. And I found it a marvelous thing.
The first time I ever heard these things from a man, and I wondered
at the harmony of what this man was saying with the Word of God.
Things that I'd read for years didn't mean anything to me. All
of a sudden, I hear a man speaking, and those things that I'd read,
and those things that he was speaking was in perfect harmony,
one with another. One thing I've learned being
a father of four children. You can't hold that little baby
up, Walter, and prophesy what it's gonna be. Now I'm telling
you, you do that, you'll be disappointed. You can hope. You can hope for
what it might be. You can hope for what the Lord
may do for it, but you can't prophesy it. But this man did. Wasn't his child, but that little
baby he held up, he prophesied. and he was right on the button.
God has revealed these precious things unto us by His Spirit
concerning Christ, even before His incarnation, even before
His entering into this world. And in fact, even now as our
ascended Lord, we see Him. And that's what Simeon saw. He
saw what he knew beforehand about the Christ. He saw what he was
holding in his arms and he foresaw the future of the Christ because
it was all declared to him in the Word of God. And the Spirit
of God made him to understand it. And they marveled. Now listen at those things which
were spoken of him. It didn't say they marveled at
the angel. when he came, nor of the shepherds
who came bearing gifts and paying homage to the Christ child. But
they marveled at Simeon. And the thing that they marveled
at is what he said, what he said. And preaching to me for years,
it wasn't an unusual activity when I was going to church. I
saw nothing of God in it. I saw nothing of God about it.
It was kind of a superstitious thing. That's what it was. It was a superstitious thing.
It was just a man talking, and he's talking about the Bible,
and he's talking about heaven, and he's talking about hell.
He's talking about right and wrong. He's talking about morality
and immorality. He's talking about a lot of things,
but there's no gospel in it. There's nothing in it to marvel
at. And I'm telling you this, in
this world, there's nothing here to marvel at except Christ. You can marvel at him. He commanded
and creation came to be. And he commanded and it stood
fast. Huh? Do we marvel at that? There's
a man in glory that created all that. And the woman he created
was the means for him to come into this world. And that's all. Most of what I heard men preach,
I'd heard a thousand times growing up. And though you couldn't get
them to admit it, I think most of us viewed listening on Sundays
to be a sacrifice. That's why we went. We wanted
to sacrifice the day and so we'd go and show up and listen to
a man preach and sing the hymns and listen to him pray and then
we'd go home. That was our sacrifice. We'd sacrifice the day or the
morning. We'd sacrifice those When God
opens the mind and heart to hear and to see and the spirit to
confirm in us those great truths, what a marvelous thing it is.
It's not a sacrifice anymore. I was here an hour and a half
earlier this morning. Partly because my clock died.
But I was anxious to be here. Aren't you on Sunday? I'm anxious
to be here. Maybe the Lord will speak to
us. Maybe he will. He spoke through Simeon. He's no different than us. Maybe
God will speak to us. Maybe he'll tell us something. And then here's the second thing
I want us to see concerning the words of Simeon. God the Holy
Spirit says in verse 34, and Simeon blessed them and said,
Now Simeon wasn't a priest. He didn't come out here and say,
we'll bless you. That's not what this is saying.
He's saying that he blessed them with what he said. That's what
he's talking about. Simeon blessed them and said,
and I'm gonna tell you something. If God is pleased to send a man
your way with a message concerning his son, God calls it a blessing. And if he enables you to hear,
that's what you'll call it, a blessing. Without the means God has ordained,
no man can save himself. Listen to me. The scripture says,
faith cometh by hearing. It doesn't come because you're
determined to have it, It doesn't come because you made a decision
to do this or that. You made a decision, well, I'm
going to believe. That's not how you get it. Faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. A man stands
up, he preaches to you, and then he shows you in the scripture
why he said what he said. Faith cometh by hearing. hearing
by the word of God. Without the means God has ordained,
no man can hear and no man can say themself. We're all shut
up to the will and purpose of God and of his own will begat
he us with the word of truth. That's how it happens. And preachers
are not sent to curse, preachers are sent to bless. They can be a curse, But that's
not why he sent them. That's not why he sent them.
Scripture said, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach
the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things.
And to disregard these things, to ignore these things, to treat
these things with indifference is a sure evidence of condemnation. Listen to what our Lord said.
This is condemnation. Light has come into the world
and men love darkness rather than light. Their heart ain't in the light.
They don't hunger for the light. They don't look forward to the
light. They look forward to the darkness because their deeds
are evil. He that believeth not, the scripture
said, shall be damned. That's just so. He that believeth
not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth
on him. But that being said, he's sent
to be a blessing and he's always received by God's elect that
way, as a blessing. And what a blessed thing it is
to hear. Isn't that a blessed thing? My
soul, I spent years, years out in religion, years out in the
world. I didn't hear anything. Didn't
want to hear. Listen to this. John said, we
know that we are of God. Why? Because he could hear. He
could hear. He knew. Things had been revealed
to him. We know that we are of God. Now
listen, and the whole world. You take a few minutes and try
to get hold of the scope of that, the whole world lies in wickedness. Not just in the bars and brothels,
but in religion and worldly established approved longstanding religion.
My soul, the Jews have been Jews for thousands of years. Thousands
of years. And as the Jews were in the days
of Christ, so are many in the Baptist, Presbyterian, Pentecostal,
Methodist, and Catholic churches of our day. And I could go on
and on. Ignorant of the Christ of holy
scriptures, ignorant of the redemptive will of God, ignorant of the
fundamental doctrine of Christ. Totally ignorant. I invited a
man to go to church with me one evening. He said, why? Nobody
ever asked me that before. That was just kind of a gimme.
He said, why? And I said, well, we've got an
evangelist there. Well, what's he do? I said, he
preaches the gospel. He said, you wouldn't know the
gospel if you met it in the middle of the road. I said, what do
you mean I don't know the gospel? He said, well, if you know it,
what is it? And for the first time in my
life, I realized I didn't know the gospel. When I talk about these things,
how precious does true preaching become to me and hearing. They were blessed with the words
of a man sent from God, one who knew who their son was and knew
who they were and knew the will of God concerning all men and
concerning him. This old Simeon, having embraced
the Lord, he begins to preach and they all marvel at what he
says. They find his words to be a blessing. Words, I tell you, words made
me weary. And they still do when they have
no end. I get weary. They lay no foundation,
no basis in the word of God, and they had no Christ in them.
And when they had no Christ in them, they can't bless anybody.
They're just words. And then lastly, old Simeon's
sermon had a word of instruction. He said unto Mary, verse 34,
behold, this child is set for the fall and the rising again
of many in Israel and for a sign which shall be spoken against. Yea, and a sword shall pierce
through thine own soul also that the thoughts of many hearts may
be revealed. And ever since God went in and
with a high hand delivered Israel out of Egypt, grounded Pharaoh and his whole
army in the Red Sea, ever since those things have taken place,
this world has considered Israel, the Jews, to be God's elect,
His chosen people. You can ask just about any politician,
you can ask Anybody, anywhere, you think the Jews are God's
chosen people? Well, yeah, that's what the Bible
says. They've been called and regarded
by most as the elect of God, and God's chosen people, His
covenant people, God's children and heirs, this is what they
believe. And this superstition is still
alive today and still affecting how other nations deal with Israel. But here God's messenger says
of Christ that he is set for the fall and rising again of
many in Israel. What fall? What rising? What in the world is he talking
about? Let me say first there's a nation called Israel who were
gathered together of God to be a nation to be typical of God's
elect, a picture of God's elect. And Paul prays for his kinsmen,
the Jews, that they might be saved and that their rejection
of Christ, he says, did not make the word
of God without effect. Just because they rejected him,
that doesn't make the word of God. For he said, they are not
all Israel, which are of Israel, or Jacob. Neither because they
are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but in Isaac shall
thy seed be called. That is, through the promised
seed, the promised son. And then he goes on to say, that
is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the
children of God. This is not God's elect. but the children of the promise
are counted for the seed. And in Galatians 3.29, he said,
and if you be Christ, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs
according to the promise. In Romans 2.28, he said, he's
not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision,
which is outward in the flesh, But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart and the spirit,
not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. This
is the true Jew. And Jesus Christ was sent for
the fall, and rising again of many in the nation of Israel. Most of the old writers say these
are different men. The ones who fail were the Pharisees
and Sadducees and the priests. They'd fall from their covenant
standing, having rejected the Son of God, the Messiah. And
then others, like Peter, James, and John, who were Jews, his
disciples, he rose. He raised them to become members
of God's spiritual Israel. And that might be how it's designed.
But also it might have this application to every saint's experience of
grace, seeing he himself was fallen in Adam. He reveals to
him who he really is, who he really is regardless of whether
he's circumcised or not, regardless of whether he's a Jew or not.
His real standing is in his father Adam who fell, who fell. and brought this curse
upon the human race. God makes him to see that he
failed in his father Adam, that he's an alien of the commonwealth
of Israel, but raised up in Christ their head to become the true
Israel of God. And to marry his blessed mother,
Simeon says this, Not only is he set for the fall and rising
again of many in Israel, but a sword's going to pierce your
heart too. You're not going to escape these
things. A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.
And it's going to do that that the thoughts of many hearts may
be revealed. And this sword to me is all the
contempt and slander and immoral things said about her son. He
was despised and rejected of men. They hunted for him when
he was a baby to put him to death and put to death thousands trying
to find him and get rid of him. You think about the contempt
and the slander and the moral things that were said about her
son and said about her conception, which was out of wedlock. And this sword is all the shame
and the mocking and despising of her son. but especially of
his suffering and death on the cross. And what a blessed sermon
was this sermon by old Simeon. And the blessing of those words
which he said to Mary and Joseph that they might be prepared for
what was to come. And here's why. That the thoughts
of many hearts might be revealed. Some by their actions. Some by
their actions. Some by their thoughts. Revealed
to be hypocrites, blind, enemies of God, children of perdition.
And yet many by their faith and love for him were revealed as
true believers and saints of God. Not everybody that saw her
weep at the cross was affected by it in a positive way. Some
of them laughed. They laughed at him while he
died on the cross. What do you think that would
do to a loving mother? Oh, my soul. And it reveals our
hearts, too. All this negative stuff about
Christ, it all affects our thoughts and our hearts, too. We're either
gonna see it and rejoice in it, or we're gonna do the same thing
they did, laugh at it and mock it. All right, thank you.