Okay, so we're coming to this
passage that we read earlier in Matthew chapter four. Preaching
the gospel is what I've called it. We've seen Jesus come from
obscurity after 28 years of obscurity, and he comes to be baptized of
John the Baptist in the River Jordan to fulfill all righteousness. And then immediately he's taken
into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. That's where God
put him. because he is the one who must be shown to be the righteous
savior. He's the one who must be shown
to be the fitting Passover lamb for his people. And he goes and
he withstands that assault from Satan in the wilderness. But
then we read in verse 12 of chapter 4, that after this, when Jesus
had heard that John was cast into prison. Now that's some
time later. That's possibly as much as a
year later than the end of the temptation. Because we know that
because of what the other gospel accounts tell us. You know there
are four gospel accounts. This, in the purposes of God,
It's perfectly right. It's not right that one should
write every single detail. There are four different perspectives. There are four different views
of the same Christ and His gospel, from different angles. Four gospel
accounts of the life, and the ministry, and the death, and
the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ. And you know
these accounts are not just a historical account, like a novel might be
a historical novel. No, they're to demonstrate that
Jesus Christ, this one born as a baby in Bethlehem just over
2,000 years ago, of Mary the Virgin, espoused to Joseph, to
demonstrate that this man is God made man. And why is it God made man? Why
is He God made man? To save His people from their
sins, because that was His name, Jesus, for He shall save His
people from their sins, exactly as was promised throughout the
Old Testament. Now, you might say, why is that
relevant to me? Why is it relevant to me? What's
it got to do with me? Is it not just a story like any
other story, like any other novel that I might pick up and read
and say, oh, that's an interesting thing? No, no, no. The reason
why it's relevant to me is because to know Him, to know this One,
it's not just to know about Him, to know Him, and to trust as
revealed by God's Spirit to your soul, to trust that He has paid
your sin debt, is to be assured of eternal life. We live in a
world of death. Death is all around us. We know
that it is one of the certainties of life that we will die, sooner
or later. We're all going to die. And as
you get older, you become more and more conscious of the fact
that you're nearing that time when you will die. But to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust in Him, to have faith given
to you to see that in Him is the one who paid all your sin
debt before the justice of God is to be assured of eternal life. In a world of fear and of death,
what a blessing it is to be assured of eternal life. As John writes
in his first epistle, in verse 13, these things have I written
unto you, John, one of the writers of one of the Gospels. I have
written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God. Why,
John, why have you written? That you may know that you have
eternal life. and that you may believe on the
name of the Son of God. And then in verse 20, And we
know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding,
that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that
is true, even in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God
and eternal life. You see, it's not just of academic
interest, it's of personal, eternal, life-giving interest. To know
Him is to be released from condemnation. For as Paul writes under Holy
Spirit inspiration, there is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because He has borne the
condemnation in their place. To be outside of Him To have
no interest in Him, as the world all around us appears, is to
be a sinner without Christ and without hope in this world. It
is to be eternally lost. What a dreadful condition to
be in. to be eternally lost on the broad
way that leads to eternal destruction. What is that eternal destruction?
It is hell. It is absence from God for eternity. It is outside of time, but a
state that never ends under divine condemnation. Now, if God gives
you faith to believe, and to grasp who Christ is and what
He has accomplished, as we read these accounts of His coming
and of His life in the Gospels, if God gives you faith to believe
and grasp who Christ is and what He has accomplished, then that
is like you coming out of darkness into marvellous light. darkness
into light. It's a state of death, spiritual
death. God said to Adam, in the day
that you eat thereof you shall surely die. And he died, and
he died, and he died. One after another, those patriarchs.
But this is a state of death, spiritual death, to spiritual
life. It is a state of fear, because
to be without God and without hope in this world is to only
know the fear of death and the fear of judgment, for it is appointed
to man to die once, and then the judgment. And it is a state
of fear to a state of rejoicing. How often do the Scriptures tell
us, rejoice and be glad, rejoice! Rejoice greatly! Why? Because
Christ has accomplished the salvation of His people. John wrote in
his gospel, in the fourth gospel, John chapter 20 verse 31. Effectively he said, the gospel
accounts, he said these words that I've written are written,
but he meant the whole of the gospel accounts are written.
Why? That you might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God. Well, well, so what? I believe
that Henry VIII was a king of England at one stage, but what
does that do to me? No, You might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you might
have life through His name, eternal life. If you would be saved from
your sins to meet God when you die in the bliss of heavenly
glory, then I tell you, where will you go? To whom must you
go? There is no other name under
heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, is what Peter
said. He alone, as Jesus himself said,
is the only way to God. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. So let's see
first of all how the prophecy of the Old Testament was fulfilled
concerning this man who is the Christ of God. This man Jesus,
born 2,020 years ago, if our calendars are more or less correct,
born that long ago in Bethlehem in Judea in the days of Herod
the King, you know the gospel accounts as they're written,
that this one fulfilled the prophecy concerning the Messiah who would
come. He is unique. He's not a possible
candidate, he's the only candidate by a million miles that fits
the bill. He is the fulfillment of Old
Testament prophecy. You see, this is maybe, as I
said, a year after the temptation episode, and he'd heard that
John was cast into prison. And leaving Nazareth, he came
and dwelt in Capernaum, on the shores of Galilee. Nazareth was
some 15 or 20 miles away from Capernaum, inland. And he came
and dwelt upon the sea coast in Capernaum, in the borders
of Zebulun and Nethilim. that it might be fulfilled. Everything
he did was that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah, Isaiah
the prophet, saying, Zebulun and the way of Nephthilim, by
the way of the sea beyond Jordan, you see up north of Jordan, Jordan
flows from Galilee down into the Dead Sea, but this is beyond
Jordan. Capernaum was on the northwest coast of Galilee, beyond
Jordan, in Galilee of the Jews. No, no, it doesn't say that,
does it? It says Galilee of the Gentiles. Why is it Galilee of
the Gentiles? Because the Jewish peoples there
of the northern tribes had become so intermingled with the heathen
Gentile races all around them, that it's acquired the name of
Galilee of the Gentiles. Here are mixed mongrel peoples. Here are not the pure Jews. Now,
how do we know it's probably a year after the temptation?
The other Gospels recall various events that happened before John
was put into prison by Herod. The calling of the first disciples.
The marriage at Cana of Galilee when Jesus turned water into
wine in John chapter 2. The Passover where he went and
he turned all the money changers now to the temple with the scourge
that he'd made, that's in John chapter 2. The meeting with Nicodemus
in John chapter 3. He then has to go from Judea
back to Galilee and the way takes him through Samaria and in John
chapter 4 he meets the Samaritan woman. And then, I'm not sure
exactly of the details, but he goes to Nazareth. And in Nazareth,
the account in Luke chapter 4, where he goes to the synagogue,
in the little town in which he was brought up as the carpenter's
son. And they're all looking at him. You know, a prophet is
not accepted in his own country. You know, he'll be listened to
everywhere, but in his own country, they know who he is. There's
no respect for him, he's that little kid from the carpenter's
shop. Why should we listen to him? We know who he is, we know
his brothers and sisters, and his mum and dad, and all that
sort of thing. And they gave him the scroll of the prophet
Isaiah, and he read to them, Isaiah 61 and the opening verses. You know, the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach the gospel of...
You read it, first few verses of Isaiah, and in Luke chapter
4, he recounts that, and he reads it there. Matthew picks up the account
at Capernaum, when, because he's been rejected at Nazareth, he's
left Nazareth, and he's gone to Capernaum. You know, they
tried to kill him at Nazareth, but he's gone to Capernaum. Now
read Isaiah 9 and verses 1 and 2 with me. I'll read them for
you. because this is the prophecy about him coming to Capernaum.
Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation,
when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun
and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously
afflict her by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee
of the nations, the Gentile nations that is. The people that walked
in darkness have seen a great light. Why are those people of
that region, Capernaum, Naphtali, Zebulun, why have they seen a
great light? They're in spiritual darkness,
but Christ has come. The promised Messiah has come
among them. They've seen a great light. They
that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, That's where
they are, this world in which we live. People by nature, without
God and without hope in this world, we dwell in the land of
the shadow of death. Upon those in the land of the
shadow of death hath the light shined, the great light of the
truth of God. That's the prophecy which is
fulfilled. The Old Testament speaks throughout
of the seed of the woman who is coming, from Genesis 3.15.
And then in the days of Abraham, that seed is promised to Abraham. From you, Abraham, a seed will
come. Not seeds as of many, says Paul
to the Galatians, but the seed, the seed which is Christ. That
seed was Christ. The Christ, the promised Messiah,
will come from your loins, Abraham, And in that seed will not just
your physical descendants be blessed, Abraham, but all nations
of the earth will be blessed. And so it is that the gospel
is believed by people from every nation. For when John looks in
heaven and he sees that great multitude in heaven, he sees
a multitude that no man can number of every tribe and tongue and
kindred. The prophecy gives things to
look for when the Messiah comes to confirm that it's Him. It's
all ordained by God. It's all defined by the Word
of God, which is the inspired Word, written by many different
people, in many different times, but nevertheless the one Holy
Spirit inspires it, so the whole thing forms the Word of God. You will find, and those who
study the Word of God have found, and the more I study it, the
more I find, the more utterly, consistently, Together it is,
as one message of God. And things must happen as He
has said. Why? Because God ordains. Why does God know the end from
the beginning? Because God ordains the end before
things have started. What we see is the working out
of God's eternal purposes. It's the unscrolling of the seven-sealed
scroll. It is the blowing of the trumpets,
it is doing all of those things that God has said He will do.
It must happen exactly as He said, that there would be Galilee
of the Gentiles. where there would be a people
living in darkness of spiritual ignorance, of spiritual superstition,
of those who are stubbornly proud in their religious traditions
that they've picked up by intermingling bits and pieces from everywhere,
and blinded by the error that that brings. Because the wisdom
of man, the wisdom of man brings only spiritual error. and it's
the bondage of Satan's delusion. Why was Satan so successful before
Christ came? You know he was, you look at
world history. You look at the swathes of the
world where there was no influence whatsoever of the truth of God. We read it in Revelation chapter
20. We read how it was that the nations were deceived. Satan
was permitted to deceive the nations. There was only little
Israel. All of the great empires, the
Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonian, Chaldeans,
the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and everything that's
gone since, all of the outworking of all of those things, the great
monolithic empires of the world with no thought for the things
of the true God of Scripture was all because we read in Scripture
because of the delusion that Satan brought upon them and we
read that for a symbolical thousand years he was restrained that
he might not deceive the nations and that's when the gospel has
promised but has prospered But I believe the days in which we're
now living are Satan's little season. Again, you'll see it
in Revelation 20, when he is permitted to deceive the nations
once more. Because I must say that in my
lifetime, especially the last 30 years, we've never seen deception
on the scale of it. This is where we are. This world
is in darkness. And in the prophecy, it was the
people that walked in darkness, the people that lived in darkness,
lived their lives in darkness, but by the time we get to Matthew
4 verse 16, it's the people that sit in darkness. They're in a
settled state of darkness. They're living in the shadow
of death, the shadow of separation from the true God. separation
from the true God. And it's all because it was written
that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. This is the fulfillment of prophecy.
He came, and when he came, the people of that area who were
in spiritual darkness would see great spiritual light. Because
it was written, he came. And the signs of that spiritual
enlightenment accompanied what he said, and what he did, and
the response to it. Light. The light of the knowledge
of the glory of God. We read about it, Paul tells
us about it, you know it, I quote it often. God, who commanded
light to shine out of the darkness, in the beginning when he said,
let there be light, and there was light. has shined in our
hearts, the hearts of believers, to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We see the light
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean we need to
look at a picture of Jesus, it's speaking spiritually. It's in
all that the Lord Jesus Christ is, we see the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God. And it's the light of who Christ
is. as the Messiah, as the Son of
God, as the manifestation of the unknowable God. God dwells
in unapproachable light, but Christ, no man has seen God at
any time, says John. The only begotten Son who is
in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. He has manifested
Him. He has declared Him. What He
said and what He did, it's all the outworking of that which
was prophesied of the Messiah to come. And He enlightened,
with His words and His actions and His miracles, He enlightened
those that saw and heard Him. And of course, many, many, many
saw, but not all were likewise enlightened. These are unlikely
people, you know, these Galilee of the Gentiles inhabitants,
these people around here, they're very unlikely people. These are
not the purebred Jews of Judea and Jerusalem and the Pharisees
and the scribes and the temple rulers. and all of those things,
all of those peoples. They were the custodians of the
oracles of God. You know when Paul writes to
the Romans, he says, what profit is there in being a Jew? Much
every way, for to them was committed the oracles of God. But these
Gentiles in the north, at Capernaum and round there, they were not
the custodians of the oracles of God. They were not the spiritual
elite who were the rulers in the temple in Jerusalem. Do you
remember why, when Jesus came to Nazareth and read that passage
from Isaiah 61, why they got so mad with Him? Didn't they
believe the Word of God? Why did the people who were in
the synagogue to hear the Word of God, why did they get so mad
with Him when this one Jesus spoke? Well, If you remember
the story, Jesus had infuriated them in that synagogue in Nazareth
by reminding them that the grace of God is completely sovereign. He said to them, you know because
you said this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing in these days
and he told them about the time of Elijah and he said there were
many widows in Israel oh that's where God's going to do his work
isn't it among the widows of Israel surely yeah because they
are the pure race who are going to be the ones who have a passport
to heaven they're just by birth entitled to heaven And Jesus
said to them, do you know it was to one widow that God sent
Elijah? To the widow of Zarephath, the
Gentile, the non-Jew widow, to her, to keep her alive and show
her the salvation of God. And he said, not only that, but
in the days of Elisha, the prophet who followed on from Elijah,
there were many, many lepers in Israel. There were many Jews
who were lepers, who really would have benefited from being healed
by a miracle from God, but Elisha was not caused to encounter any
of them in that healing, saving way, but he was caused to come
across Naaman the Syrian, the Gentile commander of the army
of the enemies of Israel. To Naaman the Syrian was Elisha
sent in gospel grace to show him the truth of God. They were
objects of sovereign grace, and the fact that Jesus said salvation
is of the Lord because that is what he said. The fact that he
said it's not of him that wills nor of him that runs but of God
who shows mercy to whom he will have compassion, that infuriated
them and they tried to kill him and he escaped and he went to
Capernaum by the sea. And later in his ministry of
course we know the same thing happened again. It was the Syrophoenician
woman who was saved. She was the one who came looking
for healing and he said, you're a Gentile dog. I'm only sent
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she said, yes,
Lord, but even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from
the master's table. And she saw the light of the
glory, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of this one. She did, and she was saved. And
that light was great light. When Jesus came, it wasn't some
philosopher with some smart words and some clever conjuring tricks
to kid the people. That's what anybody that acknowledges
that there was a man called Jesus will probably tell you it was
some kind of psychological deception and a bit of conjuring tricks
to look like miracles. No, this was great light. It was inexplainable light. You couldn't rationalize it away. It was the light that Malachi,
the prophet, the last, sorry, the next to the last prophet
of the Old Testament. Who was the last prophet of the
Old Testament? John the Baptist. Malachi, the next to the last
one, 350 years before Christ came, said, the sun, S-U-N, that
big bright object in the sky, the sun of righteousness shall
arise with healing in his wings. In other words, when the Messiah
comes, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God will be so
shining bright it will be blinding like a sun compared with the
darkness that is naturally in us. In heaven, we read in Revelation
21-23 that there's no need for the sun, neither of the moon,
to shine in it. Why? For the glory of God did
lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. The light? How was the light manifested?
Just for the sake of the camera, I've got a very bright light
just over there, and I have to try and convince myself not to
be drawn to it, because it dazzles me. But it's just to make the
picture look more balanced on this side. The daylight's out
there, and so it makes it look unbalanced otherwise. But how
was the light that we're speaking of here manifested, made known? It was in the words that Christ
preached. In the words that he preached. His word is light and
life. It was in the grace and the mercy
that he displayed. It was in the miracles of authentication
where God showed that what this man said was the word of God. What this man did was the doing
of the will of his Father. And many were powerfully affected
by it. many actually saw heavenly light
shine and their lives were changed for a time and for eternity and
more so in our day for he said if i go not away i won't be able
to send the comforter to you but he has gone away and he has
sent the holy spirit and we have the holy spirit anointing the
preaching of his word and if you will hear the voice of God,
testify these truths and believe them, you shall be blessed with
the light of heavenly life. That's what this is telling us.
Secondly, I want us to see from this passage, preaching and preachers. In verse 17, Jesus began to preach
and to say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, exactly
as John the Baptist preached. You see, the darkness of this
world What's the cause of it? It's the result of deception
by the kingdom of Satan. It's antichrist falsehood all
around us. In everything we see, the word
of God, the truth of God, the righteousness of God is turned
on its head and cast aside. Spiritual lies are scattered
all around by this kingdom, and it leads to eternal death. People
are unable to see through it. People naturally just physically
cannot see through it. But the Kingdom of God is light. The Kingdom of God is righteousness
and peace and eternal bliss. The eternal bliss we're promised
of intimate communion between God and His people. That intimate
communion that again and again in the scriptures God says I
will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people. Intimate
communion with nothing in between. Our God is our High Priest. Our
God is our Prophet. Our God is our King in that Kingdom. And it is at hand. It is imminent. It is expected any time now,
and we know it will triumph. The Kingdom of God will triumph.
And darkened people, the people living in darkness in this world,
are pointed to it by what? What is it that points them to
it? Answer? It is preaching. What is preaching? Preaching is the declaration
of divine truth. It's exemplified by Jesus Christ,
who came preaching. He came preaching the kingdom
of God. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. There's no debate in the preaching
of Christ about what the light might be. There's no room for
debate in true preaching. Preaching is declaration. It's
a declaration of what God has said. What is it to preach the
kingdom of heaven? It is to declare the reality
of it. It is to declare the blessings
of it, and the necessary qualifications for entry into it, because you
know there are. You cannot breeze into it. There
shall nothing enter into it that defiles, nothing at all. What
must you have to enter the Kingdom of God? The Word of God tells
us. Pursue, follow holiness, without which no man shall see
the Lord. Do you have the holiness of God
that you need in order to see the Lord? Well, how much holiness?
As much as God has got. Do you have that holiness? If
you're honest, you will say you do not. Well, you cannot get
in. If you do not have that holiness, you cannot get in. Just like
we want to go to the United States later this year, we have to make
sure we have the passport in order, that we have the right
visa in order, that when we get to the entry point, they will
let us in. Because if we don't have those things, they will
not let us in. They'll put us on the next plane back. Think
of it like that. You must have the qualifications
to enter into heaven. And the qualification is the
holiness of God. We need the righteousness of
God. We need the payment. We need to be able to present
the statement that says, all outstanding debts to the justice
of God are perfectly paid. We need a new life within. We need a heavenly life. And
where do we get it? It's all accomplished in Christ
and those who are in eternal union with Him by the grace of
God. In John chapter 5 verse 24, Jesus
said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that hears my word and
believes on him that sent me has everlasting life and shall
not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life.
How do you come to know about it? It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save those that believe. There are those that
say, oh, I don't need a preacher, I can just work it out for myself.
That's not the way of God. The way of God is that it is
by the foolishness of preaching that people are saved. As Christ
the Master preached, so he calls servants to preach. He called,
here, Peter and Andrew, who were, I think they'd already been called
in one of the other Gospel accounts, but they were going about their
business. They'd already seen Jesus and been impressed, and
they were fishers, and it's quite right to be a believer and go
about your business. The majority do that. But, Jesus
said to them in verse 19, follow me, And I will make you fishers
of men. I will make you preachers. I
will make you those who cast the net of the gospel into the
sea to catch fish who are men. He calls his servants. What are
they? They're not like him because they're not holy. They're earthen
vessels. They're sinners. They're in their
flesh no better than anybody else. But within that, earthen
vessel, that old earthenware pot that's so fragile, is contained
heavenly treasure. Just the verse after where it
says, God has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, the next verse
is, and we have this treasure in earthen vessels. And those
that are burdened with it, with that treasure, are compelled
of God to preach it. As Paul said, And all that preach
know this. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians
9.16, Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel. I must preach
it. And when he got near the end
of his ministry in Acts 20.27, with the elders of Ephesus on
the beach at Miletus, he said, I have not shunned to declare
unto you the whole counsel of God. He had to do it. God had
given him the message. Fishers of men. Men called of
God. with irresistible power, because
when God calls you, you cannot resist, to be dedicated to the
task of preaching Christ alone. As Paul said, I determined not
to know anything else among you Corinthians than Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. For if you've done nothing other
than preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, you have declared
the whole counsel of God for Christ is the whole counsel of
God. You know, that preaching of the
gospel. A lot of people portray preaching a bit like fishing
with a line and a lure. You know, the fisherman who casts
his line with the lure on the hook, and his idea is to make
the fish want to grab the hook. That's not gospel preaching.
That's what they call the free offer of the gospel, trying to
entice people. It's not enticement. It's net
fishing. It's a net, not a line with a
lure on the end of it. The gospel is casting a net.
You know when Jesus came, after he was risen from the dead, before
he ascended to heaven, he came and he met them fishing. Peter
said, I don't know what to do, I'm going fishing. He was a fisherman.
And they fished all night long. Others went with him. They fished
all night long. They cast their nets when you
would expect to catch fish. And they caught not a one. And
Jesus came, the risen Lord Jesus Christ, and he said, Have you
caught anything? And they said, no, we've been
fishing all night. There's nothing here. And Jesus said, cast your
net on the other side of the boat. Well, go on then, because
you say it will do it. And they did it. Do you know
it nearly sank the boat? There were so many fish. Because
it's all in the sovereignty of God. Is that not a picture of
true gospel preaching? It's not an enticement. It's
a net. It's the declaration of God's
truth and God's Holy Spirit orders. the catch of fish for those fishermen. So, it's only those who are called
by Christ. Only He is His people's righteousness. There's no contribution whatever
from themselves. And preaching The preaching of
the truth, yes, it encourages conformity to gospel precepts,
but it's never a thing we do to make us more acceptable with
God. We don't ever do things to sow the filthy rags of our
own self-righteousness. on the seamless garment of the
salvation that Christ has accomplished for his people. Preaching and
preachers then. And as I've just said about the
fish being drawn into the net, there were followers that were
drawn, and we'll be very quick. There followed him, verse 25,
great multitudes of people from Galilee and from Decapolis and
from Jerusalem, all over, great multitudes, who'd come with mixed
motives, no doubt. There was a popular excitement
around. there were those that you might
call the miracle junkies who were just going around chasing
after this man who was performing miracles. Why did he perform
miracles? Firstly, to fulfill prophecy
that said when Messiah comes he'll perform miracles to show
it's Messiah. Secondly, to display mercy and
grace and compassion for those afflicted by sin. That's why
to display mercy and grace. And thirdly, to authenticate,
to prove as true the message that Jesus preached concerning
the kingdom of God. Now many, no doubt, followed
because of herd mentality. You know, the Broadway, with
loads of people going along it, don't get any comfort from the
numbers of people. Herd mentality is not a reason
for a pat on the back that you're doing the right thing. But above
all, those who came to Him truly were those who were enlightened
with the truth of gospel grace by the Holy Spirit in His sovereign
grace. You know, like the parable of
the sower. There were all sorts that appeared to be the true
seed growing in the true ground for a while, but then they fell
away. But, praise God, there were some, always some, good
ground followers. And when most fell away and returned
to the broadway, God had his little flock even there, who
continued to the end. It was only ever a little flock,
as we know from the numbers while they were waiting on the day
of Pentecost. No doubt, There were many Gentiles there too
who believed because why? God so loved the world of Gentiles,
not just Jews that He gave His only begotten Son. I wonder what
you would have done had you been there to hear Jesus preach? And what is your response now
to that same message when you hear the true gospel of grace
and salvation accomplished, preached? Will you believe the Son of God
concerning His kingdom? You say, I would like to, but
I can't. You know that man. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Amen.