If you will, turn back with me
now to the book of Luke. And before I get to my text,
I want to give you a brief summary of the things that led up to
this fourth chapter. First of all, there was a 400-year, a 400-year space between the
Old Testament prophecies and the beginning of Luke's gospel. 400 years. God left him with
these words spoken by Malachi, his prophet. He said, Behold,
this is the last thing God said to him, to his prophet. He said,
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet. before the coming
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, before the Lord
appears, before he appears on this earth, this one that's been
promised and prophesied and pictured throughout the Old Testament.
Before he comes, I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet.
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and
the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and
smite the earth with a curse. And God put up that pen of inspiration
and he never said another word for 400 years. Now to give you some idea how
long a time that was, our King James Version of the Bible, it
was written in 1611, a little more than 400 years ago. That's how long God went. You
think how many generations of men and women were born and died
during that time. Jamestown, Virginia. Some of
you have been off on vacation up in Virginia and you went down
to Jamestown to see that little colony that was established there
in Jamestown. It was established in 1607, about
400 years ago. Now the priesthood and the sacrifices,
they went right on. People continued to meet, people
continued to assemble themselves in the synagogues, to bring the
sacrifices to the priesthood, and they met and they worshipped
God, but there were no prophets chosen or sent of God until the
coming of John the Baptist. When God finally broke the silence,
it was to announce the coming of the forerunner of Christ.
First thing he said when he broke the silence. John the Baptist was about to
appear on the scene. Now the real significance of
John the Baptist is that he being the prophet of God would prepare
the hearts and minds of the people for the Lord's coming so that
they'd know who he is that's coming, and why he came, and
what he was going to do, that he must die and that God must
raise him from the dead. That's what John the Baptist
preached, same thing I preach. He was sent so that they would
make the path straight. The announcement of John the
Baptist and the virgin-born Son of God was of such a magnitude
that God sent Gabriel himself to announce it. The coming of Jesus Christ into
this world was so great an event that time itself, God in his
providence arranged time itself to hinge on that appearance.
You think about it. And I said all that so when you
children see these manger scenes that people put out in their
front yard and that little baby cradled up inside there, you'll
have some sense of what actually happened. This was the Son of
God coming into this world. His birth, the birth of Jesus
of Nazareth is the beginning of this promised redemption which
God had foretold from the beginning. Every promise, every prophecy,
every picture and type of this coming Redeemer is evidenced
in that tiny babe lying there in Bethlehem's manger. This is
God come into the flesh, made of a woman, made under the law
as a redeemer, made to redeem them that were under the law.
There was an old man, name was Simeon, and God told him, he
was a devout man, he worshipped God, and he was careful how he
worshipped. And the Holy Spirit came to Simeon
and told him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord's
Christ. And old Simeon would go down
to that temple every day. And boy, he'd watch. He'd watch
when them young mothers brought them babes in. He'd watch and
look. Who is that? Who's his parents? He watched. He wasn't going to
see death, Walter, until he saw the Lord Christ. He was going
to see him with his own eye. And old Simeon looked. He looked. And some time went by, and one
day, here come Mary and Joseph. They had this little baby, eight
days old. Brought him down to the temple.
to do for him after the custom of the law and to offer him unto
the Lord. And old Simeon looked, and he saw who he was. He saw who he was. And he went
over there and he said, do you care if I pick this child up?
Actually, it don't even say that he asked. He just said he took
him up in his arms. And he looked at him and he said,
now I've seen thy salvation. I can go ahead and leave now.
I can die now. I've seen thy salvation. He didn't talk about seeing him
who was going to accomplish salvation, although he would. He said, I've
seen thy salvation. Salvation was in that tiny bag. And there's so many other things
that had taken place during this time. I encourage you to read
these Gospels and read them slowly and carefully and think about
what it is you're reading. But time's not going to allow
me to talk about all those things. But some 30 years had transpired
between chapter 1 and chapter 4. See, when they're telling these
things, they're not filling in all the blanks. They're just
telling you how he was born, when he was born, who his parents
were, and so on. And they come down now. We're
down here. He's 30 years old when we come
to our text. So some 30 years had transpired.
He worked in Nazareth in his father's carpenter shop. Paul
Mahan and I were talking about that. He said, can you imagine?
A man with a perfect mind and perfect submission. How good
a carpenter he was. Huh? How careful he was. Oh my, so this, this Nazareth
is where he was raised. Spent most of his young life
there in Nazareth. And these people knew him. Some 30 years had transpired.
And now all of a sudden, he comes along and John the Baptist sees
him and he says, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin
of the world. And the heavenly dove came down
from above, evidence of the Holy Spirit. And he was endowed with
the Holy Spirit without measure. So when it says he was full of
the Holy Spirit, literally means he was full, he had the Spirit
without measure. And then he was tempted of Satan
during all that time and then afterwards he went to Galilee. After his temptation he began
his ministry in Galilee. And he went out there and he
preached and he walked their streets and his fame just went
abroad. The healing of different ones
with different diseases and the gospel he preached and how he
was able to open the scriptures to them and his fame just went
abroad. And then in the providence of
God, he was brought back to his hometown of Nazareth. And as
his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath
day and stood up for to read, Luke chapter four, verse 17. I don't know when the one standing
up to read or somebody just handed him the old scroll or if he called
for a certain scroll. I like to think that he called
for it on purpose. Whoever it was that was about
to read, sometimes I'll ask some of you to read and you'll go
through here and you'll carefully select the scripture and you'll
come up here and read it. But here it says, there was delivered
unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he'd opened
the book, he found the place where it was written. He was
looking for a specific text. And he turned to it, Isaiah chapter
61. Now there wasn't chapters and
verses back then in the scroll, it was just, but he found a place
where it was written. And the place in our Bible is
Isaiah 61.1. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because. Now that's the title of my message
this morning. Because. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because... And if you read Isaiah 61, you'll
see that this is clearly a messianic prophecy. He's not just talking
here about something obscure. He's talking about the Messiah,
the coming of the Messiah. And as our Lord speaks of the
Spirit of the Lord being upon Him, He's talking about possessing
that Spirit without measure. having a divine understanding
and wisdom and direction and power to accomplish all that
the Lord had given him to do. This was not just another man. This is God and man in one person. And he's the one of whom Isaiah
is writing. Now this morning I'm just going
to let the text stand as it is for my outline and just make
some comments on it as we go. He said, the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. Now I want you just to think
about this for a minute. After 400 years of allowing men
to teach men And the introduction, anything
you turn over to a man, he begins to introduce things into it.
So you think with me about the introduction of this little error
and that. Of this little compromise and
that. Of this little ceremony and that. You just try to imagine with
me this morning what kind of a gospel must they have had when
our Lord appeared on the scene. The truth of the gospel was so
corrupted and so deluded that the forerunner must be sent before
our Lord came to actually preach. He had to send his forerunner
so people would even know who he was. And even after that, they didn't
know who he was. I doubt our generation, if the
Lord Jesus Christ was to appear here today and go up and down
the land and enter into one of these churches down here, I doubt
that they'd know who he is. He'd have to tell them. Now that's how sorry their gospel
was. And I'm going to tell you something.
False prophets love a foggy gospel. It was foggy coming up here this
morning. And I was thanking to myself when I wrote these notes.
False prophets love a foggy gospel. They do. They love it that way.
They don't mind having loose ends, Winston. They can have
some loose ends. They like it. Some unanswered questions. And they don't really care if
they have a scriptural foundation. That's what one man told one
of our men one day. He said, I don't care what the
Word of God says. Oh, you don't? They don't either. They don't. They don't care if
they have a scriptural foundation for what they're preaching so
long as the people are in agreement with it and like it. They don't say what they say
and do what they do because of the Word of God. They do it and
say it to be seen and heard of men. That's what our Lord said. Men pleasers. Paul said, serve
the Lord. Not with eye service as men pleasers,
but as servants of Christ. That's how you serve the Lord. Look around you today and listen
to what men are trying to pass over on our generation as the
gospel. Nothing in it of the glory of
God, nothing. It's a health and welfare gospel. It's a plan to have a successful
life. There's nothing in it. What about
the glory of God? What about God's justice and
holiness and truth? And His mercy and His grace?
What about the glory of God? Where's that at? Nothing in it of the necessity
of Christ. Christ is just a piece of the
puzzle. Nothing in it of the Word of
God. My soul, you could quote scriptures to the average preacher
out here and he wouldn't know whether it's in the Word of God
or not. Nothing in it of an Old Testament
foundation. What about the types? My soul, if you was to take one
of the sacrifices or the burnt offering, if you was to take
any of those old types and pictures out of the Old Testament and
try to make what they're preaching today fit that type, it wouldn't
fit. It'd be like trying to drive
a square pig in a round hole. It just wouldn't fit. Well, what are you saying? I'm
saying there is no gospel in their gospel. That's what I'm
saying. And our Lord came on the scene and he said, I've been
filled with the fullness of the Spirit of God to preach the gospel. Who you gonna preach it to, Lord? The poor. The poor. Jesus Christ himself is the gospel. There's no good news apart from
Christ. You know, Jesus said to his hearers
over in John 6, 38, he said, for I came down from heaven,
not to do my own will, but the will of my Father that sent me. And this is my Father's will
which has sent me, that of all which he has given me, I should
lose nothing. So when I read these words, I
must understand, as I read, even here in Luke's gospel that
it is the will of the Father that his gospel be preached to
the poor. I know that because this is God
come into the flesh and he said he was filled with the Spirit
of God to do that. And he's not talking about people
who are financially destitute. He's talking about people poor
in spirit. poor in nature, bankrupt beggars,
blind, sitting there in their darkness, awaiting for the gospel
of Christ to be sent to them. And, oh, I'm poor in my understanding. Do you understand what you're
reading? He said to the eunuch, and he said, how can I? You believe you was born and
endowed with some kind of spiritual understanding? No, you got to
be born of God. Otherwise, you can't perceive
the kingdom of God. I'm poor in understanding. I
need a man endowed with the spirit of God to be able to teach me
and enable me to understand what he's saying. And he's talking about the poor
in attitude. Let me tell you something, the
spirit of the living God, before he sows his seed, breaks up the
phallogram. He plows it. He tears it up. He busts it up
and loosens it up to where it'll receive the seed. And then secondly, also here
in Luke chapter 4, verse 18, he said, he sent me to heal the
brokenhearted. When I was about 14, going to
a little Nazarene church, we got a new pastor. And he had
a daughter my age, maybe a year younger. And boy, I fell in love
with that little girl. I did. I was 14 years old, didn't
know what love was, didn't know much about anything. But I fell
for that girl, and I just thought the sun rose and set on her. I did. Boy, I thought she was
something. I could never see myself ever
having an interest in anybody else forever. 14 years old. Problem was, she didn't see me
that way. And I wouldn't quit calling her.
And one day she just told me flat out, I don't love you. I'm going to tell you something,
I was broken hearted. Everything that I thought was
a certain way wasn't that way. Now when he's talking about healing
the brokenhearted, that's what he's talking about. God comes
and this God that we love as a natural man and that we think
loves us, that whole bubble gets busted. All that righteousness
that we thought we were able to produce, that bubble gets
busted. All those things that we call
mistakes, God calls sin. And when we learn it was sin
against God, all of our sin, David said, I've sinned against
thee and thee only. I've done these things against
you. It breaks your heart. It breaks
your heart. And then he heals it. Huh? Then he heals it. That's what happens to men when
their religious bubbles get broken. They find out what they are by
nature. That all their so-called worship
is an abomination before God. All their so-called righteousnesses,
Isaiah said, were filthy rags. God strips them of all their
fleshly goodness and righteousness and strips them of all their
potential and ability and leaves them without excuse before a
holy God. Everything natural man has as
far as their affections and intentions and sacrifices to God are all
one-sided. And when you find that out, it leaves you broken-hearted.
But here in our text, he said, I've been sent of God to heal
the broken-hearted. And if you can find me a broken-hearted
sinner, I can't find one. But you find me a broken-hearted
sinner, a man that God has revealed to him what he is, and the power
of God's Spirit has convinced that man of sin, that that's
all he can do is sin. He's the sinner. He can't even pray because he
knows his prayers are full of sin. He's just a ball of sin. That's all he is. And he lies
there before God like that leper, filthy before God, and cries,
if you will, if you will. Every time that that happens,
the same answer will be given, I will. Why? Because that's why he sent.
That's why he sent. Paul said, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners of whom he said, I am Jesus. So you find me a brokenhearted
sinner, and I'll show you a man that God intends to heal with
his gospel. And then thirdly, still in verse
18, our Lord said, he has anointed me to preach deliverance to the
captives. Beloved, the natural man is in
captivity. He denies it. I denied it when
I was young. Ain't no chains on me. Those
Pharisees looked at our Lord in shock when he said that. And
they said, are you saying that we were born in sin? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm
saying. We come forth from the womb speaking
lies. We go astray as soon as we be
born. Huh? Oh, but you say he can read,
he can understand, he hears, he makes his decisions as he
goes along? Yep. He's free as a bird as far
as his chains will reach. I'm talking about the chains
of his nature. Just as far as those chains will reach, he's
free. He's free. But he can't go beyond
his nature. And his nature is sin. Are you with me? Do you understand
what I'm saying? Our Lord said, I come to preach
deliverance to the captives. That man who can't do anything
for himself, he's in captivity. He's down just like Israel down
there in Egypt. They're in captivity. You think
they could decide one day they're going to leave Egypt and just
walk out? Doesn't work that way, do you?
No, God had to send a deliverer. If you compare yourself with
other men and women, you may appear to be free, but that's
like a maggot on the carcass of a dead animal comparing himself
with other maggots. See, that's all we've ever known
is sin. All around us is sin. We're born in a world full of
sin. That's all we've ever known. We just look normal. But I'm
not talking about how we appear before men. I'm talking about
how we appear before God. We're in bondage to a fallen
nature. The Lord said to the Pharisees,
he said, you search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life. Who told them that? Their parents
did. Their rabbis did. Their teachers did. Their grandparents
did. You search the scriptures, for
in them you think you have eternal life. And they are they that
testify of me. But now watch this. But you won't
come to me that you might have life. Why not? Their natures
wouldn't allow them. Paul over in Romans chapter 3,
he said what advantage then had the Jew? He talked about the
Gentile and his idolatry, worshipping of snakes and all these things
and men. birds and four-footed beasts
and all them things. And then he starts out in chapter
two and he said, now don't think you're gonna slide because you're
doing the same thing they are in a different way. And he starts
to talk to them and then he gets over to chapter three and he
says, so what advantage then had the Jew over the Gentile? Well, he said much in every way.
They had the Word of God, they had the priesthood, they had
the types, they had the symbols, they had prophets, they had all
kinds of advantage. And so he works his way on down
and he said, so are we better than they because of this great
advantage that we have? We have the scriptures, the prophets,
we've been taught, we've seen all these things. Are we better
off than the Gentiles? No. In no wise. Why? Because I before proved
that we're all under sin. That's why. We're sinners by
nature. God has to, we must be born again. You say, well I'm here and I'm
understanding what you're saying. You must be born of God. If you
understand, because nobody else does. There's none that understandeth. That's what he said. Our Lord said he was anointed
to preach the gospel to poor sinners, heal the brokenhearted,
and preach deliverance to the captives. He's the deliverer. Christ is. But that's not all. Listen to this. He added this.
This is the fourth thing. And recovering of sight to the
blind. Well, you say, preacher, I'm
not blind. Well, men and women are not blind, naturally. Some
are, but most are not, naturally. I can see the wall, see what
color it is, the lights. I can see my notes, barely, but
I can still see them. He's talking about spiritual
blindness. Blindness to the glory of God.
The Son of God came into this world exactly as He was prophesied
to come. Of the exact tribe, in the exact
city, everything surrounding His birth and His life and His
death was foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures. Not only
foretold in plain language, but foreshadowed. The law having
a shadow of things to come. Not only in a foreshadowing,
but in patterns. These were patterns of things
in the heavens. And he came and men saw him and
they said, if thou be the Christ, what do you mean if? A virgin conceived and had a
child and you're saying, if you're the Son of God? A dead man lies there, been dead
for four days. He's stinking. They sealed him
up so they wouldn't have to smell him. And the Lord called him
out of that tomb. And you're saying, if you're
the Son of God? At ten years old, he entered
in and these masters of theology, he left them sitting there on
the bench with their mouth open. He preached. This man, he doesn't
preach like they did. He preaches with power. Things happen when this man speaks. People are born of God when this
man speaks. And you're saying, if thou be
the Son of God. How many lepers did he heal?
How many people were paralyzed did he tell them to take up their
bed? How many people did they let down through the roof and
he healed them? How many dead people did he raise? And yet men said, if thou be
the Son of God, tell us plainly. Our Lord said, I told you, plainly. I told you. But you believe not
because you're not of my sheep. You're not of my sheep. They're covering a sight to the
blind. Natural men don't see these things. They don't see
the glory of God in the salvation of sinners. They see the glory
of man making a decision. They see the glory of a man figuring
it out. They see the glory of men in
their schools and seminaries. They're blinded spiritually.
They don't see the glory of God in the salvation of chosen sinners
by the person and work of Christ. They don't see the necessity
of the death of Christ on that cross. They don't see divine justice
demanding satisfaction. Sin must be paid for. And you
don't have what it takes to pay for it. And I'm talking about
all sin, past sins, present sins, future sins, sins of ignorance. Divine justice demands satisfaction. The soul that sinneth shall surely
die. Divine righteousness Now listen,
it'll be content only with a righteousness equal to itself. Huh? I couldn't tell you how many
times growing up I heard the preacher said, if you'll just
do the best you can. Cain did. He did the best he
could do. And he brought that sacrifice,
swelled up in pride, and he laid it down there. And he thought,
you wait till the Lord sees mine. He'll spit on Abel's. You wait
till he sees this. And the Lord walked by and didn't
even look at it. Just ignored it like it wasn't even there. Huh? You think he's going to
do different when you bring the best you can? Well, let me tell you what scripture
says. Man at his best state, at his best state, the best you
can do is altogether vanity. Divine righteousness will be
content only with a righteousness that's equal to itself. And you'll
either have the righteousness of God or you'll be condemned
as a vile sinner, one or the other. And where is the man who
can satisfy God's justice or establish a righteousness by
his own works? Because all have sinned and come
short of what? The glory of God. He didn't come
short of other men, he comes short of the glory of God. He
didn't come short of the church's statutes and requirements, he
comes short of the glory of God. When God sends the spirit of
his son into our hearts by his gospel, he opens blind eyes to
see what they never saw, the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. And then fifthly, he said, I'm
sent, I'm anointed of the spirit, I'm sent of God to set at liberty
them that are bruised. Bruised is a sign of abuse. That's what it is. It's a sign
of abuse. An abusive husband beats his wife and leaves her
bruised. I saw a picture one time. I think
it was at Cracker Barrel or somewhere. It might have been out of my
own family album. I can't remember, but I was looking
at this man's wife, my great-grandfather or somebody's great-grandfather,
and I was looking at this woman. She looked like she'd been beat
to a pulp. She had makeup over one eye and it was all black.
and blue, and she just looked like he gave her a hard time.
That's what bruises are a sign of abuse. An abusive husband
beats his wife and leaves her bruised. And abusive parents,
they beat their children and they leave them bruised and battered. And even so, our old husband,
the law, has left us bruised. He beat us and beat us, and we're
bruised from it. Our old nature's left us with
a life of constant bruising, and our father the devil has
done the same thing, left us bruised. You know, a man came to our Lord
and begged mercy for his son, and here's what he said about
his son. He said, he's a lunatic. Some of your dad's joking and
said that about your own children. He's a lunatic. But this one
was for sure. He was dead serious. He said,
my son is a lunatic. What do you mean he's a lunatic?
Well, listen. He said he's sore vexed. And sometimes he just falls in
the fire. Can you imagine? He just falls
in the fire. There's a fire, oh yeah, they
walk around it. He walks over there and he falls
in it. He gets out of the fire and then he falls in the water. You can see the water, the water's
right there. The path's going this way, he
goes over there and flop, in the water he goes. So this boy's
whole life was summed up in a burning and a drowning, constantly. He
was bruised. That's our old nature. It leaves
us bruised, wounded. Our Lord said, here's how He
described Israel. He said, from the sole of your
foot to the top of your head, you're nothing but wounds, now
listen, and bruises and putrefying sores. God hath anointed me, Christ
said, to set at liberty them that are bruised. Your old husband,
the law, is dead, and you're free to marry another. Isn't
that what it says? You're free to marry Christ.
He won't abuse you. Your old father, the devil, has
been exposed as the liar he is and deceiver, and God has been
revealed as your father. And he's made us meet to be partakers
with the enlightened saints. And then lastly and sixthly,
he said, the Lord has sent me to preach the acceptable year
of the Lord. Almost all the old writers agree
that this is talking about the year of Jubilee. Seven straight,
seven year periods, 49 years. And at the end of that 49th year
came the year of Jubilee. And on the dawning of the the
morning of the jubilee, they sounded the trumpets. And immediately,
when the trumpets sounded, immediately, on that great day, every poor
captive, that is those who were so poor that they were sold into
captivity or their children were sold into captivity to work off
the dead. Every poor captive among the
Jews was freed immediately at the sound of the trumpet. And
every mortgaged inheritance was returned to its rightful owner.
Fully restored, Walter. Go to bed that night, you owe
$50,000. You wake up the next morning,
it's a clear day. Huh? That's jubilee. The year of jubilee. But he's
not just talking about another jubilee year. He's declaring
rather that the fulfillment of all that jubilee is about was
in him. By this man, the Lord Jesus Christ,
all those sold under sin, all those given to him by the Father,
who had been sold under sin, which were his people, and all
those whose inheritance was being withheld for a ransom, was free
from all debt, and their inheritance fully restored in him. And having declared these things,
our Lord gave the book back to the minister, and he sat down. And boy, don't you know every
eye in that place was passing on him, every eye. waiting to
hear what he's going to say about all these things he just read.
And you know what he told them? He said, this day is this scripture
fulfilled in your ears. And even the unbelievers wondered
at the words, those gracious words that come out of his mouth.
And then they thought about it. And they said, ain't that Joseph's
son? How many times have men come
in here to hear the gospel? And they hear it, and they sit
there and wonder, and they even talk about it when they leave.
I've never heard anything like that before. I've never done
it. And then when you start to get down to the nitty gritty,
they say, he's just a man. He's just a man. We know him.
We know where he lives. We know where he lives. We know
him. Well, I'm going to tell you something about the Lord's
anointing and His preaching. He said this about His preachers,
He that heareth you, heareth me. Everything that He said that
He came to do through the preaching of the gospel is done through
His ministers, through the preaching of the gospel, until the end
of time. Everything He said. So when He
said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because, because. And you think of those gracious
words that came out of his mouth.