Well, I give you a welcome. It's
good to see so many out this evening, and I trust that we
will be able to enjoy some fellowship in the Word of God together. If you have your Bibles, can
you turn with me please to Luke chapter 13. Luke chapter 13. We're going to read from verse
10. Luke chapter 13 and verse 10. Speaking about the Lord Jesus
Christ and about him teaching. We're told in Luke chapter 13,
verse 10, and he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the
Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman
which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed
together, and could in no wise lift up herself. And when Jesus
saw her, he called her to him and said unto her, Woman, thou
art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her,
and immediately she was made straight and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue
answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the
Sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in
which men ought to work. In them, therefore, come and
be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. And the Lord then answered
him and said, Thou hypocrite, Doth not each one of you on the
Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall and lead him away
to watering? And ought not this woman, being
a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo these eighteen
years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? And when
he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed. and all the people rejoiced for
all the glorious things that were done by him. Amen. May God bless to us this reading
from his word. I want to take this evening,
as the Lord will enable, a little while, a short time, to think
about this lady, this lady whose name we do not know, but who
was gloriously changed, helped, and healed by our Lord Jesus
Christ on this occasion. In the 12th verse of the passage
that we read, we read these words. And when Jesus saw her, he called
her to him and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine
infirmity. And the title of my thoughts
this evening is simply taken from these words. Woman, thou
art loosed. We believe in sovereign grace. That belief distinguishes us
from other churches. If we did not believe in sovereign
grace, we could worship together with other churches. But we do,
so we can't. We believe in sovereign grace
and because we do not find that message of sovereign grace being
preached in other places, we feel a need to gather together
with those who love the truth of the grace of God freely and
sovereignly bestowed upon his people. We believe that either
salvation is man's work or it is God's gift. We believe it
cannot be both. We believe that when the Bible
teaches us in Ephesians chapter 2, that we are saved by grace
through faith, and that not of ourselves, but it is the gift
of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast, that the meaning
of that verse is that we cannot, of our own ability, our own service,
our own labor, our own works, our own actions, do anything
which will please God and that he must sovereignly act upon
the individual to give and bestow his goodness and grace. I trust
that we will be able this evening to see in the account given to
us in these few verses, seven or eight verses, that what we
see in this woman's experience is one of the greatest examples
in the whole of Scripture of sovereign grace. that God Himself
in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ came to this woman, this
woman amongst many, this woman who had no real knowledge of
Him or desire after Him or longing for Him. And he picked her out
from the multitude. He chose her from the crowd. He gave to her and her alone. He discriminated in the way in
which he brought his mercy. And he gave it freely to this
woman. And he changed her life. And
he brought her to a knowledge of himself as Savior. That was
grace. and it was grace sovereignly
bestowed. I want to think about a couple
of things just by way of introduction and then we'll go into the texts
as they are before us. We speak of sovereign grace because
we believe that while the world and while men and women speak
of liberty, and freedom and choice and hold up these words and concepts
as desirable and to be enjoyed and to be experienced, that they
must necessarily always be relative. People say that we want liberty,
and liberty is good to live under. But I ask the question, what
liberty had this woman who had been bound fast in a twisted
body for 18 years? People say we want freedom. But
what freedom have men and women if they are held captive to Satan
and that evil principle that is in each one of us? What value
is free will when our wills are controlled by wicked hearts and
our choices are prejudiced by our fallen nature? You don't
have to teach children to be naughty. it comes natural to
them. Why does that come so naturally?
Why does disobedience flow so easily? Why do we go through
so much of a child's formative years trying to teach them how
to behave themselves? Because that's the way men and
women are. And we have laws, and we have
rules, and we have strictures, and we have constraints around
us all the time. Where is our liberty? Where is
our freedom? Where is our free will to do
whatever we want? We are a constrained people. We are locked into the ways in
which the rules and regulations all around about us have been
set in place. When we speak of sovereign grace,
we are speaking of God's gift to his people, that he has a
people whom he has chosen from all eternity, a people whom he
delights in, a people whom he has been pleased to save from
out of the mass of humanity who are bound in their sin, who are
captive to the evil nature which is part of their humanity and
which must be dealt with not by the individual because he
is ensnared and he is enslaved and he is as bound behind the
bars of his own human nature prison as any criminal is in
a penitentiary. But God must break in. He must
liberate. He must open the door and free
the captive. And so we see an example of the
grace of God being presented to us in that liberating way
in these verses. I want to speak on three subjects
shortly in the next few minutes. I want to think about a saviour
who was active on the Sabbath day. I want to think about a
woman who was healed on the Sabbath day. And I want to think about
a man who was enslaved on the Sabbath day. First of all then,
to take our first point, a Savior who was active on the Sabbath
day. These verses tell us that the
Lord Jesus Christ was working. We're told that he was teaching
in one of the synagogues in the 10th verse, the first verse that
we read together. He was teaching in one of the
synagogues on the Sabbath day. He took the opportunity. Our
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, took the opportunity at every
occasion to teach and to preach the Good News of the Gospel. He fulfilled, in that capacity,
the role of teacher. He had a message to bring. Sometimes
we speak about the Lord Jesus Christ as a prophet, and he certainly
was that. He held a prophetic office because
he came with a message. He came as a preacher. He came
in order to reveal the things of his Father. The Lord Jesus
Christ was indeed a prophet, that great prophet who had been
long ago foretold. Indeed, Moses himself, perhaps
the greatest prophet that the Jews ever had. short of those
new dispensation prophets, John the Baptist and the Lord himself.
He spoke of the great prophet who would come and the Lord Jesus
Christ was that great prophet. He had a message to bring and
so he was active in bringing that message. He was preaching
in the synagogue. He had a service to render. The Lord Jesus Christ was active
on this day because He had something to do. He had something that
had to be done that day. He had someone to meet. He had
an appointment to keep. And he brought that message and
that work into the synagogue. Our Savior, throughout his ministry,
was always eager to instruct in the gospel. And it behoves
us always to be eager to hear the gospel. As the Lord Jesus
Christ himself, the Son of God, came from glory to this world
in order to preach a message, in order to reveal a truth, we
ought to give ear to that message. We ought to have an interest
in that truth. If some great personality should
come to Sydney with a message which has some importance, there
would be a great clamour to hear that message. If some big celebrity
was appearing, then the people would go in their flocks. God
himself came to reveal this message. We ought to give him a hearing. And so the Lord was active on
the Sabbath day, active in his teaching, and active in healing. This is interesting, I think.
The Lord healed this woman in a most miraculous way. Do you
think, perhaps this evening, If I could perform a miracle
for you, that I would get a better hearing from you. If I could
do something absolutely amazing, something that would stagger
you, Would I get a better audience? If I could tell the newspapers
and the television that I was going to do something amazing,
a miracle, do you think people would come to hear? I've no doubt
they would. But the point is simply this.
The miracle that the Lord Jesus Christ performed wasn't intended
as a spectacle. It wasn't an end in itself. It showed the authority and the
power that the preacher had. Today, we don't require miracles
because the authority and the power is not in the preacher,
but in the Word. The authority that we have is
not in my voice, or in the sermon that I deliver, or in the things
that I say, but it is in the Word of God itself. Now that's
good for me because it means that if I have something that
I say and you have a problem with it, and I have been faithful
to the Word of God, then I can say to you, you know what, my
friend, your problem is not really with me because all I've told
you is what the Bible says. Your problem is with the Bible.
The authority is in the Word of God. The authority is in the
Scripture. And we are privileged to carry
this message from the Word of God to our own generation. And the authority and the power
is in the Gospel. It's in the Word. And here we
see the Lord Jesus Christ bringing His message. The Lord saw this
poor woman and He called her to Him. The Lord in the synagogue
took the initiative. He sees her, perhaps even before
she saw him, he saw her. And there is something lovely
in the look of Jesus, the Son of God. There is something wonderful
in the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ took the opportunity to
spend time with this woman. He had time for her. I suspect that there are not
many people in the synagogue that day that have got too much
time for this lady. What did she have to offer? What
did she have to give? What would speaking to her gain
for anyone? Yet the Lord Jesus Christ took
time to notice her. He spoke to her. He called her. He welcomed her to himself. Here we see the particular grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we see that which we call
discriminating grace. That of all the people in the
synagogue that day, he didn't go to the leader of the synagogue,
he didn't go to the wealthy men that were there. He didn't go
to the young people with all the energy or the enthusiasm.
He didn't go to the children. He saw a lady, a lady there probably
who was at the side of the building. Probably not wanting to get too
much involved because of her deformity, because of her injury. Too much involved in the busyness
of the activity that day. A woman happy to be inconspicuous. And yet a woman whom the Lord
Jesus Christ was pleased to particularly identify, to discriminate in
the whole of the congregation, and to pick her out especially. The Lord Jesus Christ speaks
kind words to this lady. The Lord Jesus Christ embraced
that lady. A lady whose deformity may well
have repulsed many people was embraced by the Lord. I wonder
how many people had lovingly laid a hand on that deformed
lady at any time during the previous 18 years. the Lord Jesus Christ
did. There, in that synagogue, he
approached her. There he gave her a mark of his
tender compassion. There he spoke to her words that
she could never have dreamt that she would ever hear. Eighteen
long years and the Lord Jesus Christ said to her, Woman thou
art loosed. Was there a more gracious sentence
ever spoken? Was there a more glorious revelation
ever made? Woman thou art loosed. It's such an appropriate description
of exactly what that woman needed. She was loosed, loosed from her
bondage, loosed from her condition, loosed from that deformity. Let me show you, if I may, the
significance of what just happened there in that synagogue that
day. Here's my second point. The Lord
Jesus Christ was busy working that day. And here, a poor, nameless
woman is healed on the Sabbath day. I don't know if words could
better represent in the way in which they describe the physical
deformity of this woman. I do not know whether they could
better be found words that would describe her spiritual condition. And the point about this passage
is that we are clearly told that there is a spiritual dimension
to the event that transpired in the synagogue that day. We're
told, for example, that there was a spirit of infirmity that
beset this woman. We're told that she was a daughter
of Abraham whom Satan had bound. And so this was not merely a
physical deformity. There was a spiritual dimension
to this also. And this loosening that took
place did not merely loosen her physical strictures, but also
loosened that bondage which was upon her spirit. She is spoken
of as crippled, bent double. She is restricted. She is constrained. She is looking down, bent double. How far can you bend down? How
far can you go down all that way? What do you see when you're
bent double? Your own feet. You see the ground
in front of you. That's all you see. And this
woman was a picture of sin. Bodily and spiritually, she was
bound, and she could not lift her eyes. She could not lift
her head. And yet here we are told something
wonderful. We are told that she is a child
of Abraham. The Lord says in verse 16, ought
not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham whom Satan hath bound
lo these 18 years, be loosed from the bond on this Sabbath
day. Should she not, as a child of
Abraham, what does that mean, the child of Abraham? Well, she
was a child of Abraham because she was a Jew. She was a child
by her nationality of the originator or the beginner, if you like,
of the Jewish nation. The children of Israel traced
their genealogy all the way back to Abraham and took as part of
their religion the promises that had been made to Abraham. The problem was that over the
years they had failed to grasp that there was a spiritual dimension
to those promises and that in reality the true children of
Abraham were those who were spiritually children of Abraham and not a
nationalistic racial or genealogy or genetic children of Abraham. In Galatians chapter 3 verse
7 we find this clearly stated. Know ye therefore, this is the
Apostle Paul who's speaking. The Apostle Paul who in Philippians
could say that he himself was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He knew
exactly what it was to be a Jew, to be a Hebrew. And here he states
to the Galatians, know ye therefore that they which are of faith
They which are of faith, the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ,
they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And that is exactly what the
Lord Jesus Christ was describing here. A daughter of Abraham,
a daughter of Abraham spiritually, by faith. Hear this woman. was identified by the Lord Jesus
Christ as one of the chosen people. One of those elect of God. Not nationally, not racially
as far as the Jews are concerned, but one who was by faith a true
child of God. And note that she did not become
so by believing. The choice of God is not based
upon whether or not an individual will believe in Him or not. The
choice of God is not based upon whether or not an individual
will respond to Him or not. God's choice is before the individual. God's choice takes place in His
eternal purposes independent of the choices or the decisions
of the individual. In fact, what the Scriptures
teach us is that the individual in time will believe because
they are chosen of God. The individual will respond because
they are of the elect of God. We do not become the choice of
God because we believe, Rather, we believe because God has chosen
us unto salvation. He has the preeminence. He takes
the priority. This is His work. It is His gift,
freely bestowed. It is sovereign grace. It is grace which comes from
the sovereign God, from His kingly position of authority. And He
has a people in this world whom He has chosen. and he brings
that people through the preaching of the gospel to a knowledge
of himself. Here is a woman who is brought
to faith by the Lord Jesus Christ particularly and discriminately. He chooses her out from the midst
of this congregation and he identifies her as a daughter of Abraham,
a child of God. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
the synagogue that day to get that woman. He came because she
was one of his chosen people. Before she knew him, he was looking
for her. And he looked at her. 18 years
this woman had spent in this condition. You know what's interesting? We're not told how old this woman
was. She might only have been 18 years
old. She might just have been a young
woman. This may have been her condition all her life. Being
bound in sin, is the condition of every man and woman in this
world from their birth. It is the consequence of our
human nature. It is our birth gift from Adam. Because he fell, we fell in him. Because of his sin, we are sinners
at our birth. We are born in sin, we are shapen
in iniquity. We come from our mother's wombs. As those who have a desire for
our own way, we are willfully opposed to the things of God.
And unless and except and until God should stop us and change
us and convert us and alter us and make us anew, we will always
pursue our own desire. till the day in which he calls
us to account. Eighteen long years this woman
had been bound. How long have you waited? How
long has sin bound you up? Here we see that this woman had
a spirit of infirmity. It rendered her helpless. She was utterly dependent upon
the help of those around about her. A woman bent double. Try and get into bed tonight,
bent double. Try to feed yourself, bent double. Try to imagine how you would
exist for a day bent double. This woman was utterly dependent
upon the help of others. It speaks in her physical condition
of the spiritual state of those who are bound in sin. And less
and until The Lord Jesus Christ is pleased to call an individual,
to touch that individual, to change that individual. That
is the condition and the state of our souls before God. We are
like that woman in a very real sense. We are bound, we are bent,
we are crooked, we are doubled up. We cannot look to God for
salvation. We can't look at anything beyond
our own feet. Spiritually speaking, we cannot
look up. We are forced to look down. Our face is fixed to the earth.
We cannot lift ourselves up. We cannot lift ourselves up to
God. We cannot even walk straight
until the Lord Jesus Christ is pleased to touch us and to call
us to himself. And there's something else here
too. Praise the Lord. This woman was in the synagogue
that day. Here she was. If ever anyone
had a reason not to be in the house of God, it was this woman. She could have done anything
else. Why would she put herself into the synagogue? Why would
she be there? And yet this was the place where
the Lord met her. Let me encourage you. just as
it were, perhaps as an aside, take seriously the demands that
are made in Scripture. Think seriously about the condition
of your soul. Be aware that there is something
great, glorious, wonderful about this message of the gospel. and
be where the gospel is preached. Seek it out. Find a place where
the true gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is preached and give ear
and attendance to that word. The woman was there in the synagogue
that day. She didn't know what was going
to happen, but she was there. And by the grace of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ met her in salvation. People say they can
get converted whenever they want, wherever they want. If they want
it, they'll get it. They'll just choose it in their
own time and in their own way. The Lord met this woman under
the preaching of the gospel. The gospel had not been preached
in that synagogue in the past 18 years. It hadn't been preached
there at all. It was preached there that day
and the Lord was pleased to touch her. The Lord meets his people
where two or three are gathered together in his name, where they
worship him in spirit and in truth. This lady was made straight by
the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. The hands of Christ touched this
woman. Blessed hands. pierced hands. The Lord Jesus Christ had the
power to change, to convert, to heal this woman. And the Lord
Jesus Christ has the power to change, convert and heal every
sinner, any sinner. by the efficacy of the sacrifice
that he made on the cross. As the Lord Jesus Christ went
to the cross, we are told that he went to the cross in order
to deal with the sin problem that besets humanity. That he
took upon himself in his own body the sin of his people. that He took upon Himself this
woman's sin, and the sin of every child of God, every son and daughter
of Abraham, everyone who comes by faith to Him, the Lord Jesus
Christ took that sin in His own body, and it was nailed with
Him to the tree at Calvary. He changed this woman. He converted
her. He altered her outlook. She walked
differently after she met the Lord Jesus Christ. She looked
up. And immediately we're told in
verse 13, the response of the woman was that having been made
whole, she worshipped the Lord God. It's always the outcome
of true grace that those who receive it, those who are saved
by the grace of God, those who are unbound, Their spirits soar
to heaven. They worship God. They demonstrate
the result of the application of His grace by worshipping Him
and thanking Him for what they had done. Grace makes a worshipper. And he who does not worship does
not know God and does not know grace. Worship is not coming
to church and singing. Worship is something that emanates
from the heart. It flows out of the gratitude
that we have for the grace of God towards us. It comes as a
thankful declaration that God himself has changed us and brought
us to a knowledge of the truth. She was thankful for the mercy
that was given to her and she acknowledged the source of that
deliverance and that's what believers do. She glorified God and it
speaks of the fact that this was a spiritual encounter. She glorified God and she did
it by faith. She did it in spirit and she
did it in truth and it was true worship. children of Abraham,
the elect of God, those will come, they must come, they do
come through the preaching of the gospel to be true worshippers
of God. The Lord Jesus Christ worked
on the Sabbath day. This woman was healed on the
Sabbath day and finally and quickly I want to think about the man
who was enslaved on the Sabbath day. We might say, indeed, a
man who was enslaved by the Sabbath day, because here we find this
ruler of the synagogue answering with indignation the things that
the Lord Jesus Christ had done. He answered. He answered Christ. He spoke in opposition to what
the Lord Jesus Christ had done. One would imagine that there
would be such amazement at that situation, that the people there
concerned would be overwhelmed that such a miracle had been
performed in their presence, in their sight. Who is this man? What is this that has happened?
What is this that's being done? But here we see that this man,
bound up as he was in his own legalistic determination not
to be moved from his idea of what right and wrong and truth
and error was, criticized the Lord Jesus Christ for what he
had done. Let me tell you, I can extrapolate
upon that. And I can say this. that religion
will always rebuke free grace. I believe that to be the case. Religion and the traditions and
the customs of men in their religious practices will always endeavor
to rebuke free grace. Hypocrisy contradicting mercy. What a terrible thing for this
man to take this line, to demonstrate this attitude. 18 years this
woman had been bound and he comes away with this, this statement
that she should not have been healed on the Sabbath day. There
are six days in which she could have been healed. Why should
she be healed on the Sabbath day? I tell you, I believe that
religion is taking more people to hell. than alcohol, adultery
and spiritual apathy put together. It is the great deception of
our day, the religious trappings that we see around about us.
The word hypocrite is a strong word. It's bold language. It speaks of a man who is both
self-righteous and deceitful. He is pretending to be something
that he is not. He is pretending that he has
a religious understanding, that he has an insight that is better
than the people, that he has a position of authority over
these people, that he has a power over them. And these people were
giving him this place. He was putting on a show and
that's all it was. He was putting on a show and
the Lord Jesus Christ drew back the curtain and exposed his hypocrisy. I dare say there was not another
person in the synagogue that day who could have done so. They were all cowed by the authority
of this leader of the synagogue. But the Lord Jesus Christ eloquently
exposes the sham. Without the Lord Jesus Christ,
the lie of this man's hypocrisy would have continued. But where
the Lord Jesus Christ comes, where the Lord Jesus Christ speaks,
where the Lord Jesus Christ heals and touches, their truth is revealed. True faith exposes hypocrisy. And the self-righteous hate the
Lord Jesus Christ because of it. The ruler spoke to the people. He set himself above the Lord
Jesus Christ in order to judge him. He set himself over the
people in order to direct them. And we find that this is a case
of the blind leading the blind. The ruler was concerned about
the Sabbath, but he understood nothing about the true significance
of the Sabbath day. The Sabbath day is a day of rest,
but it is a rest which comes to those who are spiritually
born again. It is a rest that comes to those
who no longer have to run. no longer have to labour, no
longer have to work in order to placate an angry God, in order
to please someone who is angry with them. This is the rest of
the blood-bought child of God. This is the enduring Sabbath.
This is the eternal rest which those who are redeemed and those
who are saved and those who are converted are brought into when
they trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the day of rest
for those who are laboring and are heavy laden. Come unto me,
says the Lord. The weary, the hungry, the thirsty
pilgrim finds rest in the day of grace from all his own works
and from the righteousness of his own labors. who trusts in
and depends upon the completed work of Jesus Christ to be all
that he requires before God. This woman spent almost 1,000 Jewish Sabbath days in bondage,
18 years. Almost a thousand Sabbaths she
spent in bondage, struggling under sin, struggling under Satan's
rule. And you know what? In all of
those 18 years, she never once measured up, never once measured
up to the standard that was put upon her. She never could. Her Sabbaths, revealed how crooked
she was. Every time she came out to the
synagogue, it showed the world how crooked she was. That was
all she had. Everybody saw her. And now there's someone standing
before her who takes her crookedness away. The ruler of the synagogue
He always looked down upon this woman who was crooked and double-bent. But the Lord Jesus Christ lifts
her up and she looks into his face for the first time. He lifts
her up to her full height and he gives her true rest. Religion beats a man down. grace lifts him up. And there's something lovely
in the Lord's response to this ruler of the synagogue. The ruler's
complaints solicited in verse 16 the crowning explanation of
what the Lord Jesus Christ had done. This is the miracle's spiritual
significance. Here is a woman, an elect child
of God, a child of the covenant of grace, and she is brought
into union with the Lord Jesus Christ, and she is loosed from
the bondage of Satan. This becomes her day of sweet
rest. This becomes the most significant
Sabbath in her whole life's experience. Are you one of the Lord's people
by grace and by faith? Is this your condition that we've
been describing here? one who has been touched by the
grace of God, one who has been lifted up by the Lord Jesus Christ,
then the Sabbath is your day of rest. And we're not talking
about the Jewish Sabbath, the Saturday, or even the Christian
Sunday, the day of rest. We're talking about the rest
that we enter into as those who stop running stop seeking after
our own self-righteous works, and rely upon the grace of God
and all that Christ has accomplished. Today and every day, if we are
the children of faith, we rest in the completed work of Christ,
his cleansing blood, his righteousness, and the salvation which he has
secured and accomplished. The adversaries of the Lord Jesus
Christ were ashamed to stand in His presence. In the presence
of the love that He showed for this woman, in the grace that
He demonstrated towards her, and the mercy that He showed,
His adversaries were silent and ashamed. But the people rejoiced
to see the great things that the Lord had done. If we are
His people, let us worship Him. Let us give thanks to Him. Let
us rejoice at the glorious things that He has done. Amen.