Now, if you have your Bible open
this morning to the fifth chapter of the book of Luke, I'd like
to read beginning with verse 12 and read down through verse
13. Verse 12 through verse 13 of
Luke 5. And it came to pass, when he,
that is Christ, was in a certain city, Behold, a man full of leprosy,
who seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and besought him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me
clean. And he put forth his hand, and
touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately the
leprosy departed from him. Our text this morning is verse
12. Our Lord Jesus Christ in this certain city, he beheld
a man that was full of leprosy. We know that leprosy is a type
of sin. This man was full of leprosy,
who seeing Jesus, fell on his face and besought him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And in verse 13,
the Lord Jesus said, I will, I will be thou clean. Now, beloved
Christ is the cornerstone of our salvation. He's the rock
of our salvation. David said that a number of times
in the book of the Psalms. And He is the sure foundation
of the believer. The Apostle Paul said that the
foundation of God standeth sure. Again, he said, no other foundation
can any man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the
lily of the valley. He's the bright and morning star.
He's God's darling, which was sent from heaven down here to
this earth to die like an animal. And the scripture says in Isaiah
53, 7, He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter. He, that is
the Lord Jesus, God's lamb, is brought as a lamb to the slaughter. that we, who were nothing more
in our natural state than brute beast, that we might have eternal
life, that we might have salvation, that we might have, through what
he did, through his doing and through his dying, that we might
have hope of eternal life. It's a joyous thing to experience
the true grace of God and to come to the place where you know
where your salvation where it came from and to know where in
it rests. And we're thankful this morning
to have a Redeemer, to have a Savior, to have one that has been sent
of God, to have one that has the ability to meet our need,
whatever it is, to meet our situation, to meet our trials. What is that
noise? Anybody know what that is? Somebody's stereo next door?
Well, We'll just go on and try not to be distracted. We had
a number of distractions this morning, a lot of bees in the
parking lot, and now we have this noise here. But by the grace
of God, we'll proceed on. Now as we look here at our text
in Luke 5, 12, I do not know, and I begin to search this out
and to question myself about this, I do not know of anyone
in the Bible, do you, who ever came to the Lord Jesus Christ
for mercy, who went away empty. I do not know of anybody who
come to Jesus and approached Him by faith who went away empty,
but they received the need of their life. The need of their
life was met. Now it is true that there were
a lot of those who attended the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ
who did not get anything, but then they came full in the beginning. They came full in the beginning,
and therefore there was nothing that they could receive. You
see, the Bible teaches that if our cup is empty, then we can
receive. If a man is empty, he can receive. But if he's full, then he'll
be sent empty away. He'll be sent away without receiving
anything from our Lord. Now the Sadducees, you remember
they came to trip up. the Lord Jesus Christ. And the
Pharisees, they came asking foolish questions of our Lord. They did
not come for mercy. They did not come to receive
the benefits of our Lord's power and grace, His healing power.
and therefore they went away without it. But all who came
for mercy received it. Brother, sister, they received
it from the hand of the Lord. Now I believe that this ought
to be encouraging to each one of us here today, that if we
come genuinely by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, we will not
be sent empty away. I think now of the centurion
who had a servant in Luke chapter 7. and a servant that he was
greatly devoted to. This servant had been a very
loyal and faithful and obedient servant. And he sent some Jewish
elders to the Lord Jesus Christ with this message and said, Behold,
my servant is sick and dying. And the Jews, when they came
to Jesus, they said, Lord, you ought to go see this man. He
is a Roman. He's a centurion. But he is worthy. He is worthy that you go see
him, for he loves our nation and he has built us a synagogue
to worship in. And the Lord Jesus Christ, on
his way to this man's house, he met some friends of the centurion
who said this, Lord, I am not worthy. This message was sent
to the Lord Jesus. He said, I am not worthy that
you would come to me. Now the Jews said he's worthy,
and he said, I'm not worthy for you even to come under the roof
of my house. All you have to do, Lord, is
say the word. Say the word and my servant will
be made whole. And you know what happened? The
Lord Jesus said the word and the servant was made whole. And further on in the book of
Luke, we have the lady, you remember, that had the issue of blood for
12 years. And no doctor or physician could
help this woman. And Christ was going down the
road and He was crowded by the multitude. And the woman said,
if I could but touch the hem of His garment, I would be made
whole. And she came from behind and
she touched. the hymn of His garment, and
the very instant that she touched the hymn of His garment, virtue
flowed out of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ and went in
to her body, and she was made whole at that very instant. She
received what she needed. She received mercy of the Lord. None was able to help her but
our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was not much longer after
that when the Lord Jesus was encountered by a father who had
a son. And this son was possessed with
demons. And he was having fits and he
was crying and foaming. And the demons were bruising
him and they were destroying his life. And he said, I went
to your disciples and asked them for help. I went and asked your
disciples if they could help me, but they couldn't do anything
for him. Well, he went to the wrong place,
didn't he, when he went to the disciples? Because, you know,
disciples can't do much, preachers can't do much. If you have a
problem, if you have a sin problem, if you have a deep soul need,
spiritual need, if you need to be touched inwardly by the hand
of God, then you best go directly to the Lord. I would advise you
to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, the Lord cast out the demons
out of the boy, and he rebuked those unclean demons, the unclean
spirit that was in him, and he healed him and delivered him
to his father. He had his need met. Mercy flowed
out of our Lord Jesus Christ to this man and to this man's
son. And then again, there was a man
by the name of Joris, who had a daughter who was sick and dying,
and he came to the Lord Jesus Christ, and about that very time
that he got there, There was a multitude that began to throng
around the Lord Jesus and he couldn't get to him to ask him
to have mercy on his daughter. And so one of his servants came
up to him and said to George, he spoke in his ear and said,
don't trouble the master, your daughter is dead. Your daughter
is dead. She's already past redemption.
And the Lord Jesus heard it. He heard this one say, your daughter
is dead. And Jesus said to him, fear not. Believe only, and she shall be
made whole. Fear not. Believe only, and she
shall be made whole. And Jesus went home with Jairus,
and went into the room and took the little girl by the hand,
and he said unto her, Maid, arise, and she arose from the dead. You see, this man wasn't turned
aside by the impossibility of the situation. Jesus was there. Jesus was there, and he was able,
and he was willing to do something for this little girl. And so
he healed the little girl, raised her up from the dead. Our Lord
was glorified. Christ had mercy on this man
and his daughter. And even when Christ was dying
on the cross, there was a thief, you remember, one on each side
of our Lord, and one refused to look to the Lord for mercy,
but the other said, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy
kingdom. And Christ in his time of agony
His time of distraction, soul and body suffering, said, today
shalt thou be with me in paradise. And on and on we could go, but
such is the case this morning with this leper in our text. He was a dying man. The scripture
says he was full of leprosy. Now no man brother or sister
died of leprosy the same day they got it. No, this was a very
gradual death. It was a cruel death. It was
a spreading death. It would spread throughout one's
body. This man was full of leprosy
and he was facing death. He was facing death as certain
as you are, as certain as you are. And those of you that are
here, your sins unforgiven, your sins having not been pardoned,
your sins not having been blotted out of the book of God, you're
certain of an eternal death, just like this man was certain
of a physical death. His case was a very desperate
case. And I like it when I read that
he fell on his face. He fell on his face before the
Master because he recognized that he was dependent upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. If he was going to get out of
his condition, and the only way that he could ever get out of
his condition was if this one was both willing and able to
deliver him out of this leprosy, he would say, I cannot help myself.
There is nobody in the land who has a cure for this dreadful
disease that I have. Nobody can help me. Nobody can
deliver me. There's nobody that can touch
my case. There's nobody that can promise
me any relief but You. And so He falls down on His face. And he sues the Lord for mercy. He besought him. He besought
him saying, Lord, if thou wilt, if thou wilt, that thou canst
make me clean. Now we have a whole lot of religious
folks in this world today that do not like to talk in the terms
that this man spoke in. Other words, oh Lord, I'm dependent
on you if thou wilt. if thou wilt now if thou wilt
Lord surely now the way this man petitioned the Lord Jesus
Christ was right could you say amen to that the way he petitioned
the Lord Jesus Christ was right it was right Lord if thou wilt
Thou canst make me clean." I am and have been impressed with
this man and this passage of scripture which relates to us
what happened in this man's case. Well, the first thing that I
see here was that this man, that he was no Arminian, he was no
free willer, And you can say what you will about that, but
he was absolutely not a free willer. He did not say, Lord,
I have decided to let you do something for me. No, no, it's
Lord, if thou wilt. He had a heartfelt conviction
of the sovereignty of the one to whom he was speaking. Notice
he did not say, if you can do something for me. He said, if
you will, you can. No question in his mind of God's
ableness. Now there's a difference there.
In other words, whatever happens, as the result of the coming together
of a man and God, if the man is delivered, if his need is
met, if mercy is meted out to the man, it will be not the ability
of God that decides it, but the willingness of God. Whether or
not God would will to have mercy upon you. If I will, if I will. The will of God determines what
He does. not His ableness. Now God's ability,
listen to me, is never questioned in all the Word of God. His ability
is never questioned. God can do anything. He is able.
Never forget it. God is able to do whatever He
wills to do. It's the will of God that will
determine what God does. The matter is not in ability,
it is in willingness. If thou wilt you can make me
clean. Now it is not can God, it is
will God. We need to see this. It is when
we really begin to focus our attention on this verse of scripture
and this truth that the common explanation of some of the problem
passages that we read in the Word of God that are explained
by some of the modern religionists that we begin to see how much
in error they really are. In 2 Peter 3 and 9, the Bible
says, Does this mean what we're told by the modern religionists?
What they say it means, that God wants everybody to be saved? but he just can't get the job
done. He doesn't have the ability to do it. He wants it, but he
can't do it. He's not able to do it. Well,
I make bold to say that there isn't anything that God cannot
do. And when my voice Silent when
it no longer speaks the Word of God I want you to know that
there isn't anything that God cannot do Anything or anybody
who can keep God from doing what he wants to do is more Sovereign
than God and I mean by that that he is more God than God is Any
sinner who can keep God from doing what he wants to do is
more God than the God of creation And we need to change our expressions
You know, the religion that says, let Jesus come into your heart. Well, friend, you're not going
to let Jesus do anything. You're not going to let him do
anything. He's a sovereign. This man came and fell at his
feet and said, if thou wilt, if you would will it, oh master,
then I would be made clean. Who do you think you're talking
to when you come to the Lord Jesus Christ? When you come to
the Son of God, you speak like you might speak to your husband
or to your wife or to your son or your daughter. We're talking
about the God of the Bible. We're talking about the Almighty
God. If thou wilt, thou canst. Now then, it follows, and I want
you to listen to what I'm saying. I'm not going to keep you any
longer than I have to. But there are two elements in God's sovereignty
that I think is very obvious in the statement that this man
made when he said, if I will, you make me clean. And then Jesus
said, I will. Number one, his willingness,
his willingness. And number two, his ableness.
Now we meet people on life's journey who are very willing
and not able. very willing and not able. Somebody
said, oh, I'm willing to do so and so. I'm willing to do such
and such, but I'm just not able to do it. And then we meet some
people in life journeys that are able, but they're not willing. They have the means, they have
the ability to do certain things in life, but they're not willing
to do it. You couldn't talk them into it.
They wouldn't do it under any circumstances. But beloved, this
morning we're dealing with one here in the Word of God, the
Son of God, who is both willing and able. Both willing and able. This is important that we see
this. Now then, mark it down. If God cannot do what He wants
to do, He's not sovereign. If God cannot do what He wants
to do in the way He wants to do it, when He wants to do it,
He's not sovereign. A sovereign God does what He
wants to do. He does. You remember that. The
leper knew who he was petitioning. We're told it's God's will for
all the sick to be healed. We're told that by some of these
called divine healers. Anything divine about them. They're
hucksters of religion. But we're told that it's God's
will that everybody be healed that's sick. Everybody should
be healed and they seem to think that there's something wrong
with you if you're sick and you can't get well. But I want you
to know this morning that there would be nobody sick in this
world if it was God's will that nobody be sick. There wouldn't
be anybody sick in this world. If he's willing, why don't he
heal them. If it's His will that all be
healed, He'd heal them. Don't forget it. He'd heal them.
He has all power. The Bible says in heaven and
earth, there's no limit to His ability. If He doesn't do what
He wants to do, there's a deficiency in His ability. and we need to
wreck it, and we're talking about God here. We're not talking about
your next door neighbor. We're not talking about one of
your relatives. We're talking about Almighty God, and He can
do what He will do. Grab hold of this. It is simply
put in this way. It means that if God is not doing
the thing today that you think that He ought to do, that you
need to back up and you need to bow down before the Lord and
recognize that God has a will, and God has a purpose, and we
need to be subject to Him. We need to bow down our knee
to His good and perfect will. God does what He wants to do,
always has, and always will, and man does not give God permission
to do anything. You say, Preacher, give me a
scripture for that. I'm glad you asked for one. Ephesians
1 and verse 11 says, "...in whom also we have obtained an inheritance,
being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will." Notice that
it's after the counsel of his own will. Psalm 115 and verse
3 says, "...wherefore, should the heathen say, where
is now their God? But our God, David said, is in
the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. Is that the God you worship?
What God do you worship? You worshiping a God whose hands
are tied behind his back by the will of man? Or are you worshiping
a God who does whatever he's pleased? He's in the heavens.
He does whatever he pleases. Daniel 4 and 35, and all the
inhabitants of the earth. Are you one of the inhabitants
of the earth? Absolutely. Well, he said, and all the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing in his sight. And He does according
to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of
the earth and none can stay His hand, none can grab His hand
and pull it back or say it to Him, what are you doing? None
can do that because He's absolute God and He's sovereign. He can
do as He will. Now if the creature can stop
If the creature can thwart the purpose of the Creator in creation,
in providence, or in grace or salvation, then the creature
is sovereign and the Creator is not. Now in Romans 9, and
I recognize that people may think I read these verses too much.
Romans chapter 9, but I'm going to read verse 15. through verse
18 to show you this point that God is absolutely sovereign and
he does exactly what he wills to do and somebody said well
preacher you wear these verses out well listen to what they
say he says to Moses God does I will I will have mercy on whom
I'll have mercy and I'll have compassion on whom I will have
compassion So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him
that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture
saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised
thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name
might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath
he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth. now you say well preacher i mean
those verses there you know they're in the bible but you know very
few people ever read them, that's right that's one of the reasons
why i read them so much is because there's another preacher in cascade
county as far as i know that would dare read these verses
in public They wouldn't read them in public because they just
simply don't have the backbone to read them or read these verses
to people. But I'm here this morning because
I've got nothing to prove one way or another. And I've been
here. God's kept me here and sustained me. And I went through,
I fought battles all uphill ever since I've been in the state
of Montana. And I intend to say what I believe
and preach what the word of God says. I intend to do it until
the Lord shuts my mouth. But I recognize the fact that
most people won't read these verses. Have you ever heard any
other preacher read these verses in any other setting besides
this place right here? Well, you might have. There might
be a few of you that have. But beloved, the issue of our
day, the issue of our hour is who is boss in this world. I say that he can do what he
will with his own. I say that he's almighty. I say
he's all-powerful. I say he's God Almighty from
everlasting to everlasting. There was a preacher way down
south, and he come into the bank on a Monday morning, and he told
the teller, he said, I want to close my account out. And the
teller said, well, why? He said, you haven't been here
too long. Why are you leaving town? He said, yeah. He said,
I'm leaving town. He said, my church kicked me
out. And she said, well, why on earth would they do that?
And he said, well, it's because I preach that God created the
world. And she said, well, land sakes
alive. Every religious person in this area believes that. Yeah,
but he said, when I got around to telling them that the God
who created this world is the same God that runs it, that's
when they couldn't take it and they run me off. They threw me
out. Because I told them that the God who made this world runs
this world. And beloved, you mark it down,
God Almighty runs this world, and that's what we mean by sovereignty. We mean that God is on the throne. We mean that He's an enthroned
God, and that He's an unrivaled God, that He isn't dictated to
by anybody. Nobody tells Him what He's going
to do. God has no oval office. no cabinet, no Congress. He wills
what he performs, and he performs what he wills. He wills constrained
and caressed by none, and he performs unrestrained and unhindered
by none. The Lord Jesus Christ is God
in the flesh. And here he is before this leper. And he says, if thou wilt, thou
canst make me whole. Now you say, preacher, I wish
you'd preach something I could say amen to. Well, I realize
your depravity makes you a rebel against these truths. And you've
been in the God business ever since you were born. And this
is the essence of sin. And you don't want to hear that
God is boss. You want to be able to tell Jesus
where to go, and you want to be able to thumb your nose at
Him, and go on your own way. But Jesus is a demanding Christ. He demands that you recognize
His sovereignty, and that you bow your knee to His Lordship. Say, I just wish you'd preach
on something that I'm for, preacher. I'm not necessarily for God running
this world. I'm not necessarily for a man
having to bow down to this God. But you know the Bible says that
He's Lord of heaven and earth. Lord of heaven and earth. He
says that in Acts chapter 17 verse 24 and Matthew 11, 25,
Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, Father, I thank Thee, O
Lord, of heaven and earth. He's God in heaven above and
He's God in the earth below. And, you know, we need to stop
this talk about a sovereign God if we're not going to believe
in one. If we say we believe in a sovereign God, then let's
worship Him and bow down before Him. And we want this man, do
we, to reign over us? You remember there was some in
our Lord's day who said, we won't have this man to reign over us.
Well, that's a denial of sovereignty, and it's a rebellion against
sovereignty. But sure you will. You'll have
this man sooner or later to reign over you. This is a sovereign
Christ. And all are going to bow their
knee and confess that He's Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
You say, well I don't know whether it'll ever happen in my case
or not. Well it will happen in your case, because our Lord,
the Bible says, is going to reign until His enemies become His
footstool. That's what He's going to do. He's going to reign until
His enemies become His footstool. So glad or sad, it don't matter.
You say, well, I'm not happy about it. You may not be happy
about it, and there may be others here that are glad about it,
but Christ is the sovereign, and you're gonna bow and recognize
that to the glory of God the Father. Another thing I want
you to see here is that God doesn't have to do anything, and He'll
still be God. The leper says, what is your
will and pleasure about my case, O sovereign? And the Lord said,
I will be thou clean. But did he have to do it? Absolutely
not. He did not have to do it. He
did it. He was willing to do it. But
he didn't have to. Now the Bible teaches you that
God can kill and make alive. That he can bring down or he
can bring up. That he can bless or he can withhold a blessing.
He can strengthen or he can weaken. He can do all of these things.
He said, Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated. The option
belongs to him and not to either one of these. We've got to understand
that. We're dealing with God here.
We're not dealing with the sinner or the man next door, as some
people say, just the man upstairs. We're dealing with Almighty God,
the holy, Christ's holy God of the Bible. He can love Jacob,
and He can hate Esau, and He's God. And if He loves Esau and
hated Jacob, He'd still be God. The option is His. He can love
or hate them both, and He can still be God. What I'm saying
is, the options are His. They're in His hands. So an essential
element in the sovereignty of God is God's willingness. That will determines what He
does. His will will determine what
He does. Now you know that's comforting in this world. To
know that the God of the Bible is a God with a purpose. He's
a sovereign with a purpose, and he's on a mission. He knows what
he's going to do. And thank God that will and purpose
of our Lord involved us, and it involved the salvation of
our souls. Now then, let's leave the willingness
of God and talk a little bit about his ability. Now, the leopard
did not question his ability. He did not. He didn't say, if
you can, He just said, if you will. And so he didn't question
his ability. Have you ever questioned God's
ability? And said, Lord, if you can, would you help me? If you can, would you help my
children? If you can, would you help my family? No, we don't
question God's ability. He can do what he will. Now the
Lord and two angels paid Abraham a visit. You remember in the
book of Genesis and he said to Abraham, he said, Abraham, your
wife, Sarah, is going to have a baby. And you would have thought
that Sarah was related to a barnyard chicken because she began to
cackle. And she was up in years, you
know, and she's past the flower of her age and she knew that
she couldn't have any children. But God said she's going to have
a child. And the Lord said to Abraham, why is your wife laughing? Is there anything too hard for
the Lord? And in the appointed time, she
brought forth Isaac, the son of Abraham. This woman that was
90 years old, she had a son. Now when Daniel was placed in
the lion's den, because Darius had signed the decree, Darius
reluctantly had him placed there. He couldn't sleep that night
at all. because he knew he'd done the wrong thing, and he
rose very early in the morning, and he went down to the lion's
den, and he cried with a, the scripture says, with a lamentable
voice unto Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is
thy God whom thou servest continually able to deliver thee from the
lions? And Daniel said, O king, live
forever. My God sent his angel down here
and shut the mouths of these lions that they have not hurt
me. He is able. He's an able God. The three Hebrew children in
Daniel chapter three, you remember they wouldn't bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's
gods. And so Nebuchadnezzar said, I'm
gonna throw you in the fiery furnace. And is your God able
to deliver you? Is any God able to keep you from
burning up in that furnace? And they said, well, we'll tell
you this quickly, that if He does, He's able. He's able to
deliver us. But if He doesn't, we're still
not going to bow down to your gods. Our God is able. Now whenever to presume upon
the willingness of God, He does not have to do what we want Him
to do. And we need to learn that. But
Job 42.2 says, I know that thou canst do everything. I know that
you can. So we have willingness and we
have ability. And Jesus told this leper, I
want you to be the first one to know I am willing. And when
the Lord is willing, something's going to take place. Something's
going to take place. Mountains will be removed, cast
into the sea when he's willing. The heavens being on fire shall
be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,
when God wills it. Somebody said, when's the end
time coming, preacher? Well, when God wills it. For the Lord
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel, and with the trump of God, when God wills
it. When God wills it. In closing, how should a sinner
come to Christ then? Seeing that we have recognized
this man's example here as being the way, that a man ought to
come to petition the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, should you walk
down the aisle, the last stanza of an invitational hymn, shake
the preacher's hand and say, well, I want to be baptized in
front of everybody that wants to see it. And that's all there
is to it. Is that it? No, my friend, that's
not it. That's how we filled our churches
with counterfeit Christians that you can't get anything out of
them. You can't get them to do anything for the glory of God.
Not interested. Not interested in studying the
Bible, reading the Bible, not interested in walking in God's
ways. They've made a profession and they're going right on to
hell. That's how we've filled our churches, I say. How can
a sinner come to Christ? Well, when he comes, let him
acknowledge his sovereignty. Let him acknowledge that this
is God that I'm coming to. The first word of the leper was
Lord. You know what that means in the Greek? It means supreme
ruler. Let him come and recognize that
this is the sovereign Christ that he's coming to. Lord, if
you will, you can save me. I wait on you. Have mercy on
me. Lord, you have mercy on so many
people in the scriptures. Lord, I'm waiting on you. I need
what you've got. You don't need me and you don't
need anything I've got. But Lord, I need what you have.
and I'm waiting before you, and I want what you have. I desire
it with all my heart. Many, many people in the world
don't want it, Lord, but I want it. I want it. I don't want to
die without it. I want your mercy. I want your
forgiveness. I want your pardon. I want you to come to me. I want
Christ to be my substitute, my all in all. Oh, Father, have
mercy on me. You don't come to him like you're
somebody and he's nobody. No, my friend, it's the other
way around. It's the other way around. You're the nobody. Somebody
said down south, they had a billboard out in front of the church that
said, this church is where everybody is somebody. And some fella said,
well, it'd be better if they said this church is where the
Lord is somebody and we're nobody. And that's the way it is. Christ
is somebody. He's the sovereign Christ, and
we need to come to Him. Now, He's got the option. He
cannot put God in a box. You can't put him in a box. You
say, I'd just like to put God in a corner and make him have
to do something for me. Well, you can't put him in a
bind. He's a sovereign, like we said, with a purpose. And
he'll do his purpose. We'll determine what he does.
Plead like this leper. If you will, you can save me.
If you will, you can damn me. But oh, please, God, save me.
Please, God, have mercy on me. You must trust his decision.
and not yours you see I made a decision preacher well you
probably make 50 more before another week is out but the decision
is it's it's God's will that determines your salvation man
is saved by the will of God damn by his own he's saved by God's
will and you if you ever get saved you'll be saved by God's
will now uh... has God said I will to you you
know when he said I'm willing That was, He said, Be thou clean. If God has saved you, He said,
I will. He said, I will. Has He saved you? Has He sent
forth His Spirit into your heart? Crying, Abba, Father, is the
Spirit of God in you? Do you know with certainty that
you're one of His? That God has owned you? That
God has given you His Son? Given Him to you to have as your
own Savior? Has He said, I am thy salvation? Has he said it to you? Has he
said I will to you? Have you ever heard I will? Or
are you just presuming that you're one of the Lord's children? Are
you just presuming? You see this fellow here, if
the Lord hadn't said I will, be thou clean, he went on as
a leper and died as a leper. And if God don't say, I will
to you, be thou clean, you're going to go on in the leprosy
of sin and die the eternal death. The death that never dies if
he doesn't say, I will to you. Now you see, wouldn't it be wonderful
if we could just make God do what we wanted him to do? If
we could just say, Lord, you're going to save me. I'm going to
force you to. I'm going to go down front. It
won't work, friend. It won't work. You say, well,
I'll go in the prayer room. Go on in the prayer room. God
must say, I will. You're dealing with a sovereign.
Remember that. And so you must come to Him and
petition Him just like He said. If so, then, my friend, I believe
that as you kiss the Son, bow to Him and kiss the Son, that
He'll have mercy on you. Now we read, and I said earlier,
I pointed this out to you clearly, that all of those that our Lord
that all that came to Him, truly seeking mercy found Him. And
I just don't believe He'd turn any of you away. I just don't
believe He'd turn me away. And I don't believe He'd turn
any of you away. If you come in truth, and if you come in
your true character, if you come not trying to hide something
from Him, if you come just as a sinner and come before Him
and beg Him to save you, I believe He'll have mercy on you. I believe
He'll cleanse you. I believe you'll turn up being
one of His, singing the praises of God from your heart. I just
believe that in my soul. Father, we're thankful we had
this time together. You overruled. Thank You, Lord,
I was able to preach Your Word. And I do pray that someone here,
our Father, might be able to come before You and say, Lord,
O Supreme Ruler, O God Almighty, have mercy on me. Make me clean. Heal me, Lord, for Jesus' sake. Lord, I just pray that you'll
meet the needs of all these dear ones. Thank you for each one
that's come out this morning, and thank you, Lord, for overruling
as you did. And I just pray that as we leave
this place today, that we might go on our way with a greater
acknowledgment in our hearts of your sovereignty and of your
willingness and your ableness. I pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.