Turn together to Mark chapter
9, Mark the ninth chapter. The title of my message tonight
is, A Welcome in Prusia. Our Lord Jesus has now come down
from the Mount of Transfiguration, where he had been transfigured
before Peter, James, and John, where Moses and Elias appeared
on the mountain with him. And as he comes down, he sees
his disciples involved in a dispute with some scribes. The scribes
were harassing his disciples because, obviously, because they
had attempted to cast out the demon of this young man who was
brought to them, and they weren't able to do so. His father brought
his son to his disciples. He had heard about how they,
by the power of God, cast out devils, and he brought his son
to these disciples. They couldn't cast them out,
and therefore the scribes were disputing with them. Now we're
not told exactly what all the dispute was about, that's really
irrelevant, but they were harassing these disciples and giving them
a hard time when the Lord Jesus appeared on the scene with Peter,
James, and John. And he steps in to intervene
for his disciples and asks the scribes, what are you fussing
about? What are you questioning my disciples about? Why this
debate with my disciples? And before the Pharisees could
say anything, before any of the disciples could say anything,
this old boy butted in. He just jumped up and said, Lord,
I brought my son to you. I brought him to your disciples.
They couldn't help him, so I bring him to you. Now, normally such
an intrusion is terribly rude. For someone to just butt into
a conversation or when a question is asked to this fellow, this
one over here to answer the question, it's just rude. It's rude. But
here's an intrusion, oh, a welcome intrusion, because this man comes
with a desperate need to the only one who could relieve his
need. And he comes not for himself, but for his son, that the Lord
Jesus might have mercy upon his son. This poor man cared nothing
about the dispute between the scribes and our Lord's disciples.
He didn't really care what the scribes were fussing about. He
didn't care much about the disciples' attempts to answer them. His
son was possessed of the devil. His son was being destroyed by
the devil. His son was pining away under
the influence of Satan. His son was in desperate need.
And so he comes to the master and says, Master, I brought my
son to your disciples. He's possessed of a devil. The
devil throws him into the fire and into the water and he tears
him and he foams at the mouth and he's pining away unless you
do something. He's gonna die, and he's gonna
die under the influence of hell. If you can do anything, help
us. If you can do anything, have compassion on us. And the Lord
Jesus Christ beheld this man's faith, and beheld his compassion,
and had mercy upon him and upon his son. Read the story with
me, beginning in verse 14. Mark chapter 9 and verse 14. When he came to his disciples,
he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning
with them. And straightway all the people,
when they beheld him, were greatly amazed." Now, probably because
as he came down off the mount, there was still a luster about
him that was unexplainable. You'll remember in Exodus 34,
when Moses had been in the mount with the Lord God, his face showed
he had put a veil over his face. People said, we can't look on
your face. And our Lord had been transfigured now, and he comes
down from the mouth of transfiguration. And as the people saw him, they
were amazed. They're running to him, saluted him. Verse 16,
and he asked the scribes, what question ye with them? And one
of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought
unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit, and wheresoever
he taketh him, he teareth him. and he foameth and gnasheth with
his teeth, and pineth away. And I spoke to thy disciples,
and they that they should cast him out, and they could not. He answered him, and saith, O
faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long
shall I suffer you? Bring him unto me. And they brought
him unto him, and when he saw him, straightway the Spirit tear
him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed foaming. And he
asked his father, how long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said of a child, and it
was just a baby, just a small boy, and oftentimes it hath cast
him into the fire and into the waters to destroy him. But if
thou canst do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus said unto him, If thou
canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of
the child cried out and said, With tears, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. When
Jesus saw the people came running together, he rebuked the foul
spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge
thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him. And the spirit
cried, and writhed him sore, and came out of him. And he was
as one dead, insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took
him by the hand, and lifted him up, and he arose. And when he
was come into his house, or into the house, the disciples asked
him privately, why could we, could not we cast him out? And
he said unto them, this kind can come forth by nothing but
by prayer and fasting. Now, let me move right into the
message and show you what I have observed from this passage The
first thing I see in this passage is the fact that mountaintop
experiences for believers seldom last very long. We all like to
read about revival and study about revival and we enjoy our
mountaintop experiences, but the contrast between this paragraph
and the one that precedes it immediately in the context is
a striking contrast and ought not be overlooked by us. We move
from the mouth of transfiguration where stood the Lord Jesus transfigured
before Peter, James, and John. Where Peter, James, and John
saw and heard Moses and Elias as they spoke to the Master concerning
the death he would accomplish. Where God spoke from heaven,
this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him.
Now, they move from that blessed mountaintop experience down into
this valley, into conflict and trouble and pain and sorrow. Here are scribes harassing them. Here is a man whose son is possessed
of a devil. Here is a young man who from
his childhood has been possessed with a lunatic spirit that's
about to destroy him. Here are these disciples helpless
and frustrated, baffled. Baffled by their lack of ability
and baffled by Satan's confusing them, baffled by the scribes
who were before them. In the midst of great conflict
and sorrow and difficulty, that's where we find the Lord's disciples
now. Now, you read this paragraph
of scripture and understand quickly that the believer's life in this
world is spent most of the time in this valley of trouble sorrow
and pain. Now that's just fact, that's
just fact. This is a fairly vivid picture
of every believer's life. Our mountaintop experiences,
delightful, blessed as they are, are times that we must seize
whenever we have opportunity, as God is pleased to visit us
and calls us to enjoy the special manifestation of his grace. Seize
the opportunity. But understand that we must not
expect such experiences too often, nor should we expect too many
of them, nor should we expect them to last too long. I stress
this because in this day of giddy emotionalism, just, you know,
religion based on anything except the word of God, people are sometimes
led to believe that somehow the Christian life is It's just a
life that causes you to kind of walk 20 feet above the clouds
and you know everything is just hunky-dory and goes well and
you never have any trouble and if you want all your problems
solved just come to Jesus. I've got news for you. When you
come to him you have a whole bunch of problems solved but
you enter into a whole bunch more. And while you live in this
world walking with him, attempting to serve him, you're going to
find yourself constantly in conflict with the world, the flesh, and
the devil. And frankly, I have difficulty
grasping which of the three is more difficult to deal with.
The world, my own sinful flesh, or Satan's influence. We must
constantly recognize that in this world we have tribulation
and trouble. And our Lord Jesus alone sustains
us with grace to keep us in the midst of such trouble. But in
the midst of your trials and trouble, in the midst of conflicts
and sorrows, understand that the Lord Jesus comes to his disciples
in the valley of trouble just as well as in the mountaintop
of joy. Not only does he come to them, he comes to them at
exactly the right time, providing them with exactly what they need
at that specific time. And not only does he come to
us in time of trouble and sorrow, the Lord Jesus is just as much
the one who brings the trouble and sorrow as he is the one who
brings the delight and the joy of the mountaintop experience.
Secondly, we are reminded by this story that we are utterly
and entirely dependent upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you know, here, doctrinally,
that's easy. We've got that down doctrinally.
We understand that. But experimentally, it's another
story. We're going to have to learn that we are utterly, entirely,
dependent on Christ for everything. When Moses came down from the
mount where God had spoken his law, he saw the camp of Israel
in confusion. They had been overcome of Satan's
temptation and they were dancing naked around the golden calf
and called it worshipping God. These were men and women who
had been instructed by Moses and Aaron and Aaron was leading
them in the nonsense. When we are left to ourselves
just a little while, there is nothing to which we are not susceptible. Did you get that? When we are
left to ourselves for just a little while, there is nothing to which
we are not susceptible. These disciples needed to learn,
and you and I need to learn a lesson A lesson bitter to this flesh,
a lesson bitter to our pride, a lesson bitter to our sense
of self-worth and self-goodness and self-righteousness, but a
lesson we must learn and understand. It's found in John chapter 15
and in verse 5. Our Lord Jesus is speaking to
his disciples and he says here in John 15 verse 5, I am the
vine. I'm the vine. I'm the one in
whom is the sap of life. I'm the one, I'm the one planted
in heaven where life is. I am the vine. You're just branches. You're just branches. Now listen
to what it says. I am the vine, he are the branches.
He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth
much fruit. For without me, What did he say? You can't do much. That's not
what he said, Paul. He said, without me, you can
do nothing. Paul said, I can do all things
through Christ which strengthens me. But without me, you can do
nothing. You understand that? Without
me, you can do nothing. Nothing. Nothing of any benefit
to anyone. Nothing for the glory of God.
Nothing for the good of your own soul, nothing upright, nothing
righteous, nothing gracious. Without me, you're utterly helpless. Well, preacher, that leaves us
pretty well in handy. If you have any questions about
it, go ask better, stronger, mightier men than any of us.
Go ask Noah. Go ask Abraham. Go ask Moses,
go ask David, go ask Peter, go ask Paul, any of them, and understand
without me you can do nothing, nothing. May God the Holy Spirit
teach us daily that we are weak, weakness itself, utterly helpless
without the wisdom, presence, and grace of Christ which he
alone can give us. make me constantly aware of this
humble reality, I'm utterly helpless. Utterly helpless. Sitting there
just before I got up to preach, as I do always, I'm focused on
this fact. Here I am a man responsible now
to stand and speak to eternity bound many women for the glory
of God in the stead of Jesus Christ. And I'm utterly and I
pray God help your helplessness. Help this useless man. Only by
your spirit am I able in any way to communicate any good to
the hearts of men. We wait on you. Without me, you
can do nothing. Thirdly, this story is recorded
upon the pages of Holy Scripture to teach us and warn us of the
horror of satanic power. The last several days I've been
going over this passage in my mind over and over and over again. As I was studying and preparing
for this message Friday and And yesterday, I kept coming back
to this thing of the influence of Satan in this young man. We're not told how old he was.
Apparently, he was a fairly well-grown young man, probably in his teen
years. But he was still a young man
under his father's control, under his father's roof, under his
father's dominion, under his father's government. And he was
brought by his father to the Savior. And the Lord Jesus asked
him about this boy and he said he said master now you you can
compare if you want Matthew's account in Matthew 17 Mark's
is a little more detailed Matthew gives us one or two things that
Mark doesn't he said master my boy has been possessed of this
devil since he was a small child and this devil tears him causes
him to gnash his teeth this devil is attempting to destroy him.
He's destroying everything about him. He's pining away and nobody
gets him. Can you? Have compassion. Don't let anyone imagine that
Satan is some kind of a fictional character, some kind of a scary
boogeyman created by crotchety old preachers to scare little
boys and girls. He's real. His power is real. I shouldn't have to give any
illustration of that, but I'll give some just in case you have
convinced yourself otherwise. You know the power of faith.
You know something about what influence he has over you, what
power he has over you. You know something about the
weakness of your flesh against him. When I was just a young
man, my first cousin, her husband
came in one day. Nice fella. Nice fella. As far as I know, as far as anybody
in the family knows, super nice fella. Super nice fella. But,
you know, what do we know? He came in one day, took a gun,
killed his wife in front of their kids. took a good shot at her. What went on between times I
don't know, but I know this, I know exactly what happened.
How do you explain that? How can a man suddenly turn and
do such a thing? Because men without Christ, now
you listen to me, you listen to me, are taken captive of Satan
at his will. The demon possessing this boy
was a foul spirit, a destructive spirit, a deaf and dumb spirit. Obviously
that's talking about the literal activity of the demon causing
his ears to be stuck and his tongue to be tied, but certainly
their spiritual application The demon possessing the unbelieving
heart is that one which causes a man to be incapable of hearing
with discernment and thus of speaking with any understanding,
anything spiritual. This demon possessing this boy
Matthew tells us in Matthew 17 15 was a lunatic spirit. John Gill had an interesting
comment. As he described this demon's possession of this boy,
Matthew tells us that he had a form of epilepsy which causes
faintness and dumbness. John Gill said the Jews called
this cardiacus, that is a delirium of the heart. That's a pretty
good description of the condition of all men without Christ. Delirious
of the heart. That's the problem. This demon
took possession of this young child when he was just a child. This is a matter of great importance.
We must labor to do good to our children. We must labor to serve
the interest of their souls, even from their earliest years.
If Satan begins early to destroy them, let us begin early to save
them. We must, to the best of our ability,
control those who have influence over our sons and Say, well,
I, you know, I'm of the modern school. I, I believe we ought
to give our children freedom of expression. And if they want
crayons and want the white light on the living room wall, you
know, you don't, you don't restrain them. That's nonsense. Foolishness. Mark, you and Carla
got two kids back there. And as painful as it is to realize,
foolishness is in their hearts. or not my son, you have yours
too. Foolishness is bound up in the
heart of a child. You leave him to yourself, you leave him to
a fool. You leave a child to choose his own friends, you leave
a fool to choose his friends. You leave a child to choose his
own companions, leave a fool to choose his companions. You
mean you ought to select their friends for them? What do you
think you're called parents for? Of course you ought to select
their friends for them. instruct them in the scriptures, instruct
them in the blessed doctrines of the gospel, pray for them,
and exercise parental guidance over them, care for them. We also learn from this passage
something again of the dual nature of every believer. This is so evident throughout
the scriptures. It's stamped on virtually every
page of Scripture as you read through the Word of God, you
understand that believers are men and women in this world who
are given a new nature by grace so that they are born of God's
Spirit and yet they still have this body and nature of flesh.
And consequently, we are two distinct personalities, two distinct
characters in one body. Now this is exactly what Paul
says in the passage you're going to be studying next Sunday morning
in Bible class in Romans 7. We live in this body of flesh
and that's not just talking about the physical body, it's talking
about the fleshly nature. We live in this carnal existence
and in this flesh is nothing but sin. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh. But God's given us a new nature.
That which is born of the spirit is spirit. The flesh does nothing
but sin, the Spirit does that which is righteous. And yet,
being such a case as this, there is within every believer both
sin and righteousness, both faith and unbelief. This man, this
father, speaks to the Lord Jesus and he said, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Now for some folks, that's That's
difficult to understand because they think they have great faith. Sometimes I hear silly people,
you know, they find out you're preaching, they start bragging
on their faith. They start talking about how great they believe
God. I'm going to tell you something. A man or woman who believes God,
you want him talking about how great he believes God. You'll
hear him speak like this man says Lord I believe. But my faith is just unbelief.
I believe help thou mine unbelief. He seems to have some reference
to this in verse 22. He expresses both hope and fear
and it does so with honesty. He says if thou canst do anything. You mean this man comes to the
Lord and he says, he said, if you can, well, that's not much
faith. I know, but it's usually the kind I've got, isn't it Jim? Now we don't, we don't talk that
way. We're not, we're not that honest with God, but that's usually
the kind of faith I have. Lord, if you can help, if you
can do anything, have compassion on us. That's not much faith, but it
is faith as a grain of mustard seed. And it was enough, because
he went home with his boy dispossessed of the devil. He went home with
his boy rejoicing in God's goodness. Now understand these things.
None of God's people in this world are perfect. Not even in
a single area or at a single time. Understand that? None of it, none of it. We are
sinners, we were born sinners, we're being justified sinners,
born again sinners, but sinners still. And everything about us
is marred continually with sin and our best deeds are just filthy
We're sinners all the time, always sinners. But understand this
too. It is not our faith, neither
the strength of our faith, nor the quality of our faith, nor
the quantity of our faith that matters. People keep looking
to themselves. I've had a call from a man last
night struggling with assurance and I can't give assurance to
anybody. I don't even attempt to give
assurance to anybody. Some of you have talked to me about it
over the years now. Only thing I know to do is tell
you to look to Christ. And this is exactly what I told this man,
but he's struggling with not having enough faith. Who does? Who's got enough? You? Me? Oh, no. Well, I just I don't
believe like I should. Who does? Any man who presumes
he does, I'm telling you right now, doesn't have anything. He
hasn't met God yet. But the object of our faith is
what matters. To whom do you look? I'm looking to Christ, but we
kind of look one eye up to Him, one eye down here to ourselves.
That's not looking to Him. I'm looking to Christ, but you
kind of look to Him and look to the church or baptism or your
works. That's not looking to Him. I'm
looking to Christ, but you look to Him with one eye and look
to your faith with the other. That's not looking to Him. But
where do you look? I look to Christ. I don't know much about faith.
I really don't. I don't know much about prayer.
I honestly don't. Some fellows write books on those
subjects, but I don't know much about them. I just don't. But
I know the essence, the essence of this thing called faith. is
looking to Christ. And I'm telling you, Burlhart,
if in the teeth of your sin, the corruption of your heart,
the blackness and darkness of your nature, you can look to
Christ, that's it. That's it. This father came with
his son and said, Lord, I believe. Help thou mine unbelief. Now
there's another lesson here. We are taught here by vivid example
the totality of Christ's dominion. In this passage of Scripture,
we see our Lord exercising total dominion over Satan and his agents. Now sometimes folks get the idea
that Satan is sort of a rival god. They get the idea that,
you know, Satan's, he's out yonder, And somehow or another, he got
in here without God really knowing what was going on. And he's,
you know, the Lord can't control him, and the Lord doesn't have
any dominion over him, and he's not quite God, but he's right
up there really giving it a good fight. Don't be so foolish. The devil is God's devil. He's
under our Lord's dominion. He does nothing without our Lord's
permission. He is an instrument in God's
hands as much as any other creature of God is an instrument in God's
hands always under God's control and he accomplishes nothing except
what God has purposed for him to accomplish and in doing so
he accomplishes God's purpose of grace toward his people. That's
exactly right and when God gets done with him he's going to destroy
him. He's going to cast him into the lake of fire. Richard, do
you mean to say that you believe God always controls the devil? I'll give you a choice. Either
he does or he doesn't. Now what kind of a God does it?
If the devil's in control, worship him. I'm dead serious. If Satan's in control anywhere,
at any time, in any reason, you bow down and worship him, because
he's the God of God. Oh no, God's in total control
of the devil, always. Our Lord Jesus spoke and he said
to the devil, come out of him, thou unclean spirit. And you
know what he did? He came out. On another occasion he commanded
the legion of devils to come out of the man. Well, can we go to these hogs?
He said, all right, go to the hogs. But without his permission,
they couldn't even invade the swine. The devil comes to accuse
Job and he accuses him and actually the Lord is the one who brought
up the issue. He said, have you considered my servant Job? And
Satan said, well, yeah, but he searched what he can get out
of it. He said, we'll see. Now, this is what you can do. He said,
you can take this and this and this. You can't have that. You
can't touch it. And he comes back again and he
said, well, skin for skin, all the man has will be given in
exchange for his soul. And the Lord said, all right, you can
take everything except his life, except his life. And thus he
used Satan to prove his servant and to bring to pass exactly
what he had purposed for his servant from the beginning. You
understand that? Well, that's too deep for me.
There's me too, but I can rejoice in it. I don't have to have answers
to all the questions. What does that imply? I don't
know. It implies God's in control. It implies he rules this world.
My Father's in control. My Savior's in control of everything,
even the demons of hell. Everything. Our Lord Jesus Christ
exercises total dominion over all things at all times, including
Satan. Therefore, we are confident that
he will save his elect from Satan's power. And none can snatch chosen sinners
from his almighty hand, not even Satan. And so, the God of peace
will brew Satan under your heels too. I cannot fail to call your attention
to the fact that this story is recorded in this passage of scripture
for us, upon the pages of inspiration to again teach us and remind
us of the privileges and responsibilities of believing parents. Most of us, our children are
pretty well raised. Some of you are just getting
started. I keep reminding Doug and Faith
of these things. Their first one is soon to be
here. We can't save our children. We
can't change their natures. We can't give them life. We can't
give them faith. We can't bring them to Christ,
literally. We can't do it. Many believing
men and women, better men and women, stronger men and women,
more faithful men and women than anyone here have raised a house
full of rebels. Many have. Let none of us arrogantly
and ignorantly imagine that because a man's children are wicked,
something must be amiss at home. Such talk betrays pride and the
stupidity of a man who's never raised a family. The only fellows I know who are
absolute authorities on this business of parenthood are the
ones who ain't. They're the only ones I know.
They got the answers. Let us never be so arrogant and
foolish as to presume that because Absalom is a rebel, David must
be too. It just said so. And yet, having
said that, there are some things we can and do, or we can and
must do for our children. We can, every one of us, do for
our sons and daughters what this man did for his son. He brought his son to the He brought him to where the Savior
was. He brought him first to his disciples, and then brought
him to the Savior himself. He had heard about the Master,
had heard about his power, and heard about these disciples,
and so he brings his son, who's in desperate need, to the disciples
and to the Savior, for the Savior comes to meet with his disciples. Not only did he bring his son
to the place where the Savior was likely to be found, He brought
the Savior to his son by prayer. Fervent prayer. It wasn't half-hearted
stuff. It wasn't, Lord, have mercy on
my son. Oh, no. He meant business with
God and he took hold of it. When he prayed, he acknowledged
his son's condition. to the Savior. Lindsay Campbell, there's nothing
more difficult for you and me to do than that. It's tough to acknowledge my
condition before Him, but to acknowledge my daughters,
for you to acknowledge your sons as they really are before God. Describe your boy to me. He's
deaf and dumb. He won't hear a thing and can't
hear a thing. And spiritually, with all things
moral, with all things ethical, with all things responsible,
he's as dumb as a box of rocks. He won't hear a thing. He's a lunatic. wicked to the core. And Lord, he's always been that
way. From a child he's been that way.
And now he's dying. And there's not a thing I can
do for him. I can't help him. I can't, I can't get through
to him. This demon that possesses him
has power over him that my fatherly love and care cannot penetrate. Lord if you can do anything, help us. He took his son's desperate need
to be his name. He said have compassion on us,
not on him. Not help him. And he believed God for his son. Now obviously, he could not believe
God instead of his son as a proxy. There's no such thing as proxy
faith. Folks bring babies to priests
and altars and have them sprinkle a little water on their face.
believe for their child. Shoot, that's foolishness, that's
nonsense. That's playing games with God,
playing games with your child. There's no such thing as proxy
faith. But this man did believe God for his son. He knew that foolishness, bound
up in the heart of his child, could never be taken from him,
but by the power of God's omnipotent grace. Now one more thing, there
is in this passage of scripture, a beautiful instructive picture
of God's almighty operations of grace. Let me just call your
attention here to four things. You understand, I do not suggest
that every believer has the same emotions and the same experiences
exactly so that, you know, what you go through, you've got to
tell you what I go through or you haven't experienced God's grace.
Not at all. But our experiences, Paul, are similar. They got some
common things about them, some common threads that run through
them. First, when God saves a sinner, there's got to be a divine call.
Look at verse 19. The Lord Jesus said, bring him
to me. Bring him to me. Let me stretch that a little
bit. Let me have a little liberty with this here. When God Almighty
comes to save a sinner, when the time of mercy has come, he
issues a call and he says to all the prophets, he said before
the world began, to all of Providence. Now, at this time, in the fullness
of time, you bring Don Fortner to me. And so all of Providence
grew by his hand, everything, everything. Oh, how it thrills
my soul to meditate on Everything that has been and is, he has
used to bring me to him. He takes his word, this word I'm preaching to you
now, and he causes his word to be
sent by his spirit, and he says to his spirit, bring it to me,
bring it to me. You remember how David said to
Ziba, fetch him, go get Mephibosheth, fetch him, bring him here. That
means go get him, don't go invite him, bring him. And when God
sends forth his spirit, he fetches sinners to Christ. Wherever the Lord Jesus calls
sinners to himself, you can pretty well bake on this
too. They're going to be a satanic throw. Look at verse 20. And
they brought him unto the Lord Jesus. And when he saw him straightway,
the spirit teared him, and he fell on the ground and withered,
a wallow rather, foaming. The spirit cast a tale. One last throw. Because Satan's
in a rage now. He knows he has but a short time.
And he's going to do his dead level best to destroy him. And
I tell you, when the Lord Jesus comes to fetch chosen redeemed
sinners, Satan's gonna, Satan's not gonna
give up easy. He's gonna do everything he can
to destroy. And then thirdly, When the Lord comes
to give life, eternal life to sinners, there is a hopeful slaughter. In verses 25 and 26, we see evidence
here that our Lord kills before he makes alive. He brings down
before he lifts us up. When Jesus saw that the people
came running together, He rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto
him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him,
and enter no more into him. And the spirit cried, and wrenched
him sore, and came out of him. And he was as one dead. And so
much folks looked at him and said, he's dead. He's dead. Rex read that passage in the
2nd Chronicle 9 a little bit ago. The Queen of Sheba. when she saw Solomon's glory
and heard his wisdom and saw his ascent by which he went up
into the house of God. What a picture of a sinner seeing
our Savior. There was no more spirit in her. That's what it's
told. No more spirit. It just didn't
want to. But blessed be God when the Lord
Jesus comes to give life The chosen redeemed sinners. He doesn't
leave them as one dead. There is a resurrection from
the dead. Look at verse 27. Oh, now I pray this is what he'll
do for you. For you who are yet dead in trespasses
and in sin. Jesus took him by the hand. What a hand. convicted him of, and he arose. Amen. Lenten, you lead us into
him, if you will, and the victims will serve the Lord's table.