Let's look together this evening
at Mark chapter 7, the gospel of Mark chapter 7. We have before us the story of
a remarkable cure wrought by our Lord Jesus Christ, the cure
of a man who was a death mute. And it is a cure, a story, a
miraculous event recorded by no gospel writer except Mark. So we want to look at it very
carefully. In verse 31 we read, again departing
from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee
through the midst of the coast of Decapolis. How quickly the
Son of God passes by. How quickly he passes by. While he is present, there is
hope. When he's gone, there's no hope. You remember how the
blind man heard the Jesus of Nazareth passeth by, and he cried,
Lord, have mercy on me. And the Savior stopped, had mercy
on him. But he just passed him by. He
just passed him by. He came into the coast of Tyre
and Sidon, and while he was passing through the coast of Tyre and
Sidon, passing by for just a brief moment in that place, passing
by for just a brief moment in all the power of his sovereign
divinity, the Lord Jesus met with one lone Canaanite woman
who seized the opportunity. One lone woman came to the Master. in desperate need of mercy. And
she obtained mercy. And nobody else needed mercy.
And nobody else obtained mercy. Nobody else sought mercy. Nobody
else got mercy. Nobody else was aware of his
or her need of the Son of God. And nobody else received anything
from the Son of God. He just passed by. And he came
again into the coast of Decapolis and back to the Sea of Galilee.
What a warning! Now the Master was gone. Tyre
and Sidon were left. The Son of God passed through
the coast, but now He left them. Left them never to return again. He came to show mercy to that
chosen sinner. Indeed, he showed mercy to every
sinner who sought it, every sinner who wanted it, but there was
just one who did. Well, might we pray this hour. Pass me not, O gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry. While on
others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Lord, if you're pleased
to come here and speak to anybody, speak to me. If you're pleased
to come here and make yourself known to anybody, make yourself
known to me. If you're pleased to pass by
here and distribute your grace and mercy and sprinkle your goodness
upon a people, pass me not, O gentle Savior. Our Lord Jesus, while
he walked on this earth, never stayed in one place for very
long. When he had cured the Canaanite
woman's daughter, he had done what he came into the coast of
Tyre and Sidon to do, and then he left. And as I read history, I recognize
that our Lord Jesus never stays anywhere very long. Never. Do you read of the blessings
of those early churches that are recorded in the New Testament?
Very few of them endure for very long with the light of the gospel. Very few. It seems the gospel
goes from one nation to another, from one city to another, from
one place to another, and God plants His tabernacle here for
a while, and then He moves on. He does what He's intended to
do, what He's purposed to do, and He moves on. And yet as our
Lord's departure from the coast of Tyre and Sidon is a warning,
a solemn warning to you who yet despise his mercy and grace,
to you who yet believe not the Son of God, to you who will not
hear his voice and will not hearken to his gospel, his return to
Galilee is most hopeful and encouraging. For the Son of God is most often
found in that place where he is most often found. He is most
often found in that place where he most often makes himself known.
He's most often found in that place where most often sinners
like that poor woman with an issue of blood touch him and
find virtue from him in their souls. Our Lord Jesus came back
through Decapolis unto the sea of Galilee, where most often
he performed his works of mercy, where most often he made himself
known, where most often he spoke to the hearts of sinners, chosen
by grace and redeemed by his blood. That kindly inspires me. I hope it does you. As I make
preparations to preach to you, to come here and listen to Lindsay
and others travel Sunday after Sunday, Tuesday after Tuesday.
Oh, how often the Lord Jesus has come here, visited with us,
and made himself known to us. What blessed, blessed, blessed
times we've had in this house for so long, for so often. With
reverent expectation, I tremble that maybe it won't be and yet
I expect and pray that it shall be as we gather together the
Son of God will meet with us and makes himself known to us
and speak to us by his word may it be so now let's read then
Mark's account continuing in verse 32 They bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an
impediment in his speech. And they beseech him to put his
hand upon him. Verse 33. And he took him aside
from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he
spit, and touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephrathah,
that is, be opened. And straightway his ears were
opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke
plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man. But
the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they
published it. and were beyond measure astonished,
saying, He hath done all things well. He make both the deaf to
hear and the dumb to speak. Now the healing of this poor
deaf mute is a miraculous story of our Lord's sovereign power
and goodness full of spiritual instruction. Give me your attention
for just a few minutes. and pray that God the Holy Spirit
will be pleased to be our teacher as we consider three things in
these brief verses. First, in verse 32, we have set
before us a very sad case. They bring unto him one that
was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they beseech
him to put his hand upon him. Somehow these people, I don't
know who they were, it doesn't really matter. It's obvious that
the Spirit of God does not intend for us to know who they were.
Perhaps they were relatives, perhaps they were friends, perhaps
they were neighbors of this man. They knew that this man was a
deaf mute. They knew that he could neither
speak nor hear. And they had heard or seen, perhaps
some of them had experienced the power of the Son of God. And having heard and seen and
experienced the power of his grace, they brought this poor
needy sinner to the place where Christ was. And as they brought
him to the Master, they beseeched him, begged him that he would
lay his hand on him. Now notice how the Holy Spirit
directed Mark to choose his words. And they beseech him to put his
hand upon him. Just makes good sense. They had
seen the master put his hand on somebody else. He is healed.
Maybe they themselves had the master put his hand on them,
and they were healed. And so they come to this man
who has a desperate need, and they say, Lord, put your hand
on him. Now that's good. because they brought him to the
master and they wanted him to be healed and yet they made a
grave mistake for these folks brought this man to the master
and dared to presume to tell God Almighty how to work his
wonders of grace what a danger our Lord didn't say a word how
gracious how merciful He just, by his actions, demonstrates
to these men, I will be gracious, and I will be merciful, and I
will save, I will exercise my power according to my will, but
I'll do it my way. You stand back and watch. And
he took the man aside, didn't lay his hands on him, he had
mercy on him, he healed him, but he did it exactly as it pleased
him. Now there's a reason for that.
We must understand that every child of God, while he experiences
the same grace by the same means, experiences grace in a very distinct,
individual manner. The experience of grace with
every sinner saved by grace is truly singular and distinct. Should I ask you to stand tonight? You who know the Lord God and
tell me how it is that looking back now over your past history
and it's not that we that we add two things, but as we grow
in the grace and knowledge of Christ and look back, we see
more distinctly what happened. How the Lord dealt with us in
His providence and grace, in prevenient grace, and in convicting
us and bringing us to repentance and faith in Christ. And I ask
you, how this happened with you? I guarantee you, every saved
sinner here, young or old, man or woman, will stand up and testify
plainly that he is saved by God's free, sovereign grace, and you
listen to him. And every one of them have a
different story. Every one of them have a different story.
Because they've experienced the same grace. But they've experienced
it in a distinct, individual manner as the distinct, peculiar
object of God's free grace. We must never, never attempt
to hem God Almighty in. And try to put God Almighty in
a box and say, this and this alone is the way God operates.
just didn't so. I'll say more about that in a
moment. This poor man, however, is a pretty good picture of all
men by nature. He is a representative of unregenerate
sinners in their natural state and condition, people who are
deaf to the voice of God Almighty. who hear not the word of God
in his law, by which he threatens to punish every soul that sins,
saying, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Doesn't matter.
They don't hear. Some of you hear. Never hear
God speak in his law. God speaks, but you hear not. You pay no attention. The Lord
God declares the soul that sinneth it shall die. That doesn't bother
you. It doesn't bother you because you don't hear it. The terrible
condemnation and curse of the law has no effect on you. You're
death. You're not at all affected, not
at all disturbed by such things. I might as well be talking to
stones. Indeed I am. Your stony heart of unbelief.
will not be moved by the things of God until God takes away your
stony heart and puts in you a living heart of flesh and causes you
to hear his voice. Like the deaf adder, you stop
your ears to the charming voice of Christ in the gospel, the
sweet sound of Jesus Christ and him crucified. Unbelieving sinners
utterly despise. You hold it to be contemptuous.
bothersome, an irksome thing that you just would rather not
be bothered with, you're totally deaf to the instructions of the
gospel, to the directions, the cautions, the warnings, the exhortations
of your pastor, of your parents, of your most tender relations,
your best friends, the dearest people around you, folks who
care most about you. They speak and warn and plead
and pray, and you hear, but you don't hear a thing. You just
won't hear. You do not hear because you will
not hear, and you will not hear because you cannot hear. You're
deaf. Deaf. Not only are you by nature
spiritually deaf, you're deaf-mute. Try as you might, and sometimes
folks do, you know, they try to speak the language of Canaan.
But it's a strange language to them. And when they try to speak
the language of Canaan, they have a terrible impediment in
their speech. They simply can't get the words
out right. You see, the language is strange
to you. It's strange to you and you cannot
speak it. Because you don't understand
the language. You don't understand it when
others speak it. You don't understand the things
of Christ. They sound like so much meaningless babble to you.
And when you pretend that you really have gotten in on this
thing, after all, you listen. And like a poor poet, you repeat
things you've heard other folks say, but they're utterly meaningless
to you, and they come out meaningless from your mouth. Because you've
never experienced God's grace. I think also it's proper to say
that this poor deaf-mute is a picture, a type of representative of sinners
who are newly awakened by the Spirit of God. When a person
is first born of the Spirit, we ought not expect him or her
to walk and talk like an aged, experienced saint. Babes in Christ
usually behave as babes. Though sometimes they think they're
very strong and mature. Sometimes they think they're
very knowledgeable. Sometimes they think, boy, I
have achieved now. I have grown. I've learned so
much. I've arrived at so much. Sound like a teenage child. You
know, you listen to folks and you just wait. Don't get too
upset. Just wait. They'll learn. They
don't know anything. They'll learn they haven't achieved
anything. They'll learn they haven't arrived
at anything, and they'll sit silently at the Master's feet
and hear his words as Mary did. Those who are under the first
workings of God's Spirit upon their souls are often sort of
tongue-tied. Through fear or bashfulness,
maybe the temptations and accusations of Satan, they fear to speak
or they speak with great difficulty what God has done for them. And
when they do, it's in a lisping, stammering way. I really like
what John Gill said about these who brought this man to Christ.
He said, as the friends and relations of this man, having a great opinion
of Christ, and a persuasion of his ability to relieve and cure
him, bring him to the Savior, that he might put his hands upon
him. So those who know Christ themselves,
and have felt the power of his grace upon their souls, bring
their death and dumb, their relations in a state of nature, under the
means of grace, desiring that Christ may put his hands on them,
and heal them by his grace. Somehow I fully believe if indeed we are truly persuaded by experience of the power of
our Lord and the bounty of his grace, of his willingness and
his might to save to the uttermost all who come to God by him, somehow
I believe that our persuasion of his goodness and will cause
us to bring folks whose souls are under our care, folks for
whom we care, will cause us to bring them to where He is and
plead with Him that He may lay His hand on them. Now let's look at what our Lord
did with this deaf man whom these folks brought to the Master. Here's a very singular cure.
This man stands before our Lord Jesus as a deaf mute. And the
Scripture says our Lord took him. He took him aside from the
multitude and put his fingers into his ears. And he spit. Strange thing to do. He spit
and touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven he sighed. And he said to him, Ephrathah,
that is, be open. And straightway his ears were
opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke
plainly. This mighty miracle performed
by our Savior was a demonstration clearly of his sovereign power
as the creator of the universe over all creation and over all
nature in creation. But if all you see in these miracles
and this miracle and others is the supernatural power of Christ
as God, you've missed the reason why they're written. It is not
here just to tell us that Jesus Christ can heal the deaf and
dumb. It is written to teach us spiritual things concerning
the gospel of Christ and the things of Christ. The Holy Spirit
intends for us to see here that the Son of God has power to heal
the spiritually deaf. He can take the most hard-hearted
sinner, the most obstinate rebel, those who plug up their ears
and will not hear, and make them delight to hear the gospel they
once despised. Some of you sitting here today
rejoiced to hear of free grace just a little while ago. You'd
sit in this building and Try to count the cracks, run along
the ceiling. But now, those who would not
hear are made to hear. As he can heal the spiritually
deaf sinner, he can also untie the tongue of those who are spiritually
mute. Jesus Christ can cause the most
hard-hearted rebel to call on his name. He can put a new song
of grace in the heart of the most vile mouth transgressor. And he can make the most base
blasphemer to be a preacher of his gospel. He saves to the uttermost. We see the Son of God here displaying his saving power. And he is telling us that when
the Son of God comes in saving power, Nothing is impossible. We believe in and preach, for
we have experienced what we call irresistible grace. And by the
way, this is what that means. When God comes to save, He takes
away the will to resist, and you gladly comply. We do not
teach that God saves sinners against their will. That's nonsense.
What we do teach is that God comes in sovereign power and
makes his elect willing in the day of his power so that they're
most glad to come to him, and most glad to call upon him, and
most glad to confess him. Let no sinner then regard himself
as being beyond the reach of God's omnipotent arm. Let us
never consider that anyone is beyond hope Jesus Christ, our
all-glorious Savior, that One who causes the deaf to hear and
the dumb to speak, sits under on the throne of glory, and He's
just the same today as He was yesterday. Exactly the same. I remind you again what I said
at the beginning. Our all-glorious Savior is not
limited to one means of doing things. Now hear me well. We recognize that God has ordained
that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. We
recognize that one way or another God will cause every chosen sinner
to hear the gospel of his free grace and faith will be given
to that sinner by the preaching of the gospel, by the preaching
of the word of God, which is the preaching of the gospel.
That's how God saves sinners. But sometimes He uses terrible
adversities, terrible apparent acts of judgment to bring chosen
sinners to the place where they are made to hear the gospel.
He brings the sinner down in desperation and makes him hear
the Word. You see, it is an act of mercy. indescribable mercy, an act of
grace, indescribable grace, an act of goodness, indescribable
goodness, that this man experienced this judgment from the hand of
God so that he lived as one who could neither hear nor speak. Otherwise he would never have
been brought to the Master. I'll guarantee you When you meet
this nameless saint around the throne of God, he will declare
to you plainly, I'm thankful. I spent my days as a poor deaf
mute until the Master came and called me to hear and called
me to speak. But that's not always the case. He brings men through the world
and seems to bring them without any real terrible adversity and
humiliation in their outward circumstances at all. He brings
them right to the Master. And for them, that's the best.
Sometimes he uses the word spoken publicly in the pulpit, this
public oral exposition of the word. Sometimes he uses a private
word spoken in season. Sometimes he uses the word that's
written. Sometimes he uses the word that's
delivered here in the congregation of God's saints. And sometimes
a faithful wife or a faithful husband leaves tapes laying around
and that renegade they're married to. Curiosity gets the best of
them. They just plug one in. Gotcha. Brother Jim Wilson down in Woodstall
Falls, Texas. I baptized him last time I was
down there. His wife, Penny, kept leaving
tapes in his truck every time she'd drive it. He'd throw them
aside or throw them away. And one day he just decided he's
gonna just find out what it is she's so excited about. That's good enough. God is never limited. Let us never limit Him. God Almighty
works as He will to bring the chosen objects of His grace to
His dear son. Now let's look at the details
of our Lord in this miracle and glean the spiritual truth set
before us. We're told here that he took
him aside. Standing in a crowd, a bunch
of folks come and bring this deaf mutant and say, lay your
hands on him. And the Lord Jesus took him out
of the crowd, over here by himself. James, that's the way he always
works. He's going to take you aside.
You remember how He speaks in Hosea? I will allure thee unto
the wilderness, and there I will speak comfortably unto thee.
The Son of God deals with sinners always this way. He gets them
alone. And I'm going to tell you what,
that's the most miserable, most blessed place in this world to
be. alone. You may be sitting in
a crowd of a thousand people and be totally alone. You may
be sitting at a dinner table with a large family, folks all
around you, and be totally alone. The Lord Jesus will make it so
that you are alone before Him. He brings you to be alone so
that He may speak to your He brings you away from others,
out of Babylon, out of the world, and separates you from others
like a, like a shepherd girls, and calls out his own sheep,
out of a flock of sheep, and gathers them out. So he gathers
out his elect from the world. He brings you to be all together
alone, so that he can speak peace to your heart and drive away
your accusers. I love that picture of the adulterous
woman in John chapter 8. She's taken in the very act of
adultery and these Pharisees, these religious bigots come and
accuse her. The Lord, now Lord, God says
stone her. What do you say? We're going
to get you now. And the Lord Jesus wasn't even
disturbed by her. When he got done, there was nobody
standing around except that woman and her And he said to her, where are
your accusers? She said, I haven't got any anymore. They're gone. He said, neither do I condemn
them. Go and sin no more. And then the master put his fingers
into this fellow's ears. And he says, by that picture,
I who made the alone give a hearing ear. I who made the ear in the
beginning alone can cause you to hear my word and believe on
me by the finger of my grace." And then he spit. I've read that, read that, read
that, read the commentaries on that, and figured the commentaries
don't know any more about it than I do. I don't really know
what he's doing. I don't have any idea what the
mysterious spiritual significance there is to it, if there is any.
I don't have any idea, except this. Our Lord Jesus takes what
comes out of him, puts it on his finger, and touches the tongue
of that man. He says, this is how you get
everything. Every good thing. Every spiritual
gift, every blessing, every merit, every virtue, every power that
makes you accepted with God and whole before God comes out of
me and I must put it in you. And he does it. And then he looked up to heaven
as the servant of God, on an errand from God, doing the will
of God. He looks up to heaven, not for
his sake, but for this man's sake, for our sake. And he's
saying, now listen, every good and perfect gift comes down from
above, from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness,
neither shadow or turning. He looked up to heaven to say,
now when I've done what I've got to do for you, when I've
given you a healing ear and I've given you an open mouth to confess
me, you lift your eyes to heaven and give thanks to God. worship
and praise Him. And then He sighed. Not in weariness, but in pity. pity. Here's this poor man in this terrible condition because of sin. We sigh. He's touched with the feeling
of our he has compassion upon the needy and he sighed and then
he looked at that man just like I'm looking at you and he said
be open and for the first time in his
life that man heard a human voice and spoke an intelligent discernible
word and spoke clearly Immediately the man's ears were opened and
his tongue was loosed so that he spoke plainly. Those ears
which are opened and those tongues that have been loosed by Christ
speak plainly and clearly of what they have seen and heard.
Of what they've experienced and been taught by God's free grace.
So that if anyone comes and asks a reason of the hope that's in
them, they tell them plainly with meekness and with fear. How come it is you hope to go
to heaven when you die? Because Christ died for me. What makes you think Christ died
for you? I trust Him. I couldn't help but think of
the story of Happy Jack. Merle has a bunch of copies of
it now. You can get one from him. This fellow was just a simple-minded
fellow, and he heard these ladies going down the road singing a
tune. Just a very simple ditty. They were singing, I am a poor
sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. And this tune worked its way
into his mind. First thing, he knew he'd go
down the street just singing that simple tune. And God spoke
to his heart. God was pleased to give him life
and faith in Christ. This back in those days, for
some of the fellows getting back to that nonsense, but back in
those days when you go to join a church and you had to go before
a committee and they'd examine you and see if you were worthy.
And he went before these elders and deacons and they asked him
questions. They said, well, tell us, Jack,
how is it that you find yourself in a position that you can confess
yourself to be a Christian. And he said, I am a poor sinner
and nothing at all. But Jesus Christ is my all in
all. And they said, but Brother Jack, surely you have times when
you're down and experiences when you're lifted up. He said, I
am a poor sinner and nothing at all. I can't get much lower
than that. And Jesus Christ is my all in all. I can't get much
higher than that. But surely, Brother Jack, you
have some times with things about which you have no assurance.
He said, I am a poor sinner and nothing at all. I'm sure of that. And Jesus Christ is my all in
all. I'm sure of that. And when they found they couldn't
get anywhere with this simple-minded fellow, they finally admitted
him into the church. And from that day on, he was known as
Happy Jack. Let me tell you, Jack. Oh, let
me tell you, Jack. if you ever find out that you
are a poor sinner and nothing at all, and that Jesus Christ
is your all in all, we'll call you happy, Jack, too. Now, one last thing. In verses
36 and 37, we observe a very satisfying confession. The Lord
Jesus charged them that they should tell no man. But the more
he charged them so much, the more a great deal they published
it. They went everywhere telling
what the Lord Jesus had done. He hath done all things well.
He maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. Now that
seems a little strange. Perhaps you look at it and you
say, well, the Lord said, now fellows, don't you all tell this
to anybody. Perhaps he did so out of modesty, because he did
not seek the praise of men. Perhaps he did so because he
was putting a test to these who had seen and experienced his
grace, to see how they would respond. And now they go forth
and tell everybody what Christ has done. I'll tell you what
you do. You just try to get a fellow
who's never spoken before to shut up. You try to get a man who's experienced
God's saving grace, not to tell you about it. Oh, that won't
happen. That won't happen. They went
forth telling everybody what wondrous things the Lord had
done. Not only that, but in verse 37 we read that they also confessed,
He hath done all things Now I know they didn't understand
everything they said in that statement, any more than I understand
everything I'm going to say about it. But they made a statement
we need to understand and remember. When you consider the past, all
the past, especially when you consider the past of your own
day, Remember, he hath done all things well. No mistakes with God. And when
you think of the present, and consider what's going on around
you, and sometimes your heart breaks. Sometimes you just stand
back in utter confusion. God, help me to see what you're
doing. Why? Why this? Why here? Why now? Remember, He has done all things well. I look back over my life. Boy, I got a lot of things to
cause me to sorrow. both that which I have done and
that which has been done. And I look back over it, and
I'm going to tell you the honest truth. If I could change a thing,
I wouldn't change anything. I wouldn't change anything. For
he from whom are all things, and through whom are all things,
and to whom are all things, hath brought it to pass, as it is
this day, that I might know him. And I stand here before you,
a man who rejoices in that which God was pleased to do for me." Whatever it is. And when we look toward the future, You got so much that concerns
you? There's so many for whom you're
concerned? Remember, He who has done all
things well, will do all things well. And in that great day,
when at last we stand before the throne of God, in that resurrection
day, in that eternal day of glory, we will look back over everything. And part of the bliss and joy
of eternity will be learning to understand, He hath done all
things Now, Bobby, I don't understand
the why and wherefore of hardly anything. I just, I just don't
know. I just don't know. But in that
day, we're going to understand clearly the why and the wherefore. And we will be astonished forever
that we could ever have doubted His love according to question
his faithfulness. This is my satisfaction. It really
is. He hath done all things well. Amen.