Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Nyberg. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com.
Now here's our pastor, Todd Nivert. I'm going to be preaching this
morning from Mark chapter 7, verses 31 through 37, and I've
entitled this message, Ephethah. Ephethah. And you'll understand
why I gave it this title as we read this passage of scripture.
We read, beginning in verse 31 of Mark chapter 7, And again,
departing from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, he came into the Sea
of Galilee through the midst of the coast of Decapolis, and
they bring unto him one that was deaf. He lived in a world
of silence and had an impediment in his speech. If you've never
heard any noise, you certainly can't grasp the phonics of language,
and you certainly cannot articulate words if you've never heard. Just on the side, I read where
Helen Keller said that the absence of hearing was more difficult
than the absence of sight. I don't know, but that's what
she said. She's someone who experienced
both. And they beseech him to put his
hand upon him. They besought the Lord to put
his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the
multitude and put his finger into his ears, and he spit and
touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he
sighed and saith unto him, That is, be opened. And straightway his ears were
opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake
plain. He now articulated each word
perfectly. And he, the Lord, charged them
that they should tell no man. You know, the Lord wasn't seeking
publicity. 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 maketh both the deaf to hear
and the dumb to speak. Ephatha, be opened. And it's my prayer that someone's
ears are opened by the Lord through this message. I pray that you
hear what's being said. Now, can you imagine living in
this world without the ability to hear and without the ability
to speak? Silence, that's all you've ever
known. No ability to communicate. What a crippling disability,
and only those who've experienced it can really know. I haven't
experienced this. But I remember one time when
I was a little boy, going to visit some relatives. And in
that home, there was a man, late 20s, early 30s, that was a deaf-mute. And I was just a little boy,
and I remember the sounds he would make, would scare me to
death. You see, he'd never heard words. He didn't know how to articulate
or communicate. He would just make these sounds.
And this is before we had the, ability to help people like this
with sign language and so on. It was not as advanced as it
is now, and to help poor people with this disability, and it
absolutely scared me to death. Now, the Lord was departing from
the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, and He came into the Sea of Galilee.
in the midst of the coasts of Decapolis, and they bring unto
him one that was dead. I imagine this was his relatives.
His relatives perhaps had heard that anyone who came into contact
with Christ was healed. Maybe they heard about that leper
who said, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. And the
scripture says, and Jesus moved with compassion, reached forth
his hand and touched him and said, I will. Be thou clean. I think of that woman who had
the issue of blood, thinking, if I can just touch the hem of
his garment, I'll be completely whole. There was healing in his
touch. Oh, I want to be touched by him,
don't you? I want you to be touched by him. And 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. thirty-three, and he took him
aside. Now, that's what I need. I need the Lord to take me aside.
You see, by nature, I am spiritually deaf. I can't hear. And by nature, I have an impediment
in my speech. I cannot articulate what I've
never heard. Now that is the case of every
natural man, spiritually deaf and spiritually muted. Now, I'm unable to hear. Oh, I can hear audibly, and you
can hear audibly, and perhaps to some measure you can understand
what's being said. Let me try to illustrate what
I'm saying. The Bible is the inspired Word
of God. There's no error in it. It claims
this for itself. All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. Now, you know what I mean by
that. You might not believe it, but
you know exactly what's being said. You understand that? You
might not rejoice in it. You might not receive it, but
you know what's being said. According to the Bible, God is
absolutely sovereign. That means he's in control of
everything. He's the cause of causes. I mean
the things going through your mind right now, he's in control
of. He is the cause. There's nothing
that happens without Him. It's just Him being God. He is
in absolute control. Now you know what I mean by that,
when I say that. You might not like it, you might
not even agree with it, but you know what I mean. You're in God's
hand, He's not in yours. As to whether or not you're saved,
it's not up to you, it's up to Him. It's up to Him. Now, you
understand this, that the Bible says there's none righteous,
no not one. There's none that understands. There's none that
seeks after God. They've all gone out of the way.
They together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. You know what that means? That
means me and you are not righteous. We're not good. We've never done
good. We are completely evil. Genesis 6-5 says, And the Lord
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now, you know what's being said.
You might not agree with it. I understand that. But you know
what's being said. Men are so evil that if left
to themselves, if God doesn't do something for you and me,
we will go to hell. The Bible teaches that before
time began, God chose who would be saved. It's called election.
According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world. Now, somebody says, well, that's
deep. No, it's not. It's very simple.
It's glorious, but it's not hard to understand. God chose who
would be saved. The Lord put it this way, John
15, verse 16. He said to his disciples, you
have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. Now, you understand
that. You might not like it. You might
not agree with it, but you understand that. The Bible teaches that
Christ laid down His life for His sheep, and everybody He died
for must be saved. The Bible doesn't teach that
Jesus Christ made salvation available for everybody, paying for everybody's
sins. Somebody believes that way doesn't
believe the gospel. They believe another gospel. They're not preaching
the gospel. You see, the only hope that the believer has is
that Christ died for them. Now, if Christ died for you,
you must be saved. If Christ didn't die for you,
you cannot be saved. And you don't want to be saved,
as far as that goes. It's not like somebody's begging God,
oh, Lord, save me. No, no, Christ didn't die for
you. I'm not going to do it. No, that never happened. The
natural man has no love for God, doesn't want to be saved on God's
terms. But still, the fact of the matter is, Christ died for
the elect. Now, everybody knows what that
means. You might not agree. You might not love it. But you
know. And the Bible teaches that God's
grace actually saves. It's irresistible. It's invincible. God doesn't offer His grace.
He saves by His grace. Grace is not an offer up for
your acceptance or rejection. No. If God gives you grace, you'll
be saved. And the evidence, the only evidence,
that God has elected somebody, that Christ died for that person,
and God, by His grace, has saved them, is they will persevere
all the way to the end. They will not quit. Now, you understand that. Here's
the problem. The natural man doesn't hear
that because he doesn't hear as a sinner. If you hear as a
sinner, you'll rejoice in this. But if you don't hear as a sinner,
you will find no rejoicing in what I just said. Now, what's
a sinner? Well, a sinner's the one who commits the sins. God
doesn't put sins into hell. He puts the ones who committed
them into hell. I've heard people say, well,
God loves the sinner, but he hates his sin. No, you can't
separate the sin and the sinner. The sinner is the one who commits
the sins. If God's going to bring you into
heaven, you're going to have to be made to where you don't
have any sin. But what is a sinner? A sinner is somebody who all
they do is sin. They cannot not sin. All their sin is their fault. They can't blame God's sovereignty.
They can't blame their mom and dad or their upbringing or their
environment and circumstances. All their sin is all their fault,
and they can't throw a stone at anybody about anything. They can't sit in judgment on
anybody. They know they're the chief of
sinners, and they have no claims on God. If God passes me by,
just and holy is His name. Now, if you can't hear the gospel,
believing that about yourself, you can't hear the gospel, period.
It won't come as good news to you. You see, if you're a sinner,
you need God to choose you. You need Christ to effectually
pay for all your sins. You need for God's grace to be
irresistible and invincible, because you know you're resisted
if it's not. You need to be preserved so you can persevere all the
way to the end. Now, until a man hears the gospel
as a sinner, he's not able to hear, understand, or believe
the gospel. And the deaf person has an impediment
in his speech. It sounds like this, I, I, I. What makes you think you're saved?
Because I believed, I repented, I changed, I did this and I stopped
doing that. That's the impediment in the
speech that demonstrates he's never really heard. I, I, I. And this deaf person will remain
that way and go to hell unless Christ does for him what he did
for this fellow. Now, what happens? Verse 33,
and he, the Lord Jesus, took him aside from the multitude.
Best thing that ever happened for me or you is for the Lord
to take us aside, deal with us by himself. And he took him aside
from the multitude, and there's four things he did. He put his
finger into his ears, and he spit. I suppose he spit on his
hand and touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he
sighed. and he said unto him, Ephetha,
that is, be opened. Now, he put his finger in his
ears. In Luke chapter 11, verse 46,
the Lord said, if I with the finger of God cast out devils. Now, when he's talking about
the finger of God, He's talking about the power of God. Oh, he's omnipotent. He's all-powerful. There's nothing that he desires
that he can't have because he's all-powerful. Now, when he put
his finger in that man's ears, this represents the power of
God that's going to give hearing ears. And then he spit on his
hand and touched his tongue. Now, I think it's interesting
in the Old Testament, in Leviticus chapter 15, if somebody that
was unclean spit on someone who was clean, they were made unclean. But here, the opposite happens. He that's clean spits on the
unclean, and they're made clean. Now, you think about this. Something
had to come from Him and touch this man. It's represented as
spit, but something had to come from Him and touch this man. His righteousness that comes
from Him must come to me and touch me to make me righteous
and to make me able to hear and speak. And then the Scripture
says, he sighed. This represents the sympathy
of his humanity. Oh, he saw this man and he sighed
in sympathy and empathy. Christ Jesus, the Scripture says,
can be touched by the feeling of our infirmities. The reason
being, he's experienced them all when he was made sin. He
sighed, I need his sympathetic humanity. I need his power to
give me hearing. I need something to come from
him and touch me, his righteousness, to give me hearing. I need his
sympathetic humanity to give me hearing. And then he said,
Ephatha, be opened. Now, the Lord could have simply
willed him to start hearing and speaking, but he didn't. He's doing this to demonstrate
to us what he does to a sinner when he saves him. Be open. He didn't offer this. He didn't
say, open your ears. He didn't say, I'm going to give
you the opportunity to have your ears opened. Nothing like that.
Ephatha, that is, be open, verse 35, and straightway. This is a word Mark loves to
use. It's used 40 times in the book
of Mark, and this demonstrates the immediacy of obedience to
his command. He didn't offer this man the
ability to hear. Why he couldn't hear? That wouldn't
do him any good. He gave him ears to hear. and his ears were
opened. He spake with sovereign authority,
and that is what took place. Be opened. When was it that Lydia
believed? When the Lord opened her heart. When was it that the disciples
understood the Scriptures? When He opened their understanding,
that they might understand the Scriptures. When is it that a
man is enabled to hear the gospel? When God says, Ephetha, be opened,
and then you hear. And the Scripture says the string
of his tongue was unloosed. Now that word is usually translated,
that string is usually translated bond. That which bound his tongue
so that he was unable to speak is set free. long my imprisoned
spirit lay, fast bound by sin and nature's night. Thine eye
diffused a quickening ray, I woke the dungeon, flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart
set free. I rose, went forth, and followed
Thee." His band, that which bound him, was loosed. And what happened? Let's go on
reading. And straightway his ears were
opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake
plain. He no longer had that speech
impediment, I, I, I. It's now He, He, He. He is my
salvation. He saved me. He put away my sin. He is my righteousness. He is
my peace. He is my all. That language was
changed. You see, if the Lord ever does
something for me or you, it's going to come out in our speech,
out of the abundance of the heart. the mouth speaketh." You're going
to be very careful to give God all the glory. Now, you may fumble
in your speech and not know what to say. I love the hymn, when
this poor, lispering, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave.
Then in a nobler, sweeter song, I'll sing thy power to save.
And indeed I will. But I know this, if the Lord's
done something for me upon this earth, my speech will be, He
did it all. I will give no glory to myself.
I will know. that He did it all. Jesus paid it all, all the debt
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. All of God's people know this. Salvation is of the Lord, and
they will speak that plainly. If they do not speak that plainly,
the Lord's never done anything for them. Now let's go on reading.
Verse 36, and he charged them, these men that brought this deaf
man who had an impediment in his speech, whom the Lord healed,
he charged them that they should tell no man. Now that happens
over and over again in the Scriptures, and I know why. The Lord's not
trying to get publicity. He's not trying to get a hearing.
He's not trying to do things only to get people to listen
to Him. He came to save His people from their sins. He's not trying
to market Himself. That's what most preaching is.
It's not true preaching, but it's trying to market, make the
gospel appealing to the flesh. This will be a blessing to you.
It'll help your life and all that kind of foolishness. That's
not what the Lord was about. He was about saving His people
from their sins. He's got a people, His sheep.
He came to save them, and save them He did. And He's not trying
to market Himself. He said, don't tell anybody about
Me. But we read, the more he charged
them, so much the more, a great deal, they published it. If the
Lord does something for you, you won't be able to keep quiet
about it. I like what one preacher said to a young lady who came
up and said, do I need to tell people that the Lord saved me?
He said, it'll leak out on you. And it will. It will. But let's
go on reading. Verse 37, these people, it says,
were beyond measure astonished. Now, I hope I stay beyond measure
astonished. I stand amazed in the presence
of Jesus the Nazarene and wonder how He could love me, a condemned, unclean. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now
I'm bound, was blind, but now. I see. I never want to lose the
amazement of all of this. I don't want to lose my first
love. I don't want to ever cease to be poor and needy and astonished
at His grace. They were beyond measure astonished,
saying, and here's everything every believer believes, He hath
done. all things well, perfectly. Now, when I think of the things
that He has done, the Lord Jesus Christ, before time began, stood
as a surety for His people. Everything God requires of His
people, Christ took full responsibility for before time began. before I was ever born. Christ
was my surety and took full responsibility for my salvation. And this is
how He has done all things well. In the mind and purpose of God,
I was saved, I was glorified even then. He had done all things
well. He created this universe. He created the world. and he
hath done all things well." When Adam fell, it was all a part
of his purpose. He hath done all things well. You see, I'm more secure in the
salvation that's in Christ than I would have been if Adam would
have never fallen. Because if I was in a state like
that, I might still fall. But in Christ, as my surety,
I can't fall. When He came on into this earth,
He kept God's law perfectly. He hath done all things well,
and He did so for His people. He said to John the Baptist,
thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. When he kept
the law, I kept the law. He hath done all things well. When he died on Calvary's tree,
he did so as a sin-bearing substitute, and he put away all the sin. OF EVERYBODY HE DIED FOR, SO
THAT EVERY BELIEVER, BECAUSE OF HIS DEATH, IS BEFORE GOD HOLY
AND UNBLAMEABLE AND UNREPROVABLE IN HIS SIGHT. THE SCRIPTURE SAYS
HE WAS DELIVERED FOR OUR OFFENSES AND RAISED AGAIN FOR OUR JUSTIFICATION.
WHEN HE WAS RAISED FROM THE DEAD, ALL OF HIS PEOPLE, ALL HE DIED
FOR, ALL WHO WILL BELIEVE THE GOSPEL, WERE PERFECTLY JUSTIFIED. THEY WERE MADE WITHOUT GUILT.
nothing to feel guilty about, perfect before God. He hath done
all things well. As he intercedes for his people,
even right now at the right hand of God, he's doing it perfectly. Everybody he represents is saved. He hath done all things well. He maketh both the deaf to hear
and the dumb to speak. Salvation is what He makes, and
I'm somebody He's made. I've been made to hear the salvation
that's in Him. I've been made to hear the gospel
as good news to me. You see, I've been made a sinner.
There was a time I didn't know I was a sinner. I know I am now.
It's because He revealed Himself to me, and I see my sinfulness
and my need of His grace. And that's exactly what I'm speaking
right now. He makes the dumb to speak. Ephetha, be opened. May the Lord open our hearts
and ears. We have this message on DVD and
CD. If you call the church, write
or email, we'll send you a copy. This is Todd Kniper praying God
will be pleased to make Himself known to you. That's our prayer.
Amen. To request a copy of the sermon you have just heard, send
your request to messages at toddsroadgracechurch.com. Or you may write or call the
church at the information provided on the screen.