Greg Elmquist and Bert Dunbar
left 80 degree weather to come up here. And we're very thankful
you're all here and looking so much forward to hearing you preach.
Greg came to help with the preacher's class yesterday and we had such
a good class and had such good fellowship around the gospel
and such a dear, dear, dear friend and friend of this congregation.
So you come up and preach to us. And we were thankful for that
weather yesterday. And we'll be thankful to get
out of here today before it gets cold again. Several of you all
were with us last weekend and we had some cold weather. And
we accused you of bringing it with you. So you can give us
credit for yesterday's weather. We brought it up from Florida. I'm just so thankful to be here
with you all. I'm grateful for your pastor
and Just a little bit of time we've had to spend together and
a real, real blessing. Would you turn with me in your
Bibles to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. I love what Brother Todd read
from 1 Corinthians there a few moments ago. When man by wisdom
knew not God. It pleased God through the foolishness
of preaching to save them which believe. Preaching Christ, preaching
the gospel, is the means by which God is pleased to save his people. And I want us to think about
that a little bit this morning. I hope we do more than just think
about it. I hope the Lord will convict us to want to be preached
to. Have you ever felt offended by
somebody that was preaching to you about something they were
very passionate about, but for which you did not share their
opinion? Perhaps it was a political position or some pet peeve lifestyle
issue that they were camped on and you felt preached to because
you were being shut up to one point of view. There was no room for dialogue
in their preaching. There was no discussion, no room
for debate. They offended you because your
opinion on the subject didn't matter. We've all had that experience
and we've either said or at least thought in our minds in those
situations, don't preach to me. No one likes to be shut up to
someone else's point of view, unless that person is a believer
and the point of view is God's. Sometimes we think of preaching
in terms of the force of delivery or the personality of preaching
or the way in which it's spoken. Preaching has to do with the
content of the message. and the content of the gospel
shuts sinners up to Christ. If the spirit of God is pleased
to bless his people, he will cause them to come to a place
like this and say in their hearts, preach to me. If the spirit of
God is pleased to bless his people, he will cause the one for whom
he's called to preach the gospel. to declare the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth from the word of God and he'll
be a faithful preacher of the gospel. We're not interested
in what man's opinion is. This is not a matter of one man
having authority over another man. The authority is in the
message of the gospel and the preacher as well as those who
are being preached to. would say in their hearts, I
want to know what God says. And I want to be shut up to what
God says. I'm not interested in what you think. I don't want
you to say, well, it seems to me, I want to hear the sayeth
the Lord. I want to be shut up to the truth
of God. I want to be preached to. I want that. I listen and read
a lot of preaching and I need to be preached to. I need to
be bound to the altar by the cords of grace. I need to be
shut up. I need to have every option taken
away from me. I don't want any wiggle room.
I want to know what God says in its simplicity, in its fullness. And I don't want to have to make
a decision. I don't want to have to debate
it. I don't want it to be a matter of dialogue or discussion. I
want to know that this is what God says. I want to hear it and
I want to believe it. If the Spirit of God is pleased
to bless His people, that will be our attitude. Preach to me. Shut me up. to the truth of Christ
and give me no other options. Give me the uncompromising, irrefutable,
undeniable Word of God. Tell me what God says." If it's
what God says there, how does the Word of God conclude in the
book of Revelation? If any man add to The words of
this book, the curses of this book will be added unto him.
If any man take away from this book, his name will be taken
away from the book. We're not here to add to or take
away, are we? We're here to know what God says,
and to have our mouths shut before God, and to have no contribution
to make, no opinions, just to know, thus saith the Lord, preach
to me. God's people are not offended
to be preached to. I've had people say to me, don't
preach to me. God's people want to be preached to. They want
every choice to be taken from them. They want to know the truth
as it is revealed in Christ and be shut up to Christ. I, Lord, came as a preacher. And he sends out his ambassadors
as preachers. As we just saw in Romans, Paul
said, 1 Corinthians chapter one, Paul said, I came not to baptize,
but I came to preach, preach the gospel, the message of Christ. In Luke chapter 9 verse 2, the
scripture says, he sent them out to preach the kingdom of
God. Now preaching is just that. It just shuts up every other
option and gives us no place to go but Christ. Coming to Christ is never a choice. It's never a choice. It's what
the Spirit of God does in the hearts of his children when they
are shut up to Christ with no place else to go. The only time
you and I will ever come to Christ is when we're preached to. Through
the voice of a man, but more importantly, by the power of
the Spirit of God to the heart, causing us to hear, causing us
to believe, causing us to be shut up. God sends a man to preach, he'll
be faithful. He'll be faithful to preach the
truth. It is required of a steward that he be found faithful and
God's messengers are faithful. All preachers of the gospel do
is tell God's people what God's already said. That's it. If I'm telling you
what God said, you're shut up to it. I'm shut up to it. We've
been preached to. You have your Bibles open to
Luke chapter four. I have title of
this message is preach to me, preach to me. I hope that's our
hearts desire this morning to hear from God and to be shut
up to Christ, to have no place else to go. And I hope by the
grace of God, he'll enable me to be faithful to his word. And that'll be our experience
here in this place this morning. Our Lord came as a preacher.
And I have four simple questions from Luke chapter four. How did
Christ preach? What did Christ preach? To whom did Christ preach and
what was the result of his preaching? And that will always be the pattern
of preaching. How we preach, what we preach,
to whom we preach, and the result. will always be the same. It'll
always be the same. And those questions are answered
in our text. You have your Bibles open to
Luke chapter four, verse 16, and he came to Nazareth where
he had been brought up and as his custom was, he went into
the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. We're just following the pattern
of scripture. We've done that already this
morning. We're doing that right now. Nothing's changed. This
is the means by which God still is pleased to make himself known
to the hearts of his people. When his people are gathered
together and the scriptures are opened and read and expounded
upon. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written in Isaiah chapter 61,
the spirit of the Lord is upon me. Now therein answers our first
question. How did the Lord Jesus Christ
preach? He preached in the spirit of
God. Our Lord told a woman at the well that the day had come
that true worshipers would worship God in spirit and in truth. I love what the prophet Ezekiel
said standing there looking at that vision of dry bones, the
spirit of the Lord is upon me. The hand of God is upon me. He
has set me down in a valley of dry bones. And he has spoken
to me by his spirit and said unto me, son of man, can these
bones live? Can these bones live? You remember
what Ezekiel said? Lord, thou knowest. If they're
gonna live, you're gonna have to do it. You're gonna have to
send your spirit in power and cause them to live. And the Lord
commanded the prophet to prophesy to the bones. Preach to the bones. Just preach the gospel to them.
Don't give them any way out. Don't give them any wiggle room.
Don't make suggestions or opinions. Preach to them. And as the prophet
preached, the bones began to come together, and yet there
was yet no life in them. Why? Because the spirit of God
had not yet come. And so the Lord commanded the
prophet, prophesy unto the wind, call upon the spirit of God to
come. And when he did, he breathed upon those dry bones, which had
taken on flesh and they were made alive. Our Lord told Nicodemus,
Nicodemus, lest the spirit of God comes like the wind, lest
you're born of the spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God.
How dependent we are on the Spirit of God to bless the speaker and
the hearer in preaching. The disciples said, it's not,
it's not mean for us to be waiting on tables. Let other men take
care of that. God's called us to preparation of the scripture
and prayer. And what a, what a labor that is to, to prepare
the Word of God and to depend upon the Spirit of God. to deliver the message of the
gospel to the hearts of God's people. How did the Lord Jesus
Christ preach? He preached in the fullness of
the power of God, didn't he? He was the anointed one. He said,
the Spirit of God, you see it right there, the Spirit of God
is upon me. He has anointed me. Now that's
the word for Christ. The Lord Jesus is the Christ,
the anointed one, the one sent in the fullness of the power
of God's Spirit to deliver the message, the good news of the
gospel. And you know what's so amazing?
The same Holy Spirit that anointed the Lord Jesus Christ is here
and anoints gospel preaching today. Same Spirit. Now the Lord Jesus Christ had
the fullness of that Spirit. He had the Spirit of God without
measure. Above his fellows he had the oil of gladness, the
scripture says. But we still have the Spirit
of God and are completely dependent upon God's Spirit. You are dependent
upon God's Spirit to be preached to. Oh, that the Lord would cause
us to come to this place. He said, if you be an evil, know
how to give good gifts unto your children. How much more will
your heavenly father give his spirit to them that ask him?
Oh Lord, give me your spirit. Sit me down and cause me to be
preached to. Cause me to hear. Lord, bless
the preacher, pray for your, oh, I beg our folks, pray for
me. I covered your prayers, your
pastor covered your prayers. The Lord sets our hearts to pray
that it'll be by his spirit, won't it? And then he'll bless
what he's caused us to pray for. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians
chapter two, 1 Corinthians. Chapter 2. We know from Scripture that there
was a vast difference in the way in which the Apostle Paul
delivered or preached the gospel and the way in which, say, Apollos
preached the gospel. Paul says Apollos was a man mighty
in Scripture and very eloquent. He was what many would call a
powerful preacher. And Paul, now confessing of his
own preaching, says here in verse 4, and my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. For my speech, that your faith,
and I'm sorry, in verse four, that your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Howbeit we
speak wisdom among them that are perfect, not the wisdom of
this world. Men by wisdom knew not God. Man,
man, how is, how are you gonna, the philosophers don't know anything
about God. The politicians don't know, the
educators don't know anything about God. How are we going to
know God? How are we going to know God?
They don't have the answer. One way. Preaching. Preaching. To be preached to. To have God
the Holy Spirit bless His Word through the voice of another
sinner. You know that the Lord uses just a man just like you
to preach. Why? because it's so humbling,
isn't it? It's humbling to the preacher,
it's humbling to the hearer, to know that God would cause
a man to speak for God. That your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. But we speak,
verse seven, we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the
hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world, and to our
glory, which none of the princes of this world knew. Get all the education you can
get, you're not gonna learn anything about God in school. You know, vote, I wouldn't encourage
you to get too involved in politics, but you're not gonna learn anything
from God there. There's only one place that God
is pleased to make himself known. And that to his people through
preaching. Through the foolishness of preaching,
God is pleased to save them which believe. Oh, preach to me. Preach to me. I listen to most
of the sermons that are preached from this pulpit. I'm thankful
to get the CDs and every time, preach to me. How are we to preach? Not with
the wisdom of words, not with that which is enticing to the
flesh, but we're to preach as the Lord Jesus Christ preached
in the power of the Spirit of God, calling upon him to bless
his word and to cause it to be alive and effectual to our hearts. What did the Lord Jesus Christ
preach? He's the preacher. He's the pattern
of all preachers, isn't He? He's the one we're looking to.
He's the one we're seeking to emulate. He's the one we're following
after. Look at our text in Luke chapter
4. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel. To preach the gospel. The good news. I got a text this
morning at 5.30 from a man in our church letting me know that
his wife had delivered their third child at 4.44 this morning. And I texted him right back and
I said, I said, Phil, that's the best news I've heard today.
And as soon as I texted that and sent it, I realized that's
not true. That's not true. I'd already been up looking over
what I was going to preach this morning, and Phil would agree
with me. As good as the news was that
their child had been born, it wasn't the best news he had ever
heard today either. The best news that a sinner can ever hear
is the gospel. The good news. As one brother
said, ever since I heard the good news, I haven't heard any
bad news. It's the good news that God was manifested in the
flesh. That God chose a people before
the foundations of the world and etched their names in the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Lamb's Book of Life. That Christ came into this world
to fulfill all righteousness, to satisfy the demands of the
law. that He hung on Calvary's cross
and bore in His body the sins of all of His people and suffered
the full wrath of God in order to satisfy divine justice once
and for all. That He ascended back into glory
and presented Himself to the Father as our representative.
He ever lives there at the right hand of the majesty on high interceding
for us. He keeps us from falling and
promises to present us faultless before the throne of God with
great joy. What greater news can there be than that? Salvations
of the Lord. He's done it. When He cried on
Calvary's cross, it is finished. Everything necessary for a sinner
to stand in the presence of a holy God was accomplished in the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's good news. It doesn't
matter what else God's ordained for us. If we've heard that,
if that's been preached by the Spirit of God to our hearts,
and God's caused us to believe it, to hear it and believe Christ,
to look to Him, to rest in Him, what else can we ask for? What
better thing can we know? It's good news. It's a comfort
to my soul. Oh, the Lord told the prophet,
comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Speak ye comfortably to them.
Speak to their hearts and tell them what? Their warfare is accomplished. Their sin is put away. God's
satisfied. The question you and I have to
answer is, are we satisfied with what God's satisfied with? Are
you satisfied with Christ? Are you shut up to Christ? Are
you still trying to establish your own righteousness before
God? Paul said, Oh, to be found in him. To be found in Christ,
not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
righteousness, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ. To be found in him, that's That's
good news. If you've got that good news,
you know. I have to tell you all this story. Some of you may know Tammy Fannin,
who's a member at the church in Rocky Mount, Virginia. And
last week I was in the hospital and at the same time, Tammy, lost
her 31 year old son. Tammy was recently diagnosed
with Parkinson's disease, and Tammy just recently lost her
job. And Todd's sister, Susan, called
Tammy to express her love to her, and she was praying for
her, and Tammy appreciated that. As soon as Susan hung up from
Tammy, Tammy called Susan back. And she said, oh, Susan, I'm
so, so sorry. I forgot to ask you about Greg. Now, there's a woman that's heard
the good news. And all the trials and all the
troubles that she's going through right now, if she would call
back and be concerned about me, Have you heard the good news? Do you have rest in Christ so
that whatever else God has ordained for you is okay? It's okay. The good news is that the Lord has sent His Spirit
to cause His people to be preached to and make them, through that
preaching, willing, willing to sit and to rest in the finished
work of Christ. He came, the Lord Jesus Christ
came in the spirit of the Lord to preach the gospel. Look at
verse 19, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Now that's
the year of Jubilee. The Lord had given to the children
of Israel in the Old Testament a law. There's no evidence they
ever kept it. No evidence they ever kept it.
Why? Because there was too much to
be lost on those who had to keep the law. The Law
of Jubilee, every 50 years, all prisoners, all slaves were to
be set free, all debts were to be erased, and all land was to
be returned to its original owner. That was the year of Jubilee.
That was the way God designed to preserve the children of Israel
through the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ says, I
came to fulfill the acceptable year of the Lord. The year of
Jubilee. I came to set all prisoners free.
I came to erase all debt. And I came to return back to
you that which was lost in your father, Adam. That's what he
came to do and that's what we've been called to do. How do we
preach in the spirit of God? What do we preach? The acceptable
year of the Lord. We preach Christ crucified, the
one who has satisfied the demands of the law and justice once and
for all and provided for his people freedom from their sin. freedom from their debt, and
fellowship with God. That's good news. To whom is this gospel preached? Check and see if you qualify
as one to whom the gospel of God's free grace in the finished
work of Christ is preached. The Lord said in verse 18 that
he came in the power of the Spirit of God to preach the gospel to
the poor, to the poor. Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of God. Those who are poverty stricken,
those who have nothing, poor before God. Not like the, not
like the Laodiceans who thought that they were rich and increased
with goods and in need of nothing. The Lord said, knowest thou not
that thou are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked? Blind Bartimaeus had one possession,
a filthy robe. The scripture says that when
the Lord called him, he dropped his robe and ran naked to Christ.
Are you poor? Most folks aren't. Most folks
are rich in their own right. We're not talking about material
wealth here. A person can be very wealthy and be very poor.
A person can be very poor and be very wealthy. The rich man in Lazarus is not
a picture of a person who had money versus a person who didn't
have money. It was a person who was rich in his own righteousness,
depending on his own goodness, like the publican. Father, I
thank Thee that I'm not as other men. The Pharisee, the publican. Oh Lord, have mercy upon me,
the sinner. There's the poor man. Lazarus was the poor man. The Lord Jesus Christ came in
the spirit of God, and he sends his preachers now in the spirit
of God, and he blesses the hearts of his people with the spirit
of God to be preached to, to hear the gospel, and to cause
them to acknowledge their abject poverty before God. Lord, I have nothing, nothing. What are you going to offer God
to be reconciled to him? Somebody asked David Thoreau
on his deathbed if he had made his peace with God, and he said,
well, I didn't know we had ever quarreled. And what are you going to offer
God? We have quarreled with him. And
the only offering that he's satisfied with is the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Blind, look at what else, poor,
look what else he says. He came to preach the gospel
to the poor. He sent me to heal the broken hearted. David said,
a broken and contrite heart thou wilt not despise. You know why
God doesn't despise a broken and contrite heart? Because he's
the one that gives it to us. He's the one that breaks our
heart. He's the one that causes us to come before him and say,
Lord, my sin is ever before me. He's the one that causes us to
acknowledge the fact that our heart is deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? He's the one who causes us to
cry, create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit
within me. He's the one who causes us to
believe what he said when he said in Genesis chapter six,
when he looked down from heaven and saw that the imagination
of man's heart was only evil and that continually. A broken
heart is agreeing with what God says about your heart. Lord,
my heart doesn't work. It's broken. I can't trust it.
I can't rely upon it. It's full of deceit. I don't know what else to do
but just come before you with a broken and contrite heart."
He came to preach the gospel in order to heal the brokenhearted. To preach deliverance to the
captives. I was so encouraged with that
Bible study this morning, Brother Todd. Job being turned and being delivered. The letter of the law kills,
the spirit of the law gives life. The letter of the law says, don't
do it. The spirit of the law says, you've
already done it, flee to Christ. Flee to Christ, you're guilty.
Here's the one who's captive knows that he's captive to his
own sin. and that he needs to be turned. He needs to be turned
to Christ. He needs to be brought before
God in the person of his substitute and be found in Christ. Most folks don't believe that
men are really evil. They don't believe it. This past
Monday, my granddaughter called me. She texted me. She said,
Granddad, I've been given a project in school. She's in the 10th
grade in a very large public high school, 2,000 or 3,000 teenagers
with raging hormones that are just barely kept below the boiling
point of complete chaos all the time. And she said, she said,
Granddad, I've been given a project and I need your help. She said,
our teacher asked the class if men were by nature good or if
men were by nature bad. And she said, me and a professing
atheist in my class and a Jewish boy, the only ones that concluded
that men are bad. Everybody else in the class said
that men are inherently good. And she already had some good
scriptures to give them, but she said, I just don't think
they're going to listen to what God says about it. Do you have
any other suggestions? And I said, well, I said, propose
an experiment. I said, they won't go for it,
but just offering this experiment, this proposition might be enough
to prove your point. I said, suggest to your class
that for the next 30 days, that they strip all the teachers and
all the administrators of all authority. take all the police
off campus and announce to the student body that you can do
anything you want to do anytime you want to do it. You can go
to class or not go to class. You can talk when you want, not
talk when you want. You can wear what you want or don't wear anything.
You can smoke what you want, when you want, where you want.
You can do to anybody anything you want with no retribution. She said, Boy, she said, we'd
be on the national news. Wouldn't take 30 days. Wouldn't take 30 days. Tomorrow. You know, and here's kids that
say, men are naturally good. Just remove the restraint of
the law from them and you'll find out what they're really
like. God's people don't need the law
to restrain them. They know in their hearts that
they've already violated all of God's laws, and they've been
brought by the Spirit of God through the preaching of the
gospel to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ for all their righteousness. And it's the love of Christ that
constraineth them. outside of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the deliverance that He gives to His people, do you fit the
qualification of being held captive? Are you poor? Is your heart not
work? Is it full of deceit? Is it Look at recovery of sight to
the blind. Our Lord said, for judgment came
I into the world that they which see not might see, and they which see might be made
blind. And the Pharisee said, are you
suggesting that we're blind? Surely of all people we can see.
And you remember what the Lord said? If you were blind, then
your sins would be forgiven. But because you say you can see,
therefore your sins remain. Lord, if you don't remove the
scales from my eyes, I'll never be able to see you. I'll be like
Nicodemus, who you said, unless you're born from above, unless
you're born of the Spirit of God, unless the Spirit of God
is pleased to open the eyes of your understanding, you cannot
see the Kingdom of God. You can't see it. You can't perceive. Oh, you may understand some things
intellectually. You know that that passage in
Isaiah chapter 6 is the most often quoted passage in the New
Testament. They will have eyes, but they
will not see. They will have ears, but they
will not hear. And that just simply means that men can sit
there and they can intellectually understand some doctrine. But
apart from the blessing of the Spirit of God through the preaching
of the gospel, they will not see. They will not see God. They will not understand. They
will not believe. That's where we are. The Lord
Jesus Christ said, I came to give sight to the blind. Are
you blind? Are you blind? Are you like the
Pharisees? I can see. I got it figured out. He gives sight to the blind. Gospels for the poor, the wretched,
the blind. That's who it's preached to.
Nobody else. Nobody else. I love what our Lord said to
that blind man. What would you have me to do for you? Oh Lord, that I might receive
my sight. Lord, open my eyes. Don't let
me be satisfied or settle for anything less than the windows of heaven to
be opened and for me to gaze into thy face. He came to set at liberty them
that are bruised. Those that have been bruised
and broken by their own sin, He came to set them at liberty. Oh, come ye sinners poor and
needy, bruised and broken by the fall. If you tarry till you're
better, you'll never come at all. Come just like you are,
bruised and broken, sinful before God. Lord, I can't fix this problem. I don't have the answers to it.
I need to be shut up to Christ. I need to be preached to. I don't
need any other way out. Where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. The Lord said, if you know the
truth, the truth will set you free. And if the Son make you
free, You'll be free indeed. Oh, Lord, let me set me free.
I'm in bondage to my sin. To will is present with me, but
how to perform that which is good I find not. Oh, wretched
man that I am! Who will deliver me from this
body of death? Thanks be to God. Thanks be to
God, there's an answer. Through Christ Jesus I am free,
so that now there's no condemnation, no condemnation to them who are
in Christ Jesus. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. He's
justified us in Christ. Have you been preached to? Have
you been shut up to Christ? Am I telling you the truth? Am I telling you the truth? There
it is right there. I'm not making anything up. I'm
trying not to add anything to it. It's just... It's God's Word. Thus saith the
Lord." I'm so glad that we've got the Word of God to look to.
Where else are we gonna go? Where else are we gonna go? How did the Lord Jesus Christ
preach and how do his preachers preach today? And how do his
people hear? In the power of the Spirit of
God. What do they preach? The good news, the gospel, the
acceptable year of the Lord. And how do they, to whom do they
preach? To whom do they preach? There
it is right there in verse 18. They preach to the poor, the
brokenhearted, the captive, the blind, and those who are bruised. They set them at liberty. How was the Lord Jesus Christ
preaching received? the same way preaching is received
today. I had somebody tell me recently
they were listening to me preach on TV and a wife came into the
room and she listened for a little while and she grabbed her Bible
and threw it at the TV and stormed out. And I said, well, that's
a good thing. I'm glad. She heard something. It's a savor of life to some,
and a savor of death unto others. The gospel is always received
one way or the other. Because the gospel shuts men
up to one person, one truth, one option, one way, therefore,
it can't be taken just, you know, you either love it or you're
going to hate it. You can't be neutral about the
gospel. I was sharing the gospel with my neighbor recently and
he said, boy, see, it sounds like to me you're either all
in or all out with you guys. And I said, yep, you got it. That's it. You're all in or you're
all out. It's one way or the other. Now to some, this message was
gracious words. Look, look, look what Look what
the scripture says in our text in Luke chapter four, in verse
22, and all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious
mouth. Oh, no man ever spake like this
man before. Everybody else just gave us their
opinion or gave us some religious position or they let us be a
part of it. No, he shut us up to one truth. Look at verse 32. They were astonished
at his doctrine for his word was with power. In Acts chapter
13, the Lord preached to a group of Jews in the synagogue and
they did not believe the gospel. But when the Gentiles heard it,
and the Gentiles were dogs, they were just dogs. That's, are you
a dog? A Syrophoenician woman was. She
said, truth Lord, that's me. Lord, just a mangy mutt. But
even the dogs received the crumbs from the master's table. Lord,
would you just give me a crumb of bread? That's what I am. The Gentiles were glad when they
heard the gospel and they rejoiced in the word of God. And as many
as were ordained to eternal life believed. This gospel is not
something to be understood. You're never gonna understand
it. It's to be heard and to be believed. Believed. And if the Spirit of God uses
the preaching of the gospel to speak to the hearts of His people,
that's what'll happen. They'll hear it. How shall they
call upon Him if not believed? And how shall they believe? without
a preacher, and how shall they preach lest they be sent? You
see, they have to hear, they have to believe, God used preaching
to accomplish that end. Some thought his words were gracious,
it was a savor of life to them, it was a It was music to their soul. It was the hope of their salvation.
Oh, I want to hear more. You know, you don't have to manipulate
or shame God's people to come to church. If they've heard,
they just want to hear it again. They want to hear it. They want
to be shut up to Christ. They want to be preached to. Others, it was a savor of death. Look at verse 28. And all they
in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with
wrath and rose up and thrust him out of the city. I say, get mad or get glad, but
don't just sit there. The gospel doesn't offer you
that option. There's one way. I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man can come to the Father
but by me. And just like you and I get offended
when somebody presents their opinion about something in such
a way as to not give us an option to make a contribution, so the
unbeliever is offended at the gospel because they want to make
a contribution. They want to interject their
opinion. They want to debate and argue, and God's people just
say, Amen. Amen. Why were these people so enraged
against the Lord Jesus Christ? Look at verse 25. but I tell you of a truth." Just
think about that part of that verse, just look at that. I tell
you of a truth. That's what preaching is, isn't
it? I'm just telling you the truth. Your pastor is just telling
you the truth. God's preachers just tell the
truth. That's all they do. Search the scriptures and see.
Be like those Bereans who were more noble than the Thessalonians
and search the scriptures and see if what they say is not true.
I encourage you to do it. If God says it, that settles it, doesn't it? I tell you of a truth. Many widows
were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were
shut up three years and six months, and there was great famine throughout
all the land. But of none of them was Elijah
sent save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was
a widow. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
interpreting that passage from Isaiah chapter 61. The Spirit
of God's upon me has sent me to preach the gospel, the good
news, the acceptable year of the Lord to the poor and the
broken hearted. And now he's giving interpretation of that
passage. And he's saying this is what it means. In the days
of Elijah, when there was great famine in the land and many Israelites
died in that famine, God showed mercy toward a Gentile. Verse 27, and many lepers were
in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them
was cleansed save Naaman the leper, a Gentile. The Lord Jesus Christ is interpreting
Isaiah chapter 61 verse one by saying that I am sovereign in
salvation. I'll have mercy upon whom I will
have mercy, and whom I will, I will harden. and you will be
shut up to my sovereign control in your salvation or you won't
be saved. And they were enraged against
him and sought to kill him. Don't shut me, don't preach to
me, don't shut me up, don't give, don't tell me that it's all in
somebody else's hands. I want something to do with it.
I want to make a decision, I want to pray a prayer, I want to perform
a work, I want to do something. You won't be saved. He'll either
do it all or he won't do it at all. It's just that simple. Now that's being preached to.
That's being shut up to the gospel. That's being shut up to Christ.
And that's what you need and that's what I need. For God to
shut our mouths. and give us no other option.
No other option. You know what the most believed
lie in the world is today? The absolutely most believed
lie. It's the same exact lie that
the father of lies told as the very first lie. He hadn't changed his tactics.
From the very first lie that came out of his mouth, it's still
the lie that's believed by the vast majority of men today. Thou shalt not surely die. People do not believe themselves
to be in danger of hell. They do not believe that God
would send them there. And so the gospel is take it
or leave it. God's people know that they stand
guilty before God. and that apart from a righteousness
imputed to them outside of themselves, apart from a Savior who shed
his precious blood in order to put away their guilt before God,
they have no hope but to die. Preach to me. Shut me up. Don't give me any other option. I want to know what God says.
I want to know the truth.