The Lord willing, I'd like to preach to you tonight
for a few minutes and close with a story. A story
that I've never told publicly before. and a story that no one
knows the full particulars except my wife and I. It's a powerful
story about a powerful man who was a dear friend of mine. So
I'm going to ask you to open your Bibles first to Matthew
chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5, and you'll
immediately recognize that this is what they call the Sermon
on the Mount. Matthew 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mount. Our
Lord Jesus Christ says here in verse 1, chapter 5, seeing the
multitude, He went up into a mountain, and when He was set, His disciples
came unto Him, and He opened His mouth and taught them, that
is, the disciples and the crowd, the great multitude. He taught
them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the
kingdom of heaven." Now that, those next chapters, 5, 6, and
7, is the Sermon on the Mount, which our Lord preached. And
after He completed that sermon, chapter 5, 6, and 7, He came
down from the mountain, turned to Matthew 8, Matthew chapter
8. And it says here in Matthew 8,
this is after the message was completed, after he'd finished
preaching. What a great sermon. I brought
a series of messages one time on the Sermon on the Mount, and
I don't know when that I've been more blessed or our congregation
more blessed. I hope maybe we can do it again
someday. But in chapter 8, it says, when
he came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.
These people stayed with him. when he came down from that mountain.
And behold, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying,
Lord, if you will, thou canst make me clean. Behold, unusual,
most unusual, that a leper should be among this crowd of people.
most unusual. Behold, most unusual that this
leper should be among that crowd of people. That was forbidden
in the Scriptures. Moses said in Numbers 5, command
the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper,
both male and female, that they devour not the But this story,
our Lord coming down from the mountain with that multitude
of people, and this leper walking right up in the midst of them,
and kneeled, bowed to our Lord, and said, as he looked up, Lord,
if you will, you can make me clean. This story is told three
times in the Scripture. A truth that's preached more
than once or twice or three times is more important. If God says
it once, it's important. But they told this three times.
Matthew told it, Mark told it, and Luke told it. And Mark said
this, There came a leopard to him, kneeling before him, and
said, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Luke wrote this
way. Behold, a man full of leprosy
fell on his face and cried, Lord, if you will, you can make me
clean. And then the scripture said the
Lord reached out and touched him. Nobody else would touch
him. Nobody there would touch him.
In fact, the shadow of a leper was not permitted to fall on
another person. But our Lord reached out and
touched him. And our Lord not only touched
him, but he said, I will. Be thou clean. No one else could
make him clean. No one else would associate with
him, speak to him, or make him clean, but our Master did. Our Master did. It appears to
me, it appears to me that the manner in which this man approached
our Lord, the manner in which he approached our Lord is an
example for us to follow if for any reason we want to do business
with Christ. We want his mercy and his grace
and his goodness to fall upon us. How this leper approached
the Lord, How do you preach the Lord? Approach the Lord. You
approach the Lord fearful, on his knees, calling him, Lord,
if you will, you can make me clean. I believe if you and I
and everybody here and all over this town would approach our
master in just that fashion, it would be a very great possibility
that they'd have the same results. I will. Be thou clean. And I'm looking tonight at four
words that supply the answer how this man approached our Lord.
Four words. And you know sometimes the most
profound truth can be explained and set forth in simple, simple
words. And I think I'm simple enough
to set it forth in simple words. And here are the four words.
Number one, it says he worshiped him. That's right. He worshipped Him. And behold,
there came a leper and worshipped Him. David said, Come, let us
worship. Let us bow down. Let us kneel
before the Lord, our Maker, for He is our God. And it matters not who you are.
It matters not the condition. This man was in a condition. It matters not your age or your
color or your nationality. Let us kneel before Him. And Solomon said, And keep thy
foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to
hear than to give the sacrifice of fools. Be not rash with thy
Be not hasty to utter anything before God, because God is in
heaven, and you are on the earth. Let your words be few." This
man worshiped Him, and he had very little to say. He just simply
said, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. I've heard
people say this. I've heard people say this. Christians
ought to worship God. Everybody ought to worship God.
Everybody ought to worship God. I hear them say, well, Christians
ought to pray. Everybody ought to pray. Everybody
ought to kneel before God. Everybody ought to seek the Lord.
That's what Paul said in his sermon on Mars Hill. Seek the Lord. Let all nations
and all people seek the Lord. There's no room for argument
before the throne, but there's no room for despair. Shall not
the judge of the earth do right? Seek the Lord. Worship Him. Call upon Him. Kneel before the
Lord, our Maker, because He is God. One of the best examples
of worship in a critical situation was Job. If you turn in your
Bibles to the book of Job, chapter 1, you've read about it so many
times. Job had lost everything. He'd lost his property, he'd
lost his children, he'd lost his health, he'd lost his friends
and everything. The Lord had allowed Satan to
to deal with Job in a terrible fashion. And Job sat on the dunghill,
scraping his balls, and this is what he said. In Job 1, verse
20, ìThen Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head,
and fell on the ground, and complained.î No. ìFound fault with Godís providence.î
No. And he said, naked I came out
of my mother's womb, naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. In all of this, Job didn't charge
God with foolishness. Here's the first way in which
all of us ought to approach the Lord. Kneel before the Lord our
Maker and worship Him. Worship Him. No matter the circumstances,
no matter the affliction or whatever, worship Him. He's worthy to be
worshipped. Abraham. I suppose the greatest
trial ever to come in the life of Abraham was when the Lord
called on him to take his son. He said, Abraham, take your son.
your only son, your son whom you love, and sacrifice him on
Mount Moriah as a sin offering to me. And Abraham went that
three-day journey, and God didn't speak a word to him, didn't give
him any signs or vision, just told him, sacrifice your son.
And Abraham went to that mountain, and he had two young men with
him. and some donkeys and some supplies and Isaac was with them. And Abraham turned to Isaac and
the two young men and he said, ìNow, you fellows stay here with
the ash and the supplies. You stay right here. The lad
and I are going to the mountain to worship God. Weíre going to
worship God. Wait a minute, and weíll be back.
And we'll be back. Confidence. Conviction. Grace. Love. All of the things
that go into worship. We're going young and worship
God. And we'll be back. That's the first word. This man
worshiped God. The second word. The word is
Lord. Matthew 5. Verse 8, And behold,
there came a leper, and worshipped him, and he said, Lord." This man recognized who Christ
is. Absolute, sovereign Lord. The Lordship of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something. My
generation doesn't know it, but the Bible never speaks of a doormat
named Jesus. The Bible only recognizes a sovereign
Savior named Jesus Christ the Lord, Son of God, Son of Man. He's not a doormat named Jesus. He's not the man upstairs. He's not somebody up there who
likes me. Our Lord said to His disciples,
you call me Master and Lord. And you say, well, so I am. Old Arthur thinks, He had a real feeling about this. He said, don't call him Jesus. Oh, I know the disciples wrote
about Jesus. They wrote the different saves
of our Lord Jesus Christ. But they didn't call him Jesus.
They called him Master. They called him Lord. And Arthur
Pink used to say, don't call my Savior Jesus. Call Him Lord. He's the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, when I was growing
up, I never called my father John. That was his name. But I wouldn't
dare call him John. I called him Dad or Father, but
not by his first name. We didn't even call our uncles
by the first name. We call them, we put a title
on to it. There's a certain protocol to
relationships. And when you feel a deep love
for someone, respect for them, you show that respect. You show
that respect. And our Lord, he said, you call
me Master and Lord and so I am. Matthew said this. All things
are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Father
but the Son, and neither knoweth any man the Son but the Father."
Matthew 28. All power is given unto me in
heaven and earth. Go ye therefore and preach. John
17. Father, thou hast given me all
authority over all flesh that I should give eternal life to
as many as thou hast given me." One of the great preachers of
old wrote this, ìPeople may continue, people may continue to debate
whether or not they will accept Jesus Christ and let Him be their
Savior. They may even continue to hold
Him in low esteem, but all who know All who know who He is and
who they are, all who know what He has done and what they are,
all who know where He is and where they are, they all say,
Lord, Lord. The Lord said to my Lord, sit
thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstools. own the Lordship of Christ and
the crown rights of King Jesus. All things are delivered unto
me of my Father. The thief on the cross is a good
example of a man who approached God in the right way, knew who
he was. Listen, the thief on the cross,
even in his darkest hour and in the darkest hour of our Our
Lord Jesus Christ was hanging on a cross, naked. Hanging on
a cross, bruised. Hanging on a cross, forsaken
of God. Hanging on a cross, His countenance
so marred, so He didn't even look like a human being. And
by the grace of God, this man looked over and saw Him and called
Him, Lord, my soul. Think about that. He looked over
there and saw him and said, Lord, you're not going to stay there.
You're coming into a kingdom. Would you remember me? My, my. That's what that leopard did.
He came and fell on his face, looked up and said, Lord. Worshipped
him, Lord. Lord. I'll tell you this. I'll
tell you who he is. I looked in the Scripture one
time and I found a verse of Scripture that says, it pleased God. It
pleased God. I like that. I like that. I said, that appeals to me. It
pleased God. I'd like to know what it pleased
God to do. So I began to go through the Scriptures in the concordance
and find five or six times that it says, it pleased God. It pleased
God. It pleased God. And I found it
five times. The first one said this, it pleased
God to make you His people. That's why you're His people.
It pleased Him. Second, it pleased God to make
Him your surety. That's the reason He's your surety,
your Lord, your Savior. It pleased God. It seemed good
in God's sight. It pleased God. Thirdly, our
Lord Jesus Christ hanging on a cross, bruised and broken,
bearing our sins, it pleased God to bruise him. It pleased God to deliver him
into the hands of wicked men to bruise him. It pleased God. That's the reason he died for
our sins, because it pleased God. We didn't have nothing to
do with it. It pleased God. And fourthly,
I found this. And when one day on my Damascus
road to hell, in my sin and shame and guilt and lost condition,
it pleased God to arrest me and call me and
reveal His Son in me. Not just to me, in me. It pleased God. That's the reason
I love Christ. It pleased God. That's the reason
I love this scripture. It pleased God. That's the reason
I love you. It pleased God. Everything that
is fit about me, it pleased God. It pleased God to reveal it.
And then it pleased God to save me. It pleased Almighty God to
redeem my soul. It pleased the Lord. All right, here's the third word. Behold, there came a leper. A
leper. What in the world is he doing
there? He pleased God. That's what he did. Behold, a
leper came and worshipped him and said, Lord, if you will. Oh, here's something to work
on, isn't it? If you will. I know the world has a serious
severe hang-up regarding the will. They love to debate and argue
the will. Everybody's got an opinion about
God's will, man's will, free will, my will, your will, the
other will. Everybody's got an argument about
the will. But the Scriptures are plain
and clear. By whose will men are redeemed.
By whose will men are justified. By whose will men are righteous
before God. I hear people say, well, I'm
a free moral agent. Now, hang on here now. You're
not free. You're a servant of sin. You're
captive of sin. You're not free. And you're not
moral. And you sure aren't any kind
of an agent. I wouldn't hire you as an agent, would you? Free
moral agent? We're bound with sin. The man
who is in sin is a servant of sin. That's exactly right. Now, here's the will. Exodus. Moses. Moses appeared before
God, and he said, Lord, show me your way. Show me your glory. Show me your glory. And the Lord
said, Moses, I will. I will. I will what? I will make
all my goodness pass before you. I will proclaim the name of the
Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I
will be gracious. And I'll show mercy to whom I'll
show mercy. That's the will. That's the only
will that's worth a nickel in all of this world. That's what the Savior prayed.
Father, not my will. Not even the Savior would say,
His will be done. They say, Father, not my will,
Thy will be done. That's it. As many as received Him, to them
gave He the power to become sons of God. To as many as received
Him, to them gave God the power to become sons of God. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth. And God said, My people shall
be willing in the day of my power." I love these old poems. I use them all the time, but
they're worth using. Listen to this. Isaac Watts,
I believe. Talk about my will and your will
and somebody else's will. I may try, but I cannot repent. Though I endeavor often, this
stony heart will not relent till my soul, God, doth soften. I may try, but I cannot love. though pressed by love divine.
No argument has power to move a heart so cold as mine. I may try, but I cannot rest
in God's most holy will. I know what He appoints is best,
yet I murmur at it still. Oh, would I but believe then
all would easy be. I should, but this I know, all
grace, faith, and will must come from thee. Lord, if you will, if you will, you make me," what's
that fourth word? If thou wilt, thou canst make
me clean. I got so much help from that
statement from Mr. Spurgeon. Lord, if you will,
if the Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. I can't, nobody
else can, but you can make me clean. Not even the Holy Spirit
can make me clean. Not even the apostle Paul can
make. Not anyone on earth or heaven or under the earth can
make me click, but one, Christ Jesus. The blood of Jesus Christ,
God's Son, cleanses us from all sin. And Spurgeon wrote this. He was such an honest man. He
said, you know, I need to preach to myself today while I try to
preach to you. Often I find myself praying like
this, that the Holy Spirit would come and abide in my heart and
cleanse me from every evil thought and passion and desire. But I
find in myself doubt and fear. I can't find this cleansing of
all every evil thought, passion, and desire. And then I ask the
reason why, and I found out. It is not the Spirit's work to
make me clean. It's the blood of Christ's work
to make me clean. It's the blood of Christ. It's
the Savior's work. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanseth us. Lord, purge me with chisholm,
and I shall be clean. Wash me. You wash me, and I'll
be white as snow. It's the blood that maketh atonement
for the soul. We must not put the Holy Spirit,
prophets, preachers, or anybody else where Christ's work must
be. We must have redemption through
His blood, the forgiveness of sin, only because He, by His
grace, makes us clean. That's it. This man had a deep
desire to know Christ, to be cleansed from his sins, to know
Christ, and he said he worshipped him. He felt I worshipped him. He said, Lord, if you will, you
make me clean. And our Lord touched him. He
said, I will make thee clean. The desire was there, and the
Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled his desire. I had a plan. I met a man 25 or 30 years ago. I met a man whom I respect very highly, whom
I love very dearly, who was so gracious and kind to me all the
years that we walked together. I preached his funeral about
six or eight years ago. I don't remember how long, six,
seven, eight years ago. And I said this about him. I
said, he's a man who loved the gospel. Oh, how he loved the
gospel. He wanted to hear the gospel.
He went where the gospel was preached. He followed those who
preached the gospel. He blessed and helped those who
preached the gospel. He was a wonderful servant to
those who were servants of God. He's a man who loved the gospel.
Secondly, he was the most generous man that I've ever met. I've
met a lot of generous men. I have a lot of friends who are
generous. But this man just more or less exceeded all of them
in generosity, in giving. helping others. Another thing
I found out about him, he was a genius. A lot of God's men
are, and women, are geniuses. They're just so good at what
they do. And I found out that about him. And where did you
meet this man? Well, I was preaching on television on
the Huntington Station, and he lived down in southeastern Kentucky.
He was a religious man with a religious family. His name was Paul Thacker.
And his daddy started listening to me on television. And his
mother started listening. And then Paul started listening.
And his wife. And they started writing for
tapes. And they lived a hundred miles from Ashton, but they started
coming to church on Sundays at 13th Street Baptist Church. And
we became good friends. And he loved the gospel. And we'd been friends and gone
places and meetings together. And one day he looked at me and
he said, I'd like to have a church. in
my community where I could go hear the gospel. I'm glad to
come hear you and 13th Street, but I want to have a church in
my community that preaches the grace of God. I'd like to have
a church in my community where people, my children, my family,
my friends, my people could go and hear the gospel. And he said,
what do you think about me building a church? Oh, I said, I don't
know about that. Oh, I said, who would preach
in it? At least I thought you would.
Well, yeah, I'd be glad to. But he said, I thought those
elders of yours would come preach for us. I said, well, we will. I just don't know. I just, you
know, I don't have all the answers. You know, I wish somebody would
supply me with all these answers about what I ought to do, you
know. You know, somebody said, well, you ought to do this. I
said, well, I don't know. God's the only one that knows, and
he doesn't tell me all the time about things like that. And I
said, I just don't know. He said, well, what do you think
about it? Well, a flood came through our part of the country,
Southeastern Kentucky. It just came through. It wiped
out 11 bridges. I'm not talking about like the
Ohio River Bridge. I'm talking about these bridges
where everybody crosses every day. Eleven bridges were swept
away in that flood. Well, Paul, like I told you,
is a genius. And he gave his bid. He's a contractor and concrete
person and just a tremendous construction man. He turned in
a bid on all 11 of those bridges and got the whole shooting hatch,
the whole thing. He started building 11 bridges. He and his sons and his friends
and his workmen. While he was building them, it
came to his mind, I'll take this money and build me a church. So he started working on the
church. I didn't know anything about
it. He called me one day and said, I've started building that
church. Tom Harding later became pastor there. He's pastor now.
But Tom was working for Walker Business. And he'd go down there
all the time. And he saw that church Paul was
building. He'd come back and tell me, Paul's
building that church. I'd never seen it. But Tom wouldn't
tell me anything much about it. He just let me know that they're
building it. So he and his, Paul and his wife and sons and built
that church. And he called me one day. He said, that church is almost
finished. And I was shocked, you know.
And he said, when can you come down and preach it? I'm leaving.
I said, how long before you'll be through? He said, maybe a
month. I said, okay, we'll set a date, and I'll come down, I'll
preach at home Sunday morning, and I'll come down and preach
Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I didn't expect
anybody to be there. I knew he'd be there, and his
family, but I didn't expect a whole lot of people to be there. I'd
never seen the place. And so Doris and I, I preached Sunday
morning. Doris and I got in the car and drove down to Pipeville,
and I drove down that street. That was one of the prettiest
buildings. Big as this building here, completely finished. Parking lot, parking 50 cars,
all lined and everything, platform. The front had a shed over it
where you drive your car in, let everybody out, drive it on
around. Handicap parking. Had the baptistry and nursery
and downstairs a huge dining hall with a pastor's study, drapes,
carpets, beautiful. beautiful place, gorgeous!" I
was shocked. I thought he threw up a concrete
block building or something here. He wanted the best for the people
of his community to hear the gospel. And he, the Lord let
me have that privilege. And so I preached. First night,
over a hundred people were there. Feel that also. Some of them
One lady, she's a Methodist. She's a beauty. You know her. She's a sweet, lovely friend
of mine, but the first time she'd ever been to hear me preach.
Her husband heard me on TV and sent a $1,000 check every once
in a while to help me. He's a friend of mine. And she
said the only argument we had between my husband and I was
on account of you and what she preached. That's what she told
me about first service. Only argument we ever had is
on account of you. Before we finished that meeting,
she came to me and said, how about you and Doris coming by
for cake and coffee after the service? Her husband said, don't
that beat all? She used to hate him. Now she
wants to take him home with her. It was what a time. I prayed Sunday night. Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and the next
Sunday, despite that. And we had just a glorious time. Glorious time. George Shepard
became pastor, and then after he passed away, my brother Tom
Hardy's been there, oh, how long? 12 years, 11, 12 years, such
a great pastor that God is blessing the church. Paul Daniels and
Doris and Becky used to attend there too. It's just that God
blessed. He blessed. And so Paul, I haven't
told this story anywhere else publicly because Paul God took
him home about six years ago, and he retired. He wasn't 55 years old, but he
retired from his business and moved to Ashland. And he bought a new Continental,
black Continental Lincoln, Lincoln automobile with
everything on it. Sue and I are going to travel
all over the United States and visit all the grace churches.
I want to do that. And he said, he had that big
black Lincoln parked in the parking lot and he said, and that car,
I love it better than any car I've ever owned. That's my car.
I said, I'm so glad you're happy. He made that trip and he died
of a heart attack. His wife, Sue, asked me one day
after Paul was gone, she said, I parked that car of his in the
garage. I won't let anybody else drive
it. Would you like to have it and you drive it preaching the
gospel? I said, I'd be honored. There it sits out there, 156,000
miles old. I'm reluctant to trade it because
it just means a lot, you know. This man loved the gospel. He was a generous man. He was
an all-man. Six feet, four inches tall, 250
pounds. He was an all-man, a genius, a contractor, a man who knew
what to do and how to do it. Tough, yeah, but tender, and
generous, and gracious, and loving, and kind, and loved the gospel,
and loved Christ Jesus. God will bless men and women
who love Him. Worship Him. Call Him Lord. Bow before Him. Say, Thy will
be done. He'll make you clean. He will. Merciful God. Well, I hope that's
a blessing to you. And thank you for inviting us
to share this day with you. And Lynn, she's so precious and
wonderful. I told her today at the table,
I said, I thought you were perfect, and you told me you didn't like
baseball, and that just destroyed the perfected me. But thank you
for letting us be with you, and ask the Lord to bless the rest
of us. Thank you.