Once again, we have Brother Aaron
Greenleaf here with us today, and I'm sure you're just as excited
as I am having him preach. It's been a while now, but I'm
so very happy to be here. A lot of people from Lexington
send their well wishes, thoughts, prayers, things like that. If
you would, turn over to Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7. Once you get there, look down
at verse 31. I want to read to the end of the chapter here. Mark 7, verse 31. It begins with,
and again. Departing from the coast of Tyre
and Sidon, he, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, came unto
the sea of Galilee through the midst of the coast of Capulets.
And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment
in his speech. And they beseech him to put his
hand Now, I'd like you to take a moment there and just consider
this man's infirmity. This man was deaf and it was
very likely he had been in that way from the very first day he
was born. He had an impediment in his speech, and as I understand
it, you learn to speak by being able to hear. So a child learns
to speak because he hears the people around him talking, the
mouth that can form the words, They can then make the words,
and they can speak. This man couldn't speak, he couldn't hear,
and he was probably that way from birth. He lived in a world
of absolute silence. Imagine what that's like. And I think it's interesting,
this infirmity goes even deeper. It says, they took him. So the
Lord, who's they? Well, it's probably his friends
and his family, people that had seen the Lord perform miracles.
He had healed people. We're gonna bring him to Him,
and he'll be healed. They had to bring him. This man
was so infirmed, so affected, he didn't even know where to
go for help. And that's how helpless this
individual was. Look what the Lord did for him. Look at verse 33. And he took
him aside from the multitude and put his fingers into his
ears. Now picture this for a moment.
Your death You live in a world of absolute silence, and a man
you have never met before takes you and guides you away from
everyone else, and it's just you and him, and the first thing
he does is he puts his fingers in your ears. Imagine how awkward that must
have been for this man. Go on reading. And he spit, and he touched his
tongue. And looking up to heaven, he
sighed, and said unto him, A fatha, that is to be opened. And straightway,
this was immediate, his ears were opened, and the string of
his tongue was loosed, and he spake 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 I love,
even so far back then, When the Lord reveals himself, and you
find out who Jesus Christ actually is, you can tell that man all
day long, don't say anything about it, but he cannot not talk
about Christ. And you know what I'm talking
about, you go to the grocery store and you see people just walking around living
their lives, carrying on with whatever business they think
they need to carry about. I'd love to just tell them about
Christ. They're living this life and they have absolutely no idea.
I'd love to just be able to talk to them for two seconds and tell
them about this great Savior, this man who saved me. Now look
at all this, verse 37. And were beyond measure astonished,
saying, He hath done all things well. He maketh both the deaf
to hear and the dumb to speak. I'm going to read you a familiar
passage of Scripture. I want you to just listen to this. You don't
have to turn to it. This is 1 Peter 3, 15. The Lord says, "...but
sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope
that is in you with meekness and fear." How would you answer? I want you to be ready. Have
an answer for this question. Let's say someone who is in your
sphere of influence, someone you work with, someone you're
closer with, and they go through a great hardship, something like
that, and they come to you and they say, you're always optimistic. Everything always seems to be
well with you. You have this optimistic way
about you. Why are you so hopeful? What
is it? Tell me, because right now I
don't have any hope whatsoever. What is your hope? You tell me.
How would you answer that? I thought about it a lot. I would
answer exactly what these people said right here. He, Christ,
hath done, finished, all things, everything, and he did it well. That's my answer. for the hope
that is in me. He hath done all things well. And I want to break
that statement down for just one second. Number one, what
is the hope of every believer? I think I can speak as a spokesman
for believers right now. What is your hope? Mine is very
simple. I can tell you what my hope is.
It's this. It's that on that day that I stand before God the
Father, that one who is absolutely just and holy, and I stand before
him in judgment, he is going to say to me, that this man who
has done nothing but evil, and had nothing but evil thoughts,
and said nothing but evil things, he will say to me, despite all
that, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into
the joy of your Lord. That's the first hope, and here's
the second one I did. That everything that happens between right now
and that day, that day that I have to stand before that sovereign
and holy and just God, Everything has been carefully purposed by
my God to bring Him the utmost glory, and to bring me to that
expected end. That is my hope. Now, is that
a good hope? Is that a confident expectation?
Something that's only a good hope that you can hang your hat
on, if it is sure that it is going to take place. The question
is this, what is the hope within the hope? The hope within the
hope is this, he hath done all things well. And we have to start
with the very first word, and that first word is this, he. I am incredibly thankful for
the doctrine. I'm thankful that the Lord wrote
a book. I think, I don't know who told me this, but somebody
said this at one point. The scriptures don't have a whole lot to say.
They just say the same thing over and over and over again. The same doctrine. Over and over. Declaring the person of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He cannot be known apart from
his doctrine. Those things about him that tell
the tale of him. But I want you to keep something
in mind. Doctrine did not bear my sins in his body. And doctrine
did not go to a pole. and be crucified by some Roman
soldiers some 2,000 years ago, for me, a man did. A he did. The Lord Jesus Christ. I'm thankful
for the gifts of the new birth. I'm thankful for faith. I'm thankful
for repentance. All those great gifts. And there
is no salvation apart from those things. The Lord saved a man.
He will give him those things. He will believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. He will be turned from his dead works. But faith and
repentance did not love me before the foundations of the world
were ever built. A man did. This man, Christ Jesus. Paul said this, I know whom I
have believed. And I am persuaded that, not
what, he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him
against that day. Back at our church in Lexington,
it's kind of snuck up on us. We have a bunch of teenagers
now, young teenagers, and we never saw it coming. They just
started growing up. And you sit there, and you've done this.
All of a sudden, in the midst of a mess, you just look around,
see what's going on. And we look back at them when
they're three years old, five, something like that. And they're
curled up in their mom's arms, and they're just trying to be
quiet, just trying to make it through the service. And you
go back, and then a couple years later, you look back again. And
now they're down at a coloring book, they're writing, something
like that. And then you look back a couple years later, and
they're counting ceiling tiles, just hoping this thing's gonna
be over here soon, so we can go on and have lunch and everything
else. And then I look back now, you know what's happening? You
start to see some of those heads come up. They're listening. They're watching.
And then you talk to them. Some of them are starting to
be able to speak the language. Who saves? Christ saves. Salvation by works? There's a
grace, there's a grace. But here's where I get very,
very encouraged. When the what becomes a who. It's not what
we believe, it's who, Jesus Christ. There are two things I want to
tell you about him today. Amongst many of his other attributes,
two I want to focus on right now. Number one, this God-man,
Jesus Christ, he is absolutely and utterly sovereign. You know
what that means? It means everything that happens,
and you can't take that too far, everything, is simply His purpose
and will coming about that He planned long before this place
was ever made. And it always comes to pass just the way He
purposed it because He's in control of every bit of it at all times. That includes everything up to
and most especially including salvation. It is all in His hands. I want to give you some scriptures
on this. How sovereign is He? You know this one, this is Daniel
4, 35. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he doeth according to his
will in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants of
the earth, and none can stay his hand. Nobody can stop him
or say unto him, what doest thou? He's that sovereign. Let me give
you another one. This is Psalm 115, verse two.
Wherefore should the heathen say, where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens.
He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. And when I think of
that, what I envision in my mind, I look at a man and I envision
a man who has all the earthly gifts a man could ever ask for.
He's wealthy. He's healthy. He's strong. He's powerful. He
has all these gifts and he's standing on the neck of one of
the Lord's saints and he says, where is now your God? I've defied
him at every turn. I've spoken against him at every
turn. No bolt of lightning has struck me down yet. I'm standing
on your neck right now. He's supposed to be your God.
Where is now your God? And the saint says, you'll meet
him soon enough. And this thing that's happening right now, your
foot on my neck, he's the one who gave you the power to do
it. And somehow or another, this is all for our good. How sovereign
is he? This is Amos 3.6. Listen to this.
This is interesting. Shall a trumpet be blown in the
city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city,
and the Lord hath not done it? That's exactly what the book
says. Whose fault is evil? It's my fault. Evil is something
I do. It's something you do. It's our
fault. You know who's sovereign over
every single bit of it? Our Lord. You cannot take He's
either sovereign or He is not. And He is absolutely sovereign.
And he presides even over the evil that he might bring the
greatest good from that evil. You look at the worst evil that
ever took place on the face of this earth. It is the crucifixion
of God himself. God being murdered on a pole.
And what is the greatest good that ever took place? the salvation
of God's people through that most wicked act. He is sovereign
over every bit of it. You say, you spent a lot of time
on that. Why? Why is this so important? Because
of this, because I can tell you all about his other attributes.
That he is merciful to sinners. That he is gracious to sinners.
That he is savingly kind to sinners. And I'm going to use that word,
sinner, interchangeably with another word in this message,
elect. And I get to do that because they are one in the same. If
you're a sinner and you can't come up with the goods, you don't
have any righteousness of your own, the only thing you've got,
your only hope is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You can be
assured you are, in fact, elect. He came and He died for sinners. But I can tell you all those
things about Him, that He is savingly kind to sinners. If
He's not sovereign, none of it means a thing. That means He
can purpose to save me, He can be willing to save me, he can
want to save me, but there's a force greater than him, and
he may not be able to come up with it. But because he is absolutely
sovereign, that means everybody he purposed to save, they must
be saved. That's the first thing we have
to nail down. He's sovereign. Here's the second thing I'll
tell you, right here. He is utterly trustworthy. Verse 31, the first
two words, this story begins with, did you catch them? And
again. Now, why would the Lord start
this story that way? And again. This is the scripture
reminding us, the Holy Spirit reminding us, what's Christ doing
in the story? He was doing what he had always
done. He was doing what he could be predicted to do. He was doing
what you could rely on him to do. He came, and he gave a deaf
man hearing, and he loosed the bond of his tongue that he could
speak. And you know what? That's what he did. He went around,
and when there were lepers, he cleansed the lepers. And men
that were infirmed, they couldn't walk, they couldn't move, he
gave them strength, and they moved. And men that were blind,
he gave sight to. What was he known to do? To do
all these things, and to cure all these illnesses, and give
so much strength and power. But he did this not just physically,
he did it spiritually. This is what you could rely on
Him to do if you were sick, if you were infirmed, if you were
a leper. If you went to Him, He healed you. I challenge you,
find me one story in here where someone came to Him, begged mercy,
begged cleansing, begged any of those things, and He filled
them up. It never wants to happen because He is utterly reliable. If you are a sinner and you come
to Christ seeking His mercy, seeking a salvation that is only
found in Him, You know what you'll have? You'll find it. And you will find it because
he is utterly reliable. Let me give you this scripture.
This is Luke 9-11. And the people, when they knew,
followed him, and he received them, and spake unto them of
the kingdom of God, and listen to this, and healed them that
had need of healing. Everybody who had need of healing,
they came to him, they got it 100% of the time. He is utterly
reliable. He is utterly predictable. And
I mean that in the best way possible. You know exactly what he's going
to do. If you're a sinner who comes for mercy, he's going to
give it to you. You're going to have it. Now,
what's our hope? He, Jesus Christ. Here's the
second thing about him. He hath done All things. That's my hope. My salvation. Everything that was necessary
to save me. He's already done it. It's all
finished, and there is absolutely nothing left for me to do. Turn
over to Colossus Long. Let's look at this. I want you to notice something.
The first few verses we're going to read here is going to speak
exclusively of the Lord Jesus Christ and him taking action. What I would like you to notice
here is this. Every time it talks about him taking action, that
action is always in the past tense or the present tense, meaning
it's already been done and it is currently done. going to do anything. All it
says is He did it, and it is right now, in real time, finished. Look at these things. Look at
verse 16, Colossians 1. For by Him were, past tense,
all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth,
visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers. All things were created by Him
and for Him. I love that. Who created all
this? This universe, this planet, these trees, one man did, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who made all this,
and I love when things are simplified, and I love thinking about this.
You know why he made all this? So that some 2,000 years ago,
a Roman soldier could dig a hole in this thing we call dirt, drop
a pole into it, and suspend our Savior between heaven and earth,
and Him die. That's why all of this was created,
because that's where the great glory of Jesus Christ is found,
on that cross. Word, this is past tense, go
on reading, verse 17. And he is presently before all
things, and by him all things consist. He is before all things. Let me give you a scripture here.
Hebrews 4.3 says, the works were finished from the foundation
of the world. That's what the book says. That
means before this place was ever built, everything that was necessary
for God's people to be saved, it was already done. Revelations
13.8, how is Christ referred to? My pastor can't get through
one message without bringing this out. The lamb slain from
the foundation of the world. God was without time. Before
time ever began, before there was a thing, before there was
any distinguished called substance, a righteousness has already been
worked out for God's people. A Savior who made full atonement
for the sins that had not yet been created, had not been done
yet, that they were already paid for. All the works were finished
from the foundation of the world. He is before all things. He's before us in love. First
John 419, it says, we love him because he first loved us. It began with his love, not ours,
you see. Now, go on reading here. No, I'm sorry. Go back. And he
is before all things, and by him all things consist. You know
what that word consist means? It means they are established.
These all things that he is speaking of, it's this, it's his people.
We are established presently in Christ. Established in what?
Established in holiness. Established in righteousness.
Established in full acceptance with God the Father. We are concreted
into Christ and we cannot be moved. He did this and this is
the present state for every one of God's people. Now go on and
read. Next verse, verse 18. And he is the head of the body,
the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he might have the preeminence. This is the
reason for salvation right here, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the reason he did it, that he might have the preeminence.
It's all about Jesus Christ obtaining the chief glory for God in the
Godhead through his work. That's what this is all about.
Now let's look at the means. Look at verse 19. For it pleased
the Father that in him should all fullness dwell, and having
made, past tense, peace through the blood of his cross by him
to reconcile all things unto himself by him, I say, whether
they be the things in earth or the things in heaven. This is
the means of salvation, and what you'll notice there, he already
made it. The peace that exists between God's people and God
himself, it's already been made. He made peace through the blood
of his cross. It's over. It's done. It's already
been completed. Now, verse 21. What you'll notice
here up to this point, the only person who's been talked about
is Jesus Christ and what he has already done. Now he's going
to talk about the you. Let's see what the you contributed
to this great salvation. And you, that were sometime alienated,
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblamable and unreproachable in his sight. What did the you
contribute to this thing of salvation? You made yourselves the enemies
of God? and you did wicked works. You provided the sin that was
necessary for salvation. That's the only thing you provided. Folks, that's not a downer at
all to me. That's me. It is the only thing I can provide.
What can I bring to the table on this? I can bring sin. I can
bring wickedness. I can bring simple motives and
simple actions and simple thoughts. That's the only thing I can bring
to the table is sin, and that's exactly who Jesus Christ died
for. All this leads up to this. He
did all these things for these people's sinners. That's who
it's for. What's the hope? It's Him. The fact that He has done all
things, and listen to this, He has done all things well. And
I told you, it's twofold, right? I'm going to stand before God,
and He's going to say, well done, now, good and faithful servant.
And everything that happens between now and then, it's all for my
good. Everything is working for His
glory, and that I might come to that expected end, to stand
before Him in Christ, pure, righteous, justified, in Him. And He's done
all things well. That really means that everything
that's happening right now in this life, it's all good. You know this, Romans 8, 28,
and we know that all things work together for good to them that
love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. All things. He's a mall, and
they're all good for his people. The good things, seemingly. The
hopeful things, seemingly. The edifying things, seemingly.
But folks, not just that. The hard things. The sad things,
the depressing things, those things we don't understand. How
many times you've been through this? How can this be good for
me? How could this possibly be edifying for me? How could this
possibly bring glory for God? I do not understand, but it is
because he has done all things well. And I'll give you this
great example, and I love this example. This is Jacob in Genesis
42. They had a famine where Jacob's
sons lived, so Jacob sent his sons down to Egypt to buy corn.
And you know the story. Joseph, he'd been sold into slavery
by his brothers, but now he's the head honcho over there in
Egypt. He's the one who's divvying out the corn. And the brothers
go over there. Joseph recognizes them, but they
don't recognize Joseph. And Joseph gives them a hard
time, on purpose, right? He says, you're not true men,
and here's what you're going to do. You're going to leave Simeon with me,
your brother. I'm going to keep him captive up here. And you're
going to go back, and you're going to get your younger brother
Benjamin. And you're gonna bring him up here, and when you bring
him up here, I'll know that you're a true man. And so they go back
to Jacob. So Jacob, the man in Egypt, he
said, he's got Simeon, we gotta bring Benjamin with us. And here's
what Jacob said. He said, Joseph's not, Simeon's
not, now you're gonna take Benjamin away from me. All these things
are against me. And can you blame him? I mean,
put yourself in that situation. Wouldn't you think the exact
same? All these things are working against me. What he didn't know
was that man in Egypt was his long-lost son that he thought
had been dead all these years. Simeon was fine. Joseph wasn't
going to let any harm come to him whatsoever. And what Joseph
was doing was bring the whole family over there to Egypt, whether
it was corn, whether it was food, where they would be the wealthiest
men in the land, and they would have the greatest posterity anyone
has ever heard of. Now, could Jacob see that from
where he was sitting at the time? No, all he could say was, all
these things are against me. No, Jacob, all these things are
working for you presently. You just can't see it. And folks,
that's the truth of the matter every single time. Even in the
deepest of things, he hath done all things well. It's all good,
and we may not see it. We may not even see it in this
life. We may not live long enough to see it all play out and see
how it was good. But it is every single time. And one day we'll know that for
sure. Now, we've seen the reason for
the hope. Let's take a few minutes and
see that hope illustrated. Now, consider this man. This
man that the Lord dealt with, he was deaf. Absolutely deaf. You can go back to your text,
you won't watch my March 7th. As I told you before, this man
was likely deaf from birth. He can't speak, right? So he's
probably deaf from birth. And what this speaks of is the
natural man. It's the way we're born in this world, right? Dead in trespasses and sins,
having no spiritual ability, not the ability to believe on
God. Not with the ability to trust God. way, shape, or form. Dead in
trespasses and sins. But this one is pointed out,
deaf. He's deaf. He can't hear. What's that talking
about? Natural man. You bring him in,
and you sit him down. Gospel preacher gets up, and
he preaches the gospel to that man. As long as he can physically
hear, he can audibly take in what's being said. And as long
as he is of logical mind, of sound mind, he can recognize
that this book claims to be the very inspired Word of God, which
it is. And the things that preacher is saying come out of this book,
right? He can put all that together.
He can audibly take all that in. But here's the problem. When
he hears it, this truth, the truth of Christ, he will hate
everything he hears. And he will hate it because it
testifies of that one whom he hates, the true and living God,
Jesus Christ. Now let me give you some examples
of this. One is this, election. Does the scripture teach election?
Ephesians 1 verse 4, according as he hath chosen us in him for
the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ himself, according to the good pleasure
of his will. Is there any other way to take
that than exactly what it says? It says before time began, God
chose who would be saved. They're the only ones who are
going to be saved, and they will absolutely be saved. There is
no question about this. All of God's people, who He chose,
will be saved. There is no moving this mark.
It must be that way. Because He saw some goodness
in us? Nope. That's not what it says. Because
we were in Christ. The one prerequisite of being
chosen. That's it. Being in Him eternally before the foundation
of the world. Because He would, according to His will. And he
preaches that to the natural man, and he says, no. I will
not have this man to write over me. Absolutely not. And why?
Why does he get so upset? Because it takes man under the
driver's seat. You tell me I don't have a choice. You tell me this
isn't up to me. It's exactly what I'm saying.
It's exactly what I'm saying. It's up to one man. It's up to
this man, Jesus Christ. It's his will. It's his choice.
That's absolutely the truth. Now, what does the natural man
do when he hears something he doesn't like? He misrepresents
it. Now, I used to think that people
misrepresented the concept of election because they didn't
understand it. It's not true. Election's very easy to understand.
They misrepresent it because they want to take the onus off
themselves. They want to put it on the board. And this is
the natural man's misrepresentation of election. He says, well, if
God already chose everybody who's going to be saved and they must
be saved, that means there's going to be a whole lot of people
out there who are begging for mercy, who want to be saved by Christ,
and he's just going to tell them, no, I didn't choose you. You
go away. Never once happened, and it never
will. Let me read you this. Revelation
22, 17, and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. You know what that means? Do you want to be saved by Christ? where He is going to get all
the glory in your salvation, and you will simply sing to the
tune of His glory in heaven, worshiping Him. You take your
rightful place as a sinner at His feet. Are you willing to
be saved on those terms? Because the sticking point of
that verse is this, you gotta take it freely. A man who takes something freely
doesn't have anything to buy with. That's why men hate election. What you're
saying is, I'm a sinner. I can't come up with the goods.
I can't please God. There's nothing I can do. And
I just have to sue for mercy and take my place down there.
And that's exactly what I'm saying. And the natural man won't do
it. Folks, that's why election is so necessary. Because it was
up, or it says up. Anybody who will naturally believe
on me, I'll save them. Not one person will be saved. but because God chose a people,
because he chose a people before the world ever began and predetermined
their salvation and calls them with that irresistible call and
draws them to himself. They all do the exact same thing.
They come, I'll take it freely. I've got nothing. It's got to
be free for me. I'll receive that freely and
take it every single time. Now, another example. Christ
died only for his elect. Does the scripture teach that?
Matthew 121, for she shall bring forth a son, thou shalt call
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Is that clear enough? Not everybody. Jesus Christ did
not shed his blood for every man, woman, and child ever born.
That's not what the book says. It says he shed it for his people,
those he left. You know what the natural man
says? That's not right, that's not fair. You know who loves
that? A sinner. His people, elect,
what are they in this world? How do they represent? They're
sinners. That means if he died for me,
if you're a sinner, he died for you. That means he accomplished
your salvation. If you look at the way the world
looks at it, it's a universal redemption, Christ shed his blood for all
men, and now it's up to you. He can want to save you, he can
die for you, and you can be lost anyways. No. If he died for you,
particularly, you have been saved. Rejoice in that. If he died for
his people, the elect, how do they manifest? Center. I'll give you one more. God's
grace is irresistible and invincible. I'm gonna give you this, Psalm
1103. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power and the
beauties of holiness from the moon of the morning thou hast
to do of thy youth. have to be made to come to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Here's the reality of the situation.
If the Holy Spirit doesn't come in and call you and me to Christ
and draw us irresistibly and invincibly to Him, we will not
come, we cannot come, and we won't want to come. And the natural
man hears that and says, so it's out of my hands. It's completely
and utterly up to him. It absolutely is completely and
utterly up to him. But I ask you right now, what
stands in your way? This man, Jesus Christ, can you
trust him? And I don't mean perfectly, folks.
There's enough unbelief in all of us to fill a swimming pool. Can you trust this man? Holy. Abandon every hope in yourself
and just completely trust this man, Jesus Christ. I can. I can't. Nothing stands in my
way. I do. I have no other option.
I have nowhere else to go. There aren't any Plan B's. I
don't have a safety net. Either he's going to save me
or I'm going to go to hell. That's it. I must have him. That's the confession of a man
who's been drawn by the Holy Spirit. Everybody who's been
drawn knows this. If he didn't draw me, I wouldn't
have come. That's it. What the world hates for us,
it is absolutely vital. It is absolutely necessary. It
is what we love because it's who we love. Now, not only can
this man not hear, he cannot speak. He has a speech impediment. What is a speech impediment of
the natural man? Can you think of it? He can only make one sound. You know what it is? I. I allowed Jesus Christ to be
my personal Savior, therefore I must be saved. I opened the
door so the Lord could walk in, and I made Him the Lord of my
life, therefore I must be saved. This is the speech impediment
of the natural man. All he can say is, I, I did this,
I did that, I earned this. God should have mercy on me because
I. That's it. That is the impediment
of the natural man. You know what it takes? For that
tongue to be loosed, that bond of that tongue to be loosed,
to where it's not I, but it's Him. He. He did this. He's the holder. You have to
have life. The life you and I can't give
ourselves. Let me show you that from the story. Turn over to
Judges Chapter 12. I'll give you a little back story
on this. the Ephraimites and the Gileadites get into a skirmish.
And the Gileadites win, so the Ephraimites are gonna go back,
they're gonna cross over to Jordan, go back home. And so the Gileadites
go down to the crossings of Jordan, and they say, we're gonna wait
for these Ephraimites to cross over, and we'll kill them when
they cross over, right? Well, here's the problem. You
can't tell a Gileadite from an Ephraimite just by looking at
them. They look the exact same. So they come up with a plan,
said, here's how we're going to know them, we'll know them
by their speech. Look at this, you're over there,
look at verse 5, Judges chapter 12. And the Gileadites took the passages
of Jordan before the Ephraimites. And it was so that when those
Ephraimites which were escaped said, let me go over. And the
men of Gilead said unto him, art thou an Ephraimite? If he
said nay, then said they unto him, Say now, Shibboleth. And he said, Sibboleth. For he
could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him,
and slew him at the passage of Jordan, and there fell at that
time the Ephraimites forty and two thousand. What's the difference
between those two words? Gileadites said they walked up
to a potential Ephraimite, they said, Say Shibboleth. He couldn't
say it, didn't have the vernacular, couldn't make the sound. He said,
Sibyleth. What's the difference between
those two words? One letter. H. I'm no theologian, of course,
but I know this because our pastor has told us this over the years.
Whenever you see that letter H inserted into a word, it's
what the Hebrews called the birth of life. Let me give you an example. Abraham, what was his name originally?
Abraham. To what? Until the Lord revealed
himself to him. A-B-R-A-H-A-M. He got the H. Abraham. His wife,
Sarah. S-A-R-A-I. Until the Lord revealed
himself to her. S-A-R-A-H. Life. What did it take to loosen that
tongue? to where it's not I. I did this. I did that. He should
save me because I, to where it's Him. He did this. He did that. He did it for me. I have to be
given life. And you think, you see these
articles out there that says, uh, here's a, uh, five steps
on how to be born again. It's the most ridiculous thing
ever, anyone's ever heard. You can't birth yourself to begin
with, physically. How can a man possibly birth
himself spiritually? It must be of God. He has to
give you the H. He has to give you life. But
I'll tell you what, what's your confession right now? Is it I
or is it Him? Because if it's Him, He did it
all. That's my hope. Everything. Christ
did it all. If it's He, if it's Him, you
have life in you. Let me kind of distill this down.
You have Jesus Christ dwelling in you. You have the very Spirit of God
dwelling in you. If that is your confession, there
is nothing natural about that. You're one of the people. All
the blessings and all the promises in this book, they're all for
you. Now, I want to take just a second and
look at what the Lord did for this man. We'll break it down to five
different things. Here's the first thing he did,
and you don't have to go back to the text. Just listen to me. I'll give
it to you. The first thing he did was this. He took him aside,
and he separated him from the multitude. And when the Lord
deals with a man, that's exactly what he does. He plucks him out.
Here's what the natural man does, is what we all do by nature.
We're all running towards those gates of hell, caring nothing
about God. And he reaches out and grabs us, and he says, not
you. You're coming with me. A divine choice was made here. Christ took him inside and pulled
him out of that multitude. And after he's done teaching,
you find you don't belong with the multitude anymore. You don't
think the same way. You don't believe the same way.
You've got a different God, and you have a different master.
Here's the second thing he did. He put his fingers in this man's
ears. What's that all about? Luke 11
to 20 says this, but if I, the Lord speaking, with the finger
of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon
you. That finger of God he's talking
about, he's talking about the divine power. You see, it takes
power to save a sinner. Divine power. Power to take something
that is wicked and evil and sinful and extract that sin from him.
and put it somewhere else. Put it in Christ. Him be punished
to the extent that that sin is put away and that object that
was originally corrupt and wicked is now made pure and holy and
righteous to where he really can stand before God, this one
who sees things as things really are. And he says he's perfect.
I couldn't ask anything else from him. He's perfect in my
son. It takes power to do that. It
takes power to make righteous, to make pure, to make sinless,
to preserve. To keep that object that you've
made perfect and preserve it all the way to the end, it takes
power to save the sinner, the very power of God to a powerless
creature. Here's the third thing he did.
He spit on his hand, and he touched his tongue. Think about this for a second.
The man can't hear. He's had absolutely no explanation.
The Lord's taken him aside, puts his fingers in his ear, which
would have been awkward enough, and now the Lord spits on his hand,
touches that man's tongue, just like that. Why? Well, a transfer has to take
place. Something from the Lord went to that man. Something from
that man went to our Lord. That's 2 Corinthians 5.1. For
he hath made him sin for us who know sin, that we might be made
the very righteousness of God in him. That's how a sinner is
saved. That great transfer. Something from the master to
us. Something from us to the master. But why spit? Right? This is a very odd and strange
thing. And I look through the scriptures,
I think there's two other times the Lord used his saliva. Made someone
hung in contact with his spit. Well, during the course of him
performing a miracle. Why? I think it's this. Let's say
you went to the doctor, and you had a disease, and the doctor
said, I can cure you, no problem. A little weird, though. Open
up your mouth. I gotta spit in your mouth. I can see everybody kind of recoil,
right? Why does that make you recoil?
It's gross. It's grotesque. And it's messy. This world wants to talk about
love, and they want to talk about community building, and they
want to talk about building better lives, and what no one wants
to talk about is blood. The means of salvation—and I
mean this with all reverence, but I think you understand what
I mean—it is messy, and it is gross, and it is grotesque. Everyone wants to talk about
love and community building. No one wants to talk about a
father forsaking his son. Nobody wants to talk about blood,
and that's the only thing we should be talking about. Say,
what do you mean? Go all the way back to Genesis 22. The Lord
tells Abraham, you take Isaac, your only son, you go up that
mountain I'm gonna show you up, and you offer him up as a burnt
offering. And they get on top of that mountain,
And Abraham takes his son Isaac, that willing sacrifice, and he
binds him, and he puts him on that altar. And he is standing
overtop Isaac. Those of you who have children,
think about how much you love your children. Put yourself in
Abraham's place for a moment. He is standing overtop his son,
whom he loves, with a knife, fully expecting that in just
one split second, he's going to drive that knife into his
son's throat. He's going to bleed him out,
then he's going to quarter his body, he's going to light him
on fire, and he's going to watch the smoke go up. Think about how hard that must
have been for Abraham. Think about the grief that was
going through his mind when he was about to do that. And it
was nothing compared to what God the Father experienced when
he had to forsake his only forgotten son. Not even close. Think about
Isaac for a second. That willing sacrifice, bound
there willingly. His father said, the Lord said
to sacrifice you. He said, what are you waiting for? Do it. And
he's looking up, and he figures the last thing he is going to
see is this man whom he loves. He loves his father. The last
thing he's going to see is this man whom he loves take this knife
and drive it into his throat. That's how he is going to pass
on. Watching this man that he loves, this man he trusts, do
this to him. How horrible that must have been
for him, but how much more horrible this must have been for our Lord.
When the Father turned his back on him, he had nothing but the
wrath of God falling down before him and on top of him. It's gross, it's grotesque, it's
messy, but out of all that mess, Out of all that muck, it became
the greatest thing, the most loving thing, and the most pure
thing that has ever happened, the salvation of all God's people
and the glorification of Jesus Christ. But why spit? Why does he use spit? Because
it's messy, folks, and this is a messy religion. I'll give you the next thing.
He sighed. Did he sigh because he was frustrated
with this man? No. He sighed because he loved
this man. Because we have a high priest
who's touched with the feelings of our infirmities. He looked
at this man in pity. He said, I know. I'm going to
fix it. He gave you the last thing he
did. He looked up to heaven, and he
cried, Ifatha, be opened. Notice the direction of his gaze.
He wasn't looking at the man. He was looking up to heaven.
He wasn't speaking to a man. He was speaking to his father.
He was making effective intercession for this man. He approached this
man. He looked up to his father and
said, open his ears. And you know what happened? What
he commanded, it came to be just like that. The ears were opened.
The string of his tongue was loosed immediately. This is the
effectual intercession, the high priesthood of the Lord Jesus
Christ for all his people. He approaches his father this
very day. this very moment, and he sits there as our great high
priest, and he says, save them, receive them, accept them. Give
me the reason. Look at my hands, and look at
my feet. That's all the reason I need, right there. This is
how a sinner is saved. This is the hope of every sinner. Now, I'll leave you with this.
Where do you stand on this? Either he hath done all things
well, or there's something you need to do. What are you saying? Because if your confession is
this, he's done it all, and he's done it right, well, if that's
your hope, you have a good hope, and you're gonna hear these words,
well done, about good, and faithful. I'll leave you all there. It's been a pleasure.