Okay, turn again in your Bible
to Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7. I trust that
you read ahead as we're studying through the Gospel written by
Mark and have time to meditate and consider what God says in
His Word. And then when we come together,
I think it will just open up to you that much more clearly. Now the title of the message
today is taken from Mark chapter 7 verse 37. Let's read that verse. And were beyond measure astonished,
saying, He hath done all things well. He maketh both the deaf
to hear, and those who can't speak, those who are dumb, to
speak clearly. He hath done all things well. And truly it can be said of our
great Redeemer that He hath done and is doing and will do all
He does perfectly without Fought perfectly without sin. He does
all things well. He does all things right. Both
now and forever. He does all things well. That's
our confession. He does all things well. Now
let's look at this story. Our Lord Jesus never stayed long
in one place. He knew where His work was at. He knew where His sheep were
at. And He went to that place met
his elect, his sheep, completed his work, and moved on to the
next town, moved on to the next place. Our Lord said in John
4, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish
his work. He went all the way to the borders
of Tyre and Sidon, way up north, almost to Lebanon. To show mercy
to one desperate woman who had a young daughter who was grievously
vexed with the devil. And he healed that young girl. Showed mercy to that mother. Made me think, I wish I had a
mother like that. That prayed for me. That sought
my salvation. and was seeking God's will and
God's glory. Now he travels 50 or 60 miles
to the south country, down below Galilee, to a place called, departing,
verse 31, from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, he came under the
Sea of Galilee through the midst of the coast of Decapolis. And
you can look at your map and get the geography straight in
your mind. He comes all the way to the south country to meet
one man. who had a problem. He was deaf. And because he was deaf, he could
not speak. We see the glorious display of
God's sovereign mercy to his own, to his sheep, to his elect. We see the good shepherd on the
trail of his sheep. He came to seek and to save those
who were lost. And we see the Lord seeking out
his people, one by one. Now this story of the Lord healing
this man is only recorded here in the Gospel written by John
Mark. Mark. Luke doesn't say anything
about it. Matthew doesn't say anything
about it. John doesn't say anything about it. Just here in Mark.
And I thought to myself, there must be something significant
that it's only recorded one time and it kind of just piqued my
interest just a little bit more. Mark is the only one that says
anything about it. It must be something very special
for us here to see. Now on the surface we see the
display of the raw power of God Almighty, the Lord Jesus. A man
who was totally deaf, who could not hear one word, and therefore
because he could not hear, he could not speak. He was unable
to utter any clear words. And by the almighty providence
of God and the purpose of God, the Lord meets this man, heals
him, opens his ears and loosens his tongue. Now, if that's all
we see, we've missed the gospel. Now, just looking on the surface
there, we see the mighty power of God moving and working, but
can you see the gospel in what the Lord does to this man? Let's
see if we can find it. Notice what the Lord does to
this man and the unusual means that he uses to work this miracle.
He separates this man aside from the crowd, takes his fingers,
sticks them in his ears, and then he spits on his hand and
somehow he puts his spit, kind of an unsanitary thing, isn't
it, to spit in someone's mouth? And then he groans within his
person, sighed in his person. And then he looks to the Father
and says, Ephrathah, be open. And immediately, the man hears
now. He speaks and declares with astonishment
what God had done to him. Now, it's interesting to me,
and I trust it is to you, did you see in verse 32, he came
to this place called Decapolis. How did the people down in Decapolis,
way down in the south country, how did they hear about the Lord
Jesus Christ and His healing power? Turn back to Mark chapter
5, this is most interesting. There was another man who met
the Lord Jesus, that wild Gadarene, you remember? He dwelt among
the tombs, a naked man, no one could tame him, no one could
help him. And the Lord met him and healed him, clothed him,
put him in his right mind. And it says in Mark chapter 5
verse 19, this is what the Lord says to him. Jesus said to him,
you go home to your friends and tell them how great things the
Lord hath done for you. See, He does all things well.
And how the Lord had compassion on you. Now look at verse 20. He departed and began to publish
in... He went home. You know where
he lived? Decapolis. And he published how
great things Jesus had done for him, and all men did marvel.
Now the Lord Jesus is down in Decapolis, and some of those
who heard this wild man of Gadarene declare how great the Lord Jesus,
they heard of him through this man preaching what Christ had
done. And when they find out the Lord
Jesus is among them, they bring this man, verse 32, they bring
him unto the Lord, this deaf man who had an initimate in his
speech, and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. How
did they hear? through the preaching of that
wild man that nobody could tame. You see how important it is to
go and publish the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? His sheep
are going to hear that message. His sheep will hear that message.
Someone said preaching is just one mercy beggar telling another
mercy beggar where he found bread, where he found mercy in Christ
Jesus. Now, our Lord says in Mark 7,
Here's the gospel message. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear. Now, if you have ears to hear,
now sit up and listen. If you have ears to hear, I want
you to hear this message. Now, here's the first thing. What does this man picture? What
is he a picture of? And everything we see in the
Word of God declares unto us the gospel of Jesus Christ. This
man, what does he picture, this deaf man who could not speak?
I'll tell you what he's a picture of. Here's the first point. All
people are unwakened and are just like this poor man in a
spiritual sense, deaf and dumb. Dumb. I mean by that, I don't
mean you're stupid, but I mean you cannot speak the language
of grace. All men are just like this poor
man, all men who are unwakened, that is, unbelievers, are like
this man in a spiritual sense, deaf, dumb, and blind. Deaf,
dumb, and blind. Unable to see, unable to hear,
unable to speak the truth. Now this man represents all sinners
in their natural state of spiritual deafness. The ungenerate, unbeliever,
sinner, He has no spiritual hearing because he's dead in sin. Now here's the scripture, 1 Corinthians
2, 9. I have not seen nor ear heard,
neither has it entered into the heart of man the things which
God hath prepared for them that love him. 1 Corinthians 2.14,
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.
They are foolish unto him, neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually understood. They are spiritually discerned.
You must have your hearing tuned spiritually to hear spiritual
things. Now I'm not saying that an unawakened
sinner cannot hear the words I'm speaking. You can hear it
intellectually and you understand the vocabulary and the words
that I'm saying. I'm not saying that you cannot
hear what I'm speaking in a natural way, but what I'm saying is that
those who are unbelievers have no spiritual life and spiritual
ears to hear God speak from heaven and receive and understand the
Word of God as those in Thessalonica, they received the Word of God,
not as it is the Word of men, but as it is the Word of God
that effectually works in our heart. Now, I'll give you some
examples of that. People who hear things audibly,
but they hear with no understanding. They hear with no faith. They
hear with no spiritual intellect. Oh, they have natural wisdom,
natural intellect. Here's an example in Galatians
4. He said to those people, tell
me, you that desire to be under the law, do you hear what it
says? They heard the word, but they
didn't really understand what the law demands. Perfection in word, thought,
and deed. I heard a man on the radio just
this morning, who was on the same radio station that we're
on, 96.5. getting ready to come back over,
go back over to the house, and I flipped the radio on for just
a minute, and he was going down through the law, 1 through 10,
and talking about how bad everybody is, about, you know, you should
do this, you should do that, you should do all that other
things, and here's what the scriptures teach, for as many as are of
the works of the law are under the curse of the law. You seek
salvation by the doing of the law and you're under the condemnation
of the law because it demands perfection and I cannot produce
it. You see, the good news of the
gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law. Do you have ears to hear? Here's
a second thing. Like this man, all men by nature
are deaf. to spiritual things because they're
dead in sin. Secondly, not only is that so,
but we by nature are spiritually, not only spiritually deaf and
unbelieving the gospel, unbelievers, unawakened, but unawakened sinners
cannot clearly speak the language of salvation by grace. The speech
and language of the unbeliever is always about himself. about his experience in religion. It's always about what he's done
for God, rather than what God has done for him. He knows nothing
of the true grace of God, the salvation of the Lord. It's always,
I did this, I did that, I've done this, I've given this. You see, it's the language of
me, myself and I. rather than declaring what God
has done for us. You see they have an impediment
in their speech because they can't hear and understand spiritually,
therefore they don't know the language of grace that magnifies
the Lord. You remember those in Matthew
chapter 7, they declared in the judgment, Lord we have done Many
wonderful works. Lord, we have cast out devils
in your name. Look, we have preached in your
name. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
Remember what the Lord said? Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. I do not know you. You see, their
language, because they had no spiritual ears, spiritual understanding
to hear God, therefore they had an impediment in their speech.
They talked about salvation by their deed rather than grace
alone. Now, here's the second thing. And what the Lord did to this
man in his physical healing is a picture of what the Lord does
to us when He heals us spiritually. This is what the Lord does for
us in salvation. Five things. Look at verse 33. We see five things here. And
this is the gospel. The first thing the Lord did,
He took him aside from the multitude. He separated him out. That's
what the Good Shepherd does. He separates out those sheep
that belong to Him. He took him aside from the multitude,
separating him from everyone else. You see, the Lord deals
with His people in a personal way. We may be sitting in a large
crowd, but He speaks to His people in a most intimate way of love
and grace. He calls His own by name. He speaks to their heart. We
may be sitting in a great multitude, yet the Lord speaks to His people
personally, individually, up close and personal. He calls
us out. He calls us out of darkness to
light. He calls us with irresistible grace to Himself. He separated
this man and dealt with him personally. And that's what God does for
us in salvation. He has chosen us in that covenant
of grace and what God has purposed in eternity He brings to pass
in time. He crosses our path with the
gospel, quickens us and makes us alive through the preaching
of the gospel by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and He
gives us ears to hear Him. He calls us out of darkness to
light. He delivered us from the power
of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son, what Paul said in Colossians 1. Peter put it this way. He
said, you are a chosen generation. You are a separated people. A
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should
show forth the praises of Him who called you out of darkness
into His marvelous light. Remember what we read in John
chapter 10? Those Pharisees complained, if
He be the Christ, tell us plainly. He said, I told you. And you
will not believe me. My sheep, they hear my voice
and they follow not. They follow me. You believe not
because you're not of my sheep. You're not one of mine. Now,
so the first thing the Lord does, separates this man out. That's
what he does for us in salvation. He separates us out by his irresistible
grace and he works on us personally in the heart. The second thing
he does, look at verse 33 again. He took him inside and put his
fingers into his ears. Now what does that mean? You
see his fingers are the fingers of God. His fingers are the fingers
of power. His fingers make up his hand,
of which the scripture says that no one could stay his hand or
say unto him, Lord God Almighty, what are you doing? Our Lord
declared this in Luke 11, 20, I with the finger of God cast
out devils. In Exodus 31, 18, God gave to
Moses two tables of stone written with the finger of God. I want God Almighty to stick
His finger in my ear and give me ears to hear Him. It is only by the sovereign power
of God that we have ears open to hear Him speak to us in His
Word. We believe according to the working
of His mighty power. It's God who commands the light
to shine out of darkness to shine in our heart. to give us eyes
to see the glory and the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
glory of God in the face of Christ. Not by our works, but according
to His power. We hear by the power of God. He must personally stick His
power in our ears to make us to hear with spiritual understanding. It is only by His power, His
purpose, His grace that we have life to hear Him speak. Makes
me want to cry as this, Lord, stick your finger in my ear and
in my heart that I might hear a word from God. Oh, to hear
a word from God to your heart. The next thing he does, he separates
him out. He gives him ears to hear by
the power of God. That's the finger, the power
of God. And then the next thing he does,
so unusual here, He spit on his hand. And somehow he stuck his hand
in his mouth and on his tongue to cause this man to have his
tongue loose. Put it on his tongue. Spit on
his tongue. Now what does this mean? How can we see the gospel here?
Here's what he's teaching us. Something out of the Lord, out
from the Lord, entered in to that man. And this is what the
Lord does for us in salvation. He has done a glorious work of
grace for us on Calvary's tree, burying our sin and His own body
on the tree, but He almost must also do a work of grace in our
heart. in us. Christ in you, the hope
of glory. He must do that work of grace
in our heart. God who made Him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin, that we might be made to righteousness
of God in Him. I need Him to spit on me. I need something out of Him to
flow into me, which is life and righteousness in Christ Jesus. Lord give me your righteousness.
Lord, spit on me. Stick your finger in my ear and
give me life and salvation in Christ Jesus. Blessed is the
man to whom the Lord imputed righteousness without saying,
blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven. Blessed is that
man to whom the Lord will not charge sin. Gone. The Lord put away our sin by
the sacrifice of Himself. Now, something else we see in
verse 34. Here's the fourth thing. Here's
the fourth thing. Looking up to heaven, every good
gift, every perfect gift comes from above. Comes from God. Looking up to heaven, He sighed. He sighed. That is, He groaned. He groaned in His body. Now,
we see a couple of places in Scripture where the Lord Jesus
Christ groaned. One, when He went to the garden
before He went to the cross. Remember, He went to Gethsemane's
garden, and being in agony, He fell on the ground before God
Almighty. when it was revealed to him,
and when the Lord started laying on him our iniquity and charging
our sin to him, this holy man groans, carrying the weight of
my sin. And he groans. But not only that,
what happens at Calvary Street, when the full weight of our sin
was laid on Him, and the full wrath of God Almighty is poured
out on this Son of God, the God-man mediator, the Savior. He cries
with great groanings, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken
Me? Sin. God made Him sin for us. These groanings here, And here's
the point I'm trying to make. Our salvation, our ears being
opened, and our being separated, and our ability to have life
and salvation comes at the expense of His groanings. Comes at the
expense of His suffering. Christ also once suffered for
our sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God. You see, we have life and salvation
at the expense of His sorrow. At the expense of his grief,
he took my judgment. He took my punishment and made
satisfaction to God Almighty. And that's what he's saying here.
He's called the man of sorrow. He sighed looking up to heaven. Groaning! And our salvation is
at the expense of his groaning. For us to have life and salvation,
He must pay our sin debt and redeem us from the holy justice
of God in a just way that He might be a just God and Savior.
Here's the fifth thing we see here in our text. Verse 34, "...looked
up to heaven, and he sighed, and he groaned. And he saith
unto him..." Here's the irresistible, powerful, quickening Word of
God Almighty. He says, Be open. Be opened. Live. Live. Be opened. The Lord must speak to us by
His quickening, powerful Word and open our heart. You have
He quickened through work dead. Be opened! Sinner, live! We live by the command of God
Almighty. God opened His heart. God opened his ears. He opened
his understanding and loosed his tongue. Be open! Ephrathah! The Lord must speak. I'm thinking of a scripture over
in Acts 16. A certain woman named Lydia,
a seller of purple, the city of Thyatira, which worshipped
God, heard us whose heart the Lord opened, and she attended
to the things which were spoken of Paul. You see, salvation is
a heart work. God must work on our heart. He must make us new creatures
in Christ. He must take away that stony
heart and give us a contrite, broken, humbled heart before
God. You see, He is nigh them of a
broken heart. He saves such as be of a contrite spirit. Well, what's going to happen?
The Lord separated this man out, stuck his fingers in his ears,
spit on his tongue, groaned in his body, and said, Be open! What's going to happen? Look at verse 35. Here's the
third thing. And straightway, that is immediately,
his ears opened. And the string, the confusion
of his language, the bond of his tongue was loose. And now
he speaks. Clarity. Plainness. Immediately this man's ears were
opened, his tongue was loose, and he spoke plainly. Now here's
the point. Those whose ears are opened by
God, whose tongues are loose by the power of God, speak plainly
and clearly what they've seen and heard, and what they've experienced,
what they've been taught by the grace of God. This man's story,
as it says in verse 37, he has done all things well. This man's story is about what
the Lord had done for him. That's our story, isn't it? It's
not what I've done. It's not what I've given. It's
not what I will do. Salvations of the Lord. I like
what David said in Psalm 118. This is the Lord's doing and
it is marvelous in our eyes. No longer is there talk about
what they've done, but now it's what the Lord has done. You remember
that wild man that we read about a moment ago in Mark chapter
5? He went home and declared how great things God had done
for him. You see, now our language is,
it's God who saved us. It's God who's called us. It's
God who has chosen us. It's God who's given me grace
to believe. It's of His mercy that we're not consumed because
His compassion, His love does not fail. We sing unto Him who
loved us and washed us from our sin in His own blood. Now we're
no longer talking about what we've done. We're talking about
what He has done. That's what happens when God
saves a sinner. He gives us ears and causes us
to speak in a way that's honoring to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm
a poor sinner as one man said. I'm a poor sinner and nothing
at all and Jesus Christ is my all in all. No wonder the Lord
said in Matthew 13, blessed are your eyes for they see, blessed
are your ears for they hear. I have to bless man. Those saved
by grace speak of grace. Their speech is seasoned with
grace. Their talk is the language of grace. Notice in verse 36 in our text,
He charged them that they should tell no man. But the more He charged them,
so much more a great deal, they published it. They couldn't keep
still. They couldn't keep quiet. I tell
you what, when God saves you by His marvelous grace. As one old preacher used to say,
it'll leak out on you. You'll declare, you'll declare
what God has done for you in your heart. Out of the heart,
the mouth speaks. And when God does that work of
grace in the heart, I tell you, He changes the talk. He changes
the talk. This man and those who were with
him published it the more a great deal." See what it says there? They published it more. A great deal more. Now,
in closing, verse 37. Here is the testimony of grace.
If God has given you ears to hear and has loosed your tongue,
and has opened your heart and made you a new creature in Christ,
this is our testimony. We're astonished beyond measure. Number one, we're astonished
beyond measure. God would have mercy on me? We
sing with Newton, old John Newton, amazing grace, how sweet the
sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was blind, now I see. Once was lost, now I'm found.
Blind, now I see. We're beyond measure astonished. And here's what we say. He's
done all things well. He makes us both the deaf to
hear and the dumb to speak. This is the testimony of every
believer. The Lord Jesus Christ does all things well, right,
complete, without sin, in perfect harmony with His holy justice,
and we are astonished beyond measure. The Lord has been and
ever will be true in every part of His character and His conduct.
This has been and ever will be true of every part of His character
and conduct. He has done all things well. In creation, providence, and
salvation, He has done all things well. Isn't that right? The Lord
has done, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? And He will. I mentioned three
things. He has done all things well.
In creation, He's done all things well. Or it says, God saw everything
that He had made, and behold, it was very good. He's done all
things well in creation. He's done all things well and
is doing all things well in providence. Romans 11 and 36, Of Him and
through Him and to Him are all things to whom be glory both
now and forever. Amen. He has done all things
well in creation and in providence. And you know the third one. You
know the third one, don't you? He's done all things well in
salvation. In salvation. Satisfying God's
law for us. bringing in everlasting righteousness
for us, putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, calling
us out of death to life. He's made us to hear His truth
and to love Him and to love His truth. He's made us new creatures
in Christ and caused us to clearly speak the language of grace. How the Lord has done all things
well for us. You see, to you who believe,
He is precious. To you who believe and have taste
of the Lord, He is gracious. To you who believe, He is altogether
lovely. He's the lovely one. He hath
done all things well. He maketh both the deaf to hear
and to speak in a way honoring to Him. And may we do as it says
in this text here, So much more, a great deal, they publish that. Let's publish the gospel. Let
us be faithful in preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.