Let's turn in our Bibles today
to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4, reading verses 16
through 21. 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 for to read. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written, the spirit of the Lord
is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. to preach deliverance to the
captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book and he
gave it again to the minister and sat down. And the eyes of
all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he
began to say unto them, this day is this scripture fulfilled
in your ears. I want to bring us up to this
place in the life of the Lord. In Luke chapter three, we read
that he was baptized of John in the river Jordan. He went
quite a distance to where John was baptizing from Nazareth to
be baptized. And we're told that two things
happened when he was baptized. First of all, the scripture says
that heaven was opened and the Holy Ghost descended upon him
in the form of a dove. That's the first thing that happened.
The second thing was that there was a voice from heaven which
said, thou art my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. We see there the Trinity. Each person in the Godhead is
represented. God the Father speaking from
heaven saying, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. God the Son incarnate as a man
being put under the water and raised up by John the Baptist. And God the Holy Spirit coming,
descending in the form of a dove and resting upon Christ and In
John's account, the Gospel of John, or the Gospel according
to John, in his account we are told that the Spirit remained
upon him. Then he was in the wilderness
for 40 days being tempted of the devil. We know that he put
the devil to the run in the sense that he rebuked him with every
temptation that he he brought before the Lord. And then he
made his way back to Nazareth. And all along the way, he taught
in different synagogues and performed miracles. And now the passage
of scripture that I've read and we're looking at today, he is
back where he had been raised from childhood in Nazareth. And
he attended there the synagogue. I'm sure he had gone there many,
many days through his life to this point. And this was not
the first time, no doubt, that he had read the scripture. But as he went there this day,
the minister of the synagogue handed the scroll to him to read. And he found the place. In our
Bible, the way it's been sorted into chapters and verses, he
found Isaiah chapter 61, and he read this scripture, the Spirit
of the Lord is upon me. Some 600 years before our Lord
read those words that day, Isaiah had spoken those words, had given
forth that prophecy. Now prophecy, many times people
assume that prophecy always means foretelling the future. That
is part of prophecy, but that's not all that the scriptures speak
of concerning prophecy. When a man stands up and explains
the word of God, proclaims the word of God, I should say, proclaims
the word of God, That is prophesying. That's what I'm doing today.
And that's what preachers all around the world are doing today. They're prophesying, not foretelling
the future like Isaiah did some 600 years before this day when
our Lord read this scripture, but explaining or propounding
or proclaiming rather the word of God. Now, What was different
this day, of course, is, he said, this day, this scripture is fulfilled
in your hearing. This wonderful promise that had
been given many, many years before was this day fulfilled. The Spirit
of the Lord, he said, is upon me to be these four things. First of all, to be a preacher.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me to heal the brokenhearted. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me to deliver those who are in captivity. And the Spirit of
the Lord is upon me to announce the acceptable year of the Lord. I want us to look at these four
things that are mentioned. First of all, As a preacher,
he would preach the gospel to the poor. Notice that is what
it says. The spirit of the Lord is upon
me to preach the gospel to the poor. In 1 Timothy chapter 2
and verse 5, we are told that there's one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus. God comes to you and speaks to
you. He's going to speak to you through
his son, Jesus Christ. If he reveals himself to you,
he's going to reveal himself to you in and through Jesus Christ. There's no other mediator. And
if you go to God and God hears you and God accepts you, it's
going to be because you go to him through Jesus Christ. He's the only mediator. And as
a mediator, we know that he's a prophet, he's a priest, and
he's a king. And this day, the Spirit of the
Lord was upon him as a prophet to preach the gospel to the poor. The Lord Jesus put honor upon
preaching by himself being a preacher. You know, the world of lost men
consider preaching to be foolishness. What I do here Sunday after Sunday
and Wednesday after Wednesday, the world, for the most part,
consider it to be foolishness. But God doesn't. God doesn't. In fact, the scripture says in
1 Corinthians, after that in the wisdom of God, the world
by wisdom knew not God. All of these great philosophers
had come upon the scene, Plato, Aristotle, and many, many others
that we're not even familiar with. But with all of their wisdom
that they had proclaimed, they could not introduce anyone to
God. By the wisdom of this world,
men do not know God, but it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. Why is that? Because the scripture
says, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You must be in union with Christ
to be forgiven, to be saved, And that union is only experienced
by believing in Him, by faith in Him. Paul said, for I am not
ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation
unto everyone that believeth, that believeth. Faith, you must
believe in Christ. You must trust in Christ. But
how, how does faith come? Well, the scripture says faith
cometh. That tells us that we don't have
faith. You know, that's the thing that most people are in error
over. They just assume that all men
everywhere, we're just born with faith. Well, we may be born with
a certain kind of faith, but not saving faith. We just don't have it. We don't
have it. It's a gift. And repentance also
is a gift of God. So faith cometh by hearing. And
we can understand that in, I believe, one of two ways. As we hear the
preaching of the gospel, God gives us faith. He communicates
faith to us to believe in Christ, or God determines that we have
faith. Faith cometh. God grants faith
unto His people. You can't give yourself faith.
I couldn't give anybody faith. The church can't give faith.
Baptism cannot give anyone faith. Going through a certain catechismal
class cannot give anyone faith. God gives faith. Faith is a gift
of God, and faith cometh, cometh by hearing the scripture says,
the gospel, the word of God. What did the Lord Jesus Christ
preach? I want to know that, don't you? What he says, the spirit of the
Lord is upon me for he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. What did he preach? Wouldn't
you have loved to have been in that synagogue that day? Well,
let's look back to Psalm chapter 40 and we're told here what the
Lord preached. Psalm chapter 40, if you will
turn back with me. Now we see here in verses six
and seven how this, and eight, how this applies to the Lord
Jesus Christ because in Hebrews chapter 10, we're told that it
does. Sacrifice and offering thou didst
not desire. Mine ears hast thou opened. Burn
offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said
I, this is Christ speaking, then said I, lo, I come. In the volume of the book it
is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my
God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness
in the great congregation. Lo, I have not refrained my lips,
O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness
within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness
and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy loving
kindness and thy truth from the great congregation. You notice
there in verse nine, he said, I have preached righteousness.
And then he kind of breaks that down in the next verse. I have
preached thy righteousness. I have preached thy faithfulness.
I have preached thy salvation. I have not concealed thy loving
kindness and thy truth. What did he preach? He preached
the message about God, about who he is and what he has done. When we read there, I have preached
righteousness. In his sermon on the mount, he
said, except your righteousness, And there was a multitude of
people there listening that day, except your righteousness. And
if he was here in this pulpit today, he would say the same
thing to every one of us here. Except your righteousness exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. In other words, he preached
righteousness, God's righteousness. That God is so holy, absolutely
holy, that you and I, by nature, are sinners. That we must have
a righteousness that God will accept. And we can't manufacture
that righteousness. That's what Paul said the error
of the Jews was in his day in Romans chapter 10. Being ignorant
of the righteousness of God, they go about to establish their
own righteousness. Men have a number of ways of
trying to do that. It may be by memorizing scripture. It may be by being baptized. I mean, just all kinds of different
ways. Changing the way people dress.
changing the way they comb their hair. But all of these things
are outward things that men do. And by doing those things, they
cannot establish a righteousness that God will accept. We cannot,
I should say. No, he preached righteousness.
And our Lord said, when the Spirit of God shall come, he shall convict
the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. And of sin,
you see, before righteousness. But in this passage of scripture,
it says, I have declared thy faithfulness. It's not our faithfulness,
it's God's faithfulness. His faithfulness. Who are we
talking? We're talking about the Lord
Jesus Christ, His faithfulness and His obedience unto God. Every
commandment of God. He obeyed thy faithfulness and
thy salvation. Salvation is God's salvation. He planned it. He planned it. You say, well, when did God plan
salvation? Before the world began. He planned
salvation. He purposed it. And his son,
he sent into this world to purchase salvation. And God the Holy Spirit
is given to apply this salvation unto those that he chose in that
everlasting covenant. It's thy salvation. And not only
thy faithfulness and thy salvation, but thy loving kindness. He told Nicodemus, For God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. He
proclaimed God's loving kindness. After all that we as his creatures
have done, after all of the sin that we've committed, and remember
this, all sin is against God. Ultimately, all sin is against
God. And yet, in spite of our sin,
God loved his people from everlasting and loved them so much that he
sent his son, his only begotten son, to redeem us from all iniquity. And how did he redeem us? By
his blood. By his blood. Yes, he preached
God's righteousness, God's faithfulness, God's salvation, God's loving
kindness, and God's truth. He didn't withhold the truth.
Sometimes the truth hurts, doesn't it? Sometimes the truth cuts.
But the Lord Jesus Christ was a preacher who preached the truth,
the truth. He ordained him to be a preacher. To whom does he preach this gospel
to? Well, I know he preached to the
multitudes, but in our text, to preach the gospel to the poor. He's not talking about physically
poor people. Yes, some are poor physically,
that are poor spiritually, but this is speaking about a spiritual
poverty, not a physical poverty, to preach the gospel to the poor. In the prophecy, that is translated
to the meek. Now the gospel is good news to
those who are poor in spirit. Those whose spirit has been wounded
by the spirit of God, using the word of God, poor in spirit. Remember that publican? Our Lord
gave this parable and it illustrates this so well. Two men went up
into the temple to pray, and one stood in the front of the
building, and he just stuck out his chest, and he began to brag
on himself and all that he had done, and he certainly wasn't
like this other man over here. And this poor publican, he would
not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, but he smote upon
his breast and said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And
that man went home to his house justified. The other man, he
continued, in his self-righteousness, in his haughtiness, in his wealth,
spiritual wealth, he wasn't poor in spirit, but that other man,
he was poor, poor in spirit. And you know, there's a verse
in Mark's gospel that tells us, and the common people heard him
gladly. when the Lord Jesus Christ preached.
The common people heard him gladly. The self-righteous people, the
religious people of that day, they didn't hear him gladly.
Why? Because his message just cut
across everything that they believed about themselves. Look with me in Matthew's gospel
just a moment. Matthew chapter 11. In this passage, John the Baptist
sent a few of his disciples to the Lord, and they came to him.
Notice this, beginning with verse two. Now, when John had heard
in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples
and said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look
for another? Now, John was not doubtful. I'm
convinced John, he didn't have a shadow of a doubt that Christ
was the Christ, that Jesus was the Christ. Well, he had baptized
him and he had experienced seeing that dove descend upon him, which
God had told him would be a sign to him. But no, John is concerned
about his disciples. that they would be convinced.
So he sends these two disciples to the Lord and they ask this
question, are thou he that should come or do we look for another?
How did the Lord answer that? Jesus answered and said unto
them, go and show John again those things which you do hear
and see. The blind receive their sight,
the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear,
the dead are raised up, and the poor, here it is, the poor have
the gospel preached to them. Yes, he is the one who was promised
to come, prophesied that he would come, The Spirit of the Lord
is upon me, for he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. Is anyone poor? Anyone here today
poor? Have you ever been poor spiritually? Are you poor spiritually? In
yourself, I'm talking about. Thinking about the fact that
one day you're going to stand before an absolute holy God,
a consuming fire, the scripture says. You're going to appear
before him. I'm going to appear before him. Have we ever been made to realize
that spiritually we're poor? How are we going to appear before
God? How's that going to take place?
What's going to happen? Well, if anyone's poor, Christ
was anointed and is preaching the gospel to the poor. There's
good news. That's what the word gospel means,
isn't it? Glad tidings of great joy. The
gospel is to those who are poor, but not to those who see themselves
as needing nothing. No. The second thing that we
read that the Lord was anointed was to be a healer of the broken
hearted. Now that word broken hearted
has been used by the word, by the world rather, to talk about
people who have been disappointed in romance or something like
that. But that's not what it means
here. Those who are broken hearted or those I just described, those
who are poor, their spirit is downcast or their spirit is wounded
because of the knowledge that is given unto them that we have
a depraved nature. Think of a fountain, a fountain
that is just bubbling up water all the time, bubbling up water,
pure, clean, water, how it satisfies the thirsty. But then think of
the fountain that just keeps spewing up poison, poison, poison. That's a picture of our heart
by nature, not that first fountain that brings up clean water, but
know this heart, this fountain that spews up out of the heart,
the Lord Jesus Christ said. Out of the heart these things
come. What is he talking about? He's
talking about murder, gossip, adultery, fornication. All of these evils, he said,
they come out of the heart. We're born with a heart that
is just like that fountain that just flows and the thoughts that
come into our mind. Imaginations are evil, the scripture
says. Well, aren't you glad he is anointed
to heal? Heal the broken hearted? Heal
the broken, we say, how does he heal the broken hearted? Well, in Isaiah chapter 53, we're
told, by his stripes, we are healed. By his stripes, we are
healed. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. He makes the broken hearted,
the way He heals the broken hearted is He makes them to see, us to
see that in Christ we have everything that we need. Yes, we have a
nature that is sinful, but Christ has taken our sins and He has
paid that sin debt for us. And in him were granted liberty
and freedom. And that's the next thing. He
will deliver the captives. The third thing, he would deliver
the captives. And in the prophecy in Isaiah
61, it reads, recovering of sight to the blind. It is opening the
prison to them that are bound. The reason being because in that
day, most prisoners were kept in a cell that was dark. They
were in darkness, and they were captives, but captives in darkness. And that's a picture of man by
nature. You say, who are we in captivity
to? Man by nature. Now I'm not talking
about a Christian, a believer. I'm talking about one who's never
come to know Christ as his Lord and Savior. Captivity, first
of all, to sin. To sin. Sin has a rule over every
man. And the scripture reveals to
us that Joseph was told concerning the birth of Jesus, thou shalt
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. From their sins. From the captivity
of sin. He frees the prisoners from the
darkness of sin. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
Paul said, he's a new creation. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things have become new. Yes, when a person is born again
of the Spirit of God, that old nature, we don't leave it at
that time. But we're given a new nature.
And Christ comes to live within. God the Holy Spirit comes to
live within and he gives us power over those sinful ways that are
natural to us. I love the way the Apostle Paul,
in writing to the church at Corinth, He said, and such were some of
you. Now he enlisted a whole litany
of wickedness and evil deeds. And then he said, and such were
some of you, past tense, but you're washed, you're sanctified,
you're justified in the name of Jesus Christ. He gives us
a new nature. And by the power of God, the
Holy Spirit, we're able to overcome Those sinful habits and lust
of the flesh were no longer under the dominion of sin. Not only
that, but the law. We were in captivity to the law. God's law requires that it be
honored perfectly, and we couldn't honor that law. What did the
law do? It cursed us. It cursed us. It said, cursed
is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law for to do them. The law cursed us. Well,
how does the Lord Jesus Christ deliver us from that curse? By being made a curse for us.
But the scripture says, cursed is everyone that hangeth upon
a tree. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, for cursed is everyone that hangeth upon
a tree. And when he was nailed on that
tree, on the cross, he took that curse that was your curse and
my curse, and he paid that penalty for our sin. You say, how do
we know that? Because he came out of the grave.
on the third day, showing that God was satisfied. And this is
something else that people need to realize. Lost men and women
are under the dominion of Satan. I want you to turn to 2 Timothy
just a moment. Under the dominion of Satan. In Ephesians 2, he says that
we walked according to the course of the world, the prince of the
air. But here in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 24, 2 Timothy chapter
2 verse 24. Begin with verse 24. And the
servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all, apt to
teach, patient in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves,
if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the
snare of the devil. who are taken captive by him
at his will. You see, lost men and women are
dead in trespasses and sins and they're in captivity. The law
demands payment. Pay me that which thou owest.
And we have nothing with which to pay. Sin rules in our lives
and we can't free ourselves. And Satan is a tyrant who takes
men captive at his will. Only God can free a person. He hath anointed me, the Lord
Jesus Christ said, to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and the last thing, to announce or proclaim the acceptable year
of the Lord." Verse 19. What does that refer to? The
acceptable year of the Lord. Well, in the nation of Israel,
every seven years, a man When they went into the land of promise,
the land was divided up among the tribes. And each family,
each man got a certain portion of ground. And he would plow
that ground and sow that ground and feed his family off of what
he raised, his crops and everything. But if he became poor and he
had nothing, no money at all, then he could sell his property
only for so long, but every seventh year on the day of atonement,
he received his property back. Every debt, I was thinking about
how much credit card debt there is in this country. Can you imagine
what it would be like if somehow someone in this country could
just say, all debt is erased today. And all the debt that
we may have on credit cards and home finance and all of that
stuff is just all gone. That's the way it was. It was
called the day of release in the law. And man, no matter what
he owed or who he had sold his property to, it all came back. came back to him to proclaim
the day of release. And that's what the Lord Jesus
Christ does for his people. He proclaims the day of release. In Ephesians 1, the apostle speaks
about being accepted in the beloved. Isn't that what every one of
us desire? To be accepted. That's what we desire in this
world, isn't it? To be accepted. Can you imagine coming before
God Almighty and being accepted? Everyone who is in the Beloved
in Christ is accepted and will forever be accepted. by God. I'm so thankful that
the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and as he announced
that day, freedom, deliverance, liberty to the captives, that
he set his people free.