The Gospel of Luke chapter 4.
I've come a long way and much time spent before and during
and even now at great expense to this church, and I appreciate
it, but the gospel is worth it, isn't it? And my purpose, as
I said last night, and the purpose of any true genuine preacher
is to preach the gospel, preach the word, which is, as you have
on your side out there, We preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. As Paul said, we preach not ourselves.
We don't deal, we don't talk about social issues, political
issues. We're not all about programs
and a family church and all of that sort of thing like modern
religion today. We do one thing. preach the gospel,
which is Jesus Christ. And that's why I'm here. And
as I said last night, when I asked to do this, I immediately thought,
I'm going to try to bring three messages just completely and
solely on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
time well spent. Last night, as we know, what
Isaiah, what the prophet said about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the scripture says to him, give all the prophets witness.
to Him, to the Lord Jesus Christ, give all the prophets witness.
If I had time, I would take you through every book from Genesis
to Malachi and show you some of the types, the shadows, the
pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're all pictures and shadows
and types representing the Lord Jesus Christ. As said, the Old
Testament says, all the Old Testament, it's not about the Jews, it's
all about Jesus Christ. From start to finish, it says
someone is coming. That's why the Lord had the prophets
write what they did. Tell the people, prophesy of
the coming Christ, who he is, where he's to come, and what
he's to do. And then the gospels say he's
here, he's arrived, God that manifested in the flesh. And
then the epistles and the revelation say he's coming again, coming
again. Tonight I want us to look at
what the Lord Himself says about Himself. All right? And then,
Lord willing, tomorrow we'll look at Revelation 1, what the
Father says about Him. Luke chapter 4, read with me
verses 16 through 22. Luke 4, 16 through 22. And He
came to Nazareth where He had been brought up. And as his custom
was, he went into the synagogue on a Sabbath day and stood up
for to read. And there was delivered unto
him the book of the prophet Esaias, or Isaiah. And when he had opened
the book, he found the place where it was written, the Spirit
of the Lord, this is Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath 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 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. And all bear him witness and
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
They did not know who he was. They said, is not this Joseph's
son? Don't you love to hear gospel
preaching? Don't you love to hear God exalted
and proclaimed and the Lord Jesus Christ high and lifted up and
exalted? Don't you love it? God's people
do. Scripture says it pleased the
Lord. God in wisdom, it pleased him
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Now
preaching is not foolishness. Granted, there are so many fools
doing it. But this is what God has chosen to proclaim his word
to the saving of men and women, young people. So preaching of
his word and the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not
God, but it pleased him by foolishness. It's what the world calls foolishness.
But as 1 Corinthians 1 says, to those that are being saved,
it's the power of God and the wisdom of God, the preaching
of Christ, that is, the preaching of the gospel. The world says,
don't preach to me. Don't they? And I believe that
modern religion has bypassed this now. It's everything but
preaching of God's word. But scripture says it's the power
of God and the wisdom of God. Now let me give you a few reasons
why I believe the Lord has chosen preaching as the means. Number
one, because he did. And we don't need another reason
to, don't need to explain it. That's what he said. He said,
go into all the world and preach the gospel. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. That's what he said. No further
explanation is needed because he did. But secondly, I believe
it's to humble the pride of man. In preaching, people have to
sit down and shut up and listen as a man opens the Word of God
and says, thus saith the Lord. No talking, no giving our opinion,
but sitting down and hearing what the Word of God say. And
quite often, and most of the time, it's an uneducated man,
a man with no credentials, a man that the high and the mighty
and the wise would not sit and listen to otherwise. Like the
apostles, they were all fishermen, weren't they? Unlearned men.
And the Pharisees and the doctors and the lawyers, if they were
going to hear the truth, they were going to hear it from these
fishermen. That humbles people to most of the preachers that
we know. or were former coal miners, and
truck drivers, and you name it. And this humbles the pride of
man, humbles. Thirdly, I believe, it's to demonstrate
the spirit of God and the power of God. Paul said we don't preach
with excellency of speech or persuasible words of man's wisdom,
high intellectual speeches. No, but plainly and simply. And it's in demonstration. If God can take an uneducated,
ungifted man and cause him to preach with power and zeal and
with wisdom and touch the hearts of people,
that's of God. It's not of man, is it? It's
proof. And fourthly, I believe that
if you have heard the truth, if you have been dealt with by
God through the preaching of the gospel, you're going to esteem
it for the rest of your day. You're going to need it, you're
going to sit and listen to it, and it's going to be everything
to you. You won't find an example in
the scriptures of anybody that was not saved apart from the
preaching of the gospel. Will you, brother? Don't do it.
So there are many reasons, but though most preachers are phony
and fake and effeminate and foolish, and I hesitate, I do not introduce myself as a preacher. I don't want to be linked with
these fools out there that are in it for money and for fame
and so forth. People will find out, but I don't
volunteer that information. Though most of them are fake
and phony and corrupt and in it for money and for their own
fame and to count heads and so forth, the Lord still has true
preachers that are doing this for one reason, the glory of
God and the salvation of souls. God, and here is the nail that
hammers this truth down, that God has chosen preaching. God
had one son, one only begotten son, and his occupation was a
preacher. Now that makes this, what I'm
doing, high and lofty then. Not me, the man is nothing, but
the office is what God used, and what we're doing, preaching
God's word. In Mark chapter 1, the Lord said
this, he said to his disciples, let's go into the next towns
that I may preach there also, for therefore came I forth to
preach. I came to preach. Verse 16 in
our text says he came to Nazareth. This is where he grew up. And
it says, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the
Sabbath day and stood up for to read, his custom. I believe
that it was a Jewish custom for a young man when he reached the
age of manhood or what they thought was manhood, 30 years, that his
habit or his custom was to stand up and read the word of God and
thereby being acknowledged by all that he's reached manhood
and he's one of us and received into the fellowship or so forth. That was a Jewish custom. But
I believe this goes a little further than that. His custom,
what? He went into the synagogue. His
habit, what? What he was accustomed to doing.
His manner, what? He was always in the synagogue.
Our Lord was always in the synagogue. Worshipping, hearing the word.
Think about this, how our Lord magnified the word being preached
and read when he was silent for 30 years. And he went into the synagogues
and listened as another man would stand up and read and preach
the word. He honored that, didn't he? And
yet he was there all the time. He would gather with the saints.
That's a good custom in him. It's a good habit to get into.
There are some habits worth forming, and this is one of them. And
if Christ is your life, this is your life, worshiping him,
hearing his word, gathering with his people. That's what God's
people are going to do throughout eternity. If someone doesn't
enjoy this now, they won't be there then. But verse 16 says,
he stood up for to read. Don't you love to hear God's
word read? You did a good job reading that. I enjoyed it. And,
um, I'd love to hear the word of God read. I'd love to read
it myself. And the scripture says that no man spake like our
Lord did as a man, no man spake. Imagine him reading the word. Oh, surely no man read as he
read. He sang. You know that? He sang.
When they took the supper together, they sang a hymn together. Imagine
his voice. Wouldn't you like to be able
to sing from your heart in absolute sincerity and without any self-consciousness,
huh? You men that sing these specials,
you can't help it. You're self-conscious, aren't
you? You want to do well. And one day we'll sing without
that, from the heart. He did. Imagine. Try to imagine. There was an actor, I heard this
one time, an actor stood up to read Psalm 23. And actors, as
they are prone to do, hypocrite's the word. But he stood up to
read and he read it with great feeling and drama and so forth. And someone said, boy, he knows
that Psalm. And then a believer, a man, who knew the Lord stood
up to read it, and he read it, and someone said, boy, he knows
the Savior. There's a difference. So they delivered to him the
book. Scroll, I don't know what form it was in. They delivered
him the book, not knowing he wrote it. He is the book. Isn't that what
John 1 says? In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him.
Without Him was not anything made that was made. And the Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us. That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's called the Word. Why is He called the Word? Because
He is the expression of God. God is Spirit. God doesn't speak
out loud. Hebrews 1 says this, God in sundry
times and diverse manners spake unto the fathers by the prophet.
God did not speak personally to individuals. He spoke through
men, the prophet, and had them write down His word. That's how
God speaks. That's how He still speaks today.
But He hath in these last days, the scripture says, spoken unto
us by His Son, God, manifest in the flesh. If you want to
know what God says, what God is like, Jesus Christ. Listen to him. Look at him. He
is God. God in the flesh. They didn't
know when they delivered him the book that he is the subject
of the book, that it was his autobiography. They gave him a copy of the book.
He didn't need a copy of it. He wrote it. It's right here. They tried to, you know, down
through the years, enemies of the truth and those who hate
the truth have tried to destroy God's word. Haven't they burned
it? When the early martyrs would
make copies, Tyndall, William Tyndall, and so forth, would
make copies of the scriptures for the common people to read
in their language. Well, they would take them quickly
and try to burn them all, but you can't. Why? Because the master
copies in heaven. Like Jeremiah, when the king
took a penknife and he didn't like what Jeremiah was saying,
he cut all the pages and threw them in the fire. Well, God just
told Jeremiah, write another one. He did. Our Lord didn't
need a copy of this book, yet he opened it. He opened it. I want you to turn with me to
Ezra, the book of Ezra, chapter 8. I'll give you time to find
it. I'm sorry, Nehemiah, chapter
8. Nehemiah, chapter 8. Give you and me time to find
it. In Nehemiah chapter 8, our Lord
opened the book and read it before the people. He made sure that
the people knew he was reading from God's word. You understand? Our Lord, the scripture says
he's magnified the word above all his name. Several times when he healed
someone, like the leper, he said, you go and offer the sacrifices
that were written in the book of Moses as a testimony to them.
as a testimony, to bear witness of the truth of God's Word. He
magnified His Word before the people. He opened it up and read
it before the people. A preacher is to preach the Word.
The people need to know he's preaching the Word, and that's
what our Lord did. He opened the book, and we didn't need
a copy of it. Jim, it was very clear, he's
reading from God's Word. My wife's father, Before the
Lord revealed the truth himself to him, before he revealed the
truth to him, he was going to a large, one of these mega so-called
churches. And he wasn't satisfied. He wasn't getting anything. The
fellow was like a typical false preacher today is all about programs
and this and that and the other. And the Lord was dealing with
my father-in-law. He needed to hear something.
And one of the men, Ed Stevens, contractor in Ashland, I invited
Ed Ballard, my father-in-law, to come hear my father pray.
And he came and he sat and he would listen. And he, as is so
often the case, you don't hear it. You won't hear it until the
Lord gives you ears to hear. And he would sit and listen. But the thing that impressed
him in the beginning was, and he told this to his wife, he
said, I know this. I don't understand what he's
saying. It's so different from what I'm used to. But he said,
I know this. He's preaching the Bible. He's preaching God's Word. And that needs to be cleared
up. Nehemiah chapter 8, look at this. Nehemiah chapter 8,
it says that in verse 3, Ezra the priest read from the book
of the law from God's Word from the morning till midday. And then verse 4 says he stood
upon a pulpit of wood for that purpose. What's the purpose of
a pulpit? To exalt and lift up a man, to
lift a man up? No, no. It's so that the people
can clearly, so people can be, the word can be heard, number
one. But secondly, so the people can see I'm reading from God's
word. I'm not telling you what I think.
I'm telling you what God said. Read on. It says down in verse
nine that Nehemiah, which is the tertiary governor, and Ezra,
the priest, the scribe, they taught the people and all the
people, they read the word of God. In verse 12, the people
went away with great mirth because they understood the words that
were declared unto them. So that's vital in it. So our
Lord opened the book and go back to the text in Luke chapter four.
And it was very clear our Lord was reading from God's word,
though he did not need a copy of it. And it says in verse 17,
they delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah. And it says that when
he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
and he read from Isaiah 61. He found the place. He could
have chosen any place. Couldn't. As I say it, as scripture
says, to him give all the prophets witness. Told you last night
what Isaiah said about him. Well, I'm going to tell you again
what Isaiah said about him. We're going to tell you what
the Lord says about himself. But he could have chosen anywhere
in the book of Isaiah. Let me just give you a few. He
could have chosen Isaiah chapter 6, where it says that Isaiah
saw the Lord high and lifted up. Not this weak, pitiful, helpless
Jesus standing outside hoping people would do something for
him. That's not what Isaiah saw. That's not the Lord Jesus Christ
of Scripture. That's not the true Christ. Isaiah
saw His glory, and that's what it said of our Lord. It's quoted
about Him in John chapter 12. This is what Isaiah said of Him
when he saw His glory. He could have turned to Isaiah
6. He saw the Lord, high and lifted up. He could have turned
to Isaiah 7, where it says, A virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and his name shall be called Immanuel, God with us. That that
one who came is not a mere man, it's God manifesting up there. He could have turned there and
read, couldn't he? He bore witness of him. He could have turned
to Isaiah chapter 9, which says, A child is born, but the son
is given. Call his name. This is a prophecy
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, call his name Wonderful
Counselor, the Mighty God. The Russellites, or that is the
Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, all of these cults say that Jesus
Christ is not God. He's just the Son of God. That's
not what Isaiah said. That's not what God said about
him in Hebrews 1. Hebrews 1, God says, unto the
Son, he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever. That's what God said
about it. He could have read from Isaiah 9, called his name
Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.
Well, you can't be both the Father and the Son. Well, yes, you can,
too. That's what he said. He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father, didn't he? He could have turned to Isaiah
chapter 11, which speaks of the rod of Jesse, a branch, an incense
for the nation. He could have turned to Isaiah
25, where it says, The Lord God will swallow up death and victory
and wipe away tears. It says that the Lord God shall
come and He'll save us. Well, He did, and His name is
Jesus Christ. He could have turned to Isaiah 32, where it says,
A man shall be a hiding place. You know, when Moses was up on
the mountain in Exodus 33, where the Lord said, there's a place
by me, the cleft of the rock, and I'm going to put you in it.
What is that? That's Jesus Christ, the rock
of Asia. And it says the Lord came down
there and stood with him. Who's that? That's Jesus Christ.
He could have turned to Isaiah 32. He's a covert from the tempest,
a great rock in a weary land. He could have turned to Isaiah
42, where it says that He's my servant, my elect, in whom my
soul delighteth. He could have turned to Isaiah
49, a light to the Gentiles, a covenant of the people. He
could have turned to Isaiah 53, couldn't he? He'd grow up like
a tender plant, like a root out of dry ground, no form or color,
no beauty that we should desire here. A man of sorrows, acquainted
with grief, despised and rejected of men. A lamb, as it were, headed
to the slaughter, opened not his mouth, but the Lord laid
on him the iniquity of his people. He could have turned to Isaiah
53. And by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify
many. That speaks of Jesus Christ. He could have turned there, didn't
he? He could have turned anywhere. Austin, he could have turned
anywhere. And if you turn, if the Lord gives you eyes to see
you turn anywhere and put your finger down, it's going to be
of Christ. That's what this book was written for. To declare God's
Son. But he turned to Isaiah 61. And that's what he read. And
don't turn there, we'll just read what he says here. And it's
paraphrased. He can do that, can't he? He
wrote it. I don't like it when men paraphrase
scriptures and put it in their own words, because that's not
the way God wrote it. But it's his book. And he read from Isaiah 61, and
here's what he said. In verse 18, he read. The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor. The Spirit of the Lord. The name
Christ means the anointed one. That's what it means. The anointed
one. There is only one Christ. One anointed one. John said this,
he said, I didn't know him until the Spirit of God revealed to
me that this is the one. Upon whom you see the Spirit
of God landing in the form of a dove, God said, this is He.
This is the Christ who was to come. There's only one. When
Isaiah wrote of this, when Isaiah wrote this, I'm quite sure he
didn't really fully understand what he was writing, did he?
Isaiah said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He knew he wasn't
talking about himself. Remember the Ethiopian eunuch
that Philip preached to? He was in the chariot, and the
Ethiopian eunuch asked Philip, he said, of whom does the prophet
speak? Isaiah 53. Of whom does the prophet
speak? Of himself or some other man?
And Philip said, he's not speaking of himself. That's what the sign
out there says. We don't preach ourselves. What
we preach, Christ and Him crucified. Isaiah wasn't writing of himself
saying the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. No true preacher
ever says that. And every man that stands up
today, there's much talk about the Spirit of God. Much that
goes on today in the name of the Spirit of God. All this foolishness.
You hear it, you see it. Spirit-filled Christians. Spirit-filled
preachers. This man, I have the anointing.
The minute a man says that, I have the anointing. Mark him off,
he's false. He's false. Because this applies
to one person, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the anointed one. Isaiah wrote of him. How you
know a spirit-filled people and a spirit-filled church is they
speak of Christ. They don't speak of themselves.
Our Lord is the one that said this in John chapter 14, John
chapter 16. He said, the Spirit won't even
speak of himself. The Spirit won't draw attention
to himself, but the Holy Spirit will take the things of Christ
and show them unto you. The Spirit of God, like the Father,
bears witness of the Son. So a Spirit-filled people and
a Spirit-filled message is a message that's filled with Christ and
Him crucified. Our Lord said, after he read
all of this, this day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears.
I'm the one. I'm the one of whom the prophets
speak. I'm the Christ. I'm the one who is to come. I'm
here. Now, God's people, as I said,
Spirit of God indwells God's people and teaches them and leads
them. And how you know them is they, they speak of Christ. They
worship Christ. It's like, uh, Paul wrote in
Philippians three. He said, this is how you know
the true people of God three way. They worship God in spirit,
not with all this stuff. Do you see any paraphernalia
and religious props and so on and so forth? No. We worship God in spirit and
truth. We worship God in the way in which they worship God
in the New Testament. You need to come in a place,
and if they're worshiping exactly like the New Testament church
did, that's God's people. And it says they worship God
in spirit, they rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ. And they have
no confidence in the flesh. God's not worshipped with men's
hands. He's not worshipped with the flesh. It's not a show of
flesh. God is worshiped in spirit and truth. So that's what the
true church of God does. And Christ said, the spirit of
the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor. And he says this three times,
to preach, to preach, to preach. See the emphasis our Lord places
on preaching. And not just preaching. And as
much as it goes on under the name of preaching, but it's not
preaching. If it's not preaching, Christ, it's not preaching the
gospel. He said, the Spirit of the Lord
has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. What is the
gospel? The gospel is Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. The gospel is how a holy God
has been offended, man is dead and trespasses in sin, how that
God has made Jesus Christ to be the Redeemer, the Savior,
the Righteousness, the Messiah, the Christ, the one who is to
come to save his people, the covenant head whom God sent into
this world to save his people from their sin. That's the gospel.
He didn't try to do it. He didn't make an effort to do
it. He didn't make an attempt to do it. He didn't make a down
payment. He did it. That's why it's called gospel.
It's good news. Not what you must do. It's what
Jesus Christ has done. Gospel is all about who Jesus
Christ is, why he came, what he did, where he is now, and
he's coming again. And he said he had sent me to
preach the gospel to the poor, to the poor. In our Lord's Sermon
on the Mount, do you remember what the first blessing he uttered
was, the beatitude? Do you remember what the first
thing he said? Blessed are, blessed are. The first thing he said,
Glenn, was blessed are the poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom
of God, the gospel of the king. Christ came preaching the gospel
of the kingdom of God, that there is a kingdom and he's the king
of it. And he came to make subject,
to bring his subject into that kingdom. Preach the gospel to the poor
in spirit, in spirit. The gospel is for poor sinners.
And by poor, I mean a beggar, like blind Bartimaeus. Now there's
a poor person in it. The Lord wasn't saying just literally,
although he did literally preach to poor people. But he's saying,
first of all, that he came to preach the gospel to poor sinners,
that is, beggars that need mercy from God. No wisdom. Well, Phillips, Thomas said,
Lord, we don't know the way. Would you show us the way? He
said, I am the way. Well, show us the Father, Phillips
said. He said, I am the Father. We don't have any wisdom. We
don't know how to get to God. He said, I'll get you there.
Righteousness. We can't seem to do anything
but sin. I am your righteousness. sanctification,
holiness, redemption. We don't have any redeeming qualities.
I have redeemed you. That's what the gospel says.
That's what Christ came to be made under his people. Good news,
Christ said, I am everything. I am all in all to you. Those
who have nothing at all, have no goodness, have no wisdom,
have no Nothing to recommend themselves to God, who can do
nothing but sin. Guilty. Christ said, I am mercy. That's what the gospel said.
He came to preach the gospel to the poor. The poor. And he came to preach to the
literal poor, didn't he? He did. He did. He literally preached to the
literal poor. And this is a problem in our
day. Like the church at Laodicea. Our Lord said, you're rich and
increased with goods and have need of nothing. And that describes
our society, that as long as we think we've got it all and
we don't need God at all, as long as we think we're rich and
increased with goods and knowledge and goodness and morality and
all of that, we don't need Christ to save us. We don't need a savior.
This is for the poor. And he literally came to preach
to the poor, didn't he? The gospel has moved all across
the land. It started in Europe, you know,
and the Jews, and then went up through Europe and Germany and
all that, and then moved its way over to the British Isles.
That's what Isaiah said, the Isles shall wait for his law. And then it moved across the
ocean to this land, this continent, and was preached. And then it
moved down into Latin America with Mexico. Someone in here
may not know this, but this pastor and his wife and took his family
down to Mexico years ago and spent 10, 12 years, 10 years
down there. And then the Grover family down
there, still there. And those people, they don't,
they live a mediocre existence. They don't have much, but the
gospel came to them. Now they've got it all. Our Lord
had nothing. He said the Son of Man came and
had nowhere to lay his head. He told us having food and rain
would be content, didn't it? Scripture says, the proverb says,
there's he that maketh himself rich yet hath nothing. Everybody
wants to be happy. The word blessed means happy.
Everybody wants to be happy. They think they'll find their
happiness in things. You can't find your happiness
in things that perish. Things that are temporary, whether
it be health or wealth. It's gonna fade and it's gonna
be gone. Then where's your happiness? Our Lord proved that personally,
didn't He? And our brethren down in Mexico,
they have very little, but they have the gospel. And if Christ
is all, He's all you need. And they're happy, aren't they?
They're content, they're happy. And so the rest of the world
and all their riches and all of this fame and all that, when
all that's gone, they have nothing. But these poor people, if they
have Christ, they've got it all. The unsearchable riches of Christ,
that's what the scripture speaks of. The unsearchable riches of
Christ. People want peace. There is no peace apart from
Christ. People want joy. There is no
joy. God said there is no rest for the wicked. No. The only found in Christ be rich. in him, he's an unsearchable
riches of Christ. He said, go on, he said in verse
18, that he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted. To heal the
broken hearted, principally over sin. Deuteronomy 32, the Lord
said, I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. And what
he's saying is spiritually. The first thing the Lord has
to do is kill, kill us. kill our notions of God, kill
our false idols, kill our self, and make a lie, quicken us by
His Spirit, by His Gospel. He said, I wound and I heal.
The first thing that the Word of God will do is break your
heart over sin, and then it heals it. And by sin, I don't mean
what the world calls sin. One time in Roanoke, Virginia,
they had a survey and they asked hundreds of people the question,
what is sin? Well, you can imagine how many
answers they had. They had as many different answers as there
are people. Well, our Lord shocked the religious people of his day,
didn't he? He shocked them. He said, he
turned to a bunch of Pharisees, a bunch of moral Sabbath-keeping
Pharisees, and he said, there's not one thing that enters into
your mouth that can devour your soul. Not one thing. He came eating and drinking wine
with publicans and sinners, and they looked down on him and said,
he's a friend of sinners. That's good news to sinners.
He said, that's why I came. I didn't come to call the righteous.
And the Scripture says there's none righteous in the eyes of
God. God looks on the heart. And every man in his best state,
Scripture says, is altogether vanity. Isn't that what the Scripture
says? He came to call sinners. What does that mean? Well, our
Lord said it's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a
man. Sin is not in a bottle or a box. That'd be easy to quit,
wouldn't it? He said it comes out of the heart.
It's naturally there. It's what naturally comes out
of the heart, anger, wrath, malice, envy, lust, isn't it? It's there by nature in every
one of us. But principally, the chief sin, and that which God
holds everyone most accountable for, is unbelief. Rejection of
God, Romans 1 says this about it. When the things that were
clearly seen of God is eternal power in Godhead, the heavens
declare his glory, the firmament showeth his handiwork, day unto
day others speak. All the provisions of God, all
the goodness of God is tender mercies over all his works, the
scripture says. He provides for everyone, everything God, everything
everyone eats and everything everyone wears, God freely provides
of it. No man says, no God, no. It just happened. Or I provided
it for myself, by my industry, by my wisdom, by my might. No,
you didn't. What do we have that we have
not received? Amen. Glory. And the worst thing, the
thing God hates more than anything is pride. That's what God is
holding people accountable for. And when God sent His Son, everybody
said, we don't want Him. We don't need
Him. I did. It's to live a life without giving
God a thought, without giving God any thanks. That's the sin
which God holds men accountable for. It's to hear the gospel
of Christ who came to save sinners and say, I don't care about that,
I don't care. And no one would care unless
God made them care. Like me. I was just at a class
reunion and one of my old classmates is back here right now. The last
thing that they would have thought I would be was a preacher. Me too. I would tell my old buddies that
I just totally rejected what all that my father said and did.
That's nonsense. That's just what I told them.
And I'm ashamed of it to this day. You're looking at an object,
one of the greatest objects of God's mercy and grace you've
ever seen. I'm the prodigal. And how that came about was,
I heard message after message after message, and I thought,
as soon as I get old enough, I'm out of here. Half a month
of this, they're making me go to church. And I hitchhiked out of town.
I left as soon as I graduated. Headed out of town. By the way,
the three fellas that I was with the first couple of years are
all dead. They're all dead. Stabbed, committed suicide, and
drug overdosed. Here I am. But the thing that the Lord used
was His Word. And he brought me back like the
prodigal and had ulterior motives for coming to church as a young
lady I was interested in, not knowing that I was one of the
Lord. And he sent the word, and the
word that convicted me is when our Lord was hanging on the cross,
the first words out of his mouth were, and I'd heard this brine
all my life. From my preacher, never heard
a word of it, but I finally heard it. The Lord Jesus Christ said,
Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. And
that went to my heart like a sword. He doesn't know what he's doing.
He doesn't realize what he's done, how he's rejected me, how
he has Sinned against mercy, sinned
against grace, not giving me a thought. He doesn't know what
he's done to his family. He doesn't know what he's done
to his people. He doesn't know what he's doing
to himself. He's about to destroy himself, just like his buddies
did. But God. You know, the gospel is in two
words, but God. Ephesians 2 says, and you. They
were dead and trespassing sin, children of wrath, even as others,
but God. Brokenhearted overseeing. That
broke my heart, you know. And still, you know, you never
lose sight of that. And brokenheartedness over sickness
and sadness and sorrow and death and tears. The gospel is the
good news to those that are brokenhearted over sadness and sorrow, isn't
it? God's people are cast down constantly. in this weary land, aren't we?
Like David said over and over again, how long, oh Lord, how
long? Like the people that want out
of bondage and sorrow and night. And the good news is, it won't
be long. The good news is, I come quickly. The good news is, Christ
said that he's brought forth, that he'll swallow up death in
victory. He'll wipe away all tears from all eyes. That's the
good news. All tears. My dad, one time after burying
about the 100th or 200th or maybe 300th brother or sister, one
time, he was after burying one of them, walking away from the
grave, he said to us young men, he said, I'll be glad when we
all quit dying. Here's the good news. It's going
to end real quickly. No more dying. No more death. No more sorrow. God will wipe
away all tears. Who said that? Jesus Christ did.
And he can't lie. He said he sent me to preach
to the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives.
That was me. And that's so many. I was a child of the 60s, you
know. We were free. Free. Yeah, right. You're doing exactly what everybody
else is doing. Blind followers of the blind,
you're both going to fall in the ditch. But God, unless he
comes and delivers the captive, that's what... And the world
scoffs at any mention of a devil or Satan, but our Lord spoke
of him more than anyone did. He said, I beheld Satan fall
as lightning from heaven. He said to Peter, Satan hath
desire to seduce you. He said, Satan has come and he
can find nothing in me and I'm going to deal with him. Isn't
it? He's very real. He's unseen. And he holds people
captive. Look around you. Look at this
world. It's a mess, isn't it? It's an absolute mess. God of
this world, that's what he's called. People blindly follow
his enticements, his temptations. And I did. But God. But God. Deliverance for the captive.
Recovering of sight to the blind, verse 18. Recovering of sight
to the blind. Didn't John Newton write that?
I once was blind, but now I see. Didn't know who God was, didn't
care, didn't know what I was, didn't know myself, couldn't
see what I was, what I was doing, like the prodigal in the hog
pen, didn't know it. People in the hog pen of religion,
eating the husk of religion, no kernel, no meat, and don't
know it, and think they're happy, and they're not. Like my father-in-law,
God had to make him discontented, like those men in the cave that
came down to David. It says they were discontented,
they were in debt, and they were in distress, and they came to
David. It says he became a cap and over. Relieved all their
debt. That's Christ. He's sent me to
preach deliverance to the captive. Recovering of sight to the blind.
Christ is sight. He is light. He is understanding. To set at liberty them that are
bruised. Them that are bruised. That song
we sing. Wounded, bruised by the fall. Mangled by the fall.
You know that song? What is that song? We sing it
all the time. Beaten down, beaten up. He come to bring us freedom from
our tormentor. Sin, Satan, the world, these
things. Them that are bruised. And verse 19 says, I came to
preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Acceptable year of
the Lord. When the gospel's being preached,
it's the day of salvation. Noah is a picture of the ark. Noah and the ark are a picture
of Christ and Him crucified. Noah is not a story of the Lord,
how the Lord determined to save animals. It's a story of Christ
crucified. Now that those that are found in Christ will be saved. When the overflowing scourge
of God's wrath comes nigh, it will not come nigh them because
they're in Christ. Like that boat, everyone in that
boat was safe. All outside the boat were damned.
The boat was pitched within and without. That's the blood of
Christ. The very word atonement means pitch, covering. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's
Son, cleanses from all sin. That boat, no. Now the door of
the ark was open for seven days after it was finished, wasn't
it? It was 120 years in building, which is a picture of the eternal
gospel that God made in the beginning, and yet it was finished by Christ,
whom Noah was a picture in. And yet that door was open for
seven days. Seven days. And as long as the
gospel is being preached, what we're saying is, come on. And we don't give an invitation
to it. You won't see an invitation. You won't see an altar down here.
You won't hear a man inviting people. We just hear declaring
the truth. And we're hoping and praying
for God to speak to them and bring them into the ark, bring
them to Christ, because they won't come. Christ said, you
will not come unto me, but you might have life. But he said,
all that the Father giveth me shall come unto me, that no man
can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me draw
them. Nevertheless, when the gospel is preached, we say come,
don't we? We say come. This is the acceptable year of
the Lord, right now. In other words, the Lord is accepting
applications for mercy. He's accepting applications for
mercy. Who needs mercy? Well, not the
righteous, not good people. I've often thought I'd like to
put a sign over our church building, no good people allowed. Sinners
only. That's who Christ came for. They
needed him. That's who he came for. Acceptable
year of the Lord. He's accepting all that come
unto him by Christ. And it says he closed the book
and gave it to the minister and sat down and the eyes of all
them were in the synagogue fastened on him. And he began to say unto
them this day. Is this scripture fulfilled in
your ear? Everything you've heard Christ
said is speaking about him, about him. And this day, this day,
tonight, October, what is it? Sixth. Is this scripture fulfilled
in your ear? It's still true. Every word of
this is true. As long as the gospel being preached.
There's deliverance, there's sight for the blind, there's
recovery, there's mercy for sinners. Oh may the Lord use that. Amen.