Book of Luke - Ch. 11, Vs. 27-36 (07/05/2020)

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We're going to, this morning, begin in Luke chapter 11, verse 27, and we'll go a good ways.

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And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and said unto him,

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Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the pounce which thou hast sucked. But he said,

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Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.

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And we're going to pray. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for all our many blessings.

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Thank you for giving us the technology that will not come together, though we're separated miles apart.

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Thank you for preserving us through the coronavirus episode.

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Thank you for giving us strength and freedom. Thank you for giving us a country that is free, and help us to keep it free.

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Thank you for all of the things that you've given us, but thank you, as Brother Davis said a minute ago, most of all, thank you for giving us our freedom in Christ.

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Bless us and keep us, go through all the services today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, we're going to go phrase by phrase for a while, and the first phrase we're going to look at is, blessed is the womb that bare thee.

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This is an affirmation of the blessedness of Mary, but it shouldn't be carried too far.

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What we have here is an affectionate, honest, well -meaning woman responding to Jesus upon hearing his answer to the charge that he relied on the power of Satan to cast out demons.

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Now, I found in Matthew Henry's commentary some information about this.

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He said, while the scribes and Pharisees despised and blasphemed them, he's talking about the words of Jesus, this good woman admired them and the wisdom and power with which

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Jesus spake. He added a little bit to verse 27,

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I'm going to read verse 27 with his addition. As he spake these things with convincing force and evidence, that's

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Matthew Henry's addition, a certain woman of the company was so pleased to hear how he had compounded the

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Pharisees and conquered them and put them to shame and cleared himself from their vile insinuations that she could not forbear crying out, blessed is the womb that bare thee.

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This is still Matthew Henry. What an admirable, what an excellent man this is.

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Surely there was never a greater or better born of one. Happy is the woman that has him for son.

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I should have thought myself very happy to have been the mother of one that speaks as never a man spoke.

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That has so much of the grace of heaven in him and is so great a blessing to this earth.

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Well, Matthew Henry goes on to say, this was well said, as it expresses her high esteem for Christ and that for the sake of his doctrine.

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And it was not amiss that it reflected honor upon the

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Virgin Mary, his mother, for it agreed with what she had herself said in Luke chapter one, verse 46, when the angel notified her that she was going to be the mother of the

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Messiah. And here's how she responded. This is Luke one, 46. My soul doth magnify the

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Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior, for he hath regarded the lowest esteem or the lowest state of his handmaiden.

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For behold, from henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed. Some even of this generation, this is

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Matthew Henry again, bad as it will, will call her blessed. Note to all that believe the word of God, the person of Jesus is precious.

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He is an honor. Yet we must be careful, lest as this good woman, we too much magnify the honor of his natural kindred, speaking of his mother, and so know him after the flesh, whereas we must henceforth know him so no more.

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I added, we must now know him after the spirit rather than after the flesh.

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And this is still Matthew Henry speaking. The occasion which Christ took from this to pronounce them more happy, who are his faithful and obedient followers, than she who bore him and nursed him.

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He does not deny what this woman said, nor refused her respect to him and his mother, but he leads her from this to that which is of higher consideration and more concerned her.

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Luke 11, 28. Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.

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He thinks them so, he thinks them blessed, and his saying that they are, makes it so.

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And it should make us of his mind. This is intended partly as a check to her for doting too much on his bodily presence and his human nature, partly as an encouragement to her to hope that she might be as happy as his own mother, whose happiness she was ready to envy if she would hear the word of God and keep it.

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And he adds a note here, though it's a great privilege to hear the word of God, yet only those are truly blessed, that is blessed of the

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Lord, that hear it and keep it, that keep it in their memory and keep to it as their way and rule.

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Now, we're going to do a little bit more about that verse. This from John MacArthur. But he said, yea, rather.

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John MacArthur says this has the sense of yes, but rather, yea, rather, yes, but rather.

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While denying the blessedness of Mary, Christ did not countenance any tendency to elevate

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Mary as an object of veneration. That is to say, we shouldn't worship

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Mary. Mary's relationship to him as his physical mother did not confer on her any greater honor than the blessedness of those who hear and obey the word of God.

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Now, I added a little bit to John MacArthur's statement.

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In fact, Jesus said those were more blessed than she.

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Those that hear and obey the word of God are more blessed than Mary's mother. Now, what

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I'd like to do at this point is sum up what the multitude had seen, what they had heard, how they should have responded, and what they actually did.

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It's important to recall that Jesus had, in the presence of the multitude, cast out demons, including one from a mute host.

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Last week we dealt with this, but I'm going to go back and redo it. Luke 11, verse 14, just a few verses earlier than we are.

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And he was casting out a devil, and it was done. And he came to pass when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake, and the people wondered.

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And we commented last week about that. This is a more astounding incident that most of us have a background to imagine.

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According to some traditions, in the Jewish established procedure for exorcism, the first step was to demand that the demon identify himself.

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If you remember legion, Jesus asked him to identify himself, and he said he was a legion, and all 5 ,000 of them wound up in the pigs.

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Since the host couldn't speak, he couldn't name the demon, thus casting out a demon that had struck his host dumb was denied to anyone but the

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Messiah. And we talked about what the, last week we talked about what the acknowledgement of that would have been had the

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Pharisees acknowledged it. But we're going to go further on from that.

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Okay, here we are. The multitude was aware that Jesus had cast out demons.

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He had healed the sick. He had made the blind to see. He had cleansed leprosy.

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He had raised the dead. He had fed 5 ,000. He had performed many other miracles not listed here.

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That alone should have been sufficient to convince them that he was the

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Messiah. Okay, that's what they had seen. Now for what they should have done.

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They should have heard the word of God and kept it, but that's not what they did.

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What they actually did was ask for another sign, and one might wonder rightly how many signs they needed.

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My brother last night when we were going over this said, just one more, and then one more, and then one more, and always one more.

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I agree with him. There is no sufficient number of signs ever to convince a non -believer.

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So back to 29. And when the people were gathered together, he began to say, this is an evil generation.

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They seek a sign, and no sign shall be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet.

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Now we're going to go to Jonah chapter 2 verse 4 to get the back story.

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And what we will begin with is Jonah talking. This is what

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Jonah said in Jonah starting with chapter 2 verse 4. Then I said,

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I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again to thy holy temple.

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The waters compassed me about, even to the soul. You might underline that, even to the soul.

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The depths closed around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head.

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I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth with her bars was about me forever.

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I underlined forever. Yet thou hast brought up my life from corruption.

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Oh Lord, my God, thou hast brought up my life from corruption.

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Now, the first great miracle of Jonah and the fish was not his ability to survive three days in the belly of the fish.

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For God, it would have been easy to design a fish that would allow men to survive inside it for three days.

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In a commentary by Chuck Missler, he said, the U .S. Navy has many of ships like this, many fish like this.

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I'll say that again. The U .S. Navy has many such fish. We just call them submarines.

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Note, the first great miracle is Jonah died, remained buried in the fish's belly for three days, and then was deposited alive on dry land.

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Quite the same as he was when he went in. This is a prophecy.

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It's a model. That is to say, it's a foreshadowing of Jesus's resurrection.

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For as Jonah was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation.

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I forgot to mention, we're back in Luke, and this is verse 30. For as Jonah was a sign to the

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Ninevites, so shall the Son of Man be to this generation. Now, what's happening here?

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Jesus died, was buried, remained in the grave three days, and rose from the dead.

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Jonah is a foreshadowing of this event. He died, was in the belly of the fish for three days, was cast out on dry land, resurrected, none the worse for wear.

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So, if you don't think

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Jonah's account was enough to convince you that Jonah died, was buried, and rose from the dead, maybe

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Luke's account was. In any case, John MacArthur agrees with me. Jonah became a sign.

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He became a sign of judgment to come. Jonah's emergence from the fish's belly pictured

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Christ's resurrection. And as a matter of point, Jesus clearly regarded

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Jonah's account as historically accurate, not as a fish story. Now, we're going to speak more about this sign later, and about the second great miracle in the book of Jonah, when we come back to Nineveh again in verse 32.

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But before that, we come to verse 31. It begins, the queen of the south.

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Now, Luke is referring to the queen of Sheba. I'd like for you to go there, where 1

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Kings chapter 10, verse 1. 1 Kings chapter 10, verse 1.

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And when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the

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Lord, she came to prove him with hard questions. This is why we know it's the queen of Sheba.

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And she came to Jerusalem with a great train, and with camels that bear spices, and very much gold, and precious stones.

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And when she was come to Solomon, she communed with him of all that was in her heart.

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And Solomon told her all her questions, or he told her the answer to her questions.

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There was not anything hid from the king, which he told her not. And when the king of Sheba had seen all of Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and their apparel, and his cupbearers, and the ascent by which he went up to the house of the

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Lord, there was no more spirit in her. She had no more questions. She had no more testing for Solomon.

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And she said to the king, It was a true report that I heard in my own land of thy acts and thy wisdom.

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Howbeit, I believed not the words until I came, and my eyes had seen and beheld.

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And behold, the half of it was not told me. I believed not the words until I came, and my eyes had seen it.

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And behold, the half was not told me. Thy wisdom and prosperity exceeded the fame which

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I had heard. Happy are thy men, happy are thy servants, which stand continuously before thee, and hear thy wisdom.

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Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighteth in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel, because the

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Lord loved Israel forever. Therefore he made the king do judgment and justice.

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And she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, of spices a great store, of precious stones.

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There came no more such abundance of spices as those which the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

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And the navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, brought in from Ophir great plenty of almong trees.

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Another word for that is algum. And it's a juniper, probably red sandalwood, a wood that was used in cabinet making.

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It has a strong scent, kind of like cedar, but more pleasant smelling than cedar.

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And precious stones. And the king made of the almond trees pillars for the house of the

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Lord, and for the king's house. Harps also, and psalters for the singers.

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And there came no such almond trees nor were seen unto this day. Now this is back to 31,

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Luke 31. And the queen of the south shall rise up in judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them.

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For she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

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That reminds me, early on in Luke, of the wise men who were willing to travel roughly 900 miles from Babylon to visit the baby

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Jesus. But the religious scholars who knew where he was to be born were not willing to travel six miles to do the same thing.

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So now we go to verse 32. I told you we'd be back here later. The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it.

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For they repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, a greater than Jonah is here.

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Now we're going to look at the sign given by God and the importance of the lesson taught to Jonah.

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And also the importance of the lesson taught to the Pharisees. The sign.

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Actually, there were two great signs. That is to say, two great miracles.

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The first miracle we've already talked about. Jonah was raised from the dead. And the second,

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I think almost as great of a miracle, but that's just me. The entire city of Nineveh repented.

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The lesson. The Jewish nation was chosen by God to be the instrument by which his message of salvation by grace was to be delivered to the world.

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We have in Genesis 22, verse 18, this verse.

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And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice.

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I boldfaced that. I highlighted it. All the nations of the earth. Now, it says implicitly something that Paul is going to say explicitly when we get to Galatians chapter 3, verse 13.

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Galatians 3, verse 13. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made the curse for us, for it's written,

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Cursed is everyone that hangeth on the tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the

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Gentiles through Jesus Christ. Ah, that was the rub for both

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Jonah and the Pharisees. They were reluctant to share grace with the

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Gentiles. Going on with Galatians. That we might receive, the

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Gentiles, might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Brethren, I speak unto you after the manner of men.

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Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it's confirmed, no man doth annul it, or addeth to it.

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Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is

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Christ. In this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before God in Christ, the law which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul.

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That it should make the promise of no effect. So the promise given to Abraham that the

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Gentiles would be brought in to the family could not be disannulled by the law.

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In particular, Jonah was sent to Nineveh, a

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Gentile nation. Though he rebelled, and though he never called on the men of Nineveh to repent, they did.

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And the question might be, why did they repent? The answer can't be because Jonah called on them to repent.

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He didn't. All he said was, come forty days and you'll be destroyed. They repented because God extended

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His grace to them. And that's the reason that all who repent do so.

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And they all repented, all of them. A revival of which there is no parallel.

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An entire city repented. It would be like if San Francisco repented.

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Every man, woman, and child, I said child, every man and woman in the city repented.

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Jonah should have been elated. But instead he pouted. He seemed to believe that the inhabitants of Nineveh did not deserve to be saved.

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And right now I have a question. And Brother Dave, if you would pass on any answer back to me that I might get.

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What about it? Was Jonah right? Did they deserve to be saved?

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Anybody have an answer? Not yet.

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I'll give a couple more seconds and I'm going to tell you the answer. All right.

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Here are the answers. Anyone God chooses deserves to be saved. No more than any of us.

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Nobody is deserving. Three different answers there. Okay. And I like them all three.

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I like the last one better. What is deserving? We're made to be deserving, as the first answer said.

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We're made deserving when God, when Jesus makes us be deserving.

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When he selects us, then we become deserving. But until then, no one is deserving.

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But you know what? God saved them anyway. And a question

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I might ask here also is, and I guess I already did that, is there anyone, anyone ever who deserves to be saved?

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And the answer to that is, of course, no. But God saved some anyway.

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Go to Romans 3 .10,

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and we're going to look at who deserves to be saved. Romans 3 .10.

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As it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one.

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There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God.

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They're all gone out of the way together. Become unprofitable.

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There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher.

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With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asthma is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

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Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways.

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And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before them.

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And they do not deserve to be saved. And yet the Lord is going to save some of them anyhow.

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Psalms 14, verse 1, is another passage I would like to go to.

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Psalms 14, verse 1. I'll give you a second. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no

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God. That pretty much sums it up. The fool hath said in his heart, there is no

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God. They are corrupt. They have done abominable works.

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There is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek

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God. They're all gone aside. They're all together become filthy.

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There is none that doeth good. No, not one. Well, there's two examples of verses where it's affirmed that in and of himself, there is no one in the earth or ever has been on the earth except Jesus Christ that ever did anything good.

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Nothing to deserve to be saved. Verse 33, back in Luke.

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No man, when he hath lighted a candle, put it in a secret place. There under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in might see the light.

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Now, the reason Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees, they were given an opportunity to be instruments by which the grace, the gospel of grace was to be revealed to the world.

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And I'm going to add to that and to the Gentiles in it as well.

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The Jews and Gentiles alike, the gospel of grace was to be revealed. And the

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Pharisees were given that opportunity. But instead, they, like Jonah, rebelled and attempted to hide the lamp so that they who come in cannot see the light.

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And now God will go on without them. I'd like to refer you back to the

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Old Testament one more time, this time to the book of Esther, chapter 4, verse 13.

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Esther has just told Mordecai that the

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Jews are going to be destroyed. And Mordecai sends back her an answer.

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Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shall escape in the king's house more than all the

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Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, if you keep quiet, then shall enlargement and deliverance arise to the

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Jews from another place. I did badly on that. I'm going to reread it. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall their enlargement and deliverance arise to the

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Jews from another place. But thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed.

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And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

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Mordecai is telling Esther, God's work will be done.

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When you're given an opportunity to play a part in it, you may rest assured that his work does not depend upon the choices that you make.

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But your rewards do, and so does your discipline. Jonah refused to go to Nineveh, and he suffered greatly, and then he went anyhow, because that was what

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God had him to do. You will do what the

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Lord wants you to do. God's will will always be done. The choices that you make will make your life pleasant or unpleasant.

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It will give you great rewards or few rewards. There are things that are up to you.

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Now, verse 34 has a word in it that was confusing to me, so I had to look it up.

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Verse 34, the light of the body is the eye. Therefore, when thy eye is single, thy whole body is also full of light.

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But when thine eyes is evil, thy body is also full of darkness.

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Well, I kind of had the idea that single might have been good because it was compared to evil.

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Single and good compared to evil. Well, I looked up the word for single, and it's haplos, and it can be many things, several things.

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It can mean simple. It can mean single. It can mean whole.

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It can mean good. It can mean fulfilling its office. It can be sound.

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It can be able to do the things that it's designed to do. Maybe a better translation here would have been good.

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If thine eye is good, thy whole body is full of light. But when thine eye is evil, the whole body is full of darkness.

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You see, the problem was the perception, not the lack of light.

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They did not need to see another sign. What they needed was the ability to recognize the sign that they'd already seen or the signs they'd already seen.

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The great display of divine power that they'd already seen. They'd seen enough. They didn't need any more signs.

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Charles Spurgeon said this, If the darkness cometh from within a man and prevents him from seeing the light of Jesus, it doesn't matter how bright and glorious Jesus is.

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He can't see it. A man without an eye might as well be without the sun as far as the light is concerned.

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That was Charles Spurgeon. Verse 35 says, Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

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If thy whole body, therefore, be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when a bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

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So if your eye is good, your whole body is full of light, if it has no dark part.

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Matthew Henry said this, commenting on Luke 11, and the sign that God needs to see from the believer.

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Not the sign that the believer needs to see from God, but the sign that God needs to see from the believer.

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What is the sign that God expects from us for evidencing of our faith?

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And that is the serious practice of that religion which we profess to believe.

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A readiness to entertain all divine truths when brought to us in their proper evidence.

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Now observe, they had the light with all the advantage they could desire.

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For God, having lighted the candle of the gospel, did not put it in a secret place nor under a bushel.

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Christ did not preach in the corners. The apostles were ordered to preach the gospel to every creature.

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And both Christ and his ministers, wisdom and her maidens, cry in the chief places of concourse.

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It is a great privilege that the light of the gospel is put on the candlestick so that all that come by may see it and may see by it.

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They may see the candle and they may see because of the candle. Where they are and where they're going and what is true and sure, it's the only way to happiness.

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Having the light, their concern was to have the sight or else what's the purpose of the light?

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Be the object ever so clear. If the organ be not right, he's saying if the eye is not right, we're never the better.

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The light of the body is the eye which receives the light of the candle when it is brought into the room.

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So the light of the soul is the understanding and judgment and its power of discerning between good and evil, truth and falsehood.

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Now according as this is, so the light of the divine revelation is to us and our benefit by it.

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It is a savior of life unto life or of death unto death.

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If this eye of the soul be single, that is good. If it see clear, it see things that they are and judge impartially concerning them.

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If it aim at truth only and seek it for its own sake and have not any sinister by -looks or intentions, the whole body, that is the whole soul is full of light.

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It receives and entertains the gospel, which will bring along with it unto the soul both knowledge and joy.

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This denotes the same thing with that of the good ground receiving the word and understanding it.

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If our understanding admits the gospel in its full light, it fills the soul and it has enough to fill it.

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If the soul be filled with light of the gospel, having no dark part, if its power and faculties be subject to the government and influence of the gospel and none left unsanctified, then the whole soul shall be full of life, full of holiness and comfort.

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It was darkness itself but now light. And the Lord has when a bright and shining of a light doth give it the light.

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The gospel will come unto those souls whose doors and windows are thrown open to receive it.

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And when it does come, it will bring light with it. But there's a contrast.

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If the eye of the soul is evil, if the judgment is bribed and biased by corrupt and vicious dispositions of the mind, by pride and envy, by the love of the world and sensual pleasures, if the understanding be prejudiced against divine truth, is that not happening today?

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And resolve not to admit them, though brought with ever so convincing evidence.

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You can't bring enough evidence to make the untoward understand.

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It is no wonder that the whole body, the whole soul, shall be full of darkness.

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How can they have instruction, information, direction or comfort from the gospel that they willfully shut their eyes against it?

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They on purpose closed their eyes that they could not see the

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Scripture. We talked about that last week. And what hope is there of such? What remedy for them?

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The inference, hence, therefore, is take heed that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

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Take heed that the eye of the mind be not blinded by partiality and prejudice and sinful aims.

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Be sincere in your inquiries after truth. Be ready to receive it in light and love and power of it, and not as the men of this generation to whom

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Christ preached who never sincerely desired to know God's will.

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I'm going to read that again. And not as the men of this generation to whom

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Christ preached who never sincerely desired to know God's will nor designed to do it, and therefore no wonder that they walked on in darkness endlessly and perished eternally.

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Now, I'm going to open it up for questions or comments. That's pretty much it for me today.

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At this point in Luke, he's going to go on to another testing by the

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Pharisees. And so this would be a good place to stop.

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So if we have any questions or comments, anything anyone would just like to discuss.

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Not seeing anything just yet, Brother Bill. Okay, I'm going to close with a prayer, and then we can continue on with whatever we need to do.

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Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for giving us ears to hear and eyes to see the glorious message of Jesus Christ.

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Thank you for giving us the gospel. Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to help us understand the truth of the

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Scripture. Thank you for giving us your Son to stand in our stead, to be born on the cross instead of us, to pay for the sins which we have committed.