Matthew pt. 29 - Follow Jesus When It's Hard

Matthew Chapter 9, you're gonna go to verse 27 and we're gonna

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

read through verse 34. And as Jesus passed on from

there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud, Have mercy on

us, son of David. When he entered the house, the

blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, do you believe

that I'm able to do this? They said to him, yes, Lord.

Then he touched their eyes, saying, according to your faith,

be it done to you. And their eyes were opened, and

Jesus sternly warned them, See that no one knows about it, but

they went away and spread his fame through all that district.

As they were going away, behold, a demon possessed man was who

was mute was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast

out, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying,

never was anything like this seen in Israel.

But the Pharisees said he casts out demons by the Prince of

demons. Lord, we love the the living and

active word. We trust that you'll speak with

clarity. We trust that the scalpel will

come to do exactly what's needed in our hearts and our minds and

our lives. Renew our mind.

Lord, help us to remember that your word is not a book to be

explained. It is a book to be believed.

And then it is a book to be obeyed.

So bring light, bring revelation.

But most importantly, God bring us even the desire, even the

conviction, even the faith that we need to believe, to trust, to

follow and to obey you. We thank you for stirring us and

drawing us closer to you in Jesus name, Amen.

So verse 27, as they passed on from there, remember what had

happened. Jesus was healing the paralyzed

man. Another man comes and says my

daughter is suffering or my daughter has died.

And then Jesus says, OK, I'll go.

The crowds are pressing up against him.

There's a mob. Everyone's excited.

It's the teacher. He's the All Star.

He's the famous person that everyone wants to get close to,

the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years.

She presses through the crowd and says if I can touch his

garment, I'll be made well. She does.

So she's made well. Then we find out the daughter is

dead. And now messengers have come and

said, don't bother the teacher any longer.

Jesus says just have faith, don't be afraid, just believe.

He goes, raises up this little girl from the dead, and now

right after he's just raised her from the dead and Jesus passed

on from there. Two blind men followed him.

He just left Gyrus's house and now we have these two blind men

calling out have mercy on us, son of David.

Have mercy on us, son of David. They're calling him son of

David. Culturally understand that this

is a prophetic term that this would have been a guarantee that

they would have understood who he is son of David, David being

remember David and Goliath. He's the guy who should POW

killed the killed the giant. He becomes king and God makes a

covenant with David and he tells David one of your descendants

will always be on the throne forever and ever and ever.

There's two ways to interpret that there's the way that I

would be likely to interpret it, which would be cool.

That means one of my sons, and then one of my grandsons, and

then one of them and one of them and one of them, or another way

that one of mine can be on the throne forever and ever would be

one of my great, great, great, great, great grandsons gets on

the throne and then never leaves.

That is what happens, the great, great, great, great, great,

which is Jesus, the Son of David.

He is the Messiah, He is on the throne and he will never leave.

This is the promise that has been made.

So the Messiah is referred to as the Son of David.

So these men are acknowledging Christ, not as hey, teacher guy,

but they're already honoring him as Messiah.

We know who you are, is what they're saying by calling him

Son of David. It's just like saying the

Savior, we know you're the Savior sent from God.

We get it, Son of David. And then they go even farther in

the, in the back and forth that they have with Jesus to call him

Lord. So they've called him Savior by

calling him Son of David. But then to call him Lord is to

call him Master. Well, which is he?

He's both and he's both. And to the church he's both.

And to the world He is the Savior and he is the Master.

He's not just one or the other, He's both.

And so these blind men, this isn't this passage is so

interesting because as we go through the whole thing, you're

going to see there are blind men who can see clearly who Jesus

is. And then there are men whose

eyesight works and they cannot see who Jesus is.

The blind men can see clearly who Jesus is, but seeing Jesus

is not a matter of the eyes. It is a matter of the heart.

And the men who don't have working eyes see clearly, while

the men who do have working eyes can't see Jesus.

And this whole passage will keep will reveal that to us.

This whole passage reveals that when a person wants Jesus, they

can have him, but when a person doesn't want Jesus, there's no

evidence he can provide that will change their mind.

There's a common argument among Christians that gets made.

You have to do enough good works in someone's life to earn the

right to share the Gospel. On one hand, what they're saying

on if, if what they mean by that is let your good works shine and

let your light shine before men, that they will glorify your

Father, then I'd say, well, yeah, that's good.

That's the word, but there are not some prerequisites that we

have to lay out before the gospel can be shared.

Why? Because the gospel isn't bad

news. The gospel is good news.

So the Christian who believes the gospel is is bad news has to

like buffer it with good at good works.

I bought your groceries. Now I have some bad news.

You're a Sinner, but God loves you.

No, no, no, it's all good news. Jesus is king, He's Lord, and he

has died for your sins and he will pull you out of your sin.

But all this is still good news. But we don't have to do

anything. We don't have to earn anything.

And yet, of course, yes, let your good works shine before

men. You're full of the love of God,

so of course the love of God is going to pour out of you and go

into people's lives. So that's the automatic life of

the Christian. We don't have to make some false

dichotomy here. But if anybody reveals that

doing good works does not earn the right to be heard, it's

Jesus who constantly does good works and then still gets told

you have a demon. You are demon possessed.

It's funny, I see Christian leaders who are truly faithful,

who are truly deliberate with the scriptures to tell the truth

and the whole truth. I see them get the most

ridiculous accusations that the ones who are the most faithful,

who who actually do good works in the earth by preaching the

gospel, I see they are the ones who are called cult leaders.

I'm going wait a second. How is this guy a cult leader or

how's this guy, how's this guy teaching a doctrine of demons?

But what what happens is when people who are influenced by the

God of this world come across the truth, they actually make

the, the gaslighting accusation. They, they, they've, they've

seen a mirror and then they project that onto them.

So Jesus says that some of the Pharisees obey their father, the

devil. That's what he tells them.

They said, they said our father is Abraham.

And Jesus said your father is the devil.

They didn't like that very much. Jesus forgot to be nice that

day. Jesus wasn't a nice guy.

Just be clear. Again, Jesus was a good guy.

Different. Nice guy wants to please people.

Good guy wants to love people and tell people the truth.

He'll do the right thing at the right time, which is what Jesus

always did. But Jesus does all these things.

I've raised somebody from the dead.

I've healed somebody. I cast out demons.

The blind men can now see and let me cast out another demon.

And the Pharisees go must be with the power of demons.

He's doing these things. Is that what Satan wants for

people? Satan wants demons not to

possess people. The logic is broken, of course,

but it's irrelevant. You can't reason with them.

Why? Because it's not a matter of

their mind. It's a matter of their heart.

A hard heart is going to say hard.

And you're going to go, if only I could do this.

If only I could do that. St. the pressure is not on you.

The the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and all you need to

do is continue to tell the truth and continue to love people.

The rest lies between them, their heart and the Lord.

Your jurisdiction, your responsibility is to be a

witness. So let's look at these verses in

detail. Verse 27.

And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed

him crying aloud, had mercy on us, son of David.

So the crowd again is still probably pressing in.

Now Jesus sent away the professional mourners get out of

here. She's not dead.

She's sleeping, speaking, things that are not as though they

were. And they're leaving the house.

Like, what's he doing in there? We know he's done some amazing

things, but what's he doing in there right now?

So the crowd's probably waiting outside.

Gyrus is inside with his wife, with a couple of disciples, with

their daughter, who's now alive. Jesus comes out.

The crowd's going. What happened?

What happened? Jesus moves on.

The crowd's following him and two blind men start yelling, Son

of David, have mercy on us, Messiah, Saviour.

By the way, it was also prophecy that the Messiah would open

blind eyes. And of course, until he started

healing literal blind eyes, I'm sure everyone would have

interpreted that to say, well, blind eyes means like

spiritually blind, which is also very important, which is what I

mean. I'm actually going to emphasize

that today. So every time we preach on

healing, I always make fun of the perspective that says, now

this is a spiritual point. And today I'm going to make the

spiritual point more than I'm going to make the physical one.

But let's be fair. What do you think the two blind

men thought about healing that day?

Do you think that they thought, man, my, the eyes and my heart

have been opened? Or do you think like, wow, I can

see stuff. It's kind of obvious, right?

So is there a secondary application to make?

Absolutely, yes, 1000%. And it's faithful and it's

right. The Messiah opens all kinds of

blind eyes, spiritually blind eyes and blind eyes.

He does it all. Of course He does the greatest

miracle, the most important miracle, the blind eyes of our

heart. Of course, with that, won't he

also give us freely all things, all these?

Well, that's not as important as that.

We all agree on that fact that the spiritual blindness is more

important than the physical blindness.

And yet he includes the lesser things with the greater.

Of course, I'll give you the greatest thing.

Can I have a billion dollars? Yeah.

Can I have 10? No, you shouldn't worry about

the $10. These things matter to the Lord

because they matter to us. These are objectively good

things that the Messiah does because the Messiah reveals the

whole Kingdom. So the crowd is pressing in two

blind men to follow are following him.

But this begs the obvious question, how?

How are blind men following him in the crowd?

Two blind men, Jesus later would talk, wouldn't would would coin

the phrase the blind leading the blind that we use today in

language all the time. He was talking about the

Pharisees leading people, the spiritually blind.

That was what he was referencing later.

But here we have the literal blind leading the blind

stumbling together. Jesus, son of David have mercy

on us, staggering through the streets, struggling with the

mob, holding on to people. God me man, where is he?

Where's the master son of David have mercy on us.

And what does Jesus do? He goes to the house that he was

going to. He's not making it easy on him.

Like if I were to write the story, if I was to be in control

of all this, I'll be like. And then Jesus turned and

stopped and was like, everyone get out of the way.

But Jesus proceeds all the way to the house.

The crowd is pressing. 2 blind men are following, but they're

having a harder time, probably even a harder time than the

woman who had been bleeding for 12 years.

They call out. Jesus keeps walking.

They follow him all the way. Maybe to Peter's house where he

was staying. That's that's my guess anyway.

What's he doing? He's testing them to see if they

really do have faith. Everyone, everyone, you and I,

both, any, any day of the week, we would all choose something

better over something worse, right?

Thank you, Pastor. Obvious.

If I had the choice between something better and something

worse, I would always choose the something better.

There's no trickery here. I'm just just making some plain

statements. So knowing that if that was all

that was required in our lives to I'd prefer the better thing

compared to the worst thing. If all that was required for us

to then say, dear God, please insert something better, that

wouldn't be the same thing as having a living faith.

Can you see that I prefer this over that?

Well, so do Lab Rats. They can teach them to push

different buttons, but that doesn't mean that the that the

men who run the lab have a have a warm, loving relationship with

the rats, right? So they can teach them here's

where to go get cocaine, which is what they train them with.

And then they can teach them how to, oh, when I push that, I get

an electrical shock. No, thank you.

So they can learn that. But the Lord didn't create us as

Lab Rats. He created us to love him, to

walk with him and to pursue him. And the Lord will often draw out

your faith at the same time while building your faith while

at the same time encouraging your faith.

So the Lord wants a living faith, and the Lord wants us to

walk with him. So the Lord is creating an

opportunity for persistence for these men, an opportunity for

persistence because persistence is a part of living faith and

persistence is a prerequisite for Jesus over and over.

We see that theme throughout Chapter 9.

The friends of the paralyzed man was that persistent.

They didn't just sit around and go, well, I guess if the Lord

wants to heal our buddy, he'll come to this house.

Lord, if you want to heal him, then just show up tonight and

heal him. They persisted and they pursued

and they ripped a man's roof off of his house to get to Jesus.

The teaching on fasting that He gave that requires persistence.

All this is in Chapter 9. This is a theme that the Holy

Spirit was bringing here through Matthew as He was having him

write this. The woman who had been bleeding

for 12 years pressing through the crowd again, persistence.

The two blind men persistent. All these people have a faith

that looks like something. Our obedience, our love for God,

our faith is not merely a heart thing.

It begins as a heart thing, but it has an outward expression.

I love my wife. I love that.

That's great, man. What fruit could you point to,

brother? I can point to this and this and

this and this and this. Of course you can, because that

love in your heart has to have an outward expression.

How do you love your wife? I just love her in my heart.

OK, that's weird, bro. I don't know.

I'm starting to actually think you probably don't love your

wife. Oh, it's just it's in my heart.

You mean it's in your heart? If it was in your heart, it

would come out of your mouth. It would.

It would impact your hands and your feet and your whole life to

a wife. Oh, I respect my husband.

I submit to my husband. Oh, what's that look like,

sister? Well, you know, in my heart,

like, OK. So does your husband know that

you respect him? Well, no.

Yeah. I bought some around, talked to

him like he's a child. But, you know, in my heart like

I respect him. I don't know.

I don't think that it works how you think it works.

So in the same way I have, I have faith.

I'm trusting in the Lord. I'm standing on his promises.

OK, What's the expression of that?

Is that showing up some way? Well, it's just in my heart.

Well, I would argue that things that are really living in our

heart are going to have outward expression.

And I think you would agree with that.

Our first two examples that made a lot of sense.

We come to this third and we're like, no, I like it to just be

in my heart. It's going to have an outward

expression when it's living. It's going to look like

something. It's going to taste like

something. It's going to have action.

We talked about that last week, how the woman with the issue of

blood, she just made her own rules up.

If I've touched the hem of his garment.

She said to herself, you know these guys who are just setting

the terms, Jesus, you come lay your hand on my daughter, she'll

be healed. Hey, you just speak the word and

my servant will be healed. Who are you telling the Messiah

what to do? Jesus says I love it, living

faith, I love it. It's not bossing Him around,

it's honoring Him because He is the source of our faith and He

is the object of our faith. We're not just mustering up our

Christianity and going, I'm awesome.

No, Jesus is awesome and my trust in Him is growing because

I'm looking at Him. But sometimes it's hard to know

where He is. The blind men could relate to

that. Some of you are in seasons right

now where you're going, it's hard to see the Lord.

It's hard to find the Lord. The Clark, the Clark family, we

had some good conversation in the living room the other night.

We were worshipping the Lord and we talked about how many of us

felt dry, felt cracked, felt empty spiritually walking with

the Lord, securing Christ. Don't misunderstand anything,

but we're saying I feel this is a dry moment.

This is a dry season. I need more of the Lord's

outpouring. I need more of his presence.

Like I'm, I'm not filled up. I'm not overflowing like I

should be, Like I want to be. So what did we do?

We pursued the Lord in worship and in prayer.

That was it. It's Lord.

We're we're. I'm a blind man.

Stumbling. Lord, somehow I lost you in the

crowd. But I'm not going.

Well, I guess I'll go home now. No, No, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm not leaving. I'm fine.

Where'd he go? He went in some house.

Which house? Which house?

Over there. Over where?

Over here. Thank you.

Not, not, not. Hey, Jesus done for the day.

He's healed a lot of people cast out a lot of demons come back.

No, I'm not coming back tomorrow.

I want him now. You're being a little bit rude.

You're right. And still I won't leave until

I've had him. This is a persistence.

Peter's life is like, is it ever going to end?

He's like, I know, babe. I know.

Like, it's, it's exciting times, babe.

She's like, I cannot cook for all these people tonight.

I was not ready for that. Jesus.

Like, it's OK. I can multiply stuff.

We'll make it happen, but they get to come inside the house.

They come in with Jesus all the way in.

But sometimes it's hard to know where he is.

That is an opportunity for you and for me, for persistence, for

devotion. The blind men knew about that.

So did Job, who remained faithful to God through terrible

suffering. So did Jacob, who wrestled with

God to receive his blessing. We must follow Jesus even when

it's hard. We get this with marriage vows,

right? And sickness and in health.

If we're rich or if we're poor, if it's good or if it's bad,

we've got this devotion. We've got this understanding how

much more with Christ when we want to be LED deeper into Him.

We want to walk more closely with Him.

Even when we can't see Him, we still pursue.

We actually need to call out to God.

We don't become passive when we feel like the Lord is distant

because he's not. First of all, he's as close as

the mention of it as his name. And yet we still need to call

out to God and not have a passive approach that says if

God wanted to help me, he would just do it.

If God wanted me to feel His presence, I would just feel it.

Well, sure I can. I can follow you.

Unless he wants you to pursue him, unless he wants you to

follow him, unless he wants you to know him more and he doesn't

want to train you as a lab rat, He actually wants your desire,

your will to show up in a relationship with him.

Hebrews 11/6 tells us. And without faith, it is

impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to

God must believe that he exists. OK, we can check that box, but

unfortunately so can the demons. OK.

So like we're we're in a broad category at this moment.

Whoever would draw an ear to God.

I want to draw an ear to God. All right, well, there's a

couple qualifiers here. You must believe that he exists.

Check. And that he rewards those who

earnestly seek him. Believe he exists.

That's the easy one. The devil believes he exists.

The demons believe he exists. Everybody believes he exists #2

you must believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The woman with the issue of blood knew something that a lot

of people don't. The the Centurion knew something

a lot of people don't. I can just tell.

I know his nature. I know his character.

He rewards those who diligently seek him.

He rewards those who diligently seek him.

Not with a formula, but with a messy living, stumbling through

streets, knocking on doors. Is this the right house?

Is that the right house? He's in here.

Jesus, son of David, had mercy on us.

Jesus is probably tired. He's probably tired all day.

Remember the the the word became flesh with all of the

limitations of flesh. The man needs to sleep.

The man needs to eat. The man needs to use the

restroom. The man needs a minute to

breathe. And yet, even when he's

retreated for the day, somebody else comes and he doesn't say

no. Your blindness is a part of the

Lord's will for your life. Or he doesn't say no.

Wait till the morning, because they're just there.

We're knocking, so this is a lesson for us to call out to God

for your physical healing, for your everything, whatever it may

be. Pursue, persist.

He is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him.

And then look what he says according to your faith.

Verse 28, I'll read it all to you.

When he entered the house, the blind man came to him and Jesus

said to them, do you believe that I am able to do this?

They said to him, yes Lord, yes Master.

Then he touched their eyes saying, according to your faith,

be it done to you. Interestingly enough, he didn't

say according to my power, according to my will.

Hang on, are we making a big deal about faith again?

Well, remember, faith is still in Christ.

It's not that their faith was like, you've earned it.

That's not the point. The point is their faith was in

Him. Do you believe in me?

Is your faith big in me? Yes, Lord, you're awesome.

Right answer. I am, and therefore you receive.

But he made the clear connection, as he does many

times throughout the Gospels, that my faith is connected to my

reception, to His promise that I must be the new wineskin who can

receive the new wine. If I'm not the new wineskin,

then then the new wine won't be poured out.

Jesus is drawing out and building your faith to ask, to

seek, and to knock. To ask, to seek and to knock.

We've talked about this before when we when we preached on that

when you knock on the door, do you go?

I guess they don't want to see me today.

I'm leaving. No, maybe they didn't hear.

I'll give it a second. Oh, maybe they still didn't

hear. Ding Dong, You're staring in the

ring doorbell. Hey, it's me.

Let me in. I know you're home.

I know you're there. I'm not leaving.

I know you're inside. I came to see you.

Jesus is drawing out, building your faith.

Ask, seek. Knock.

Now I wish it was. What, Like a lab rat?

That's our flesh. That's our flesh.

That is very selfish. That's not Worshipful.

That actually doesn't even want to commune with the Lord.

I get that. I feel that same thing man.

I wish it was just. I know that's our flesh talking

though. But that's not how the Lord made

us to walk with him in the cool of the day.

And if I don't want a fellowship with the Lord now, what makes

you think I'm going to want a fellowship with the Lord in

heaven? I don't really love God and I

really don't care about being with him.

Now my friend, what makes you think you'll want to be with him

then? Well, I just don't want to go to

hell, my friend. I would examine yourself to see

if you really be in the faith. Amen and I would and I would say

that that could be a that should be a giant red flag to you that

you that you're not Oh, but I've prayed a prayer after the

preacher as have millions. And yet what we're talking about

is being regenerate A regenerate life is a new life, a new life

will love Christ and love his presence, not just his

blessings, but him himself to be with him.

But here we have Jesus at the end of a long day, tired, but

look at his mercy. Look at his kindness.

He touched their eyes. Jesus is not in any way depleted

from the love of God. He might be depleted in His

energy, but He's not depleted in power and He's not depleted in

love. He gently touches, maybe at the

same time, you know, maybe he just gently, maybe He was

seated, maybe he was standing in this house.

He gently touches these two friends.

And the first thing these guys get to see when they open their

eyes is their Lord is their master, is the Son of David, is

the Messiah. Jesus is merciful.

Jesus is kind. He's kind like that to you.

He's kind like that to you in in everything.

I need forgiveness of sin. I need freedom from shame.

Jesus touches your heart to relieve that burden.

Jesus touches your heart to comfort you.

And the first thing you see, all you've been seeing is your

shame. And you come to him and he

touches you and you just see his smiling face again saying, I

love you son. I love you daughter.

It's under the blood. It cost me a lot and you're

worth it because I said so. Now go and sin no more.

Walk with me, talk with me. Let me grow you.

Let me teach you, let me show you my way.

Stay close, don't wander again. I'll try, Lord, I'll try.

But if you do, you have an advocate with the Father, the

Lord Jesus Christ. He is God's way of dealing with

your sin, not you paying the price on your own.

The only price we pay is the price to crucify the flesh and

to stay close to Jesus. The cost that really isn't a

cost at all. He's gentle with our physical

ailments and with our spiritual ones.

Your sin and my sin. He touches not the eyes, but the

heart, and He makes you clean if you need your eyes touched, Yes,

your actual literal eyes. He'll touch those too.

We're going to close. Let's go to verse 30 now.

We'll start wrapping up, it says.

And their eyes were opened and Jesus sternly warned them.

See that no one knows about it. This is kind of funny to me.

This is a literal stern warning. Matthew makes it plain.

He doesn't just say, hey, guys, do me a favour, keep it down.

He gives an actual stern warning to them.

And I have to wonder, like, do they look at each other like, is

he being serious? Lord, are you messing with us?

Well, you want us to go back in the street and be like, oh, I

don't know how to get home. Like, what are we supposed to do

when we leave here with the crowd outside still like, hey,

guys, how are you today? Oh, fine, I don't.

How are you? There's that part of just how

it's going to be obvious. But even more importantly, what

about their joy of busting out of that house and going?

I mean, did Jesus roll his eyes as soon as he hears them leave

and they just start screaming and shouting in the streets?

Everybody's going. These guys should have known.

And by the way, this totally blows out of the water the

argument. Jesus only healed during that

time and during that period to advertise his ministry to spread

the word about his Kingdom. Then why does he so often tell

people, hey, don't tell anybody, don't tell anybody anything

about this? I thought he's supposed to be

promoting his ministry. So there there's different

reasons as to why he might have, but that certainly couldn't been

one of them. One of the reasons might have

been just that like he's trying to minimize the crowd at this

point still, instead of having everyone seek only for one

thing. But it's it's just theoretical.

We're not sure, but I wonder if they laughed.

I wonder if they thought are, are you serious?

I'm, I'm literally going to go tell everybody like tonight.

I'm not going to go to sleep and I'm just going to go around all

night long and looking at things, enjoying my eyes, and I

can't wait to see the sunrise in the morning and rejoicing over

it and worshipping over it. Why?

Because when Jesus has changed you, you have to tell somebody.

If somebody tells you to shut up and don't tell anybody, you know

what you're going to do. When Jesus has changed you,

you're still going to tell somebody.

Ask every Christian in a communist nation around the

world. Ask every Christian and Islamic

nation around the world. When they say shut up, don't

tell anybody, the Christian says you judge for yourself whether

or not it's right for you, for me to obey you or God, but I

can't help but talk about what I've seen.

I can't help but talk about what the Lord has done for me.

This is the automatic overflow for the Christian.

I'm going, what do you mean don't tell anybody?

What else would I do? I am going to be your witness

and then we're going to go to verse 32 as they were going

away. Behold, a demon possessed man

who was mute was brought to him. Peter's wife had to have loved

this even more. The blind guys.

All right, they're gone. We're done for the night, right?

Let's get Jesus comfortable. She wants to take care of him.

Maybe Peter is settling in, putting kids to bed.

Hey, there's a demon possessed guy at the door.

Should we let him in too? Sure, let him in.

Let's go. Why not just keep him coming?

But Jesus, come on in. Come on in.

So this man is mute. He can't speak.

This isn't to say that every time a person is mute that it's

a, a demon. We don't know.

There's a lot of mystery around demon possession in the

scriptures. We don't get told a lot.

We get told people are demon possessed.

We see Jesus, tell him, shut up. Then we see, then we see him

asking, what's your name? And they're like, am I supposed

to shut up? Am I supposed to talk?

And he's like come out. And then like we, we see that

Jesus is dominant over demons and it's not a it's not a fair

fight. It's not like, Oh no, who's

going to win in the 12th round? It's like Jesus walks in and

stomps them a mud hole in their head in the first round KO.

But at the same time, there's still mystery as to how these

things work and how do these things happen to people.

But this man can't speak, so he can't talk.

Never was anything like this scene in Israel after the demon

was cast out. The man can now speak.

The man is in his right mind. And of course, the conclusion of

the Pharisees is demons. Demons must be casting out

demons. I see the fruits of the Kingdom

here. I see the fruits of the Messiah.

What was their issue? They had a lot and and by the

way, not every Pharisee was like this.

We always lump them all together.

There was Pharisees who followed Jesus and loved him faithfully.

Jesus had everybody at every level.

He had like the pro NFL players were following him.

They didn't have that. But those guys, there was some

of them. Like he had people everywhere

who followed him. It wasn't just a certain group,

but the Pharisees, the ones who were really blind in their

heart. What do we learn?

It is better to have blind eyes than to have a blind heart.

That's what's better. It's better.

If you had to pick, you would pick blind eyes.

Of course, if you have blind eyes and you have an open heart,

then the blind eyes can be taken care of as well.

But God gives grace to the humble.

This is the principle you see throughout Scriptures, and you

see the pride of people works against them as their own

judgement. It's brilliant, it is brilliant,

it is the sovereignty of God working brilliantly.

When I'm prideful, my own pride is my own judgement.

Similar to like when Romans talks about men were consumed

with passion for other men, women were consumed with passion

for for women and the Lord gave them up to their desires.

What was, what's the judgement? The judgement is you can have

it. The judgement is eat your fill.

You know, when you grab the poison cup, the judgement is the

Lord allows you to drink in the same way.

Pride always does that in the heart.

When you say I know better, the Lord says, oh, you know better

and let you have the conclusion of that.

It's by his mercy that he would interrupt.

It's by his grace that he would intercede, that he would

intervene. This is why humility is so

important, why we want to keep ourselves humble, keep ourselves

soft, keep ourselves. I've had that word rolling in

me, Natalie, and I've been meditating on it and talking

back and forth about it. That new wineskin, Lord, keep me

soft, keep me supple, keep me usable so you can pour in new

wine, pour in new wine, make me a new wineskin again and again.

Heavenly Father, I pray for your precious people.

I ask that you would keep us soft, keep us tender, God, keep

us seeking, keep us eager. For those who feel like it's a

dry season, for those who feel like they are weary, they are

thirsty, they are hungry and they need more of you, God give

them just that determination, that persistency of faith, that

living faith that would call out.

They would say I am dry, I am thirsty and I'm going to the

river. I'm not waiting for a river to

come to me. I'm not staying stuck where I'm

at in the desert, but I will seek knowing that Jesus promised

me. If I if I seek, I'll find.

If I ask, I'll receive. If I knock, the door will be

opened. Jesus, make us a people who will

first qualify for that promise. Make us a people who asks, who

seek and who knock. Jesus, son of David, tender and

kind Messiah, have mercy on us. Have mercy on us.

Lord, Lord, Master, we submit to you.

We need more of you now. Bring us back to devoted prayer.

Bring us back to hungry searching, to real prayer.

Not not just a a memorization, but a hungry, humble prayer.

A prayer that might break the rules that we've been used to.

They might break societal customs, they might break the

traditions of man. But a prayer that will move the

heart of Jesus, a prayer that will move the Holy Spirit where

he'll say that is living. That's real faith.

Build our faith, build our persistency, build our devotion

in all things, in all areas. Make us more faithful to you.

Open the eyes of our hearts so we can see and know all that you

have intended for us. We love you, we thank you, we

seek you, all of you, and now the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face shine down upon you and be gracious to

you. The Lord lift up his countenance

upon you and give you great peace in Jesus name, Amen.