Hidden things of Christ revealed (Quality: Good)

[0:00] We will speak with the Lord's help from verse 34 in the 18th chapter of the Gospel according to Luke. The 18th chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, verse 34.

[0:19] And they understood none of these things. And this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.

[0:33] And there it looks as if their case was absolutely hopeless. Yes, these twelve disciples, just a few words from Jesus concerning the future, based upon all that the prophets had written, referring to something they already knew and had in their hands.

[1:01] These sayings must now, very shortly, be accomplished. And that he would be delivered unto the Gentiles and mocked and spitefully entreated and spitted on.

[1:24] These things were about to be accomplished. And they shall scourge him. Scourging was a terrible thing.

[1:37] Something more than a beating. And put him to death. And the third day he shall rise again.

[1:50] And they understood none of these things. The Holy Spirit indicts and inspires the apostles to write like this.

[2:08] And to give us an insight into the position as it stood at that particular moment. But as far as entering into what it really meant, they knew not.

[2:23] But the position was not hopeless. It was in the hands of one who later would unfold these things in such a way that they would believe every word of it from actual viewing and seeing it.

[2:47] It would not be something that would be hidden. They were yet to see the words of the prophets fulfilled.

[3:01] And that was a great thing because everything that establishes a person in their belief of the word of God is great.

[3:16] They were also to see these actual forecasts fulfilled. And as dreadful as they seemed and as we know Peter said on one occasion that be far from thee, Lord that shall never happen to you.

[3:36] As much as to say we'll see that it doesn't. Yet it did. And he was to witness it and so were the twelve.

[3:47] Twelve. Twelve. It just shows how our eyes can be held by divine holding and divine permission and how we can hear not only old but New Testament truths as we do today and not understand them.

[4:15] And how we can come so close and yet never enter into their real meaning. The very things that are written in the scripture and their number is more than we can count are not known at different times and periods the lives of the disciples.

[4:49] They cannot understand do not. And further these sayings are hidden from them.

[5:05] The gospel sayings the gospel sermons mean nothing to them. they haven't ears to hear nor hearts to understand.

[5:21] It is a mystery they cannot fathom. A pathway they've never trodden. And yet time is to come when they shall understand it walk in it embrace it and find to their utter astonishment that they were the very characters to whom the gospel was being preached though they knew it not.

[6:00] And yet it was being preached to them for a particular purpose. It is a very remarkable thing that the gospel should be preached to all men.

[6:21] That the things should be brought up. It is the purpose of God that it should go into all the world. God will be.

[6:31] It is his word command. There should be no distinction. No distinction socially.

[6:45] No distinction in age or color. It has to be universally declared going into all the world and preach the gospel.

[7:01] Preach it. Not offer it. Not suggest it. Preach it. It is a remarkable feature of the divine will that it could be so.

[7:19] And as for the result, that is in the hand of the one who gives the sea. And as for the sour, he is told that he knows not which shall prosper, this or that, or whether both shall be a like group.

[7:43] So that there are actual cases, yours may be one of them, where you have sat under the gospel and never understood a word of it.

[7:56] when you have heard of the life of Christ prophesied, when you have heard of him as the root of Jesse, when you have heard of him as the plant of renown, in all the prophets, you have heard his name brought forth and his person pointed out to you, you have never seen that it was indeed the man Christ Jesus with whom one day, through his grace, you would be vitally concerned.

[8:46] now you can look back, as these disciples could look back, it is a very pithy word in the gospel according to John, at the empty sepulcher, they remembered his words.

[9:11] You cannot tell, this is one of the great blessings of the preaching of the gospel, where it has gone and what God will do with it.

[9:28] And although it may be to the flesh very discouraging, it is not discouraging to Jehovah that his gospel should be preached, indeed it is his will.

[9:50] These disciples therefore had a double confirmation when the time came that they had heard these things before.

[10:04] They not only had them in the prophets, they had them from the lips of Jesus. And now after his ascension, they, of course, received the anointing of the Spirit, whereby these stood out in letters of gold.

[10:28] And they were their life. They lived for nothing else. bold in the Lord for the simple reason that they were deeply rooted in these things when the time came, not before.

[10:50] all. So it is a very blessed truth and thought, and a very encouraging one, that the Lord sows his seed, leaves it, until the time shall come for him to send the rain upon it, and the sunshine, and to nurture it, and bring it forth.

[11:17] And if you have felt that, you know what I'm talking about. And you are surprised that it's so true that you could sit in your seed, read your Bible, hear other people speak, read sermons, and not understand.

[11:41] Now they have an entirely different ring about them. This is followed, this word is followed by the account of the blind men, and that is followed by the account of Zacchaeus.

[12:07] And when we come to the discovering of this gospel, of the life, death, resurrection, of the Lord Jesus Christ, we come to character, to the untold numbers who have been led into it, brought close to it.

[12:30] And one of the greatest mistakes that can possibly be made, and is so often made, by the Lord's people, is to think that everyone is cast in the same mold.

[12:49] Especially a young seeking soul, or for that matter, an older one, will think that they must be exactly the same as another.

[13:04] And if they are not, they will come to the conclusion that they are wrong. and that their mark is not the mark of God's people.

[13:18] It is one of the favorite devices of the devil to turn aside a seeking soul, to look for comparison in another, doesn't matter who it is, and say, well, I'm so different from everybody else, that I can't be right.

[13:45] And Ruth felt, on the grounds of her nationality, of course, that she was unlike the rest of God's handmaidens, or rather Boaz's handmaidens.

[13:59] and she accounted this as something against her. Perhaps you have. Do you believe that this is the very mark of grace that the scripture speaks of?

[14:20] You don't, do you? Because you are just an isolated, lonely character, that is absolutely without equal.

[14:33] There's no one like you. No unbelieving heart, sinful life, no one who has such a past as you.

[14:50] And you identify yourself among those who are absolutely singular. and you say of yourself, can't be right.

[15:02] And this is where you make, as did these dear disciples, the evidence clear that you understood none of these things, because this is the very thing that matters.

[15:19] you think that everyone must be alike. And if you search the scriptures, you will find just the opposite.

[15:35] And you've only to take a few of the characters here, you take first of all, the blind man. what happened with regard to him.

[15:52] Look at his case, look at the way the Lord met him. We do not know his name, and yet you hear him cry with words that come from heaven, words of faith, faith.

[16:18] They are nothing else but the expression of God given faith though he didn't know it. Though he didn't know it.

[16:32] He was blind. He heard that Jesus of Nazareth passed by. He'd had a report. He'd received as the 11th of Hebrews said, a good report of Jesus of Nazareth.

[16:52] How often this is the case of a young believer. They've heard a good report of him. This report attracts them.

[17:06] they want to hear more of this report. They want to receive, understand, feel more of it, therefore they're found seeking it.

[17:23] This poor blind man, he could not. He sat by the roadside begging, but he had one thing that he could use, and that was his voice.

[17:33] Is not this the very thing that has to be used when God begins with you, your voice?

[17:52] Is it not your tongue that begins to move? move? And for what purpose?

[18:11] What did he do? Why, ask, of course, and ask for mercy? I understood none of these things.

[18:26] this. I do not believe the disciples did, to the point they did later on in life. But evidently, this blind man had some great need that could only be met by a merciful Jesus of Nazareth.

[18:50] And what was that need? Literal blindness. It was a thing. Well, we may say this is nothing to do with spiritual blindness.

[19:04] No, it isn't. Nothing whatever to do with it. But what is to do with it is faith. Whether he was dumb, blind, or deaf, or had an impediment in his speech, faith was the controlling factor, gift, grace.

[19:30] All these cases are set out in the Word of God. You've heard these things many times, haven't you?

[19:43] I'm not telling you anything new, but what I am saying is this, that you may have sat under it a long, long time and not understood a word of it.

[19:59] You may have not known and did not know that you were blind. Blind to this blessed man set out here in the prophets.

[20:17] Blind to the necessity of his suffering. blind to his death. Blind to his resurrection.

[20:30] Blind to his ascension. Blind to his mediatorial work in heaven. Blind to his promised second coming. Blind to the great reward.

[20:48] And yet, in that very ignorance of yours, some of you have now been brought to see that there was the knowledge that God intended you to have.

[21:04] It has now matured. It has spread itself. The scriptures have been opened, opened happily.

[21:16] And you become a student, a spiritual student. You have read the word of God as you've never read it before.

[21:33] And you have seen in such men as this, one or two things. First of all, their lowest type, a poor, blind beggar.

[21:52] You have taken particular notice that Jesus called him unto him, that he did not pass him by as unworthy of his attention.

[22:08] You have felt that this is a noted occasion that you could study. I use the word spiritually, not naturally.

[22:23] But you could look at it again, read it over a second, third, and fourth time, and say, what, a certain blind man sitting by the wayside begging?

[22:38] They told him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by, and he cried saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.

[22:54] What do you see next? That he had substance in his prayer, knowledge. Where did he get it from? You can't answer the question, can you?

[23:09] Nor can I. you see that he was a man. As regards the literal side of it, we know not.

[23:20] What we do know is that the Lord taught him, was beforehand with him, and that this man is here enabled to give Christ Jesus, the suffering Savior, at a worthy appeal, that he would have mercy on him.

[23:47] You look again at him and you see that he got a case, blindness. blindness. When you come to consider in your own experience, your blindness, it is one of the things that grace first shows, isn't it?

[24:07] They knew not. They understood none of these things. you've often heard of blindness spoken of, haven't you?

[24:20] You never thought you were blind, did you? You never thought that your eyes were absolutely sightless as regards the person of Christ.

[24:38] You did not disagree with the preacher, or with your Bible, it was nothing that you pound a pencil with.

[24:51] When it comes to the person himself, and what he has said in these earlier verses, as regards to himself, you were a stranger, you were blind.

[25:16] Yet you heard the gospel, yet you heard of blind people receiving their sight. You heard of the prophets saying that he should open the blind eyes, he should deliver the captive from the prison.

[25:36] you little thought that that captive was you, did you? Did you? You turned away from it with this day, didn't you?

[25:52] Now you know it was, don't you? You see the character, therefore, and the character's condition, and you hear the character's cry, and you see the Savior calling him unto him and commanded rather him to be brought.

[26:21] The blessed command was to overcome the opposition of those who sought to rebuke him, told him to hold his peace.

[26:37] Strangely misguided people, weren't they? Duh, so selfish, so ignorant, that here was a blind man calling after Jesus Christ, and they rebuked him.

[26:58] And they rebuked him. as if there was not the slightest hope or possibility of this lordly king, Christ Jesus, ever having anything to do with him.

[27:14] I say, what obstacles meet in the way, don't they? What obstructions, even to the newborn soul. they are sufficient viewed in themselves and alone to defeat any object or any objective.

[27:41] No, the Lord commands him to be brought. I want to see him. Bring him to me.

[27:51] nothing then, you see, could stop that man being brought to Jesus, could he?

[28:09] Where the command and word of a king is, there must of necessity be power. And the king Jesus, though bearing the humble title of Jesus of Nazareth, commands that this man be brought.

[28:25] I say, this is one of the vast number of characters set before seeking souls in the gospel, whereby they are brought to understand that they must not pattern themselves after somebody else.

[28:48] They must not say, well, I can't come that way, I've got to come, my case is different. There's such diversity of operation in divine grace that we make our biggest mistake in comparing ourselves with other people.

[29:10] This is the standard, the wrong standard altogether. other, and this might be the very snare that binds you like Samson seven green whiz, bound here, bound hand and foot by this awful delusion that because you are different, and you are different, there's no doubt about that, you are different.

[29:44] There's nobody like you. There's not a case like yours. but that does not for one moment mean to say that divine grace can ever reach your case.

[30:01] It is the very blessedness of the gospel that says it will do. Now, you may not believe this today. Listen to it.

[30:15] But as regards believing that you poor beggar like you, blind, unworthy, sitting by the roadside, nothing to commend you, everything to hinder you, even your best friend saying, it's no good you thinking about this.

[30:42] No, you should try and come this way. None at all. blocking up every road. How often does this happen?

[30:56] And what a solemn thing it is. Who's going to extricate a soul from this condition? Why, the Lord Jesus.

[31:10] What does he ask that I may receive my sake? That's all. that I may receive my sake.

[31:22] And in that is bound up the very essence of faith. The very essence of faith. Only a few words and no gain.

[31:35] You've been thinking perhaps you've got to have a long experience. faith. You must have much to say. And until you get that much to say there's no hope for you.

[31:53] You've never made a bigger mistake. It's only your pride that wants much to say and your tempting adversary that says you've got to have it.

[32:05] Jesus doesn't say you've got to have much to say. And he's the one that matters. He doesn't say, well tell me it all.

[32:17] Can't mess with it all. Yes, your all may not take long to pour out. But pour it out he did, didn't he?

[32:30] it. You're looking at volume. What you've got to look at is quality, reality.

[32:42] Here you see it. The other case, Zacchaeus. Totally different. curiosity brought Zacchaeus.

[33:01] Curiosity. He was a rich man. He was chief of the publicans.

[33:15] and therefore he wasn't a very popular man among the Jews, a tax gatherer like that, a Roman ruler. And he was their chief.

[33:29] And this man, not many wise men after the flesh, not many nobles, not many mighty, are called.

[33:46] But that doesn't exclude some, does it? No, the rich Zacchaeus is first of all prompted by curiosity.

[34:03] It's the most marked thing in the history of the Church of God that there have been those attracted to the gospel of the grace of God by curiosity.

[34:17] The witness of the people of God in different ages, and I trust so still today, has raised curiosity in the hearts of professing men and women as to say, well, what do you really believe in that little chapel of yours that you keep going to?

[34:39] We see you go Sunday after Sunday, weeknight after weeknight, summer and winter, wet or fine. What is it? What is it? And there's not a lot of you, it isn't as if there was a crowd.

[34:54] What is it? And read some of the ancient obituaries and the recent ones too, of those who were curious. God can act, you see, upon these characteristics in us.

[35:12] Some are curious, curious about a good many things, but this curiosity of that here was very different from the condition of the poor blind man, wasn't it?

[35:26] But it's equally true to say they understood none of these things. Zacchaeus was a determined man, very much the same as the woman who pressed through the crowd to touch the hem of Christ's garment.

[35:48] She was a very determined woman. So was he. He decided the best way, because of the press, was for him to climb a tree.

[36:07] Very ingenious. Still he knew none of these things. Still he was a tax gatherer.

[36:17] Still he was very brief. Still he was only urged by curiosity. Yes? There's no faith in climbing this sycamore tree. There's no faith in curiosity.

[36:32] None at all. Yet he climbed this tree. And the better to get a view of Jesus Christ, for he was to pass that way.

[36:49] And there, at the end of verse four, it might finish. it runs parallel with the case in the previous chapter that Jesus was to pass that way.

[37:09] Very different spirit, you see. Very different cry in the heart of the blind man from there was no cry in the heart of Zacchaeus.

[37:24] None at all. He knew none of these things. He was more concerned with filling his pocket than he was with anything else, poor man.

[37:42] But the eternal purposes of God had come to the hour, the hour struck. Do it.

[37:54] Look at the eternal counsels of Jehovah. When this poor man, nothing whatever to recommend him, you couldn't say of him like they could say of the centurion, he hath built us a synagogue, and he loveth our nation.

[38:19] Oh no. Zacchaeus wouldn't have built a synagogue, would he? He'd rather have extracted every penny that he could from the Jews, and he did.

[38:35] And is this the sort of man that's going to be commanded to come down? that Jesus stopped, and he came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house.

[39:08] can you see anything here? Can you see sovereign, unmerited, divine, free grace, can you?

[39:21] does not your heart melt under the sacred influence of such a gospel as this, of such a man as this?

[39:35] Yeah? Such a man as this? Ah, do you take it home to yourself? Ah, but for free and sovereign grace, I still have lived estranged from God, you take it home to yourself, was there a day when you understood none of these things?

[40:03] Was this saying hid from your eyes in the days past? If anyone had said to you years ago, who was Zacchaeus?

[40:14] You would have said the man that climbed into the sycamore tree to see Jesus and left it there. But now it's embellished with light.

[40:29] There's favour in it. There's divinity in it. Why? Why? Because Jesus has stopped and looked up the tree to you, perhaps, in your curious hour, when you wanted to see who it was.

[40:51] He came, we are told, to see, he sought to see Jesus, who he was. Who he was, what he looked like.

[41:05] Like the Greeks that came, whose real condition heart, we know nothing of. We read of them, that they came and they said, sirs, we would see Jesus.

[41:22] Now, what was in their hearts, we have no knowledge. And it isn't for us to put knowledge where there is none given to us.

[41:33] But they said, sirs, we would see Jesus. Zacchaeus said no more. The opening of this man's eyes was vastly different, therefore, from that of the poor beggar.

[41:55] Make haste and come down, for today I must abide at thy house. The uninvited guest, guest, sinner.

[42:14] The glory of him. Did you were invited? Did you ever want him? Would you have ever had him in your home, life, past, the uninvited guest?

[42:34] what a change. How it fits in with the text. They understood none of these things, and this same was hid from them.

[42:47] Neither knew they the things which were spoken. But the time came, and the whole was changed. So were these two characters.

[42:59] and if there were time, but I will direct your attention to it before we leave it, to read when you get home, ruler. Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

[43:16] Oh, vastly different cases, isn't it? Give all, sell all that thou hast, yet lackest thou one thing.

[43:31] Now, you've got to know both sides of it. Although, have I pointed out to you that you're entirely wrong in thinking that your experience has got to agree with others.

[43:51] It hasn't. It's got to be your experience. It's got to be your experience looking for Christ, seeking Christ, finding Christ, loving Christ, following Christ, serving Christ.

[44:08] Right, this man, the blind man, followed Jesus. We are not told that he saw the incident of that he did.

[44:19] It's a wonderful thing if he did, and every possibility that he did. But don't compare your case with another.

[44:31] and don't regard yourself as being out of the secret because you feel unlike the rest of the Lord's people.

[44:42] And the other thing is don't look to yourself or your experience as regards the outward but judged by the inward.

[44:55] this rich young man therefore is the negative case. He did not understand and as far as the scripture tells us, he never did.

[45:10] Now, Zacchaeus came down. With what result? With his friends around him, they murmured.

[45:23] They murmured. They said that Jesus had gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner. They hated Zacchaeus. They hated him.

[45:36] They had every reason to. He was, and when they said a sinner, they meant someone who was a character not nice to know, to put it marvellous, that Jesus didn't hesitate.

[45:56] This didn't defer the blessed Saviour. Think you that if you are regarded as a strange character, the Lord has mercy upon you, and people say, oh well, we don't know about him or her.

[46:15] We knew that when they were young, they were wicked. They were worldly, they were ungodly. They loved the money. Money was their God.

[46:27] We're rather suspicious of them. Oh, is this going to make any difference to the love of God? Is this going to alter this sacred decision?

[46:39] As Jesus stands and looks up and says, Zacchaeus, come down, come down, for today I must abide at thy house.

[46:53] I say, the uninvited guest. What glories, therefore, dwell in God's withholding from us those things which, for a time, we know not.

[47:11] And feel our ignorance. And gradually, coming to the final part of this case of Zacchaeus, Jesus said, this day is salvation come to this house for as much as he also is a son of Abraham, for the son of man is come to see and to save.

[47:41] And he's done it. Here's a demonstration of that. And what was the previous condition? That which was lost.

[47:54] Lost. It will fit your case if you're one of these characters. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see.

[48:11] Amen.