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[0:00] With the Lord's help and blessings, I will speak from the word in the Gospel according to Luke, the fourth chapter, the 18th verse.

[0:16] The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor.

[0:28] He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.

[0:47] The fourth chapter of the Gospel by Luke, the 18th verse. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor.

[1:02] For he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.

[1:20] When the Lord Jesus Christ appeared amongst men, he corresponded so exactly to everything that had been spoken of him in the Old Testament, that nothing but the blinding prejudice of the minds that people could have prevented them seeing.

[1:51] That those Old Testament prophecies were being fulfilled in Jesus Christ before their eyes. that prejudice is a very blinding thing.

[2:06] The Lord delivereth from that. where clear the evidence of anything that is spiritual and scriptural may be, where prejudice blinds the minds, it just cannot be seen.

[2:24] That, and the inherent aversion that with all their religion, there was in the Jews against holiness as such, especially the holiness of Jesus Christ, caused it that they rejected him.

[2:43] But even their very rejection fulfilled the Scriptures. For not only did his doctrine and miracles and his spirit fulfill all that was spoken of and his ministry, that his death fulfilled all that was prophesied as a sacrifice, and his resurrection from the dead, which was the great supreme confirmation of his person and gospel, all that is set before us now, for our instruction and guidance in the scripture, and by the Holy Spirit.

[3:29] But it wasn't only that. I mean, it wasn't only that. The spirit and character and teaching of Jesus Christ was exactly what the prophets had foretold would be, but it was so exactly suitable to the purpose for which he came into this world.

[3:55] He was so suitable to the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, and those who felt to be so spiritually dark in their minds.

[4:07] He was so suitable to the poor, the brokenhearted, the brokenhearted, and those who felt to be so the brokenhearted, and those who felt to be so well.

[4:38] His grace and love, his humility and compassion, his understanding and his power. There's everything about Jesus Christ to commend him.

[4:55] And my friends, it's everything to have Jesus Christ made known in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, so that we see him to be that, and feel a response to him in that way of our own faith and affection.

[5:13] For if the Holy Spirit reveal Jesus Christ in your heart, you will feel you can let everything go for him, and that there is nothing more to be desired than that you might know him more, follow him more, enjoy him more, obey him more, and finally to be forever with him.

[5:41] That's always the effect when the Holy Spirit makes Jesus Christ known in the heart. And if he isn't known in the heart, a person doesn't know him at all.

[5:58] It's really not much use for people to talk about Jesus Christ if they're not taught Jesus Christ, because they don't know anything really. Not really.

[6:09] All knowledge of Jesus Christ depends upon the Holy Spirit's teaching and revealing of him in our hearts. Oh, I wish men did not love darkness rather than light in these matters.

[6:24] Well, now, I mustn't take the time this morning with general observations. We have in these words the commencement of the public ministry of Jesus Christ in the synagogue at Nazareth.

[6:43] The Lord Jesus Christ had passed through two very remarkable experiences, and they were very preparatory to his public ministry.

[6:57] And he would not have been the priest that he was if he had not previously passed through those experiences. And they were first his experience at his baptism, when the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descended upon him.

[7:16] And it came to pass that Jesus also, being baptized and praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him.

[7:34] And a voice came from heaven which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. That was the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ by the descending upon him in that remarkable way of the Holy Spirit.

[7:57] And secondly, there was his experience in the wilderness. His forty years' experience of temptation, which was as necessary a preparatory experience to his ministry, as was the anointing of the Holy Spirit that fitted him wonderfully to deal with tried and tempted people.

[8:25] He was forty days in the wilderness. Well, it came through those experiences and entered upon his ministry.

[8:37] And when he came into the synagogue at Nazareth, where he had been brought up on the Sabbath day, he stood up to read, that being the practice in the synagogue worship.

[8:51] Actually, there were seven, the scripture was read seven times in the synagogue worship on the Lord's Day morning. The first reader was a priest, the second a Levite, and after that there were five readers from the congregation itself connected with that particular synagogue.

[9:14] And the Lord Jesus Christ was one because he had been brought up there and he belonged to that synagogue. And so he stood up to read. And there was brought to him the book of the prophecy of Isaiah.

[9:29] It is considered that the Old Testament scriptures were read by course. And that was a scripture, one of the seven scriptures that came to be read that Sabbath morning.

[9:43] Whatever, whether that was so or not, he read this particular scripture from the prophecy of Isaiah. Isaiah. When he had read the scripture, he closed the book, the eyes of all were fastened upon him, and he commenced to speak to them upon the truth and meaning of this word, and how it was then, that day fulfilled in him.

[10:10] It was a quotation, of course, or a reading from the prophecy of Isaiah. And in a lesser sense, of course, it was true of the prophet Isaiah himself that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him.

[10:30] He was anointed to preach the gospel in that dispensation and in the form in which it was then declared. The prophets of old were anointed by the same Holy Spirit as Jesus Christ was, but not to the same degree.

[10:51] And that was why the prophet Isaiah is so often called the evangelical prophet because there was so much of the gospel in Isaiah's prophecy.

[11:01] The same is true of all gospel ministers in this dispensation. In some measure, the same Holy Spirit must rest upon them with regard to their ministry as rested upon the Lord Jesus Christ to give their ministry unction and power and authority.

[11:29] No one can preach the gospel with any acceptance and any spiritual profit unless he is anointed to preach by the Holy Spirit of God.

[11:43] And no human ordination, epistopal or otherwise, to that matter, makes not the slightest difference. No human ordination can impart a gracious, unstealous power to any man or minister.

[11:57] That's the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can impart a divine and gracious unction to anyone to preach the gospel without it.

[12:15] People had better read the Bible and pray for the Holy Spirit to instruct them in the truth of it and listen to a ministry that has nothing of the unction, grace, and power of the Holy Spirit in it.

[12:29] They get far more benefits from reading the Bible alone. But the Holy Spirit is given in measure to the Lord's servants according to the sphere of ministry that is appointed for them to fill.

[12:53] For the Lord's servants in any case can only receive the Holy Spirit in measure. We cannot receive more than our capacity. Our capacity is human.

[13:06] Therefore, it's limited. And some of us fear our capacity is very limited. We can only receive the Holy Spirit in measure. The Lord Jesus Christ could receive the Holy Spirit in all the fullness of his grace and power and unction.

[13:27] He could receive the fullness of the Spirit. And so the Spirit of the Lord was upon him. Although then these words have a minor application to the prophets of old and the gospel ministers of the new dispensation to have their fullness only in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[13:55] In him and his ministry they are fulfilled and accomplished. Now as the Lord may help me before me to set these things before you this morning.

[14:08] and first then we will consider the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ to this end to preach the gospel.

[14:23] I know the Lord was anointed in other respects as well. He was anointed as a priest to offer himself a sacrifice to God.

[14:35] He was anointed as a king to rule and to reign in the hearts of all his spiritual believing people.

[14:47] But he was anointed as a preacher. Even the Lord Jesus Christ must be anointed of the Holy Spirit in order to preach.

[14:58] Even he must be. How much more then must all others be who are merely human and limited. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel.

[15:15] Consider my friends that this applies to the Lord Jesus Christ with respect to his humanity. With respect to his divinity he was one of course with the Holy Spirit and with the Father.

[15:31] Those three glorious persons were and are and always will be one God in the Godhead.

[15:42] The Son eternally begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father. But with regard to the human nature of Jesus Christ and it was in our human nature that he came into this world to preach the gospel he needed this anointing.

[16:07] And the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon the Lord Jesus Christ rendered his ministry very effectual in these different ways.

[16:19] To begin with, the anointing of the Holy Spirit rendered his ministry to have a gracious authority. His ministry had an authority.

[16:35] It was a different kind of authority to what the people had been accustomed to listen to. They'd been accustomed to listen to the official teachers, the rabbis, of that day.

[16:49] They had an authority. It was an official authority. An authority they received from men. Men of a higher degree in religion.

[17:03] The Lord Jesus Christ never had any of that official authority. And that was one reason why the higher ones of his day were so against him.

[17:18] He hadn't been episcopally ordained Matthew. And so they said, went past this man this authority. They sent to him, who gave thee this authority, they said.

[17:31] You are preaching and teaching the people, who gave you authority to do this? Who appointed you? Who ordained you? The Lord Jesus Christ never had any such authority from man at all.

[17:46] He didn't have an official authority. He had an authority of unction. They mark you my friends, there are two kinds of authority among teachers of religion.

[18:01] There's an official authority and there's an authority of unction. They're very different. An authority of unction means that there is that potent, power, and influence of the Holy Spirit resting upon their teaching that makes it effectual in the hearts of those who hear it.

[18:29] Why we read, he speaketh as one having authority and not as a scribe. Here you have it exactly. Not as a scribe.

[18:41] The scribe spoke with an official authority. Jesus Christ with an unctioned authority. And, mark you this, that is only an unctioned authority will ever affect the hearts of men graciously.

[19:00] There's something about unctioned that's not very easy to describe, but unmistakable to feel. If anyone doesn't experience and doesn't have a sense of unction, I'm sure I couldn't describe it to them, but if anyone does, they will understand me when I say there's no mistaking it when you hear the word and it is attended with a gracious, heavenly influence to your heart.

[19:35] You'll feel it penetrates you, it nourishes you, it has an effect upon your spirit that nothing else can ever have. I wonder whether it's improper of me to say this.

[19:54] Well, I will say it. I hope I'm saying it in the right spirit. One of the most encouraging things, in that way that I've heard in my long ministry, I heard this year, up in the Midlands, it was a simple thing say, a good man said you've been brought up under the sound of the truth, and he'd often heard in his early days about ministers preaching with unction.

[20:26] They said, what have I ought to say? He said, when I hear Mr. Delves speak, I know what they meant. Well, if that really is so, and if people, when they hear me preach, know what they meant to speak about the unction of the Holy Spirit, nothing could possibly give me more encouragement and confirmation that the Lord has put me into the ministry than that.

[20:53] For I'm certain that nothing so confirms any ministry that it is of God than that which is divine unction upon that testimony.

[21:06] Well, that was so with Jesus Christ. No wonder then that they marveled at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. They'd never heard anything so gracious.

[21:19] It's unction we want, brethren. An unction is power. It not only gave him an authority to preach, but power. Power is everything.

[21:30] in preaching and healing. If the gospel doesn't come to us in power, it cannot possibly enrich our hearts with blessedness. And power is something we cannot command.

[21:46] The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus Christ and therefore he spake with power. For what do we read? And he came to Capernaum, the city of Galilee, and taught them on the Sabbath days and they were astonished at his doctrine, for his word was his power.

[22:07] Bread renunciation is power. Noise isn't power. You don't see any power by having the truth shouted at us.

[22:21] And whispering isn't unction either. power. I've said sometimes, I don't want the truth shouted at me, nor whispered to me. I want it set before me in such a way as that I can feel a gracious influence acting upon my heart and my spirit when I'm listening to it.

[22:43] I think that's real profit. Now, unction is power. power. It's a permeating power. It's a softening power.

[22:55] And it's a convicting power too, as well as softening. Nothing can resist it. It's like an oil. It just soaps in and penetrates into our very soul.

[23:09] That's the unction of the word of God when it's preached under the anointing of the Holy Ghost. And there's another thing I must mention.

[23:23] Not only did this anointing give the Lord Jesus Christ his gracious authority and his spiritual power, but it made his preaching so very suitable.

[23:39] Not only suitable in that he preached the gospel to the poor, but he preached it suitably to the poor. not only that by preaching a word he could heal the broken hearted, but he could speak so suitably to the broken hearted.

[24:03] There's very much in that too. We may say right things, and we may try to address our words to the right cases. But if there's no unction, there's something backing that I can only describe as suitability.

[24:18] like a tender physician handles a painful limb very carefully and suitably, it isn't just handling it, he handles it suitably, and so on.

[24:33] There is something so suitable about the ministry of Jesus Christ. poor, if you want to preach the gospel to the poor, you mustn't preach it in a hard and eager kind of way.

[24:46] You'll put it farther away from them. if you're going to bind up the broken hearted, you must be careful how you do it, or else you'll cause more pain than relief.

[25:00] The spirit of Jesus is so gracious, so suitable, so tender, so wise, he knew just what to say, he knew just how to say it.

[25:14] The gospel needs preaching in the spirit of the gospel, as well as the doctrine of it, if it's going to be profitable and suitable to the poor, and the broken hearted, and the captive, and such as are in that low and distressed state of mind.

[25:36] Just one more point I'll mention before I attempt to enter more into the text, which I can see I shall not be able to this morning. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

[25:52] The Lord Jesus Christ was especially anointed by the Holy Spirit to preach. He was not anointed to perform any ceremonies at all, and he never did, except baptism and the Lord's Supper, but he was anointed to preach.

[26:10] The one great matter of his ministry was to preach. preach. And he did preach. He preached everywhere. He preached in the synagogues of Galilee.

[26:24] He preached by the lake, from a boat. He preached on the mountain to the multitude. He preached in the courts of the temple at Jerusalem.

[26:37] He preached a thousand, and he preached to one. He preached to the five thousand that he fed. He preached to Nicodemus, all alone by night.

[26:50] He preached to the Samaritan woman, by the well of Samaria. All the same, whether there was one in a thousand. He was always preaching. Now, my friends, we may see, I think, from this, what a very important appointment and ordinance gospel preaching is.

[27:12] The Lord Jesus Christ had no time much for anything else. Preaching filled his mind, filled his days. I know that, alas, we might say, his preaching did not seem to be all that successful.

[27:31] For when it came to the end of his life, there were not very many, after those three years of preaching, that appeared to have been savingly affected by it, but you mustn't look at it like that.

[27:45] Remember that the preaching of Jesus Christ was the fundamental preaching for the whole gospel ministry. The whole gospel ministry since then has been derived from the personal preaching of Jesus Christ.

[28:02] He sowed the seed that sprang up in the apostles' hearts and ministry, and they sowed the same seed, and that sprang up in the hearts of others, and so it's gone on down to this day, and it's being sowed still.

[28:18] And all this from the preaching of Jesus Christ. I know that the Holy Spirit can work by what means so ever he will, and he has done.

[28:31] I wouldn't say for a moment that there's no way in which souls can be saved except through the preaching of the word. But I do say this, the preaching of the word is the main means.

[28:47] If you read the New Testament, and especially the epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus, you will see what emphasis he puts on preaching.

[28:59] preach the word, Timothy. In season, out of season, you must still preach. If conditions are favorable, and you get attention, you must preach.

[29:15] If conditions are unfavorable, and it's not a good hearing time, and people are indifferent, you must still preach, Timothy. You must preach. Preach the word, the in season, and out of season.

[29:29] with proof, with buke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. The ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ consists of preaching.

[29:43] What is preaching? Well, it can be very simply expressed. Preaching is declaring the word of God. God. It is expounding the word of truth.

[29:58] It is setting forth the blessed tidings of salvation in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to exhort his person, proclaim his righteousness, preach his blood, and to call for sinners, to look to him and be saved.

[30:22] That's preaching. Reasoning isn't preaching, I don't think. at least, a ministry that's full of reasoning and arguing, arguments, I don't think really has very much effect.

[30:41] I think the souls are one for Jesus Christ through the effect of the gospel on their hearts. And I don't know that I feel that preaching is offering, I think it's proclaiming.

[30:55] It is setting forth. It is publishing. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings, that bring good tidings of good things.

[31:12] And the gospel is just that. there is a difference in the rendering of this word in Isaiah from our rendering of it in Luke.

[31:26] The two renderings are slightly different, but the difference is very helpful because the one explains the other.

[31:38] Isaiah says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek. Luke says, the gospel to the poor.

[31:51] The meaning is the same. The good tidings are the gospel. And the meek are the poor. And the poor are the meek.

[32:01] The gospel is full of good tidings for the poor. But mine, we must be in that case to receive it.

[32:14] That state of mind to which it can be indeed good tidings. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

[32:29] We may gather from these different cases indicated in this text something of the nature of the gospel itself.

[32:44] And when I've said this, I must close this morning. For instance, if the gospel is to be preached to the poor, it must be an enriching gospel.

[32:55] Otherwise, what good of it is it to the poor? If it cannot bring that to them, that will really enrich them. It's no gospel to them.

[33:08] First then, the gospel is an enriching gospel. And he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.

[33:19] Very well then. It must be a healing gospel. There must be that virtue in it that can heal such as are wounded and brokenhearted.

[33:30] To preach deliverance to the captives. Then it must be a delivering gospel. Otherwise, the captives will have no benefit by it. And so on.

[33:41] Yet, the gospel is just that. It's enriching. It's healing. It's delivering. It's enlightening. It's healing. It's healing. It's healing. It's healing. It's healing. It's healing. It's healing.

[33:52] It's healing. It's healing. And the Lord Jesus Christ is anointed priest to God. If you would say, well, that refers to the past.

[34:06] When he was there in the synagogue at Nazareth. And when they heard the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. Oh, no. No.

[34:17] That anointing is still on the ministry of Jesus Christ. And on the person of Jesus Christ. And on the name of Jesus Christ.

[34:30] And some of us have felt that anointing that rests upon Jesus Christ. To affect our hearts too. Those gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth.

[34:44] They've reached our hearts. Some of us. And conveyed the grace thereof to us. For that binding up of the broken hearted.

[34:57] That healing hand has touched our poor broken heart. And that recovering of sight to the blind. That recovered sight to our poor blind souls.

[35:12] The same gospel, you know. And although now the ministry of Jesus Christ is continued. Through the scriptures. And the ministry of his anointed servants.

[35:23] But really. It's still his anointing. All unction. All graciousness. All sweetness. All power.

[35:35] All richness. All life. That you and I have ever felt. Or ever will feel in the gospel. It comes from Jesus Christ.

[35:46] And it comes from Jesus Christ. Because he was anointed to preach. That anointing. It's gone all down through the ages.

[35:57] In that gospel he preached. And it's come to some of us. My brethren. It is a privilege to preach the gospel.

[36:10] Such a gospel as this. The gospel that Jesus Christ preached. It's a privilege to preach that gospel. And it's a privilege to hear it.

[36:22] And it's a blessing to receive it. The Lord give his gospel entrance into your heart. For his name I am.

[36:33] Amen. Amen.

[37:01]  Amen. Amen.