The NXR Podcast - June 02, 2025


THE SERMON - Son Of David, Have Mercy On Me

Topics
Son of David faith quality demonic exorcisms
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
David David Saunier James Lindsay Samuel Pharisees Isaiah Jesus Christ Elisha Bethsaida Proverbs Nazareth Jeremiah Gomorrah Mark
THE CONFERENCE - Christian Power - David Reece - Session 7 THE LIVESTREAM - Pride Pullback： Real or Fake？

Episode Stats


Length

54 minutes

Words per minute

150.06

Word count

8,240

Sentence count

428

Harmful content

Toxicity

18

sentences flagged

Hate speech

34

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we continue our series on the Gospel According to Matthew through the miracles performed by Jesus in Matthew 9:27-34. In this series, we will see how the miracles of Jesus are not merely acts of compassion, but divine revelations that demand faith.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform.
00:00:03.820 I get it.
00:00:04.620 It's annoying.
00:00:05.380 Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.
00:00:07.420 When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm so that
00:00:12.440 our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.
00:00:16.280 You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries
00:00:20.820 aren't.
00:00:21.860 We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.
00:00:27.500 Amen.
00:00:27.860 Please join me in standing for the reading of God's word.
00:00:29.820 We're continuing our series through the gospel according to Matthew.
00:00:33.060 Our text for today is Matthew chapter 9, verse 27 through 34.
00:00:37.580 Again, our text is Matthew chapter 9, verse 27 through 34.
00:00:41.600 I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
00:00:43.500 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say this is the word of the Lord,
00:00:46.680 at which point I would appreciate very much if you'd respond by saying thanks be to God.
00:00:51.500 One final time, our text for today is the gospel according to Matthew chapter 9, verses 27 through 34.
00:00:57.640 The Bible says this.
00:00:59.180 And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying aloud,
00:01:05.100 Have mercy on us, son of David.
00:01:07.880 When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, 0.63
00:01:12.400 Do you believe that I am able to do this?
00:01:15.360 They said to him, Yes, Lord.
00:01:18.000 Then he touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, be it done to you.
00:01:23.540 And their eyes were opened, and Jesus sternly warned them,
00:01:27.180 see that no one knows about it.
00:01:29.940 But they went away and spread his fame through all that district.
00:01:34.380 As they were going away, behold, a demon-oppressed man who was mute was brought to him.
00:01:39.640 And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke.
00:01:43.560 And the crowds marveled, saying,
00:01:45.960 Never was anything like this seen in Israel.
00:01:49.600 But the Pharisees said,
00:01:51.140 He cast out demons by the prince of demons.
00:01:54.620 This is the word of the Lord.
00:01:56.160 All right, please be seated. By way of introduction, I've written the following.
00:02:01.020 Christ's divine authority elicits saving faith in some and hardened unbelief in others.
00:02:08.660 It's vital that we keep in mind that the miracles of Jesus are not merely acts of compassion.
00:02:15.720 Notice the word merely. They are acts of compassion.
00:02:18.660 There are instances where the crowds come to him and he had compassion.
00:02:23.180 it actually says that not empathy but compassion which is rooted sympathy um it's in the latin
00:02:29.740 it's it's rooted more to sympathy feeling for someone else not empathy and just absorbing their
00:02:35.120 pain and so that you're walking around feeling the exact same thing that everybody else does no it's
00:02:39.620 compassion for others it's rooted in love it's rooted in love and so jesus does have compassion
00:02:45.860 on people and there are instances in the gospel narratives where the crowds were there they were
00:02:51.020 present and many were sick among them. And the scripture explicitly tells us that he had
00:02:56.760 compassion on them and he healed them. And so we're not saying that Jesus had something less
00:03:02.460 than compassion, but all we're saying and what we're noticing and witnessing in this text
00:03:07.540 specifically is that the purpose of Jesus' miracles was never less than compassion for
00:03:14.180 those who were hurting, but it certainly included more. So it's not merely acts of compassion,
00:03:19.900 But rather, these miracles serve as divine revelations that demand faith.
00:03:25.560 And where faith is absent, they therefore expose unbelief.
00:03:31.260 That the miracles serve the purpose higher and deeper and longer, more eternal and ultimate than merely the temporal, physical healing out of compassion.
00:03:43.760 That there's a message being conveyed by the miracles of Christ.
00:03:47.800 The miracles ultimately validate the messenger and therefore the message.
00:03:53.800 So what Christ is preaching, Christ came to preach.
00:03:57.320 He came to die ultimately as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
00:04:01.060 But he also came to preach the kingdom of the gospel, the gospel of the kingdom.
00:04:06.240 And so the miracles serve as a testimony, a witness to validate Christ as the messenger
00:04:13.480 who is therefore preaching a true message.
00:04:16.760 But the miracles also work as a winnowing fork that separate the wheat from the chaff.
00:04:23.920 The words of Christ do that on their own right, in their own right.
00:04:27.960 The message, the sermons that Christ preached also winnowed the crowds down to who really believed in Him, trusted Him, and who ultimately hated Him.
00:04:39.220 But His preaching does this, but so do the miracles.
00:04:42.340 And this miracle in particular, we see in this text that there's an immediate dividing line
00:04:48.040 between those who trust in Jesus and those who ultimately hate Jesus.
00:04:54.300 And that's what we see in our text today.
00:04:56.640 So that's our introduction, recognizing that every time Christ preached
00:05:00.640 and every time Christ performed a miracle,
00:05:04.780 it served as a winnowing fork separating the wheat from the chaff.
00:05:08.660 it immediately would elicit saving faith in some and hardened unbelief in others.
00:05:16.600 Okay, so three points from the text as I see it today.
00:05:20.280 Number one, we find a cry for mercy and attached with that cry for mercy,
00:05:26.720 a recognition of Christ's true identity.
00:05:29.920 So it's not merely pleading for mercy from someone somewhere in regards to something.
00:05:36.760 It's much more ultimate and deeper than that.
00:05:40.100 These two blind men are pleading with Christ for mercy,
00:05:44.880 but the reason why they make their pleas to Him
00:05:47.700 is because they recognize who He truly is.
00:05:51.080 So a cry for mercy and a recognition of Christ's true identity.
00:05:55.240 That's the first point that we'll find in the first verse of our text, verse 27.
00:05:59.740 Secondly, we'll see that Jesus immediately responds to this cry for mercy
00:06:04.700 from these two blind men by providing for them a test of faith.
00:06:10.360 That's verses 28, 29, and 30 of our text. 0.90
00:06:14.800 And then lastly, the third and final point, deliverance and division.
00:06:19.960 We then see a second miracle arise in the text.
00:06:22.760 After the two blind men are thoroughly healed by Jesus,
00:06:26.720 a complete, total, and instant miraculous healing,
00:06:30.300 then immediately what follows is the casting out, exercising of a demon that caused a man to be mute, unable to speak.
00:06:40.360 And this miracle in particular, the deliverance of this man who was demon oppressed, 0.73
00:06:46.840 it immediately elicits, not in all, but in some, namely the religious Jewish leaders of that time, 0.58
00:06:53.360 the Pharisees in particular, it elicits for them division, division.
00:06:59.080 Okay, so beginning with the first point, I've written the following.
00:07:02.200 The passage intentionally contains a theological irony.
00:07:06.080 And we should see this.
00:07:07.760 So this is, it's historical narrative, right?
00:07:12.500 So different books of the Bible have different genres.
00:07:14.500 All Scripture is God-breathed.
00:07:16.260 All Scripture is infallible.
00:07:17.600 That is, it is without error.
00:07:19.260 It's all inerrant.
00:07:20.580 It's all the Word of God.
00:07:21.760 It's perfect and pure.
00:07:23.120 But not every book of the Bible, they're all equally inerrant and infallible.
00:07:26.420 Don't get me wrong with that.
00:07:27.340 But they're not all the same genre, right?
00:07:29.800 The Psalms and the Proverbs are poetic and they need to be read as poetic literature, right?
00:07:35.260 There's other passages of the scripture that are just historical accounts like 1st and 2nd Kings, right?
00:07:41.760 Whereas 1st and 2nd Samuel, my wife just recently went through those four books of the Bible.
00:07:46.580 And she was like, you know, telling me I like 1st and 2nd Samuel more than 1st and 2nd Kings.
00:07:51.740 and I agree with her because that's just, it's not that one is more profitable or one is more
00:07:56.900 inspired, but 1st and 2nd Samuel are more narrative, story, whereas 1st and 2nd Kings
00:08:05.100 are just history. Here's another king, this is what he did, and you know, and you can read more
00:08:11.140 about it in the Annals of the Kings. Here's another king, this is what he did, and you can read more,
00:08:15.040 you know, and that's just, that's the nature of 1st and 2nd Kings, whereas 1st and 2nd Samuel
00:08:18.720 is it's a story you know it's it's this is David from very beginning it's not just his exploits
00:08:24.860 but it gets into his emotions and his thought process and all these different things it's it's
00:08:30.720 a narrative it's a story and so in our text this is narrative the gospel accounts are uh narrative
00:08:37.560 they give us exploits of Christ but but also contained in a story format so it's not just
00:08:44.860 like 1st and 2nd Kings, but it's kind of more like 1st and 2nd Samuel. There are exploits,
00:08:50.780 there are events and particulars that are included, but it's in the genre of story.
00:08:57.460 And so we're reading this story, and because we're reading this story, we should pick up on
00:09:01.760 some of the major themes, because they're not random. They're not accidental. They are intentional
00:09:08.980 by the Holy Spirit, inspiring the human author, in this case, Matthew.
00:09:14.560 And one of those themes that we should pick up on is a theological irony.
00:09:19.600 And the irony is this.
00:09:21.260 The physically blind, these two men who are physically blind,
00:09:25.120 they recognize Jesus as the Messiah, 0.53
00:09:27.500 while the religious leaders in Israel remain spiritually blind.
00:09:32.860 So the physically blind can spiritually see,
00:09:35.840 while those who are physically able to see who are physically not blind are spiritually blind
00:09:43.800 and that's an irony again and again what what Matthew all the gospel writers but especially
00:09:50.280 Matthew especially Matthew what he is doing again in every single text is he's sticking it to
00:09:56.280 the Jewish religious rulers that's just what he's doing it is in the text some of you it's not in
00:10:02.240 the text. I love Israel. I understand, but it is in the text. And you're wrong. You're simply wrong.
00:10:08.540 And Matthew draws it out again and again and again. Here's two guys who can't see their hand
00:10:14.000 in front of their face. And they're spiritually have 20-20 sight. And they're great. And here's
00:10:22.280 some other guys who are trained in religious rulers in Israel, and they suck. That's what 0.99
00:10:28.860 Matthew's saying. That is what he's saying. More than that, that's what God is saying. That's what
00:10:34.140 the Holy Spirit is speaking through Matthew. So that is a massive theological irony that we're
00:10:40.760 missing part of the point of the text if we don't pick up on that irony. It's there by design
00:10:46.280 intentionally. The physically blind, they can see spiritually. They can see Jesus, while the
00:10:52.620 religious leaders who are physically not blind, they are spiritually blind as a bat. In other 0.95
00:10:58.880 words, these blind men see more than the sighted. Specifically, they see Jesus as the promised king 0.86
00:11:06.320 from David's line. So in this first verse, namely Matthew 9, 27, the first thing that these blind 0.91
00:11:13.220 men see in terms of Jesus' true identity is they recognize that Jesus is messianic. They recognize 0.57
00:11:22.320 that he is messianic and kingly that he comes from the lineage of David and not just like every
00:11:29.600 single one of David's descendants come from the lineage of David but that he is the promised one
00:11:34.840 that Isaiah and the prophets spoke of that he is the true king of Israel of the increase of his
00:11:42.500 government there shall be no end that he is kingly and messianic and they use that title which
00:11:49.640 conveys those points messianic and kingly what do they refer to jesus as son of david son of david
00:11:59.780 have mercy on me they see jesus as the promised king from david's line second samuel 7 speaks of
00:12:07.580 this and isaiah chapter 11 they speak to jesus and cry out saying son of david son of david
00:12:14.560 have mercy on me son of David this particular phrase was an explicit messianic title now lastly
00:12:22.740 their cry is clearly rooted in faith not entitlement it's rooted in faith in the identity
00:12:31.660 the person the object of Jesus Christ who he is their faith is rooted in him attached to the true
00:12:39.760 and only saving object of faith, which is Christ. And it's based in faith, rooted in faith and not
00:12:47.480 in entitlement. They're not saying, Jesus, son of David, we too are Israelites. We too are the
00:12:55.300 lineage of David. And therefore you owe us our physical sight. That's not their plea. That's not
00:13:03.060 their claim it's not a claim of entitlement you are of a kingly lineage and we also by lineage
00:13:11.560 are of this kingdom and therefore you owe us this miracle that's not the request the request is
00:13:19.420 well it has less to do with entitlement and it has everything to do with worship
00:13:24.200 so when they when they recognize and acknowledge Jesus as son of David they're not they're not
00:13:30.760 boosting themselves son of david and so are we and therefore you owe this to us no it's son of
00:13:37.240 david it's exalting him above themselves and above all others it's it's a it is a claim it's a
00:13:44.620 statement of worship they're paying homage to jesus they're worshiping him they're recognizing
00:13:53.120 him as a one true messianic figure and the true king of israel from the lineage of david
00:13:59.160 the fulfillment of all these prophecies
00:14:01.940 that are made in the Old Testament,
00:14:03.880 especially in Isaiah.
00:14:05.340 And their claim then is a claim of faith,
00:14:08.620 not entitlement.
00:14:09.940 And it's on the basis of mercy, not merit.
00:14:14.660 Notice they don't come to Him and say,
00:14:16.700 Son of David, give us what we're promised.
00:14:21.000 Or Son of David, give us what we're owed.
00:14:24.680 No, it's Son of David, have mercy on me.
00:14:29.160 and ultimately this is uh in a nutshell doesn't have to be they're not magic words it's not an
00:14:37.280 incantation ultimately must come from the heart and it must come from a new heart which we only
00:14:42.160 receive by the regenerative miraculous work of the spirit but but these this phrasing these words
00:14:49.400 the the the spirit of it the heart of it is ultimately the words that must be expressed
00:14:56.820 by anyone in order to be a Christian.
00:15:01.600 This is kind of the heart of what the Christian cries out
00:15:06.680 when it comes to salvation.
00:15:09.280 That a person looks to Jesus,
00:15:11.940 recognizes his identity,
00:15:14.220 and then pleads on the basis of mercy and not merit.
00:15:20.200 That's what it is to be a Christian.
00:15:22.620 That's what it is to belong to Christ, to be saved.
00:15:25.720 there will be those two things there will be no one in heaven no christians who don't recognize
00:15:33.140 jesus as the son of david and there will also be no christians no one in heaven no one who's truly
00:15:39.700 born again and saved from the the wrath of god who recognize jesus as king but do not recognize
00:15:46.980 their need for his kingly mercy both of those are equally important you must acknowledge that jesus
00:15:55.300 is the son of david he is the messiah he is the king but you also you can't just say he's king
00:16:03.500 and i'm kind of kingly too he's king and i'm of his kingly lineage and you know he's like he's
00:16:11.760 a notch above me but you know just a little because i'm i'm really special too no you're 0.71
00:16:17.160 going to hell if you do not repent of that attitude you are going to hell there are two
00:16:23.420 things here a recognition of his identity king and a recognition of their identity
00:16:30.340 the plea to mercy is a subtle indirect acknowledgement not just of christ identity
00:16:38.740 but their own identity you're son of david and i'm a son of hell
00:16:44.060 Now, I don't deserve anything. 0.98
00:16:50.640 Nothing.
00:16:52.260 I don't deserve anything from you.
00:16:55.720 You're the son of David, the Messiah, the King,
00:16:58.800 and I don't deserve a scrap.
00:17:04.240 But I know that in you are oceans of mercy.
00:17:11.040 And so I'll appeal not to the basis of my merit, but I'll appeal to your character, which is filled with mercy.
00:17:21.760 Son of David, have mercy on me. Son of David, have mercy on me.
00:17:27.280 So that's first spiritual sight belonging to those who were physically blind as a further indictment and irony against the religious rulers of that day who claimed to see.
00:17:39.860 but Jesus himself said elsewhere they are the blind leading the blind and then Christ's first
00:17:47.120 piece of his identity as king and messiah we're going to get a little bit deeper here in the next
00:17:52.860 few verses but first as son of David which is a messianic title and kingly because David was king
00:17:59.400 and then lastly the appeal to his mercy and not their own merit spiritual sight Jesus as messiah
00:18:07.120 and king and the need for his mercy. Those are three sub points in that first point, verse 27.
00:18:12.960 Now let's look at verses 28 through 30. The second big idea from our text today, the test
00:18:19.540 of faith. I've written the following. Christ confronts these men with a personal and
00:18:25.320 propositional question of faith. He presents to them a personal proposition. He does not merely
00:18:34.760 asked, do you want to be healed? And that's not to say that that question would be wrong because he
00:18:40.160 literally asked that exact question. I believe in John chapter 5, the pool of Bethesda. Remember the
00:18:45.700 man who's standing by the pool waiting for an angel to come down and stir the water. But every
00:18:49.880 time something like that happens, someone else beats him and is able to get into the pool first
00:18:54.160 because he's lame and there's no one to help him. And Jesus actually asked that guy explicitly, do
00:18:59.460 you want to be healed? Which I think there's a lot of implications from that. One of them, I think, is
00:19:05.300 do you want to be healed and therefore be responsible for what whole people are required
00:19:10.940 to do? Do you want to get a job? Right? Because you won't be able to be here begging any longer. So
00:19:17.580 there are some theological rich implications, you know, that come from Jesus asking that question.
00:19:23.780 But my point is, in our text today, he does not ask that question, but it's not to say that that
00:19:28.420 question wouldn't be wise or profound or necessary in other instances because he literally quite
00:19:33.340 literally asked that question elsewhere namely John chapter 5 with the man at the pool of Bethesda
00:19:39.200 but in our text today that's not the question that Jesus presents instead of asking do you
00:19:44.900 want to be healed he's ultimately asking them do you trust my authority do you trust my power that's
00:19:52.700 what's most explicit he says do you believe I'm able to do this he knows that they want their
00:19:58.140 physical healing physical sight to be restored and the first question he asks is do you believe
00:20:03.420 that i am able to perform this miracle so it's a question a proposition um in regards to his power
00:20:10.220 but that power is ultimately rooted in his authority so it's a personal proposition asking
00:20:15.920 them do you believe that me as the son of david which you've already claimed do you believe that
00:20:22.640 as the son of David, I have authority over sickness and disability, that I have the authority to
00:20:29.760 restore your sight. The blind men answer by saying, yes, Lord. Now this is significant because now 1.00
00:20:37.860 we've gone even a step further. At first, there's already a recognition of Jesus' true identity by
00:20:45.260 using the messianic kingly title son of David. They don't just say Jesus of Nazareth, give us
00:20:52.520 our sight, but they say, son of David, have mercy on me. But now it's even deeper. It's no longer
00:20:59.420 just messianic and kingly. It's now recognizing divinity. They're now using a title, namely Lord,
00:21:08.080 and in their reference towards Jesus with this title, they're recognizing that he's not only
00:21:13.380 son of David, nothing less, but also more that he's son of David, messianic, kingly, and divine.
00:21:21.720 He's God.
00:21:22.980 There's a recognition of His Godness,
00:21:26.220 His divinity.
00:21:27.820 They move from son of David, kingly,
00:21:29.920 to Lord, divine.
00:21:31.680 Faith, now let's talk about faith for a moment.
00:21:34.840 Faith is the instrument for this miracle.
00:21:38.660 But it is not the cause of the miracle.
00:21:41.800 Faith is the instrument,
00:21:43.480 but it is not the cause of their healing.
00:21:45.940 The power lies in Christ Himself.
00:21:48.480 the power for healing and the power for anything else for creation ex nihilo out of nothing the
00:21:57.500 power for salvation and forgiveness of sin is not rooted in faith faith is the instrument it's
00:22:04.420 as the reformers would say luther it's the empty hand that lays claim that that grasps grace so so
00:22:13.940 God's salvation and forgiveness of sins, this is a gift of grace on the basis of mercy and not on
00:22:19.360 the basis of merit. And that grace, right, we're not saved by faith. We're saved by grace through
00:22:25.580 faith. So we're saved by grace on the basis of mercy, not merit. And we lay hold of that grace,
00:22:33.340 that mercy, with the empty hand of faith. Faith is not ultimately what saves. Jesus saves. And the
00:22:43.640 salvation that Jesus provides on the basis of grace, not merit, it is ultimately picked up,
00:22:50.500 received through faith. Okay, so faith is not, it's an instrument, but it's not the cause.
00:22:59.040 It is not faith as a source, the power source that makes these men see and performs the miracle.
00:23:06.520 The power source for their healing is Jesus.
00:23:11.320 It's Jesus.
00:23:13.020 He is the one ultimately who has power over life and death,
00:23:16.180 heaven and hell, the blind and those who see,
00:23:20.420 those who are deaf, those who are lame, those who are mute.
00:23:23.360 Jesus is the power source.
00:23:26.380 Faith is the empty hand that receives this power
00:23:30.400 that comes from Christ and Him alone.
00:23:33.600 So faith is the instrument, but not the cause of their healing.
00:23:37.560 The power lies in Christ himself, not in the strength of these men's belief.
00:23:43.620 Now, if we're not careful, it would be easy for us to conclude from our text otherwise.
00:23:48.900 And so I want to break that down briefly.
00:23:51.820 Christ says specifically, this phrase, if we're not careful, could confuse us or throw us off.
00:23:56.880 Christ says, according to your faith.
00:24:00.680 Let it be done according to your faith.
00:24:03.340 This is verse 29.
00:24:05.200 Then he touched their eyes saying, according to your faith, be it done to you.
00:24:11.040 According to your faith, let the miracle happen.
00:24:14.160 Let it occur.
00:24:15.900 But Christ does not mean that the miracle should occur in proportion to the quantity of these men's faith,
00:24:22.920 but rather in accordance with the presence of true faith.
00:24:26.340 it's not may this miracle namely your sight physical sight being restored may this miracle
00:24:34.940 happen in accordance with however much quantity size of faith you possess
00:24:40.220 and because their their sight is fully restored then we're meant to assume that they had
00:24:48.160 you know large faith a a full measure of faith that's that's not what's going on
00:24:54.960 um because and you might say well how do you know that well we could look elsewhere real quick let's
00:25:01.380 let's cross reference this is mark the gospel according to mark chapter 9 verse 24 and 25
00:25:07.000 there's another instance of jesus healing and in this instance the person does not he even
00:25:14.700 acknowledges and confesses he doesn't have perfect faith he kind of has some and then kind of doesn't
00:25:23.260 Right. So this is verse 24, Mark chapter nine. Immediately, the father of the child cried out and said, I believe, help my unbelief.
00:25:34.380 And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit.
00:25:40.500 So this is a father beseeching Christ to exercise a demon from his child. 0.82
00:25:47.500 He rebuked the unclean spirit saying to it, you mute and deaf spirit, I command you come out of 0.74
00:25:55.120 him and never enter him again. And spoiler alert, that's what happens. That's exactly what happens. 0.95
00:26:02.080 Now, if Jesus healing someone in accordance with their faith meant in proportion to the quantity
00:26:09.440 of faith they possessed, then we would expect that in Mark chapter 9, verse 24 and 25, that this
00:26:15.820 demon would maybe halfway come out of this individual because the father jesus asked him
00:26:22.360 just a verse earlier jesus asked do you believe that i can do this that i can cast out the unclean
00:26:30.060 spirit that is tormenting your child and the guy is honest you got to give him that i think it's
00:26:35.700 it's admirable and honorable he answers truthfully and says yes i absolutely believe and i also
00:26:42.840 absolutely doubt at the same time. Part of me believes and part of me doesn't. And so because
00:26:49.980 he has half belief and half unbelief, he gets half a miracle, right? Wrong. No, he gets the
00:26:56.180 whole enchilada. In fact, I love the language in verse 25 at the end. Jesus commands the unclean
00:27:02.580 spirit, says, come out of him, not halfway out, and never enter him again. So Jesus, in some sense,
00:27:09.860 even does more than what the man asked for.
00:27:12.620 He exercises the demon.
00:27:14.440 And we know from what Jesus says in other places 0.58
00:27:16.760 that a demon, when exercised from a man,
00:27:20.820 the house is then swept clean and put in order.
00:27:23.240 But if the house isn't ultimately filled,
00:27:25.480 regeneration and the spirit coming to dwell within the person,
00:27:29.080 then the house is now swept clean and put in order,
00:27:31.300 but it remains empty.
00:27:32.320 And that demon will go through waterless places,
00:27:35.980 arid places, but eventually come back,
00:27:38.400 find the house empty and bring back seven other unclean spirits worse than itself and re-embody,
00:27:46.580 refill and dwell within that same man. So the concept, my point is the concept of a demon coming
00:27:53.080 back. It's not a foreign concept. Jesus explicitly talks about it elsewhere in the gospel narratives.
00:27:59.000 But in this case, Jesus doesn't just cast out the demon, but he casts out the demon and uses his
00:28:04.260 divine authority to command that the demon never return. So not only does this guy get, not only
00:28:10.940 does he not get half of a miracle, but he gets a full exorcism, the demon fully cast out, and he
00:28:18.680 gets like an insurance plan, lifelong insurance plan for the rest of his life, that the demon's
00:28:24.280 never going to come back. I'm going to exorcise the demon completely, not partway, completely,
00:28:29.080 And I'm going to ensure that there's no more demonic oppression for your child ever again.
00:28:36.180 Pretty awesome.
00:28:37.540 And all this happens on the basis of the guy.
00:28:39.820 He gets this perfect miracle with lifelong insurance because he had perfect faith.
00:28:47.560 Right?
00:28:48.140 Wrong.
00:28:49.420 He literally says, I believe, help my unbelief.
00:28:51.880 So when Jesus says back to these two blind men in our text today,
00:28:56.100 when he says, let it be done in accordance with your faith.
00:28:59.080 That phrasing is not meant to convey,
00:29:02.420 let the miracle take place in proportion
00:29:05.360 to the amount or quantity of your faith.
00:29:09.360 That's not what that phrase means.
00:29:12.060 Let it take place in accordance to your faith.
00:29:14.760 Rather, what that means
00:29:15.960 is in accordance with the presence of true faith,
00:29:21.740 regardless of the size.
00:29:24.000 It's not the quantity of faith.
00:29:26.380 It's the quality of faith.
00:29:28.660 Is this true faith or not?
00:29:30.840 Because if it's true faith, even if it's faith, the size, quantity, so quality, true, quantity, small.
00:29:39.160 Even if it's in terms of quantity, the size of a mustard seed, it can move mountains.
00:29:45.420 Jesus doesn't tell us if you have faith the size of a mountain, you can maybe move a mustard seed.
00:29:52.400 He tells us precisely the opposite.
00:29:54.020 If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain.
00:29:59.000 If that faith is small in terms of quantity, but pure, true, genuine in terms of quality.
00:30:08.900 And what is it?
00:30:09.900 So that's what ultimately raises the real question that we should ask.
00:30:13.900 What is it?
00:30:15.100 What determines the quality, not quantity, but quality of our faith?
00:30:20.420 and what determines the quality of our faith
00:30:23.540 is not its quantity, not its size.
00:30:26.920 And it's also not the complete absence
00:30:29.760 of any doubts or questions.
00:30:33.260 How do I know my faith is of true quality,
00:30:36.540 that it's genuine?
00:30:37.600 Well, I had some doubts,
00:30:39.640 so that means the quality of my faith must be lacking.
00:30:42.500 No, that just means the quantity of your faith is lacking.
00:30:46.560 The presence of doubt, the presence of unbelief
00:30:49.720 help my unbelief, does not necessarily invalidate the quality of your faith. What makes faith
00:30:58.220 of saving quality is not its size, but rather its object. What is the object of your faith? Not the
00:31:06.840 size, but what is the object of your faith? What is your faith attached to? And the only proper answer
00:31:14.760 has to be Jesus.
00:31:17.500 If you're truly trusting in Jesus
00:31:20.220 and not Jesus fashioned
00:31:22.800 according to your own imagination
00:31:24.720 or preference,
00:31:26.740 but Jesus of the Bible,
00:31:29.300 that He's the Son of David,
00:31:30.900 Messiah, King, and Lord,
00:31:33.900 divine, He's God.
00:31:36.040 If you're trusting in Jesus
00:31:38.340 and He's the object of your faith,
00:31:41.340 however small it may be,
00:31:43.140 then the quality of your faith is true.
00:31:47.360 The quality is what matters, not the quantity.
00:31:50.340 And what determines the quality being genuine is the object.
00:31:54.320 And the object, the only proper object of our faith is Christ.
00:31:59.860 That's what the passage is getting at here.
00:32:03.440 That's what it means in accordance with your faith.
00:32:05.700 Is there the presence of any true faith?
00:32:09.140 However small it may be.
00:32:11.240 Not may the miracle happen in proportion to the size or quantity of your faith.
00:32:17.240 All right, last point, verses 31 through 34.
00:32:20.220 Deliverance.
00:32:21.080 So now we're shifting to a second miracle.
00:32:22.760 The first is a restoration of the physical side of these two blind men. 0.56
00:32:27.840 And now we're going to see Jesus exercising a demon that had caused a man to be mute. 0.66
00:32:35.040 deliverance and what immediately follows is a claim, an accusation really, of division. I've
00:32:43.120 written in your notes this, now a mute demon oppressed man is brought to Jesus, symbolizing 0.98
00:32:49.800 another picture of spiritual helplessness. So the two blind men, son of David, have mercy on us. 0.60
00:32:55.340 They're stumbling around, chasing after Jesus. All right, this spiritual helplessness is the 0.97
00:33:02.720 picture. And those who are helpless are appealing to Christ and his mercy. And they can rightly see,
00:33:10.500 spiritually speaking, that he's the only object of salvation. He's the only one who has that power,
00:33:17.060 who is the source of their healing, their salvation, their hope. Whereas those who claim
00:33:22.960 not to be helpless, but rather those who claim to be sufficient and whole, they're the ones who are
00:33:30.400 spiritually blind, that Jesus is standing right in front of them, and not only do they reject him
00:33:37.540 as Messiah, Son of David, King, and Lord, but they're now going to go, at the end of our text
00:33:44.420 here, with this second miracle, the exercising of this demon that caused a man to be mute.
00:33:50.660 The opponents and detractors of Christ are now going to go a step further, not just rejecting
00:33:55.600 Jesus, but indicting him. Not just rejecting Christ, but accusing him. Accusing him of actually
00:34:04.420 casting out demons by the prince of demons and the power of demons. A very, a very stupid 1.00
00:34:13.800 accusation. Jesus says elsewhere, we'll get to it eventually, but that a house divided against 1.00
00:34:20.080 itself cannot stand. That Satan doesn't cast out Satan. Satan does a lot of tricky things,
00:34:25.820 but that's not one of them. You guys are dumb, ultimately, is kind of how Jesus is responding. 0.99
00:34:31.060 And here's the thing. The Pharisees aren't dumb. They're wicked. They're evil. They know that this 1.00
00:34:38.260 is like they're scraping the bottom of the barrel on this one. Right. But there's so much here
00:34:44.360 because the fact that they make this accusation about Christ, there's a reason for it. It's not
00:34:49.600 random. And it's not just mere stupidity. The reason why they make this accusation is because 1.00
00:34:55.880 I think it's not explicit in the text, but implicitly what we can derive from the text here
00:35:00.960 is if they had any other excuse, they would have used it. Right? So if this was a man who did not
00:35:07.900 have like a history and two or three witnesses, his parents and neighbors and extended family
00:35:14.980 members all being able to say yeah he's actually mute and yes this is a long-term affliction and
00:35:20.700 yes like this is a truly demonic and blah blah blah if there weren't if there weren't several
00:35:27.920 parties able to validate the legitimacy of this man's plight then I don't think the Pharisees
00:35:34.760 would have jumped to by the prince of demons he cast out demons because again that's that's 0.95
00:35:40.200 It's kind of a dumb line of attack. 0.80
00:35:43.020 I think they would have said, it's a ploy. 0.99
00:35:45.620 It's a trick, right?
00:35:47.360 It's smoke and mirrors.
00:35:49.920 This was just set up.
00:35:51.720 They would have used something else.
00:35:53.260 The reason why they're scraping the bottom of the barrel here
00:35:56.680 is because they have to.
00:36:00.100 Because the power of Jesus that validates ultimately His identity,
00:36:04.320 His person as the Messiah, as the King, as the Son of God,
00:36:08.780 is so on display, so clear, so unavoidable, so undeniable, that they now have to get into weird,
00:36:19.240 twisted pretzel theology in order to discount him. Well, okay, we know that this guy's really
00:36:25.980 demon-possessed, so we can't deny that. And we know that the demon really was just cast out.
00:36:31.780 We can see that. And we know it's not smoke and mirrors. It's not a sleight of hand. It really is
00:36:37.480 a spiritual power so what do we have left uh well he did it by demonic spiritual power that's that's
00:36:44.200 okay yeah we'll go with that they're going with that because it's all they've got and so ultimately
00:36:49.260 here's the here's the point going all the way back to the introduction of the sermon christ
00:36:53.420 divine authority is licits saving faith in some and heart and unbelief in others it's vital that
00:36:59.040 we keep in mind that the miracles of jesus are not merely acts of compassion this man oppressed by
00:37:04.800 demons. He's mute, right? He's in a difficult situation. Jesus is leaving that torment out
00:37:12.140 of compassion. Yes, all that's there. It's nothing less than that, but it's more than that, namely
00:37:17.700 this. The miracles of Christ serve as divine revelations that demand faith and expose unbelief.
00:37:26.840 And in the exposing of unbelief, it's not just, oh, this person just doesn't believe in Jesus.
00:37:34.800 Where you find unbelief, you will also always find hostility to Christ.
00:37:44.200 So it's not just, it's not unbelief that's somehow amoral.
00:37:49.900 The person just doesn't believe, you know, they just don't believe in God.
00:37:52.800 But they're actually, you know, a really good person.
00:37:54.760 And, you know, and they want to believe in God, but they just, you know, they just don't.
00:38:00.840 Enough sufficient evidence just hasn't ever been presented for them.
00:38:04.640 this poor person but but they're really a great person and they're really kind and they're really
00:38:09.140 compassionate no no wherever you find true unbelief and only unbelief right because remember what we
00:38:16.960 looked at earlier mark chapter 9 24 and 25 i believe help my unbelief even the christian will
00:38:22.980 wrestle with degrees in various times and in various arenas degrees of unbelief but what the
00:38:29.580 Christian always has, not by, by their own strength, not, not solo bootstrapia. It's not
00:38:35.460 that they pull themselves up, you know, but it's not, it's not their doing, but because faith is
00:38:39.980 a gift. It's not a work of man that is conjured up by our own ability and strength, but rather
00:38:45.720 faith is a gift that is granted by God. So for any Christian that has been given the gift of faith,
00:38:51.860 no matter how small, if that faith came from God, then it's quality, not quantity, but quality,
00:38:58.080 as we've already established, will be genuine because it will have as its object, its sole
00:39:03.320 object, the person and work of Jesus Christ. And that faith in quantity may be small, but in quality
00:39:09.940 is genuine. But there may still be surrounding genuine faith that trust and grasp Jesus.
00:39:18.620 There may be surrounding it some measure of doubt and unbelief. But for the person who only has
00:39:23.280 unbelief. There is no presence of genuine saving faith whatsoever. For that person who only has
00:39:29.840 unbelief, it's not merely an intellectual lack of belief in Jesus, but it is also a moral posture
00:39:38.460 of hostility towards Jesus. And you have to see those as two peas in a pod, always coming as a
00:39:45.760 pair. All right, so I'm going to give an example because I like to be practical. I'm going to give
00:39:50.900 an example i'm not trying to be rude we the church should have never partnered with james lindsey
00:39:59.400 an atheist who hates god because it's not just that he just doesn't have the evidence and just
00:40:07.520 intellectually doesn't believe but morally he is hostile towards the church and we have seen that
00:40:14.260 in real time because what he wanted to preserve was he wanted to fight off you know in woke wars
00:40:21.680 one he wanted to to fight off you know radical leftism so that he could continue as a white man
00:40:29.720 to have a job but the moment that it went further right that the christian church went further and
00:40:36.680 said actually we don't want to just fight off radical leftism but i think kind of liberalism
00:40:43.280 in general that it's all bad we don't like any of it we want to get rid of all of it and we want to
00:40:49.580 go back to historic christianity and and politically and culturally speaking a paleo
00:40:55.500 the minute that that conversation started happening james lindsey was out and all of
00:41:01.880 his weaponry and all of his attacks went on the church so he partnered with the church for 15
00:41:08.840 minutes because he had a practical surface level, not because of love for God, but there was just
00:41:15.540 a surface level temporal incentive that for a brief window, a brief moment he shared with
00:41:21.840 Christians. But then the moment that Christians said, no, but we want to be even more obedient
00:41:28.840 to God. Like we don't want to just stop transing kids, but we want to stop the L and the G and the 1.00
00:41:38.460 b and the whole all of it the whole alphabet we're done with all of that and the moment that 0.95
00:41:44.740 christians start having those kinds of conversations then all of a sudden james lindsey i mean 90 of
00:41:51.360 his tweets now are focused on fascism and no longer really teaming up with the church against
00:41:58.100 communism why because true unbelief every christian wrestles with doubts right we've already
00:42:06.180 established that it's the quality of faith not the quantity but for the non-christian it's only
00:42:12.440 unbelief there is no mustard seed of faith that's there present no belief no faith whatsoever and
00:42:21.400 in that case the case of the non-christian who has no belief no faith in jesus only unbelief
00:42:28.440 that unbelief is not just intellectual hindrances where i just can't quite get over the hurdles
00:42:34.320 and the obstacles to believing in a creation.
00:42:37.080 No, there's a moral piece.
00:42:41.100 Not just intellectual, I can't come to believe,
00:42:43.940 but morally, I hate Christ. 0.95
00:42:49.060 I hate Christ.
00:42:50.320 Romans chapter 8 says this,
00:42:51.460 that the mind of the sinful man
00:42:53.660 is indifferent towards God.
00:42:55.860 No, is hostile towards God.
00:42:59.280 It does not submit to His law, nor can it.
00:43:02.380 so for the person who is embodied solely by unbelief and there is no saving faith whatsoever
00:43:11.320 that person will not just be indifferent towards god that person will be hostile towards god
00:43:17.600 and by virtue being hostile towards god that person will be hostile to anyone who is for god
00:43:25.420 to God's people.
00:43:28.920 In other words,
00:43:29.820 in God's providence,
00:43:31.200 in His kindness,
00:43:32.360 it's often a good litmus test.
00:43:35.020 Right?
00:43:35.220 If you find yourself,
00:43:36.180 you're a Christian pastor
00:43:37.080 and James Lindsay likes you, 1.00
00:43:40.080 then you suck. 1.00
00:43:43.060 You're a bad Christian pastor. 1.00
00:43:47.340 He hates God, 1.00
00:43:49.300 but he really likes you.
00:43:53.720 There's your sign.
00:43:55.420 by God's grace, and nothing to boast into myself, but by God's grace and his grace alone,
00:44:01.060 I have passed that test sufficiently. I am thoroughly hated by James Lindsay. All right,
00:44:07.500 that's enough. Okay, continuing. So I've written this in your notes. A mute demon-oppressed man
00:44:13.040 is brought to Jesus, symbolizing another picture of spiritual helplessness and bondage. Jesus cast 0.73
00:44:19.220 out the demon without need of any spiritual ritual or struggle. Notice it's not just that
00:44:25.340 Jesus exercises the demon, but he does it. The manner in which he does it is with a word. It
00:44:31.440 demonstrates absolute authority. Now the crowds, not just the individual who has now
00:44:39.060 experienced relief from his prior demonic oppression, but all the surrounding crowds
00:44:44.780 are marveling, acknowledging not only the degree
00:44:48.640 that Jesus has such high authority and power
00:44:53.280 that he's able to cast out a demon by merely a word,
00:44:57.640 but they're also recognizing,
00:44:59.080 this is the very end, we're almost done,
00:45:00.760 they're also recognizing the uniqueness,
00:45:02.760 not just the high degree of Jesus' authority and power,
00:45:05.120 but the uniqueness of Christ's power.
00:45:07.340 And they say this explicitly by saying,
00:45:11.160 never was anything like this seen in Israel.
00:45:14.680 Now, when you look at the Old Testament, you look at Elijah and Elisha, right?
00:45:19.580 Jesus raises the dead, which is incredible.
00:45:22.900 But that's actually something that had been done.
00:45:26.200 Now, it wasn't common.
00:45:28.200 It wasn't prevalent.
00:45:29.820 But it is something that had been done.
00:45:31.520 One of the most, in terms of Jesus' miracles, right?
00:45:34.100 So I'm explicitly just speaking of his miracles for a moment.
00:45:37.380 In terms of Jesus' miracles,
00:45:40.040 the most unique miracles that Jesus performed
00:45:43.340 were the exorcisms.
00:45:46.020 His casting out of demons. 0.96
00:45:48.620 And that's why the Pharisees
00:45:50.020 really struggle with this one.
00:45:52.180 That's why you see them
00:45:53.220 in terms of their excuses.
00:45:55.460 No, he's still bad. 0.96
00:45:56.380 Jesus is still bad. 0.91
00:45:57.300 Listen to us. 0.98
00:45:57.840 He's really bad.
00:45:58.500 You find them scraping the bottom of the barrel
00:46:01.740 the most when it comes to Jesus' miracles
00:46:04.800 specifically that are exorcisms of demonic powers, right?
00:46:10.280 You don't see them scraping the bottom of the barrel with healing
00:46:13.200 because healings had happened before.
00:46:16.660 Again, not common, but also not never, right?
00:46:23.400 There had been healings.
00:46:25.240 There had even been resurrections.
00:46:29.100 But what's really unique are these demonic exorcisms.
00:46:34.800 And when Jesus does this, it shows he doesn't just have authority over nature to calm winds
00:46:41.460 and waves, to expel disease and disability, or even authority over nature as it pertains
00:46:49.100 to life and death, revivification, bringing someone back to life, as we saw last week
00:46:54.880 in our text.
00:46:56.100 But here we see that Jesus has authority over even cosmic powers, not just nature, but he
00:47:02.860 has authority over principalities and princes and demonic powers over Satan himself. And perhaps
00:47:11.580 these types of miracles, Jesus casting out demons, speak to his divinity the clearest
00:47:18.840 in a way that is most difficult for his opponents to argue with. And so that's why we see them
00:47:26.800 coping and seething right their response is uh there's a lot of there's a lot of cope on this
00:47:35.140 one right well he casts out demons by the prince of demons i mean this is pure copium i mean they
00:47:41.280 just they don't know what to say they've got no excuse left and so they're really really scratching
00:47:46.540 the bottom of the barrel because this particular type of miracle puts on display in such an
00:47:52.760 inarguable undeniable way that Jesus is not just a prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel or
00:48:00.600 Elijah or Elisha but that he is the God man never was anything like this seen in Israel the crowd
00:48:09.640 even the crowd is acknowledging imagine you're one of the Pharisees standing by and the crowd's like 0.94
00:48:14.240 this is incredible no one's ever done anything like this especially you guys over there Pharisees
00:48:19.500 You've never done anything like this, you know, and so the Pharisees are enraged.
00:48:24.800 I mean, Jesus is just humiliating them publicly in real time.
00:48:31.300 So the Pharisees once again reject Christ by saying, oh, yeah, well, OK, this is unique.
00:48:37.260 We've never seen anything like this in Israel either. 1.00
00:48:39.220 That's true.
00:48:39.760 But he cast out demons by the prince of demons.
00:48:43.980 And we'll explore further in our next text, but we're going to leave it there today.
00:48:48.400 But we should recognize that the Pharisees are now desperate.
00:48:54.300 And this is true for anyone, for anyone who's not in Christ, I should say.
00:49:01.740 That rejecting Jesus is, in most cases, systematic, progressive.
00:49:09.860 And what I mean by that is the rejection of Christ,
00:49:12.900 what it requires of you at each stage
00:49:18.180 as God reveals more and more of Himself
00:49:21.300 is it requires a progressive compounding rejection.
00:49:28.040 That as life goes on,
00:49:30.900 you will have to get more and more intentional
00:49:36.120 in suppressing the truth, this is Romans 1,
00:49:40.300 in your deeds of unrighteousness.
00:49:42.900 Like at first, it might just be, well, I don't know if there's really enough evidence.
00:49:47.440 And so, you know, and it's just a little suppression.
00:49:50.580 But over the course of a lifetime, sin is progressive.
00:49:57.040 What I mean by that is you're not able to just quarantine sin and say,
00:50:02.180 I'm only going to sin in this area and to this degree, and I'm just going to maintain that.
00:50:06.560 No, no, no. That's not how sin works.
00:50:08.940 Sin is cancerous. It grows.
00:50:12.900 It develops.
00:50:14.580 It compounds.
00:50:16.480 And so too, the deepest, the root of all sin,
00:50:20.040 rejection of Christ, hostility towards Christ,
00:50:23.620 unbelief in Christ,
00:50:24.960 so too, sin compounds and so does the root sin of unbelief.
00:50:29.980 And what it will require of you,
00:50:31.640 if you will not confess your sins
00:50:33.680 and trust in Christ and repent of your sin,
00:50:36.480 what it will require over the lifetime
00:50:39.060 of an unrepentant sinner 0.99
00:50:40.760 is a compounding, ever-compounding,
00:50:43.080 ever-increasing rejection,
00:50:45.220 hostility, and unbelief
00:50:47.100 towards Christ. 0.80
00:50:48.740 And we see that in real time with the Pharisees.
00:50:52.180 Ah, we don't know if he's
00:50:53.200 really a prophet.
00:50:55.040 Ah, he doesn't have two or three witnesses.
00:50:57.860 Ah, you know, other people have done
00:50:59.200 this too.
00:51:01.100 He's the prince of demons, casting out demons
00:51:03.160 by the power of demons.
00:51:04.320 I mean, they lose it.
00:51:06.420 They lose it.
00:51:08.120 And that's how sin works.
00:51:10.760 That is how unbelief works.
00:51:12.940 The further and further you resist God,
00:51:15.300 the harder and harder your heart becomes.
00:51:19.240 It is a frightening and dangerous, perilous thing
00:51:23.660 to reject revelations of Christ.
00:51:28.560 Where God gives grace and a revelation of His deity,
00:51:33.140 a revelation of His identity, who He is,
00:51:35.840 a revelation of His mercy, His kindness, His compassion.
00:51:38.800 wherever God is is dispilling grace revelations that grace needs to be quickly and humbly
00:51:49.040 received because the more grace you resist the more condemnation and damnation you are storing up
00:51:57.460 this is why Jesus says elsewhere in the gospel narratives when he's speaking of of towns in
00:52:04.160 Israel, Tyre and Sidon. He says, woe to you. Bethsaida, these kinds of towns where he walked
00:52:14.700 among them, ministered in them. Woe to you, for I tell you the truth, it will be more tolerable
00:52:21.360 for Sodom and Gomorrah on that day of judgment than it will be for you. Why? Because with great
00:52:28.620 grace, comes great responsibility to respond to that grace. Jesus is saying it'll be worse. Your
00:52:38.340 judgment will be worse to these Jewish towns. Your judgment will be worse on that final day
00:52:45.280 because I was here. You had a greater outpouring of grace. To you were the prophets.
00:52:55.540 To you was the law given.
00:52:58.920 And to you, the specific generation,
00:53:01.880 not just your fathers and ancestry,
00:53:04.300 but to you, the specific generation,
00:53:06.160 you got me.
00:53:08.300 You had the prophets.
00:53:09.500 You had the law.
00:53:11.700 Your fathers witnessed the ten plagues in Egypt
00:53:15.040 and the parting of the Red Sea.
00:53:16.480 And now you have me, the God-man in the flesh,
00:53:19.840 performing miracles, preaching sermons,
00:53:22.420 and you're still rejecting?
00:53:24.540 with a greater degree of revelation of grace,
00:53:29.760 it requires, if you don't answer that call,
00:53:32.920 it requires a greater degree of hostility
00:53:35.680 and suppression of the truth.
00:53:38.540 And that will invoke a greater degree of judgment.
00:53:43.800 That's the idea.
00:53:46.500 And the Pharisees are a stark,
00:53:49.120 and should be for us,
00:53:50.840 a startling example of that.
00:53:52.820 let your response to the pharisees i'll end with this let your response to the pharisees be
00:53:59.760 fear and trembling not arrogance or boasting like the two blind men their response is son of david 0.85
00:54:09.420 have mercy on me and so too our response should be the pharisees are terrible and we don't need 0.80
00:54:16.600 sugar-coated they're terrible god let it never be said of me please continually not just once upon
00:54:24.760 a time not just a one-time thing but but again and again soften my heart daily bring me low
00:54:32.020 keep me humble let me always let my plea always be have mercy on me not entitlement not merit
00:54:43.140 but mercy son of David have mercy on me let's pray father thank you for your word bless it
00:54:49.780 to your people and bring about great glory to yourself we pray this in Jesus name amen