God’s Benevolence to us as Believers: Part 1 - Live with Lon!

Welcome to Live with Lon. It's so great to be with you. We're going to dig back into John Chapter 10 today and let's pray. Shall we?

Okay. Dear Lord Jesus, thank you so much for the privilege of studying your Word. Thank you that your Word is a lamp to our path and a light to our feet and a lamp to our path.

I was warned to be careful of where the landmines are so we don't step on them in this world. So Lord Jesus, help us to take heed to your Word and use it today to encourage our spirits and lift our hearts and give us hope. And we pray all of this in Jesus' name and everybody said, come on. Amen. And what? Amen.

You got it. Now, the title of the messages for the next two weeks is God's Benevolence to Us as Believers. God's Benevolence to Us as Believers, His Kindness, His Goodness, Part 1 and Part 2.

Now, you say, wait a minute, wait a minute. You said just a couple weeks ago that you don't do topical messages and yet here you show up with a two-part topical message. No, that is not what's going on here. The sermons that I'm going to do, yes, there's two parts to this series, but it all flows out of New King James Bible of John chapter 10 verse by verse study that we've been doing. It's not a topical message that I sat down and just made up in my head and then went and found verses from the Bible to support it. No, it's verses from the Bible that just happened to connect together so that they form a nice little two-part series.

But they're all from a verse by verse exegetical expositional study of John chapter 10. Okay, but just before I do that, remember we're running, not a sermon, just a thought right now in Chicago and Seattle. I said earlier it was Atlanta, but Atlanta we did fourth quarter last year, my mistake. We're actually doing Chicago and Seattle and next quarter, praise the Lord, we plan to do Pittsburgh and Portland. Wow, it's Portland in need of the gospel, oh my God, Pittsburgh too. And we have a daily radio program in Pittsburgh where we can direct people to hear the word of God every day from us. So we do not a sermon.

Do you know what they are? Little 46 second ads that we put on secular radio, the rock station, the news station, the country station, the classical station, all of them as kind of a ding in the paint to get people to come to our site. Not a sermon.org, hear the gospel, get saved, begin growing in their walk.

And we've had some people question, do these things really work? Well, hey baby, I want to read you a letter I got. It says, dear Lon, thank you, she thanks me, this woman does for being so helpful to her sister on our Israel trip.

She wanted to visit the Holy Land for many years and you made this dream of hers come true and I want to thank you. And then she says this, around 2002, listen to this, my husband was listening to Howard Stern. Now we went and put not a sermon, just a thought on Howard Stern here in Washington. And as a matter of fact, he was actually, that station and his program were actually the very first places we put not a sermon because a lot of other stations wouldn't accept them.

It was too new, it was too visionary. They thought it was against the policy of the radio station to put stuff about Jesus on the radio. All that's changed thanks to not a sermon. But anyway, Howard Stern was like, whatever. So we went on his show. So he was listening. During the program he heard one of your not a sermon, just a thought messages. Your words really impacted him that day. And he developed a desire to learn more about the love of Christ and what it means to be a true believer.

Throughout our time in Virginia, we attended McLean Bible Church regularly. And Thomas began reading the scripture and listening to your Life of Paul series, which he loved, and began the Christian journey that I had prayed for. Thomas lost his life to cancer in 2010. But because God worked through you and not a sermon, just a thought, to make Thomas one of his own, he was able to endure his pain and suffering with grace and dignity. Thomas knew his final destination would be glorious. Words can never describe the peace I have that comes from the assurance that my husband had no doubts about his salvation.

And I just wanted you to know all of this, and with great gratitude, she signs it. Wow. Don't tell me that not a sermon, just a thought, doesn't work. Don't tell me it doesn't work.

It does. And people who are out there who have a heart to follow God and get to know God, even though they may not be following him when they hear it, often not a sermon resonates with them and starts their journey. So praise the Lord. Let's pray for what's going on in Chicago and in Seattle that God do many, many, many times over what he did with this man right here.

All right. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

Now we're going to study what? Say it with me. The Bible. Come on. The whole Bible.

Come on. And what? Nothing but the Bible. And then we're going to apply to our lives by asking our questions.

So what now? We're in John, Chapter 10, the chapter about the Good Shepherd, and we have been dissecting various parts of this chapter. But now today I want to begin that two part series, God's Benevolence to Us as Believers, and talk about two areas where God's beneficence and his kindness is just overwhelming. And the purpose of these two messages is, you know what? So often as believers, we don't rejoice the way we should in what God has done for us.

We either take it for granted or the preaching that comes at us week after week doesn't really highlight as much as it should God's incredible kindness and mercy to us. It focuses on other things or whatever. But the purpose of this two part series is to get us to remember, to stir up our remembrance as Peter said. And so even though you may know some of the things we're going to talk about in these messages, hey, so what?

We're supposed to go back over. The Bible's a limited corpus. There's not there's not an unlimited amount of new information in the Bible.

We're to go back over it and encourage our hearts. So our message today, John Chapter 10. Let me read to you the verses that we have for today after Jesus tells him about him being the Good Shepherd. Verse 20. Many of the people in the crowd said he has a demon and is mad.

Why do you listen to him? And others said, these are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? Referring back, at least in part, to John Chapter nine, where Jesus opened the eyes of the man born blind, something the man born blind said had never been heard of in the history of the world. Now, it was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem, Hanukkah. So this was roughly December in our calendar and it was winter, right?

Yeah, sure. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then the Jews surrounded him and said to him, how long do you make us doubt? If you are the Christ, if you are the Messiah, which is what Christ means, the anointed one, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you plainly and you didn't believe. You do not believe the works that I do in my father's name. They bear witness of me. But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. As I said to you, that's our verses for today. And what does Jesus say in these verses? He says, I told you I'm the Messiah.

You're not willing to believe what I told you. So if you don't believe me because of what I'd say, believe me because of the works, which they just referred to, him opening the eyes of the blind. But there were so many others raising people from the dead, like the widow of Nain's son and like Lazarus, which he's going to do in Chapter 11 here, and Jairus' daughter, all the healings that he did.

You know, on and on and on. Peter's mother-in-law and the woman who touched his robe and had a bleeding disorder and on and on and on. Jesus said, if you don't believe me because of what I say, believe me because of the works. Just as the people said, look up in verse 21, can a demon open the eyes of the blind? Or as the guy in John Chapter 9 said, Jesus has to be from God.

Who else can do these kind of works? Now, this is the point that I want to make to you today, that Jesus did so many miracles in his three-year public ministry. We've talked about this, how only 31 days of Jesus' public ministry are in the Gospels. And this is why John said if we wrote down everything he did in the other 35 months, all the books in the world perhaps wouldn't be able to include them. Jesus did not do these miracles in a séance or in a back room. Paul says when he talks to King Agrippa in Acts Chapter 26, he says these things were not done in a corner. They were done in public for everybody to see. As I said to you a few weeks ago, at the end of this three-year ministry of Jesus, we can assume and be pretty sure that everybody in Israel and even in some of the Gentile lands around that had either seen one of Jesus' miracles or had heard about them from an eyewitness who was there and saw them. So, this is why Jesus said, my gosh, if you're not going to believe me for the words, believe me because of the miracles. Now, that brings up the question for today.

Why didn't everybody do this? I mean, this is just logical. You know, I mean, if I walked into a place and someone was claiming to be from God, I would be skeptical if they said I'm from God. But my friends, if they heal the blind and make the lame to walk and open the mouth of people who weren't able to speak and cast out demons and heal every sort of disease. Wow. OK. Now, and rise from the dead, raise people from the dead, rise from the dead themselves.

All right. Now I've got empirical proof that they probably are from God. Does that seem that complicated? I mean, I think that's what any logical thinking person would do. So, folks, what's wrong with these people? Are they not logical? Are they not intelligent? Are they not thinking people?

What's wrong with them? That they they didn't all believe the rabbis, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Roman soldiers who had seen some of this, all the people of Israel. Why wasn't this like a complete turning of the nation of Israel to Jesus after all that he had done? It doesn't make sense, does it? Well, something obviously else, something else is obviously going on. It's not just a matter of them looking at this and logically saying, oh, he must be from God. Something else has got to be going on. Right. There's got to be some other variable at work in all of this to explain why these people didn't all turn to God.

To the contrary, they became more stiltified in their resistance of Jesus. What's going on? Well, we want to talk about that right now. What else?

What's going on here? It's very simple, my friends. Look with me in Second Corinthians, Chapter four. Here's a couple of verses that we need to take much greater cognizance of. But then we then I think many of us do look at this verse three, Second Corinthians, Chapter four.

Paul says, But even if our gospel is veiled, even if it is hidden, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In whom? Watch this. The God of this age.

Stop. Who is that? Well, the God of this age is not Almighty Jehovah God. He's the God of every age. Who is Paul talking about here? Talking about Satan. The God of this age, the devil, has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. Watch, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. Here's the problem. These people who do not believe, even in the face of all of the miracles that Jesus did, these people who didn't believe, there was a reason they didn't believe. They were spiritually blinded by the ministry of the enemy to them. Now, I don't know exactly how this works, and so I can't explain it to you. I know Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1.

Let's put it on the screen. It says in verse 1, And you he is made alive spiritually, who were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. Who is that spirit, the prince of the power of the air? That's Satan again. And here the Bible says that we were dead, spiritually dead in our trespasses and our sins. And it connects Satan once again to our spiritual blindness and our spiritual reticence to believe in Christ. Now, how does Satan do it? How does he blind us? I mean, all right, we come into the world spiritually blind and dead in our sin, but once we see as logical people all Christ has done, how come that doesn't melt away and we all come to Christ?

I don't know. Satan, back to 2 Corinthians 4, look what it says, has blinded the minds of those who do not believe. How does he do that? Well, through many ways I can think of, he does it through higher education, which educates us beyond our intelligence and convinces us that he doesn't exist, that God doesn't exist, that there is no supernatural world. He does this through media, radio, television, the Internet, all the social media there is. He does it through our friends. He does the blinding through maybe some kind of supernatural thing that he is capable of doing. Once we make up our mind, we don't want to believe.

I don't know how he does it. The Bible doesn't say, but the Bible says he does it. He's blinded the minds of those who do not believe, for which purpose? Lest, look at the verse, the light of the gospel should shine through. That's why all these people didn't come to Christ, because Satan had blinded their minds. That's why people around us who see things, the changed life that we live, and the answers to prayer we get, and other things, that's why they don't immediately line up to come to Christ. They're blinded by the enemy. This is why we need to pray so hard and be prayer warriors for these people that we care about, our family members, our friends, our co-workers, our friends at school, or whatever, because this is not just a human fight.

This is not just a fight of information, that we've got to get enough information to them. This is a spiritual fight that God, the Holy Spirit, has got to convince people. He has to break through that blindness that the God of this world puts on people, and convince people of sin, righteousness, and judgment, the Gospel of John says, Jesus says. That's why we need to pray. That's the greatest ministry. I don't believe anybody comes to Christ, but that somebody's not praying for them for that blindness to be removed.

And so, I want to challenge us. This is how we attack the blindness of people. Do we get information to them about the Gospel? Yes. But will information take down their blindness?

No. Only the Holy Spirit will. My dear friends, as I've told you before, it only takes a thimbleful of information to come to Christ. That's all I had. But, God the Holy Spirit had removed my blindness and I could see that Jesus was who he said. Now, that's the end of our passage, but I want us to ask the question that we always ask, what is it? Come on now, ready?

One, two, three, so what? Oh yeah. And hey, thank you for the wonderful beauty of technology where I could record these sermons before I left for Egypt and you can be listening to them. And you know what we say, my friend George sent it to us. What do we say with our friend Jackie? Come on, say it with me. How sweet it is. Or as Jackie would say it, how sweet it is.

All right. Now, what's the so what? What's the takeaway? What's the not a sermon, just a thought here?

It's very simple, friends. I want to read you a little bit farther. Let's look with me in 2 Corinthians 4. Verse 4, in whom the God of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel should shine upon them.

Watch. Verse 6, for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness. Watch, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What is this verse saying? This verse is saying the reason that you are reading 2 Corinthians 4 and understanding it. The reason you are reading the Bible and understanding it. The reason you know Christ. The reason you are covered by the blood of Christ. The reason you have given your heart and life to him. The reason you are trusting what he did on the cross for you to pay for your sins. The reason you are going to heaven when you leave this earth.

And the reason you are telling other people, your children, your grandchildren, your friends, your neighbors about how they can go to heaven. The reason all of that is true is because God shined in your heart. He broke through the darkness, the Bible says. He broke through the blindness that Satan had put on you, the Bible says. He broke through the fact that you were spiritually dead. And he shone into your heart, look what verse 6 says, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ to you.

And he did the same for me. Man, I remember the process of where I was coming to Christ. And I look back now, I didn't understand it then, but I look back now and I realize that God the Holy Spirit removed the scales from my eyes.

Like the Bible says he did for the apostle Paul. Removed the scales from my eyes so suddenly I could see that Jesus was who he said. I didn't do that for myself, nor did you. I didn't deserve that, nor did you.

I didn't even ask for that, I didn't know enough to ask for that, nor did you. God did it, why? Benevolence, kindness, beneficence, mercy, graciousness, love for us. That's the only reason I know Christ today, that's the only reason you know Christ today.

If your children know Christ it's the only reason they do, if your grandchildren know Christ that's the only reason they do. Not anything we did, but the ministry of the Holy Spirit, breaking that covering of darkness all over us. You know I think of the Lord of the Rings, the movie and the book. And if you remember there's a section in the I think it's the second of the three films where they come to this king and there's this wizard who has blinded him and who has completely taken over his mind and who influences and whispers in his ear.

You remember what I'm talking about? And they have to come in and Gandalf has to break that spell that this wizard has over the king. And then the king bounces back and becomes a hero and leads his troops against the forces of evil.

You remember that? I often think when I see that scene that the king who was completely under the spell of this wizard that he is like every human being on this earth that doesn't know Christ and that wizard is Satan himself, blinding every one of us before we know Christ to the gospel. And Gandalf is like the Holy Spirit who has to come in and break that blindness, shatter it, so that we can rise up like the king and be the people that God created us to be for his glory. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Now what's the so what today? The so what is, that's why you're walking with Christ today, that's why I'm walking with Christ today.

My friends, we need to rejoice in that. Everything may not be perfect in our lives but just think here's one thing that God did for us that is perfect and that is amazing and that is undeserved but that is beautiful and benevolent. And every day we take out our Bible to read it and every day we get on our knees to pray and every day that we are aware that we're walking with the living God. We need to start off by saying thank you God so much for your for your benevolence that when I was blind you broke through so now I can see. Like the man in John chapter 9 said, I don't know about all that other stuff. One thing I know once I was blind and now I see. And for those of us who do, this brings great hope and encouragement to our lives that our God would love us this much, that our God would take an interest in us this much, that our God would care about us this much that he broke through the blindness that the God of this world had put on you and me.

Like that wizard so we could see. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. And why did God do this?

Well I don't know all the reasons but I can tell you one of them. 2 Timothy chapter 1, let me show you this and with this we're done. Verse 8, Therefore, Paul says to Timothy, Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, watch, who God who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. We didn't deserve to be freed from our blindness, watch, but according to his own purpose and grace, which he gave to us in Christ Jesus before time began. Before time began, God knew you and God decided he was removing your blindness so you could come to Christ.

Why? What does the verse say? For his own purpose and grace, but for his own purpose, you have a purpose that God created you for and for his own purpose he decided to grab you and me before time began. That's overwhelming to me, praise the Lord. You know, you say I thought you said this was the end. It is the end. I just want to close with one quick story.

Hey, whatever. You know, when I was in the process of coming to Christ, March 19, 1972, I had a dog named Noah. Some of you will remember me talking about him. He was a German shepherd, about 80 pounds, and a friend of mine had given him to me when he was a puppy. And I had raised him, he was my best friend, pretty much my only friend at the time.

Well, we were living in a house and this house was, there was about five or six of us living in this house. And Noah, as you remember the story, had the mange. His hair was falling out on a section of his body and I had used salve on it and medicine. I had gone to the vet to get ointment. Nothing was working, nothing.

It was getting worse. And you remember my testimonial that I prayed that God would heal him and in three days the mange was gone. Well, I want you to know that I told my roommates about that. I told them that I had prayed God would heal my dog and they all thought I'd lost my mind. I wasn't sure if I'd lost my mind myself, praying for a dog to God to be healed.

And yet in three days that mange was gone, the hair was back on my dog. You say, Lon, I'm sorry, but my theology just doesn't allow for God to heal a dog. Well, I don't really care what your theology allows for. I'm telling you, God's bigger than your theology or my theology.

He healed my dog. Now, here's the crazy part. The four or five roommates I had, they saw this happen. They saw it. They were living right there in their house. They witnessed it and experienced it happening. Not a one of them came to Christ. How can that be?

How can that be? After seeing that amazing miracle that convinced me and I came to Christ, why didn't it convince them and them come to Christ? The blindness that Satan puts on people is astounding. Let's pray for our friends, our relatives, our loved ones. Lord Jesus, we take a moment here to stand in awe of your benevolence to us in removing our blindness, supernatural blindness that the devil and his creatures themselves put on us, that we could never remove ourselves, but you did it in your grace and for your purposes. Even before the time began, you made up your mind you were going to do this for us. And we love you for this. Lord, I don't know how we could ever say thank you for doing something like this for us we could never do for ourselves and enabling the light of the gospel to shine through into our hearts. Help us exalt and rejoice in this every single day.

And help this give us hope about how deeply you love and care about each one of us who know you. Now Father we pray for friends, relatives, neighbors, loved ones who are blind. God, we pray that you would make us faithful prayer warriors and pray for God the Holy Spirit to deign to remove their blindness as well. Lord, we love you and we thank you in Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right, now next message we're going to talk about one other thing here in John chapter 10 where God's benevolence to us as believers is clearly shown. So we'll talk about that next week. God bless you. Thanks for praying for us while we're in Egypt and how sweet it is to walk with the Lord. Bye now. you