865. Multitudes and Miracles

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything, so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel Platform.

Today's speaker will be Dr. Bob Jones III, member of Bob Jones University. Before I take us to the passage of the morning, I have a question for you. Do you think, could you possibly imagine that something which would happen on campus today, a few of you gathering together to pray, or some impression God made on your heart as you read his word or you hear his word, might possibly change the course of a nation or at least have a big party 60 or 70 years from now? Do you think it could happen and start today on campus through your prayer or through the burden God puts on your heart that you carry forward? I just got back from Korea, as was mentioned, and I saw two evidences of that. I want to talk to you a minute about it because what I proposed as possible has actually happened in Korea. It goes back to about 1952.

I want to put something on the screen to show you right now. You can't see it well, but the larger picture up in the left corner is a man who got his doctorate here in 1952, Dr. Wong. He went to Korea and started a Bible college. It's now Korean Bible University.

They have about 1,600 students. It's patterned very much after B.J. Yoo, the present president, is the son of Dr. Wong. He did not come here, but he said, my father, when he got here and started this college, wanted it to be just like B.J.

Yoo. I evidenced there when I went to preach in chapel that there are so many things going on there that made me feel almost like I was back at B.J. Yoo, but the four pictures down the side and across the bottom and up the right side are students that Dr. Wong got together and said, let's start praying for Korea. On the top it says, come over to Korea and help us. Many of those 12 actually did that.

They've now retired or passed on. But it started with a man's vision here, and he got some students together and said, share the vision with you, and we'll go back and see what God might do in Korea. That's been a powerful influence that school has for God in the scene of conservative Christianity in Korea.

I want to shift gears and talk about something else that I saw. A man named Billy Kim came here as a 15-year-old academy student in the mid-1950s. He was sent here by an American G.I.

who was not even saved at the time. Billy was a young kid who was a houseboy in a barracks, an Army, U.S. Army barracks during the Korean War, and this G.I. saw something in the boy that he thought was commendable, and he said to the boy, do you want to go to high school in America? And he said, well, I could never do that.

Well, he said, go ask your mother. He came back the next day and said, mother said it's okay. So he came.

He was unsaved. His college roommate led him to Christ in the second week of his presence here. He got called to preach here. He went on to seminary here. He found his wife here. He went back in the late 1950s.

He said, when I came back here, there was not one single paved road that I knew anything about in all of Korea, just dirt, not that long after the devastation of the Korean War. Today, among other things, Billy Kim has a large radio ministry. It's called the Far Eastern Gospel Broadcasting Corporation. Their headquarters in downtown Seoul, they occupy a $40 million building. They have 13 radio stations across South Korea broadcasting the gospel.

They have two powerful, very powerful FM transmitters. They cover North Korea with the gospel, all of China with the gospel, Japan with the gospel. And one day I was walking through their little memorabilia display of the history of that ministry, and the first placard I saw said something like this. Mr. Tom Watson, businessman, on a visit to Bob Jones University encountered a student named, forget his first name, Mr. Wong, the same one that you saw in that poster. And Mr. Wong said to him, there needs to be a radio presence for God in Korea. Why don't you come over here and start it? God impressed on Mr. Watson's heart here on the campus through that casual conversation that that's what he should do.

He went, started a radio station, the present derivative of which is the Far Eastern Gospel Broadcasting that has such influence all through Asia. The vision for it started right here with a conversation. So I ask you, do you think it might be possible that today or tomorrow, one day while you're still a student, God might put a burden on your heart and you might get some of your friends together and start praying about that burden and they may catch that burden. And who knows what God might do for some nation if the Lord has not come between now and then 60, 70, 80 years from now some nation as Korea might be heavily influenced with the Gospel because of something that happens here. It's pretty exciting to think about I believe.

You might want to think about it. Open your Bibles please to Matthew chapter 8. This is a chapter that begins with multitudes and miracles.

Would you follow please as I read? When he, Jesus, was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. Behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Jesus put forth his hand and touched him, saying, I will be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

By the way, I'll stop right there a minute. Why did Jesus say this to him? We can't know for sure, but there are commentators who believe, and I would agree with them, that it's because healing was not his main reason for being in the world. Of course, it was his own propitiatory death that he came and his resurrection.

That was the main thing. But at least he said to this man, apparently, until you have that cleansing at the temple, which is required to verify that you are indeed free of your leprosy, the priest had to verify that. Don't say anything about what I've done. He didn't want the focus evidently to be upon his healing ministry. I continue with verse five. When Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came a centurion beseeching him, saying, Lord, my servant lies at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. And the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof, but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say unto this man, go, and he goeth to another, come, and he cometh to my servant.

Do this and do that. When Jesus heard it, he marveled and said unto them that followed, verily, I say unto you, I have not found such great faith anywhere in Israel. This is the chapter and the ninth chapter with it also, chapters of multitudes and miracles. I don't have time to go through and point out all the past, all the verses in chapters eight and nine that talk about the multitudes that followed Jesus. Everywhere he went, he drew a big crowd who listened to him pray. But to me, the really important and necessary focus of all of this is not the multitude.

It's not surprising they followed him because the scripture says he spoke as no man ever spoke. But it's his willingness to stop his speaking and interact personally with an individual who is a part of the multitude. This student body is a multitude. We have wonderful visitors here.

We're very happy to have these days as well, part of the multitude of BJU. When Jesus looks down here this morning, he doesn't see a congruent, a group of a mob, a multitude. He sees you and you and you and you and each of you and the God who knows the stars and calls them all by name.

Think about that. How many names do you know? Billions upon billions upon billions and trillions of stars. He has them all named. Each star is important to him.

Think about that. But how much more important each soul. He didn't die for the stars.

He died for your soul and my soul. I want us to think about what this chapter tells us regarding the miracles from within the multitudes. The first one we're introduced to is a leper. Leprosy in the Bible times was incurable and it still is mostly but there are some helps now. But it was incurable, a disease. He couldn't do anything for himself.

The doctors may have tried but it was useless. All you could do for a leper was segregate him from the family that he had and friends he had. He was an outcast. He had to stay out remote because it was such a contagious disease. To touch a leper would most likely make you lepers. Leprosy was a horrible thing. Skin turned white and flaky. Body parts began to disappear.

Fingers would become stubs and toes would disappear and little by little the individual would die in painful death. The leper came to Jesus and said, Lord I just want to be clean. You and I have an incurable disease. It's called sin. And every sinner just needs to be clean.

That's what the blood of Christ that we sang about today is all about. There are just two kinds of people here. Cleansed lepers and uncleansed lepers. Cleansed sinners and uncleansed sinners. Just two kinds of people.

Which are you? The Lord Jesus said in the sixth chapter of John, if you come to me, you will never hunger again. If you believe in me, you will never thirst again.

What's the key to this? Come to me. This leper, it says, came to Jesus.

There were other lepers who never came to him and therefore nothing was ever done by him for them. The world is full of sinners, multitudes of sinners, but only some will come to Jesus of their own volition because they know they have a hopeless disease called sin. And only Jesus can cure that. Have you come? He that cometh to me, the Lord says, I won't cast out.

The key is in the coming. My grandfather as a boy, 12 years old, got saved under a brush arbor. It was an evangelistic effort. They met outside, put fronds of trees over the top and made some crude benches.

And there would be meetings every night outside under this pavilion. He got saved the night. He said that the preacher was preaching from Mark chapter five on the paralytic man that four friends, each holding a corner of a stretcher, brought this man to Jesus, could not get into the house where Jesus was, went up and tore the roof apart and let this man down at the feet of Jesus. And my granddad said, I got an impression on my heart that night that if I could just get to Jesus, I'd be all right. And so it is with you who yet are unclenched lepers. If you can just get to Jesus, you'll be all right.

Now this man could not come. His friends in essence came for him, brought him to do what he couldn't do for himself. Nothing's going to be helpful to your leprosy called sin. If you just depend on your church to help you, if you have no individual desire of need and understanding of helplessness and hopelessness, if you don't get to Jesus, nothing can be done for you.

The knowledge of Jesus can't help you. It's the coming to Jesus and saying, God be merciful to me. This man came, wanted mercy. He wanted healing. He wanted Jesus to do something he couldn't do. He wanted to be clean and only Jesus could make him clean.

At the very end of the book of the Revelation, in the 22nd chapter, it closes with, I think four verses from the end, it closes with these words, whosoever will let him come and take of the water of life freely. He's not going to turn anyone away who will come. I don't find any evidence anywhere in the gospels where one person who came with a need ever got turned away. Because he came into the world to seek and to save those who are lost.

He was there on a mission for those individuals who would come. Your dire condition today is because you haven't come and don't want to come and only the Holy Spirit can do anything about that. And so you have friends praying for you. You have parents at home praying for you.

God, open the heart of my son or daughter. They're desperately lost. Their life is miserable. They are in a good place and they're miserable every day. They're discouraged every day. They're despondent.

They've dug a hole for themselves and they can't get out of it. Lord, lift them up out of that hole and save their soul. There are people praying for you right now, even maybe during this chapel time to that end, that you would come. Your parents have pleaded with you.

Your church members and friends have pleaded with you. Friends here have pleaded with you, urgently pressing the claims of Christ upon you. You would not come. Do you realize the only people in heaven are lepers who came to Christ with their incurable sin and disease and got saved? Do you realize that hell is full of multitudes who would not come? Multitudes in heaven are individuals making up that multitude who did come.

Hell is full of multitudes, individuals who would not come. And then look at verse five. Jesus entered into Capernaum, the city where he spent really most of his ministry life, and a centurion came beseeching him. A centurion, as you know, was a lesser Roman officer, maybe an NCO, a noncommissioned officer. He had people above him in the military structure that he was answerable to, and he had a hundred men under him that were answerable to him.

Centurion was a minor officer with a hundred men under him. And he said to the Lord, if I tell them to do this or do that or to go or come, they do. They're under my authority, as I am under authority. Everybody in this room is under some authority and will be all your life.

The administration and faculty are under the authority of the board of trustees, for instance. There came a centurion, a supplicant, came beseeching, came begging Jesus. We have a leper here. We just talked about him.

And we have a beggar here. He wasn't a street beggar. He had some status, though not a lot probably, in the Roman military structure, but he had some authority.

He said so. He wasn't an outcast like the leper, but he came in behalf of somebody who also had an incurable disease in Jesus' time. His servant. And he said, my servant can't come. Palsy took two forms.

It was either paralytic or it took the form of convulsive, unrestrained tremors that couldn't be resolved by medicine. And so this servant was helpless. And the centurion came begging Jesus to please heal this servant. You know, it would have required some humility on this centurion's part. He represented Rome and all of its power, and they were in authority in Israel, and they were hated in Israel, and nobody wanted to get near them.

They represented the enemy. And this man came to Jesus, came in public. He was not ashamed to be seen in public with Jesus in spite of all the political circumstances. And he said, would you heal the impossible disease that my servant has? And the Lord responded to him and said, I will heal him. God responds to beggars.

Beggars who will come, as the centurion did, and beg Jesus for a miracle that only Jesus could perform. And do you notice here what Jesus said to him or said about him in verse 10? He said, I have not found such great faith in all of Israel. This was a Gentile. The Lord didn't come unto Gentiles. He came unto his own. His own received him not, but to as many as received him.

To them gave he the power to become the sons of God. Did you notice he didn't go to this centurion's home? He didn't come to Gentiles. He didn't go to his home. But he said, my healing power will go to your home.

You go back to your home. Jesus loved Gentiles too, but his time, like we have now for Gentiles and Jews to both be part of his church, had not come at this point. It was a wonderful thing. He applauded this. He didn't applaud the faith of the leper, but he applauded the faith of the centurion.

I find that very remarkable. Jesus said, good for you. Your faith is wonderful.

Here he was applauding the enemy in the hearing of whoever was gathered there. He's doing a good thing. He's a good man. He has faith you don't have. I came to you. He has faith you don't have.

And I'm honoring that. So my friends, what's keeping you from being a beggar and say, God be merciful to me, a sinner. That's what the thief on the cross said. He was a beggar hanging on that cross. He wasn't going to die. He wasn't dying for being a beggar. He was dying for some other crime that the Romans found him guilty of.

Thievery perhaps, murder, sedition. I don't know all that he was involved with, but they said he needs to die. He didn't die for being a beggar, but while he was dying, he became a beggar. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. That was the saving petition that caused Jesus to say, you'll be with me there today. I'll honor that request and honor that faith. One day the publican people despised by the holier than thou Pharisees, the religious establishment riffraff said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

The Pharisee went away bragging about his self-righteousness. The one who came to Jesus and said, I'm coming as a beggar. Be merciful to me and save me.

He got Jesus' attention. You can get Jesus' attention today, but you've got to be a beggar first. You've got to say, nothing can help me but you, Lord.

I come on your terms. I'm asking you to save my soul. I did that when I was 13 years old. I begged Jesus one night when I couldn't sleep.

I was scared to death. Though I knew a lot about the Bible at that time, I'd been exposed to it all my life. My father was a preacher and my mother was godly.

I became acutely aware that wasn't going to do me any good when it came to needing pardon. And I said, dear God, on your terms, I come to you through the cross, through your blood shed for me there. Will you accept me a sinner? You died for me and I want to be your child. And you saved me that night. Had to be a beggar first.

Had to know I was a leper first. My religious family didn't make me anything but a disease sinner that needed Jesus' help. He can do that for you today, Father, today. There's somebody in this student body who needs to be saved. You're waiting for them to come and you promise that you won't cast them out. You'll give them the eternal life they're asking for that's in you and you alone. Lord, everybody in heaven is a miracle of the new birth. Everybody in hell is there because they refused the miracle of the new birth. I pray that somebody today would receive this miracle and be born again.

In Jesus' name, amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Bob Jones III, Chancellor of Bob Jones University. I'm Steve Pettit, President of Bob Jones University. Thank you for listening to The Daily Platform. The Bob Jones University School for continuing online and professional education offers convenient and affordable online programs. Whether you're seeking to expand your skills, pursue a passion, or develop a ministry on your own time, qualified and engaged instructors will help you reach your goals. For more information, visit scope.bju.edu or call 888-253-9833. Thanks again for listening. Join us again next week as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform.