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[0:00] Well, if you have a Bible, please turn to Mark chapter 7. We're continuing on our Mark series, which we stopped just before Christmas.

[0:12] ! And we're just beginning to pick it back up now. What an incredible God. I don't know throughout winter if you've had an opportunity to be outside and see the stars. It's been absolutely freezing.

[0:24] But we've got a telescope in the house. And we had a wee look the other week. And we could see Jupiter with the bands on it and its moons.

[0:36] Absolutely incredible through this telescope with the naked eye. And even Saturn. It's like a little circle with a line through it. That's all we saw. But these planets.

[0:48] You know, I love that line, who imagined the sun? I don't know how it works. Nuclear fusion or something like that. Incredible. The Psalms say that God breathes out the stars.

[1:01] Just think how big a mouth you have to have to breathe out stars. God is incredible. Our God and Father in heaven, please, as we open your Word, would you speak to us by your Spirit?

[1:17] Please impress on us something of the greatness of your Son, Jesus. Help us to understand your Word. Help us to know you and glorify you in Jesus' name.

[1:32] Amen. Well, we are at the end of Mark chapter 7. Just reaching the halfway point of Mark's Gospel. And this morning we're just in verse 31 to 37.

[1:44] Let me read that now. Then he, that is Jesus, returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis.

[2:07] And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. And they begged him to lay hands on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, touched his tongue.

[2:25] And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, Ephrathah, that is, be opened. And his ears were opened, and his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.

[2:42] And Jesus charged them to tell no one, but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well.

[2:57] He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. Amen. This is God's Word. A person asked their pastor how they could hear what God is saying to them.

[3:16] And the pastor told them, Read the Bible. Unsatisfied with the answer, the person said, But is it possible to hear what God is saying audibly?

[3:28] And the pastor said, Read the Bible out loud. It's a silly illustration, but we can all underestimate the Word of God.

[3:40] This is God's Word. It's not just any other book on our bookshelf. King David said in Psalm 119, Oh, how I love your law. It's my meditation all the day.

[3:53] Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Give me life according to your Word. I love your law. I hope in your Word.

[4:04] I love your testimonies. Teach me your statutes. Give me understanding. I love your commandments above gold. Your testimonies are wonderful. Therefore, my soul keeps them.

[4:17] Can you imagine if King David saw how many printed copies of the Bible there were today? Imagine King David thought, Everyone can get a copy of this.

[4:29] But then can you imagine if he saw how many Bibles spent time sitting on a shelf gathering dust? He'd be completely baffled. Utterly baffled.

[4:41] How acquainted are you with God's Word? Do you have a reading plan for this year? If you don't, it's not too late. God's Word is life and light.

[4:53] Deuteronomy 6 is famously called the Shema because when it says, Hear, O Israel, the Hebrew word for hear or listen is Shema.

[5:06] You know that, Bill. Many of you know that. Deuteronomy 6, the Shema is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

[5:19] You shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. That's the Shema. The Jews would pray this every morning and every night. The Shema.

[5:31] And it goes on to say in Deuteronomy 6, And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise.

[5:49] All the time. How often do we talk the word of God? We talk about it when we sit in the house, when we walk by the way, when we rise, when we lay down to sleep.

[6:02] If you want to hear what God is saying to you, it's in here. Read the Bible. It's not just an ancient text.

[6:14] It is a living word. If you want to hear audibly what God is saying to you, read the Bible out loud. If you want to be able to talk about the word of God, we must be reading the word of God.

[6:29] We need to read it for ourselves. Last week, as we were thinking about the return of the Lord, I referenced the Pilgrim's Progress, a fantastic book by John Bunyan.

[6:40] And how Pilgrim, in the book, when he was warned not to fall asleep on the enchanted ground, in the story, what Pilgrim and Hopeful do in order to stay awake is they begin to talk about the things of God.

[6:56] These things help us remain alert and awake in a world that is sleepy to God. One of the themes throughout the Gospel of Mark is this theme of hearing.

[7:11] How well do you hear? Jesus said, in chapter 4, as we said, pay attention to what you hear. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

[7:22] If you hear well and listen well, more will be given to you. If we have hearing, we are often exposed to constant noise throughout our world.

[7:36] We listen to so many different things, whether it's the noise of happy grandchildren, whether it's the noise of the news on the TV, the noise of the radio in the car, the noise of your partner snoring, the noise of people in a busy area, the noise of the rain.

[7:58] Perhaps we listen to things that we would do better not to listen to. Perhaps we don't listen to things that we should listen to, like our wives and husbands and one another.

[8:14] Half the time, when we should be listening, we might be thinking about what we're going to say instead of listening. We are all human. But in our passage, we read about a man who could not hear anything at all.

[8:32] And we might think, well, this is just another miracle. We've seen this stuff in the gospel before. Just another miracle. It's amazing. Yes, it is. But it's one of countless miracles.

[8:45] How many times can we learn that Jesus is powerful and he can heal anything? But there are many things about this passage that we might be unfamiliar with. This hearing miracle, this particular one, this hearing miracle in Mark.

[9:02] This is only recorded in Mark. It's not in any of the other gospels. Why is this miracle important? Why is it important to Mark? Why is this miracle important at this particular point in the book of Mark?

[9:14] Because where he places this, where he tells us about this, is important. The context of it. This is about hearing and speaking. So what is it we need to learn in the gospel of Mark at this particular point about hearing and speaking?

[9:29] How can we hear what this is saying to us? One thing to keep in mind as we go through Mark's gospel is how Mark references and alludes to Isaiah all the time.

[9:46] For example, Mark opened his gospel by quoting Isaiah 40. And he alludes to Isaiah writing about the gospel of Jesus.

[9:57] You remember he says, at the start of his book, he says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet. Wait a minute, I didn't know Isaiah wrote about the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, but yes, he did.

[10:11] Actually, the term gospel where we find it in Isaiah, Isaiah 52, speaks about one bringing good news, publishing peace and salvation, speaking of the reign of God, and seeing the return of the Lord to Zion.

[10:27] This is what we see Jesus doing. And Mark tells us about the heavens being torn open at Jesus' baptism, which is reminiscent of Isaiah 64, Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down.

[10:44] And we see that happening, Jesus' baptism. And then in the parables in Mark chapter 4, he quotes Isaiah 6 to explain the struggle of Israel to hear and understand and see who Jesus is.

[10:56] Well, they've got eyes, but they don't see or perceive. They've got ears, but they don't hear or understand. And this theme from Isaiah, struggling to hear and see and understand, is central to Mark's gospel.

[11:12] One of the other big themes in Isaiah is that God will bring about a new exodus. Isaiah 43 says, Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters.

[11:24] That's Exodus language. And we see Jesus making a path through the waters. And then it says in Isaiah, Remember not the former things.

[11:35] Behold, I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it? God is going to bring about a new exodus. And we see Jesus doing these big water miracles and bread miracles. There are so many allusions to Isaiah and Mark.

[11:50] Isaiah is important to Mark. And understanding the connection with Isaiah is going to be helpful to understand why Mark includes the things that he does. And so we are about halfway through Mark.

[12:03] And Jesus, if you know your gospel of Mark, Jesus is soon going to confront his own disciples about hearing and seeing. He's going to ask them, Who do you say that I am?

[12:13] What do people say? And who do you say that I am? This question comes in Mark chapter 8. How well have the disciples been hearing and seeing?

[12:25] And one of the things to notice leading up to Peter's confession is that there are two instances of feeding thousands, of both of which the disciples do not understand.

[12:38] And there are two particular miracles in the run-up to this confession. One miracle is all about hearing and the other miracle is all about seeing. He heals a deaf man and he heals a blind man and then he takes his disciples aside and says, Who do you say that I am?

[12:56] Are you seeing? Are you hearing what Jesus is saying? And these miracles are supposed to illustrate the spiritual deafness and the spiritual blindness of people to understand who Jesus is.

[13:12] So as we go through Mark, one of the things to learn is that there is a blindness to Jesus. There's a blindness to what he is doing and there's a deafness to what Jesus is saying.

[13:25] How are people going to be able to see what Jesus is doing? How are people going to be able to hear and understand what Jesus is saying? In our world today, this problem still exists.

[13:38] It's a problem with humanity and thus it's a problem even with disciples. Back then and even today. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2.14, The person without the Spirit doesn't accept things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolish and he cannot understand them because they're discerned only through the Spirit.

[14:01] Jesus himself said to Nicodemus in John 3, Nicodemus was a renowned teacher of Israel. He knew thoroughly the Old Testament and yet Jesus said, If I have told you earthly things and you don't believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

[14:20] Even a renowned teacher of Israel isn't going to understand by his own human wisdom. Now this doesn't mean this little verse from Paul in Corinthians, the natural person doesn't understand spiritual things.

[14:36] That doesn't mean that some people are more spiritual than others as if we need this kind of secret revelation. It just means that your flesh and your own wisdom are of no use to understand spiritual things.

[14:51] We need Jesus to help us understand. We need Jesus to help us hear what he is saying and understand who he is. And so, what do you and I need in order to hear what God is saying to us?

[15:08] What do we need in order to understand the Scriptures? What is going to restore our hearing and restore our speaking? What is going to do that? Or rather, who is going to do that?

[15:21] Well, let's run through this short passage verse by verse and we'll see. Verse 31 gives us a description of his journey through to the Decapolis.

[15:38] Now, some scholars have accused Mark of not knowing his geography because the description of this route that Jesus takes seems rather odd. We might not notice it.

[15:48] When I was studying this passage, I discovered a problem that I didn't know existed. That apparently to the scholars who know these things were saying, well, this is just rather odd.

[15:59] Jesus, surely he wouldn't take this route. Mark must be mistaken. Well, Spurgeon says, your creed must bend to the Bible, not the Bible to your creed.

[16:15] What are the chances that Mark got it wrong and some 21st century scholar who didn't speak to any eyewitnesses got it right? I think Mark probably knew what he was talking about.

[16:29] And some actually give an explanation of the description which is found not in Mark's geography but in his theology. Mark understands Isaiah. And so this three-location description actually follows Isaiah chapter 9.

[16:44] In the latter time, he has made a glorious way, he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. This is, in effect, what Mark is saying here.

[16:58] Jesus is following the route of Isaiah 9. And given the fact that Mark is alluding to and quoting Isaiah all over the place, it's no mistake that he is doing this.

[17:13] Verse 32, they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment and they begged him to lay his hand on them. Mark doesn't tell us who they are.

[17:26] Who are they? Just some unnamed locals in the Decapolis. The Decapolis just means the ten cities. And this was at the east side.

[17:37] If you imagine the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River, on the east side were these ten cities, mostly Gentile region, non-Jewish region, although some Jews lived there.

[17:49] This is on the east side of the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee. Alistair Begg says that if we were writing this gospel, we would be concerned to get everyone's name in there.

[18:02] Just in case we miss anyone out. We have names on plaques all over this building. We get names everywhere on boards and bulletins. Begg says it would be better that our names were known by the Lord rather than known by man.

[18:18] People on earth. Ministry. Ministry is done often by unnamed people. And what a glorious and better thing it would be to be unknown.

[18:31] When I was younger in my DJing days before I was a Christian, I was wanting to make a name for myself. I wanted the world to know my name.

[18:45] And I'm glad to say that no hint of sin now exists in my life. Not. We're all prone to things like pride. You know, it could be easy for me to say, do you know what, if I could be someone like Spurgeon or someone like Martin Luther or whoever, Calvin, if I could be known for doing something good on this earth for Jesus.

[19:12] But Alistair Begg says, you know, it would be better if you weren't known at all. But known by the Lord. One of the things that I enjoy about being here is that I wasn't the first Cal here.

[19:24] It was Cal Simpson. And I'm not even the most loved Cal here. Because Cal Simpson was quite a woman. And that's great. I love that. I absolutely love that. So, unnamed people in the Decapolis.

[19:39] Now, you might remember in Mark chapter 5, Jesus healed that demon-possessed madman, Legion. And when he healed him, the locals wanted Jesus to go away.

[19:50] Go away. Depart from us. We don't want you here. And the man who Jesus healed begged Jesus to go with him. And it's like the first time Jesus doesn't want someone to follow him.

[20:00] He says to the man, no, you go home and tell your friends how much the Lord has done for you and how he's had mercy on you. And it says in Mark 5, 20, the man began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him.

[20:15] And everyone marveled. And so now, Jesus turns up in the Decapolis and people are coming to him. Probably, in some way, because of the man's testimony.

[20:26] See, your testimony is powerful. That man had more effect in the Decapolis than Jesus staying there. Jesus thought, well, maybe your friends can accept it from you and I'll come back later.

[20:39] Now, notice that they bring this man and they beg Jesus to lay his hands on him.

[20:51] It's not the man begging, it's his friends. I wonder how much the man even knew about where he was going and why. Because he couldn't hear much. Well, he couldn't hear anything.

[21:02] He couldn't speak, really. And he was probably dragged and wondering, what is going on? Where am I going? Why? These people are begging. When Jesus was on this earth, all you had to do was find Jesus.

[21:19] If Jesus were still on this earth right now, how many of us would take the folks that we love and drag them to Jesus and beg Jesus to help them? Because he could heal anything.

[21:32] Any kind of ailment he could heal. We would be so quick to take our loved ones to Jesus. But would we be as desperate to beg for someone's spiritual condition as we would their bodily condition?

[21:47] How much would we beg Jesus that he would make people hear? And sometimes that's maybe because we don't realize how much of an issue it is that people have a spiritual hearing problem.

[22:01] Or maybe we're just afraid of what people would say. Anyway, it's wonderful that these friends are bringing this man. Oh, to have good friends like that.

[22:13] Verse 33, he takes the man aside privately. Imagine being this man brought to Jesus. He must have felt embarrassed. He must have felt exposed. Everyone looking at him.

[22:25] Imagine, maybe this, I'm sorry if this has been an experience for you, but imagine going to the doctors and you've got some issue and then the doctor begins to bring all his colleagues in.

[22:37] Come on, come on and see this man. Come and see this woman. And they bring all the interns in. Oh, can we just show them as well? Can we show the nurses? Can we show everyone? Get everyone in and I'll show them what I can do.

[22:49] That would be incredibly embarrassing. Jesus takes this man aside. Jesus isn't interested in making a spectacle. Jesus isn't interested in making himself look powerful in front of other people.

[23:05] He's just interested in this man. How many other people on this earth would use this as an opportunity to make themselves look good in front of a crowd? Jesus doesn't want a crowd.

[23:17] He's not interested. He doesn't want to bolster his own fame. He just wants to help this man and do it in a manner that gives this man some sort of dignity. And so he puts his fingers into the man's ears and after spitting he touches his tongue.

[23:37] Do you understand why he does that? It's kind of weird. You know, we've been listening throughout Mark's gospel. Jesus speaks and people are healed.

[23:48] What is this touching business with the tongue and the ears and the spitting? Seems a little bit strange. I imagine that some people might even want to try and replicate this.

[24:00] Some people might even want to kind of make a ministry out of this. It's the touching ears and spitting on the ground and touching tongues ministry. Because we want to know some kind of method, don't we?

[24:14] We want to bottle up a method. We want a silver bullet. A miracle method. Imagine that. We would just love that.

[24:25] William Hendrickson, the commentator, says we shouldn't try to tell God what methods he should use in answering our petitions. How good is that? God does things his own way.

[24:37] He always does things his own way. I love how C.S. Lewis explores that in Narnia with Aslan. And he says, things cannot happen the same way twice.

[24:49] God has his own way of doing things and we can't tell him how to do it. But the point, the point of this little detail about the ears and the spitting and the tongue, the point is that it's personal.

[25:01] It wouldn't be strange to a deaf man to do that. It might be strange to us. It wouldn't be strange to someone with a problem with their ears and with their tongue because they can't hear Jesus say anything.

[25:14] So Jesus has to show the man what he's going to do. And so he takes the man. He shows him your ears.

[25:27] I'm going to help your ears. Your tongue. It's going to be open. He touches his tongue. Shows the man what he's going to do.

[25:37] Don't worry, this is what's going to happen. Verse 34, he looks up to heaven. Another visual cue for somebody who can't hear. this is where it's coming from. And then he takes a sigh.

[25:55] Not all sighs are the same. There's a sigh in chapter 8 with the Pharisees where Jesus is frustrated. But he's not frustrated at this man. The sigh shows that Jesus is connecting with this man's sorrow.

[26:10] Jesus is never reluctant to heal someone or to help someone who comes to him. So he shows a sigh with his body to show the man how he feels the sorrow of his condition.

[26:22] Jesus is so compassionate. And then he says that little word that you see in your Bible right now in red, perhaps. Anyone want to have a go at saying it? If fatha.

[26:35] If fatha. Which means be opened. Verse 35, his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Now to the readers, we are not surprised.

[26:48] We've learned so far to expect things to happen when Jesus speaks. He can command practically anything, and it will happen. But this isn't just another miracle.

[27:00] As before, there's a theme in Mark about hearing and seeing, and in the context of where this is in Mark, there is a hearing and seeing miracle leading up to the big moment when Jesus asks his own disciples who they say he is.

[27:15] Not only is there a hearing and seeing theme in Mark, a large part of that hearing and seeing theme connects with Isaiah. And Mark is using Isaiah not only to illustrate the human problem, but also to illustrate the solution.

[27:31] In Isaiah, if you've read some of Isaiah, you know that there are people who see, but they don't perceive. There are people who hear, but don't understand. There are people with eyes and ears, but they cannot see or hear.

[27:45] And then, in Isaiah, there are other people who physically cannot see or hear or speak, but the sign that the Messiah has come and the kingdom is here is that these people begin to see and hear and speak.

[28:04] Verse 36, Jesus charged them to tell no one, but the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. Why does he want to keep this quiet? Well, perhaps it's because it's not the full story.

[28:18] We see in chapter 8, when Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, Jesus charges his disciples, don't tell anyone. Don't tell anyone what you know, what the Father has given you, that I am the Christ.

[28:33] Don't tell anyone. Why? Well, it goes on in Mark chapter 8 to say that he told them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and be killed and after three days rise again.

[28:50] And it says he said this plainly, just like the deaf man began to speak plainly. So Jesus tells his disciples plainly what needs to happen in order for ears of those who cannot hear to be opened.

[29:06] Without his death and resurrection even the disciples didn't understand and neither would we. It took the death of the Son of God to heal our spiritual deafness.

[29:18] It took his death and resurrection to open the mouths of the disciples so that we could hear it today for the gospel to go out throughout the whole earth. Verse 37 Does that seem like a strange thing to say?

[29:38] I thought why did they say that? But does it remind you of anything? He has done all things well. Firstly let me say how true Jesus has done all things well.

[29:50] What an incredible thing. Can this be said about any other human being that's walked the face of this earth? Everything he did, every single thing Jesus did, he did well.

[30:02] Everything Jesus does is good. What hope there is in Jesus? How could we ever be embarrassed or ashamed to speak about Jesus when he has done all things well?

[30:12] All things. We speak about many other people who have only done a few things well. We speak about people who have not done all things well. Why should we not speak about Jesus who has done all things well?

[30:27] Secondly, this is reminiscent of Genesis chapter 1, where everything that God does is good. Everything God does in creative work is declared good.

[30:39] All his creative works are good, and so it is with Jesus. Jesus, the image of the invisible God, the one who is making all things new, the one who sets about recreating the world, all things will be well, because Jesus does all things well.

[30:57] And they say, he even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. Now, the word that these people use for mute is alaloos.

[31:15] Probably not saying that right, but it's a Greek word, and it's a word to describe this man's condition of not being able to speak. but when Mark is telling this story, remember, Mark is interested in a bigger theme.

[31:30] When Mark is telling this story in verse 32, Mark is describing this man's condition. Mark uses a Greek word, a word that is used nowhere else in the New Testament.

[31:42] Nowhere. Mogelalon. Mogelalon. This passage is the one time in the entire New Testament this Greek word is used.

[31:55] Why does he use this word? It's the only time. Where did he get this word from? How does this word help us see what he is doing with this man? Well, it just so happens that the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, uses this word, and it only uses this word one time.

[32:18] Can you guess which book in the Old Testament this word is used? In the book of Isaiah, of which Mark alludes to time and time again.

[32:32] And so Mark doesn't use the word that they use, he uses a word that is found just once in the Greek Old Testament, in Isaiah chapter 35.

[32:44] Why don't you flick over to Isaiah chapter 35? Just find the Psalms and turn right. It's a big book, you'll find it. Isaiah 35.

[32:59] Mark borrows this word from the Greek Septuagint from Isaiah 35 to describe this particular miracle. And this is what it says.

[33:15] Isaiah 35. And the book of Isaiah has been transitioning from judgment to salvation.

[33:29] And it talks about the coming of the Messiah and the coming of the Lord's kingdom. And it says this in Isaiah 35 verse 4 onwards, say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong and fear not, behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God, he will come and save you.

[33:52] God will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the death unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the moge lalon, the mute, will sing for joy.

[34:11] The only time that word is used. Mark is saying this is happening. This is happening with Jesus and this man from the Decapolis. These things in Isaiah are being fulfilled before your eyes.

[34:27] God has come to save people, to open the eyes of the blind, to open the ears of the deaf, to make the lame man leap for like a deer, and to open the tongue of the mute, to sing for joy.

[34:42] Glorious thing. This is a taste. Mark is trying to give us, the ones who have heard the gospel, he's trying to give us a taste of what the kingdom of Jesus is like.

[34:54] Those who cannot see will see. Those who cannot hear will hear. Those who cannot walk will leap. And those who cannot speak correctly will shout for joy.

[35:08] What a glorious thing it is. The effect of the Messiah was evident on earth wherever he went, wherever Jesus went, and it was just a foretaste of his glorious reign and his glorious kingdom to come.

[35:21] Mark has given us a picture of who's going to do this. Only in the coming of Jesus the Messiah can the blind see and the deaf hear and the lame walk and the mute talk. Only through Jesus can we see and perceive and hear and understand and speak and know what God is doing.

[35:40] Even now we are being transformed in our hearing and in our speaking. Consider what you now understand about Jesus because he's opened your ears to hear.

[35:52] Consider how your speech perhaps has been transformed now to honor Jesus. I was talking about Pilgrim's Progress earlier on.

[36:04] John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress in a prison to glorify Jesus. He had no idea the impact that that work would have for hundreds of years to come.

[36:19] When he was in prison, Lord, how are you going to use this situation? I'm in prison. Well, did you know that before Bunyan became a Christian, he was known for a particular thing.

[36:31] He was known for how creative he could curse people with his words. He was known for his creativity and swearing. Consider how the Lord changes our hearing and our speech.

[36:44] I'm not preaching and teaching because I've learned how to behave myself and be good. It's only by the grace of God that he has transformed both my own hearing and my own speaking.

[36:59] God's got a sense of humour. And prior to becoming a Christian, I would use my words in not nice ways, whether in swearing or in berating or in mocking Christ and tearing down other people.

[37:22] It's only by God's grace that I can even say what I'm saying right now. God is so good. He transforms us. He opens our ears and opens our mouths. He redeems us and restores us.

[37:36] Yeah, the fact that I'm the person in this building, I think every single person in this building is more qualified than I am to be given this message. But such is the grace of God that he would use someone like me.

[37:48] John McKinnon used to say, if God can make a donkey speak, he can make you speak. That's what he used to say to me. But the point is, glory to God, it's his doing, not ours.

[38:00] The healing and joy and restoration that people experience, such as this man in this passage, is just a foretaste and a picture of how good and glorious it will be in the kingdom of Christ our King.

[38:12] Both physically and spiritually, all things will be well. What a great hope there is in Jesus. Let us be stirred up in our faith and hope in Christ. Let me pray.

[38:24] Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that we've been able to read aloud your very word this morning and that through your servant Mark, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has been speaking to us to help us understand through this experience with this man, through your healing and through the prophet Isaiah.

[38:51] Messiah, please help us to understand what you are saying to us. Help us to see how glorious a King and Messiah you are and how glorious your kingdom will be.

[39:04]  You do all things well and in your kingdom all will be well. We thank you for these things in your precious name. Amen.