Good evening, everyone, and welcome.
Before we start tonight, I was just thinking as I walked by the dorm. I do not know if anyone saw the plaque on Augustine Hall. There is a little park there—hidden behind a whole bunch of bushes—and it says, “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.”
As I saw that, I just thought, you know what? We need to give thanks to Him, for He is good. He has drawn us here today, and He has brought all of us here.
Actually, if we continue reading in Psalm 107, where it is found:
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good;
His lovingkindness endureth for ever.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
Whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the adversary,
And gathered out of the lands,
From the east and from the west,
From the north and from the south.
I think that is just a fitting word for us tonight: we need to give thanks because He has gathered us here today—some of us from the north, some from the east, some from the west, and some from the south.
I do not know—how many are here for the first time?
How many are not here for the first time? Okay.
I thought we would start with a little exercise here. I am going to pick on some people, and hopefully they will cooperate.
I will start with people who have been here, like Petty. Let me ask you: why are you here?
“To learn about God.”
How about Daniel from Texas? Why are you here?
“Because I have no idea about the future.”
Now I am going to ask someone who has not been here before. I am going to pick on Florence from Vancouver. Florence, I know you just walked in, and we are just asking a question here: why are you here?
“I just want to hear God’s Word.”
How about my cousin Jasmine?
“To get closer to God.”
Those are all good answers, and in many respects, they are right. But one thing we need to remember: we are gathered here because He has drawn us here.
He has brought us here for a purpose. We are not here by accident. Maybe we had a feeling: yeah, we want to go to the Toronto conference. We have heard good things about it. Maybe some of our friends are going, so we think it will be a good time.
But one thing we need to remember as we start this week is that God has called us here for a purpose. Maybe some were planning to come, and maybe some were forced to come and did not really want to come. It could be. It has happened before.
But we are called here because He has brought us here. He has called us according to His purpose.
The young people in Toronto will know this, because some of us tend to repeat it over and over again: our God is a God of purpose. There is nothing that He does, and nothing that He allows to happen to us, that is not by His design and by His purpose.
I will give you an example, and it has to do with you guys getting here today. Some of you flew into Buffalo, and we chartered a coach to bring you all up. They told us the bus seats fifty-five people. Well, guess how many people signed up to come in through Buffalo? Fifty-six.
So our dear brother John said, “Here I am. I will go.” But when the bus arrived and everyone got on, they found out that the bus had fifty-six seats after all. So John did not have to go down after all.
To make things worse, how long did you wait at the border, John, to get across? Three and a half hours? Four hours? Five hours.
He was in the customs line for five hours waiting to go across. Now, when you look at something like that, do we still trust that it was by God’s purpose?
Seemingly, John probably wasted five hours of his time and wasted all the gas going down. He ended up picking up, I think, Jeffrey Pittman from Richmond, who stayed back there. And why? We ask, “Why?”
But God has a purpose for that, believe it or not. We might not know what it is, but He has a purpose for that. Everyone here this week—your being here is by His purpose.
The question is: are we going to meet the purpose that God has for us to be here? Is God going to get out of us what He is after this week?
In many ways, that is partly up to us. We have some responsibility in this. But at the same time, praise the Lord: the Lord has drawn us here, and He will do it.
As we start this week, I thought we could look at some people in the Bible who saw the Lord when He was here on earth.
As we get together, hear Dana speak, and Sonny and Jim, go to our workshops, have our times of fellowship and morning devotions, and even just chat as we eat at mealtimes, these are opportunities that we have to hear the Lord speak—to see our Lord in each other, to see our Lord manifested in His church.
But we need to make sure that our eyes are working, our ears are working, and our hearts are such that they can understand what the Lord is saying to us and what we are seeing.
When the Lord was here on earth, many people saw Him. They saw the miracles that He performed, and they heard Him speak different messages and parables. Some of them got it, but a lot of them did not. They saw it, they heard it, they experienced it, but they did not go in.
I just wanted to take a look at some different people who encountered the Lord while He was here on earth. Maybe we can draw something from their examples.
The first group of people I would like to look at is in Matthew 20, starting in verse 30.
And behold, two blind men sitting by the wayside, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David.
And the multitude rebuked them, that they should hold their peace: but they cried out the more, saying, Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David.
And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I should do unto you?
They say unto Him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened.
And Jesus, being moved with compassion, touched their eyes; and immediately they received their sight, and followed Him.
There is a similar account concerning a different person in Mark 10, starting in verse 46.
And they come to Jericho: and as He went out from Jericho, with His disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the wayside.
And when he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried out the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.
And Jesus stood still, and said, Call ye him. And they call the blind man, saying unto him, Be of good cheer: rise, He calleth thee.
And he, casting away his garment, sprang up, and came to Jesus.
And Jesus answered him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And the blind man said unto Him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight.
And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And straightway he received his sight, and followed Him in the way.
This is an account of the blind men and Bartimaeus. There was a desire for them to see. They had a realization that they were blind and that they needed their sight to be restored.
I am sure they had heard of Jesus and all the miracles He was doing. When they heard that He was coming by, they cried out, asking for the Lord to heal them.
If you notice, in both cases the crowds around them said, “Oh, be quiet. Who are you? You are just a blind guy begging by the wayside. Be quiet.” But that did not deter them. They cried out all the more: “Lord, have mercy on me. Have mercy on us.”
The Lord heard their cry, and the Lord healed them. He restored their sight.
But I believe it was not just their physical eyes that He restored. As I was saying earlier, the King James Version says, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” I believe that, aside from the physical, when you are made whole, that encompasses your whole being.
Your eyes, your ears, and your heart—the spiritual—are made whole and put in their right place. And when that happened, they followed Him.
Now we see another group of people: the Pharisees. We have heard all the stories about the Pharisees and what they were like. Briefly, in Mark 8:
And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with Him, seeking of Him a sign from heaven, tempting Him.
And He sighed deeply in His spirit, and saith, Why doth this generation seek after a sign? Verily I say unto you, There shall no sign be given unto this generation.
The Pharisees and the scribes saw the Lord coming. They saw all the miracles He performed. They heard the same words that He spoke. I am sure some of them heard the Sermon on the Mount and various other parables that the Lord spoke.
Yet we see that there was no response. There was no cry for healing. There was no cry from a sense of need for the Lord. They had all the answers already. They knew the law. They were the experts of the law, and they took a lot of pride in that.
And in all that, they missed out. They were not able to see the Lord for Who He was. They were not able to see the reality of what God had purposed for the Messiah.
Their hearts were hardened by their pride. The word that was spoken could not take hold; it could not get through. They could see, they could hear, but they could not comprehend what it was that they saw and heard. Ultimately, they rejected it.
Now there is another group of people: the people from our Lord’s hometown, Nazareth. In Luke 4:16:
And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up: and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.
And there was delivered unto Him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor:
He hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised,
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
And He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on Him.
And He began to say unto them, This day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.
And all bare Him witness, and wondered at the words of grace which proceeded out of His mouth: and they said, Is not this Joseph’s son?
And He said unto them, Doubtless ye will say unto Me this parable, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done at Capernaum, do also here in Thine own country.
And He said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is acceptable in His own country.
Here we have another group of people who saw the Lord and heard Him. In fact, these people probably knew Him from the time He was a young child. They saw Him grow up. They saw Him mature.
But to them, He was the son of Joseph. They knew Him all too well. He was the kid who grew up in their hometown. What authority did He have to say these things and claim these things? Where did He suddenly get this power to do these miracles?
They knew Him too well. He was too familiar—too common, perhaps. Because of that, their hearts were also hard. They could not get past the fact that He had grown up in their hometown. They rejected Him, and He was not able to perform many miracles in His hometown because of that.
One last person I would like to look at is Peter.
I am not going to read through the whole account of Peter, because there are several verses. But in John 1:29-42, we have the account of John the Baptist. He is walking by the seaside with his disciples, sees the Lord walking by, and points Him out. Two of them follow Him.
One of them was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, and he went and got Peter. I will just read from verse 40:
One of the two that heard John speak, and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, Christ.
He brought him unto Jesus. Jesus looked upon him, and said, Thou art Simon the son of John: thou shalt be called Cephas.
We find that Peter met the Lord. This was probably the first time that he met the Lord. He saw Him and maybe spoke with Him a little bit, but seemingly he just went back to doing what he was doing.
But we find another account of our Lord meeting Peter in Luke 5. I am not going to read through all the verses, because it would take too long. Basically, the Lord was preaching by the seashore, and it was getting too crowded. People were pushing and trying to get closer, and pretty soon He would have been standing in the lake.
Peter just happened to be there by chance, of course, right? But we know that is never the case. Peter happened to be there, and the Lord got into his boat and said, “Go out a little, and let Me do My talking.”
So the Lord preached from the boat. When He was done speaking, He asked Peter to put out into the deep water and let his nets down. We all know this story. I am sure we have all heard it several times.
Peter was like, “We have been fishing all night, and we did not catch anything. But because You say so, Lord, I am going to throw the nets down. I know nothing is going to happen, but because You said so, okay.”
So he did, and we know there was a catch so big that he could not fit it all in his own boat. He had to call his partners to come over and help him.
It was at that time that the Lord really caught something with Peter. In Luke 5:8:
But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
For he was amazed, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken;
And so were also James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.
From that time on, Peter followed the Lord and followed after Him. That experience, and what he saw that day, captured Peter’s heart.
As he followed after the Lord, learned more of Him, and the Lord revealed Himself, it got to the point where Peter was hooked for life. Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
At that point in time, all these people who had been following after the Lord for various reasons were leaving. Some were there because of all the healing and miracles. Some were there because they were getting a free meal. But it came to a point where things were getting tougher, and people started leaving.
Not Peter. He could not. Something had caught him.
Even as things went along and the Lord was taken to trial, Peter still followed—at a distance—but he still could not let go. We know that Peter denied the Lord in a moment of weakness. But even after that, the Lord went after him, and ultimately Peter had to fall.
I wonder, for us: have we seen Him that way? Have we heard Him that way? Has something of the Lord caught us that way, so that we should follow after Him?
I think in some ways we have, but yet there are still things that keep us from seeing Him as He is, hearing His words, and understanding.
Perhaps there are some things of pride in our lives—some things of commonness or familiarity. Whatever it may be, the Lord knows.
We need to be like those blind men who recognized their need and cried out—persistently cried out, not just once, but even through adversity cried out: “Lord, have mercy on me. Oh, we want to see.”
As we think about this week and what the Lord has purposed for each one of us, if our eyes are not in the right place with the right focus, if our ears have not been cleaned out and tuned to hearing His voice, and if our hearts have not been freed from whatever holds them—if they have not been softened so that His words can take root—we cannot meet that purpose that the Lord has set for us.
So may this be our prayer this week: that our eyes would be opened, that our ears would be unstopped, and that our hearts would be made to understand and set free.
The amazing thing is, if we look back in Luke 4:18, the very purpose of our Lord coming to earth is this:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He hath anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor:
He hath sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised,
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
This was what He was sent to do. This is what He longs to do.
But we need to have our part in it too. We cannot fix our eyes so that we can see. We cannot fix our ears. And definitely, there is nothing we can do with our hearts. All we can do is cry out.
Praise the Lord, He hears, He answers, He will heal, and He will restore our whole being so that His purpose can be fulfilled in each one of us.
So may the Lord have mercy on us this week. May we remember that we need to cry out.
It starts in our prayer times and our devotion times. He will hear. He is faithful. This is the work that He wants to do.
His purpose will be fulfilled. We thank Him for that.
Lord, we do just thank You that You have gathered us all here for Your purpose—from the north, from the south, from the east, and from the west. You have brought us all here, and there is something that You long to accomplish in each one of us.
Lord, we do ask that You would prepare our eyes, our ears, and our hearts so that we may see You as we should, so that we would hear clearly, and so that our hearts would understand and be able to respond in such a way that Your purpose will be fulfilled.
Lord, this is our cry tonight. And Lord, we do thank You that You are faithful and that You will do it.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.