God's ways in salvation

It's good to be here with you, thanks for coming. I'd like to look first of all in Exodus chapter 33. Exodus chapter 33 and verse 12.

Then Moses said to the Lord, See, you say to me, bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found grace in my sight. I'm reading from the New King James Version, verse 13.

Now therefore I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me now your way, that I may know you, and that I might find grace in your sight, and consider that this nation is your people. And he said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Now what's on my heart this weekend is knowing God, knowing his ways, knowing his presence.

Moses said here in verse 13, Show me now your ways. Now it's way in the King James, but it's plural in Hebrew. Show me now your ways, that I may know you.

And then in verse 14, the Lord says, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. This desire of Moses, is that our desire? To know God's ways, to know how he does things, how he deals with people? Do we want to get to know him? And does a sense of his presence, is that important to us? I hope it is. Now tonight, I want to look at God's ways, the way God dealt with a few people in the New Testament.

There's two men that I want to look at, God's ways in salvation. And look with me please in Mark chapter 10, the gospel of Mark chapter 10. I want to look at this man, Bartimaeus, in verse 46.

Now they came to Jericho, as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Then many warned him to be quiet, but he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. Then they called the blind man, saying to him, be of good cheer, rise, he is calling you. And throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus.

So Jesus answered and said to him, what do you want me to do for you? The blind man said to him, Rabboni, that I may receive my sight. Then Jesus said to him, go your way, your faith has made you well. And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.

This is a beautiful story and it gives us some insight. Is that, am I standing too close to the mic because of the feedback or whatever? This man, Bartimaeus, reminds me of me. And maybe it'll remind you of you too.

Do you remember what it was like before we were saved? Spiritually blind, blinded by the God of this world. I didn't know I was going to heaven. Poor, this man was poor.

We had a debt that we couldn't pay, the debt of our sin. And he was in darkness. Do you remember what the darkness was like, brother, sister, before you were saved? You know, it's so easy for me and maybe us to take God's salvation for granted, to forget what he's delivered us from.

I never heard the gospel till I was 25. Didn't know anything about God at all. But I'm so glad that just as Jesus came right to where this man was, here he is sitting beside the road, begging, and crowds on their way to the Passover.

And the Lord Jesus knew that in a week's time they were going to nail him to a cross. And yet we read that he stood still. He took time for this man that most people probably wouldn't give him the time of day, just another beggar, a poor blind beggar.

And yet he had value to the Lord Jesus. And we had value to, who are we? Of the billions on earth. And didn't the Lord come right to where we were? I know for me, I had no thoughts of God, and yet the Lord caused me to do some work for a lady who was a believer.

But it turned into more than just doing some work around her house. She brought the gospel to me, and I heard it for the first time. I sometimes think, if God hadn't brought me across her path, where would I be today? What would my life be like? Because it was dark.

It was dark. You know, there was nobody else could help Bartimaeus except the Lord Jesus. And there was nobody else could help you and me in the blindness and darkness that we were in except the Lord.

We owe everything to him. At the end, and I'm just going to touch on this a little bit, but at the end, what do we read? Well, the Lord gives Bartimaeus his sight, but then it says that he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road. Why did he follow the Lord Jesus? I mean, he could see now.

Well, I would suggest he saw little of the Lord's ways. He experienced the mercy of God. You know, Bartimaeus came to a point in his life where he realized there was nothing in himself to commend him to the Messiah.

He acknowledged Jesus as a Messiah. He called him son of David. And he's not saying, you know, I'm not such a bad guy.

I do this and I do that. He says, son of David, have mercy, show kindness, compassion to me. And didn't the Lord, those of us that are saved here tonight, didn't the Lord do that with us? He brought us to a point where we know there's nothing we could do to take away our sin, nothing we could do to get ourselves to heaven.

We just, as our brother was praying, it was the grace of God that we needed. But Bartimaeus, after he received his sight, he just wanted to be with the Lord. He followed him.

Isn't that why believers follow the Lord today? He's brought us from darkness to light. You know, I've wondered sometimes, how far did he follow him? Did he follow him to Jerusalem? What, just what, 18 miles or so away from Jericho to Jerusalem? Did he listen to the Lord preaching in the temple that week? And was he there at the cross? We don't know. I don't know.

But we know he followed him. His presence was important to Bartimaeus. I hope his presence is important to you and me, because this one that we've never seen with our eyes has done for us what nobody else could do.

He's brought us from darkness to light. We deserve to be in the blackness of darkness forever and could be. What a marvel.

God's so great salvation. But I want to look at another man in chapter 5 of Mark. Mark chapter 5. Now, it's a longer section.

I'm not going to read it all, and you're likely very familiar with it. But verse 1, then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes. And when he had come out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling among the tombs.

And no one could bind him, not even with chains, because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces. Neither could anyone tame him.

And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshipped him, or perhaps it would be better he knelt down. And he cried out with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, son of the Most High God? I implore you by God that you do not torment me.

For he said to him, Come out of the man, unclean spirit. Then he asked him, What is your name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many. And you know the story how the Lord casts out the demons.

They go into the pigs, the pigs go into the lake and drown. Verse 14, So those who fed the swine fled. And they told him in the city and in the country, and they went out to see what it was that had happened.

Then they came to Jesus and saw the one who had been demon possessed, and had the Legion sitting and clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who saw it told him how it happened to him who had been demon possessed and about the swine. Then they began to plead with him to depart from their region.

And when he got into the boat, he who had been demon possessed begged him that he might be with him. However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, Go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you and how he has had compassion on you. And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him, and all marveled.

What a situation, this man by the name of Legion, lived with the dead out in the graveyard, behavior that he couldn't control, nobody else could control it, tormented, says crying and cutting himself with stones. And when the Lord comes, notice what the demons are, he says in verse 7, he says, I implore you by God that you do not torment me. You know to me this is just the way the devil works.

He tries us to get us to think that if we go God's way, it's going to be awful. That's what he did with me when I was first saved. Of course, I hadn't read the Bible before and thought was this Christian life, it's going to be torture, but the devil is a liar.

And how many people in the world is he deceiving? Getting them to think that God's ways are bad news, and that his ways, the devil's ways, that's the way to go. You know, this man Legion is also a little picture of me and you. Now, I don't believe anybody here is possessed by 2,000 demons, but before we were saved, we were in bondage to Satan.

We couldn't free ourselves from his dominion. And it's interesting, if we had to read the chapter before at the end, you know, the Lord Jesus with his disciples comes through a storm on the Sea of Galilee, and I won't go into the details of that, comes through a storm because there's one man that he wants to help. Even though the Lord Jesus knew that the people there, after he had delivered Legion from the demons, they wanted him to leave.

You know, the Lord Jesus went through a storm, a greater storm than the Lake of Galilee ever knew. He went through a storm to deliver you and me. What do we read there? Is it Colossians 1? We've been delivered from the dominion of darkness and translated, brought into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

Delivered from darkness into his marvelous light. Nobody else could help Legion except the Lord Jesus. There are thousands and thousands of people that are under Satan's sway tonight.

Blinded. Don't want God. Don't want to hear the gospel.

Going after this, that, and the other, and the emptiness is increasing, but they don't know where to turn. So here's Legion, this man who was so tormented, living out in the tombs, cutting himself and everything. The Lord delivers him from these demons, and we read these beautiful words.

He was sitting, clothed, and in his right mind. And here we are tonight, you're sitting, we're clothed, and I trust most of us are in our right minds. It could be different, but for the grace of God, it could be different.

It's so easy to take the Lord Jesus for granted and his great salvation, what he's delivered us from. I think that's one reason the Lord wants us to remember him on the first day of each week, to get back to square one. But what about Mr. Legion? There he is sitting, clothed in his right mind.

What does he want? Well, the people tell the Lord to leave, so the Lord's going to leave. So gracious, and he just wants to be with him. Why? I mean, he's been delivered from the demons.

Why did? He has an appreciation for him now, because of what the Lord has done for him. He's seen his ways. The Lord came right to where this Legion was, this man was, and delivered him from Satan's bondage and torment, and that's what he's done for us.

Interesting, the Lord tells him, again, the Lord's ways. The man just wanted to be with him, and I don't know about you, but I just like to be with the Lord too. I don't look forward to the dying process, but I'm looking, the older I get, the more I'm looking forward to just being with the Lord.

But the Lord says, go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and has had compassion on you. Same word there, as when Bartimaeus said, have mercy on me, the Lord had compassion, mercy, on this man, Legion. But just one more reference now in Luke chapter 24.

Two believers on the road to Emmaus. Verse 13. Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem.

And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know him.

And he said to them, what kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad? Okay, I'm going to stop reading there, but you know how they explain the Lord. They can't understand that their Savior was crucified, and that some people say that he was alive. Verse 25.

Then he, the Lord, said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them and all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and he indicated, or he acted as if he would have gone further.

But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to stay with them. Notice in verse 28, it says he indicated, or he acted as if he would have gone further.

Here's the Lord now with this couple. They don't realize who he is yet, and he's opening the scriptures to them, and later on they said their hearts were warmed, burned by what he was saying. Now I don't know about you, we're not told who this couple was.

I'd be surprised it wasn't a man and his wife who lived in Emmaus, but I wouldn't be dogmatic on that. But anyway, they come to the town, and they're gonna turn aside into their home. The Lord's gonna keep on going.

Why? He is so gracious, he doesn't force himself on anybody. And unless this couple had asked him, would they say, they constrained him, they strongly urged him, they said, Abide with us, stay with us, for it's toward evening, and the day is far spent. On a side note here, my grandmother was saved around 80 years old.

Quite a story. But the last few years of her life were spent at Elam Homes in Wabashene, Ontario. One time my wife and I were visiting her.

Nanny, we called her, she was from England. And we were in the common room of Elam Homes there, like a big living room, and I noticed there was a text on the wall. And the text was, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.

And I found out that a missionary in Africa by the name of Nora Draper had made that text. I don't know if Nora Draper is still alive, or if she's still a missionary. I haven't heard anything about her for a while.

But I thought, looking, Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. I thought, how appropriate in such a place, mostly older people there. For those of us that are older, if our life is compared to a day, we can say it's toward evening, and the day is far spent.

As we get older, and I am experiencing this, there's things that we can't do physically that we used to do. Our bodies are wearing out, and our minds aren't as agile as they once were. But there's something we can still do.

This is what this couple wanted. They said, Abide with us. They valued his presence, this one who opened the scriptures to them.

They said, Abide with us, stay with us. If they hadn't, the Lord would have kept going. Is this, is there a lesson in this for us? The Lord's not going to force himself on us to have, I mean, he loves us, and he wants to have communion and fellowship.

We have a relationship with the living God. We can take it for granted, but make no doubt about it. He wants to have fellowship and communion with us.

When they said, Abide with us, we read, and he went in to stay with them. So we've considered the Lord's ways a little here with this man, Bartimaeus. The Lord delivered a nobody, shall we say, out of darkness, out of blindness.

We've considered his ways, the Lord's ways with legion, the man who was under satanic oppression and possession. But he's done something similar spiritually for us. He's delivered us from blindness and darkness.

He's given us spiritual eyesight. He's delivered us from Satan's bondage. And then we read about these two.

So gracious, may it speak to our hearts, brother, sister. May we have a desire to want, you know, it's so easy to go after so many things, and it's the most important thing of all. Fellowship, communion with the one to whom we owe everything.

The one who was given everything, that we might belong to him. So I trust as the conference unfolds in the will of the Lord, if he doesn't come first, may our hearts be drawn out to this one. And may we be able to say like Moses, show me now your ways that I may know you.

Let's pray. Father, how can we thank you enough for the Lord Jesus? Thank you, Lord. Not only did he die in our place, suffering more than we'll ever know, but we thank you that he's a living savior.

And he's the best friend that we could ever have. Lord, help us to appreciate him. Give us a desire to know him more and more, to know more of his ways that we might please thee.

And Lord, may we know much of his presence with us, his presence that can make all the difference in this wilderness world. We thank you for him as he sings in his name. Amen.