Welcome to the audio ministry of Fellowship Church Lubbock. Romans 15.4 says, Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Our prayer is that all who hear this message would be encouraged and enter into the rest and steadfast hope provided by the finished work of our Savior Jesus Christ. Fellowship Church Lubbock is located at 7505 Avenue U in Lubbock, Texas and weekly services are held at 10 a.m. every Sunday. You can visit Fellowship Church Lubbock online at fellowshiplubbock.com. Thank you for listening. We want to turn our attention this morning, as we most often do and have been since January, to the gospel of Mark as it sets before us our Redeemer and His work. This morning, Mark chapter 7, we'll be looking at verses 31 through 37. Mark 7, verses 31 through 37. Mark writes, "'And he went out from the region of Tyre and came through sight unto the Sea of Galilee within the region of Decapolis. They brought to him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they implored him to lay his hand on him. Jesus took him aside from the crowd by himself and put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting He touched his tongue with the saliva, and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, he said to him, Ephaphatha, that is, be opened. And his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he began speaking plainly. And He gave orders to them not to tell anyone, but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. They were utterly astonished, saying, He has done all things well. He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. Well, one of the most terrifying things in my world is not rattlesnakes or spiders, although we'll talk about spiders some other time, but it's the college syllabus. And I don't know if you guys have had those sorts of dread whenever you receive a syllabus. And some of you are looking going, that guy is still in college? Sadly, yes. And still receiving these syllabuses and then looking at them, I always look at them and And it tells you everything that's coming along in the semester and everything that they're going to ask you to produce. And it's a bit overwhelming every time that I'm always sort of thinking maybe if I made a huge mistake by signing up for this class. But the reality is when you have that, that there should be no surprise whenever somewhere months ahead that a professor comes up and asks you to produce something. He's already told you he's going to ask you for that, right? that he says that an assignment is due, you have that in front of you and you know it's sort of coming. I think that's a bit like Messiah in the Old Testament, in your Old Testament. Their scripture said he was coming. The scripture said what you ought to expect from him, what he looked like, what he would be found doing, where he would be, the impact that he would make on the world. It told them what to expect. Verses 31 through 37 that we just read a second ago shows us that Jesus is the one that the world has been waiting for. I want you to, again, what we often do whenever we start on a Sunday morning, I want you to sort of align yourself within the context of Mark's gospel here as a whole and get our bearings so that we'll understand why chapter 7 verse 31 through 37 here is fitting exactly where Mark has it. To do that, you have to think about where we've come from and you have to think about where we're going to be going to here in the next few weeks. Simple math would tell you, if you know anything about the gospel of Mark here, that the center of the book is Mark chapter 8, and we're getting very close. As we worked through the first half of the book, these first seven chapters though, we've seen this truth over and over repeated again that's pounding home to us. Mark has been telling us of Christ's authority. You see him authoritative over sin, over the spiritual realm, over all of creation. You see him authoritative over the lives of men that he calls to leave their businesses, to leave their practices, to leave their families, and to follow him. You've seen at the same time, in addition to His authority, you've seen His glory, right? You've seen His glory in a storm as it was revealed. You've seen His glory over evil. You've seen His glory over death. And we have seen things that He has proclaimed. He has told us that He is Lord of the Sabbath. And you come through the first seven chapters of Mark and you know that He has forgiveness, or He has the right to forgive sins. He claims that authority. All of that, if you look within the context of Mark, is like it's picking up steam. It's like a steam engine here, picking up momentum to get to chapter 8 in, really, verse 29, where he's going to ask that question to his disciples. The most critical question, who do you say that I am? The first half of the book is setting you up to answer that question. The first half of the book is like a spotlight that's aimed on the glory of Christ, and it's preparing you for chapter 8, and it's preparing the disciples here and the readers of Mark's gospel to be able to answer that question, the most crucial question that you need to know the answer to. Today's text, what we just read a second ago, ought to be helpful to these very Jewish men who are following him around and watching all of these things unfold, who he's going to be directing that question to in Mark chapter 8. It ought to be helpful to them who have some understanding of their Old Testament and have some expectation of Messiah coming to answer that question that's coming closer and closer, Mark 8, who do you say that I am? The answer to that question will ultimately set the trajectory for their lives, right? Everything that they will find themselves doing. It will set the course for gospel proclamation, set the course for the church. It will alter all of history. That's the most important question to answer. Who is this that is at the center of Mark's gospel and is at the center of Mark chapter 7 and is at the center of this event today? That's the most important question for everybody that's sitting in this room here this morning to answer, right? Who is this Jesus? If that's the most important question, if this text helps us answer that question, then what it has to say is worthy of our attention. It's here in what we just read where you get a glimpse of the plan of God to deal with the fall of men through Messiah, through Messiah. Think about that. He's in a Gentile land through Messiah here? It's here, though, that you see within what he's doing the storyline of salvation. You see creation here. You see fall here. You see redemption here. You see restoration. The plan of salvation, the work of the Son drips from this text that's saturated with the mission of Messiah. This text is overflowing with all these elements concerning the Father's plan, the messianic work, these tones of the Messiah, his intention to rescue his creatures from sin and death, and his plan to do this through the redemptive work of the one who comes here into a broken world. So I'll lay this out for you, and I'm going to tell you the outline because I have the same problem that Richard Smith had this morning. I didn't have it to give to Chris. This is my fault. Thank you. Number one, I want you to see that Jesus comes to a broken world in verses 31 through 32. Jesus comes to a broken world. You see in this account fallen mankind also rejoicing. Think about as you see what's unfolding here, the fall, that men and women have sinned and that that has impacted all of creation. Look at verse 31. It opens first by orienting us where he is at. It opens here by taking us along with him again and the disciples into this place where they are ministering. Last week, it was the city of Tyre that's northwest of Galilee on the Mediterranean in modern day Lebanon. Let Lebanon stay in your mind. It's important for later. This is Gentile territory where you met a most unlikely Gentile woman with the most unlikely response, faith. Her daughter was cruelly demon-possessed, Matthew's gospel says. Now, verse 31, look at where he's taking us. He takes us 20 miles north, further into Gentile territory to Sidon, then southeast across the river that feeds into the Sea of Galilee from the north, then south through Caesarea Philippi to the Decapolis on the eastern side of the sea. As you're seeing all this, you need to realize you're still in Gentile territory. You have not come back into Israel yet. This is the region of Decapolis. By the very nature within the name you can hear what it means, ten cities. These were ten city-states outside of the territory of Herod Antipas. Very Gentile, very pagan. Archeological research today, where they go back and they look at what took place in that region, as they dig, they uncover idol after idol, a multitude of idols that these people worshipped, very pagan, very much idol worshippers. Think of Decapolis, and if you've been following with us through Mark's gospel, you know you've been here, you know you've been near here, you know this name has come up before in Mark chapter five, if you'll remember. When Jesus was on the other side of the lake in that account, was when he cast out the thousands of demons from the demon-possessed man. You'll remember that man who was standing there was just devastated by the work of a legion of demons within his own heart. And he came rushing down there in that moment as Jesus stepped out of the boat coming off of the lake that day. He showed in that account that he had absolute total dominance over the spiritual realm as he commanded the demons, as the demons responded to him by falling down in this man. And you would think that all the people that were around would just rejoice because of what took place that day. But you'll remember from Mark 5, 17, that they actually did not celebrate, but they implored him that he would leave, that he would leave this region. The crowd was dead in that sort of a spiritual sense. You remember what happened next that I think is important for this account. The man became a disciple, right? Mark 5, 19 through 20, he's begging to go with Jesus. Jesus says no, but at the same time he commissioned the first missionary. What did he say to him? He told the man, go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you. And then we're told, and he went away and became, began to proclaim in Decapolis. What great things Jesus had done for him and everyone was amazed. The Decapolis area, that region of 10 city states, had the first missionary all of these many months since that event took place to this event that's taking place this morning. This man there that's proclaiming Jesus in this radical way because they knew what he was like before and they knew what Jesus had done in his life. This man who wanted to leave with Jesus He was sent to the Decapolis to proclaim Jesus. And here when you get to this text is the arrival of the man that he was proclaiming to all of them. And this place where he's at is groaning, as you can see, from the effects of sin in the world. It's like the entire world, the Decapolis felt the effects of sin and they displayed the effects of sin. They may have been pagan. They may have never read Genesis chapter 3 and have no earthly idea what we're talking about when we say the fall of man, but they groaned and they suffered from the effects of Genesis 3. If Matthew 15 is the parallel account, and most people think that it is, Then in verse 30 of Matthew 15 it says about this, and large crowds came to him bringing with them those who were lame and crippled and blind and mute and many others, and they laid them down at his feet. All creation is groaning. In the Decapolis, it's groaning. All creation's subjected to futility and slavery, to corruption as you see in Romans chapter 8. And it's taking place and it's very evident as all of these hurting people in a broken world are coming before Him. They're laying at His feet. They're looking for help from Him. Verse 32 gives you the account of a fallen man in a fallen world who's suffering greatly. Look at him. they brought to him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they implored him, Jesus, to lay his hand on him." This man that they bring before him has an especially difficult condition. Look at the two parts that it lays out there. He's unable to hear and he's unable to speak. He's essentially deaf, right? With the reality that he's unable to speak here, he's probably been unable to hear for a long time, maybe even since he was born. His world is completely silent, and there is a sense that it also means that he is cut off from his world because of this. Simply hearing is something that we, I think a lot of us, not all of us clearly, take for granted. But his inability to be able to hear has defined the entirety of his life and his relationship in his community. He cannot speak. He spoke with difficulty, whatever sort of sounds he was able to make. It says here, speech impediment. The Old Testament uses the same word that we'll look at at the end here, where it speaks about the tongue of the mute. Few people, if anybody in his society, in his world could understand him. And you think about where that then left this man, right? Completely limited in communicating with anybody. The world is silent to him, and again, in many ways, he's silent to the world. His whole world is impacted by this condition that he has. Think about this, then. Take that to the next level of this is a condition that's taking place in the ancient world. If that took place within our world, we send him to Myra, right? Myra is an audiologist, for those of you who don't know. There's no speech therapy here, there's no hearing aids here, there is no research here as to his condition, there's little if any way to communicate with him or for him to communicate with others. Frequently people in this sort of a condition during this time were thought to be mentally impaired. because they couldn't understand or speak. So in totality, they were misunderstood, right? That there's nothing wrong with this man's mind. But this is what everybody thought as they saw him suffering in their city. People would have gawked at him. They would have stared at him. He couldn't ask them any sort of a question because he couldn't speak. He had this problem. He couldn't ask for help. And certainly, certainly he had never heard about Jesus, right? But verse 32, praise be to God, there were some who loved him. There were some here who cared about him. In verse 32, there were some who brought him to Jesus. He would never known about Jesus apart from his friends coming to get him and bringing him here by these friends, friends who bring him. Look at what they do. They are begging here on his behalf for Jesus to heal him. How can they tell him that this is the man that's able to heal you? You should be begging him, right? He can't do it! So that's what they're doing on his behalf. It's sort of like an infant. You think about your baby. You think about an infant that needs help, that you can look at and you can see needs help. They don't know to call the doctor. They don't know how to get to the doctor. They don't know where the doctor's even located at. But in love, what do you do as a parent, right? You know something's wrong. You know where help is found. You know they need help. You know where to take them. It's the same thing that's going on here with this man who is completely incapable These friends of his are not coming here having a great theological basis of an understanding of this man is suffering the effects of sin, that you could trace all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, that you could see is inherited from his forefather Adam, that he lives in a fallen world, and that here is the Son of God in flesh, and he's come to correct all these things. They don't have that sort of a background. They don't have that sort of a theological understanding. But what is it that they do know? They know that this man is suffering greatly. And they know that the man Jesus Christ has shown he can do something about it. That he has been known to reverse the effects of sin. That he has been known to reverse the effects of suffering. That he's been able to restore those who were sick. He has saved again and again physical lives, and the word of that has just sent out ripple effects all throughout this region where people know before he arrives what he is capable of doing. We noted this last week, but I think it connects here again that salvation has been sent to Israel the fall, sin coming into the world necessitated salvation. But as we noted last week, this has not been confined to Israel. He sends his servant in whom he shows his glory according to Isaiah 49.3, and that's followed in verse 6. Here, what you could see in the Decapolis is the light of the nation shining. It says in Isaiah 49 6, I will make you a light of the nation so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. And you come here and the light is shining outside of Israel in the multitudes of people are gathering and bringing those who are groaning and suffering the effects of sin in the world. And they're not bringing them to the multitude of their idols of wood and stone or metal. They're bringing them to the living God. Who has stepped in flesh into a broken world. I think this is rather convicting and it ought to be convicting to all of us as we look at what's taking place in those first couple of verses. Many of us here this morning would have a much greater theological vocabulary, a much greater biblical vocabulary than these people did, these Gentile pagans here. Would you who have this greater vocabulary, this greater understanding about the Bible, this greater understanding about who Jesus is, the same Jesus that they're bringing this man here to, would you who know that he came to die for sinners so that those who trust in him might be reconciled to a holy God, would you show the same love that these pagans show? Would you show the same love that these pagans show and bring suffering souls to Jesus? Gentile pagans in the Decapolis ought to be a bit convicting to all of us this morning is there are people whose souls are suffering who desperately need Christ all around us. Would you love them in such a way as you would love an infant, although they may not see that they desperately need Christ? Would you be so convicted and love them and care for them and know that their only hope is found in Christ, that you might bring lost souls to Him, that you might help helpless people, that you might bring them to a suffering Savior named Jesus? Many of you know who He is. Who do you know that's spiritually deaf that you could tell about Jesus? Church, there's hope, as you even see within the text, in Christ for such people as this, whether the deaf man that's physically deaf here or the lost today that are spiritually deaf. He came to deal with people like this, people who are suffering like you find in verse 32. And it's cause for joy. It's cause for joy. Perhaps as very Jewish disciples, if they thought what Scripture actually said, the authority on the matter, right? If they thought about what it had to say, they would have recognized what was taking place before them. And they may have recalled Isaiah 29, 17 through 19. Listen to what it says there. It is not yet just a little while before Lebanon will be turned into a fertile field, and the fertile field will be considered as a forest. On that day the deaf will hear words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the blind will see. The afflicted also will increase their gladness in the Lord, and the needy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. Well, if we look at the spiritual condition of man, all are needy, right? And you come to a text like this, the needy of mankind will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. And when you look at this text on this day in the Decapolis, that there's a glimpse here of such a day as Isaiah is talking about, coming from the man Jesus Christ, that the desert here may not have yet turned into a forest. But the desert created by sin amongst men who were suffering here was starting to bloom as person after person was being healed. It's showing you what He's capable of as Messiah walks in a broken world. It's showing you what He will bring. The needy of mankind here, you must imagine are rejoicing in the Holy One of Israel as they're gathering around Him and they see hope for their fallen physical condition. This is about the plan of salvation. This is about the work of the Son. This is about showing you and the disciples the mission of Messiah. Jesus is here coming into a broken world that desperately needs a Savior. And Jesus is going to effectively deal with sin. I want you to see that second. Number two, Jesus deals with sin effectively. Jesus deals with sin effectively. Verses 33 through 34, I want us to think of this in terms of redemption. Redemption coming from the God of all the earth here. Look in verse 33. A compassionate Savior here takes this man who's experienced great suffering and he takes him aside from the crowds by himself. And then he does this fascinating thing that seems very peculiar, but I hope by the time we come to the end of this we see that it's very compassionate. Verse 33. He put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, he touched to touch his tongue with the saliva, and he looked up to heaven with a deep sigh, and he said to him," Did you catch that? He said to a deaf man, "'Ephaphatha.'" That's be open. Some of you probably read that the first time and went, that is disgusting. Right? That's our natural response based on the things that we think about and see. But I want to think through this so that you see a compassionate Savior who is showing us that he has the authority over sin to offset the effects of sin, particularly here, particularly the effects of sin that are very visible in this man. Friends, this is a deaf man, which means what? He cannot. Oh, good job. Jesus can't sit down with him and say, Sir, this is what I am about to do. I am going to do this, and then I'm going to do this, and this is going to be by the power of God, and I'm going to do this. He cannot explain what he's about to do, so he shows him. He touches him here. Think about this within the context of the last few weeks. This Jewish teacher is completely unconcerned about being made ceremonially unclean. He touches a Gentile. He's already revealed to us that touching someone does not defile the man. It's not what's on the outside that defiles the man, right? We know that he doesn't need to touch him. He's just cast out a demon from a cruelly possessed little girl that he didn't even lay eyes on in a physical sense. This man doesn't even need to be in his presence, and yet here he is, and Jesus gives him visible signs that he is about to deal with these particularly devastating situations that are a result of this man living in a fallen world. Why does the Son of God put his fingers in a deaf man's ears? Because of the nature of the man's disability. Because he is deaf. It was a sign to the man about what he was fixing to deal with and what he was fixing to do. He couldn't look at him and just say, I'm about to make it where you can hear. So what does he do? He shows him. He puts his fingers into his ears. Why does he spit, and this is what really probably bothers some of you, and then touch the man's tongue with the saliva of the Redeemer here? Because culturally, people generally believed that saliva had healing power to it. They would think that that could effectively do something, and within their traditions and within their cultures, they thought that was what would potentially heal you, that it had some sort of power to it. So when Jesus does this, the man knows that Jesus is intending to offset his inability to speak. I'm going to heal your tongue. I'm going to correct what's broken." What Jesus is doing is He's speaking to him this way. And when Jesus does these two things, a man who cannot hear knows exactly what Jesus is intending to do with him. Look at what He does next, verse 34. Very visible, right? Jesus looking up to heaven. Surely the deaf man would have seen this. He's communicating to him here that he's intending to heal him, and then he looks up to his father right in front of him. He wants him to know where this is going to come from. When Jesus took the loaves and the fish, what did he do? He looked up to the heavens and he gave thanks before he broke the bread and distributed it in Mark chapter 6. When the stone was removed from Lazarus's tomb in John chapter 11, Jesus raised his eyes upward to speak to his father before raising Lazarus. When you come to John 17, when Jesus is speaking there to His Father on high in His high priestly prayer, He lifts His eyes to heaven, and He does the same thing here. You think about this deaf man watching Him do this, and think of the multitude of things that he doesn't see Jesus doing right now. He doesn't see Jesus looking to the pagan idols of His land that we could uncover from the dirt even today. He doesn't see Jesus looking to mystical sayings or chants of their religious leaders. He doesn't even see Jesus looking at the spit that's in his hand going, this is what's going to do it for you. He looks to his heavenly father and this man sees it. A deaf man can look and see and know that what is about to take place will come from on high and that there is a God of all the earth who is capable of reversing his condition. And then a deaf man sees Jesus sigh, right? Verse 34, another visible sign, another sign that speaks volumes. Look, if you don't think that a sigh speaks volumes, ask any parent who has asked their child to clean their room. Ask any parent that's asked their child to do their homework, and what do you get? Not my children. but I'm told that other children. When you come home from a long day of work and you plop down in the chair and you go, you're saying something, right? Here is God in flesh, sighing as he looks up here to the heavens. What might that have spoken to a deaf man? What might that speak to any man? Maybe, oh, how devastating the effects of sin in this world Maybe this is a sigh of just love and compassion that he has for this man that are about to be displayed, how he will work, how he will labor here on behalf of sinners. Then the one who comes from Israel into the Gentile world commands, verbally commands the effects of sin to be reversed. In Aramaic he says those words, ephapheth, be opened. That's the command. And not only does a deaf man see the signs and in a sense hear what they communicate, now he hears. Now sounds are rushing into him like water's rushing into a bay. Silence here is interrupted. And the Messiah who has come from Israel to do the work of redemption, to deal with sinners, is giving all of us a glimpse of what He is capable of doing. He is on the earth. And as the disciples and all of us witness what's going on here, our ears ought to be hearing and ringing with the Word of God. Who is this that is speaking? Who is this that is capable to do something like this? Who is this that's able to reverse the effects of sin? Job 19, 25 says, as for me, I know that my Redeemer, the one who can accomplish the work of redemption, right? The Redeemer. I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last, He will take His stand on the earth. The Holy One of Israel that we saw in Isaiah 29 a moment ago is in Isaiah 54 5 called the Redeemer. And your Redeemer, the one who is able to accomplish redemption, is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth. The God of all the earth is a Redeemer. The God of all the earth is the one that can do something about it. And here is Jesus the Redeemer in a fallen world. Fallen men need redemption. The man Jesus Christ in Mark 7, 33 and 34 shows that he possesses the authority and that he has the power to redeem, to effectively not only deal with the effects of sin in the world, but to ultimately deal with sin itself. Jesus is the one who comes here and he does the work and he is working. He does the work of redemption. This is where the believer's hope is found. This is where the hope of the church is found. All of those who are redeemed is found in Jesus. Paul said that it is in Him, Ephesians 1-7, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. Your attempts to redeem yourself would be infinitely last possible than this man's attempt to restore his own healing, right? To redeem and to offset the effects of sin and to deal with his own healing. Jesus must come. Jesus must be the one who does the work. And everything that you look in the Gospels and everything that you see about his coming and everything that you see about his perfect life and his dying, his dying on the cross, everything that you see about his resurrection, everything we read a moment ago from 1 Corinthians chapter 15, is a glimpse for us in a sense of like it was for this deaf man here of what Jesus was planning to do. We get to see it as what Jesus did. Compassionately showing you in the Word of God, compassionately showing the spiritually deaf that He alone is the one who can deal with the devastation of sin in the lives of men. This is the Savior's work, this is the Messiah's mission, and Mark is again putting it on display in his gospel front and center as it's gaining momentum as that question is looming on the horizon, who do you say that I am? You are the Redeemer, you are the Holy One of Israel, you are the God who has taken His stand here on all the earth, the God of all the earth who has come as the hope of fallen sinners in a broken world, who is doing this work of redemption that no one else can do. He is the one who can make the spiritually dead to hear the truth of God from the Word of God. So as a result of that, our cries then are to Him that He would be the one that actually did this. Like these men are bringing this man to Him to actually do something with his hearing. He is the one who has authority. He is the one who is powerful to make those in need of redemption to be able to hear where help comes from. that this comes from His work. He is the God who is capable of causing you to hear. The idols that surrounded this man in this text, in this pagan land, in the Decapolis, they cannot speak. In Psalm 115.5, you see this, right? They had mouths, but they cannot speak. We looked at that last week. Psalm 115.6, they had ears, but they could not hear, much like Him. He had ears, and He could not hear, and that was a major problem. Psalm 115.7, they cannot make a sound with their throats. That's the reality and the nature of an idol. Much like the problem of this man. Totally unlike the one who's standing in front of him. Jesus is not only able to hear the cry of his friends on his behalf of this man, he's not only able to speak the words, be open, he is also able to make the man to hear, to speak, to effectively reverse the effects of the fall, to offset brokenness. This is the work of a redeemer. How complete then is this work? I want you to see that next. Number three, he heals completely. Verse 35 through 36, this is total restoration. Restoration that we'll see for the believer to stand blameless. He heals completely. Verse 35, the man's ears were open, they were shut to sound, they were shut to hearing, now they're open and the voice he first hears is the Savior, whose work reversed his condition, restored his hearing, so ears are restored here to what they were created to do to begin with. It wasn't that this man didn't have them, it's that they were not functioning, and now they are functioning, he can hear. Look at this restoration work, then you get it here, the implement of of his tongue was removed. The language, the work of redemption is within this text. The Greek literally says, I said implement, the impediment. The impediment of his tongue is removed here. But within the Greek, the language says this, the fetters, the bonds, the chains of his tongue were loosened. They were removed. Do you see that sort of an imagery pointing back to the work of what Jesus had just done? That the imagery is this tongue, that his tongue is chained and now the chains are broken there. His tongue is free, that which is bound is now loosed by this work. This is redemption, breaking chains. This is accomplished what you see as a result, complete restoration. Look at what you see next. This is restoration. And he began speaking plainly. This should just bring up all sorts of questions for you. How did his tongue function properly? How did he know how to make correct sounds and formulate words? How did he gain a vocabulary? People go through speech therapy for countless years trying to get to this point, to speak plainly. In him, it's instantaneous. But the Savior's work was one of total restoration. The nature of his work is miraculous. It's a miracle that he hears. It's a miracle that he speaks this way. Again, what the disciples are witnessing here is they're standing in his presence has roots all the way back to Isaiah 32, 4 of a time when the tongue of the stammerers will hasten to speak clearly. an indication of God being active. This is the work of Messiah to completely restore what was broken. Man created here with ears, created with a tongue. When the Messiah's work is complete, they function as they were created to function. His forefather may have been Adam. He may have seen the reality of his sin nature and sin being in the world as it groaned in futility. But here was in one element about that had been touched by sin completely restored. There was probably no one in all of the Decapolis who could hear like this man could hear, who could speak as clearly as this man spoke, complete reversal of his condition, total restoration. Look at verse 36. It's again expressing how complete. Jesus now has to tell a man that moments ago couldn't even speak clearly, now not to speak. Don't tell anyone In Mark, you see him doing this over and over again, chapter 1, chapter 3, chapter 5, chapter 8. He's constantly commanding people not to tell anyone what they have just witnessed, what he's done. He's doing that in order to keep all of this to rising to this fever pitch before time. All that's going to come, he's just making sure it's not yet, that there's enough attention on him already that's making his work challenging. And yet, the restorative work that's taking place in this man is going to be visible enough as he goes back out into his world. And look, they all hear this command, but none of them listen to it. The more he ordered them, the more widely they continue to proclaim it. What then were they proclaiming? That they had witnessed a total restoration. They had witnessed Jesus in a fallen world capable of dealing with the effects of sin. And certainly they would not have said it that way, right? But theologically, biblically, doctrinally, this is what they had witnessed. Theologically, biblically, doctrinally, this is what the church knows that he does. Jeffrey read a moment ago from Psalm 51 that we've looked at again the last few weeks. This is the work of God. What does God do in Psalm 51? God's the one that washes. washes from iniquity. God's the one who cleanses from sin. You go over to Isaiah chapter 1. He's the one who makes sins that are as scarlet as white as snow, sins that are as red as crimson like wool, restoring the sinner. He completely restores the sinner. And God the Father does it through Jesus, His Son. Each healing that we've seen is a glimpse of this. Each complete restoration is a glimpse of this. 1 Corinthians 6, 9 gives you this two sides, this condition of men and shows you how they're restored. Men who are broken and stained by sin, you'll remember many of these. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. then nobody will inherit the kingdom of God, right? But Paul says, such were, in the past tense, some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified. How? In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God. Restoration, when you look all throughout Paul's letters, is the language that's used to describe the church that's spoken of as being presented to Christ. You see a restored people here. It expresses complete restoration. Listen, that to Christ, she may be presented as a pure virgin, 2 Corinthians 11, 2. Presented to him in all of her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless, Ephesians 527. Reconciled to Christ in his fleshly body through death, that's redemption, in order to present you before him holy and blameless and beyond reproach, that's complete restoration, Colossians 122. Complete in Christ, he says. How complete? We, on a regular basis, will read a benediction from Jude. In Jude 1 24, that benediction says, He makes you to stand in the presence of His glory, blameless, with great joy. That complete. Every single man needs redemption. Every single man needs to be completely restored because all of us are corrupt. People will say, and I've heard this, people have come up after church and said, well, I'm not that bad. I've sort of been able to deal with sort of my sins. I don't do those things anymore. And the illustration always comes to my mind, and you probably heard me use it, of a glass of water. And if it's clean, pure water, and you put one drop of raw sewage in it, are you going to drink it? It's just one drop. And some people will say, well, no, my life is actually, I'm three-fourths of that glass is raw sewage, right? And that's probably actually the reality for most of us. But if you wouldn't drink that, why would a holy God before whom your sins are so much more deplorable than raw sewage allow a sinner to reside with Him forever? It would taint holiness. That's unacceptable, unallowable. That will not happen. The glass needs to be cleaned. It needs to be totally restored. It needs someone to take the defilement away. Complete restoration comes through this one who is here, who makes the deaf to hear and is able to restore the tongue of this person to be able to speak. And you think about the totality of you seeing this throughout the word of God. He is the one that makes sinners righteous. He's the one that makes the enemy of God a child of God. He's the one that makes a slave of sin, a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ and of righteousness. He makes the condemned justified. He makes the defiled holy. He makes the one who hates him to love him. And as we've seen from Isaiah, the scarlet stained sinner, he makes their sins as white as snow. His work is total restoration. He makes all things new. There is nothing else that you or I or anybody else in the world can peddle to any other man who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Nothing else to make them stand complete in God's presence. Nothing than the one in whom complete restoration is found here, Jesus Christ alone, who heals completely. No drug therapy will make you right, no diet, no counseling, no attempt at living less sinfully anymore. will make you stand blameless in His presence. The Word of God says it is Christ alone. Complete restoration is displayed here in this miracle, and it's foreshadowing what He offers sinners through the redemptive work that we'll see on the cross. It reminds us of how we're made right, how we're made right, redemption, and how right we are made, restoration, that ought to fuel worship within us as a church, as a group of believers. Last I want you to see verse 37, number 4, verse 37, he receives the praise of Gentiles, praise that is rather unusual because in some sort of a sense it reminds us that he creates here what's good, verse 37. Those who witnessed what took place with this man were completely astonished, literally beyond all measure, they're astonished out of their out of their minds. Their friend could speak that they brought to Jesus, right? Their confession in response to what they observed was this, he has done all things well. That's the confession of pagan Gentiles that are witnessing all this. Do you see that? And it ought to remind us of Genesis here. And God who looks at all of his work after creation, Genesis 131, seeing everything that he made, acknowledging that it was all very good. But from the mouths of Gentiles here is this confession of the work of Jesus is good. It's as though they're observing creation, observing things being created where something didn't exist before, and they're making commentary on it. And it's coming and arriving at the same commentary that you would have got from the creation account in Genesis. They've witnessed creation. Verse 37, He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. Where there was nothing deaf, there is now something hearing. Where there was nothing, an inability to speak, now they're speaking plainly. And then again, this way has the feel of creation with the Word. Be opened, Jesus made right, Jesus made new, and all things were well, all things were good. Of course, you see this within Isaiah as well, Isaiah 65, 17, of a God who creates, Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. Brokenness restored. The creator who creates reminds us here that we're completely incapable of this. We cannot create new heavens. We cannot create new earth. We cannot restore ourselves. He's capable. He shows us a glimpse of it here with the man who is deaf. All this is showing and shouting the arrival of the Messiah in a miracle in the Decapolis that drips with the themes of fall, of redemption, of restoration, of creation, and ultimately of salvation. And at the center of it all is the man Jesus Christ. You may be wondering, why tie all of this to Messiah? Like we talked about at the beginning, right? Why look at this text from this angle? I mean, Jesus is here in the Gentile world, right? And we're talking about Messiah. It's because when you come here to Mark chapter seven, it's presenting this glorious moment in salvation history where the Jewish Messiah has come and his very Jewish disciples are watching all of this unfold along with us. And that question is looming on the horizon. Who do you say that I am? Look, we've been talking about Isaiah, right, over and over again pointing to where the Messiah in Isaiah was talking about Him, talking about what He is actually doing here. And there's another text from Isaiah that points to this day in Decapolis and to the miracle performed in this man. Turn to Isaiah 35. We'll conclude with reading Isaiah 35 because I want you to hear how beautifully it points to this day. Isaiah 35 is the last chapter in the first part of the book of Isaiah, and it here follows a series of chapters declaring God's judgment on Edom, Egypt, Tyre, Israel and Jerusalem. In chapter 35, the theme shifts here from judgment to a future day and the joy of all creatures at the revelation of God. But there's a particular joy that you find from an individual in verse 6 here. The description of this individual is the tongue of the mute. The only other place that word shows up in the whole of the Bible is Mark chapter 7, verse 32, this man who spoke with difficulty. The Messiah's work here is in mind, and the question of who this is is helpful from this text to be answered in considering what he's capable of doing. So we'll close with reading Isaiah 35 and listen to the sounds of this day that is still coming, but a day that has dawned in the arrival of Messiah. The wilderness and the desert will be glad, verse one, in the Ereba will rejoice and blossom like the Crocus." The desert will blossom, do you see it? It will blossom profusely and rejoice with rejoicing and shout of joy the glory of Lebanon will be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon, they will see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. The recompense of God will come, but he will save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped." And then verse 6, then the lame will leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For the waters will break forth in the wilderness, and the streams in the Ereba. The scorched land will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water, and the haunt of jackals its resting place. Grass will become reeds and rushes. A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the highway of holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks that way, and fools will not wander on it. No lion will be there, nor will any vicious beast go up on it. These will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy and sorrow, and sighing will flee away. We would ask this morning that all that are spiritually hearing impaired might be able to hear the words of the Messiah from this text and see what He's capable of, that you may be part of that rejoicing in that day, and even today as the dawning of the Messiah has already arrived and is coming. Father, thank You for allowing us to turn our attention to Your words, to see the work of Messiah. to think about from this text how we see the fall, how we see redemption, how we see restoration, how we see the God who creates. Lord, I pray that You would cause us as a people to bring others who need Christ desperately to Christ. Though they may not hear, Lord, let us love them in such a way that we would tell them about Christ. And we would come before You as the one who is able to offset the effects of spiritual deafness and cause them to hear. Father, would you allow people who cannot hear the gospel this morning to hear it for the first time clearly, to see Christ high and lifted up and exalted, to see the work of the Messiah who is making all things new, who makes sinful men and women to be able to stand blameless before you, who deals with our sins and trespasses, Father, may we worship Christ this morning in awe of him, of the totality of his work and what it's done within his church. May we praise you for this. And may those who are not yet praising you one day, Lord God, may they praise you. May we proclaim this gospel that we have seen within this text, evidenced in a healing that we've heard Paul announce from 1 Corinthians 15, Lord. May it be proclaimed from this church of a Messiah who is capable, who is authoritative over sin, who reigns today. May we serve him well in excellence, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen.