Mark chapter seven. Let's turn to the word of God in the gospel account of Mark. Chapter seven, we begin reading at verse 24. And we'll read to the end of the text, the end of the chapter in the text, verse 37. And pay attention especially to verses 31 through 37 as the text tonight. We read now the inspired word of God. And from thence he arose and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon and entered into a house and would have no man know it, but he could not be hid. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him and came and fell at his feet. And the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation, and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, let the children first be filled, for it is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, yes, Lord, yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. And he said unto her, for this saying, go thy way, the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out and her daughter laid upon her. Now the text. And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the Sea of Galilee through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech. And they beseech him to put his hand upon him And he took him aside from the multitude and put his fingers into his ears. And he spit and touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said unto him, Fathah, that is, be opened. And straightway his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man, but the more he charged them so much, the more a great deal they published it. And were beyond measure astonished, saying, he hath done all things well. He maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. I suppose I could have used that as the theme for the sermon tonight. Jesus makes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. Instead, I've chosen as the theme for the sermon tonight, Jesus opens ears and loosens tongues. We're going to consider briefly in the first place the misery of the deaf and mute man. And then we'll spend more time considering the sighing of Jesus. You see that in verse 34, he sighed. And then we'll conclude tonight by looking at the Lordship of Jesus in healing this man and what that means, the result of that healing. So the first question that I want to ask you tonight is, Do you see the misery of this man who cannot hear and cannot talk? He has friends who care for him and bring him to Jesus. I'm very thankful to read of that. I'm thankful that we live, I think, in an age in the church and in our schools where we have compassion. for those who have special needs. We don't shun them. We don't neglect them. We try as much as we can to include them in our worship and in our church life and in our schools. That's a wonderful thing to see today and a reflection, I believe, of the compassion that Jesus has for those who have needs and that we therefore must have as Christians for those who have needs. I often ask when I see someone who is in need, now I think of these people. It seems like we're seeing more of them in Granville, not just downtown Grand Rapids, but Granville perhaps, or Wyoming, or even in Jenison, these people who are homeless. Saw a man the other day in the McDonald's on Chicago Drive, and he was acting very strangely. And I couldn't help but wonder, what need does he have? Not now financially, but mentally, materially. What kind of a mental illness does this man perhaps have? And I'm not judging anyone, but I can't help but question, is there any family who is neglecting him? Is there any church family that should be taking care of him, but isn't? So here we have this man who has a great need. He cannot hear, therefore he cannot talk. And he was born that way, apparently. not being able to hear any sound so that he couldn't learn any speech. So that seems to be the explanation for why he can't talk. He cannot talk because he's never heard any human language. He hasn't heard Greek, he hasn't heard Aramaic, he hasn't heard Hebrew or English, of course. And so from a certain point of view, perhaps he doesn't even know what he is missing. But I ask you, can you see the misery of this man? Can you, when you think of him and you know what it is to be able to hear and be able to speak, can you feel sympathy for this man and his weakness and his need? He doesn't know. Even the sounds that we teach our one and two year olds, the sounds of all the different animals, who hasn't done that as a parent? Can you tell me what the dog says or what the cat says? This man has never heard those sounds and therefore can't make those sounds. He doesn't know what it's like to hear the birds singing. He doesn't know what it's like to hear any of the harsh sounds or the beautiful sounds of life here in this world. But when Jesus comes to this man and he recognizes that this man cannot hear or talk, he knows what's probably the most painful for him is his loneliness. Now, he has friends. and they can touch Him, and He can see them. And so they can gesture to him in ways that show him that they care for him. He can have some communion and fellowship with them. But when you think of this man never being able to hear, do you see how hard that communication would be? Especially on that day when they maybe didn't have a very good system of deaf education and here's how you communicate as a deaf person with other people. And can you imagine what that's like as a hearing person to live in communion with friends and family and yet, yet never hear them speak to you. Never hear their voice. Never hear their words. Never hear words of love and communion and fellowship. He has friends. You can see, you can feel. but he can't hear them. And because he doesn't have the ability to hear, he cannot speak. When the text says that he had an impediment in his speech, and then later calls him dumb, It doesn't mean he can't make any noise. It probably doesn't even mean that he doesn't have a healthy tongue. It simply means he hasn't heard communication to be able to learn communication. We know why our children are able to speak English and not Spanish, for example. Because our children don't grow up hearing Spanish, they cannot speak Spanish. But growing up hearing English, they can speak English. So this man is probably limited to noises, grunts. Not only, I wonder if you can see the loneliness again in this man. He can communicate through gestures, through touch. But not only can he not hear, through speech, the love, and enjoy the fellowship of those he loves, but he can't communicate it either. There's loneliness, there's isolation here. And I ask you again, can you imagine never being able to hear your husband, your wife, your spouse, your father, your mother, anyone else say I love you, and then never being able to say that yourself. This man's life was filled with love and compassion and yet a weakness, pain, loneliness. And the next thing to notice then is Jesus sighing, or maybe it would be more literal to say His groaning in verse 34. Jesus sighed. before He healed the man. And that, beloved, is so important. This is a groan of empathy, a groan of understanding, of care and compassion. It is important for us to believe that Jesus is God, that He is and continues true and eternal God, but it is also important for us to confess that he is fully human. And the idea is not only that Jesus Christ is a human being who is touched with weakness, with infirmity in his groaning, but the idea is that Jesus Christ is a human who feels the groanings of other humans. and is sympathetic to their weaknesses and infirmities. That's the idea here. Jesus is struck by this man's weakness. He's struck by this man's misery, his need, his loneliness, and it causes him to sigh, to groan. He feels sorry for the man because he is physically disabled. He can't hear or talk. He feels sorry for him because of his loneliness. This groan of Jesus is his sigh, or to put it another way, the way that he is touched with the feeling of the infirmities, not only of this man, but every one of his people. Isaiah puts it this way, in all of our afflictions, he is afflicted. Don't look at this story that you read here in Mark 7 and say, what a wonderful thing that Jesus Christ meets this man who cannot hear and cannot talk and is sympathetic with him. But when you read this, you read Jesus sighing in sympathy for this man, understand that this is the way Jesus responds to all of your hurts and pains as well. The text is saying to you, in your suffering, Jesus is suffering too. We need to hear that, don't we? The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans that there's all kinds of groaning in the creation. In fact, he tells us using this word for sighing or groaning in the text, the whole creation Even the non-thinking, the brute creation is groaning under the strain of sin and the curse for sin and all kinds of pain and sorrow in the creation. But the reality is that the human race is groaning, human beings are groaning all over the world for all different kinds of reasons. And Jesus became a man. that he might groan with the creation and with his people in their suffering. Paul says the creation And then the sons of God, that's us, we groan as we wait for our deliverance. And that deliverance comes through Jesus Christ who comes and sighs and groans with us. And the thing to think here is not this. No, there are things that are too little for Jesus to care about. our little earthly aches and pains. There's too many, they're too little. He can't possibly care. Beloved, that is exactly the opposite of the message of the Bible. He cares as the sensitive Savior for all our needs. He cares more than any one of us do for other people, but even more than we do for ourselves. I do not mean to belittle this man's condition by comparing it to such things, but the fact is that Jesus Christ, because He knows of the reality of human suffering and the curse of God, He does care even about our little toothaches. He wants to deliver us from that. He cares about our joint aches. He cares about all human suffering. That's what this text is revealing to us. And to know that he cares, even for our physical suffering, is a great comfort to us, isn't it, beloved? It is to me, and it's beautiful. I never met this man. The text speaks of who is deaf and unable to speak. Of course, none of us have ever met him. But I remember Marcia. Her last name was Balcoma. She was eight to ten years older than me and lived in the house behind our house and just one over. And she and her parents happened to be members of the same church that I grew up in. Which means that I have this memory of a blind, hard of hearing, not sure she was completely deaf, but also dumb, meaning she couldn't speak. Woman coming to church every Sunday. And I remember, my parents probably wouldn't have approved of this, but often even in church, just thinking about her. And sometimes thinking about her condition, can't see, can't communicate. She had parents who loved her, and many people in the church thought of her and cared for her, but think of how limited her life was. and how lonely her existence must have been, not being able to see, in her case, and not being able to communicate, and she had some rather severe mental deficiency as well. And here's what I remember. That lump of sorrow. Why does it have to be this way? Why do the rest of us get to walk and run and play and do all the things that we do, and she lives day after day after day, sort of alone? And then to think, Jesus feels something like that. That lump, that sorrow, I'm sorry for you, and whatever you're going through and groans, I care for you." But then secondly, as we look at this groan of Jesus Christ, it certainly is a groan of pain and understanding. of a lack of spiritual hearing. It is one thing not to understand earthly communication, not to have full communion and fellowship with one another as human beings. But the greater problem is when the people of God cannot understand spiritual communication. And think about that. What a picture here. This is who we are by nature. We don't understand, we don't hear God speaking to us, just as this man cannot have full communication with his loved ones, hearing them say to him, we care about you, we love you. This is the condition we are in by nature. We don't hear the spiritual things of the kingdom of God. We're deaf to those things. And because we cannot learn the communication, the language of heaven, we can't speak it either by nature. And so here is Jesus, the perfect son of God, who is a real human being. He has ears to hear human language, but he also has perfect spiritual hearing. And he's surrounded by people. who are described in the Bible as having ears, but they do not hear. Meaning they have ears where they can hear Jesus speak a lot of words about God, a lot of words about sin, a lot of words about the spiritual nature of the kingdom of heaven and what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. And yet they hear those words with these ears and do not understand. And that was characteristic of the disciples. How many times? Did Jesus not have to deal with the fact that he's talking a spiritual language about the kingdom of heaven and he has to say to the disciples, you don't understand. You're not hearing me. Just look ahead to Mark 8, verse 17, where he says that to them. You have ears, but you don't hear. Beloved, do you see something in this now of your and my misery by nature? That's what this man pictures for us. Without Jesus Christ, you and I would never hear and understand the voice of God. You and I would never hear and understand the reality of sin and the need for salvation. You and I would never be able to respond to God. in the fellowship of the covenant and friendship to tell him that we know him and love him. Beloved, those who die spiritually deaf and dumb are described in Matthew 13 by Jesus Christ as those who perish eternally in hell. The figures he uses are of a heart that is hard and waxes gross and of ears that cannot hear and eyes that cannot see. And Jesus is describing people who are dead in sin, and if they're not rescued from their sin through Jesus Christ, they're not saved. Those who are spiritually deaf and blind and dumb, are unbelievers. That's their spiritual condition. And those who die in unbelief perish eternally in hell. And so you can understand Jesus grown then. There's not only this physical problem of this man who is affected physically because of the fall of sin, but there's this spiritual problem. And Jesus is surrounded by people, including his own disciples, who are in this spiritual condition in which they're dead. They have no life. and not able to communicate with God and in danger of hellfire unless they are rescued. Thirdly, so first of all, Jesus groans in sympathy for this man's physical misery. Secondly, he sees the spiritual condition of his people. Thirdly, this groan, beloved, is the groan of the Savior who knows. I'm going to heal them." We're going to come to that. He's going to heal this man physically. He touches and heals you and me spiritually, but he grows as he knows what that healing will cost him. He came to rescue. those who are spiritually deaf and dumb. Again, I say to you as the one who has perfect spiritual hearing and speech. Isaiah speaks of this in Isaiah 50 verses four and five. The Lord hath given me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He waketh morning by morning. He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. Here's the Lord Jesus Christ who has perfect and full communication with his Father in heaven. He came. to be deaf and mute for you and me. In order to deliver us, Jesus Christ would have to go to the cross. And now as Jesus groans, do you see the shadow of the cross over him throughout his entire life and in his ministry? He knows what he is going to have to suffer. He will go mute. before his judges as they condemn him without any justification. He won't say anything to defend himself before Herod, or before Pilate, or any of his earthly judges. And he won't, in fact, say anything before God, as God also judges him for the sins that we have committed for our spiritual death, our spiritual muteness. We will not use our tongues to praise God, we use our tongues to slander, to backbite, to blaspheme. Jesus Christ, who has a perfect tongue, keeps his tongue still. Because he took our sins upon himself and knew it is just that these sins be punished. I will be silent in my suffering. And then, beloved, he also became deaf for us. Again, he who has perfect and total communion with God. You know what I'm referring to, don't you? For three hours, he gave that up. The three hours of darkness, he didn't hear his father saying to him, I love you, you're my beloved son. He heard the voice of the father's wrath and anger and punishment for sin, for the sins of that man. for the sins of all of his spiritually diseased and dead people. He took the position of one forsaken by God in his wrath. You ought to think of that over and over again. What did he say? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And so when you read of this sigh, this groan, beloved, in verse 34, can you hear the groan and the pain of the man of sorrows, smitten, stricken by God, bearing our grief and our infirmities? Jesus sighs with us. to take our sign and to heal us. That's what we consider in the third place tonight as we consider the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Now we take into consideration the miracle that Jesus performs and the way that Jesus performs the miracle is touching and beautiful indeed. Jesus, well, verse 32 tells us this man is brought to him. And his friends beseech Jesus, beg him, Lord, put your hand upon him. And then verse 33, he took him aside from the multitude. This is gonna be personal, one on one. Next week, Lord willing, we'll think about the communion of the saints. The multitude of believers. were saved by Jesus Christ. But here's the thing, even though Jesus is the Lord over many whom he saves, one church with many different members, that salvation includes Jesus personally knowing and touching and saving and healing each one of us. He took them aside from the multitude and he put his fingers into his ears. There's a compassion here, a thoughtfulness here, sensitivity to the man. I could simply speak to him, but he can't hear. Ah, he can touch. So if I wanna communicate to the man that I'm going to heal his ears, I'm not going to try to make him hear me yell at him. or read my lips, I'm going to use my fingers to touch his ears so that this man will understand I'm going to heal his ears. And then he spit. And then all we read in verse 33 is that he touched his tongue, but I think that the idea is that Jesus spit on his finger and then showed it to the man. I've touched your ears, but now something came out of my mouth which you can see and indicates to you that I'm also going to heal your tongue. And so that's what I believe happened. The man looked again, First he felt Jesus' fingers, now he's looking at Jesus' finger, and he sticks out his tongue, and Jesus touches his tongue. And then he looked up to heaven, he wants this man and every one of us to know the power that heals us, physically, spiritually, where does it come from? It comes from God in heaven. And he sighed, and he saith unto him, a fatha that is be opened, in verse 35, straightway his ears were opened and the string of his tongue was loosed, and even though this is part of the miracle, the man hasn't heard Aramaic, which is what a fatha is, or Greek, whatever language this man spoke, plainly, he's able to speak it immediately. And I think, although I can't say this for sure, that when verse 35 says, straightway his ears were opened, that maybe Jesus' word, a fafda, be opened was the very first word this man ever heard in his life. He's healed by the power of Jesus Christ. What are we to take away from this, beloved? First of all, don't forget Jesus is the Lord over the whole creation. He promises that he will take away all of our infirmities, the earthly ones too. And don't you like to think about this man there on the earth already? He didn't have to wait to heaven, but here on this earth he experiences Jesus giving him physical wholeness. I do care even about your earthly trouble and came to take that away. Sad to say I haven't seen Marsha For many years, I'm not even sure if she's still living. I do know that if she is living, she will never be healed here on this earth. But I love to think about what we're taught here in this text. When she gets to heaven, she will be healed. She will see, she will hear, she will run and walk and sing and talk of the glories of Jesus Christ in heaven. Beloved, that is a hope for all of us. You take whatever misery or sorrow you have in this world, great and small, The Lord Jesus is going to take them all away. But we must hear God. and speak of God and enjoy the healing power of God now spiritually. Jesus reveals himself as the one who is able to come to those who are dead and have no life and give them new hearts. Give them eyes to see faith. Give them ears to hear the things of the kingdom of heaven. Give them tongues to be able to speak the speech or the language of heaven. I hope that you are experiencing tonight, as I describe this miracle, a miracle taking place in your own heart and life. As Jesus Christ is the one who was able to open this man's ears so that he could hear physically for the first time, Jesus Christ is the one who performs a wonder while his word is preached to people who are in themselves spiritually dead to open their ears, to give them faith, to be able to hear God speak to them. Do you feel that in your heart? God speaking to you that you are a sinner. Do you hear that and understand it with conviction? God speaking to you that you need salvation and have salvation through Jesus Christ. Do you hear that and have conviction of that in your soul? I hope you're able to hear God in a way that you say, I'm not just a hearer of this word, but I understand it and I'm going to become a doer of this word. Because that's what it means to be able to listen and to understand in the end. We all experience that as parents. Sometimes we say of our children, they're not listening. And what we mean by that is not that they don't hear the words that we're speaking, but we see that they're hearing the words, but they're not actually taking hold of those words and obeying those words. So that's why James says, this is the way it is for the people of God, who have been given the power by God to hear him They not only are hearers of his word, but they are doers of his word. So I hope that there are two miracles that are being performed here tonight through the preaching of the word of Jesus Christ. that you're able to understand the miracle, the word, and the love of God, and the saving work of Jesus Christ in your heart. I hope you're able to hear it. The second is that he is performing the miracle of transforming and changing all your life. When Jesus heals us, the result is We're different. We have to praise Him. We have to live unto Him. And now the text focuses especially on the use of our tongues. If Jesus has touched you in the power of His cross, forgiven your sins, communicated that to you, then you have heard the language of heaven. and that will transform the way you use your tongue. If you have heard God speak to you of his love and compassion, his mercy. This is me, I was spiritually weak, dead in sin, and he saved me and healed me and told me about it. then it's not possible for you to go on using your tongue to speak the language of the world. If your ear has been opened, you hear the language of the kingdom of heaven, and your tongue will be full of the praises of God, the glory of Jesus Christ, and love. for all around you. You clearly hear his love and compassion, his delight in you and saving you, don't you? Then how can you use your tongue for hatred, slander, blasphemy? Beloved, I hope That when you think about Jesus healing this man, healing you in his mercy, that you will have a change of heart and mind in which you say, I was deaf and mute spiritually. But God sent his son to be deaf and mute in my place. Suffer hell on the cross to save me. to give me new ears to hear Him, and a new tongue to praise Him. And out of thanksgiving for what Jesus has done for me, I will use my tongue. And if I can put it that way, I'll be disappointed I only have one. Do you know what I mean? Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer's praise, the glories of my God and King, the triumphs of his grace. Amen. Father in heaven, we thank thee for thy word. We thank thee for the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ for the weak and the infirm. And when we think of who the weak and the infirm are, Lord, teach us to think of ourselves. And to think of ourselves as those who are unworthy, but who have been touched and healed. had the kingdom of heaven open to us, that we might have salvation and have the faith that hears and understands and produces fruit in lives and in tongues that glorify Thee. We pray that Thy Spirit Working thy word in our hearts, may make that so in our lives tonight and in the week and the year that lies ahead. We pray it in Jesus' name, amen.