Good morning. If you would open
your Bibles with me to Mark chapter one. Before we begin, let's bow
before our Lord together in prayer. Our Heavenly Father. How we thank
you that by your mercy and grace that we can come into the presence
of the thrice holy God and call you our Father. That you've instructed
us in your word to cry unto you, Abba, Father. Lord, we know it's
only because of your adopting, regenerating grace that we can
be the children of God. Father, we're so thankful. And
Father, we've gathered here together this morning as your children
to be taught of thee, to hear word from thee. Father, I pray
you take your word as it is open to us and that you would be our
teacher and apply it to our hearts this morning. Father, I beg you
ever that you would give me of your spirit, that you would speak
to my heart and open my mouth and father enable me in clear
and simple terms to preach Christ and him crucified. And father,
I pray you'd be with your people that you'd enable us to lay aside
the cares and goings-on of this life, Father, that you'd open
our ears, that you'd lay open our hearts to receive the message
that you have prepared for us this morning. While we pray for
ourselves in this hour, Father, we especially pray for our children's
classes. Father, how thankful we are for
these young ones that you've given to us. I pray you'd make
us faithful to them, to teach them the scriptures, And Father,
above all, that you'd be pleased to be merciful to them in your
time and your providence and your goodwill. Father, be with
your people everywhere that they gather together to meet this
morning. Oh, how much we need to be enabled of thy spirit to
worship you, to hear word from thee, to be instructed and taught
and edified and comforted from your word. Father, we pray that
you'd be with those who are You brought it into the time of great
difficulty and trial. We're so thankful to know these
things have not come by accident, but they're from your hand, from
your purpose, for your eternal will. Father, we pray that you'd
comfort the hearts of your people, that you'd teach the lesson that
you'd have for us to learn, and that you'd be pleased to deliver
as soon as it could be thy will. Now, Father, all these things
we ask, and we give thanks in that name which is above every
name. the name of Christ our Savior. It's for his sake and
his glory we pray, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
The Lord Calls His Preachers. Our text begins in Mark 1, verse
16. Now as he walked by the Sea of
Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into
the sea, for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, come
ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.
And straightway they forsook their nets and followed him.
And when he'd gone a little further thence, he saw James, the son
of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship, mending
their nets, and straightway he called them. And they left their
father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants and went after
him. Now this is the story of the
Lord calling his first disciples to be preachers and eventually
to be his apostles. And this is also how the Lord
calls all of his preachers. Now this isn't the call of grace,
when the Lord called these men, saved them by his grace. As far
as I can tell, that's not recorded anywhere in scripture. It must
have happened sometime before this. Maybe these men heard John
the Baptist preach. Somehow, however it was, whoever
it was, they heard the gospel. And the Lord gave them faith
to believe. And now the Lord is calling these men to be his
first disciples. and then he's gonna make preachers
out of them. Now, I see five marks here of
God calling his preachers in our text, and maybe you're not
ever gonna be called to preach, but it will be helpful for us
to know these five things that'll help us recognize God's preachers
when we do hear them. Number one is this. The Lord
called these men to be his preachers. These men were just going about
their daily everyday life, their job, their everyday job. That's
what they were doing. And the Lord passed by and called
them to be his disciples. You know, these men hadn't decided,
well, you know, I want to be a preacher. And just, they were
doing nothing, sitting around doing nothing, waiting for a
pulpit to open up so they could preach. They were doing their
jobs. They were doing what the Lord
put to their hand to do that day. For them, it was fishing. They were professional fishermen.
And they kept doing their jobs. They kept working at it to support
their families until the Lord called them to be his preachers.
Now, the same thing is true of all of God's preachers. God's
preachers do not put themselves in the ministry. You know, they
don't announce to everyone, you know, Lord has called me to preach
and then sit around doing nothing. You know, don't go out and work
a secular job. I'll just sit around and do nothing and wait
for a pulpit, you know, to open up. God's preachers don't announce
The Lord's called me to preach and then they spend time fundraising
to support their mission. Men don't put themselves in the
ministry. They don't go into the ministry until the Lord calls
them to it. And the Lord puts them in the
ministry. And we need to remember that. We need not to try to promote
a man and get him to go into the ministry just so we have
another preacher. Granted, it does seem at this
time in history that there is a shortage of pastors. There's
a shortage of pastors preaching God's sovereign grace, isn't
there? But we're not gonna take a man who's got some skills that
impress us and try to force him into the ministry just so we
got another preacher. That's gonna be a disaster for
him, that's gonna be a disaster for his family, that's gonna
be a disaster for the congregation. Where's it gonna wait for the
Lord to call a man into the ministry? And I promise you this, If the
Lord's the one that calls a man into the ministry, the church
is gonna recognize it. You know, that man's not gonna
have to go around telling everybody, the Lord's called me to preach.
They'll already know it. The church will recognize it.
They do every time. Because when the Lord calls a
man to the ministry, he gives that man gifts to be able to
do the job. You know, what man is sufficient
for these things? My soul. Janet has said this before, and
I think it several times a week. At some point during the week,
I'm sitting in my study, Frank Tate, what are you doing? What
are you doing? What man's sufficient for these
things? Well, no man. But the Lord's gonna give his
preachers the gifts to do the job that he called them to do. And when he does, the church
will recognize those gifts. But the Lord's got to be the
one to do it. He's got to be the one to do it. All right,
number two. The Lord calls plain men to be
his preachers. Simon and Andrew, James and John.
These are common, ordinary, blue-collar men. You know, a professional
fisherman is not a rich man, is he? Not by any means. He's
got to work hard every day to make the ends meet. And that's
what these men were doing. Couple of them, they're still
fishing. They're still casting their nets out there and fishing.
Couple of them, they've come back from fishing and they get
done. They've been out fishing however
long. They come back to the dock. And
now they're getting ready for the next day. They're mending
their nets. They're mending the boat. They're
doing preventive maintenance on the boat, whatever, so that
they can be ready to hit the water at sunrise the next day. These are just common, ordinary,
working men. And that's just who the Lord
uses. The Lord does not take rich men or men that have a lot
of power and influence out in the world to make them leaders
in his church. The Lord uses common ordinary people to be
leaders in his church. And here's why. God's not going
to use a man's natural abilities to make him successful in preaching.
This is not a professional speech giver. You know, being being
God's preacher is not being a motivational speaker. You know where you've
got some some skills, you know, to be able to do it. It's not
being a used car salesman, like Jonathan says. God's not going
to use man's natural ability. You can use your natural abilities
to do all those other things, can't you? But not this. Let
me show you that. First Corinthians chapter one. First Corinthians chapter one. Brother Todd Nibert won't mind
me telling this story. He's told it so many times, told
it on himself. When Brother Henry had his preacher school, there
was a number of men in that preacher school. And Henry looked at one
of them. I mean, this man was talented. I mean, he can do anything. He can preach. He can sing. He
can write songs. I mean, he's just got a dynamic
personality. Henry says, I'm worried about
you. You've got too many talents. He looked at Todd and said, I'm
not worried about you. You've got no talents whatsoever. But that's the man that God uses
to preach his gospel. And here's the reason. 1 Corinthians
1 verse 27. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen
the weak things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty, and base things of the world and things which are
despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring
to naught the things that are, that no flesh should glory in
his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption, that according as it's written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. See, in this matter of preaching,
we're in a bad way if the thing that we're glorying in is the
preacher. Oh, he's so dynamic. He's got all these different
gifts and people are just naturally drawn to him. That's not who
the Lord uses, is it? The Lord uses just plain, ordinary
men with no talent whatsoever, so that the glory's of Him. So
that the glory's of Him. See, the power of the gospel
is the Holy Spirit of God. It's not the natural abilities
of men. You know, if you're drawn to
a man, I promise you this, you'll soon leave the gospel. If you're
drawn to a man, because he's just a man. But if you're drawn
to Christ, you'll never leave the gospel. See, if you're drawn
to a man, the gospel eventually is gonna offend you, and you'll
leave. But if you're drawn to Christ, you'll love the offense
of the gospel. What's the offense of the gospel?
It's our flesh is helpless, our flesh can't do anything, we're
totally dependent on the Lord. If you're drawn to Christ, you
love that offense. You love that message that constantly
makes you dependent on the Savior, don't you? These men that the
Lord called were nobodies. As far as society is concerned,
they're nobodies. They didn't have a whole lot
of education. They're not eloquent men. They're very plain spoken
men. They didn't have magnetic, dynamic personalities. They were
plain, lower middle class men, and the power was of God on them.
The Lord used these men with Very little education, very little
talent. It turned the world upside down.
That power was of God. You know the Apostle Paul. I
was thinking about this, the Lord calling nobodies. Well,
that doesn't seem like Saul of Tarsus, does it? Saul of Tarsus
had many of those qualities. Best education you could have
in the day. The man was brilliant. The man
had power and authority. In the world, in the world in
which he lived, this man, he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
He had power and authority. He had eloquence. He had a personality
that people were drawn to. And the Lord called that man
to be one of his apostles. And you know the first thing
the Lord did with him? He taught him, you can't use
any of those abilities in preaching the gospel. If you're still there
in 1 Corinthians, look at verse two. He said, or chapter two,
verse one. And I, brethren, when I came
to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And
I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of
man's wisdom. Now Saul of Tarsus, he learned
those words. He's educated. He could have
used enticing words of man's wisdom. He could have done that,
but he said, I did not do that. But my preaching was in demonstration
of the spirit and of power, and here's why. So that your faith
should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Isn't it good that you know that
the preacher didn't talk to you in doing something? If a preacher
talked to you in doing something, you're always gonna doubt it,
aren't you? But if it's of the power of God, you never have
to doubt it. That's why the Lord just uses plain, common, ordinary
men to preach his gospel. All right, number three. God's
preachers all have a work ethic. These men that the Lord called
to be his first disciples are professional fishermen. Now,
professional fishermen work 12, 13, 14, 15 hours a day, and it's
hard work. the whole time. You know, when
Jonathan and I were growing up, there was a fishing hole behind
our house, and you know that when you first come over the
hill, that tree, that's where I always fished from. Because you know
where I wanted to be? I wanted to be in the shade. You know, it's
not casting your line out there with a bobber, sitting in the
shade, drinking a cold drink, you know, waiting for the bobber
to start bobbing up and down. That's not a professional fisherman.
A professional fisherman works hard all the time. He gets up
before sunrise and rose that boat out into the sea every single
morning. And we rose out there deep enough,
where the water's deep enough, they got these big, pretty good-sized
nets. And boy, once you throw that
net in the water, it soaks up the water. Now it's heavy. And
they take that net and they throw that thing out there in the water
and they pull it in. Empty the fish up, take it and
throw it. They do that all day long. I mean, that is hard, back-breaking
work. And when they get done, They've
caught as much fish as they think they can. Then they go back to
shore. Well, now they've got to clean all the fish that they
caught. Then they've got to repair their nets. They've got to make
sure the boat's ready to go the next morning. So that first light
the next morning, they go out and do it all over again. These
men did that six days a week. They rested on the Sabbath. But
six days a week, they went out working like that. Now, the point
of all that is this. These men had a work ethic, didn't
they? Well, they're going to need it.
They're gonna need that work ethic, because God's preachers
have a work ethic, and I'm telling you, it's a good one. It's a
good one. Someone asked Brother Bruce Crabtree
one time where their church could find a pastor. Where are we gonna
find the next pastor? And Bruce said, I'll tell you
where you're gonna find him. You're gonna find him working a job.
That's where you're gonna find him. He's not sitting in an ivory
tower, you know, somewhere at the seminary waiting for a job
to open up. He's got a job. And he's working
hard at it every day. And I'll tell you why that's
true. Because if you're gonna be in
the ministry, you better be prepared for hard work. Hard work. And working hard at a job, just
going out every day, support your family, that's good training
ground to teach you a good work ethic. Now if you do it right,
the ministry is hard work, physically, and emotionally and spiritually
especially, it's hard work, hard work. It's a burden that you carry
constantly. So many of the Old Testament
prophets wrote about the burden of the word of the Lord. That's
the burden God's preachers have to carry all the time. There's
a family I know, years ago there was a little boy in that family.
His grandfather was a pastor and they were eating dinner and
that little boy announced to his family, he said, I'm going
to be a pastor too when I grow up. And the family asked him,
why do you say that? And he said, because preachers
only have to work two days a week. Well, that boy's a man now. He's got a real good job out
there in the secular world. And I'm sure he's got a fine
work ethic. But I'm telling you, if the Lord made a preacher out
of that fellow, he'd have had a rude awakening. I mean, it's
just... I'm not exalting myself saying
I work harder than any of you, because I don't. But it's different. It's different. That's the only
way I can explain it. But I can show you that. If you
look over to Ephesians chapter four, this matter of God's preachers
having a work ethic. Ephesians chapter four. beginning in verse 11. And he gave some apostles and
some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.
The Lord made these men, apostles and prophets and evangelists
and pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints,
for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body
of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of
the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect, a mature man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that
we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, carried about
with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men, in cunning
craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, but speaking
the truth in love, may grow up and into him in all things which
is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined
together, and compacted by that, which every joint supplieth according
to the effectual working, in the measure of every part, making
the increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. Now here Paul's talking about
the work of the ministry. It's for the perfecting, for
the maturing of the saints, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
to be taught so that you can't be deceived. These false prophets
are lying in wait to deceive you. They're crafting. They're
crafty. They take the Word of God and
they twist it a little bit. They hide it a little bit. They
put some man's logic and man's wisdom in it. They're crafty
trying to deceive you. The job of God's pastors is to
teach you Christ, to teach you the Scriptures so you can't be
deceived. It's so that we grow up together
in Christ. Paul said, I travail till Christ
be formed in you. That's hard work. It's hard work
caring for somebody like that and then digging into scriptures
and find something to give them that'll point them to Christ.
That'll cause them to grow up in Christ. And you cannot imagine the heartache
when you see someone be deceived and go away. And that heartache
is what drives you to keep, It's hard work. Look at 2 Timothy
chapter four. Here's Paul's instruction to
Timothy. In preaching, 2 Timothy four,
verse one. I charge thee therefore before
God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who's a judge, the quick and
the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be instant in season. out of
season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.
For the time will come when they'll not endure sound doctrine. Timothy, they're gonna hear you.
They won't have it. They're gonna leave you. But after their own
lusts, shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears?
They're gonna find somebody that tells them what they wanna hear,
and they shall turn their ears away from the truth and shall
be turned unto fables. Now, they're gonna do that, Timothy,
but watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work. of an evangelist, make full proof
of thy ministry. Paul said, all these things are
gonna happen to you, Timothy, but you just keep working at
it. You just keep working at the ministry. The job of prayer
and study and care and preaching is hard work. And if a man's
God's preacher, he's gonna be dedicated to it. He's gonna be
dedicated to it. I wouldn't give you two cents
for a man who does not spend time in study preparing to preach
to me. I wouldn't give you two cents
for it. I wouldn't listen to advise you. I just wouldn't do
it. God's preachers have a work ethic. All right, here's the
fourth thing. God's preachers go willingly. Now you'll notice as soon as
the Lord called these men, they immediately got up from what
they were doing and followed the Lord. There wasn't any debate. There wasn't any, now, wait till
I do this, wait till I do that, and then I'll go. It wasn't like,
wait till I get the business in a better position, you know,
so they can do without me. No, the Lord called them and
they immediately followed Him. When I was a little boy, there
was a preacher I heard. He made this statement, which
I don't know, scared everybody to death. I'm not sure exactly
why he made this statement. This is what he said. He said,
when the Lord saves us, he calls us, calls us by his grace. He
said, we just come to him with such joy. We just come running
to him, don't we? He said, but when the Lord calls
a man to preach, he's got to get out the baseball bat. No, he doesn't either. No, he
doesn't. The Lord calls a man and he makes
him willing to go into the ministry. The very same way he makes all
of his people willing to submit to him on the day of his power.
The Lord makes them willing to do it. God's preachers willingly
follow him into the ministry. Brother Henry said so many times
the Lord has no unwilling servants, none. They willingly follow him
and they do it even though there's a price to be paid. They're still
willing to pay that personal price. The Lord called these
men. Here they're doing their job.
They had to leave their nets. They had to leave their boats.
They had to leave a significant investment, didn't they? They
had to leave that to go be God's preacher. These men had to leave
their family business. James and John are working with
their dad. I mean, this is the family business. And they had
to leave that. They had to leave their family
and go into the ministry. Here they had this job. I mean,
it wasn't a job making them rich, but it was a steady job, wasn't
it? And they had to leave it. They had to leave all visible
means of support to go into the ministry. I mean, leave all visible
means of support. In order to pay their taxes,
the Lord had to reach his hand down out of the fish's mouth
and pull out the coin to pay the taxes. All visible means of support
were gone. And they did it. They did it
willingly, didn't they? Now there's a price to be paid
to be in the ministry. These 12 apostles, they all paid
a big price, didn't they? To be in the ministry. Every
last one of them was martyred, except for the apostle John,
who died of old age, exiled to the Isle of Patmos. They all
paid a price. And the same thing is true today.
There's just a cost to being in the ministry. Everything else
in your life is now second, the best it can be, is second because
this comes first. More than likely, man's gonna
go be a pastor somewhere. He's gonna have to move away
from his family. He's gonna have to go where the Lord calls him
to serve. He doesn't get to choose where that might be. Now, that
does not mean your family's not important, because they are.
They are important. God's preachers are to be good
husbands and good fathers. That's what Scripture says, isn't
it? But the family still comes second. They still have to come
second. You're just going to have to
give up some of your time. You're going to have to give
up some money. There's something wrong with
a rich preacher. Something very, very, very, very wrong with that.
You don't have to take a vow of poverty, but you ain't going
to be rich either. If you're truly going to go into ministry,
that's what you got to do. And if a man's God's preacher,
he will do that willingly. You can just tell what a man's
goal and purpose is. If he's constantly trying to
draw stuff out of you so he can have more stuff and more better
stuff, I highly question whether or not that man's God's preacher.
Highly questioned, highly. All right, here's the last thing. God's preachers are fishers of
men. Now the Lord made these men fishers
of men. The Lord made them that. The
Lord equipped them to do this job. You think what a preacher
school these men had. The Lord said, I'm gonna make
you to become fishers of men. The Lord himself taught them.
The Lord gifted them and made them preachers of his kingdom,
just like he was. And the Lord described their
new occupation, being one of his preachers. as being fishers
of men. Now they're not fishing for profit
like they used to. You catch fish out there in the
ocean, you're catching fish for profit. These men aren't doing
this for profit for themselves anymore. Fishers of men are fishers
of men's souls. They're drawing men and women,
not to themselves, not for their own gain, they're drawing them
to Christ for your gain, for your gain so that you'll be drawn
to Christ. God's preachers are not professional
fishermen in this way. We preach for God's glory. Preach
for your good, not for our financial gain. God's preacher, a fisher
of men, will do his job, preach Christ to you for your good. He'll tell you the truth, even
if it makes an enemy out of you. Even if you ain't hearing the
offense of the cross, even if you ain't hearing the offense
of the gospel, He's going to tell you the truth because he
cares for your soul. He's a fisher of men, fishing
for souls. You're preaching Christ. We talk
about this fishing. This is very important. Remember,
these men use nets. They use nets. Preaching Christ
is not the kind of fishing where you deceive the fish with a lure
that isn't real. I told you about that. fishing
hole behind our house when Jonathan and I were growing up. I mean,
you ought to have seen the contraptions and the hooks and the baits and
the stuff, you know, we used to try to catch fish. I mean,
wow. But, you know, I never just threw
a hook in that thing, in that pond, and caught a fish. Never,
ever, ever. I always had to deceive the fish.
which I guess tells you what kind of fisherman I am. I often
came away without any fish. So the fish must be smarter than
me. But if you're going to catch a fish, you've got to deceive
them. You've got to deceive them. That's not the kind of fishers
that me and the Lord's talking about here. He's not talking
about using a lure and trying to draw somebody and deceive
them into coming to Christ. He's not talking about using
something that's not real to draw men to Christ. We draw men
to Christ by casting the net of the gospel. We draw men to
Christ by telling the truth. By telling the truth about themselves,
about ourselves. How helpless and hopeless and
how lost we are. We draw men to Christ by telling
the truth about who Christ is. Oh, look at Him lifted up. Look
at Him the Savior of sinners. Look at Him sacrificed for the
sin of His people. His blood atones for all of the
sin of His people. His blood cleanses us from all
sin. Look to Him. Trust Him. Trust Him to be your
all. We do that plainly and openly and honestly with no other agenda
other than you hear Christ preached in truth. You hear Him glorified,
so you come to Him. That's our only agenda. Now we
cast that net out of the sea, don't we? Preaching to all men
everywhere, everywhere the Lord gives us an opportunity. We preach
to all men everywhere, but we're not using lures now. We're not
trying to deceive people. We're depending on the Lord to
call out his sheep. We preach to all men everywhere.
Everywhere the Lord gives us an opportunity, we do it. With
this confidence, the Lord's gonna call out his sheep. I don't have
to use lures. I don't have to use deceits.
I don't have to use sales tactics. Just preach Christ. I know this. The Lord will use that message
to call out his sheep. I know he will. Now, if you can
find a man Preaching like that. You can find a man who's been
put into the ministry like that. You'd be wise to listen to him.
That's God's preaching. All right, hope the Lord will
bless that to you.