Mark's Gospel, Chapter 3, and
verse 13. And he goeth up into a mountain,
and calleth unto him whom he would, and they came unto him. And he ordained twelve, that
they should be with him, and that he might send them forth
to preach. and to have power to heal sicknesses
and to cast out devils. And Simon he surnamed Peter,
and James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James,
and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is the sons of thunder. and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew,
and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and
Thaddeus, and Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, which also
betrayed him. And they went into an house. And the multitude cometh together
again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when
his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him,
for they said, he is beside himself. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. The verses that we have before
us this evening speak to us of the calling of the Lord's disciples,
a formal calling that the Lord made to these men. And from these
verses and others like them, it seems very clear to me, at
least, that the Lord Jesus possessed a long-term vision, a strategy,
if you like, for his own ministry, but also for the extended ministry
and for the well-being of the Church over a much greater distance
and longer period of time. Although the Lord only ministered
for three years from the age of 30 to 33, we discover that
during those years he established a number of principles and precedents
by which that ministry would continue after his death, resurrection
and ascension to be carried to the nations. And indeed, you
will remember with me how that at the end of his ministry, he
gave that great commission in joining his disciples to go out
into all the world and preach the gospel. And here in this
little passage in Mark's gospel in chapter three, we see that
these gospel accounts of the Lord's ministry and the way in
which he established this greater role for his followers in preaching
the gospel, as this was written down and recorded, it shows us
this preparation that was being made by the Saviour to carry
that message far and wide. And what we discover is that
the Lord chose 12 individuals. He chose 12 apostles, Luke calls
them. And these apostles or messengers
were men that he was going to provide teaching for and then
commission and empower to take his message, the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, out to the ends of the earth. So this evening,
I wanted to just spend a little bit of time thinking about some
of these men and the role that the Lord Jesus Christ gave them. Luke tells us in the parallel
passage to this that the Lord Jesus Christ had spent all night
in prayer prior to the choosing of these 12 men. Mark, he tells
us that he went up into a mountain and then called to him whom he
would. It would seem that there were
a larger number of disciples called to him at this time, perhaps
a very large number. There were certainly many, many
people following after the Lord and endeavouring to hear him
and be with him and share with him and be part of that movement
which was gathering around him. And he seems to have called these
disciples to him and into the mountain with him, whether they
had been with him all night or whether he had chosen a quiet
place, a secret place in order to pray privately. He calls these
men in the morning to his presence and there from them he chooses
these 12. And it does appear as if he is
making these 12 into a unit. He is binding them together. They are becoming his close friends
and followers. And he calls them, in Luke's
passage anyway, apostles. That is, messengers of his message,
his gospel. And we are told here also in
Mark that when the Lord chose these men, he ordained them,
that is, he ordered them or he set them in order. And that can
be simply to identify them physically and as being separate from others,
or it also carries that sense of empowering them with a calling
and a purpose and an authority. And that certainly does seem
to be the case, that these men were identified separately as
those to whom the Lord would reveal himself in particular
ways, whether it was through his miraculous works, whether
it was through his ministry and the preaching that he gave, which
they would attend to constantly, or whether it was those additional
insights that he provided when he spoke to them of the meaning
of his parables, or he spoke to them of the purpose of his
coming. And of course, we know that these
disciples, though they spent the next three years with the
Lord, were often very slow and dull to grasp the message that
the Lord was giving to them. And even indeed, when the Lord
finally went to the cross, there was great confusion and uncertainty
in the hearts of these men. But nevertheless, these next
three years under the tutelage, direction of the Lord Jesus,
were going to be formative for the ministry that these men would
fulfil in days to come. And we're particularly told in
Mark verse 14 here, is that, having ordained these twelve,
they were ordained that they would be with him, so that they
would attend to him and follow after him, and that he might
send them forth to preach. So this preaching was the principal
purpose They were to be with the Lord and that he would teach
them and then enable them thereby to carry and convey his message
beyond the confines and the borders of the land in which he was fulfilling
his own ministry, the land of Israel. They were also ordained
to heal sicknesses. and to cast out devils. We can
see that in verse 15. And this ministry that they had
then of preaching and healing sicknesses and casting out devils,
it bespoke the physical miracles, that they were able to perform
both with Christ and in the name of Christ in that day in which
they lived. And we see that that was both
while the Lord was there on earth and then in the aftermath of
that also. and it prefigured, I'm sure,
as will be clear in our minds, that there was to be an enduring
apostolic ministry. That while these men who had
been specifically called, particularly designated, distinguished out
from the other disciples, as it were, to fulfill this role
of apostolic ministry, that that ministry would continue after
the end of the individual apostles' lives. Not that we would necessarily
see some of these more miraculous signs and wonders of the healing
of sicknesses and the casting out of devils, but that these
would be indicative, prefigure if you like, that enduring ministry
of salvation that would come by faith. For there would still
be that preaching, that would go on in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ following after the pattern of this apostolic
role. There would still be that healing
of sicknesses. not perhaps leprosy and blindness
and deafness and the raising of the dead, which was part of
the apostolic ministry of these disciples, but rather of the
sicknesses of sin and the help and the comfort which gospel
ministry brings to those who are sick in their souls. and
also that is a picture of the casting out of devils also because
it is through the preaching of the gospel now and the continuation
of that apostolic ministry that ministry of preaching the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ by which the devil is unseated from the
throne of men's hearts and the Lord Jesus Christ takes that
place. We're going to be thinking a
little bit later in the chapter about the way in which the Lord
Jesus Christ went in and bound the strong man. Well that is
the role of the gospel in these days and it's why we continue
to preach the gospel and why we desire to uphold it and minister
it, because we know that this is the means by which the Lord
Jesus Christ enters men's hearts yet in these days, that the gospel
is the power of God unto salvation, not the will of the individual,
not the efforts of man's flesh, but the gospel that is preached,
the living word, which in its declaration and its reception
and its application by God the Holy Spirit brings that enlivening
power and the experience of conversion and grace to needy souls, the
Lord's elect people whom he has chosen to save. We're then given
a list of these men. And as I say, I wanted just this
evening to spend this particular service, this particular occasion,
thinking about these individuals, because while we know of them,
Sometimes we really don't think about them too much beyond the
occasional reference that we have in the Gospels to them. And really that ought not to
be the case. These were men who were honoured
in the Lord's lifetime by being drawn close to Him. And we learn
much from these men in the New Testament epistles and in the
Acts of the Apostles and in observing them. in their own lives and
in the things that they said and the things that they did,
the way that they lived, the doubts that they had, the dimness
and darkness of their understanding despite the Lord's clear testimony
to them. And I think in many respects
we can draw some degree of comfort and reassurance that the trials
that we face and the difficulties that we encounter and the dullness
that we feel and the dearth sometimes of strong faith, the doubt that
besets us and the darkness which comes upon us, we see reflected
in these men's lives also. and it shows us that we in many
ways are just like them and they were just like us. So let us
think about some of these men. We actually encounter four different
occasions in the New Testament, in the Word of God, where this
list is given to us. Each of the synoptic writers,
so Matthew gives us the 12 disciples, Mark gives us the 12 disciples,
that's the passage that we're reading today, and Luke also,
he gives us that list as well. And then Luke repeats the list
again, in the Acts of the Apostles. So on four different occasions,
we are given these lists of the disciples' names. But interestingly,
No two of those lists are exactly the same. And so there is something
of an enigma here, something intriguing, because we get little
insights by little references. The different ways that the gospel
writers present this list gives us little insights and little
interesting asides as to the identity of these individuals
and how we might understand their interaction and relationship
one with another and indeed with the Lord Jesus Christ. So let
us just dwell on some of those, what I trust you will find to
be interesting things and comments and insights this evening. The
first disciple that we are told about here that the Lord ordained
was Simon. In verse 16 we discover here
is this man called Simon. And we are told in verse 16,
and Simon he surnamed Peter. Now this is Simon Barjona. and
we know him more as Peter, that's a Greek name that he has. Simon
would be his Jewish name. And the Barjona simply says also
that he was the son of Jonah. That's what Barjona means, the
son of Jonah. So he was Simon, the son of Jonah,
and the Lord gave him this name Peter, or Cephas, that's another
name that he carries as well. I think that's the Aramaic name
equivalent to Peter. And he was a fisherman. Peter was a fisherman. He was
brother to Andrew, who we're going to meet in a moment or
two. Peter also appears to have been a married man, because you'll
remember that one of the Lord's first miracles was that he healed
Peter's mother-in-law. and he seems to have been a married
man and a man of some property because he had a house or at
least he had access to a house which was in his own ownership
or perhaps he owned it with Andrew. He was a man from who lived in
Capernaum, at this time that's where his house was, and he was
in the inner circle of the disciples. Indeed, in some respects, although
he is never formally said to be so, he appears to be a leader. Perhaps that was a characteristic
of his nature, that he had that leadership quality. Perhaps it
was an age thing. Perhaps he was a man who was
used to some extent to speaking and leadership qualities were
possessed by him. He certainly seems to have been
a reasonably successful businessman. But he became the spokesman for
the disciples and indeed we discover that sometimes as the spokesman
he became rather outspoken and the Lord had to rebuke him on
occasion. There are too many references
to Peter to touch upon them all in the New Testament, but he
was a man who was evidently blessed of God. The Lord could say to
him, blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah, for flesh and blood
hadn't revealed the things that Peter saw in the Lord Jesus Christ,
but rather his Father that was in heaven. And yet, at the same
time, this same man was very shortly thereafter rebuked by
the Lord Jesus Christ in a very firm way. And the Lord said to
him, get thee behind me, Satan, when Peter expressed a reluctance
for the Lord to go up to Jerusalem, fearing for the Lord's life if
he did so. So in Matthew chapter 16 and
verse 16, we have Peter evidencing these insights, these blessed
insights as to the true identity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God. We see later that
Peter was able to walk on water to the Lord Jesus Christ and
yet at the same time experienced that shame and embarrassment
as he began to sink for his lack of faith and had to cry out to
the Lord to be saved. He denied the Lord during the
Lord's trial when he had been abandoned and was alone. Peter,
as it were, emphasised and reinforced that abandonment of Christ by
his aggressive and blasphemous denial of the Saviour. And yet on the resurrection morning,
he was first to enter the tomb of the Lord. He was reinstated
and recommissioned to feed the Lord's flock, feed my sheep,
feed my lambs, when the Lord had risen from the grave. And that he did both in a preaching
ministry and in a written ministry which extended for decades. He preached a sermon on the day
of Pentecost which was so very simple and yet so successful
insofar as on that occasion there were over 3,000 people added
to the church. He attacked Malchus, the high
priest's servant, with a sword, with such venom and such force
that he cut off the ear of Malchus. And yet he was able to raise
to life that Lady Dorcas, or Tabitha, who had died. He was called to be a fisher
of men and he served as a minister of the everlasting kingdom of
our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And so this is Peter, the first
amongst the apostles, and these are some of the aspects of this
man and his ministry. He preached the everlasting kingdom
of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It was a testimony that
he had felt in his own heart through the ministry and the
friendship of the Lord. He had been taught of these things.
He knew that Jesus Christ was God. And he knew that Jesus Christ
was his Saviour and he testified and witnessed to that for the
rest of his life until he himself was taken and followed his master
in death by the same pattern as the Lord himself had died. The next we encounter here in
the list is in verse 17 and we're told of another man called James. And James is the son of Zebedee
and Salome. He's the elder brother of John,
who we will meet in a moment. And he too, like Peter, was by
trade a fisherman. Indeed, it seems as if he was
in partnership with Peter. And so here's one of these little
interesting little connections that we begin to find amongst
these disciples, these apostles. These men that the Lord Jesus
Christ chose were not strangers to one another. Indeed, there
were long-lasting and standing relationships between these men,
whether it was actual family relationships or whether it was
trade relationships and partnerships that existed before they met
the Lord Jesus Christ at all. And so we can see that it was
a small group of men that were called who had much in common. And yet here they are being drawn
into this closer relationship now, even than anything they
had had before with the Lord Jesus Christ and this ordination
and apostleship that he bestowed upon them. So James was in partnership
with Peter as a fisherman. and he too was one of the twelve
and one of that inner circle amongst the twelve because we
often encounter Peter, James and John. So this is the James
that we encounter and he with Peter and with John was present
at, for example, the transfiguration of the Lord when Elijah and Moses
appeared there on the mountaintop and the Lord Jesus Christ shone
in glory. He was present at the raising
of Jairus's daughter. He was one of those in a circle
that had been called into the bedchamber, the death chamber,
if you like, of that little girl and saw the Lord Jesus Christ
raising her to life. He was with the Lord in the Garden
of Gethsemane, called beyond the other disciples to be part
of that final confrontation that the Lord had in his moments of
agony. Now because probably their boldness
and impetuosity and energy, he and John his brother were also
called by another name, Boanerges, and that means sons of thunder. Somewhere I read a long time
ago that maybe that was given to them as a little bit of poking
fun at them. But then I remembered that this
James was the first martyr among the apostles. He was slain by
the sword at the hand of King Herod Agrippa. He did not know
much of ministry beyond the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. But
anybody who lays down their life for the faith, anybody who lays
down their life for the Lord Jesus Christ, anyone who very
lightly has their head chopped off like John the Baptist did,
is worthy and welcome to that name, a son of thunder. Then we encounter John. John is the brother of James,
as we have mentioned, and again, this innermost circle of the
Lord's friends, Peter, James, and John. So he is the third,
and he seems to have been the younger brother. But even with
this distinction of being on the innermost circle, it seems
as if John had another distinction granted to him also, because
he was the one of whom it was said, the disciple whom Jesus
loved. does not say that the Lord does
not love all of his people and that he did not love all of his
disciples. Of course he did. But here is
this closeness, this familiarity that the Lord had with John. And it's a lovely, it's a delightful
way in which John himself often expresses this, that he was the
one whom Jesus loved. And sometimes he uses that, it
seems, as a way of not writing his own name, in fact. And again
he was present at some of those particular and important moments
in the Saviour's ministry. Jairus' daughter raised again
the Transfiguration and the Garden of Gethsemane. But he was also
particularly noticed at the cross. And it was to this man, it was
to John that the commitment of the care of Mary, the Lord's
mother, was entrusted. And I think that that's a lovely
thing to remember, that here was John watching his saviour
being slain, watching the Lord Jesus Christ whom he loved and
who loved him. And there in that moment, the
closeness of the bonds of those deepest of relationships are
bound together for the whole of these people's lives in that
Mary, the mother of Jesus, was committed into the care of John
the Apostle. John, of course, was active on
that resurrection morning. He was the one who ran to the
tomb with Peter, and he was the one who recognised Jesus in the
early morning mist as the Lord prepared breakfast for his disciples
with those coals of fire and the bread and the fish after
his resurrection. It was John who recognised the
Lord on the shore. He served the Church at Jerusalem
bravely through the years of the Apostle Paul's attacks on
the Church as Saul of Tarsus. And during those times of great
trial and tribulation, John was there in Jerusalem as a key figure
boldly continuing to minister the gospel of Jesus Christ. He
was the one who went with Peter to the temple, to the beautiful
gate where he was beaten for the testimony that they made
that day in the healing of the man who had damaged legs, who
couldn't walk. He was present at the Council
and Jerusalem in Acts 15 where he spoke. He continues in fellowship
with the Apostle Paul and ultimately he was the writer of the three
epistles towards the end of our New Testament that speaks so
highly of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and our love to
him. And of course the book of Revelation is attributed to him
also, the revelation of Jesus Christ. in which he, John, was
in the spirit on the Lord's Day while in exile on the island
of Patmos. The next disciple that we meet
in this list is a man called Andrew. And Andrew is the brother
of Peter. So here's relationships that
we see within these disciples. Peter and his brother Andrew
are apostles. John and his brother James are
apostles and all four of these men had been in business with
each other as fishermen and so it was a small group. Andrew
and Peter were from Bethesda. I'm going to come back to that
in a minute or two. And he, Andrew, is regarded as
being the earliest follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first
of the disciples of Jesus Christ is this man, Andrew. It seems
that he was a hearer and a listener, perhaps even a disciple of John
the Baptist. And he heard John the Baptist's
testimony the day that the Lord went to be baptised by John. of the day before, when John
declared, behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin
of the world. Andrew heard John the Baptist
saying that, and he was one of the two on hearing John speak
those words that followed after the Lord Jesus Christ and went
and said to Jesus, where is it that you live? And Jesus said,
come and see. And they spent time together talking together. So here is Andrew, Simon Peter's
brother. But in truth, we know little
about Andrew. He does not appear very much
upon the pages of scripture. There are just a few things.
He has an occasional comment that he makes, but the one thing
which is perhaps noticeable, and it's this that I want to
leave with you this evening with respect to Andrew, is that on
each of the occasions where Andrew is noticed and mentioned, He
is bringing someone to the Lord. And I think that that is a delightful
memorial for this man to have and possess. It is noteworthy
that Andrew, on three different occasions, brings someone to
the Lord. The very first person that he
brought to the Lord was his brother Peter. He says to Peter, we have
found him of whom the prophet spoke. And Peter comes in order
to hear what the Lord Jesus Christ has to say. The next person that
Andrew brings is the lad with the loaves and the fishies. He is the one who has this little
boy, has this little lad that he has discovered there with
the food. And by bringing that little lad
with the food into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, there
ensued the miraculous feeding of the 5,000. And then a little
later in the experience of the disciples and the Lord at the
Passover in Jerusalem, we're told that there were certain
Greeks who wanted to have an audience and an interview with
the Lord Jesus Christ, and it was Andrew who came and introduced
them to the Lord. So here is this man, Andrew,
of whom we know very little, but what we do know is that he
is always introducing somebody to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
now we encounter a man called Philip. Philip is the next person
that we have here. And Philip belonged to Bethesda,
Bethesda of Galilee. And here this is interesting
as well, because this is the same town. This is the same fishing
village. that Andrew and Peter belonged
to. Now, I don't know what village
life was like in those days, but I imagine that it was much
like village life in these days. You pretty much, if you grow
up in a village, know most people, know who they are, know who their
family is, know a lot about them. And here we discover that Philip
was of Bethesda of Galilee. Now, I'm going to see if I can
do something a little bit clever here and show you a map because
I just wanted to draw something to your attention here. If you
can see this little map, so the blue patch, the big blue patch
is the Mediterranean Sea. The country of Israel runs from
top to bottom. That blue part near the top,
there's a very small one right at the very top. And then there's
the Sea of Galilee there. And then there's a long river
which runs down to the Dead Sea there, sort of across from Judea. But I just wanted to show you
this little map, because if we go back up to Galilee again,
near the top of the map, you can see Galilee in the centre
there. That's the region of Israel. And you can see that in beside
the Sea of Galilee. Right underneath the word Galilee
there you can see Cana and then you can see Nazareth under that. And then if you go up onto the
north side of the Sea of Galilee you can see Capernaum and Bethsaida
there. Galilee was where these men were
largely from. And you can see there Bethsaida,
where Peter and Andrew, and now we're told Philip, and then Capernaum,
where the Lord did so many of his miracles and maintained,
where Peter maintained his house and the Lord often visited. And
so all of this is going on in that little area. And then to
drop all the way down that long river valley and down to just
above where it says the Dead Sea there, you can see the word
Bethany, and that is Bethany beyond Jordan. That's where John
the Baptist, we showed this on a previous map, I think, that's
where John the Baptist was baptising. So when we speak about these
men being followers of John the Baptist, they all had left, perhaps
as a party, perhaps as a group, they all had left Bethsaida and
Capernaum and Cana of Galilee and Nazareth and gone down to
Bethany where John the Baptist was baptizing. So Back to the thoughts on the sermon. So here's Philip and belonging
to Bethesda at that north end of the Sea of Galilee. And he,
along with Andrew and fellow townsmen, had journeyed all that
way to Bethany to hear John the Baptist preaching. And it was
there also that Philip received his first call to follow Christ. And one of the interesting things
about Philip is that in the same way as Andrew, he immediately
won a fresh follower to the Lord Jesus Christ because he went
and spoke to Nathanael. He went and got Nathanael and
he brought Nathanael to Christ. Philip was also the one at the
feeding of the 5,000 who was asked of the Lord Jesus, whence
are we to buy bread that these may eat? And Philip took a look
around all the thousands of people that were there and he said,
That's not going to be possible. That's not going to be feasible.
200 penny worth of bread would not feed a crowd like this. So Philip is known to us as a
man of some practical resource perhaps. He was one who was eager
to convey a message of the Lord Jesus Christ and he was also
one that spoke with respect to the feeding of the 5,000. We
mentioned Andrew bringing the Greeks to the Lord. In fact,
those Greeks had initially approached Philip when they desired to speak
to Jesus, and Philip had gone to Andrew, and it was Andrew
who then took them to the Lord. During the address of Jesus to
his disciples at the Last Supper, Philip was the one who made this
request, Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us. And the
Lord said to him, have I been so long with you, Philip? And
yet thou hast not known me. And so we see that the Lord Jesus
Christ was always explaining and revealing his true identity
to these disciples even although so very often they lacked the
faith and they lacked grasping the extent of the power and the
ability of the Lord Jesus Christ and indeed his divinity. And
now we come to one of the questions perhaps. Here is a man called
Bartholomew, and Bartholomew is often mentioned together with
Philip. And so that has made some people
think that the person who Philip brought to the Lord Jesus Christ,
on that occasion when I mentioned that the first thing he did was
went and got Nathanael and brought him to Christ, that who he actually
brought was Bartholomew, and that Bartholomew and Nathanael
are the same person. Well, it's possible that that
is the case. This man, Nathaniel, is from
Cana in Galilee, so that was one of the other little towns
on the map that we showed a moment or two ago. And there is some
speculation, although it cannot be proved, that this man, Bartholomew,
who is mentioned here in Mark's Gospel, is the same with Nathaniel. One of the reasons for thinking
that is that wherever in scripture one name is mentioned, the other
one is not. So wherever we encounter this
man Bartholomew, we don't find Nathanael being spoken about.
And yet when we mention Nathanael, particularly in the Gospel of
John, we don't find Bartholomew being named. The Synoptics, they
speak about Bartholomew and John speaks about a man called Nathanael
of Cana in Galilee. And it's very clear that this
man Nathanael, whether or not he was to be identified with
Bartholomew, was certainly very close with the Lord also. And we find, for example, one
of the indications that this may indeed have been the same
person given to us in John chapter 21 and verse 2, where we read
that the disciples had gone fishing and that there were seven disciples
in the boat fishing, and they were together Simon Peter and
Thomas called Didymus, that's Thomas the twin, we're coming
to him in a moment, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, and the sons
of Zebedee, James and John, and two other disciples. So here
is a group of disciples amongst whom is a man called Nathaniel
of Cana in Galilee, and yet no mention of Bartholomew. And this
is the man, again Nathanael, of whom it is spoken by John
that the Lord Jesus Christ said of him, behold an Israelite indeed
in whom is no guile. And Nathanael was able again
to make a glorious declaration of the true identity of the Lord
Jesus Christ when the Lord said to him that he had been with
him, he knew him because he had seen him at prayer under the
fig tree. And I think that there was a
particularly the spiritual engagement and interaction there that took
place, which caused Nathaniel to be so convinced that this
was indeed God in whose presence he stood when he was later introduced
to him. Then we encounter this man called
Matthew, son of Alpheus. Well, he's not called the son
of Alpheus here, But he appears to be the same man, the son of
Alpheus. And he was the one that was called
in the previous passage from previous chapter from the tax
collecting booth. And he seems to have been a man
of some wealth. As a tax collector, he would
be relatively educated and numerate, and he is assumed, I mean, I
say assumed because we're not told in as many words, but the
acceptance is that he was the author of the Gospel of Matthew. We spoke a little bit about him
on a previous occasion, so I don't want to say too much about Matthew
on this occasion. But he is also a son of Alphaeus,
and that again is another thing that I'm going to come back to
in a little while. Just notice that when we read
about him previously in chapter 2, verse 14, we were told there
that as the Lord passed by the receipt of custom, he saw Levi
the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom and he
said unto him follow me and he arose and followed him. So this
is Matthew or Levi the son of Alphaeus. Then we come to Thomas. Thomas, or the other name that
he has is Didymus, which is the twin. So he may have been or
had a twin brother. And John tells us three things
about this man, Thomas. He tells us that he was a man
that was slow to believe and he could see lots of difficulties
in any case that was set before him. He seems to have been a
man who was prone to despondency. He was a gloomy man. He viewed
things on the dark side and yet he was a man who was full of
love and dedication to the Lord Jesus. And this latter trait
was shown in his speech when the Lord determined to face the
dangers that awaited him in Judea on one occasion. Judea was the
county or the region in which Jerusalem was and that was where
the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Scribes and the enemies
of Christ were predominantly to be found. And the Lord prepared
to go into Judea and it was known that it was going to be a dangerous
journey. He was heading to his friends in Bethany. And Thomas
was the one who said to his fellow disciples, let us also go that
we may die with him. And I think that's in John 11,
verse 16. And so when we talk about Thomas
and doubting Thomas, and when we give Thomas such a bad rap
in many cases, that he was a man of little faith or a man who
just couldn't trust the fellow disciples, let us remember that
comment that fell from his lips. Let us go also that we may die
with him. And I think that's a beautiful
picture of the union that he had with the Lord Jesus Christ.
What was life going to be without Christ? And perhaps we can discern
in his reaction to the other disciples' claims that Christ
had been raised something of the depth into which he had fallen
in despondency because of this love that he had for his Saviour. Another aspect of the character
of this man is that it was Thomas who said to the Lord at the Last
Supper, when the Lord said that he would come again and take
us unto himself, that Thomas said, Lord, we don't know where
you're going. How can we know the way? And again, while we might look
at that on the surface as saying, well, Thomas, why are you doubting? Another way of thinking about
that is that Thomas wanted to go with him. The Lord Jesus Christ
is here telling them that he's going to die and Thomas says,
I want to come with you. I don't know how to do that.
I don't know the way to go. It seems as if Thomas, he wanted
to know the details. He could see the practical difficulties
rising before him and he needed to know the actual steps that
would be taken in order to accomplish these desires that he had in
his heart. And is that not like so many of us? So that when,
in John chapter 20 and 25, the disciples said to Thomas, We've seen the Lord. He says
to them, except I see in his hands the prints of the nails
and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand
into his side, I will not believe. I think again here in this man
that has had so much bad press with this title Doubting Thomas. rather a picture of the man who
has now become sullen and perhaps even depressed and preoccupied
with that last view that he had of his friend. And maybe there
was something of the guilt there. Maybe something of the guilt
of having run away from the Lord. That he was the one who had said,
let us go with him that we may die with him. And then he had
run away, and what was his last view of his friend? Seeing him
hanging there with the nail prints in his hand, seeing him hanging
with the gash in his side, and he says, except I see in his
hands the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side,
I will not believe. I don't know why he wasn't there
in the upper room with the disciples on the first occasion when the
Lord came, but I am so pleased that the Lord visited again and
spoke to Thomas. Eight days later, he meets with
his disciples and he says to Thomas, peace be unto you. And then he turns and he says,
reach hither thy finger and behold my hands. Reach hither thy hand
and thrust it into my side. And be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said
unto him, My Lord and my God. Perhaps one of the greatest assertions
of the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ that we have in the whole
of the word of God. Yes, Peter's was strong and yes,
Nathanael's was strong, but here is Thomas. declaring with all
earnestness and sincerity to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom his
soul loved, my Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas,
because thou hast seen, thou hast believed. Blessed are they
that have not seen and yet believed. And that's a fine place for us
to be. I'm so thankful that Doubting
Thomas gave us the opportunity to have this testimony of blessedness
that we possess. Having not yet seen the Lord
except by faith, we have trusted in him and blessed we are for
that great gift of faith. Then we meet with James, and
the interesting thing here is that James is called the son
of Alphaeus. But wait a minute, we've just
met someone else who was called the son of Alphaeus. So if this
is the same Alphaeus, here are two more brothers that are in
the Lord's party. Matthew the tax collector was
the son of Alphaeus, and here is James the son of Alphaeus.
And this is probably the same James who is elsewhere called
James the Less, perhaps because he was smaller or in height or
younger than James the brother of John. He is called a kinsman
of the Lord, which again may have reference to brother or
more likely a cousin of the Lord. And this is the James that became
the head of the church at Jerusalem. And he is also the James who
wrote the Epistle of James that we have towards the end of our
New Testament. So it's to this man, James the
son of Alphaeus, that we are blessed with the epistle of James
and we have his testimony granted to us. And then we encounter... a man called Thaddeus. And so again, verse 18, Thaddeus
is here mentioned as one of the 12. He is also in another place
called Lebeus, and he appears also to have the name Jude, and
also to have the name Judas. And he is called the brother
of James. So here is Judas, the brother
of James, who we believe to be Thaddeus, Lebeus, and Jude. And so all of these different
names appear to be attached to this one individual. And if that's
right, then it means that Judas, the brother of James, who was
Thaddeus, if he's brother to James, the son of Alphaeus, he
may also be brother to Matthew, the son of Alphaeus, if that's
indeed the same Alphaeus that is in view here. And so it's
very possible that there are very close familial relationships
between these men as well as the locality from which they
come and the trades in which they are engaged. He is the author
of the epistle that we have Jude at the end of our scriptures. Jude Revelation. And then we
meet a man called Simon the Canaanite, or Simon Zelotes, and that name
suggests that he may have been a member of what was called the
Zealots, and these were a rebellious, a very violent and aggressive
sect. who taught that all foreign rule
over Jews was to be cast off and was unscriptural. And therefore
he would have been particularly opposed to the band that were
called the Herodians, We encountered them last week, that the Pharisees
and the Herodians got together to see if they could kill Jesus.
Well, if this man Simon the Canaanite or Simon Zolotes was indeed a
member of the Zealots, then he would have been strongly opposed
to the political views of the Herodians. He is also called
Simon and So, or there is, sorry, there
is also a brother of Jesus who is called Simon. But whether
or not there's any relationship there between this Simon Zolotes
and Simon, the brother, so-called, of Jesus, or kinsman of Jesus,
we really don't know. And then we come to Judas Iscariot
who betrayed the Lord Jesus. He's the last one mentioned here.
He was the son of perdition. He's numbered amongst the 12
on this occasion. He was the beneficiary of all
of those speakings and tutorials and miracles of the Lord Jesus
Christ, but he neither believed by true faith nor had he any
part in that kingdom. John chapter 6 verse 64 says
that the Lord knew, he says, there are some of you that believe
not for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not
and who should betray him. Eventually we're told Satan entered
into him and he sold the Lord for 30 pieces of silver. He also kissed the Lord Jesus
Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane as a signal for his arrest so
that they could identify who amongst the Lord's followers
there in the darkness of the garden was actually Christ himself. And we've come to know about
the Judas kiss because of that act. It seems to have been an
act that he regretted, but it was an act for which he found
no repentance with God. He owned his sin, he was aware
of his sin, he cried with an exceeding bitter cry. He cast the money that he had
received as wages for his betrayal of the Lord Jesus down on the
floor of the sanctuary at the feet of the priests and we are
told that he departed from their presence and he went and hanged
himself. He perished in his guilt and
he went unto his own place. And we can see the differences
here amongst some of these men. While Peter denied the Lord,
while Thomas doubted the Lord, we find that Judas betrayed the
Lord. Two of them found repentance
and restoration, but not Judas. The final apostle, of course,
is Matthias. He's not mentioned on this list
because he became Judas' replacement. And then later in the Acts of
the Apostles, we find that Saul of Tarsus became an apostle,
and he was known as Paul the Apostle also. But having chosen
these 12, we discover that the Lord Jesus returns to Capernaum
with them, and they enter lightly into Peter's house, and now the
crowds begin to throng around Jesus again. The Lord had been
up all night. Luke tells us he'd prayed all
night, he'd climbed a mountain, and the crowd beset him immediately
upon his return to this house in Capernaum, as we imagine,
so that they couldn't even eat together. They couldn't even
find time to sit down and eat. And the final verse that we have
here in verse, well, verse 20 and then verse 21 is that the
friends come likely his family, perhaps from Capernaum elsewhere,
or perhaps they had come from Nazareth. Hearing about the crowding
around the Lord Jesus, hearing something about the situation
of the Lord, the weariness of the Lord, concern for his well-being,
I think, rather than any malignant desire on their part. aware of
the demands that were being placed upon him now, even to the extent
of his lack of food, desiring to have him to take rest and
take nourishment. I don't think that there was
any malice here in the comment necessarily, and they were looking
to care perhaps for the Lord. I just want to make two points
in closing here as we finish up this evening with respect
to some of the things that we have said and I know it's been
a lot of detail and I know perhaps I've bent your mind a little
bit listing all of these names but one of the beauties I suppose
of recording this is that you can always go back and listen
to it again if you need to get a bit more detail. But I want
to just close with a couple of points, and it's very straightforward
and simple really, but the first one is this, that the Lord uses
ordinary means to accomplish extraordinary things. These apostles
that were called were just common people, they were fishermen,
they were brothers and cousins, they were friends and neighbours.
They had no great educational skill. They had no great, great
abilities of oratory or vocabulary or language. I mean, he was a
tax collector, so I guess he could count. But these were not
men that were skilled or well-educated in the knowledge of their day.
And indeed what we do discover in the lives of these men and
in the occasions in which they speak and the things that they
say and the rebukes that they receive is that there was plenty
of evidence of weakness of character and idiosyncrasies and flaws
in these men. and yet the Lord used them to
accomplish amazing, extraordinary and wonderful things. These are
the men who took the gospel to the ends of the earth. In 2 Corinthians
chapter 12 verse 9, the Lord speaks to the apostle Paul, and
Paul testifies, and this is what he testified as an apostle of
Jesus Christ, as one with these other apostles, and perhaps one
who was even better prepared in his education and his teaching
for the role that he was given. But this is what Paul could say.
He said, he said, speaking of the Lord, he said unto me, my
grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect
in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, says
Paul, will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power
of Christ may rest upon me. Now what Paul is saying there
is not that we are to delight in our faults as if we are to
be proud of our faults and failings and flaws. but rather that we are to see
that despite those faults, in the Lord's mercy, in the Lord's
provision, in the face of our doubts, in the face of our weak
faith, in the face of our discouragements, and even in the face of our gloominess
and despondency, and perhaps like Thomas, walking on the dark
side, Despite these infirmities, we overcome in Him because His
grace is sufficient for us. His strength is made perfect
in our weakness and we can glory in our infirmities because the
Lord is pleased to glorify His name despite our failures and
faults. You know, The Lord took these
men to the top of that mountain and he called them there to be
his ministers, his missionaries, his apostles. And it was a long
way from the top of that mountain to the ends of the earth. But
the Lord Jesus Christ's work went on. He could say to Peter
in Matthew 16, What he said to Peter, he said to all of these
disciples. William Gadsby could speak of
Christ the Rock. That was the hymn that we sang. Upon this rock I will build my
church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. We are that church that these
men went out and ministered to. And the Lord used these simple
men, these commonplace men, these ordinary men, to establish that
church, to build that church, that the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it. What a blessed gospel we have
to carry to our own age in our own day. and be confident in
it. Paul could say to the Philippians
in chapter 1 verse 6, being confident of this very thing, that he which
hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day
of Jesus Christ. And the last thing is this, what
a wonderful privilege we have, brothers and sisters, to go to
the Lord. and impose upon him. Did you
notice the eagerness with which the men and women of Capernaum,
the men and women around the Sea of Galilee, went to the Lord? The eagerness with which these
people went to the Lord whenever they heard that he was present,
that he was in the house, that he was in the town, even to his
heart, even to the weariness and detriment of the Lord's health,
these people mobbed him. and in perhaps our mind's eye
we might behold all these people, the crowds gathering round the
Lord Jesus Christ. Would we not long to see the
same interest in the preaching of Jesus Christ today? To see
people crowding round the doors and the houses and our churches
to hear the things of the Saviour? And are not these things recorded
to remind us personally, to visit frequently with the Lord Jesus,
to go to him frequently and spend time with him, to enter his courts,
to bring our needs, to bring our requests and to praise his
name for his goodness. You know, we rightly resist the
misuse of the gospel invitations. in Scripture in the way in which
the Arminians or the free willers take those beautiful verses and
misapply them in the preaching of their free will gospel. But
let us in resisting the misuse of those verses not ignore their
proper place and purpose in Scripture. They're for you and they're for
me. They are verses of invitation
to the elect, verses of invitation to the covenant people of God,
to come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. So let us be the people that
come frequently to the Lord Jesus Christ, just as these men and
women did when the Lord was here upon earth. Let us in the words
of the psalmist in Psalm 100 verse 4 say, that we will enter into his gates
with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise, and be thankful
unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy
is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations. Amen. May the Lord bless these
thoughts to us and encourage us in them this evening.