Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to our last reading, the Gospel
according to Mark chapter 6 and verse 34, and reading just the
last portion of verse 34. And he began to teach them many
things. The whole verse reads, And Jesus,
when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion
toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd,
and he began to teach them many things. Mark chapter 6 and verse
34. In the Scriptures there are precious
promises concerning the teaching of the Lord. The portion that
we read in Hebrews referred back to Jeremiah where we are told
that all thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great
shall be the peace of thy children. And the promises follow through
in Isaiah as well, that all thy children shall be taught of the
Lord, they shall not teach every man his neighbor, saying, know
the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least even unto
the greatest. We have in the New Testament
the promise that is unto you and your children even as many
as the Lord thy God shall call. And we must really think, what
do we know of the things of God? Where can that knowledge come
from? It cannot come from man himself. It cannot come from any source
other than God himself. It's a most solemn reality that
in this world there are many that teach others And yet they
are not getting their authority or getting their knowledge from
God himself. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself
said that that which he heard of his father, that is what he
was teaching the people. And it is a vital teaching of
the Church of God that those that are saved, those that are
called, are given a teachable spirit. and that God teaches
them. The natural heart says, depart
from us, we desire not to know the knowledge of thy ways. Man today does not desire a knowledge
of the things of God. Even though they may be set before
him, even though he may be told that there is a secret there,
a knowledge that affects him, his soul, his eternity, Yet man
does not want to be told about that. And it is a great blessing
to be like that multitude here that we have read of, that when
the Lord went out into a desert place, there were many, many
that went out. They ran after Him. They were there before He even
got there. And our Lord comes out and He
sees much people. And it is interesting to see
how the order was. The first thing, his compassion
to them, is to teach them, is to feed them not natural food,
but spiritual food. Later on, then he had compassion,
and then he ministered to their bodies as well. He fed them as
well. But first, his compassion was
shown in feeding them the bread from heaven. Now, of course,
in the gospel, according to John in chapter six, the Lord gave
the miracle of the loaves and the fishes one day. Then he went
over the sea. In fact, he walked on the sea,
came to his disciples in the ship, and the next day he reproved
those that followed him because he said they only followed him
for the loaves and for the fishes. He said, labour not for the bread
that perisheth, but that which I shall give thee, which endureth
unto eternal life. And it is easy to follow the
Lord for loaves and fishes, for what He will give them and what
He will give us. And many will be offended if
they serve the Lord or worship Him, and he does not give them
health and strength and food and raiment and the things of
this life, the follow for those and the fishes. But the Lord
has said with his people that they will value their souls more. With the case of Job, Satan accused
Job that the only reason why Job followed the Lord was because
he had hedged him about and that he had given him all his riches. And Satan said, you take away
those riches and he will curse thee to thy face. But God permitted
him to do that to prove that he was not right in Job's case. In millions of cases, Satan will
be exactly right. Men will do that if God deals
with them with sickness and adversity and trouble, then they will say,
if this is God, we will turn away from Him. We do not want
anything of Him. But where there is grace, where
there is the life of God, where is the teaching of God in the
soul, then Job says, the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken
away Blessed be the name of the Lord. And he says to his wife,
shall we not receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall
we not receive evil? And that in all this, that Job
did not sin with his lips. And the world will go after the
Lord for material things. But when they are to learn spiritual
things, and to feed upon the Word, and to hear of things for
eternity beyond this world, then they are not interested in the
things of God. But here we have, in the days
of our Lord's flesh, such a following after Him, and an appetite and
a desire to hear. May we have that same desire
and the same teachable spirit ourselves personally in the things
of God. I want to look then this morning
at four points. I'll name them to you first and
then we'll go back over them. The first is the teacher. Our
text speaks of our Lord and He. began to teach them many things. I want to speak first of the
teacher. And then second, the method of
teaching. In our text, the method that
our Lord is using is to speak to them. He's using words. And I want to speak more of the
various methods the Lord uses. And then thirdly, the things
taught. And our text says, he began to
teach them many things, many things. And then lastly, a vital
question, as the Lord began to teach you and me. But firstly, the teacher, and
he began to teach them many things. I think nothing is so important
today as to really discerning who our teachers are. If it was
the case in the Apostle Paul's day that he could go to the Galatians
and teach them the gospel, the truth, and then they had another
teacher come and bring them back under the law, back under circumcision,
And he says that they were listening to another gospel, which is not
a gospel. And so there was the Galatians.
They had Paul teaching one thing and other teachers teaching them
the other thing. And when we think today, you've
only got to go onto the internet. You could go onto sermon audio,
which I hope is that most of us on sermon audio that we preach
the truth, we could go onto YouTube and you can get all sorts of
teaching. And someone that is first wanting
to hear and wanting to understand, they have before them a range
of all sorts of teachers. Now, our Lord here was, of course,
in a situation where it can't be replicated today. He was in
person standing before this people. They saw Him, they heard Him,
and He taught them. He was teaching them. But the
Scriptures are very clear that they shall all be taught of the
Lord. So even when our Lord has ascended
up on high, there shall be still a people taught of the Lord. One of the qualifications of
a minister is apt to teach. The ministry must be a teaching
ministry as well as bring forth the experience of the truth of
God. The truth of God is to be experienced. That's why the Apostle Paul says,
be ye followers of me as I also am of Christ. Those that believe
the Lord Jesus in John 8 The Lord said to them, if ye continue
in my word, then ye shall be my disciples indeed. Ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And so the
Lord there gives a very clear indication of where the continuance
of the teaching shall be and where the blessing shall be in
the word of the Lord. We esteem the Holy Bible before
us from Genesis right through to Revelation as the Word of
God. And so our Lord is not with us
in person, though He says, I am with you always, even unto the
end of the world, by His Spirit and by His grace. Yet He has
given the Word. The Lord gave the Word. Great
was the company of them that published it. And the charge
to us who preach is preach the word. So the word that is heard,
though it is through a man's mouth, yet it is, when it is
faithfully preached, as it is in truth the word of God. This
is what Paul said to the Thessalonians. You receive the word of us, not
as the word of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God. And Peter, when he had his end
in view, knew that he should die as God had said that he would,
he said that he might have these things always in remembrance,
and he writes them down. And in the epistles of Peter,
We have then the Word of God as part of the whole Word of
God, which is an enduring Word to the people of God. Both Peter
and Paul had wonderful revelations given to them. Paul on the Damascus
Road, and then we have Peter upon the Mount of Transfiguration,
where the Lord was transfigured before them, but both of them,
They pointed to what was greater than those wonderful revelations. Paul says, lest he should be
exalted out of measure, there was given him a thorn in the
flesh, the messenger of Satan, to buffet him. And what was given
him was grace, and he magnified grace more than those revelations. My grace is sufficient for thee. So Paul, he points away from
the Damascus Road for the believers of Christ, and he points them
to the grace of God. The Apostle Peter, he points
away from the Mount of Transfiguration, and he says, but we have a more
sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do well to take heed as a
light that shineth in a dark place, until the day star arise
in your hearts. And that line is the word of
God. So the teacher is our Lord, and
we are to test all teachers that are men, a minister, or whoever
it is that comes teaching, whether they are in the house of God,
or whether they're on a line in some way, we're to test it
all by the Word of God. Are they bringing the Word of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Are they bringing the holy, inspired
Word of God? All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God. And it is by that standard that
all must be tested, because it is the Lord that teaches His
people. We have the Bereans that heard
Paul preach, and they didn't say, well, Paul is the apostle,
we can just receive everything he says. No, they searched the
scriptures daily, whether these things were so. They went back
to the word of God. The Old Testament scriptures
was what Paul was preaching them, what was the word of God. And
if it was, then they were to heed Him. And we read that because
they did that, many of them believed. And we need to be very clear
then, the teacher, the teacher here was our Lord. But to fulfill that word, the
promise that all our children shall be taught of the Lord,
we might say like, The Apostle Paul, he sat at the feet of Gamaliel. He had a teacher, a literal teacher. But everyone that is saved is
taught of God. Man cannot savingly teach another. He can set truths before you. You might know the catechisms,
the Heidelberg catechisms or the shorter, longer catechisms. And you might be able to give
exactly the right answer to all of those questions, but not actually
know in your heart the things of God. And we need a heavenly
teacher, I'm not speaking of course against being taught in
the letter, we need to, but you need to be taught in the heart
as well. And that is what when we have
the word here, the Lord is the teacher, and that teaching which
is vital. One of our hymns says, we must
not learn God's truth as schoolboys learn their task. And Paul, he
says that when, and when he writes to the Corinthians, that when
in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. God
has given man wisdom in many, many things. And I'm a trained
engineer, and many things that I've made, designed, and many
things. And man can. He can build his
cars, he can build his engineering structures, and do many things
with great wisdom. God has said concerning his soul,
concerning spiritual things, that is not the same. That is
in a different realm. You might go and learn these
things naturally, but spiritually, savingly, you need the Lord to
teach you. There's a veil over the heart.
There's a block there that man, by his searching and by his knowledge
on his own, cannot find these things out. Great is the mystery
of godliness, God manifest in the flesh. And so the teacher,
the teacher for you and I must be the Lord. And if that is the
case, then we are to seek unto the Lord, join prayer with each
inspection, ask of the Lord. That which I see not, teach thou
me. And seeking of the Lord, that
he would teach us. You know, sometimes it might
be that we ask in that sense, say, one that is sent of the
Lord. That was what the eunuch did
with Philip. Philip was sent to the eunuch
in the chariot. And he was reading a part that
he couldn't understand. Isaiah 53, of whom speaketh the
prophet this, of himself or some other man? And he was reading
of where our Lord, a prophecy of our Lord, taken as a sheep
before her shearers is done, so he openeth not his mouth,
as a lamb is brought to the slaughter. And our Lord, and Peter, Philip,
The eunuch said to him, when Philip had asked him, understandest
thou what thou readest? He said, how can I except some
man guide me? And Philip, he began at the same
scripture and preached unto him Jesus. He brought out of the
scripture the truth. He taught him. And the Lord so
blessed that ministry of the word. And it is vital to understand
it was not Philip that converted him, it was not in his power,
it was the spirit that brought Philip. Philip was preaching
from the word itself and it is the spirit that opened the heart
and blessed it to the unit. And that is what is vital to
us. Whatever teacher we may have
and value and esteem, if we have pastors and teachers as the Lord
has promised that he will give. And Paul says very clearly when
he writes to Timothy that he was appointed an apostle and
a teacher of the Gentiles, that God appointed him to do that.
And as we said with those of Berea, they were testing all
that he taught them from the word of God itself, the apostle,
testified that those things that he taught, he didn't know them,
but by the revelation of God, God gave him that. Of course,
all what is written in the Word of God, of Paul's writings, is
inspired. It is not Paul. That is what
is solemnly taught in some churches today. Well, the letters in red
in some Bibles of the Lord, well, that is the Lord's Word, but
Paul, well, That's his ideas. That rejected be that thought
or scripture. Though there be over 40 authors
that are used to write or penmen that are used to write the Word,
the Word actually is the Word of the Lord. And so may we know
that for all those that are taught of God, all those that are saved,
they shall be taught of God. and that whatever means the Lord
uses, whatever instrument, whether Paul or another preacher, that
where there is the learning and teaching savingly that touches
the heart and touches the life, that teacher is the Lord. And we are to trace that above
because in that realisation there's great comfort and great joy that
the Lord is actually teaching us, that he is our teacher. We look past man and we look
to the Lord as being our teacher. They shall all be taught of God. And here, of course, literally
the Lord was the teacher and he began to teach them many things. I want to then look secondly
at the method of teaching. the method of teaching. We have already spoken of the
need of the Word of God. And the teaching, as the Lord
was here, was teaching by the Word, through the Word. Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God. When we have the parable, and
that is another method that the Lord taught. He always taught
by parables, an earthly story with a spiritual meaning. Again,
the disciples asked, why is it that thou dost teach in parables?
And he says, because it is given unto you to know the mysteries
of the kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, it is
not given. So hearing they might not hear,
seeing they might not see. And we see again those things
that outwardly there's the same word heard, but inwardly one
hears savingly and one does not. And so the Lord used parables
for that reason. and we read when the word was
preached that some believe the word spoken and some believe
not. In another place we read as many
as were ordained unto eternal life believed. They all heard
the same preaching but some heard it in a different way, some heard
it savingly, some the word entered and some it did not. The word
of God is the method of teaching. The Lord said of that parable
with the rich man and Lazarus, when the rich man opening his
eyes in hell, he said, send Lazarus to my brethren, lest they come
into this place. And the Lord said, they are Moses
and the prophets. If they hear not them, neither
will they believe, though one rose from the dead. It is vital
that the word itself is received and heard, and that that is the
method that the Lord uses. In the letters to the churches
in the Revelation to the seven churches of Asia, every one of
those letters at the end of the letter, he that hath an ear,
let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches. And
so it's hearing. And the ear trieth words, and
the word of the Lord is what is used, a word with authority
and with power. That is what they said of the
Lord, that his word was with authority and not as the scribes
and as the parables, and the Pharisees, sorry. So the method
of teaching predominantly then is through the word. And how
vital it is to have a faithful translation of the word of God
and in our own tongue. David says, thy word have I hid
in mine heart. Well, if we're to hide the word
in the heart, then it must be a word we understand and that
is in our tongue. And thy words were found, and
I did eat them. They were to the joy and rejoicing
of my soul, says Jeremiah. Again, it is the Word that is
the meat and drink of the soul. Except ye eat my flesh and drink
my blood, ye have no life in you, our Lord testified. And
that method then of teaching is the Word itself. Line upon line, here a little
and there a little, the Lord says, I have many things to say
unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. There was a time that
he was to teach them, and certainly after he'd risen from the dead,
ascended up into heaven, the way was more perfectly preached
with power through the apostles. The Lord said, tarry at Jerusalem
until ye be endued with power from on high, until the word
will come with power. And so when Paul says to the
Thessalonians, that the Word came not unto you in word only,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. And so the method
of teaching is through the Word, by the Spirit, with the power
of God attending that Word. But another way of teaching is
also in providence, those things that we pass through in life's
journey, they are used to teach us and instruct us as well. There's a beautiful promise in
Isaiah 28, 30, and verse 20. And we read that, though the
Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
Yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more,
but thine eyes shall see thy teachers. And thine ears shall
hear a word behind thee, saying, this is the way. Walk ye in it
when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left."
And it's important that we observe the Lord's hand. We think of
Jehoshaphat. and he joined himself with Ahab. They went to get riches in the
ships and the Lord broke the ships. And then when Ahab wanted
to send others with them in the ships, Jehoshaphat refused. He'd heard the word of the Lord
in what had happened in the breaking of those ships and the prophet
confirmed it. He says, because Thou hast joined
thyself to those that are haters of the Lord, do not serve the
Lord, therefore the Lord hath broken thy works. As other two
things go together, we can be taught in that way. Remember
years ago, I had an allotment up here where I did the gardening,
and I used to tell myself that it was good as a pastor to have
a nice quiet time in the garden and doing the vegetables, And
yet when it came to harvest time and you get to the Saturday and
you realise that, well, all of the beans were ready to be picked
and if they weren't picked then they'd be bad by Monday. So Saturday
evening they'd be picking them and they had to be dealt with. And I knew it wasn't right. It
was loading a lot of work to my wife. It was not good for
me to do. But I resisted my conscience
saying, look, give up this allotment. It is not good. It's not worth
doing. It's taking up your time unprofitably. And a couple of years went by,
and I just resisted it. I still wanted that time. And
then preparing the land, just before the season started, and
I got the streamer out and was working, taking off the weeds
from it. And a neighbor came over, she
says, I have, you've just broken my conservatory window. And that window had been smashed,
200 pounds worth of damage. But what had happened, just before
that, we'd had a special collection at one of our anniversary services,
and that collection from me as the pastor, and there's 200 pounds
more given on that collection than was usually given. And at
first we thought, oh, we can go on a holiday, we can use it.
But no, the Lord had given us that money so that I could pay
for the repairs. Well, I did pay for the repairs,
but I went straight down to the council and cancelled my allotment. And when we don't hear the word
of the Lord, then he brings things into our lives that we do hear
that, and he makes us hear it. And so the Lord doesn't only
teach in the word, But he teaches through sicknesses, through things
that go wrong, through his chastening hand, through his correction
and things like that. And the Lord's methods of teaching,
we will be able to discern that it actually is the Lord. It is his hand. And it will come
back to the Word very often. We think of the Lord and the
parable of the sower. And the Lord says that that parable
is a key parable. When the disciples asked him
about that parable, he says, knowest thou not this parable?
How then shall you know all parables? Because it was a parable about
hearing, about hearing the word. And the word is likened to the
seed that was cast. on the field, some it went by
the wayside, the fowls came and they took it away straight away,
the word just taken out of the heart straight away. And then
we have those that fell on the stony ground and then on the
wayside and then there were those in good ground. And the Lord
says that those that were on the wayside, that it was like
those that received the word for a while, but then when persecution
or trouble came, then they were offended and they gave everything
up. Or those who were stony ground,
they did not have roots in themselves, or perhaps it's the other way
around. And those who were thugs were sewn amongst thorns. It was where the world choked
the word and it became unprofitable. And it will either be that the
word is choked by the world or we become offended because of
the word itself. The Lord says in John 10 or John
17, I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them.
That's the only reason that we need for the world to hate us
is that the Lord gives us his word. And so the method of teaching
is the word And yet the Lord uses things in our lives to sift
out that word, to open our ear to the word. Jehoshaphat and
myself have been told the word. We would not listen to it unless
something happened in our lives. The children of Israel in Ahab's
day, Elijah, had three and a half years of famine. while they were
serving Baal, and then they were ready to hear the word of the
Lord and to put a test on who was God, Baal or the Lord, and
who answered with fire from heaven. And so there are those things
that happen in our lives that are used to open our ear. mine ear hast thou opened. And it is our prayer through
this time that where there is hardship of people, where there
is the wars, rumours of wars, we've had those, we've had some
of our free Bibles and they have said that we are concerned about
the war in Ukraine. and others because of COVID and
the threat, especially in the earlier part of the pandemic,
of lives being taken. There were those that had an
appetite for the word, that wanted to hear it, which other times
they did not want to hear. And the Lord uses these methods
then of teaching and joining together with the word. Really we would say the Lord
has many ways, many ways of teaching, parables, illustrations, many
things that he used and many times the teaching that is recorded
by a Lord arose from questions and it arose from error and the
Lord turned it about for good. And you think of the apostle
as well with the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians chapter 15,
there were those in the church that said that there was no resurrection
of the dead. And from that error comes that
beautiful chapter, all explaining and setting forth the truth of
the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so the methods of teaching
Sometimes it'll start, start from error, start from what actually
is wrong, and the truth is then set forth. On to look then, in
third place, at the things that are taught. We read in our text, and he began
to teach them many things. The first thing I draw your attention
to is the beginning. He began to teach them. And there's one thing with all
of the people of God, there will be a beginning where he begins
to teach. We read of Samuel when he was
a young lad, that he did not yet know the Lord. And at night
he heard the Lord speaking to him, Samuel, Samuel. And he thought
it was Eli. Now he would have known Eli's
voice very well, but he thought it was Samuel. And so he comes
and he, sorry, he thought it was Eli. So he comes and he says
to Eli, thou didst call me. And in the end, Eli directed
him to say, speak Lord for thy servant heareth. And from that
time, it was established that Samuel was to be a prophet of
the Lord. There was a first time he heard
the word. There was a time when the Lord
began to teach him. With our children, when they're
young, they're at home. But really, you might say, as
parents, we begin to teach them when they're very, very young,
right from the very start. But then they go into school,
and there's a beginning when they're taught. And you think
of individual lessons. There's times when they're first. I can think back to my school
days. I can actually picture sometimes
the classroom where we first started to learn Pythagoras'
theorem with the triangles. And I can think back to that
classroom. That's when that first was presented
with that kind of thing. And the first time we were presented
with calculus, dy, dx, and calculus. Well, I'd never known that before. And there's a beginning. And
those beginnings are very important. Sometimes they're gradual. Sometimes
they're more marked. And sometimes it will be, like
I've just said, in specific things that we are taught. The other
thing to notice here is the Holy Inspired Word of God does not
tell us in this instance what the things were that the Lord
was teaching them. It's like the sermon on the way
to Emmaus. The Lord drew near and in all
the scriptures from Moses, He taught them concerning the things
of himself. But we're not told what that
sermon was. We're not given that sermon.
We could not read that sermon. We know that it was concerning
his sufferings right through the scriptures. And like here,
we are not told the things, but we are told many things. There are many, many things that
the people of God have to be taught. We especially feel it
today and I go into the schools and very little is taught our
children in the schools, even at church school. And they have
no idea of God or the things of God at all. And you realise
they're coming from Sometimes very wrong teaching, wrong thinking. And you think of all, especially
if we've been brought up under the sound of the truth, there's
many things that we may know in the head that many people
that we have interaction with around about us have no idea. There's many, many things. And
as we said, it is line upon line. A child in their first years
of school They're not learning calculus, they're learning how
to read and they're learning how to write and they're learning
the basics. And then later on they'll learn
more. And so with the Lord and the
things of God. The important thing, we're not
to despise the day of small things. You wouldn't have your child
come home from school There's just five or six, and they tell
you what they've learned. You say, oh, that's nothing,
nothing. You should be able to do long
multiplication. You should do this and know that.
What that child has learned is a great thing for them, and they're
very pleased with what they now know and what they've learned.
And of course, you'd encourage them. You wouldn't say, because
you can't join with those who've been at school for years and
years, then just Don't worry, there's nothing to talk about.
And so with the things of God, if the Lord is beginning with
you and with me, then bless the Lord for it, for one lesson,
for being taught one thing. If we're taught our own sinnership,
if we're taught our ignorance, and you know, the Lord will teach
us. He will teach us doctrine. He
will teach us knowledge. We refer back to Isaiah, in Isaiah
28 and verse 9. We have there, whom shall he
teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand
doctrine? Them that are weaned from the
milk and drawn from the breast. Precept upon precept, precept
upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little
and there a little. We sadly live in a day when there's
much shallow religion, or just believe only, and religion is
just all love, and don't worry about splitting hairs in doctrine,
then everyone is saved, it doesn't matter, you don't have to worry
about real doctrine. But the scriptures are very clear
on it, and our Lord is very clear on it. In Ephesians, Paul speaks
about being taught the truth, as it is in Jesus. And we mentioned
concerning our Lord, continuing in the word, you shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you free. In John's gospel, one
of the things he emphasises all the time is that Jesus of Nazareth
is the Son of God. And that is one thing that will
be taught about the Lord Jesus Christ, about how to behave in
the house of God, the ordinances of the house of God, There's
many, many things, and that's why we read here, and he began
to teach them many things. There are many things to be learned,
but in those many things, if we trace that learning and that
teaching back to the Lord, there's a sweet, a blessed token that
we come under that promise that we are taught of God And the
Lord has revealed them to us and taught them to us. There's
a lovely thing sometimes when we hear those that have sat under
our ministry for many years, even of our own children, and
when the Lord has really converted them, they've said, Dad, we never
heard that before. And I said, yeah, but that's
been preached regularly in your hearing. You've had it right
through your lives. And they said, yeah, but Dad,
we didn't hear, we didn't understand, we didn't know it then, but now
we do. And however many times we hear
things naturally until the Lord opens the ear and causes us to
hear, and then we start to learn. We start to learn many things.
And so my hope here this morning to highlight the need of teaching
and so that we do not despise or not discouraged when the Lord
begins to teach us, because he which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. We never
cease to be taught that teaching shall go on and on right through
our lives. That which I see not, teach thou
me. Well, we have then the question,
vital question in the last point. Has the Lord begun to teach you
and me? Has there been a beginning? Has
there been a change? Sometimes, like the Apostle Paul,
within a very short space of time, you can see that Paul was
a different person, before the Damascus Road than after. And just a few hours, a few days,
and he is a different person. But sometimes it is not like
that. Sometimes we may have to look over a period of many years. And we look back to what we once
were, and we think, well, though I can't put a day and a time
on it, yet I do know that I'm not now what I was then. And
then I was just coming to the house of God under duress, all
because it was tradition and what was expected. But now I
want to go, and I pray when I go, and I'm looking to be taught.
I want to know. I want to learn. You know, when
the Lord first opened my eyes at 19, and I went from not wanting
the things of God at all But when the Lord gave me to feel
my state before Him and my ignorance, I was open to hear everything. I went to every service. There
was a three-quarter-an-hour drive to the church. I went every time
I could to the prayer meeting, to the Sunday school, even to
sit in the back. And whoever came to the door,
if it was a Mormon or whatever, I let them in. I wanted to be
taught and I had to prove then that there were false teachers
and wrong teachers. But it is a blessed thing to
go from just not wanting to hear the things of God to really wanting
and have an appetite and want to learn and want to be instructed. Sometimes you might have it with
children as a father, some of the washing machine goes wrong,
and you're starting to fix it, and the children say, Dad, I
want to learn how to fix that. And they're round about looking
at how you're pulling this thing apart. And we used to do that
as children, and that desire to actually learn. And with the
people here, here was the Lord speaking, speaking the word of
the Lord, and the people flocked around. And they wanted to hear,
and the Lord had compassion on them. And may the Lord have compassion
on us and begin with us. And if he has begun with us,
may we be encouraged. If he hasn't begun, may we ask
him, ask him, Lord, teach me about thee. Remember thy promise,
all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, teach me. You might
look on others, and you say, well, I know that person's been
taught of God. And you say, but I want to be
as well. It's not enough that others know
these things. I want to know them. And sometimes
it is that the Lord uses things to bring us to a real desire
to be taught. And that remains. May we bless
the Lord for it. Lord, help us not to go away.
from the word today, not to turn away from it without seriously
asking ourselves this question, has the Lord begun to teach us,
to teach us about ourselves, to teach us the saving doctrine,
to teach us about the Lord Jesus Christ, to teach us of the things
of God, to teach us the word of God. Will the Lord bless the
word and begin. and carry on their teaching in
our hearts. Amen.