Let's open this morning's service
with a hymn from our hardback timinal, the blue hardback timinal,
number 69, Safely Through Another Week. Let's all stand together,
number 69. Safely through another week,
God has brought us on our way. Let us now a blessing seek, waiting
in his courts today. Day of all, the week the best,
emblem of eternal rest. Day of all, the week the best,
emblem of eternal rest. While we pray for pardoning grace,
through the dear Redeemer's name, show thy reconciled face, take
away our sin and shame. From our worldly care set free,
may we rest this day in Thee. From our worldly care set free,
may we rest this day in Thee. Here we come, thy name to praise. Let us feel thy presence near. May thy glory meet our eyes while
we in thy house appear. Here afford us, Lord, a taste
of our everlasting feast. Here afford us, Lord, a taste
of our everlasting feast. May thy gospels' joyful sound
conquer sinners, comfort saints. May the fruits of grace abound,
bring relief for all complaints. Thus may all our Sabbaths prove
till we join the church above. Thus may all our Sabbaths prove
till we join the church above. Please be seated. Good morning. I want to thank the group in
Sarasota for the new chairs. As you all know, we made every
effort that we knew to make to see if the Lord was going to
raise up a church in Sarasota and had services every Sunday
night for four years and it became clear that that wasn't going
to happen. The brethren from Sarasota are
here with us this morning. And as the Lord enables, they'll
be joining us here on Sunday mornings. And the chairs are
for them, from them. So thank you. We're going to be in Mark chapter
six this morning. Mark chapter six. And we'll pick
up where we left off. last Sunday. Let's go to the
Lord in prayer and ask His blessings. Our merciful Heavenly Father, we're thankful that You've provided
us once again this blessed privilege of gathering together in the
name of Thy dear Son, coming before Thy throne of grace, thanking
You, Lord, that we have access and acceptance Through our advocate
Thy dear son our Lord and Savior how we hope that you would be
pleased now in this hour to send your spirit in power and To cause
our hearts to be drawn in faith to him That he would be lifted
up and glorified and his work of redemption would be the focus
of all our attention this morning and that we would leave here,
as we just sang, with great hope and great contentment and thy
good mercy and grace. For it's in Christ's name we
ask it. Amen. By way of introduction, I'd like
to ask you if you'll turn with me. You've got your Bibles open
to Mark 6, but turn with me to Jeremiah 14. Our text this morning from Mark
6 has to do with those whom God calls to preach the gospel. And though it has some specific
things to do with the apostles, which clearly had special apostolic
gifts that are no longer necessary today. The Lord gave the penman
of scripture and the apostles, the supernatural ability to perform
miracles for the sake of authenticating what they were saying. We have no more need for that.
We have the full canon of scripture and the scripture authenticates
itself and the spirit of God confirms faith to his people
by his word and And so those special gifts that were given
to the apostles are no longer necessary. Yet in our text, there
are principles that are applicable to all of God's people. And my
hope this morning is the Lord will enable us to draw some understanding
from his word as to who he calls and what the evidence of his
calling is. Has there been a time in history
where more false prophets have fooled more people than the generation
that you and I live in? With the advent of mass media,
particularly the internet, every charlatan and every false prophet
has a hearing. in this world and I think in
light of the fact that I don't know how else to refer to him
but the Protestant Pope and all the all the the attention that
has been given this past week in the death of Billy Graham
an arch enemy of the gospel a false prophet of false prophets and
And the fact that the media and so many people are referring
to him as America's pastor only goes to prove that America is
not a Christian nation. There are no such thing as a
Christian nation, you understand that. The only thing Christian
about any nation is the gathering of God's people, hearing the
truth of the gospel from a man that God has called. And there's
always been false prophets, always been. I was telling somebody
this week, my hope is that all the attention that the world
is giving to Billy Gray and to his message, which was clearly,
clearly a free will message, will cause somebody who's heard
the gospel to hear the difference. I cannot tell you how many times
over the years people hear what we say and they cannot discern
the difference between what we're saying and what Billy Graham
says. And so the attention that's being given hopefully will give
someone some discernment that God will use it to bring one
of his lost sheep to himself. That's my hope. But Old Testament
Israel was not lacking in their false prophets. You have your
Bibles open to Jeremiah chapter 14 and the Lord, verse 14, Jeremiah
14, 14, and the Lord said unto me, the prophets prophesy lies
in my name. They're using the name, the precious
name of the Lord Jesus Christ and they're prophesying lies
in his name. I sent them not, neither have
I commanded them, neither spake unto them. They prophesy unto
you a false vision and divination and a thing of naught and the
deceit of their heart." It's just the deceit of their own
heart. Just yesterday, a group of people
came to my home, our home, and I was home by myself, and they
wanted to give me a movie, a video, a Jesus movie. And I asked them
what organization they were part of. This was yesterday. They
said, well, we're a group of churches that have put together
this Saturate Orlando, and we're going around giving Jesus movies
away to people. And I said, I'm not interested.
And they said, well, could we ask you why? And I said, because
I worship a different Jesus. And they looked at me with, I've
never heard anything like that before. There's only one Jesus.
And I said, no. I said, the Jesus that is on
that video you're trying to give away doesn't exist. He's a figment of your imagination. And I said, if you're interested
in the Jesus that saves, the true Jesus, I said, check it
out. And I gave them the information
about our website. And hopefully, maybe, I don't
know. But somebody might say, well, how do you know the Jesus
that they were promoting is not the true Jesus? Because God's
people would never dress up a man and put him on a video. and calling
Jesus. And they would not cooperate
with other false churches promoting a saturated Orlando effort to
get people to believe in that Jesus. But that's the world in which
we live, isn't it? Men have a view of God that is
not consistent with who he is. He is of their own imagination
as we just read in Jeremiah chapter 14, the perversion of their own
thoughts. All right, turn back with me
to our text. You remember John said, try the
spirits to see whether they'd be of God. I want to have discernment. I want to be able to discern
the difference between the truth and a lie. And I want you to
have discernment. And so there are some principles
in our text here that apply to those who are declaring the truth
about God. We begin in verse 7 of Mark chapter
6, and uh... he called unto him the twelve
there's the first thing about a true a true gospel preacher
and a true believer for that matter they've been called effectually
irresistibly called uh... they didn't make a decision they
didn't uh... you know that's that's that's
That's everything I'm listening to. Everything I'm hearing is
just a decision salvation. You know, you got to, you got
to make a decision. Coming to Christ is not a decision. It's a call. And when God calls,
when God calls, the hearing ear and the seeing eye are both of
the Lord. He doesn't call ineffectually. He doesn't call with a frustrated
call. The message that I'm hearing
so much of today is, you know, God loves everybody and God wants
everybody to be saved and God's reaching his hand out to folks
but, you know, you've got to do your part. God's people are
called. He makes them willing in the
day of his power. He opens the eyes of their understanding. He unstops their ears. He gives
them the miracle of faith. That's what the Lord said to
Nicodemus, Nicodemus, you cannot see the kingdom of God. You cannot
perceive of it and you can't and I can't apart from the new
birth, the call of God. So these, you remember when and
he doesn't, he calls them, notice in our text, he called them unto
himself. You remember when the disciples
were preaching in Jerusalem after Pentecost and they brought them
before the Sanhedrin and ordered them not to preach anymore and
said to them, we know, the scripture says, as they talked together,
they said, these are ignorant and unlearned men. They don't
have degrees. They don't have the formal training
that we have. but the scripture says they took
notice that they had been with Jesus. The Lord called them to himself.
The strong evidence of the fact that they were declaring the
truth about God is that they had been with the Lord. They
had been with him. They had seen him and heard him
and they knew who he was. They weren't going to be fooled
by another Jesus. They weren't going to be fooled
by another gospel. They weren't going to be deceived by another
spirit. And by the way, the word of God
speaks of another gospel, another Jesus, and another spirit, which
is no gospel at all. And Paul said in Galatians chapter
1, if I or an angel from heaven come and preach unto you any
other gospel than the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. What Paul said, this is strong
language, let them go to hell. That's what he said. I know that's
not politically correct, but that's what God said. And that's where a false gospel
and a false Jesus led by a false spirit will lead you. And so
these men had been called unto Christ. Lord's got to call us. He calls
us through the preaching of the gospel. There's no calling apart
from hearing. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
comes by the Word of God. Of His own will begat He us with
the Word of truth. And this is the gospel. This
is the Word of God which by the gospel is preached unto you.
So apart from the preaching of the gospel, I heard someone say
last week, well don't you think that God could use somebody like
Billy Graham? No. Absolutely not. He was a false
prophet telling lies about God and he fit the perfect example
of what the Lord said there in Jeremiah Chapter 14. No lie is
of the truth. If you believed what Billy Graham
was preaching, you did not believe the gospel. It's just that simple. And God's not going to use a
false prophet to promote the gospel. He's going to call men
unto himself and he's going to declare the truth about Christ
as it is revealed in the scriptures. We don't worship a God who's
trying to get everybody saved. We don't worship a God whose
hands are tied, who just can't get it done because he doesn't
have the power. We don't worship a God who has
usurped the authority of his sovereign throne to the will
of man. We don't worship a God who's
impressed with the works of man. We worship a God who is absolutely
sovereign, who chose according to his own will and purpose a
people that he will save. He sent the Lord Jesus Christ
into the world in order to accomplish the salvation of his people,
making an offering not to man but to God. The cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ is not an offer that God's making to you and
me. It's an offer that God's making to God. That's what it
is. And God the Father accepted the
offer that the Lord Jesus Christ made on Calvary's cross. and
it was sufficient for the salvation of God's people. Oh, this gospel
is so glorious and so contrary to what's being preached and
promoted in the world today. We worship a God. When He's ready
in the day of His power to make you willing, what did Paul say?
Paul said, God, who separated me from my mother's womb, when
it pleased Him, when it pleased Him, revealed Christ in me. And when it pleases God to save,
nothing that you and I do is gonna stop Him. He's gonna save. Why? Because He's God. He's God. He's not this wimpy, figment
of men's darkened imagination. He's the God of Scripture and
the God of salvation. He called unto Him, go back with
me to our text in Mark chapter 6, I know this is very strong
language for some people, but one of the things we're going
to see in this text is that the disciples went out preaching
that men should repent. Notice in verse 12, and they
went out and preached that men should repent. Now, in free will works religion,
repentance is identified as you stopping all sin. You repent
when you cease from your sin. Truth is, God looks at the heart
and he sees that every imagination of our evil hearts are only wicked
and that continually there's not a single sin you've ever
ceased from in your heart. If that's repentance, then I
stand before you this morning and say to you, I've never repented.
And if you know yourself, you know you've never repented. The
word repent here means to have a changed mind. Now, I could
have said yesterday to this lady, I could have said everything
I believe about Jesus being the Son of God and she would have
sat there and agreed with me about everything I said. But
I knew that in order for her to hear the truth, you see, faith
is believing the truth and repentance and faith are two sides to the
same coin. My experience has been that the
problem that people have is with the issue of repentance. That
word means to have a changed mind. That means that everything
you've ever believed about God is just the opposite of what
it actually is. And you've got to change your
mind about who you think God is, about who you think you are,
about how you think it is that God is pleased to save sinners
You've got to change your thinking about everything. You see, people
think, well, you're just tweaking the truth and you're just providing
a little clearer example. I've known some Calvinists who
believe that their call from God was to bring their Arminian
brethren up to a higher view of the gospel. No, that's not
what we're saying at all. We're not just adding some information
to what you already have. What we're saying is that everything
that an unbeliever believes to be true about God is not only
wrong but actually 180% different, 180 degrees off from the truth. And so, if repentance is turning,
yeah, it is turning. The Bible says that we're to
repent towards God. Repent towards God. Change, have
our mind. And repentance is a work of grace.
It's not something you just decide you're going to do. But here's
where men have a problem. They think, well, I've got to
try to figure out how to fit what he's saying into what I
already know is true. And here's what I'm saying to
you. What you think you already know is true is not true. You
can't fit this into your system. Your system's got to be jettisoned
completely in order to believe the gospel. And so sometimes
strong language, and the Lord used strong language. And there's
a couple of places where the scripture says that the people
laughed. He said, these are hard sayings,
we can't bear them. It's too difficult for us. The
gospel is a radical message of salvation where God gets all
the glory. And when we baptize someone,
their baptism is not just an identification with the death,
burial, and resurrection of Christ, but their baptism is a denial,
a recanting of everything they ever believed. So, I know it's strong language,
but apart from repentance, you and I are not going to be saved.
And the thoughts that we have about God coming into this world,
and if they're being, you see, the thoughts that men naturally
have by God are just being confirmed by the kind of message that Billy
Graham preached. That's why he, Billy Graham's got more blood
on his hands than Adolf Hitler. I know that's strong language,
but it is the truth. It's the truth. These men were called of God
and they went out and they preached the necessity of repentance. Everything you think about God
has got to be changed. It's not true. It's a lie. You learned it from man. You
had a false prophet just tell you what you already thought
was true. And Isaiah chapter 50, Psalm chapter 50 says, you
thought that I was altogether such a one as thyself, but I
will reprove you. I'll change your mind about that. So the Lord called these men
to himself and he began to So the first thing about God's preachers
is that they're called and God's people are called. They didn't
make a decision, they were called, irresistibly drawn, made to believe. Now, let me say this about an
irresistible call because I know that there's people who are going
to think, well, I'll just sit back and wait on God to call
me. and nothing I can do and you'll become a fatalist about
your salvation. If you believe what the Bible
says about being called, you'll find yourself pleading with God
to call you. Lord, call me. Pass me not, oh
gentle Savior. Don't pass me by. While on others
thou art calling, do not pass me by. Lord, have mercy upon
me. And that's not a one-time calling,
is it? We continue to pray that, don't we? You see, that's the
difference between the God. Another difference between the
gospel and the lie that's being promoted in religion is they
make salvation a one-time past experience. And salvation for the child of
God is a daily, daily experience, Lord save me. Just read the Psalms. We looked at this Wednesday night.
The Psalms are full of David's prayers for God to save him. Was David saved? I've had people
say to me, well, you know, if a man's saved and God's already
saved him, then why, you know, why ask to be saved? That's the
voice of a person who's not a sinner. Sinners are never beyond their
need to be saved. Lord save me. Have mercy upon
me. He called them and he began to
send them. He sent them out into the world
with a message. The gospel made them fishers
of men. Oh my God. As we scatter from
this place, may God give us the opportunity to be sent and to
speak to people. Might the Lord be pleased to
use this message via whatever means we have available to us
to speak truth to someone's heart. The Lord sends his church out
into the world. for the purpose of finding and
bringing his lost sheep to himself. And he sent them notice, he sent
them forth by two and two. I've met people who have come
to the conclusion that they are the only ones in the world that
understand the gospel. And there will be some who will
hear me speak and say what do you think you are the only ones?
No, no. Oh no, not at all. We have fellowship
with brethren all over this world that believe it. I was talking
to a brother in Australia just the other day and they listened
to all of our services. And so, no, we don't believe
that for a minute. By the voice of two or three
witnesses, the thing is confirmed. If a person comes to the conclusion
that they're the only ones that know the truth, well, that's the beginnings of
a cult, isn't it? No, the Lord confirms the truth
to all of his preachers. And the scripture says in the
book of Isaiah that they shall all see eye to eye. So wherever
we go, wherever we meet believers, we're in total agreement about
who Christ is, who God is, and how it is that God saves sinners
because God's given us all repentance and he's given us faith to believe
the truth as he's revealed it in his word. So he sent them
out two by two and he gave them power over unclean spirits. Now, You will observe false prophets
pretending to have supernatural powers. They're liars. They're Jeremiah 14, 14. They're charlatans. They're looking
to lie in their own pockets with people's money. They don't have
any power. And they, you know, they, well,
it's just a, Whatever power they have is demonic, not from God. So where is our power today?
These apostles, as I said at the beginning, were given supernatural
gifts to authenticate their message as being from God. And the means
by which we authenticate the message of God now is to compare
scripture to scripture. And God's people believe all
that God says. and it's so clear and so simple
the Bible is not something we have to we have to try to interpret
it just declares what it means what it says means what it says
so what is the power where's our power today it's in the scriptures
the power that we have today to cast out unclean spirits and
that's what the false gospel is it's an unclean spirit deceiving
men is the word of God God's word is our power. We stand and
we declare, thus saith the Lord. And that's all that's necessary.
We don't have to pretend to have any more power than that. God's
people believe what God says. In verse 8, and he commanded
them. There's the evidence of a a believer and a gospel preacher,
they're obedient to the command of God, to tell men the truth. They're not looking to protect
themselves. They're not looking to get along
with folks. They're not looking to find some
common ground. You remember when Nehemiah was
building the wall after coming back from Babylon and Sanballat
and Tobiah came to Nehemiah and said, come and meet us in the
valley of Ono. And let's find some common ground. Surely we can find some point
of agreement. And we'll just agree to disagree
on the other non-essentials. Well, there is nothing non-essential
when it comes to the gospel. It's all essential. And we don't
agree to disagree. We believe what God says and
we're obedient to the truth of what he's revealed. And that's
true of all of God's people. And so the only question you
and I have to ask when we listen to someone who pretends to be
sent from God, the only question we have to ask, what sayeth the
scriptures? What does God say about what
he's saying? And if what he's saying is not
consistent with the word of God, If they speak not according to
the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to the
word of God, it's because there is no light in them, no light. So he commanded them that they
should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only. Now, what is the staff a symbol
of in the scripture? You remember Moses was held a
staff over the Red Sea It's a staff. The staff is a picture of authority.
And again, it goes back to the Word of God. We unapologetically
declare, thus saith the Lord. And we hold up that staff of
authority and we say with David, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. Oh, how comforted I am. And the
Lord told these apostles, take nothing with you but the authority
of God's Word. And the staff is also a picture
of a shepherd. Protect the sheep. And that's what I'm doing right
now. I know there's going to be some people that are going
to be offended at what I've said this morning. I know that. That'd
be nothing new. But, you know, I'm not concerned
about them. I'm concerned about God's sheep. I'm trying to run the wolves
off. To protect the sheep of God,
that's what a shepherd does. He protects them against the
lies of false prophets. And He feeds the sheep. He takes
them to a green pasture and He feeds them on the Word of God.
And so the Lord said, don't take anything with you except for
a staff. He leads the sheep. Leads them where? He leads them
the same place these disciples led them to the place where they
had been. The Lord called these disciples unto himself. And what are they doing? They're
doing what John the Baptist did. Behold, the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sins of the world. You see, gospel preaching is
one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. It's one
sinner telling other sinners about the Savior, pointing men
to the place where he has been. And you can't take someone to
a place you've never been. And the problem with false prophets
is they've never been to Christ. And they're leading people down
the road of destruction. He commanded them that they should
take nothing for their journey, save a staff only, no script. Now, a script is a purse. It's
a leather bag in which they were to carry all their possessions. And the Lord said, no, you don't
worry about taking those things with you. you take the gospel
with you. Don't take any bread with you.
Don't take any money with you. You've got the message of the
gospel for the salvation of men's souls. And those who hear the
gospel, they'll provide for you. That's the message here. They'll
provide for you. And I'm so thankful for that.
I'm thankful for you. Y'all have always been very,
very kind and generous to us. But this is a full-time ministry.
It's full time preparing and preaching and caring for God's
sheep. And this is the means by which the Lord has ordained
that his shepherds be cared for. He said, don't take a bag with
you. Don't take any bread. Your bread is the bread of life.
And don't take any money. You're giving this away. You're not gonna buy anything.
And don't take a second coat. You take one coat, what is that
coat a picture of? You remember when the Roman soldiers
were casting lots for the possessions of the Lord at the cross and
they came to his coat and they said that it was without seam. Now I'm not exactly sure how
that was made. But somehow the Lord had a coat
that didn't have any seams on it. It wasn't stitched together,
different pieces of fabric. If it had been, they would just
cut the stitches and divided the coat up. But they said it
was without seam. And then the one of them said,
let us not rend his coat, but let us cast lots for it. And
what do you suppose that coat's a picture of? It's the robe of
righteousness. It's the covering of the righteousness
of Christ and you can't rend it. Don't divide it. Don't cut
it up. And don't add to it. Don't take
a second coat. In case this doesn't work, well,
you know, we've got other tools we can use to get people to make
decisions and build our church on more stuff. You know, it's
grace plus law. And in Psalm chapter 20, we looked
at this Wednesday night, the scripture says, some will trust
in horses and some will trust in chariots, but we will trust
in the name of the Lord our God. Now, what's the difference between
a horse and a chariot? They're both things that men ride into
battle. And everybody knows that they've
got a battle with God. They've got a problem with God. And what they don't know is that
the warfare is already accomplished. the Lord Jesus Christ went to
battle for us. But the Lord said some will trust
in horses and some will trust in chariots. What is the difference
between a horse and a chariot? A horse is something made by
God. A chariot is something made by man. And here's what men trust
in. They will trust in man-made doctrines
and man-made commandments for their acceptance before God. And every group and every religious
organization has got their own set of rules and regulations,
don't they? And then some will say, oh, no, we're not going
to trust in man-made doctrines. We're going to trust in the law
of God. Well, don't trust in God's law for your salvation.
Yeah, God's law is holy, just, and good, but it's never made
anybody holy. The law of God's never justified
anybody in the presence of God, and the law of God can't add
any goodness to you. God requires perfect obedience
to his law, and there's only one man that ever did that. So
these were commanded, don't take one coat. One coat. We declare the Lord Jesus Christ
as the only hope of righteousness that we have before a holy God. We're not rending his coat and
we're not adding to it with the commandments of men or the law
of God. We're saying Christ is He's everything. So you see there's some principles
in this, though this is relating to the disciples in their particular,
they were to preach repentance, show men where they err, so that
they see that they've got to have a changed mind about God,
about themselves. Men believe themselves to have
the power of free will. Men believe themselves to have
some goodness about them. Tell them it's a lie. Tell them
they're dead in their trespasses and sins. Tell them they don't
have a free will. And tell them all their works of righteousness
are as filthy rags before me. Make it clear. Don't be ambiguous
about it. Don't leave any question in men's
minds. about how it is that God's pleased
to save. Oh, that's my hope, isn't it?
If the Lord's called us and he sent us, that's what we'll do. And then they were to wear sandals.
Notice that in our text. He commanded them that they should,
verse 8, that they should take nothing for their journey, save
a staff only, no script, no bread, no money in their purse, but
be shod with sandals and not put on two coats. In Ephesians chapter 5, the Lord
speaks of that spiritual armor and he talks about feet being
shod with the preparation of the gospel. The only way we're
going to travel down the road that God sends us on is if All
we have to tell men is the gospel. I've had people say to me, we
just preach the same thing over and over again, yeah? It's the
only message I've got. It's the only message I've got.
And it's the only message God's people want. Everybody else wants
something else. You know, what's the sermon about
today? It's about Christ. It's about
Christ. Is there something else? No,
there isn't anything else. Nothing better. Nothing better. Feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel. May God give us grace. All right,
let's take a break.