Let's open this morning's service
with the hymn from your hardbacked hymnal, Great Hymns of the Faith
hymnal, number 42, All Hail the Power. Let's all stand together,
number 42. you All hail the power of Jesus'
name. Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth a royal diadem and
crown him Lord of all. Bring forth a royal diadem and
crown him Lord of all. he ransom from the fall. Hail him who saves you by his
grace, and crown him Lord of all. Hail him who saves you by
his grace, and crown him Lord of all. Let every kindred, every
tribe, on this terrestrial ball, to Him all majesty ascribe, and
crown Him Lord of all. To Him all majesty ascribe, And
crown Him Lord of all. O that with yonder sacred throng
we at his feet may fall, we'll join the everlasting song and
crown him Lord of all. We'll join the everlasting song
and crown him Lord of all. Please be seated. Good morning. If you'd like to
turn with me in your Bibles, we'll be continuing our study
in the second chapter of Mark, Mark chapter two this morning. You all remember, I don't know
how long ago it's been now, Joyce, has it been a year, has it? Since
seven months ago that the Lord took Michael Etheridge's father
home. And his mom is here with us this
morning, Joyce. So we're glad you're here, Joyce. Let's ask the Lord's blessings. Our Heavenly Father, we come
and thank you, Lord, that you've put a need in our hearts to know you, to hear from you,
to be taught by you, Lord, to be saved, to have our sins put
away. You've caused us to recognize
that we have a need for righteousness that we cannot produce. And oh, what great hope we have
in knowing that Thy dear son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is righteous in thy sight. Lord, that what he did on behalf
of his people is acceptable to thee. Lord, we pray that you
would enable us now by your spirit to find our hope, our comfort,
our peace, our forgiveness, and all our satisfaction. in the
Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the revelation
that you've made in your word and we pray that your Holy Spirit
would open our eyes and open our hearts and open the bread
of life and open the windows of heaven, Lord, that you would
be pleased to speak and to cause us, Lord, to find our comfort
and our salvation in thee. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. The title of this study comes
from verse 17 in Mark chapter 2. And when Jesus heard it, he said
unto them, They that are whole have no need. They that are whole have no need. The whole have no need. We often say people do what they
want to do, and I guess that's true. But people do what they
need to do. They do what they need to do.
Much of religion is based on an attempt to get people to be
more committed. It's motivational talks for the
purpose of trying to get folks to be more committed to their
religion, more committed to their God, The truth is that you will
be committed to that which you need. You're committed to your jobs
because you need that job. You need the income of that job
in order to survive, don't you? You get up every morning and
you do what you otherwise would not do because you have a need. Isn't that true? Somebody's thinking,
well, I go to work because I want to. Yeah, somebody gave you $10
million, you'd be texting a link to a Johnny Paycheck song to
your boss, wouldn't you? You can look that one up later. We do what we need, don't we? We say that coming to Christ
is not a choice and it's not and that we have options. God
shuts us up and causes us to have a need. The gospel is for
the poor and the needy. The whole have no need. They
that are sick, They're the ones that have a
need. And the needy come. This passage of scripture is
so encouraging to those who have a need. You know, we put off going to
the doctor when we're not feeling well until the situation just
becomes so dire that we've got to go. Somebody said to me this morning
in the men's study time. I need to be here Well, I need
to be here. That's why I'm here and I pray
that the Lord would put on our hearts a need Because if he does
then we'll be committed to that which we need won't we? You know
the word Commitment is such a big word in religion. You know, we
just have to have more commitment. You know the word commitment
is nowhere to be found in the Bible? It's not. Does that mean that we're not
committed? No. But commitment is the natural result of a need. And so the Lord gives us a need,
we'll be committed to that which we have a need for. Notice in verse 13, and he went
forth again by the seaside and all the multitude resorted unto
him. They came to him. I pray that we have resorted
unto him this morning because the Lord has put onto our hearts
a need to hear from God, a need to have our sins put away, a
need for hope, for peace, for salvation. And notice when these who had
a need resorted unto Him that He taught them. He taught them. I have a need to be taught of
God. Turn to me to John chapter 6. Verse 44, no man can come to
me except the father which sent me draw him and I will raise
him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. And every man, therefore,
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me."
We have a need to be taught of God. You remember in Acts chapter
8 when Philip was sent of God to meet with that Ethiopian eunuch? And the eunuch was reading from
Isaiah chapter 53 and Philip asked him, understand this what
thou readest? And the man said, how can I unless
a man should guide me? All right. Now, remember that
passage and turn with me to 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2. Verse 26, these things have I
written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing
which you have received of him abideth in you. That's the Holy
Spirit. And you need not that any man
teach you, but that as the same anointing
teaches you all things and is truth. and is no lie, and even
as it hath taught you, you shall abide in him." Now the disciples went about
preaching the gospel, but the teaching takes place
in the heart by the Holy Spirit. Now the Lord has ordained the
means by which that happens through the guiding of a man. The Lord
has called out certain men to give their lives to the preparation
of the scriptures and to prayer. But those men are not your teachers. I'm not your teacher. All I can
do is guide your attention to what God has said. He is the
one that has to do the teaching. You see, whatever we're taught
from a man, another man can teach us out of. And much of what we
experienced in religion was just things that we were taught by
a man. And another man came along and
taught us something different and we changed our minds. But
when a man guides you to see what God has said, and then God
is pleased to teach you, no one can talk you out of that. They shall be all taught of God. You have no need that a man should
teach you. I need a man to guide me. I'm
like that Philippian jailer. I can't give the bulk of my life
to the studying of scripture, and God's not called me to that
ministry. Guide me to see what God has
said. But the teaching is of the Holy
Spirit. And if what the man guides you
to see is not taught by the Spirit of God, then don't believe him.
don't believe don't follow his guide okay so we need to be taught
we need to be guided to the scriptures and then we need to be taught
by God what the Lord say Matthew chapter 11 come unto me, all ye that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and learn of me." So the Lord is our teacher and the Lord is
the one who he teaches us about. And the men that God has called
are just simply pointing out the things that God has already
said. but we are completely dependent upon the spirit of God to do
the teaching. We don't put a man under the
authority of another man saying, you've got to follow me. Paul
said, follow me as I follow Christ. So if I'm not pointing to Christ,
don't follow me. Don't follow me. We have a need to be taught,
to be taught of God, And the Lord commended Mary,
didn't he? When Martha was so encumbered by many things, what
did the Lord say to Martha? Martha, Martha, Mary has chosen
that one thing that is needful. She's the one sitting at my feet.
She's the one hearing my voice. And that's our hope, isn't it?
Our hope is that God will use this frail and trembling voice
to point you to see what he has said and that your need to be
taught will be met by God. Notice in verse 14, and as he
passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus. Now Levi is Matthew. He was a publican, a tax collector,
hated by his fellow Jews. At the receipt of custom, and
the Lord said unto him, follow me, and he arose and followed
him. Now, you and I have a need. to be taught of God. We have
a need to be, to come together to where He is and we have a
need for Him to speak effectually to our hearts and call us to
follow Him. We have that need. Lord, you're
going to have to irresistibly call me. Now, don't think that
Matthew was so engaged in his work. that the Lord just casually
came by and gave him a glance and said, follow me. And Matthew
got up and followed the Lord like a mindless robot. That's not the way God calls
a man. He doesn't, he could. The Lord's got the power to do
that. But every time God calls a man,
he puts on that man's heart first an interest in his own soul before
he calls him. That Ethiopian eunuch we just
mentioned in Acts chapter 8 had traveled from Ethiopia all the
way to Jerusalem because he heard about a God by the name of Jehovah
that was able to save and he got a copy of the scriptures
He got no answers for his questions, but he had been given by God
an interest in his soul before the Lord sent this gospel preacher
to tell him about Christ. Does the prophet speak of himself
or does he speak of another? And beginning right there, he
preached unto him Jesus. Matthew like Nathanael. Remember Nathanael? He was sitting
under a fig tree and when the Lord, when Andrew brought Nathanael
to the Lord, the Lord said to Nathanael, an Israelite indeed
in whom there is no guile. And Nathanael said, how do you
know me? When you were under the fig tree, I saw you. Oh. Lord, thou art the Son of
God. That's what he said. What do
you suppose Nathanael was doing underneath that fig tree? He
was doing some soul searching, wasn't he? You see, I don't think that Matthew
was just sitting there mindlessly thinking about his work. And he saw the throngs of people.
He knew the claims that the Lord Jesus Christ was making about
himself. The Lord had already stirred
up his heart. Lydia, the seller of purple from
Thyatira who was in Philippi was meeting with some women down
by the river praying when the Lord sent Paul to tell them about
Christ and to save her. When God irresistibly calls one
of his elect, it doesn't just come out of the blue. And they
don't just get up like a mindless robot and just follow after him. He makes them willing in the
day of his power. He stirs up their hearts and
gives them an interest in spiritual things and causes them to consider
the state of their souls. Certainly was true of Jonah.
It certainly was true of Job. It was true of every... In the
year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah was burdened
with the thought that God was about to abandon Israel because
of Uzziah's sin. Uzziah had just died shamelessly
with leprosy. Shamefully, I should say, with
leprosy. And Isaiah's fear was all is
lost. The king has died in shame. And in the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw the Lord. He went to the temple that day
searching, didn't he? You see, God puts, here's my
point. God puts in the hearts of his children a need. A need. Lord, I've got to be
saved. I've got to know you. I've got
to have hope. I've got to know that my sins
are forgiven. I've got to have eternal life.
And if the Lord, if that's your heart's desire, that's because
God put that in your heart. so that when he comes along and
says to you, follow me, he's already prepared you for that
moment. So we have a need to be taught
of God. We have a need to be prepared and we have a need to
be called, don't we? And if the Lord puts that need
on our hearts, then, The commitment will be the result of that need,
won't it? We'll commit our souls unto Him.
That is one place where the word commit is used in the scriptures,
committing your soul to God. And that happens when the Lord
gives us a need. Look at verse 15. And it came
to pass, that as Jesus sat at meat in
his house, many publicans and sinners sat also together with
Jesus and his disciples, for there were many and they followed
him." Nothing's changed, has it? Nothing's
changed. Publicans and sinners still gather
around the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? because they have a need. The whole have no need. The broken, the needy, the poor,
the desperate, the dying, they're the ones who have a need. And they're the ones who come. Sinners have a need. They have
no righteousness in and of themselves. That's the definition of a sinner.
A sinner can produce nothing but sin. A sinner cannot offer
to God anything that would obligate God in any way to save him. That's a sinner. Lord, I need a righteousness
completely alien to me. outside of me completely. And
there's nothing I can do as a sinner to satisfy the demands of God's
justice. Wednesday night we looked at
a passage in Psalm 6 and the title of the message was, How
Sorry Do You Have to Be? People think, well if I can just
if I can just manufacture enough sorrow for my sin then God will
have pity upon me. The problem with that is that
the majority of our sins we're not even consciously aware of.
How can we be sorry for them? And the second problem is that
God requires a sorrow that is perfect. And you and I are so accustomed
to our sin and we're so numb to it that even when we do feel
sorrow, It's not the kind of sorrow that God requires. When
the Lord Jesus Christ bore our sins as his own, when God made
him sin who knew no sin, when he cried from the cross,
God, the scripture says, saw the travail of his soul and God
was satisfied. So what am I going to do to measure
up to what God requires in terms of my sorrow, in terms of my
faith? What can I bring to satisfy the
demands of God's justice and put away my sin? I'm in need
of a Savior. I can't satisfy a holy God. I
need one who is able to present his sorrow to satisfy what God requires. The only thing we need to know,
well, let me rephrase that. The best sorrow that we can have
for our sin is to acknowledge what it took God to put it away. No shame or guilt that you and
I are able to feel in our conscience compares to when the Spirit of
God is given. Zechariah chapter 12, when the
Spirit is poured out on Jerusalem and on the house of Israel, they will be given a spirit of
brokenness, won't they? And they'll mourn after him whom
they have pierced as one mourneth after his own son. What happened to the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's
cross is my fault. And what I need to know about
my sin is what God required for it to be put away. So, the publicans and sinners,
they resorted unto the Lord. Nothing's changed. The Pharisees still hate Christ. In verse 17, and when Jesus heard
it, he said unto them, they that are whole have no need. They don't have a need. They're able to bring something
on their own. They don't have a need for me.
They've got a righteousness. They've got an understanding.
They've got a knowledge. They've got something that they're
trusting in other than the Lord Jesus Christ for the hope of
their salvation. They that are whole, I'm sorry,
verse 16, we skipped that, didn't we? And when the scribes and
Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto his
disciples, how is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans
and sinners? How can it be? The Lord Jesus
Christ is still only found seated at the tables with publicans
and sinners. Nothing's changed. And when Jesus heard at verse
17, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of
a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. So what hope do I have that Christ
came to call me? I'm a sinner. I fit the qualification. And this is a faithful saint.
And it is worthy of all acceptation. It's worthy to be accepted by
all men and it's worthy to be accepted in its entirety. Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. I don't know of anybody that
needs more grace than I do. Is that true of you? I don't
know anyone who's been given more light and more blessings,
more truth, and remain as unbelieving as I am. And to whom much is
given, much is required. Lord, I am the chief of all sinners. And that's why believers and
gospel preachers don't spend their time pointing outside the
church to all those people out there that are doing so many
horrible things and think, well, don't be like that. Don't be
like that. No, I'm worse. I sin against
light. I sin against love. I sin against
grace. I sin against all the knowledge
that God has given me, and I continue. And in these is continuance,
the scripture says, and we shall be saved. Why? You see, the unbeliever just
does what's natural to him. It's not natural for a believer
to sin. It's not. And yet we do it. Not to the new nature it's not,
is it? It's contrary to everything we believe, isn't it? Oh, Lord, I'm a needy sinner.
I need grace. You see, it's all about need,
isn't it? Do you need to be taught? Do you need to assemble together?
Do you need to be called? Do you need for God to do a work
of grace in your heart, putting a burden on your soul for your
soul? Do you need these things? Well,
if you're a sinner, you do. The Lord said, I didn't come
to call the whole. They have no need. They have
no need. In verse 18, And the disciples
of John and of the Pharisees used to fast, and they come and
say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and the Pharisees fast,
but thy disciples fast not? Were they looking to, you remember
the publican and the Pharisee that were praying together in
the temple? And the publican would not so
much as even look up, but smote himself upon the breast and cried,
O God, have mercy upon me, I am the sinner. And the Pharisee
did what? Oh Lord, I fast twice a week.
I give my tithes, I go to church, I do this and I do that. And
so now they're, well what benefit is my fasting? Why don't your
disciples fast? And Jesus said unto them, verse
19, can the children of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is
with them? As long as they have the bridegroom
with them, they cannot fast. It's not a time for fasting.
There is a time for fasting. But this is a time for rejoicing.
This is a time to be taught. This is a time to eat, not fast,
to feast on the bread of life. And we could go back to John
chapter 6, that when the Lord said, they shall be all taught
of God. That's what the Pharisees were so offended at when the
Lord Jesus Christ said, I am the bread of life. that bread that came down from
heaven for your fathers in the wilderness Moses didn't give
them that God sent that and he sent that as a picture of me
unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood there's no
life in you and they were offended so the Lord says this is not
a time for fasting this is a time for feasting this is a time to to eat the
bread of life, to have that need that I put in your heart satisfied. But the days will come when the
bridegroom shall be taken away from them and then shall they
fast in those days. Oh, and there was some great
fasting that took place after the death of Christ, wasn't
there? Those disciples gathered up in
that upper room and they were, I mean, I'm sure that they didn't
have much appetite. And even after the resurrection,
the Lord appeared to them. There were times of great fasting
until the Spirit of God came. And then it was a time to feast
again, wasn't it? This is not a time to fast. The bridegroom's
with us. He's come in the power of the
Spirit of God to give bread to eat for the children. Now the Lord is going to illustrate
it with another thing. Look at what he says in verse
21. No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment. I can say this from experience
because I used to work in a knitting factory. I was a planning production
manager for a textile factory. All the clothes that you buy
are pre-shrunk. When they come off the knitting
machine, they have to go through a hot bath in order to shrink
those fibers. Otherwise, when you buy them
and you wash them, they're going to shrink. Okay? So, and that's
the way old fabric would have been. You knit together some
fabric, and as it got older, it got smaller. It shrunk up
because the fibers would lose their pliability and their oils. And if you put a new piece of
fabric on an old garment and sewed it around the hole, that
new piece of fabric's going to eventually shrink, isn't it?
The illustration's clear. and the hole is going to get
worse. So no man sews a new piece of cloth on an old garment else
the new piece that filleth it up taketh away from the old and
the rent is made worse. And then he says in verse 22,
and no man put his new wine into old bottles. The old wine bottle
made out of the gut of a sheep would have stretched to its limit
in the fermentation of the new wine that was put into it. And
then once that wine was drank, you had to use that as a water
bottle. You couldn't use it as a new wine bottle again. If you
put new wine in an old wineskin, what's going to happen when it
ferments? It's going to burst the wineskin. You're going to
lose everything. But isn't that what men try to do? People who
don't have a need. They think, they think, well,
I've got a tear in my shirt here. I'll just put a, I'll put a new
piece of cloth on it. I'll make a new commitment. I'll
make a, I'll rededicate my life. I'll do this or I'll do that
and it'll cover up the hole. The problem is the garment needs
to be left on the curbside like blind Bartimaeus did when he
took off his filthy garment and ran to the Lord to be clothed
with the robe of His righteousness. But men think, well, I don't
have, I'm not that needy. I've just got a little hole here
or there. I'll fix it. I'll patch it up. I'll put a
Band-Aid on it. And that's all religion is. It's
just Band-Aids, isn't it? It's cancer. It's dying cancer
patients taking pain medicine and putting Band-Aids on. That's
what religion is. Lord, I need life. I need a new
garment. I need to be made whole. And
I've got to have a substitute. I've got to have a savior. And
I can't put the new truth of the gospel into this old flesh.
I need a new heart. I need a new wineskin. to hold
the truth of this gospel, you're going to have to take out the
heart of stone. You see, that old wineskin is like a stony
heart, isn't it? It's stretched to its capacity.
It can't hold the gospel. Lord, I've got the need for a
new nature, a new heart. I don't need you to patch up
this old heart. I don't need you to put the gospel into my
old nature. I need you to give me a new nature. Otherwise, I'm going to be worse
off in the end. And that's all religion does. Religion makes
a person worse in the end than they were at the beginning. They take some comfort in their
false hope. They die holding on to their
patched up garments and their busted wine skins. It's a whole lot harder to talk
to a committed religious person about the gospel than it is to
talk to a irreligious person, isn't it? Sweep out the house and they
garnish it about and the demon comes back and he said, and he
brings back seven times stronger than he was to begin with. Why? Because he sees that the house
is empty. It's still empty. All the garnishing
that religion does to a person's heart and to their house doesn't
keep, when those demons come back, those demons are just soon
that person be moral and religious as to be irreligious and immoral.
As long as they don't have Christ, he don't care. No man, verse 22, putteth new
wine into old bottles else the new wine doth burst the bottles
and the wine is spilled and the bottles be marred. But new wine
must be put into new bottles. Oh, Lord, I need a new heart. I need new wine. I need a new
garment. I can't patch this one up. I'm just going to read the next
three verses because I see the word need again. I look at verse
23, and it came to pass that he went through the cornfields
on the Sabbath day, and his disciples began as they went to pluck ears
of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him,
Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day do that which is not lawful?
They made rules and regulations out of the Sabbath day. And the
Lord said unto them, Have you never read what David did when
he had need? David's running from Saul. He's
got men with him that are starving. They come to Ithaphel and he's
got a showbread. It's not lawful for anybody to
eat that bread. That was a picture of Christ.
That was for the priest. But he ate it. Why? Because he had a need. And God
approved it. Because God had put him in that
place of having a need. Has God put you, has God put
me in a place of having a need? Not an interest, not a desire,
not a curiosity, a need. Lord, I need to be saved. If
he has, he did it in order to meet that need. He always meets
the needs that he creates. Always. Alright, let's take a
break. Peace.