Well, it's good to see you this
evening, and again, we thank our Lord, our God, for this blessed
privilege to be here. I'm going to ask you to take
your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Mark chapter 8. Mark chapter 8. I spoke out of
this passage a few weeks ago, and there was something in this
passage struck my mind again as I was
looking over it the other day. And I want us to look for a few
minutes at verse 38. Mark 8, 38. Our Lord said, Whosoever therefore
shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and
sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed
when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Let's pray together. Our Father,
we ask according to your mercy and grace, Lord, would you bless
the word this evening. Give us ears to hear. Father,
I pray that you would ignite our hearts as you did to the
two on the road to Emmaus. Help us, we pray, to worship
for Christ's sake. Amen. God's preachers are commanded
to comfort the people of God. Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. We're in this world and we're
pilgrims, and we're sojourners, and we're resented, and we're
reprimanded, and we're forsaken for the sake of Him that we love
and for His Word. Our Lord told His disciples,
He said, you remember, they hated Me for they hated you. And tonight,
for Christ's sake, and for the comfort of His people, I want
us to consider something that we truly can rely on, the Word
of God. Now, understanding the context
of what our Lord just said, whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of
me." And the thing that qualifies being ashamed of him, are the
next few words, and of my words. Whosoever is ashamed of me, whosoever
is humiliated concerning me, humiliated concerning my words,
mortified, disappointed. You know, if you tell somebody,
I'm ashamed of you, what they've done is they've disappointed
you. They've gone beyond the bounds
of what you say is acceptable. They've caused you to look Disgraceful. They've made it look bad on you. I'm ashamed of you. Now you think about that. Humiliated. Disappointed. Disgraced. The Lord said, whosoever therefore
shall be ashamed of Me and My words, Whoever is humiliated,
mortified, disgraced by His words, disgraced of Him, ashamed of
Him, He said, I'll be ashamed of you. Now for a moment, I want
us to consider five, even as I wrote down these five points,
that men are ashamed of the Lord and ashamed of His Word. I began
to think, this is dropping a bucket compared to all of the different
ways in which men are ashamed. But I want us to look at five
things that I found that men are ashamed of. Things that cause
men to feel anger against the Lord. You know, you shame somebody,
you're upset with them. And ask yourself this, as we
consider these five points, am I ashamed of the Lord? Am I ashamed
to openly and freely and thankfully confess Him? Now here's the first
thing I found. that men were angered by, humiliated
by, disgraced by, ashamed of. They were ashamed of His deity. Now, we're going to turn to a
few passages of Scripture. Turn to John 10. John 10, verse
30 to 33. John 10, verse 30 to 33. Ashamed
of His deity. Ashamed of His Godhead. John 10, verse 30. The Lord is speaking to a group
of Jews and He says, I and My Father are one. I'm one with the Father. Then
the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. And Jesus answered
them, many good works have I showed you from My Father. For which
of those works do you stone Me? The Jews answered and sang, For
a good work We stone thee not, but for blasphemy, because thou
being a man makest thyself God." Now, here's what I know. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. It's hostile. The carnal mind,
the unregenerate mind, is hostile against God. And this is never
more evident that when the Lord Jesus Christ and His sovereign
right to do as He will is set forth. Almighty God is declared in this
book, in this gospel. And when God is set forth as
being God, the right, The right to do as He will. When He declares
Himself to be the Lord of Heaven, there is something within the
unregenerate mind that just springs forth with anger. It's the carnal mind. It's mad
at God. And when God has said, lower
the standard, lower the bar, Make him to be a beggar, and
the carnal mind will smile." That's the God I want. But set
him forth as God. And men are ashamed of him. Disgraced
by him. Whenever Thomas was approached
by the Lord, after Thomas had made that statement, said, I see the nail prints in his
hands. Stick my finger in his hands. Unless I put my hand in
his side, I'm not going to believe. And the Lord came to him later
and told him, Thomas, here, put your hand right here. And that's
what Thomas said, My Lord, my God. Here's the second thing men are
ashamed of. They're ashamed of God's right to have mercy. Luke 19. Luke 19, verse 1. The carnal mind is ashamed, angry,
disgraced, humiliated with God's right to show mercy. Luke 19,
verse 1. Then Jesus entered and passed
through Jericho, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus,
which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. And
he sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not for the press
because he was little of stature. And he ran before and climbed
up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that
way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him
and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for
today I must abide at thy house. And he made haste and came down
and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all
murmured, saying that he was gone to be a guest with a man
that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said
unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to
the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false
accusation, I will restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto
him, This day, His salvation come to this house for as much
as He also is the Son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to
seek and to save that which was lost." Now, by nature, man thinks
that God is going to have mercy on those that work hard at being
just. Two men went into the temple
to pray. One was a Pharisee, the other
was a publican. And that Pharisee, the Scripture
said, prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee that I am not
as other men are. I fast. I tithe. All of these things I do, and
I know I'm not like that publican right there. And the publican wouldn't even
lift up his eyes toward heaven. Beat on his breast. Smoked. Lord, have mercy on me. Man, by nature, thinks that he's
worthy. And when they saw, the Lord showed
mercy to a sinner. An old, stinking sinner. Men are ashamed of God to show
mercy to whomsoever He will. He told Moses, when Moses asked
to see His glory, he said, this is my glory. This is the way
I am. This is the way I think. This
is my opinion. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. I will have compassion on whom
I'll have compassion. Men by nature are ashamed, they
are humiliated at God for showing mercy. Because man thinks he
is due mercy because of his work. Thirdly, men are ashamed of God
and of His words concerning His justice. Turn to Matthew 20. Men are ashamed of God concerning
justice. God is just. He's fair. He's right. Matthew 20, verse
1, For the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that is a
householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers
into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the
laborers for a penny a day, He sent them into his vineyard.
He went out about the third hour, about nine o'clock in the morning. So somewhere between six and
before nine, the Lord had hired some laborers. And he went out
about the third hour, about nine o'clock in the morning, saw others
standing idle in the marketplace. He said to them, go ye also into
the vineyard and whatsoever is right, I'll give you. They went
their way. Again, he went out about the
sixth hour, about noon, and about the ninth hour, about three o'clock
in the afternoon, and did likewise. About the eleventh hour, about
five o'clock in the afternoon, He went out and found others
standing idle, and said unto them, Why stand ye here all the
day idle? They say unto him, Because no
man hath harvested. He saith unto them, Go ye also
into the vineyard, and whatsoever is ripe, ye shall receive also
when even was come a sow. When even was come, the Lord
of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the laborers, and
give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour,
they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they
supposed that they should have received more. And they likewise
received every man a penny. And when they had received it,
they murmured, against the good man of the house, saying, These
last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal
unto us which have borne the burden in the heat of the day.
But he answered one of them and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong.
Didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine
is and go thy way. I will give unto this last, even
as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do
what I will with mine own? Is thine I evil because I am
good? So the last shall be first, and
the first last. For many be called, but few are
chosen." Let me ask you this. If Almighty God He calls you
out in the prime of your life and saves you by His grace and
mercy, giving you a heart for Him. And you go through all of
your life and the pains and the sufferings and the humiliations,
suffering for His namesake. If He calls Paul an apostle,
a Saul of Tarsus out of darkness on the road to Damascus, and
puts him through all that he's gone through in the deep, beaten,
robbed, ridiculed, lied on, slandered, left for dead. And then he calls
a thief in the last moments of his life and tells that thief
while he's hanging on that cross today, you're going to be with
me in paradise. Is God just? The reward of both of them, what's
it going to be? The same. Men are ashamed of
God because He's just. Men think, if I'm born longer,
I deserve more. That's a carnal mind. Man by
nature is ashamed of God's justice. Fourthly, men are ashamed of
His distinguishing grace. I want you to look at Luke 4. Luke 4. Our Lord is teaching
a group there He'd been reading the Scriptures
there in synagogue. After he read, he said this in
Luke 4.23, he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this
proverb, Physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever we've heard done in
Capernaum, do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily
I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you a truth, many
widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, Elijah, when the
heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine
was throughout all the land. But none of them was Elijah sent
save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was
a widow. What he said was there was a
lot of folks that was going through that famine. Three and a half
years of famine. But God didn't send a prophet
to anybody in Israel. He sent it to a woman, Sidon. Many lepers were in Israel in
the time of Elisha, the prophet. And none of them was cleansed,
saying, Naaman the Syrian. Naaman, you know, he was captain
of the Lord's host, and he was this and that. Mighty victories
he'd done. He only had one problem. He was
a leper. And a little maid told him, she
said, look, there's a prophet over here. Go see him. And Naaman
went over there. Elisha didn't even go out to
meet him. Sent his servant out there. Naaman
was wroth. Well, I thought. I thought he'd
recognize who was coming. He'd come out. The servant told
him, he said, you go wash in the Jordan seven times. And you
know the story. God healed him of his leprosy
after God broke him, put him down. And Scripture says in verse 28,
And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things,
were filled with wrath. and rose up and thrust him out
of the city and led him to the brow of the hill whereupon their
city was built. They might cast him down headlong,
but he passed him through the midst of them, went his way,
came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on
the Sabbath days. And they were astonished at his
doctrine, for his word was with power. Men by nature are ashamed. They are upset. They are mortified. That God can show mercy to one
and pass by another. That God can have compassion
on whomsoever He will. Look at Romans 9. Romans 9. One of the most straightforward If you
ever want to read a chapter again on God's absolute sovereignty,
well, you read Romans 9 often. Romans 9.15, the Scripture says,
He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it is not of him that willeth. Nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. Look at verse 21. Hath not the
potter power of the clay of the same lump to make one vessel
unto honor and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show
His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that He might
make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy
which He had aforeprepared unto glory? I pray that God has mercy. or my family. I pray that the
Lord has mercy upon your family. I pray God save your kids, your
husbands, your wives, your brothers, your sisters. But if He is pleased
to pass them by, Almighty God is just and right. Man by nature
is offended He's ashamed of God's right to show mercy. And then
lastly, man by nature is ashamed of God's power to call whomsoever
He will. John 6. They're ashamed of His
power. John 6.63. Our Lord is speaking to a group
of disciples that were following Him, not His apostles, but a
group of followers. John 6.63, And the Lord said,
It is the spirit that quickneth. The flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. But 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. And He said, Therefore said I
unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it were given
unto him of My Father. And from that time many of His
disciples went back and walked no more with Him." That which
they were offended at, that which they were ashamed of, was actually
twofold. Number one, they were ashamed
or offended or mortified or disgraced that salvation was in God's hands. And secondly, for the same reason,
that salvation wasn't in theirs. Man by nature is ashamed of God
and His words when it comes to God's right and power to call. You mean to tell me that God
is going to have to grant me repentance before I can come? Man is ashamed of that. Man wants
to believe That he has the ability, the power, the will, capable
of doing something. And when the Scripture strips
a man of that ability, or reveals that he doesn't have that ability,
they're ashamed of him. Only by the grace of God will
one say, as Peter said after the Lord told those what they
had heard, and they followed him no more, and he asked them,
do you go away? And Peter said, Lord, to whom
shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. The evidence of a dead heart is that it will not bow
to God's sovereignty, or he's just indifferent to it. A wayside
hero. But to those regenerated by the
grace of God, they agree with the Apostle Paul when he said
in Romans 1.16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for
it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. A believer is not ashamed
of the one message that God blesses to the salvation of his elect. And knowing that we're justified
by the grace of God, that we have peace with God through His
blood, that we have access to the Father in the glorious person
of our Savior, that even the afflictions that He sends are
sent for our good and our patience. We have hope. We have expectation. We have confidence. And Romans
5 verse 5 says, That confidence, that expectation, maketh not
ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. The Scriptures, in closing,
says in Hebrews 2.11, the Lord Jesus Christ, He's not ashamed
of us. Hebrews 2.11 says this, For both
He that sanctifieth, that is the Lord, And they who are sanctified
are all one, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them
brethren." The Lord is not ashamed of us. Hebrews 11, 14 and 16
says the Scripture setting forth, God Almighty is not ashamed of
His people. For they that say such things,
that they are sojourners and pilgrims in this world, declare
plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful
of that country from which they came out, they might have had
opportunity to have returned. But now, they desire a better
country, that is, a heavenly. Wherefore, God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city. 1 John 2.28 says, And now, little
children, abide in Him, that when He shall appear, we may
have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. My question is this, concerning
His right to do as He will, His right being just, His right and
power to call His people unto Himself when He will, where He
will through this gospel, If you find yourself not ashamed
of that, own it gladly, heartily, thankfully, you do so by the
grace of God. May the Lord bless these words
to our heart. Amen.