There we go, I heard it. Mark
chapter 1, I'm sorry, Mark chapter 14. Mark chapter 14, before I
get started, the folks of the flock over in Jackson that I
pastor over there in Jackson, Missouri, they send their greetings. Our prayers are continually with
you all. I know you are as well to us over there. It's just been an enjoyable time
to be able to come over here. This is my fourth or fifth time
or something, but if I don't really pay attention to that,
I'm just thankful that you all are still here, still meeting,
still encouraging one another in the Gospel. Now, this passage
in Mark 14 I've been doing this for almost 30 years, and this
is new to me. I've never seen it before. Mark
14, verses 1-2, and then 12-16. Let me just read it. After two
days was the feast of the Passover, and an unleavened bread, and
the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take Christ
by craft and put Him to death. But they said, not on the feast
day, lest there be an uproar of the people." And then we'll
skip down to verse 12 and go through verse 16. And the first
day of the unleavened bread, when they kill the Passover,
his disciples, Christ's disciples said unto him, where wilt thou
that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the Passover? And
Christ sent forth two of his disciples and said unto them,
Go into the city, and there you shall meet a man bearing a pitcher
of water. Follow him, a man's servant.
And wheresoever he shall go in, say to the goodman of the house,
say to the owner of the house, the master, sayeth. where is
the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples
and he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared
there make ready for us and his disciples went forth and came
into the city and found as he had said unto them and they made
ready the Passover now I've read this and read this and read this
as a simple narrative a historical narrative But it's a wonderful
moment when God reveals His gospel narrative in places you've never
seen it previously. Such is the case here. Do you
see the gospel in this? It's here. And I've never seen
it. So let's learn together. Because
all the Scriptures point to Christ. And they point to His redemptive
glory that He had before the world began. And how God can
be just and justify the ungodly. And that story is in here. Now
let's look at this together. And the one thing about this,
as Peter says, unto whom coming? Unto Christ coming? The believer
never stops coming to Christ. By the grace of God, we never
stop coming to our Redeemer. We never, ever stop coming. If
so, if we can stop, we probably never have come at all. If you
could point to a particular time, and some of you may, and some
of you may not be able to, but if you could point to like, well,
I was baptized here, or I made a decision for Jesus, which is
is full of works and legalism, but however, if you can go back
to that one time and say, that was it, and I'm right with God
like so many in religion today, and never really be concerned
about your soul, and never concerned about the things of Christ, then
you probably never have truly come to the real Christ. You
probably have come to religion, but not to Christ. So let's look
at this together and let's simply learn. And like I said, this
is like two weeks old. This is fresh, still in my mind,
that the Lord revealed the Gospel narrative to me. But before we
do that, let's set up what's going on. This is the Feast.
The Feast, two days, was the feast of the Passover, and the
unleavened bread, and they were going to try to put Christ to
death, but they said, let's not do it on the feast day, lest
there be an uproar of the people. Okay? An uproar of the people.
And then we go down to verse 12, and the first day of the
unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover, his disciples said
unto him, where will we go and prepare that we may eat the Passover? Now, Jerusalem, Historically,
at this time, the time of the Feast of the Passover, the Unleavened
Bread, it was a time, it was a major event. Okay? It was, the town of Jerusalem
was bustling, it was busy, it was very well occupied by every
Jew that could make the sojourn. They weren't living there. They
came from great distances. They came from great distances.
I think they still do it today. Friends invited other friends
that had come the year before or the time before or came into
the area. Neighbors opened their doors
to pilgrims and travelers. The rooms and homes were opened
up in preparation for the Passover. This was a major event in the
Jewish life. Mr. Spurgeon, Charles Haddon
Spurgeon, noted that Jerusalem at this time was one great inn,
I-N-N, was one great inn, or a vast place of accommodation. And I've looked at this in Bible
customs and times, and there's a lot to say about the Feast
of the Passover. They opened their homes, they were being
hospitable, and Jerusalem was packed. Because the Pharisees
and scribes, they didn't want to kill Christ on the feast day,
lest there be an uproar of the people like they've never seen
before. Why are you all doing this on the High Holy Day? So
suffice it to say that the population at Jerusalem was swelled far
above normal. That's the setting. Now let's
look at this. Look at verse 12. The first day
of the Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover, His
disciples said unto Him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare
that thou mayest eat the Passover." Our Lord had no place to go. Friends invited friends. They
opened up their doors, their homes, their upper rooms, their
place where they were going to prepare the feast for strangers. But no one opened up their home
or their room to our blessed Redeemer. And isn't that just
how it is with us by nature? We don't come to Christ. We don't
invite Him in. There's no dwelling. There's
no friendship. There's no fellowship. There's
no communion. By nature, birth, and practice,
we have nothing to do with the Savior. We have nothing to do. Jerusalem, they've got a place
for strangers. but they don't have any place
for Him. No one's invited Him in. No one says, oh, there's
these disciples and they were getting ready to come into Jerusalem,
but He sends two in. But before that, how similar
to our own persons. Before Christ was made known
to us by the Holy Spirit, we, just like these people, were
perhaps in the city, very religious, yet without Christ. We're playing
religion, but we didn't know Christ. We were doing it maybe
for our parents' sake. We were maybe doing it for our
own sake, maybe for our conscience' sake. I remember when I was growing
up, I was raised Methodist. I would go when my mom would
ask me to go because I was kind of a rotten kid. I'd do some
things and I figured, you know, there's no difference between
that and Catholicism. I'd go and I'd feel when I would go
into the church and I'd hear these things or whatever they
were. It wasn't a gospel, but it was religious. I felt okay. I got my slate clean. I'd go
out and do some other stuff. So I was playing religion, just
like these folks. the set epicenter of religion
in the ancient days. Or perhaps you and I were full
of zeal, which our brother just read, a zeal but it wasn't according
to knowledge. We were going about to establish
our own righteousness and we knew nothing of the great Savior.
It was not according to His knowledge. Or perhaps we were occupied with
friends, festivities, ceremonies, and vain traditions. Religious. These folks, they had friends
in, they had strangers in, they opened up their home, but not
Christ. We will not have this man to reign over us." And that's
what we said. That's basically what we said.
Truly void of real life-giving atonement or the understanding
of the forgiveness of sins. We're just going through the
motions. Either by our folks would require us to come or we
would set up some kind of things in our mind where we would feel
better if we went. These folks went through the
Passover rituals, which were great in many and never even
knew that the real Paschal Lamb was among them. This is us in
our own natural state. Perhaps we gave mental and physical
assent to truth was yet unrevealed and truth unknown and therefore
truth unexperienced, but we went through the motions. We may even
have had the correct doctrine, but doctrine doesn't save. Christ
saves. Christ saves. I'm sure There
was outward prayers. There was time set aside by the
Jewish families. There was time for prayers. I'm sure there was
time of meditation. I'm sure they had enjoyed what
they called fellowship with these folks that were in their homes.
They gave alms. I'm sure there were times of
celebration. But the end result of all such Christless behavior
or false religious activity is twofold. To be seen of men or
simply to put forth a fair show in the flesh. You're doing it
to be seen by other folks or you're just a fair show in the
flesh. You don't want to see Christ.
You'd rather have the activities, you'd rather have the ceremonies
and the pictures. John 6, he says, you will not
come to me that you may have life. You won't do it. That's the first thing. The second
thing we see in here, verse 13, and Christ sent forth two. I
think that's interesting because when He sent forth the disciples
to go preach the Word, He sent them two. And in the Gospel of
Luke, we know who these are, but here it's not mentioned.
He sends forth two of His disciples, and said unto them, Go ye into
the city, and there you shall meet a man bearing a pitcher
of water. Just follow him. Now how strange is this whole
setup. And wheresoever he shall go,
Say unto the good men of the house, the master saith, where
is that guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples?
Very specific. And his disciples went forth,
came into the city, and found, as he had said unto them, and
they made ready the Passover. Now here's the second thing.
Go and say. Go and tell. Our brother read,
he uses the foolishness of the preaching in the gospel to say
them that believe. And did they make up what they were supposed
to say? Or did they say exactly what the master told them? That
in essence is what true gospel preaching is. I don't come here
and make up what my denomination says I ought to preach. I found
out later in the Methodist church, how did this guy get all these
messages? Well, they sent them to him.
You know, he had monthly preaching charts and stuff like that. And
it was all their denominational nonsense. These men went and
said what had already been told them. The book is final. The canonization of scriptures
is complete. And the true gospel preacher looks in the scriptures
and just simply, that's what he does, is tell back. what we're
already told. And that happens, incidentally,
to be master, the sovereign, the king, the ruler of all says,
where's your guest chamber? He says whom he will. He says
preachers, and I'm very adamant about this. If you know
the gospel, if you know Christ, you may not, if you're a woman,
you may not stand behind a pulpit and preach. But you have a responsibility
to tell anybody and everybody you see and you know what you
know. And you don't make stuff up.
You just go into scriptures and say, well, God says we're a sinner
and we're etc. You quote the scriptures. He sends whom He will. our great
sovereign will be known to some. There's many in Jerusalem, and
there's one place, there's one place he goes, which he had already
foreordained to go. So, we don't know who's going
to be saved, but the Scripture says they're the remnant. The
Scripture says they're the elect. The Scripture calls them the
Israel of old. We don't know who those are,
so we just go tell the gospel, but we don't make up stories,
we tell what our master has told us, we tell what's in the book. Lady Huntington, who was, I guess you'd say upper class,
very wealthy, out of nobility, and she blessed God where the
scripture says, not many wise men, not many noble. And she
blessed God for many, because he could have said, not any.
Not many wise men, not many noble. But she said, bless God, he didn't
say not any. We don't speak our own words.
We don't invent our own. We simply tell back. You go in. I'm going to have a people. It
looks like there's not many, but the scripture says there's
more than the sands in the sea. But on the other hand, according
to the scriptures, it's not a lot. It's a lower number than most,
all these religious communities and all these religious organizations. If they don't understand the
gospel, how shall they hear? How shall they hear? So we preach,
we tell the good news as it is in the scriptures. We tell what
people, what God has already told us, what God has already
spoken. The Master. The Master, verse 14, the Master
saith, where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover
with my disciples? Okay, it's just a word. Well,
we know he spoke the word and the worlds were, And if your
God is just a weak little mamby-pamby stuck in a manger, He can't do
anything. But if your God is ruling and
reigning and omnipotent and immutable and omniscient and omnipresent,
basically the God of the Bible, He can speak and it will be. So the disciples, He tells them
to go, they obey because they love their Lord. And they go
and they see this guy and they follow him. Now, you know, if
I'm thinking, especially in today's age, you're walking in a city
and there's somebody walking behind you, you're thinking I'm
getting mugged or something, but he's just walking and he
just goes to some house and then they go, right, I don't know,
they knock or whatever they did, they go follow the guy and then
the householder comes, you know, says, the master has need of
this room. So the third thing we see is
a sovereign act of God's power. Now I can preach until I'm blue
in the face, but until the Holy Spirit takes what is said and
applies it to the heart, we just listen. Unless God opens the
heart, gives the Spirit, creates a new creature, all talking is
without fruit. He by Himself must do all things
necessary for us. And that's what Christ did on
the cross. You can't take anything to it, you can't take anything
away from it. In verse 16, I like how it said, And His disciples
went forth and came into the city and found as He had said,
exactly as He had said. Exactly. Of course, whose will
is predominant here? Man's puny will? I would think
not. Otherwise, the guy that's carrying
the water, let alone the owner of the house, would have said,
you know, we don't have anything, or we do, but it's not for you,
it's for somebody else. So whose will is predominant?
Whose will shall be done? It is hard, our Lord told the
Apostle Paul, it is hard for thee to kick against the bricks.
You do it all day long, but you're just not going to profit. And
in here, What did the householder do? He does what every child
of God does. He hears about the Master. He
hears about the Word. And he submits. There's no argument. There's no argument. I used to
think, well, we kick and scream all the way to heaven. No. In
Psalms 103 verse 10, he says he makes his people willing in
the day of his power. He subdues sin. He subdues ourselves, and then
we say, what would you have me to do, Lord? Here am I. Send me. And so there's no argument. He does what every child of God
does. Upon being irresistibly called, He obeys, He yields,
He submits, He surrenders, He bows. Only the Master can break the
heart of stone and place in a heart of flesh. We sing the song, Almighty love
arrest that man. That's what's going on here.
Here is pure grace, full and free. The Master says and is
done. And when we preach the Gospel,
I don't have to, I need to be clear, I need to study, I need
to be responsible. But I can't do anything to the
heart. I can't get to the heart. I can
get to here sometime. But you're, we're all human.
We're thinking about tomorrow, we're thinking about, you know,
this stuff happens, we're still sinners. But when God arrests
the heart, when He arrests the soul, He didn't reform anything,
He transformed. He didn't reform, He regenerates. Notice, I love this, verse 15. And He will show you a large
room upper room, furnished and prepared. Furnished and prepared. You mean
Christ has done everything? I don't have to do anything?
I don't have to walk an aisle? We don't have to play Just as
I Am another two or three times? I don't have to, you know, I
don't have to, when everybody's praying and the preacher's okay,
raise your hand? I don't have to do any of that? You bet. Turn to 1 Kings chapter
6. I love this passage. It's just
like this. The Israelites were going back
to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. That's the setting. But look
at how it's worded. He's discussing The walls of
the house, 1 Kings 6, verse 5, he's talking about the chambers
being built, the walls round about, the temple, the oracle,
the chambers round about. And then look at verse 7. Now,
are we not living stones? Doesn't the Scripture say we're
living stones, fitted together? Okay, so we're the stones in
this passage. Look at what he says. And the
house, this is God's house. This is salvation. This is heaven. This is glory. when it was in
building, was built of stone, made ready before it was brought
to the construction site." Yes, I'd say that's exactly right. In glory are many mansions. And he says he's prepared a place
for us. It's the same thing in our gospel
narrative here in Mark. But not only has He prepared
the place, but He's preparing us for the place. Well, I struggle hard with sin. I get sick. I get bad news, what
we call bad news. I get discouraging news. I go
take two steps forward and one step back. The stones are made ready before
it is brought thither." Now look it on. So that there was neither
hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while
it was in the building. This noise, that's works. Anything you could, that's legalism,
that's law, anything, it's not going to be heard. It's not heard. It's not heard. We struggle,
yes, but as far as in the eyes of God, the stones are being
made ready before they get there. Now that's, that's a feat of,
that's, that's quite a feat of engineering, let alone, but we're
spiritual house. We're built up together and that's
what's going on here. He said it was furnished and prepared.
You bet. God has ordained the means as
well as the ends. And what do I mean by that? He'll
take anybody and have them send them out. Two examples. You know,
Turner, 2 Kings chapter 5. You remember Babylon. You remember Naaman. He was a second-in-command. He
was a warrior, but he was full of leprosy. And he was wanting to get rid
of his leprosy. And in the king's house in Babylon
in captivity, There was a little Jewish maid. I don't know how
old, but she wasn't a little Jewish maid. Not an adult. She
was a slave that was captured in the siege of Jerusalem and
brought back to Babylon. Now that's horrible. That's horrible.
We got one daughter. It would drive me crazy if we
got occupied by a Russian or some other foreign country and
they took her back. You just think about these little
details, it would be, it would drive me crazy, any of your children
to be taken like that. But, it says in that narrative,
in 2 Kings chapter 5, that the little maid said she heard about
what Naaman's problem was, and she spoke up, she said, oh, would
to God, he was in Jerusalem, there's a prophet in there, and
he would take care of his leprosy. The Lord used that little girl
to preach the gospel to some maid, and then they told the
king, and the king named him, and then he sent him over to
the prophet. But we don't think about that.
We think, oh, that's a glorious story. Let's think about that little
maid who was ripped out of the hands of her parents. God is
sovereign. And do we not believe? And my
wife and I have been struggling for about, since December, in
our own lives. Everything is working together
for good. Either it's not, or either it
is or isn't. And it is. And we don't understand why certain
things happen. But we can have content in them,
and submit to them, and realize God's on a throne. So whether
it's a small little maid, she was used for the deliverance
of Naaman. That's a picture of salvation. Or if it's a huge
Like Daniel in the lion's den. He's like, I'm not going to bow.
I'm not going to do what you say to do. And he was delivered. So whatever means God uses, he'll
do it. And then two more things I see. In verse 15, Christ said, He
will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared, there
make ready for us. God does all the work of salvation.
We enjoy it. Can you imagine living in this
world, you who know Christ, you who know the gospel, can you
imagine living in this world and not knowing God's on the
throne? They tell me that's not believers,
but like Hemingway, a very intelligent man, and he basically understood
the depravity of man, but he was not enlightened, and he killed
himself. I can understand suicide. Make
ready for us. Is this not what true worship
is? Us and Him together. Us. He's going to partake of the
Last Supper with them. Us. We in Him and He in us. The Savior and the sinner. What
a perfect union. What a perfect union. And lastly,
verse 16. The disciples went forth, came
to the city, and found as He had said, and they made ready
the Passover." Now this is like Mephibosheth. He's lame on both
feet. He gets brought to the king's
house, to King David's house, and this is found in 2 Samuel
9. And what did it say? It said he was with the king
continually, feasting and dining and fellowshipping. So we've
got the whole Gospel. Narrative right here. This is
the true and genuine result of Christ's work for us and in us
on Calvary We basically feast continually there make ready
for us and They the latter part of verse 16 they made ready the
Passover it's Christ's work is successful. It's always successful. We may not see it. I We may not see it, but His work
is always successful because, to use a phrase here, He's the
Master. He's the Master. And like I said, I know we struggle.
We've got things that hit us upside the head and we don't
understand. Lord, hear my, send me. The thing by God's grace
is to be faithful in what we have, hearer and speaker, It's
just to be faithful. Every time doors are open, come
hear the gospel. Come fellowship with those of
like mind. And if it can't come, you know, listen, they got this,
the sermon audio and free grace radio, all those things, they
are good, they're important, but you cannot substitute, you
cannot substitute the gathering of together, the gathering together
of those of like mind. You just can't do it. Can't do
it. And it may be okay for a while,
But thank God we're not like the neighbor, or we're not like
the people down the street, whatever. We're not as though we're any
better. But thank God that he came and
made his abode in us. Because we didn't choose him.
We wouldn't have chosen him. We couldn't choose him. We despised
the mention of his name. We would not seek a hiding place.
We wouldn't do it. But glory be to God, there are
some that he foreknows, and those he loves, and those he'll get,
he'll fetch them. So the old writers called it
fetching grace. He's coming, and may we be responsible
and do the things we can, and yet he will do as it pleases
him. And it does please him to save
sinners.