Turn with me back to Mark 6. Mark chapter 6. What is the gospel to a believer? What is the gospel to a believer? What is the gospel to a believer?
Is it a guideline for morality? Is that what it is? I tell you
what, you better read the Bible so you can learn right from wrong.
Is that what it is? Is it just a doctrine to side
with everybody's always arguing religion, always? Well, this is ours and we're
sticking with it. What is the gospel to a believer? If a believer was dying in the
desert, If he was blistered and cracked to the point that he couldn't
even sweat anymore because that high sun had dried him, the gospel would be like a man
walking up with a glass of ice-cold water. That's what the gospel is to
a believer. To a believer, his life depends
on that gospel. To a believer, his nourishment
and his health depends on that gospel. To a believer, the gospel is
everything he needs and everything he wants. And it's not fake. Religion is fake. People are
not like that all. Hello, brother. They're not like
that all the time. Everybody starts committees and
then they argue on the committees and then the church is split
and it's a miserable place. It's not fake, though, with a
believer. It's everything he needs. It's everything he wants. It is not just a big part of
his life. He's a hard-working man, good
husband, good father, churchgoer. He's got four things in life.
It is not just a big part of his life. To a believer, it is
something he must lay hold of and drink every drop of it. Every
single drop of it. He doesn't take one drop and
leave one drop. Every single drop. Sinners hear the gospel. When sinners hear how God saves
sinners. Sinners hear the gospel. when
sinners hear how God saves sinners. If they hear that, they're hearing
the gospel. And the sweetness of the gospel is hearing why
God saves sinners. That is so amazing. Verse 34, right here in Mark
6, it says, And Jesus, when He came out, saw much people, and
was moved with compassion toward them because they were as sheep
not having a shepherd." Isn't that wonderful? When he came out, he saw much
people and he was moved with compassion toward them because
they were as sheep not having a shepherd. I'll tell you where
the gospel starts. The gospel means good news. And
as we talk about man's sin and man's rebellion, that is not
good news. It's the truth. That's the truth,
but it's not good news. The good news, the gospel, starts
with the compassion of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where the
whole thing started. We sing that song that says,
Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan. That's where it started. Compassion. It's all bad news
until we get to but God, isn't it? It's all bad news until we
get right there. Let's look back up at verse 30
and see what our Lord has to say here. Verse 30 says, And
the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told
him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. Now, if you remember back in
verse 7, we were going through this. Verse 7 says, He called
unto him the twelve and began to send them forth by two and
two and gave them power over unclean spirits. He sent them
out to preach And he gave them the ability to perform certain
miracles. And he did that to prove that
they were actually sent of God. This word was being written and
it proved this is actually God's word. Look with me at Mark 16. Mark 16 verse 17 says, and these
signs shall follow them that believe. Now that was the apostles
and the Lord gave the apostles the ability to transfer this
gift of miracles to others, but they couldn't transfer it again.
So the apostles and whoever they gave it to, these signs shall
follow them that believe, in my name they shall cast out devils.
And they did that. They physically did that. And
it goes on to say, they shall speak with new tongues. And they
did that. People talk about speaking in
tongues. You know, you have all these religions, these charismatic
religions where people speak in tongues. Throughout this word,
when it happened, people were amazed and they said, this is
of God. And I'm going to tell you this,
this is not amazing. Anybody could do that. Anybody
could do that. I don't care what language you
speak. You could copy me. That's not amazing and it's not
of God. Gibberish. And we've looked at it before.
And in time we'll look at it again. This word says it was
a known language to a region of people. It was a language
that that nationality spoke. We speak English. People in England
say we speak American. But this is our tongue. And he gave these men the ability
to speak in tongues. And people said, this is of God.
At Pentecost, Peter stood up to a group of people that gathered
to him and he said, buenos dias. Senors y señoritas, mi nombre
es Peter. Estoy aquí en el nombre de Jesucristo. I'm here in the name of Jesus
Christ. And then James stood up to another group of people.
They all gathered to him and he said, bonjour, parlez-vous
Francais? You speak French? And everybody
was saying, these men are from Galilee. How are they doing this? Verse 18, they shall take up
serpents. Paul was bit by the most deadly
viper in the island of Malta, or maybe the world. So deadly,
they said, if you're bit by this snake, there's no need to help
you. We don't take you to the hospital.
You're a dead man. And after he was bit, they said,
let's just watch him die. It'll only take just a minute.
He went over and he raised a little girl from the dead. He came back,
sat by the fire, and they said, this is of God. Verse 18, if they drink any deadly
thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick.
They shall recover. They did that. They were able
to raise people from the dead. That boy fell out of the window.
Paul went down and raised him from the dead, and they went
right back to preaching. Verse 20 says, And they went forth
and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming
the word with signs following. Amen. He gave them that ability
to confirm the Word. These men are of God. And now
the Word is confirmed. It's confirmed. And God does
not give that ability anymore. But He did give it to the apostles.
And they went out and preached that men should repent. Isn't
that what we saw? That's what they went out and
preached. And then they came back to the Lord and they told
him what they had done and taught. They reported back to him. Now
let me show you his response to them in another account. Go
with me to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10, look at verse
1. After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also
and sent them two and two before his face into every city and
place whither he himself would come. So he sent seventy more
after the twelve. Verse 17 says, And the seventy
returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject
unto us through thy name. We can cast out devils and they
go. Verse 18, And he said unto them,
I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. And what he means
by that is, I cast Satan out of heaven as a bolt of lightning.
Satan is God's Satan. God made him for his purpose.
He controls him. He can only do what he's allowed
to do. Verse 19 says, Behold, I give
unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the
power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you,
notwithstanding in this rejoice not. Don't rejoice over the fact
that the spirits are subject to you. Verse 20, ìNotwithstanding in
this, rejoice not that the spirits are subject to you, but rather
rejoice because your names are written in heaven.î Thatís what we rejoice in. Thatís what we rejoice in, isnít
it? Without that, that other stuff doesnít mean anything.
In Matthew 7, we go there all the time, the Lord said, Beware
of false prophets. Didn't He? Beware of false prophets.
You have no idea how many lying preachers there are. And He said,
Many are going to come to Me in that day and say, But Lord,
we cast out devils in Thy name. And He said, Then will I say
to them, Depart from Me, I never knew you. Don't rejoice in anything other
than the fact that God the Father chose you. And He reserved a
place in heaven for you by writing your name on the heart of the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what we rejoice in. That's
all we rejoice in. If any man glory, let him glory
in the Lord. Just let him glory in the Lord.
Go with me back to Mark 6. Verse 30 says, And the apostles
gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all
things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And
he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and
rest a while. That's the call of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's not just come. The call of the Lord Jesus Christ
is not just come, it's you come. You come. Yes, I'm talking to
you. Is he talking to me? Yes, I'm
talking to you. Yourself. Individually. It does not matter what anybody
else does. It does not matter what your
parents do. It does not matter what your spouse does. It does
not matter what your children do. It does not matter what your
friends do. You come to me. Individually. You come to me. Come away from
everyone. Come away from everything and
just rest. Stop trying to do. It's time
to stop doing. It's time to rest. Rest in and
rest on the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 31, He said unto them,
Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while.
For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure
so much as to eat. And they departed into a desert
place by ship privately. They went across a lake. It was called the Sea of Tiberias,
but it was a lake. Verse 33 says, And the people
saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran a foot thither
out of all cities, and out went them, and came together unto
him. They saw him leave. The Lord
told his disciples, let's go to the other side and rest a
while. And they saw him get in this
ship, and they recognized, that's the Lord. And they saw him going
to the other side of the lake. So they all started running around
the lake. And they ran so hard they outran
the ship. And they were all waiting for
him at the dock on the other side when he got there. Now let
me ask this question. Did all of those people ruin
the Lord's vacation? He said, let's go and rest a
while, didn't he? Did all of those people overrule
his plans? He wanted to do this, but they
wouldn't let him. Won't you let God? Let me show you something in
John 6. Our Lord was doing something
when He crossed that lake. And I'll tell you, it's the exact
same thing He's doing right here this morning. He was doing something. And it's the exact same thing
that He's doing right here this morning. John 6, this is the
Lord Jesus Christ speaking. Verse 44, He said, No man can come to me. Now, do you know what the word
can means? Ability. We used to ask our teachers,
can I go to the bathroom or whatever? Yes, you can, but you may not.
Can means ability. No man can come to me. You know what our only hope is?
It's to come to Christ. You know what our biggest problem
is? Our only problem? We can't. That's the problem,
is we can't. But our text says that they all
ran around him, they all ran around that lake, and it says
they came to him. Did they mess up what he was
doing? They were all responding to what
he was doing. They were all responding to what
he was doing. Verse 44 says, No man can come
to me except You know how we talk about there's
one way. It's always one way. This except is one way. The Father
which hath sent me, draw him, and I will raise him up at the
last day. No man can come to me except
the Father which hath sent me, draw him. They ran around that
lake because God the Father was drawing them. And I'll tell you why each one
of us are here this morning, me included. Why are you here?
Because it's my job. I get paid to. No, that's not
true. But for the grace of God, I wouldn't be here. You know
that? We are all here this morning,
not because we decided to come here. It's because God the Father
in mercy drew us. In mercy, He drew us. People
say, now you've got to make your decision. If you want to live forever in
heaven, you need to decide right now. We're not going to wait
any longer. I want to hear it. What's it
going to be? Heaven or hell? Right now. Let me ask this question. Are we talking about the Almighty
God here? Aren't we talking about God Almighty? Isn't that who we're talking
about? The one who is seated on the throne of holiness and
righteousness? Majesty, glory, make my decision? Make my decision. That doesn't
even work at the White House. It doesn't. That does not work
at the White House. And I'm going to walk through
the gates of sinless, holy, eternal heaven. If I walked up to the
White House, I've been to the White House one time. Guards
there at the gate, there's guards everywhere. Guards on the roof,
guards everywhere. If I walked up to the White House
and I didn't even say anything, I was just going to make my way
right on in. Oh, wait a minute. Can I help you? I'm just going
to go in. Says who? Says me. And who are you? Gabe Stoniker. You're not on the list. You can't
come in. Oh, okay. I see where the confusion
is. Let me see if I can clear up
this little mix up here. You see, I made my decision. Decision for what? to come in. I decided, everybody kept telling
me, if you want to go into the White House, you better decide.
So I decided. If I said that, do you know what
they would do to me? It's such a silly illustration, but here's
the reality of heaven and God Almighty. If I said that, do
you know what they would do to me? Sir, you are not welcome here. If you do not leave the grounds
immediately, you will be forcefully removed or shot on sight. Is
that not what they would do to me? If I tried to press my way
into that mansion, and that's just the White House, we cannot decide to walk through
His doors and enter into His presence. We must be summonsed. That's the only way. We must
be summonsed. That's the truth. Now, would
you like to hear the Gospel? Right here in John 6, look at
verse 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out. That's the good news. If you
are summonsed, you're going in. You're going in. Could you imagine
walking up to the gates of heaven itself? And who are you? What's your
name? Gabe Stoniker. Uh-huh, you're on the list. I am? Yes. Who wrote my name down? God the Father. It's in scarlet
red. He wrote it in the blood of His
own Son. He took His pen and dipped it in the ink of the blood
of His own Son. And He wrote your name with that
blood. The Lord said, don't rejoice
in miracles and all that mess. You rejoice because your names
are written. Our Lord brought all of those
people to a particular place at a particular time for a particular
reason. Go with me back to our text,
Mark 6. Verse 34 says, And Jesus, when
he came out, saw much people and was moved with compassion
toward them because they were as sheep not having a shepherd. Being a sheep is nothing to be
proud of. It's nothing to be proud of.
Sheep are naturally very ignorant animals. I googled some facts
about sheep. And the first thing that popped
up was their eyesight. They have peripheral vision really
well. And I thought, boy, if this is
not man, they can see everything that's around them, and they
can also a little bit see behind them. But because of how their
eyes are positioned, they cannot see directly in front of their
nose. They're blind, straight on. Because of that, they rely
heavily on each other to get around. That's why they always
move together. They're following the pack. It said, when it's
time for the slaughter, they only need to coax one sheep. They coax one sheep, and all
the other sheep will fall right in line. They'll all just run
straight into the slaughter. They said, and this is exact
wording, they said, if one sheep jumps over a cliff, the others
are likely to follow. It's not something they think
about. Now let me show you the greatest
example that there is of the compassion that the Lord Jesus
Christ had for His sheep. Turn with me to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 Verse 6 says All we like sheep have gone astray
What does that mean? Look at verse 1 who have believed
our report And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For
he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root
out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness,
and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire
him. That's Jesus Christ. Verse 3
says, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from
him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not." That's what it means that all we like sheep have gone
astray. We've left our master, we've
left our shepherd, turned our faces from him. A lot of people say, If I had
been alive back in the days of Christ, I would have helped him.
A lot of people believe that. If I would have been around back
then, I would have stopped them from crucifying him. Number one,
that's not true. That's just not true. This old
wicked sinful heart right here, this dead black sinful heart
would have been crying louder than anybody else, crucify him.
But number two, I'll tell you this, to say that means I don't
believe Jesus Christ had to die. And if Jesus Christ didn't die,
there's no hope for anybody. All my hope is wrapped up in
the fact that He died. The reason He died is because
verse 4 says, Surely He hath borne our griefs. He was hanging
there bearing my sin. He hath borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted. That's what we wanted. But He
was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Now there he stands. There he
stands and they're walking right up to him saying, you're a liar,
and you're a thief, and you're a murderer, and you're a blasphemer. And he didn't say a word. And
do you know why he didn't say a word? It's because I'm a liar,
and I'm a thief, and I'm a murderer, And I'm a blasphemer. And he
stood there as Gabe Stoniker endured the wrath of God in the
substitute of Jesus Christ. He became us. All of those sheep
that God the Father gave to him, sheep having no shepherd, Verse
7, He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not
His mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the
slaughter. He became what I am and suffered
what I deserved. I'm a sheep that needed to go
to the slaughter. So what did He do? He became
a sheep and He went to the slaughter. And as a sheep before her shearers
is dumb, so opened He not His mouth. He was taken from prison
and from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living." That's glory. He
was cut off from God Almighty. I deserve to be cut off from
God Almighty. Hell is separation from God Almighty. And that's what I deserve. He
was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression
of my people. Does it say the whole world?
For the transgression, for the sin of the whole world? No, it
says my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death because he'd done no violence.
Neither was any deceit in his mouth, yet it pleased the Lord
to bruise him. Who killed Christ on that cross? God did. It pleased the Lord
to bruise him. He said, No man takes my life
from me. I will lay it down. I have the
power to take it again. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. He hath put him to grief when thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin. He shall see his seed, he shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hands. He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall
be satisfied. In the travail of Christ, God
is satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. Not all, but many. Many. For he shall bear their
iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he hath poured out his soul unto death. And he was numbered
with the transgressors, and he bare the sin of many, not all,
not every soul on earth, but many, and made intercession for
the transgressors. Now how do we respond to that?
How do we respond to that? Chapter 54 verse 1 says, Sing,
O barren, thou that didst not bear. Break forth into singing
and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with trial. You didn't
bear it, he bore it. You didn't travail, he travailed. Then sings my soul, my Saviour
God to thee, how great thou art. The sweetness of the gospel is
seeing and knowing the compassion, that means the pity, the love
that the Lord Jesus Christ had for his own ignorant, sinful,
astray sheep. He chose them. He loved them. He bought them. He gathered them
into his fold. And he became their shepherd.
He said, I'm going to live with you forever. I'm going to be
your God. You're going to be my people.
Now here's my last question. We'll close with this. How can I know if I'm one of
his sheep? Not all, but many. How can I know if I'm one of
the ones he had compassion on? Go with me back to the text and
I'll show you. Mark 6. Verse 34 says, And Jesus, when he came out,
saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them,
because they were as sheep not having a shepherd. And He began
to teach them many things. He preached His Word to them. He called them, drew them, brought
them, gathered them, and preached His Word to them. He sat them
down. He shut them up. He opened their
eyes. He opened their ears. And He
taught them the truth. And for the first time in their
life, all the mess they've been hearing, it was an eye-opening experience.
I think I've found the truth. I think I've seen the truth.
Our Lord Himself said in John 6, They shall all be taught of
God. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father comes to me. One of my sheep. In this word
right here, do we see Christ to be the God that He is? The absolute God that He is?
Do we see ourselves to be the sinners that we are? Do we see that His blood is the
only way of salvation? His choosing? His compassion? His pity? Has He taught us the truth? That's
the question. Has He taught us the truth? If He has, that is
His compassion toward us. If He's taught us the truth,
that is His compassion. That is His drawing us to Himself. And do you know what we say in
response to that? Do you know what everyone in God's sheep
say in response to that? Draw me nearer. Whatever you've drawn me, draw
me more. And draw me nearer. And draw
me nearer. And draw me nearer. I want to
be in Christ. I don't want to just be by Christ. I want to be in Christ. You please,
Lord, draw me nearer. I want to sing that. Let's all
stand together.