God's Word is amazing. Not one
word is there by accident. Everything was written with a
purpose. And this is just a little part
of that larger purpose that we read about in Scripture. And
so let me just read to you and with you from Matthew chapter
10. We're going to read the first 20 verses here. And I've entitled
this message, Laborers Sent. Because we read in chapter 9
about how Jesus told his disciples and us to pray that the Lord
of the harvest would send forth laborers into his harvest. And
here we have the laborers being sent. The first laborers being
sent by the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in verse 1 of Matthew
chapter 10, "...and when he had called unto him his twelve disciples,
he gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out and
to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease." Now,
the names of the twelve apostles are these. The first, Simon,
who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother. James, the son of
Zebedee, and John his brother. Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas
and Matthew the Publican, James the son of Alphaeus and Libeus,
whose surname was Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot,
who also betrayed him. These twelve Jesus sent forth
and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles,
and enter And into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not,
but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and as
you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the
sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils, freely
you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver
nor brass in your purses, nor script for your journey, neither
two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman is
worthy of his meat. And into whatsoever city or town
you shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and there abide
till you go thence. And when you come into a house,
salute it. And if the house be worthy, let
your peace come upon it. But if it be not worthy, let
your peace return to you. And whosoever shall not receive
you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house
or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto
you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah
in the day of judgment than for that city. Behold, I send you
forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise
as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will
deliver you to the councils, and they will scourge you in
their synagogues. And you shall be brought before
governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them
and the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up,
take no thought how or what you shall speak. For it shall be
given you in that same hour what you shall speak. For it is not
you that speak, but the spirit of your father which speaketh
in you. Here we have the Lord Jesus Christ
sending His Apostles. If you read this account in the
book of Mark and in the book of Luke, there are a few things
you see here. Number one, the Lord Jesus Christ
actually chose these men. Number two, He not only chose
them, but He ordained them. That means He set them according
to His purpose, and He put His special blessing upon them. So,
first He chose, then He ordained. And He called them. He called
them to this ministry. He called them to the ministry
He was about to give them. And He commissioned them with
a message. That message was to go, and He sent them to a specific
people. A people designed, designated
by the Lord. And He sent them with a purpose.
And that purpose was twofold, to find his sheep, the lost sheep
of the house of Israel, and to save them by their word. And
also all these miracles that were done, that was part of that
message. And then also there were those who would reject the
message, and those, he said, would be judged later with a
judgment more severe than the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And throughout their goings, they were not to bring something
in preparation for themselves. They were to merely wear the
clothes they had on their back, take the food, or find food along
the way from the people to whom they ministered, and God would
provide everything for them. And even when they were brought
before kings and scourged in the synagogues, the Lord Himself,
God the Father, would give them the words by His Spirit that
they would speak. This is what the Lord Jesus sent
them to do. Now, when you see this in the
middle of the book of Matthew, Think about the context. Remember
the sermon, The Triumph of Christ? There's a huge context in which
we find these verses. It's the rest of Scripture. When
you read in the book of Revelation and other places of scripture
that seem mysterious, and you look at it and understand what
it all means, how it fits together, you see this drama throughout
history, the unfolding of God's will throughout history. And
in this unfolding of God's will, there's a couple of things that
happen that are so dominant that they seem to control the whole
stage. The one is that men are created
into the world. And in that creation, they fall
in sin by the temptation of the devil. He brings them into sin
by his temptation. And then there's this huge battle
between the devil and God's people throughout the pages of scripture,
throughout time. Finally, according to God's promise
to Eve in Genesis 3.15, the seed of the woman comes and he is
born, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ comes into the world.
He's born. The devil does all he can to
try to kill the Lord's Christ when he was just a baby. Herod,
if you recall, kills all the children in Bethlehem under the
age of two years old. And so throughout Jesus' young
life, there's this struggle to try to kill him by his enemies,
through the inspiration or the influence of the devil. But the
Lord Jesus comes to years, and he enters into his ministry,
and the first thing that happens is that after he's baptized,
is he goes into the wilderness, led by the Spirit of God, and
he's tempted of the devil. and he overcomes the devil as
man. Remember his temptations? He
says, if you're the son of God, turn these stones to bread. And
he says, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word of God. And so he, as the God-man, he
enters into conflict with the devil. And he overcomes him in
his temptation. And this appears to be the first
sign of the crumbling of the kingdom of Satan. And so, what
we see next is that throughout the ministry of the Lord Jesus
Christ, He casts out devils out of men. He's taking the power,
He's overcoming the control of Satan over men, and He's casting
him out. So you see the greater victory
occurring. And now you see the Lord Jesus
sending out his disciples, these 12 men, these men he calls apostles,
with his word. And he tells them, he commands
them, you go and you heal the sick, you raise the dead, and
you cast out devils. Here again we see Christ's power
through his people, his apostles, overcoming Satan's kingdom. And
then the Lord Jesus Christ comes himself to the cross And he speaks
as he's going to the cross in John 12. He says, now is the
judgment of this world. Now is the prince of this world
cast out. And he says, if I be lifted up,
I will draw all men to me. And so then, throughout throughout
the rest of the New Testament era, from the ascension of Christ
to glory, and His seating on the throne of glory, and sending
His Spirit to His people on earth in the book of Acts, and they're
carrying the gospel as He commands them. What we see is that Satan's
kingdom is being plundered. The gospel has dominance in that
effort that he commissions his disciples to carry his gospel
throughout the world. And by the Spirit of God, Satan
is cast out and men's hearts are converted. And they see the
Lord Jesus Christ. They bow to Him in their hearts.
They're made to serve the living God. They're freed from Satan's
dominion. And this is what we have here. The beginning of this
is just a snapshot. And we read earlier in the book
of Revelation, in Revelation chapter 20, about how a great
angel would descend from heaven and take the devil, Satan, and
bound him with a chain and put him in a bottomless pit and keep
him there for a thousand years until the end of time. And this
is speaking about all this that we've just discussed, how Christ
would come. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
His coming, would overcome Satan, both in His temptation and His
delivering men from Satan's power, sending His apostles with His
message, by His authority, overthrowing Satan's kingdom, because by Himself
He went to the cross and He satisfied God's justice and God in justice. took Satan off of the place of
power that he usurped over men. And God unseated him and bound
him so that the gospel would go forth and the gates of hell
could not prevail against the power of the gospel going into
all the world, finding God's sheep, bringing them into the
kingdom of God, out of darkness, out of the kingdom of Satan,
plundering his house. And that's what you have here.
And if you see that larger context, of what's going on in a spiritual
realm, what you'll see is that this world, this world that we
live in, is not a world that's centered about the earth. It's
not a world that's centered about the sun. It's not a world that's
centered about man's philosophy. This world is centered about
the throne of God in heaven. And that's why in the book of
Revelation you see these descriptions of the throne of God and Him
that sat on it. The book of Revelation, like
the rest of the New Testament, is given to God's people to show
the exalted place that God has in His throne, and how all of
heaven is assembled about Him, and how He rules unchallenged. And He executes His will in all
the earth, and in heaven, and under the earth, to bring about
His will, His eternal will, to save His people and glorify Himself
through the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is
what the Apostles come bringing. It is in this context, if we
see this, we'll understand Scripture. God sits on the throne. His Son
has been exalted to that throne. He, by Himself, has overcome
the enemy, the enemy of His people, the enemy that they invited in
by their own foolishness, sin, the consequences of it, death.
The dominion of Satan, the darkness, and not being able to see the
light of Christ and the goodness of God. Coming to worship Him,
having no communion, being separated from God. The Lord Jesus Christ
has undone that, has removed the enemy, has bound him. And
the way He does that is through the work of Christ and the preaching
of what Christ has done. And that's what we see here.
If we understand that, then we'll understand, I think, what the
significance is of what the Lord Jesus Christ does when He commissions
these 12 men. Now think about, if you can ask
yourself this question, what's the greatest, who was the greatest
prophet in all of the Old Testament? Think about it for a while. What
was the greatest miracle that that prophet or those prophets
ever performed? You might think of Moses. And
all the things that Moses did in Egypt, the crossing of the
Red Sea, sustaining Israel in the wilderness, all the things.
Or maybe you think about Elijah, how he called fire down from
heaven, or raised a widow's son from the dead. Or any number
of prophets you might think about. I want you to realize that the
greatest The greatest outpouring of the Spirit of God in power
ever exhibited in this world on men to accomplish God's will
is done right here. The Lord Jesus Christ takes these
12 men and He gives to them the mystery the eternal mystery of
God that reveals God's will to save His people by the Lord Jesus
Christ in His death on the cross and His rising again and seated
in glory and bringing those people to God by Himself and He gives
that message to these disciples and they go forth. And that's
why we have heard the word of God. That's why we believe the
gospel. Because God sent these twelve
apostles with his word and gave them his own spirit. He put that
word in them and He gave them authority. He ordained them. He gave them authority. He gave
them power over sickness and lepers and devils and death itself
by the power of His word to show that they carried the truth of
eternity in their message. The truth of the King of Glory. And that's what he's saying here
in these words. Notice, I want you to notice who wrote this.
It was Matthew. And it's not just written by
Matthew. Mark gives an account. Luke gives an account. But Matthew
is writing these words. Matthew. Who was Matthew? He
was a publican. What did Matthew do as an apostle? Can you think of anything that
Matthew did as an apostle? Actually, about the only thing
I can think of Matthew doing is writing the book of Matthew.
And it's the first book in the New Testament. Everyone who knows
the Gospel has heard of Matthew, haven't they? But he was a publican. He was the kind of man that people
despised. He was like a yuppie, sat at
the tax collector's booth, collecting money, content with his job,
successful, looking for his next paycheck, thinking about retirement,
everything's cushy, all things are going well with him, and
Jesus comes by and says, follow me. And it was that one word
that the Lord spoke to him. He rose up, he left everything,
and he followed the Lord Jesus Christ. That's Matthew. Now when
Matthew wrote his gospel, what did he say? He was given the
blessing of God to speak with the Spirit of God and to record
for us what in his heart he knew was true in the deepest place.
And can you imagine the emotion that he wrote with when he penned
those words? His name shall be called Jesus. Jehovah is salvation, for He
shall save His people from their sins. Matthew wrote that. It's
not recorded like that in any of the other Gospels. And then
Matthew writes this. A little later on, Jesus says,
Come unto me, all you who labor and are weary and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find
rest for your souls. And then, remember later on,
even after that, Matthew writes this, Jesus says, I've come not
to be ministered unto, but to serve and to give my life a ransom
for many. And Matthew's desires, all of
his hopes for eternity were bound up in the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He came to save his people from
their sins. He commands sinners, the weak
and the weary, come to me you who labor. And he tells them
he came to give his life a ransom for many. No wonder that when
Matthew heard Christ call to follow him, He invited his friends,
his peers, his co-workers, his publican friends, his sinner
friends, and the Pharisees and others came to his house and
they heard Jesus because no doubt he wanted Jesus to do for them
what he had done for him. Get in the presence of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Look and listen to him. and see if what I'm telling
you about him is not true." This was Matthew. And this could be
said of any of the disciples. Each one of them was his own
unique man. And they were no... I mean, you
could think about their details of their life. Maybe there was
Peter. You imagine him. He's probably some burly fisherman
or something like that. You could get all caught up in
the drama of who Peter was. But these were just ordinary
men. And Jesus takes them. There was nothing about them
that qualified them for the ministry. It was the call of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It was His purpose. He chose
them. And they didn't choose Him. But
He called them. They didn't put themselves into
the ministry. It says in Hebrews chapter 5
about the high priest, no man takes this honor to himself,
but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. And so likewise
Christ didn't glorify himself to be made high priest, and these
men didn't glorify themselves to be made apostles. It was the
choice and the purpose and the gift of God's Spirit to them
through the Lord Jesus Christ that made them what they were.
And it was that treasure. Remember what Paul said in 2
Corinthians 4? God has put this treasure in
earthen vessels. They were the vessels. The treasure
was the gospel. The infinite treasure of heaven
given to them. The good news from glory. Because
God accomplishes everything by His Word. That's how How authoritative
the Lord is. That's how he does things. He
accomplished it by his word and it's that word that he gave to
his apostles. Matthew means gift of God. Matthew means gift of God. His
name does. He was given to the Lord Jesus
Christ just like all of God's people are. We all can say with
Matthew, can't we? His name is Jesus. That's how
I know him. What does it mean to you? Remember
the promise of the New Covenant? They shall all know the Lord.
How do we know Him? He shall save His people from
their sins. If you know the Lord of Glory,
you only know Him as the one who saved you from your sins.
That's the great accomplishment of His coming. That's what He
came to do, to save His people from their sins. And in saving
them from their sins, He also saved their soul from death and
delivered them from the bondage of the fear of death and the
control, the blindness, the darkness of that deceit which the devil
brings so that we can't see glory and beauty in Christ. That's
what He does. He shows us Himself in His glorious
achievements for sinners. And He brings us to Christ, by
faith He gives us that clinging hope in Christ, so that we find
no other hope except what we have in Him. That's what Matthew
was, a disciple, an apostle. And Jesus says here, in Matthew
chapter 10, that He called His disciples to Him, and His 12
disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast
them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of
disease. The ministry that God gives,
that the Lord Jesus Christ gives to His preachers and His teachers,
is to heal sin-sick souls, to raise spiritually dead men to
life, and to deliver them from the power of the kingdom of darkness
into the kingdom of His dear Son. That's exactly what He is
giving these Apostles. Now, when the Lord Jesus gave
these gifts to His Apostles, they were physical, literal things
you could see. You could see them deliver a
man who was overcome by Satan. You could see the effects of
that. Or you could see them heal people who were sick. And you
could see them raise the dead. It actually happened. And people
were amazed. No doubt they must have tried
to put them on some kind of a pedestal and give them greater honor because
they had these gifts. But these gifts were unique to
the Apostles. When the Apostles lived their
lives and they came to the end of their lives and they were
either martyred or they died, whatever the case was, however
their lives ended, God's special gifts to allow men to heal miraculously,
to raise the dead, and to cast out devils, those special gifts
stopped. Because God gave the apostles
those gifts in order to validate that they carried the message
of Christ themselves. And that they spoke from the
King of Glory with His authority. So that what they said was as
good as His word. So that whatever men did with
their word, they were doing to Christ. And to God the Father,
who sits on the throne. And so, This special blessing
that Christ gave to His apostles to heal the sick and raise the
dead and cast out devils, it was literal. It was a real miraculous
ability. But it went away after the end
of the apostles because He says, for example, in 1 Corinthians
13, in fact, let's take a look at that. I'll take you to a couple
places to show this to you. 1 Corinthians chapter 13, He
says, He's speaking about love, and
he's speaking in verse 1, he says, "...though I speak with
the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become
as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." But then he says, in
verse 9, he says, "...we know in part, and we prophesy in part."
This is 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 9. "...we know in part,
and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect
is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." And
so what was perfect, just in the verse before that, he says
in verse 8, "...charity, love, never faileth. But where there
be prophecies, they shall fail. Where there be tongues, they
shall cease. Where there be knowledge, it
shall vanish away." He's speaking about the miraculous things,
the miracle of being able to prophesy the future. like the
man did about Paul, he was going to be bound and so forth. Or
the miracle of speaking in tongues, or the miracle of this gift of
knowledge. These things were taken out because
they were no longer needed, because the perfect had come. And what
is the perfect? Well, that's what the book of
Hebrews is about. That's what Galatians is about. That's what
Ephesians is about. The perfect was the fulfillment
of the everlasting will of God by the Lord Jesus Christ and
the understanding of that fulfillment given by Him to His apostles
so they could preach it throughout the world. And so when they had
the mystery given to them, and they were able to articulate
it and capture it in scripture, and God bearing witness through
signs and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy
Ghost according to His own will, as it says in Hebrews chapter
2, then those miracles were no longer needed. Because the perfect
had come. And to go after, as some do,
many do, to go after the miraculous nowadays, to seek for a sign
or a wonder, as if God's going to perform those miracles, is
to be dissatisfied with the perfect. It's to look for a sign, a miracle,
something that's imperfect, in order to find what is perfect,
which is the Lord Jesus Christ. It's to not be satisfied with
God's salvation in Christ alone, recorded in the Scriptures. That's
what it means to seek after these things, and it happens today
all the time. Look at Acts chapter 8, just
one more place along this line. Acts chapter 8. Philip, not Philip
the Apostle, but Philip the Evangelist, had gone to preach, and in Acts
chapter 8, it says in Acts 8 verse 5, Philip went down to the city
of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And then it says in,
let's see, And if you look at the rest of
the, I'll just read a few verses here so you get the context.
And the people with one accord gave heed to the things which
Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For
unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many
that were possessed with them. And many taken with palsies that
were lame were healed. And there was great joy in that
city. But there was a certain man called
Simon, which before time in the same city used sorcery and bewitched
the people of Samaria, giving out that he himself was some
great one, to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest,
saying, This man is the great power of God. And to him they
had regard, because that of a long time he had bewitched them with
sorceries. But when they believed Philip,
preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name
of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. This is in
Samaria. Then Simon himself believed also, and when he was baptized,
he continued with Philip and wondered, beholding the miracles
and signs which were done. So Simon was greatly impressed
by the miracles and the signs. But these people in Samaria heard
Philip preaching the gospel and they believed Christ. That was
the point I was trying to make by reading those verses. But
look at verse 14. Peter and John were the apostles,
who, when they were come down, prayed for them that they might
receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet he was fallen upon
none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord
Jesus. Then laid they their hands on
them, and they received the Holy Ghost after they had prayed.
So now what happened was, in receiving the Holy Ghost, these
men did things that were actual physical evidence that they had
received the Holy Ghost. They had these miraculous gifts
given to them through the laying on of the Apostles' hands after
God the Holy Ghost was given to them. Why didn't the Holy
Spirit come on these people when Philip preached to them in this
way, in this miraculous way? It was because that that gift,
to be able to lay their hands on them and give them the gift
of the Holy Spirit, was a unique gift given to the apostles. And
so that's why Peter and John came from Jerusalem, and they
came to Samaria for that purpose. And it authenticated not only
the word Philip preached, but it authenticated the work that
they had believed the gospel that was preached to them by
Philip. These people of Samaria were Gentiles, or at least a
mixture of Jews and Gentiles, and believing Christ, God had
given them eternal life, but there was no evidence of that.
And so in order to make it clear that through the preaching of
Christ and faith in Him, people were being saved, then there's
this physical evidence given when Peter and John lay their
hands on them and they received the gift of the Holy Ghost and
the miracles that were attending that gift at that time. But the
point is that when the apostles died, there was no one else who
had that gift to lay their hands on them and give them the Holy
Spirit and those gifts. And the perfect had come. Christ
had come. And now we have the full fulfillment
of the Word of God. He says in the book of Peter,
he says, "...unto us are given all things that pertain to life
and godliness through the knowledge of Him." through the knowledge
of Christ. If we haven't got everything
when we have Christ, then Christ isn't everything. He's not all.
But if Christ is all, then He's all we need. And that's the point
I wanted to make here. There were 12 apostles. They
had these special gifts. Those gifts were meant to teach
us that through the preaching of the gospel, back in Matthew
10, men's souls, the sickness of their souls, the captivity
of their souls to Satan in the darkness, and their death of
their souls is raised to life through the preaching of Christ
by the Spirit of God. And that is no small miracle. That's the greatest miracle that
could have been given to men, to be able to preach Christ's
gospel with His authority. And now look at the message that
He gives them. He lists their names here, and
I'm not going to go through these names. I remember as a kid in
Sunday school, you tried to learn these names. I still don't know
the names of all the twelve apostles, do you? Peter, James, and John
and the sailboat. That's as far as I get. I start
singing the song. out on the deep blue sea. But there was
also these other men, Peter, James, and John. And you always
remember those three, don't you? Peter, James, and John. And then
the brother of Peter was Andrew. James and John were brothers.
And then there's James, the son of Zebedee. I mean, James and
John were the sons of Zebedee. Then there's Philip, Bartholomew.
Do you know what these men did? What did Philip and Bartholomew
do in Scripture that were significant that you know about? Well, I
remember Philip asked Jesus, show us the Father, and Jesus
said, I've been so long with you, and you haven't seen me?
So there was these men whose names are listed here, and you
wonder, what significant thing did they do? How about Simon
the Canaanite? What did he do? I don't know. The point is not so much the
great things that these men did that we have a record of, but
that they did the very thing that Christ commissioned them
to do. A lot of times you look at your
own life and you think, what is the significance of my life?
I remember there was this big thing back when I was a young
teenager, not a young teenager, maybe an older teenager. You
need to find out your spiritual gifts. If you find out your spiritual
gift, then you can exercise them. And I'm like, I don't know if
I have any gifts. I couldn't find a single thing
I was gifted with. Everybody else was more gifted
than I was. I knew that. But here these men were, some
of them were so prominent. Peter, for example, and James
and Matthew wrote scripture. Jude, one of the men listed here,
wrote scripture. Paul wrote most of the New Testament.
And Luke, who was later on a Gentile, he also wrote the book of Acts
and the book of Luke. These men were giants. But some
of these other people, they seem insignificant. God does what
He wants with His people. He uses them how He wants to.
And we shouldn't feel envious because we see somebody else
who seems to be more used of God than we are. The point is
that we do what the Lord has given us in our place. trusting
Christ. That's what He's told us to do.
Hasn't it? Come to Me. And then look to Christ. And He says many things that
we can do. Pray one for another and all
these other things. Love one another. That's enough.
A lot of other things he says in the book of Hebrews, don't
forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some
is, considering one another to provoke to love and to good works.
Those are things that we do. But in the ministry of the church,
a lot of times we find our name listed way down at the bottom
with nothing significant behind it. And we might even become
uneasy with that. But here's Thaddeus, or James,
the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, who seem insignificant.
And yet they were doing exactly what Christ had given them to
do. And then there's this other man here, Judas Iscariot, who
also betrayed Him. Why did Jesus choose these 12
men and include this betrayer of His? If you read Psalm 109,
it's a woeful psalm about how Judas, in light of all the blessings
he received, and the goodness that Christ showed to him. He
betrayed the Lord Jesus, the Lord of glory. Can you imagine
that? Remember what Jesus told his disciples as they were at
the last supper? He said to them, one of you is
going to betray me. And remember their response.
I'm very thankful for their response. Every one of them said, Lord,
is it I? And I don't know about you, but
that's the first thing I think of. Lord, is it I? Am I the one
who's going to be like Judas? Am I the one who stands to preach
your gospel and yet am I a betrayer of Christ? And we question ourselves,
don't we? Do you ever do that? Do you ever
question yourself? Lord, do I love you? Am I truly one of yours? But that's what all the disciples
did, and yet the Lord Jesus had a purpose in choosing Judas.
He was called a son of perdition. He was the son of the devil.
He was not the son of God. He was a child of Satan. And
that just makes me shudder to think about it, doesn't it you?
That one man could go with his disciples, could live with the
Lord Jesus Christ, could see his face, feel his breath, put
his lips on his cheek and kiss him, and his arms around him,
and communicate with the other disciples, and do miracles like
these other disciples, and go with his word like these other
disciples, these other apostles, to be among the twelve trusted
apostles, and yet betray the Lord Jesus Christ. I think it
teaches us, first of all, this, that unless God delivers us from
ourself, we will be just like Him. I'm
sure of that. Unless the Lord Jesus Christ
saves us from ourselves, we'll be no different than Judas. The
Lord can call us and we might externally hear His voice, but
unless we're truly born again, unless we truly believe Him,
then we're lost. And we need to look to the Lord
Jesus Christ, don't we? Each one of us. Don't think that
because we're in the association of the saints that we're one
of God's saints. We need to take God's Word and
eat it ourselves. We need to come to the Lord Jesus
Christ and ourselves ask Him for mercy. And look ourselves
to Him. And draw from Him and take from
Him what we need. Life from Him. Each one of us. There are three kinds of people
in this world. There are people to whom the
gospel has never gone. They've never heard the gospel.
And there are people to whom the gospel have gone who've never
believed the gospel. And then there are people to
whom the gospel has gone and they have believed it. Can you
think of the mercy of God that you're hearing the gospel, not
only today, but you've heard it so many times before, when
in all the world there are literally millions of people who have never
heard the gospel of Jesus Christ? That is a huge, huge blessing. But don't think that just hearing
the gospel is enough. We need to hear it in faith.
And so when we hear that, that we must believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, what's our response? Well, then I'm going to get busy
and I'm going to believe Him. The proper response is, Lord,
I need the faith to look to You and depend on You for life itself,
for my eternal life, for my sins, and my righteousness, for everything.
That's what we do when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We
look to Him for everything God requires of us, and we look to
Him to give us everything we need. Repentance, and faith,
and love, and joy, and peace, and everything. And so we come
to Him that way. So these disciples, these apostles,
and we could go on and on about them, but we don't have time
to do that. I want to just say one more thing here. What were
they sent? Where were they sent to? And what were they sent with?
They were sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Lord
didn't send them to China. He didn't send them to Russia.
He didn't send them to America. He sent them to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel. Now at that time, He sent them
specifically to that region in which the nation of Israel was.
He didn't send them to Egypt. He didn't send them to Assyria
or to Babylon. Later on, the Lord would send
Paul to all these Gentile places. And he would send men that Paul
ordained. And the missionary effort that
Christ started with these apostles would go throughout the whole
world. And so the binding of Satan would take place as Christ
would send his people with his gospel, and they would proclaim
This is what the king who sits on the throne has done. And men
would hear it, and they would believe it. And in believing
it, they would be those who had been ordained to eternal life.
So he sent them to his sheep. But what did he tell them to
do? He commanded them. He said, go and preach. The kingdom
of God is at hand. The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
What is the kingdom of heaven? Can you see it? No. It's about
Christ. The Kingdom of Heaven is about
the King. It's about the great accomplishments
of the King. It's about the people of the
King. It's about His rule. It's about His holiness and His
goodness. It's about all that He's done
to save sinners. It's about His glory. It's all
about what God has said in the Gospel. The Kingdom of God, the
Kingdom of Heaven, the message is about the sovereign saving
grace of God in Christ. And they went with that message
and they brought it to those Christ sent them to. And we see
this huge, huge miracle that God would bestow His Spirit on
everyday ordinary men. One was a publican, one was a
Canaanite. Few of them are fishermen. A
couple were brothers. These ordinary people with his
gospel. And don't you know, I find that
so much comforting that we are given the gospel and we go with
it to our friends, to our family, and to whomever God sends us
and we can preach what the Lord has done for us, what he said
in his word. And we pray, Lord, send your laborers into this
harvest. Bless your word for Jesus' sake. Let's pray. Lord,
we thank you that you've given your word to these men and that
through their ministry we have heard the word of God, the gospel
of our salvation. You ordained that through the
preaching of the gospel you would overthrow Satan's kingdom. At
the cross, He was cast out of heaven. And now that He's bound,
we go with the gospel throughout this world, and men and women
and boys and girls hear and are converted. They are persuaded
that Christ is King. They see beauty in what He's
done. They fall before Him in thankfulness, knowing their sins
are forgiven them for His namesake. and they come to Him, and they
lean their whole eternal souls on Him and find rest because
He's done everything God requires of them, satisfying His justice. Lord, we thank You for this glorious
gospel. We pray that we would not hear
it in vain, but we would believe the Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen.