The more we sing from that book,
the more I like it. I felt I was slow to I'm going to keep looking at
it, the hymns, but nearly every one I sing, I like. All right, Mark chapter one.
Mark chapter one again. Now, this is the beginning of
our Lord's public preaching. The very first message out of
His mouth publicly, the very first words, and in these few
verses we have the calling out of some of His disciples. And
the message which our Lord first preached is still the message
today, is still the message needed today, and the way in which He
called these disciples is still the way in which He calls out
His disciples today. Nothing's changed. God has not
changed. The Word of God has not changed.
The way He saves has not changed. And this is a A beautiful story
about the Lord calls his people. Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter
1. I have this book at verse 14. Again, Mark chapter 1, verse
14. Now, after that John was put
in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom
of God. John was put in prison for preaching. As were all of the prophets before
him. John was the last of the Old
Testament prophets. And all of the prophets in the
Old Testament were persecuted and apprehended at some point,
and imprisoned, and most of them were killed preaching the truth,
as were the apostles later. But John came preaching, preaching,
and it would happen now to preachers of the truth. It would happen
now, were it not for God's grace and His, the laws of this land,
which we are blessed to live under, a democracy. It would happen still. the preachers
of the truth with the apprehended." Well, then it says, Jesus came
preaching. John came preaching, and Jesus
came preaching. You see, God has never left himself
without a witness. Moses died, Joshua was raised
up. Elijah ascended, Elisha came
forth. Samuel died, David was raised,
Paul, Timothy, and so on. So John was put in prison, seen
him in silence, and Jesus came, the Lord Jesus. So God has not
left himself without a witness. Every generation has heard the
truth. Paul said that. Have they not
all heard? Yea, verily, the sound is gone throughout your days. John was a preacher, and our
Lord was a preacher. Now, preaching and preaching,
preachers and preaching, are scoffed at today. They are disdained. mocked by this world and called
fools and their foolishness, preachers and preachers. And
I must concur or agree concerning most of these texts. They are
fools, they act like fools, and what they're preaching is foolishness.
When the Lord, when the Word talks about the foolishness of
preaching, it's not saying that preaching is foolishness. Nor
are the preachers of the gospel fools. They're wise men. But he's saying the world, what
the world calls foolishness, is the power of God. Listen to
Romans 10. It says this, in Romans 10, How
shall they call? Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. Well, how shall they call on
him in whom they do not believe? And how shall they believe in
him, the true God, the true Christ, of whom they had not heard? And
how shall they hear without a preacher? God sent prophets in the old
to tell the people who God was. God sent Moses to tell them he
was a spokesman, to tell them how to worship God, what God's
like, and so forth. How shall they hear without a
preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent? How shall they preach except
they be sent? Now, I recognize that any Tom,
Dick, or Harry, or Harriet, can say they are sent by God,
and they do. But the fact is, God does send
his preachers. He always has, and he always
will, until it's over. God does send some men, mind
you, men, as preachers. They're messengers, they're declarers,
they're no better than anybody else, they're no holier than
anybody else, they're by nature no smarter than anybody else.
And God calls them like anybody else, but God equips them for
this ministry. He equips them. They're taught by God, nothing
different than anybody else. But they're taught by God, equipped
by God, given the ability to preach the gospel, and God sends
them. God sends them. Wherever he has
them to go, and he opens the door for them to pray. And they're to do one thing.
John came doing one thing. Malachi came doing one thing.
On and back. Elisha, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Daniel did one thing. John, Peter, James, Paul, Thomas,
Bartholomew, Matthew, one thing. That's it. They were preachers.
They were not socializers. They were not organizers. Certainly weren't patronizers.
They were preachers. They weren't baptizers. Look
with me in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 1. This is where Paul talks about
this foolishness of preaching. 1 Corinthians 1. You have it?
1 Corinthians 1, look at verse 15, Paul, verse
14, Paul says, I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Christmas
and gays. There was kind of a division
in church. Some of them would say, well,
we like poppers, we like poppers, we like people, we like this
guy, we like that guy. Well, I'd baptize John. Well, I'd baptize that popper. Paul said, I thank God I didn't
baptize any of them. But two, Christmas and Gathering.
Then he said, lest any should say that I have baptized in my
own name, verse 16. I baptized also the household
of Stephanas, besides I'm, he says, I do not know whether I
baptized, I can't remember if I, I can't remember, he says,
if I baptized anybody. He names just three or four people
he baptized. He said, I don't remember if
I baptized anybody. If he had to report to Southern
Baptists convincing them, they'd have said he was a failure. Failure. What do you mean you
don't know how to be a Baptist? Know that I'm blameless. In verse
17, he said, Well, Christ sent me not to baptize. I'm not sent
to count heads, to baptize, to build big words, but to preach
the gospel. That's what he said, just to
preach the gospel. He went on down to say in verse 21, in the
wisdom of God, a world by wisdom knew not God. That is, they can't
figure God out by their own searching and seeking and reading and studying. It pleased God by the foolishness,
or what the world calls foolishness, of preaching. I thought I'm going
to stick with this to some extent. I'm smarter than him. I have
more degrees than he has. He can't teach me anything. That's
right. Go on. Believe. Because you won't
be taught anything. Our Lord said, He said
if you reconverted and come to the field. Everybody had to sit
as a big fisherman. They themselves marveled more
than anybody that they were able to preach. Well, go back to the text now,
Mark 1. But this preaching and the preaching of the gospel,
now, it's not preaching. It's not just preaching, you
know, standing up and carrying on and acting like you're
going through the motions. This is my way to get it. There's
this Pentecostal woman and a preacher over at her house one day. And
he said, my boy John, I think he's going to be a preacher. And forgive me, just to get your
attention. And the fellow said, is that
right? He said, yeah, come out here. I'll show you. He's in
the barn. And she said, John, show the preacher how to eat
a brick. And he said, well, he said, I saw the dog the other
day, and he was walking down the road. And he said, come on
now, John, this is pretty. He said, I saw the dog the other
day, and he was going down the road. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Preaching the gospel. Will you
forgive me for doing that? I've got everybody here now,
don't I? Preaching the gospel, not preaching foolishness, not
acting like a fool, not preaching anything. What are you preaching?
We're preaching the Bible. Well, what is he preaching about?
Well, it's just the Bible. It's the gospel. The gospel of God, the gospel
concerning His Son, which He promised before in the prophecies,
concerning His Son, and declared to be His Son with all power,
and by the Spirit's holiness, by the resurrection of the dead,
and all that He did at the same center. The gospel. John came preaching the gospel.
John's message was repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Look at our Lord's first words in Mark chapter 1. He came preaching,
verse 15, saying, The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God
is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel. Same thing John 3. Repent and
believe the gospel. All right? Before we look at
this message, let's look at who this is preaching. Now, and to further magnify the
office of preaching, God Almighty had one son. His occupation was? Preaching. It's an honorable position. Though it's filled with fool,
yet it isn't. There are many wise men. Who is this? Go back to Malachi
3. Malachi 3, it said Jesus came
preaching. Malachi chapter 3, the last book
in the Old Testament, Malachi. The last chapter, or the next
to the last chapter. Malachi chapter 3. Now, the Lord said of John the
Baptist, do you remember when the Lord said, when you went
out to see John, what did you go to see? Do you remember that? He said, did you go out to see
a preacher? I tell you more than a preacher,
even more than a preacher. It's God's Word. Well, Jesus
came preaching. Jesus, I tell you more than Jesus,
even more than this man. Look at Malachi 3, verse 1. Behold,
now this is the prophecy of John coming. Behold, I will send my
messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. He's talking
about John. John's the messenger, the forerunner,
who shall prepare the way. Remember? Prepare ye the way
of the Lord, Isaiah said. And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall
certainly come to his temple. The messenger, the head of the
temple. The Lord Himself. I am coming, He said. I sent a message to you before.
Jesus, who did you go out to see? Jesus? A woman? This is the Lord. This is the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord God, as Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter
9, oh, there was a child born again, but the Son was given,
and His name is delayed to be called Wonderful Counselor, the
Mighty God. More than Jesus, this is God
manifesting at last. The everlasting Father. The Son
is, in reality, the Father. The Child, the Mother, is the
Father of Mother. Great is this mystery of God.
God manifesting at last. Not Mary's son, Jesus, but Mary's
Heavenly Father, YHWH. Prince of Peace, the Lord of
Heaven, the government upon his shoulders, the creator, the sovereign
ruler, the controller, the despot, the monarch, the king of the
universe, time. The king is here, the one with
all dominion, all authority, he said, has given unto me of
heaven and earth. The one who chooses whom he will,
the one who has mercy on whom he will, the one who saves whom
he will, the one who kills as Hannah said, the one who kills
and makes alive, who raises up and casts down, the one who gives eternal life
to whom he will, the one who worketh all things at the counsel
of his will and none can say his royal hand or question his
will. Who's preaching here? Who is
this talking here? Who's this coming? Jesus. I tell you more than Jesus. This
is the kingdom of God. And we're going to see a little
while He's come to call out His servants. All right, look at
verse 15 in our text again. Mark chapter 1, verse 15. Now,
He said, The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. The time to fulfill Paul's articulation
is in the fullness of time, at the exact time, exact point in
time when God ordained, which God ordained before the world
came. In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under
the law. In the fullness of time. It says, time is at hand, kingdom
of God is at hand, the kingdom of God is this. Write it down
in a word, the kingdom. The dominion of the king, the
king's dominion. The king himself is here and
he has dominion. The kingdom is here. One time
our Lord said, don't be looking for an outward kingdom. Don't
be looking for them to build another temple over in Jerusalem.
They might build it. Maybe. The Lord's not going to
go there. As soon as he comes to this planet,
he's going to destroy it with the brightness of his tongue,
remember. He's not going to sit on that throne that David sat
upon over there in that dirty city called Jerusalem. He's sitting
on the right hand of the majesty on high. He's already seated
on the throne, his throne, the king's throne. Don't look for
a future kingdom. Don't look for an outward kingdom.
Don't look for the Jews to gather in Jerusalem. He's gathered his
Jews in Zion right now. Look around you. You'll see something.
We're not going to Jerusalem. Are we? Are we all going to go
to Jerusalem? Go to the Holy City? Yes, we are. But it's not
over there. We're going to the head of Jerusalem.
We're all going there. The Holy City. He's gathering
his people. All Israel shall be saved. I'm a Jew. A Scotch-Irish Jew. Yes, I am. He's a Jew which is one inward
circumcisions of the heart. Kingdom is here. The king is
here. He's calling out his servants.
He's the one doing the calling. He's the one marking his servants. He's calling them out. All right? Here's the message which he uses
to call out, repent and believe the gospel. Now, this is the
king talking here. Kings do not make requests, Mark. They never have. Kings do not
ask their subjects anything ever. Kings never, nor do their ambassadors
ever go out and say, if the king wants to know you, please accept
his word. who are most needed by the poor
and lowly king, would you please accept him as your personal king?
He's hoping you will. He's standing outside right now,
wanting to come in here, if you'll just let him. Foolishness, isn't
it? Now, that's the preaching of
foolishness. That's the preaching of foolishness. And perhaps that's
the reason the world calls preaching foolishness. Huh? They see through
this foolishness. Always talking about a God who's
not God at all. That's foolishness. Now, this
is a king standing, and he's making commands. He doesn't make
requests. Kings don't do that. Scripture
says that, listen to this, God commanded all men everywhere
to repent. Not asked to. Kings don't ask, kings don't
make requests, but beggars. Kings don't make requests of
beggars. Beggars make requests of kings. And here's what he said. Repentance.
Now, what is repentance? Well, you just better quit smoking
cigarettes. I know that. That devil's weed is going to
send you right to hell. Now, Jim, you'd better quit wearing
them short shorts. I'm telling you, because you
look just fine. Short shorts. I'm glad some people don't wear
short shorts. It wouldn't be a crime, a sin,
but nobody should wear short shorts. Goodness. Repent. What is repentance? What
is repentance? Repentance is condemnation of
your sins. Repentance is condemnation of
your sins. It's renouncing yourself, all
that you are. When our Lord said, He becometh
after me, let him deny himself. That's what we're telling you.
Deny yourself. Deny any goodness in you. Deny
any worth in you. Deny any ability in you. Deny
any wisdom in you. Deny anything in you, any goodness,
anything lovable about you. Deny it all. Say, In my hands,
O Christ, I bring. I'm a beggar, I need mercy. That's
repentance. I'm a sinner, I need salvation.
I'm guilty, I need justification. I'm lost, I need family. I'm
hopeless, I need help. I'm strengthless, I need strength.
Huh? I'm unrighteous, I need your
righteousness. That's repentance. It's to deny yourself. It's to
renounce yourself, chiefly, your esteem. what you are, and your
sins, and they go much deeper than things. When the Scripture
mentions the works of the flesh in relation to society, it doesn't
really talk about any outward bad habits. It's really peaceful. Stain in our Lord said, what
goes into the mouth doesn't defile the man. He smoked five packs
a day and it's not going to damage his soul. Come on, man. Our Lord
said that. It's not what goes into the mouths
of the fowls, man. It'll give you cancer, not give
you body. It's not going to send you to
hell. I'll tell you what wills, this enmity against God, this
wrath, this hatred, this wickedness that comes out of his heart. That's what God's got to take
care of, his heart. And one old writer said, we haven't
repented lest we repent of our goodness. God saved very few self-righteous
parishioners. That's right. If you look in
the Scriptures, you won't find many accounts of it. You'll see
Nicodemus, you'll see Saul of Tarsus, you'll see a few here
and there, but most of those he saved, we say he got together.
He saved some harlots, some cousins, some real bonafide sinners. He
didn't have to come and call them righteous. He saved sinners. So we repent of our self-righteousness.
He saved a few out of a few. We've got to repent of our self-righteousness.
Lord, I renounce all my past religion, all my baptisms, all
my prayers, all my Bible reading, all of that. It doesn't account
for anything. It doesn't merit me anything.
All of my witnessing, all of my self-renunciation, all of
that is nothing. I completely repent. This is what it means to believe.
He said, repent and believe. This is what it means to believe. It means to believe God. God
said you're righteousness is a guilty right. When you believe,
you say, True, Lord. God said we're always an unclean
thing. To believe is to say, True, Lord.
God said, My son's the only one I approve of. Faith says, Me
too, Lord. Amen. God says, He's the righteous,
so I'll accept. You come unto me by Him, I'll
accept you. You're accepted in the blood.
Faith says, I believe, Lord. I trust Christ with nothing in
the end of days. No experience, no works, no anything. I lived in Christ and Christ
died. That's that. Repent and believe
the gospel. Believe the gospel. Now that
works. That, all that goes against the drunkenness. All that goes
against this proud flesh. All that is offensive to the
natural man, calling him a nothing, a no-nothing, an unfit, an unworthy. All that's against his plan. To say that all he's ever done
all his life doesn't account for anything, all that offends
our self-righteousness. So this work must be of God. If anybody repents, Can anybody
really believe it? It's from the heart. It's not
just the head. It's from the heart. It's really
believing in the heart. I know that. It's really believing
in the heart. God is true. It's not just saying,
well, I don't like it, but it's saying that it's true and I believe
it's true. I know it's true. And it's from
the heart saying, I do believe Christ is true. And I love that
He's mine. That's the work of God. It's
not of yourself. This faith is not of yourself.
It's a gift of God. And there's goodness in that. Believe in the things that we do. See, God gives all of us
salvation. I don't know, where is that?
Where is it? Gentlemen, there's nothing. It's all of God. He does this work. All right?
Now look at how He does this. He does it by calling out His
people. This is called what I'm doing right now. I know it's
just a man here, and that's that. I give myself a measure of the
past. But just a man standing here,
like any other. Shorter than most. None of them
knows. Just a man, just an earthen vessel,
all right? But God uses exactly what I'm
doing right now, exactly what I'm saying. Not me, but what
I'm saying from here. This is what God uses to call
out His sheep. This is the lariat that you read,
the last ruse, the chord. It says He draws them with the
cords of a man. This is it. This is the gospel
call. This is the shepherd's call. Though it be but the voice
of the man, yet it's the shepherd himself. This is how he calls
it. Sovereign, powerful, effectual
call. Verse 16 and 17. Now, as he walked
by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, his brother,
casting a net into the sea, for they were fish. Now here's two
brothers in a boat. They're doing what they've always
done all their lives. Two brothers in a boat. Two fishermen.
Now back then, being a fisherman was rougher than it is even now.
It's a tough job now. Wouldn't want to do it. That's
one of the great lakes in some of these places. Can you imagine?
Tough job. It's a tough food job. Pretty rough, isn't it? He took pretty rough sails. Guaranteed. And they're in this boat. They're
out in the boat. I don't know how far offshore
they were. Well, they're close enough. Well, he could have called them
at least 12 miles out. But anyway, they were out in
the boat. Okay? I believe that he was in sight
anyway within a year or so. Two brothers in a boat doing
what they've always done all their lives. They're not interested
in God. They're not seeking God. They're
fishing. They're not praying. They're
not reading their Bible. They're not attending the church. They're
fishing. They're not interested in God.
They're not interested in religion. Chances are there were some fellows
who came by before and tried to talk to some Pharisees and
said, y'all need to make a sinning covenant. Go home, preacher. Huh? You know what's up. They're
not interested in Christ. Everybody's talking about Christ,
and they're not interested in others. Huh? What is their hope? What is their hope of salvation?
How are they going to be saved? Huh? How are these fellows going
to come to the fore? Of course they're going to come
to the end. I was like, finally, I'm lost. People can't find me. Wait, somebody
left a message. Ladies and gentlemen. Oh, it's
this time, isn't it? Simon and Andrew, he chose them,
and here he comes, oh, here's the king, this is God, who chose
them for the world. And it was soon to follow, and
I want to write an article soon about this, why Christ came,
why God came to earth. Now you better believe that if
God came down here to this earth, only He could do it. Huh? Any of your own business or whatever,
in a certain time, certain things that your employees or whoever
it may be, just are messing up, they can't do it, they just can't
do it, and if you want something done right, you've got to do
it yourself. Right? If you want it done, let's
say your little small children, you said to me, they just can't
do it. So what do you got to do for
us, Steve? You go out there. Why are you going out there?
It tells me it's a job. You see the picture? Why did
God come to this earth? There was something on the table. You get it? And He wouldn't have
come if someone else could do it. And He wouldn't have come
if He wasn't on the job. But the Lord moved in as He came. All right? He comes. He comes. This is King Cunningham
to make up his subject. This is the shepherd in search
of his sheep. Didn't he say, I'm going to leave
the ninety-nine? That's all the past saints that
are in glory. I'm going to leave the ninety-nine
in search of that one sheep. Go to great lengths to find one. And it says in Scripture, and
when he finds it, There's no doubt about it. If you're one
of these people, there's no doubt about it. He's never missed a hair or a needle.
Never missed a hair or a needle. He always gets his way. Well, he says he can't. Alright,
first. Jesus said unto them, Come ye
after me, and I will make you to become ministers of men. Now, do you see this picture?
These seven men, they're both picturing it. Doing all their
work, and it's hard and boring work, and here comes this preacher. I think they've heard of him.
I think they heard everybody talking. I knew it was one of
them probably looking at me. I'm waiting. They're getting the next call. What I hear is... This is not replaced. You
notice there's no... in the flooring or in the soup
can or in the package. He says, Come ye after me, and
I will make you. Come, and I will make you. Not if you will come and let
me. He says, Come, and I will make you. Did they come? Did
they come? Oh, yes. He said in John 6, verse
37, Oh, the Father gives me, I come. They shall. Our Lord came to this earth looking
for His sheep, and He found every one of them. And when His time was filled,
He went back and He sent the Holy Spirit to search the rest
of them. And He finds them all. All of
His compositions are found. He finds them up a tree. I go
to Zacchaeus. He finds them up a tree. They're up a tree. He finds another
tree, he finds another male whale, like that one. He's had five
of them, four of them. He finds another whale, he finds
him in the ditch. He's good. He found either of them. They all
come. Verse 18, what does it say? And it's straight right. They
were sitting there next, straight away. That word means directly. Directly, that's no country word. Here, directly. Now, no wait
a minute, no wait a minute. We use that kind of, kind of
bad, you know, I'll be there directly. That's bad. That's
not what this means. This means direct way, straight
way. That's straight to Him. One way. But wait a minute, we'll put
an end to it. No, we're not. When the Lord calls, there's
no beating around the bush, no fooling around. No, wait a minute,
I've got to go see the doctor. Not when the Lord really calls. Well, it's more convenient when
I get older, when I get married, when I have children, when I
get settled down, I get a better job, and I'll get settled down.
No. Our Lord said, Seek ye first
the kingdom of heaven and His righteousness, and bless the immortal if ye
do all these things ye have. Seek ye first, He said, except
ye forsake all that ye have, ye cannot be my son. And yet in the goodness of our
Lord, He restored everything a hundredfold. But he just said,
see you first. Come, straight away. Right now. Come. And they didn't wait. When
the Lord called, see, they come. Straight away. They were stuck
there the next time. I get a woman at the well. That
woman at the well, she was a poor woman, a forlorn woman. She came with this water pot.
Remember? She came with this water pot.
She had this big water pot. I know all these graves have
some fake pictures and things. Grandmothers hand them down to
you and all that. You don't want to let go of them. You hate to
drop them and break them. Back then they had even less.
She might have had just one big water pot. She came and it says, when he
called her, she forsook her water pot. She left her water pot. And took off. He bound her home.
Tell everybody, he's here. Come see your man. The pot's
a crime. They left their nest. That was
it. Everything was in the nest. Fisherman's nets and libraries
are expensive. They require a bunch of upkeep.
They should take years. How are you going to hang them
down? They can wash them by their own hands, other people. They
can wash these by their own hands. Hard-working folks. What is this
net? And what would make a man or
a woman forsake everything? Forsake every woman, everything.
What would make a man or a woman just esteem everything as nothing? It says, look at it again, it
says, straightaway they would slip their nets and follow Him. Only a person. Religion. Don't forsake your
next religion. It's a net. Him. Follow Him. Christ is all. Look at the next, now here it
comes again, verse 19. When he'd gone no further than
this, he saw James, the son of Zebedee, and John his brother,
who were also in the ship, men in their names. And straightway, immediately,
he called them. How'd he call them? Come! And, he says, I don't know if he had
any religion. If he did, they left it. Guarantee
you he had something. They left it too, their father
and his religion, the ships, and his hired servants. These
weren't four or five. They had hired servants. They
had boats, they had nets. This was the father's business.
They had a little livelihood here. They had homes and families. These men were in the 30s. It
doesn't say anything about the wives and families or discipleship. Just Peter, Peter's the only
one mentioned by his wife. See, that's very shocking. But I care to say that most of
them had wives. Peter, on behalf of all of them,
said, we can say no. They let him die. He called them straight away.
They let him die. What did they go after? The first
one, they went after him. He said, they went after him. Him. Do you remember the story? Let me
tell you. It's not awkward now. Read these next two verses. Let's
read these next two verses. They went into Capernaum, and
straightway on the Sabbath day, he entered into the synagogue.
Now, these fishermen, these fishermen tell us, Just a few hours' move
from their nest. They went with him in the synagogue.
And he talked. And they were astonished at his
documents. Now, I used to read this thinking
that this was just the people in the synagogue and all that.
And they weren't. Everyone was astonished, amazed. No man's
faith like this. We'll see why in a second. But this is the disciples, too,
they're astounded at his power. You see, they're astounded, they're
spellbound by his power. They were, they had a company
called, to begin with, So He called like no mere man could,
like no mere preacher coming down the road could. When He
came, they came. When He called, they came. And when He taught, when He preached,
He says He taught they were sons. And He, because He taught us
one that had a birth. Well, I told you. He does. It's just a key. He does have
to talk all over. And I like Krishna to say that
he didn't teach like a scribe. You've heard a scribe teach,
Jack. It's kind of like the fourth chapter, the third, the fifth
chapter, the fourth, and the third at the end, and we shall
listen to the hearing of the fourth. There they are, reading. You can't convince a flea with
a finger, Jack. It's a man of authority. It's
a man with all the authority, and not like the scribes. Boy,
they were mesmerized. They were astonished at his doctrine.
I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. When you
first heard this gospel, when you first really heard this gospel,
that is, when you first heard God speak to your heart, what'd
you say? What'd you think? He speaks like one of his prophets.
He doesn't speak like my preacher. That's the thing about that.
He sounds like one of his prophets. When you first hear Martin, you're
one of his guys. You'll hear the difference. That's
what I'm trying to say. When you hear, when God finally
speaks, you'll hear the difference. He'll say that. This is God's
gospel. This is God's truth. This is
the force of poverty. This is the gospel of actual
sanctity. This is God who is God. This is Christ who is Christ.
This is blood that actually is unbidden. This is actually good
and unbidden. Well, what will make a person
forsaken? Oh, what will make them find
something better? something better. Do you remember
this story? My pastor told this before about
someone who was in a restaurant one time and there was a couple
sitting beside him at the table and they had one of these unruly
children, you know, 9 or 10 of them are. Screaming and hollering,
you know, picturing their kids and their parents can't do it.
If you don't put that out, you're going to blow up. You know, but I remember quickly,
boy, here's the last one that hurt. After they were finished,
after they opened up his arm, and they were doing this threatening
this kid, because he had what it was, he had an ear of corn. Corn on the cob that he was eating. About a four-year-old boy. He
was eating that, and they were ready to leave, and they were
trying to leave. Let's put that corn out. It must have been something in
your silver coin. Eating that coin, he said, let's go. And
he said, no. He kept eating that coin. And they were threatening
him and all that. And this preacher was in the
restroom. He heard all this going on. And
they were dragging the kid. He was dragging him. He still
had that earphone on. And put that down where he was.
And finally, the preacher had all the heat attack with all
this going on. The preacher went up to the counter
and bought a Hershey bar. Wait, a Hershey bar. He went
over to that little kid and stuck it out like that and he just
dropped that air conditioner. What will make the person let go of
something? And they find some better. Some better. The whole book of Hebrews is
about Christ is better. Better than religion, better
than men, better than ceremonies, better than churches and denominations,
better than anything. Christ is all the religion, they
just drop it all and go after Him. The ecology of the world. Prabhup�da, as it calls you,
stand up. Our Lord, thank You for Your
sovereign call, Your gospel. Thank You for Your word. We thank
Thee that Thou art God, our King, that You did indeed come to this
earth to find Your sheep. You found them, and are yet finding
them. And that's our prayer that you
would call out for, for your glory, for their goodness, for
their salvation, for the glory of your Son. And we may in His name tonight give thanks. Let me turn this tape off.