Alright, let's go back to Luke
chapter 10. And let's see if we can understand
a few things about the Lord sending out the 70. Our subject is He
sent forth 70. Our Lord Jesus has made His final
leg of His journey And he's now going toward Jerusalem. He spent
about the first year of his ministry in Judea. The next, oh, year
and a half or so he spent in Galilee. And now he's back in
Judea. He's going to Jerusalem. The
reason he's going to Jerusalem is to offer himself a sacrifice
for his people. He set his face like a flint.
This is a work he was determined to do. Nothing could keep him
from that destiny of giving his life a ransom for many. He would redeem his people by
his blood and he would bring in for us everlasting righteousness. He would be raised again because
of our justification. And then he would ascend back
to glory to take his position upon the throne of grace, our
great mediator, our great high priest. Our Savior is going to
be leaving. Now, he selected already twelve
apostles. One of those is a devil. But
eleven of those men will be great preachers of the gospel. They'll
go forth setting before the people their Savior, their Master, the
Lord Jesus. Those 11 men would go forth as
preachers. But our Lord would have other
preachers, and so He selects these 70. I would remind you
that up until this hour of our Lord's life, most of the teaching,
most of the instruction, most of the preaching of the Kingdom
of God, our Savior has done that. His disciples have listened. His apostles have set at His
feet. They've been good students. They've
been good listeners. They've learned the gospel from
our Savior. But still there was much that
they didn't understand. The last leg of our Lord's journey
as He goes to Jerusalem will indeed be spent in times of instruction
for these preachers of the gospel. But these eleven are not enough.
And in His eternal purpose, He selects these 70 more. These preachers of the Gospel. He instructs them and He sends
them forth with the very same message that the 11 would go
forth with. The message of Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. Our Lord selects these. They
didn't volunteer. They didn't go forward at a service
when someone asked for Christian workers to step forward and make
a decision and say that they want to join the ministry. No, it wasn't like that at all.
Our Lord Himself commissioned these men. He called these men. He selected these men. He equipped
these men. Thanks be unto God for those
men that God has chosen, God has called, God has instructed
them, and God has equipped them with the right message, the message
of grace, and the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You'll notice as our brother
read this passage of scripture, nothing was said about these
70 as far as their names. We don't know who they were.
We still don't know. Now of the 12 apostles, we know
their names. Their names are given to us in
the gospel narratives. But as to these 70, we don't
know who they are. After this, we don't know what
they did except we can rest assured they continued preaching the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we don't need to know their
names. We don't need to know who they
were. They need not be identified. We only need to be assured in
our hearts that these men, having been themselves chosen by the
Master, they were sent forth with a message which they would
faithfully declare until their last breath upon this earth. We don't need to know preachers.
Preachers aren't saviors. Preachers are not redeemers.
I cannot do anything for your poor soul. You don't need to
know me. You need to know Him. Whom to
know is life everlasting. You need to know the Master.
You need to know my Savior. You need to know the one I represent. Let my name be forgotten. Let
His name be remembered forever. John the Baptist speaks for these
70. He speaks for the 11 apostles,
and then of course the apostle Paul is the 12th one. And he
speaks for every preacher of the gospel when John says, He
must increase. I must decrease. Let every preacher of the gospel
hide behind the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I know we have our favorites
and, well, I like this preacher, I like that preacher, I like
this style, I like that style. All that's really important is
the message. All that's really important is
who are we talking about. Who are we preaching about? Let the name of the Lord Jesus
have preeminence. He's not just first in this place. He's all in this place. He has
all the preeminence. He gets all the glory. He gets
all of the honor because He's done all of the work of salvation
in redeeming His people, in reconciling us to God, in bringing in everlasting
righteousness. He's done all the work. He gets
all the credit. He gets all the glory. Now along
the way, He uses poor vessels of clay. But those vessels of
clay, they're in themselves, they're unimportant. All that's
important is what they're saying, their message. What I deliver
to you, that's all that's important. Who I speak about, that's all
that's important. Preachers come and go. The Kingdom
of God, thankfully, has survived a lot of bad preachers. The Kingdom
of God will always continue, because it's not dependent upon
a preacher, it's dependent upon the one the preacher preaches
about, even our Lord Jesus Christ. The Savior sends forth these
70. You'll notice that our brother
drew attention to this. Our text begins this way, after
these things. And whenever you see the words,
after these things, you ought to always ask, after what things? After what things? Otherwise,
you're just kind of breaking into the middle of the narrative. Well, after what things? As he
mentioned, after the after what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration. After He revealed His glory to
Peter, James, and John. After they had heard the Savior
speaking with Moses and Elijah about the decease that He would
accomplish in Jerusalem. After having heard that glorious
conversation. Look back in chapter 9 and verse
28. Chapter 9 and verse 28. It came
to pass about eight days after these sayings, He took Peter
and John and James and went up into a mountain to pray. And
as He prayed, the fashion, the very appearance of His countenance
of His person was altered. And His raiment was white and
glistering. It had a radiating light. There
was a radiating light that emanated from Him. It didn't shine on
Him, rather He is the light and the light came forth from Himself. After all, John says, quoted
the Savior as saying, I am the light of the world. He is the
light. And the light was manifested,
showing that He is God, revealing His deity. Verse 30, And behold,
there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias, Moses
and the prophets. That's who Elias represents,
the prophets who appeared in glory and spake of his decease. They appeared with the Lord in
glory. They were still living. And they
still retained their identity also. Notice that. Elijah was
still Elijah and Moses was still Moses. And when you go to glory,
you'll still be you. You'll be glorified, you'll be
with Christ Jesus, you'll be sinless, you'll be perfect in
Him, but you'll still be you. And Peter, James, and John had
never met Moses and Elijah, but they knew them. They had never
seen a photograph of them because photographs hadn't been invented.
Nobody had ever sketched Moses and Elijah. But they knew them.
We will know even as we're known because we're family in heaven.
They knew these men. And they were having a conversation
about the Savior's decease. The word is Exodus. about His exodus from this world,
that exodus from this life, that exodus when He would give Himself
a ransom for His people, when His body would die and His soul
would go to paradise, His decease. Oh, thank God for His deceased. For in His deceased, we see our
life. We see our salvation. We see
our forgiveness. We see our righteousness. Which
He should accomplish. Which He should fulfill. Here's
what the word accomplish means. Fulfill. That is to fill to the
full. To where nothing can be added
to it. Our Lord has filled to the full
all of salvation, all of redemption, all of reconciliation by His
substitutionary death on the cross. Nothing can be added to
it. Don't you try to add anything
to it. To do so will result in your
death. Jesus paid it all. All the debt
I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. When
did our Lord send forth these 70? After He revealed His glory
to these favored three disciples. When did our Lord choose the
70? When did He send forth the 70? Well, it was after He exposed
the weakness of the faith of His disciples. Look at chapter
9, verse 37. It came to pass that on the next
day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met
him. And behold, a man of the company
cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son, for he
is mine only child. And lo, a spirit taketh him,
and he suddenly crieth out, and it teareth him that he foameth
again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him. And I besought
thy disciples to cast him out, but they could not. And Jesus
answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long
shall I be with you and suffer you? Bring thy son hither. And as he was coming, the devil
threw him down and tear him And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit. He healed the child and delivered
Him again to His Father. And they were all amazed at the
mighty power of God. But while they wondered, everyone,
at the things which Jesus did, He said something else to His
disciples. And I'll get into this in a moment.
So, after these things, after He had exposed the weakness of
the faith of His followers, Let's ask God for faith. And
let's remember this. It isn't the measure of our faith
that's important. He talked about faith the size
of a grain of mustard seed. That's not very big. You know what is important? The
object of faith. The object of faith. Make sure
you have the right object in your faith's view. The One you
are trusting in, is He the Lord of glory? Oh God, give me grace
to trust Him and to trust Him fully. After these things, after
He had exposed the weakness of faith, when did this happen?
When did He send forth the 70? Well, after He had announced
to His disciples again the necessity of His substitutionary death
and resurrection. Look again at verse 44. Our Savior said to His disciples,
let these sayings sink down into your ears. Oh boy, that's what I want. Let these sayings sink down They've
got to go through the ear gate. We've got to hear. The Word of
God has to go in the ear gate. But oh Lord, may they sink down. Most of us, we have it in our
heads. Wonder what we've got in our
hearts. Oh Lord, let it sink down into our ears. Now listen
to what He says. For the Son of Man shall be delivered
into the hands of men. But they understood not this
saying." Let me tell you, that's the reason that up to this point,
our Lord has done most of the preaching. These men, they've
still got a lot to learn. Oh, they're learning. They're
learning. Our Lord has been instructing
them. But oh, how unskilled they were in handling the Word of
God at this point. Our Lord speaks to them about
the necessity of the Son of Man being delivered into the hands
of men, and they say, what are you saying? What are you saying? We don't understand. We don't
understand. Don't be too hard on these disciples. They didn't have the full Word
of God like we do. We can go over to the book of
Romans and read. We can go to John's Gospel and
read. We've got the Word of God in
its entirety that we can look into and learn as we study. These men, they had the writings
of the Old Testament. Pictures and prophecies. And
yet I offer no excuse for them, because they sat at the feet
of Him that spake like never a man spake. And this should
instruct us in this fact, that the Lord of glory, it's not enough
for Him to speak to us the audible word to these ears, He must speak
with the word that touches our hearts. That's what I pray for
you and me. We know the letter of the law,
the letter of the word. Oh God, teach our hearts. Drive
it deep within us. This is after these men had listened
to the Savior speak of the necessity of His substitutionary death
and resurrection. It's after these things. When
did this happen? Well, after he brought to light
the pride and the ambition and the necessity of humility to
his apostles, to his followers. Look at verse 46. Chapter 9 now. Then there arose again, there
arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be the greatest? Jesus perceiving the thought
of their heart took a child. and set Him by Him, and said
unto them, Whosoever shall receive this Child in My name receiveth
Me. And whosoever shall receive Me
receiveth Him that sent Me. For He that is least among you
all, the same shall be great. Our Lord here is teaching us
that as a child is simple and usually humble and dependent
and trusting and unconcerned about worldly fame and worldly
power and worldly wealth, that's how we ought to walk before God.
as a little child who knows his weakness and depends upon his
father for all things. So we as the men and women of
God, as the children of God, should be always aware of our
weaknesses and how desperately we need our Father in every situation. Like a little child who is by
nature ignorant and helpless and dependent upon others to
teach and to guide, to hold his hand and protect him. So we need
the Lord that way. Oh Lord, make us to have the
attitude of little children. Little children. Children in
this congregation, when they woke up this morning, they're
not worried as to whether they're going to have anything to eat
because they know mom and dad will take care of them. Children
of God, we awake every morning and the first thing we do is
just about start worrying. Shame on us. We ought to be like
little children. Little children, they don't worry
about things like that. They don't worry about the provisions
that mom and dad will give to them. They just know when they
need something, it'll be there. And when you need something as
a child of God, when you really need something, when God deems
it necessary for you to have something, you'll have it. The Lord will provide. Jehovah Jireh, the Lord will
provide. He'll see to it that our provisions
are met. Let's be like little children.
After these things, after He talked to them about humility
and useless ambition, who's going to be the greatest? He's the greatest. He's the greatest. And we're redeemed sons and daughters. Washed in His sin-atoning blood
and robed in His perfect righteousness. So when did this happen? Well,
it happened after these things. It happened after the Samaritans
refused to receive the Savior into their land. Drop down at
verse 52. Well, verse 51, it came to pass,
and this is when His Galilean ministry essentially ends. It's now about, oh, somewhere
between six and eight months until his death. Now he will
go just a few times briefly back into Galilee, but he is really
headed toward Jerusalem now. He's taking the final leg of
his journey. It came to pass when the time
was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face
to go to Jerusalem. And essentially his Galilean
ministry ends. And he sent messengers before
his face. And they went and entered into
a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him. I'm coming
through your communities. Look at verse 53. And they did
not receive him, because he set his face as though he would go
to Jerusalem. He had made known to them, I'm
on my way to Jerusalem. But you see, the Samaritans had
no dealings with the Jews, and the Jews had no dealings with
the Samaritans. And so the Samaritans, being
prejudiced against the Savior because He was a Jew, they said,
don't come through our community. What a blessing these Samaritans
missed out on Because they wouldn't have anything to do with somebody
that was heading to Jerusalem. They got all caught up in personalities
and they said, we don't want you coming through. We're not
going to have anything to do with you. Because you're a Jew. May the Lord give us desire to
welcome the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, we'll be like the
Samaritans and we'll say, don't come near to us. We don't want
you coming by our town. We don't want you coming to our
house. That's the way we are by nature. Don't come my way. I don't like your kind. Oh, by grace we've been brought
to love Him, though. And to believe Him. And to welcome
Him. We say, Lord, come about at my
house. Come to my house. After these
things. After what things? Well, after
our Lord had exposed the unwillingness of three men to leave everything
behind and follow Him. That's the last section of chapter
9. It came to pass as they went,
verse 57, as they went in the way, a certain man said unto
Him, Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. Jesus said, foxes have holes,
birds of the air have nests, but the son of man hath not where
to lay his head. He said unto another, follow
me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, let the
dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of
God. And another said also, Lord, I will follow Thee, but let me
first go bid them farewell which are at home at my house. And
Jesus said unto him, No man having put his hand to the plow and
looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. After these things, These men were unwilling to follow
Him. Now my friends, Christ Jesus
must be all in all to us. And He wasn't all in all to these
three men. It's not a matter of putting
Him first. It's a matter of Him being everything
to us. And everything else being submissive
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, after all these things
happened, He chose 70 men to be preachers
of the Gospel. Now, unlike one of the men back
there in chapter 9 who was volunteering for the ministry, that first
man who said, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest, these
men were not volunteers, they were appointed That's what it
says. They were appointed. After these
things the Lord appointed. He marked out a path for them.
He had chosen them in everlasting grace. And He had chosen them
also to be preachers of the gospel. And He sent them. Literally,
He thrust them forth. He thrust them forth. And notice
it says he sent them forth two by two, and that's good because
if one falls, the other one is there to pick him up. If one
gets discouraged, the other one is there to encourage him. So
he sent forth these 35 pairs, these 70 men, and he said, I
send you before my face. Luke records it this way. He
sent them two by two before His face into every city and place,
whither He Himself would come. In other words, these men paved
the way. They went forth with the message,
and upon the basis of the message having been proclaimed, then
the Lord Jesus Christ came. That's always the way it works.
If the Lord Jesus Christ is going to reveal Himself to a sinner,
He will first of all send forth a messenger with the message
of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's the way it works. Somebody
says, I'm not going to sit under any preacher. Well, you're in
trouble then. Because He sends forth these
preachers before His face. And then as they go forth preaching
Him, then He comes. He comes riding in the chariot
of His gospel. He comes riding upon the white
horse of the glad tidings of salvation in, through, and by
Him. He goes forth where the preaching
of the gospel goes forth. And nowhere else. Nowhere else. These men, these 70 men, they
go forth as He sends them. And I'll have you notice this,
they went forth with a singular message. Look down at verse 9. Of course, He gave them unusual
authority to verify their message. Verse 9, He says, and heal the
sick that are therein, and say unto them, here's the singularity
of their message. Here's what you preach. The Kingdom
of God is come nigh unto you. That's the singularity of their
message. This was a summary of what they
had to say. What is this Kingdom? Well, it
wasn't the kind of Kingdom that all of Israel looked for. They
look for a literal kingdom. They look for a literal Messiah
who would come as a king that would run the Romans back into
Rome and elevate Israel back to the glory days of David and
Solomon. That's the kind of kingdom they
look for. But our Lord sends forth these
70 preachers. They're preaching the gospel
of the kingdom. They are preaching the glad tidings
of the kingdom, just like the Savior did. Look back in Luke
chapter 8 verse 1. They go forth preaching a kingdom,
and this is according to His commandment, and according to
His example. Luke 8 verse 1, and it came to
pass afterward. that He went throughout every
city and village preaching and showing the glad tidings of the
Kingdom of God. They are preaching the same message
He preached. The glad tidings of the Kingdom
of God. This is a spiritual kingdom.
It's not a carnal kingdom. It's a heavenly kingdom, not
an earthly kingdom. It's an inward kingdom, not an
outward kingdom. This kingdom is not about earthly
things. It's not about outward things.
The kingdom has to do with righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy
Spirit. He sends them forth with a singular
message. You go out and preach the kingdom
of God. You tell people the Kingdom of God is near unto you. What
happens in this Kingdom? Well, the King comes and He binds
and drives out the enemy of Satan out of the hearts of His people.
In this Kingdom, He imparts spiritual life. He puts a love for righteousness
and peace and joy of the gospel in the heart of a sinner. It's
the kingdom of Jesus Christ. It's the kingdom of grace where
grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. It's the kingdom
of the King Himself who came from heaven's glory and established
righteousness for His people by His death and went back to
glory, the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords. He
said, you go forth and preach the gospel of the kingdom. It's
a singular message. It can be summarized this way.
We preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's a singular message. It's a kingdom governed by grace. It's a kingdom where Jesus Christ,
He lives and reigns as the King of the saints and He indwells
His people. These men were sent forth to
preach the gospel of the kingdom. The good news of the arrival
of the king into this world who came to save his people from
their sins by his substitutionary death that God might be a just
God and a savior. They came to announce this kingdom
to poor, vile sinners who by the power of God's grace enter
into the kingdom. And the Kingdom of God enters
into them. These men had a singular message. The Kingdom of God. They preached
the glad tidings of the Kingdom. And this message is a simple
message. It was a singular message and
it was a simple message. The Gospel of the Kingdom. Now
the Gospel comes to us from God who is infinitely wise. infinitely
wise. And only the Lord Himself could
find the way whereby He remained just and holy and righteous and
yet He could show mercy to folks like you and me and put away
our sins and then receive us unto Himself without violating
His own law. Only God could come up with the
way. And God did come up with the way. It was by substitution
and satisfaction. So that God says, deliver them
from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. And a ransom was found. Won't
you sing that sometime, James? A ransom was found. A ransom
was found. And the ransom was none other
than the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel is a very
profound message, but it comes to us in simplicity. Nothing complicated. This isn't
complicated, is it? You see, it's either grace or
works. That's not confusing, is it?
There's a blessed simplicity to this. It's either Christ Jesus
did everything, or you've got to do something, and if you've
got to do something, then there's no hope at all. It's a very singular
message, and it's a very simple message. Life's in Christ. Salvation's
in Christ. Forgiveness is in Christ. Righteousness
is in Christ. He's everything in God's salvation. Isn't that simple? And he gives
his faith to belief. There is nothing confusing about
it. The religion of the world is
confusing. Well, you have got to do this,
you have got to do that, you have got to pray so much, you
have got to repent so much. Well, when do you know when you
have repented enough? When do you know when you have
prayed enough? Then somebody comes along and just preaches
the gospel and says, Sinner, the Word is not due, but the
Word is done. Oh, that is simple. It's done. Christ Jesus has done it all. He did it by Himself. He did
it for the Father. He presented the blood upon the
altar to God. And God has accepted His Son
and accepts all who are in His Son. Isn't that a simple message?
That's not complicated. I know it's all owing to the
infinite wisdom of God who devised this wonderful, wonderful scheme
of salvation by substitute and by sacrifice. But as it comes
to us, it comes in blessed simplicity. We go forth preaching like these
men do, or like they did, the gospel of the kingdom. And the
Lord told him, He said this, look at verse 3. He says, go
your ways. Behold, I send you forth as lambs
among wolves. Chapter 10 verse 4. And He says,
don't make any provisions. Carry neither purse nor script.
Chapter 10 verse 4. Carry neither purse nor script
nor shoes and salute no man by the way. Don't ask anybody for
assistance. Don't go begging. God's preachers
aren't beggars. He says, I'll take care of you. And in whatever house you enter,
first say, peace be to this house. And if the Son of Peace is there,
if Christ is there, then your peace shall rest upon it. And
they'll love to hear you preach about me. But if they don't love
me, as soon as you start talking about the Prince of Peace, You'll
know. And just go somewhere else. Just
go somewhere else. Listen, I'm delighted to preach
the gospel to you, but if you don't want to hear, I'll just
preach to somebody else. Because there's somebody who
is going to hear. There are people in this world
to whom God will give the hearing ear, and the seeing eye, and
the believing heart. It may not be you, But there's
a bunch of people out here ready to hear this gospel. And don't
you think for a moment that your unbelief or your rebellion is
just going to upset the apple cart. It won't at all. Because the purpose of God rolls
on like a mighty juggernaut. It'll just roll right on over
you. And He'll give His grace to as many as He appointed before
the world began. Isn't that right? So we just
go forth preaching the gospel. The Gospel of the Kingdom, He'll
accomplish His work. He'll save His people. He'll
reveal the message of glad tidings. The glad tidings of the Gospel
of the Kingdom, He'll reveal to the hearts of His people.
As somebody once said, we're on the trail of God's lost sheep.
And they're out there. And they'll all be found too
because not a one of them is going to perish. They'll all
have to be confronted with this Gospel. Oh, may the Lord make
it effectual to you and me this morning.