Thank the Lord for His faithfulness,
His kindness to us. He does not leave us to ourselves. If He did, which among us would
call upon His name or who would care for any of the things that
He has taught us in His Word, We're looking in Mark chapter
1. I appreciate Brother Thomas' word
this morning. There are certain words and phrases
in the scriptures that some take and make a hobby out of, and
usually when that is the case, they have departed from what
the word even has reference to in the first place. And the word
antichrist is one which falls in that category. And you would think that as strongly
and as widely as some declare the use of that word, that you'd
find it in many places throughout the scriptures, but you don't. So it is, this is the last time. Of course,
we've tried to emphasize that. These are the last days. Sometimes
you hear people say, oh, well, I've had people ask me, well,
brother, do you think these are the last days? I tell them, yeah,
these are. This is the last time, dear brother.
There's not coming another. Behold, today is the day of salvation. And so we're not waiting for
a time or a season that's going to come upon the earth for the
time and the season that we desire is already come. And when Jesus
Christ came into the world as a savior of sinners, that ushered
in a glorious time which the Lord created the world for. That
he might manifest the glory of his grace and the redemption
of his people. And so, we're looking in Mark, and we had looked at the Lord raising up
the woman, Peter's mother, who lay sick of a fever. And then
he went about healing many, suffering not the devils to speak. And
then in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he
went out and departed into a solitary place and there prayed. If the Lord who thought it not robbery to
be equal with God, who was God, if he as a man found it necessary,
needful, and I might say delightful, to pray, then how much more ought
we as men who stand in great need of everything that he possessed
in all abundance how much more ought we to be found in the place
of prayer. But when we are discouraged,
and as we consider how little and how weak our prayers are, remember that as he told Peter,
I have prayed for thee. Thy faith fail not. In spite of the weakness of His
people, in spite of the unfaithfulness of His people, Christ is ever faithful. And
He is that One who has borne our griefs, carried our sorrows.
He is truly the Savior of His people. And Simon and they that were
with him followed after him. Because what else could they
do? Remember what he said? Peter
testified later. He said, Lord, to whom shall
we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. I mean, if you
were, if someone came along today and they were seeking to persuade
you not to follow Christ, tell me who would you follow? What would you go after? What would you pursue? If you belong to Him, if the
Spirit of God works in you, what else can you do but seek the
Lord? What a glorious thing it is when
the Lord is pleased to work in His people. With Him, they followed
after Him. And when they had found Him,
they said unto Him, All men seek for Thee. Now they followed Him,
but He wasn't right there with them, was He? They often sought
Him. He often went off and they didn't
know where He went. You ever feel like that? The Lord was here just a few
minutes ago, and now where did He go? I turned around. You remember
reading the book of the Song of Solomon? how she said, you
know, her beloved put his hand in by the door, and he said,
arise to me, and she said, eh, you know, it's late, I'm tired,
I don't think I can get up and let you in. But she finally went
to open the door, and he was gone. And she said, where's my
beloved? Where's he gone? And so it is
that, The Lord, I was thinking as we sang one of those songs
there a moment ago, and I don't know if I can remember how the
line went, but it said, he's absent and yet ever present.
Now you know, many times we don't feel like the Lord is there.
We wonder where he went. And yet he's always watching
over his children. even as when they toiled after
his resurrection. And, you know, after his resurrection,
he wasn't with them all the time. And Peter said, well, I don't
know, you know, what's going on. I don't know. We thought,
you know, all this was going to turn out different than it
did. He said, I'm going fishing. Let's go fishing. So they fished
and Scripture says they toiled all the night and they didn't
catch anything. And all the while they thought they were toiling
and carrying on fishing and they thought the Lord was who knows
where. And yet he was on the seashore.
And he watched them. And he said, children, do you
have any meat? And they had to confess, no, we don't have anything. And he said, well, cast your
net on the other side of the ship. And they did. And then the net came back full
of fish, 153. Not 154, not 152. It was 153. Because what the Lord does, he
does specifically. And he did that to teach them
a lesson. And he did teach them. And I believe it was Peter, might
have been John. I don't remember. One of them
said, it's the Lord. And he cast himself into the
sea to come as quickly as he could. And when he got there, he found
that the Lord had already prepared exactly what they needed after
a long night of fishing and catching nothing. And yet the Lord had
provided for them a meal. And he said, come and die. And so they found him. And they
found him because he was able to be found because he put himself
where they could find him. Seek ye the Lord while he may
be found. Call upon him while he is near. Because there may come a time
when a man may seek the Lord and not find Him. And because a man in his will
and in his own way thinks that he will come to the Lord as he
sees fit in his own time, may find out different. That's not
the case. And they found him, they said,
all men seek for thee. As if he didn't know that. Their idea was, here you are
over here and all these people are seeking for you. Lord, you
need to get over here and do this. All men seek for thee. He said
unto them, let us go to the next town. He says, I'm done here. Let's go to the next town. that
I may preach there also. For therefore came I forth."
He said this is the reason that I came. He does what he does
on purpose. Just like the scripture says
he must needs go through Samaria. Now he wasn't required to go
through Samaria. There was many ways. In fact,
going through Samaria was kind of out of his way. But he must
needs go through Samaria. Why? Because there was a woman
at a well. She wasn't there yet, but she
was gonna be there at the appointed time. And so he must needs go
through Samaria. And he said, I may, I must preach. I may preach there also, for
therefore came I forth. This is the reason I'm going
there. I have a purpose. And he preached in their synagogues
and throughout all Galilee and cast out devils. And there came
a leper to him, beseeching him and kneeling down to him and
saying unto him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. I think
I know why he came forth into this place. to preach because
he knew there was a leper there. And this leper cried out to him,
says, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved
with compassion, put forth his hand and touched him and said
unto him, I will be thou clean. The Lord is willing to save those
that call upon His name. Isn't that a wonderful thing? I mean, there was many lepers,
no doubt, in that place. You know, leprosy, as Brother
Al did a good job of explaining to us, is not the leprosy in the Scripture,
not necessarily the leprosy that we know today as leprosy, it
may be the same, but anytime that you see leprosy in the scripture,
it is having some reference towards the sin that permeates a man
and destroys him. And when the Lord healed the
lepers, that was considered by the Jews as about the worst thing
that could happen to you was to get leprosy. And for the Lord
to heal a leper, I mean, that was an amazing thing, because
nobody wanted to mess with a leper, because they felt like if you
touched a leper, you'd get leprosy. And so the Lord reached out,
the scripture says, and touched him. Now that's an important,
Thing, is it not? I mean, here's this leper. Nobody's
wanting to mess with him. I mean, they want to, you know,
stand back as far as they can. In fact, it was required of lepers
to warn people that they had leprosy. Don't come near. We're
unclean. Don't come over here. And yet,
he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord moved with compassion,
put forth his hand, and touched him and said, I will. Be thou
clean. And that's the reason that he
was cleansed, was it not? It was because the Lord was willing.
He is willing to save sinners. And as soon as he had spoken,
immediately the leprosy departed from him and he was cleansed. And he straightly charged him
and forthwith sent him away. and saith unto him, see thou
say nothing to any man, but go thy way, show thyself to the
priest and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded
for a testimony unto them. Now, why did he tell him that?
Because the Lord came to fulfill the law, did he not? I mean,
he didn't disregard the law. He didn't say, well, just go
do whatever you want to do. He said, go do what Moses told
you to do in the law. Go show yourself to the priest.
And so that was the command that he gave. But he went out and began to
publish it much and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that
Jesus could no more openly enter into the city, but was without
in desert places. And they came to him from every
quarter. That's an interesting thing. Here was a man that the
Lord told him to do something, and the man didn't do it. Now,
some get great, some use that, they say, oh, well, see there?
Man's free will, it overturns sometimes what God would have
to do. Now, you can be sure of this, and of course, the language
is not, We're not sure if the man did
go to the priest. I feel like he did. I think,
in fact, in another place, I believe in Matthew's account of this,
that he did go to the priest. He didn't disregard what the
Lord said, but he was so full of joy. I mean, if you'd been
a leper all your life, Could you be silent? I mean,
let the redeemed of the Lord say so. I mean, he was overjoyed. He was like that man that Peter
and John, when they came out of the temple, and the man asked
for alms, and they said, we don't have any money, but such as we
have, we will give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Rise up and walk. It says the man rose up and he
walked and he leaped and he praised God and he went on his way joyously. So it is when the Lord is pleased
to move in a man's heart, to show him what a sinner he is
and what a Savior Christ is, he can't help but be overjoyed
at the thought. You see, the work that God does
in His people, it's not just joining up with something, but
it's a relief. Now, the Lord works in people
different ways. I mean, he doesn't always bring
a man to salvation with the same experience. I mean, you can see
that throughout the Word of God. I mean, many different instances. But what the Lord does do as
He works in His people is He gives them an abiding peace and
happiness in that place that He's called them to. See, the
children of God don't serve the Lord out of some legal bondage
because they have to, because it's required of them. But because
the Lord loves us, we love Him. And we can't help it. We don't
have to, somebody doesn't have to teach us to love the Lord. But He causes us to love Him.
And so He did. He went out and He published
it much and He blazed it abroad. He told everybody He could, just
like the woman at the well. What did she do? She said, come
see a man who told me everything I ever knew, ever did. Come show, I said, is this not
the Savior? Is this not the Messiah? And so Jesus could no more openly
enter into the city because people were clamoring to see what was
going on. Now we know as we read the scripture
that that changed, did it not? Religion's always that way. You
can get fired, people get fired up in religion. People get excited
sometimes. I mean get, you know, things
you can't explain going on. But you can always count on one
thing. that the fervor of religion will pass away. You know, the
excitement that's stirred up by men, it will pass away. I've
seen it in my lifetime. You know, I've seen people get
folks stirred up and folks be doing all kind of stuff. But
you can count on this. Give it time and it'll fade out.
And you'll go back and you'll say, well, where's all that?
But those you see whom the Lord is pleased to bring out of darkness
into the light, they don't fade away. Now there are some, I was
thinking as Brother Thomas was bringing to us that message there
a while ago, they went out from us because they were not all
of us. Now there are people who join themselves unto the people
of God. And because, and you see this
throughout the scripture, and Paul warns of it in the scripture,
we are to give warnings and admonitions to those that gather in the house
of God, with God's people. That there are some who walk
with God's people for a little while, but ultimately they fade
away. They go their own way. They say,
eh, we enjoyed that for a while, but we got better things to do.
I often see it, I have seen it over the years that People will
serve, they'll join the church, they'll get all fired up, and
they'll raise their kids, you know, we want to give them a
good background, raise the kids, and then when the kids get older,
they say, well, you know, we're gonna go enjoy ourselves now,
we're gonna go do stuff. Well, what's more enjoyment for
the people of God than coming together with the people of God?
I mean, where is a greater joy to be found for the sons of God
than in the fellowship of one another, praising the name of
the Lord? None of the things of this world
can ever satisfy those who hunger and thirst after righteousness
in Christ. Can't ever be. But they did clamor,
just like religious men will. And so the Lord, he went out
into the desert. get a little relief. And they
came to him from every corner. They sought him out. Now again,
sadly, as we find, as time went on, they sought him out for various
reasons. Some of them saw the leper get
healed and they said, well, you know, we can go out here and
get healed. We'll get healed. We'll get us
something. See, today, primarily, When you listen to most preaching,
and I'm not just being critical, I'm telling you something that's
the truth. When you listen to most preaching, it's about what
you're gonna get out of it. You need to serve the Lord because
you'll be blessed. You'll get this and you'll get
that. It'll be better for you. You won't go to hell. That's
right, you gotta get saved so you can escape hell. And everything
is designed to fill the need that people have. The Lord does
meet the needs of His people. He does do that, but the reason
and the ultimate end of it is to bring glory to His name. And
so we preach the gospel not to tell men what you can get, but
to magnify the Savior who has given Himself for us. And the Lord does call His people
and He does give them a desire to follow Him. And there are
some, no doubt, that came to Him from every quarter in those
desert places who were actually seeking the Lord. So in the midst
of the clamor, the Lord does have His people. And so we rejoice
that it is the Lord that does the work. the saving work to
college people. And we don't take any delight
in these outward forms of things that men do. See, men have been
coming up with ways to get folks saved for a long time. I mean, you know, it's amazing
the strategies and things that people come up with. Well, you
know, if we did this, I remember when I was growing up, I believe
it was in, It had to be a year that ended
in four, but it was a million. What do you call it? I can't
think of the word I'm thinking for. The theme for the year for
this Baptist cooperative thing was we're going
to get a million more in 64, I think it was. And we're going
to have this program where we're going to go out and we're going
to get a million in. Because you know, these evangelists
that run around, they've got, they keep up with statistics.
Well, we had 5,700 decisions last year. Because they know
that if they can get, that the more they can show what they're
doing, the more likely they'll get some more meetings and get
some more money in. Brethren, the gospel doesn't
have anything at all to do with any of that. I mean, men devise
all sorts of schemes and ways that they can reach the young
people and do all this stuff. Listen, the Lord can reach the
young people. And He'll reach the young people
just like He reaches the old people. He'll convince them of
sin, righteousness, and judgment. And He'll teach them that Christ
is the Savior of sinners. And when He does that, He'll
draw His people unto Himself. And they'll be glad. to come
to Him. Oh, what a glorious Savior He
is. And how little men have to do
with anything that goes on in the kingdom of God. We're just
those that are carried along by the grace of God. I mean,
we see all these things happening. And we wonder, well, how did
that happen? You know, I think about sometimes about people
that write me emails and stuff, people I don't know, that they
said, well, we heard this message so-and-so, and how did that happen? I mean, I don't know how that
happens. Now, no doubt, you know, there's
much that goes out that never amounts to anything, as far as
we know. But the Lord takes that word that He's pleased to send. Because, see, that's the important
thing, is when the Lord sends the word. And when He sends the
word, He brings to pass what He sets out to do. And He is,
in the present time, calling men unto Himself. All we can do is just declare
the truth of God and know that He will call His own unto Himself. And that's a glorious thing.
And those of us, by the grace of God, who profess to know Christ,
we can rejoice in Him knowing that it is He that has saved
us and not we ourselves. Now, if He has saved us, You
know, if you come to the place where you really believe that
it's He that has saved us and not we ourselves, you kind of
quit worrying about what you're doing. I mean, what you're able
to do. Now we want to bring unto Him
all that we have. But I couldn't bring enough to
Him to amount to anything. But He has brought everything
to me. Oh, what a glorious Savior He
is.