Looking in the book of Mark, last week we had looked at a
few verses here. And the Lord had called His disciples
and they had followed Him. Now that's a certainty. Now many people picture the Lord
as calling, and in the calling, he's also
hoping that somebody will listen to it. Quite often, the Lord
is presented as a pretty pitiful figure, is he not? Because all
he can do is wait and see what men will do. But the Lord doesn't wait on
anybody. I was thinking this morning as
I was sitting at my computer and the song Pass Me Not, O Gentle
Savior. Hear my humble cry, while on
others thou art calling, do not pass me by. Such is the desire
of a sinner that knows himself to need a savior. And such is
the mercy of God that he calls men, just like he called his
disciples. He said, come and follow me.
And they didn't say, well, Lord, we got to think about this. You
know, they followed him. He said, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. Peter stood on the day of Pentecost
and he said that this promise is unto you and to your children
and to all whom the Lord our God shall call. And so today,
you know, it is our desire that we might hear the call of the
Lord. Because whom he calls, he also brings. And we had discussed
before we began the meeting, we were sitting around and here
talking about the Apostle Paul. And I've never heard a free will
preacher speak about the calling of the Apostle Paul. There was
no free will involved there. Apostle Paul was on the road
to Damascus with one thing in mind. And suddenly, without warning,
the Lord called. And Paul didn't say, well, Lord,
I don't know. I've got this mission I've got to go on down here to
Damascus. You know, you're kind of messing
my plans up. I've got to think about this
for a while. No, he fell on his face and he said, who art thou,
Lord? Because you see, when the Lord
is pleased to call a man, a man wants to know who he is. And so it is, dear brethren,
that we hope today to be even as those disciples who were his
apostles as he called them, and they followed him. And when he
had gone a little further thence, he saw James and John, the son
of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship, mending
their nets. And straightway he called them.
Now he called them in the midst of what they were doing, did
he not? In other words, they didn't get prepared. They didn't
say, well, I think the Lord may be coming by here today, so we're
going to sit here and wait on him. No. He called them in the
midst of what they were doing. We looked at a scripture this
week. It said he will bring the blind
by a way which they knew not. Woman at the well. She didn't
go to the well that morning expecting that she would meet the Savior. She didn't know who the Savior
was. She didn't even know there was a Savior. She wasn't concerned
with that. She wanted to draw water out
of the well. These men were sitting by the ship, mending their nets,
and the Lord said, come and follow me. And straightway, he called them,
and they left, and they went after him. And they went into
Capernaum, and straightway, Immediately, on the Sabbath day, he entered
into the synagogue and taught. He wasn't invited to preach. He just went in there and preached. Now, I don't know if he'd ever
been to Capernaum before or not. We don't know that. I mean, Likelihood
is he may have been there before. But this was a special day. He entered into the synagogue
and taught. And they were astonished at his
doctrine, for he taught them as one that had authority and
not as the scribes. Now when the Lord sends a man to declare the Word
of God, He'll send him with that same authority. Now just because somebody stands
up and reads the Scripture as the Pharisees did, these were
learned men, were they not? But see, when the Lord is in
the Word, men's ears are pricked. and they desire to hear it, and
they know that there's something there for them. And so it is,
we pray, Lord, you know, cause us to hear thy word, because
we know that when the Lord speaks his word, that here, and the
messenger doesn't have to be a particular person. Sometimes people get hung up
on, you know, we're going to have old so-and-so to come in
and preach for us because he's a good preacher. Well, the Lord
doesn't need good preachers. Paul wasn't a good preacher according
to his own testimony. He said, I don't
have great eloquence. The Lord can use eloquent men. He used Apollos, did he not? Apollos evidently was a very
eloquent man, able to speak, the Lord used him. But he doesn't,
the Lord speaks through whoever he wills. Remember he spoke through
Balaam's ass, so he can certainly speak however he's pleased. He
said that of the stones he raised up men to praise him. And so
the Lord doesn't need any particular person, but He uses the people
that He's pleased to use and send them where He's pleased
to send them. And He gives men ears to hear. And they can't
help but hear, whether they like it or not. You ever heard somebody
say something and you didn't like them and you didn't like
what they were saying when they were saying it? But the Lord
caused you to hear it. And you said, you know, that's
right. Such is the grace of God. And
so they were astonished at his doctrine. Now, his doctrine,
his teaching, was from the word of God. No doubt they had read
these things before, had they not? They'd been taught these
things before. But see, when the Lord taught
it to them, Then it was something that was astonishing. They couldn't,
they said, wow, we never heard this before. Have you ever read
the word of God? And you've read it 15 times,
but you read it one time and it just pops out at you like,
what is this? I'm astonished with this. You know, I remember reading
for the first time, although I had read it before, the ninth
chapter of Romans. And I read it and I said, wait
a minute. How can this be? Is this true? Well, I knew it was true. And
so it is, the Lord does astonish men with his doctrine, for he
taught them as one that had authority. Now, he taught them as one that
had authority because he did have authority, did he not? He
said, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. All power. See, all these kings
and princes in the earth and Putin and Biden and Trump and
all these guys running around, they think they have power to
do this and power to do that. They don't have any power at
all. Because all power belongs to
the Lord. And he will exercise that power
as he sees fit. And men cannot go against it. He said, I will build my church
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Why? Because he has authority. And
so he demonstrated that. Now, you know, it's an amazing
thing that though often men recognize
the authority of Christ, unbelievers still do not believe Him. Because you see, until the Lord
is pleased to call a man, he can't hear it, even though he
may be struck by it. You remember, was that I always
get these two guys mixed up in my mind, Felix or Festus, one
or the other of them. They heard the word that Paul
preached and they trembled. They didn't believe. But yet, they couldn't deny,
well, you know, there's something about this. Pilate, when the
Lord Jesus Christ was brought before him, he said, man, this
guy here, he hadn't done anything. His wife came to him and said,
man, this guy, you know, the Lord warned me in a dream, this
is a holy man here, you don't do this. And Pilate, I'm sure
Pilate was in fear and trembling, but yet, he did not believe, did he? And
so you often see these meetings that people have, and they'll
have this high-powered, fire-breathing guy will come in here, and he'll
cause people's shirt tails to run up and down their back like
a wind of shade. And they'll get all fired up. And oh, man, they get worked
up. And you come back a month later,
and you can't find them. I mean, you know, because somebody
trembles before the Word of God is not a sign of anything. See, when men bow down and worship
Christ, it's because the Lord has called them. And He may do that with the preaching
of hellfire and brimstone. He may prick a man's heart with
that, but he doesn't need that. Because you see, he came with
a tender word, but he also came with a hard word. And so it is
that the Lord speaks as one that has authority and not as the
scribes. But his word is not set forth
by the eloquence of men and the ability of men. You know, we
need to get rid of that thought, that it's somehow the ability
of men. I remember when I was growing up
and They would, in the church, they would all want to get this
priest because he had a good track record, you know. They
could read his results. He had, buddy, he got 57 decisions
the last time he was, he came to town at this place. And we
need to get him back. He can really shell the corn.
You know, he can do it. But it doesn't do any good if
the Lord's not in it. The Lord was there at Capernaum.
And he did exactly what he went to Capernaum to do. Now everybody
in Capernaum didn't believe. Did the Lord go to Capernaum
to cause every man to believe? If he had, every man would have
believed. But he went to Capernaum to bear witness to the truth.
That's what he said he came to do. Pilate asked him, he said,
are you a king? He said, you say I'm a king, He'd say, I came to bear witness
of the truth. And that's what he did. And so
he spoke as one that had authority, and there was in their synagogue,
in there, he wasn't outside, he was in there. There was in
their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, a demon, a devil,
an unclean spirit, and he cried out. saying, let us alone. What have we to do with thee,
thou Jesus of Nazareth? Thou art come to destroy us.
I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. Now I'm struck
by something here. This devil, this demon, he knew
who Christ was. Now, what strikes me about that
is if you turn over here to John. See, I think it's about verse 10.
It says, he was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not. Think about that for a minute. The devils, the demons, those cast out of
heaven, they knew him. They know him. They know who he is. But men
don't know him. He came to his own and his own
received him not. But this devil said, hey, wait
a minute. Why are you coming to mess with
us? I mean, we're having it good
here. You come to torment us before
the time? See, they know their time is
done. More than Most men, though, because
see, most men think, well, you know, everything's going to be
all right. We're just going to live on. We're going to all go
to heaven when we die. Wouldn't you say that most people
think they're going to live on in some state of bliss from now
on? I mean, what are we worried about? The devils know their end, oh
that men did. I know thee who thou art, the Holy
One of God. And look at this, Jesus rebuked
him. He rebuked him. He said, hold
thy peace and come out of him. Now look, what happened? And
when the unclean spirit had torn him and cried with a loud voice,
he came out of him. Why did he come out of him? Because
the Lord had authority over the devils. And he said, devil, come
out of him. And he came out. There was no
theatrics involved here. You know, some of these guys
could have sold a bunch of books if they could have done what?
The Lord hid there. And some of them tried to get,
you remember, they talked to Peter and said, you know, what
can we do? We need some of this. I mean,
help us out here. We could really make some money
on this. There's plenty of the sons of
Sceva that have learned that trick, if they're not. And the
airwaves is full of them. TVs full of them, leeching money
from people, preaching a false gospel. And they don't know as much as
this devil did right here, because they don't know him. Because if they knew him, they
would fall on their face in repentance before Almighty God. And Jesus rebuked him, said,
hold thy peace. And when the unclean spirit had
torn him and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him. Now,
why did the Lord tell the devil to shut up? Because he doesn't
want to be witnessed in the earth by the devil. I mean, could not
the devil be a great witness? I mean, this man here, he's got
great power. I mean, really, if the Lord,
you know, and there's, of course, numerous instances throughout
these Gospels where the Lord told people, don't tell anybody
who I am. Don't tell anybody about this.
Now, if he'd been wanting to go out here and just make some
blanket deal where he was gonna influence the whole world to
come and follow him, would he not have said, go tell as many
people as you can and meet back down here on Wednesday night
and we'll all be here and we'll have a big to-do here. Might
even heal some folks and lengthen some legs and, you know, teach
people how to speak in tongues and do all kinds of stuff. But
he didn't do that. He said, be quiet. I don't need your witness. I
don't want your witness. Because you see, the Lord ordains
those whom he will send with his word. And the unclean spirit tore him,
cried with a loud voice, and came out of him. And they were
all amazed insomuch that they questioned among themselves,
saying, What thing is this? We've never seen anything like
this. What's going on? For with authority commandeth
he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. And immediately
his fame spread throughout all the region, round about Galilee. And that's just normal, is it
not? Now it doesn't say that people came to him desiring to
be saved. I mean, you know, you get people
stirred up. I mean, people will go to see
something that's unusual, won't they? I mean, you know, you get
something that's a little bit out of the ordinary and people
will go to see it. And we live in a gimmick age
of gospel, the so-called gospel preaching. If men can come up
with some gimmick to get folks to come. Brother Ed sent me a
picture of a sign somewhere where they got a motorcycle church.
And they said, this is not your mama's church. Now the gimmick
is, you know, we're going to all ride our motorcycles up here
to church. And if you want to come and ride
your motorcycle up here. We got this, it's gonna bring
us all together. See, men want to come together around the things
of the world. Brother Thomas had spoken to
us about. You see, there is a camaraderie
that takes place among the men of the world, and they think,
well, if we can get all this together here, we will get together
and we'll worship God like we want to worship him. We won't
do it like mama did, or we won't do it like this, or we won't
do it like that. We'll do it like we want to do it. But you
see, the Lord will be worshipped how he will be worshipped. And immediately his fame spread
throughout all the region, round about Galilee. And a lot of people
like to build off of fame. Because they know, you know,
if we can get enough fame, I mean, we can turn this into a cash
cow somehow. If we can build our reputation
a little bit. But the Lord didn't need that,
but it's a natural thing that took place. His fame spread throughout
the region about Galilee. And many came, as we'll find
later on, that many came and He said they followed Him for
the loaves and fishes. I mean, a lot of people follow
the Lord for loaves and fishes. They like the things they see.
They like the way it makes them feel when they get together and
they sing the songs and they clap their hands and they stamp
their feet and they raise their hands and they get all excited
about it and they like it. That's just natural. But it doesn't
have anything to do with the work of the Spirit of God. And forthwith, when they were
come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon
and Andrew with James and John. But Simon's wife's mother lay
sick of a fever, and anon, or at a particular time, they told
him of her. Now, little did they know that
he actually went there because Simon's mother was sick, or his
mother-in-law, was it mother? His wife's mother, yeah, his
mother-in-law. She was sick. Now why was she sick? Was this
a random thing that took place? No, she was sick for the same
reason Lazarus was sick. She was sick because the Lord
made her sick. You know, that goes over real big in some circles
if you said the Lord made somebody sick. But the Lord does make
people sick. He kills and He makes alive.
He does all things according to the good plans of His will.
People can't get sick if the Lord doesn't make them sick.
Now why does the Lord make people sick? He makes people sick for
various reasons. Some people He makes sick because
He's just gonna take them on out. Some people He makes sick
because He wants to draw them unto Himself, to cause them to
call upon His name. I don't know all the reasons
the Lord may do some of the things that He does, but I know that
He does all things, and He does all things well. And Simon's
mother, wife's mother, lay sick of a fever. And anon, or after
a while, they told him of her. Now they didn't need to tell
him of her, but they did tell him of her. Why do we pray? I mean, do you need to pray to
let the Lord know stuff? Does He not know the things that
you need before you ask? Of course He does. See, the purpose
of prayer is not to inform the Lord as to what we need, but
it is to bring us into conformity with His will. That's what He
does with prayer in His people. See, He causes us to come to
the place where we acquiesce unto His will. That's the purpose
of prayer. and he uses that to build us
up. Oh, that we might be people of
prayer. And so he came and he took her by the hand and he lifted
her up. He didn't do any hocus pocus,
did he? He didn't make a theatrical thing, he just reached out his
hand and he picked her up and she was healed. But see, that wouldn't work out
too good of these great healers that we
got today, because they got to get the things set up right,
get the light right. And the first thing you got to
do is screen all the people to get the ones they figure they
can really make a good showing with, you know? The ones that
are going to do exactly what they tell them to do. But the Lord just healed the
woman. Now I don't know if there may
be people the Lord has given a gift of healing to. I wouldn't
say that there isn't. But I know this, that if the
Lord is in the healing of somebody, the only person that's gonna
be glorified in that healing is the Lord Jesus Christ. Man's
not gonna bring attention to himself. If the Holy Spirit of
God will not bring attention to himself, then I am sure that
he will not have men to bring attention to themselves in the
healing of men. That's when Peter healed, the
Lord used Peter to heal the man outside the temple. He said,
we don't have anything, but in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
rise up and walk. He didn't gather up a crowd to
come witness this, but he just gave the man such as he had.
And so the Lord raised her up and immediately the fever left
her and she ministered unto them. And it even, when the sun did
set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them
that were possessed with devils. And all the city was gathered
together at the door. And he healed many that were
sick of diverse diseases, and cast out many devils, and suffered
not the devils to speak, because they knew him. Now, I don't know
if he healed everyone that they brought to him or not. He healed
a bunch of them, many, he did many. It almost leads me to believe
that because it says he healed many, I'm not sure that he healed
every one of them. Now, he could have if he's so
pleased to do. He's not always, but I do know
this, the Lord does heal men miraculously, at least as far
as men are concerned, you know. What men call miraculous healing
is something that's done without the doctor. You know, if the
doctor don't show up and they get healed, well, you know, it
was a miraculous healing. Well, the Lord, it's like, and
I've shared this with you before, but I think it's a great description
of it. Lester Roloff was asked if he
believed in divine healing. He said, I didn't know there
was any other kind. I mean, you know a man can't
be healed if the Lord doesn't heal him. Whether he does it
through means that men would call miraculous or he does it
through good diet or medicine or however he does it, it's still
the hand of the Lord doing these things. They brought him and
he healed these people. And he cast out devils. And he
healed and he suffered not the devils to speak because they
knew him. And in the morning, rising up
a great while before day, he went out and departed into a
solitary place and there prayed. The Lord came to demonstrate
the weakness of human flesh. And if it was needful, and if
it was a thing he desired to do, to go out and to pray. I mean, had he not done all these
wonderful things, could he not just have kept on doing them
and just went from city to city and just did whatever he wanted
to do? But he would show us the limitations
of human flesh. See, he demonstrated that to
Peter, did he not, when Peter got out of the boat and walked
to him. Now, you often hear that preached as though, you know,
Peter, he could have walked on the water going to the Lord.
And the only reason that he didn't was because he took his eyes
off the Lord and he began to sink. Well, I don't believe that
was it at all. The Lord got Peter out of the
boat and showed Peter that he couldn't walk on the water. Now, if the Lord had wanted him
to walk on the water, he could, but evidently the Lord didn't
want him to walk on the water. How do I know that? Because he
sank. And so it is, dear brethren,
our human flesh, we're a weak flesh. And if the Lord demonstrated
being a man possessed of the spirit of the living God without
measure. See, you and I have been given
the spirit by measure. Every one of us has been given
the gift of faith according to the measure which the Lord has
been pleased to give to us. The Lord had all these things
without measure. And yet, as a man, he felt it
needful. to turn aside from the world,
to go into a solitary place and pray. Ought we not to do the same?
May the Lord give us a mind and heart to seek Him and seek Him
alone. And the only way you can seek
Him alone is by yourself. See, I mean, it's a good thing
to come together and pray. It's a wonderful thing. I enjoy
praying together with God's people. But we need to get together with
the Lord alone in the solitary place. Remember, Leonard Ravenhill
mentioned that when he was a young man, that his old grandmother
was, or I think she might have been his great grandmother, but
anyway, she was an elderly grandmother. And she was confined to a wheelchair. And certain time of the day,
He said back in those days, women would wear aprons. It was a common
thing, women would wear an apron. Because I guess their primary
task was providing for the family and preparing meals and stuff. And she was of the habit to wear
this apron. And she would be sitting in her
wheelchair in a certain time of the day. She would throw that
apron up over her head and she would begin to sing, the Lord
is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence
before him. Brother, we need to come apart
from the world to a silent and solitary place and seek the Lord
while he may yet be found.