Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverend, is your matchless name. Father, how thankful we
are to be able to come into your courts this morning, offering
our praises for your glorious matchless person, for who you
are, what you have been pleased to do by your mercy and grace
for your people. And Father, to thank you for
all your blessings. Oh, how richly You have blessed
us, you've blessed your people, you've blessed this congregation
so richly. And Father, we thank you. And
we pray your forgiveness for ever being ungrateful and not
as thankful as we should after all of your countless many blessings
and goodnesses to us. Father, I pray that one more
time you'd bless us as we look into your word. Father, show
us the Lord Jesus Christ. Cause your word to go forth in
the power of your spirit to reach the hearts of your people, to
grant us faith and repentance. Cause us to cling to Christ more
completely, more fully, more desperately than we ever have
before. Father, we lift our hands and cry unto thee that you might
be pleased to meet with us and to supply all of our need richly. now and in the future as you
have in the past. And Father, we pray a blessing
for your people that you brought into the time of trouble and
trial. There are many who are suffering here and in other places. Father, we pray for our sister,
Andrea Endicott, that you'd be with her in a mighty and special
way. We pray you'd be pleased to touch
her body and to heal her. Father, above all, give comfort. Comfort your people. until you're
pleased to deliver them. Comfort us with your presence,
we pray. If there's one thing that we have learned, that you've
taught us, is we can do without many, many things in this life,
but we cannot do without thy presence. Father, give us your
presence, we pray. All these things we ask for the
glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is in his name, for his sake
we pray, amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
Preachers and Hearers. Our text this morning gives us
a description of preachers, tells us about their message, tells
us about their conduct, how they conduct themselves, but also
tells us about the hearers of the gospel, how they hear and
how they conduct themselves. So the first thing I want us
to see about preachers and hearers is this, that God's preachers
are called in sin of God. Verse seven of Mark chapter six.
And he called unto him the 12 and began to send them forth
two by two and gave them power over unclean spirits. Now God
called these 12 to himself, his 12 apostles, and this is something
only God can do. Only God can call a man to the
ministry and send him to a specific people, to pastor and preach
to a specific people. If you look over first Timothy
chapter one, Paul was not one of the original
12, but he is one of the 12, and certainly what he says of
himself here is true. Of every one of God's preachers,
God calls them to it. In verse 12 of 1 Timothy chapter
one, and I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me. He had to give me the gifts,
he had enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting
me into the ministry. You know, Paul wasn't looking
to be put into the ministry, God put him in the ministry.
And God sent Paul to preach, didn't he? Mostly to the Gentiles,
but he sent him. Now only God could do that. You
think of Saul of Tarsus. Only God could make that man
a preacher of grace. Isn't that right? Only God can
equip a man for the ministry. And we need to learn to wait
on the Lord in these matters. You know, I've seen this more
times than I can count. when a man puts himself in the
ministry, or somebody else puts him in the ministry, puts him
in a place to be a pastor of a people, and God didn't put
him there. And I'm telling you, 100% of
the time, he makes himself miserable, he makes the congregation miserable,
and he makes his family miserable, because he's trying to jam a
square peg into a round hole. Just wait on the Lord. If God
calls a man to the ministry and sends him to preach it, God will
bless it. Now I'll tell you what that man
will preach. He'll preach the electing, calling, love of God
for his people. God called him. God called him
to be a believer. God called him to be a preacher. That's what he's gonna preach.
God's electing, God calls his people. He calls them to Christ
by the preaching of the gospel. God calls his preachers to the
word, and you know, God calls hearers. to Christ too. Only
God can call a sinner to Christ. God calls all of his people to
come to Christ with the same irresistible power. God calls
a man to the ministry and the Lord, all these two things that
preachers and hearers always go together because God calls
his people to Christ by the preaching of the gospel, by that man that
God sent and equipped to preach the gospel. God's preacher's
gonna preach the electing love of the Father. He's gonna preach
the death of Christ that was offered only for God's elect.
And he's gonna preach the irresistible call of the Holy Spirit. And
he's gonna keep preaching that message. I don't care what happens.
He's gonna keep preaching that message and God's gonna use it. He'll use it to call his people
to Christ. He'll use it to feed and instruct and edify his sheep.
That's the message that God uses. Now only God can call a man and
make a preacher out of him. And only God can call a people
and make hearers and believers out of them. And that brings
me to my second point. God's people are not lone wolves. It says in verse seven that he
called unto him the 12 and began to send them forth two by two,
two by two. God's preachers are not lone
wolves. They're two by two, two by two. Any man who says, I'm
the only one left preaching the gospel, he's not sent of God. And he's not called of God. If
a man says, I'm the only one who knows this particular point
of truth, here's a particular point of truth that God has just
newly revealed to me that he never has revealed to anybody
else before. That man's not sent of God. Don't you listen to him? Don't you have anything to do
with him? He is not sent of God. 2 Corinthians 13 verse one says,
in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be
established. The gospel is established by
two or three witnesses, all preaching the same thing. God's preacher
is not a lone wolf. And you know, that's true of
every believer. God's people are not lone wolves. They're
not wolves at all, are they? They're sheep. They're sheep.
And sheep are communal animals. They live together. They need
one another. Let me show you that in Ecclesiastes
chapter four. Ecclesiastes chapter four. Beginning in verse seven. Then I returned and I saw vanity
under the sun. There's one alone and there's
not a second. Yea, he hath neither child nor
brother, Yet is there no end of all of his labor, neither
is his eye satisfied with riches, neither saith he, for whom do
I labor and breathe my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea,
and it's a sore travail. It's a sore travail to be going
through this thing alone. Two are better than one, because
they have a good reward for their labor. If they fall, the one
will lift up his fellow. But woe to him that's alone when
he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up again. Again,
if two lie together, then they have heat. But how can one be
warm alone? And if one prevail against him,
two shall withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly
broken. Now you see what Solomon is telling
us here is how much we need each other. Two is better than one. In this particular context here,
we're talking about preachers and hearers. A congregation needs
a pastor. But a pastor needs a congregation
just as much as the congregation needs a pastor. The pastor needs
the people. And I'll give you a good example
of this. The mouth needs the ear. It does. People who are deaf, sometimes
they can learn to talk, can't they? But it always sounds a
bit off. And you know why it sounds a
bit off? They can't hear. Well, the pastor is the mouth
of the congregation, and he's the one doing the speaking. But
I promise you this, I can speak a whole lot better when you're
listening. I surely can. If the Holy Spirit is blessing
you to hear, and your spirit is witnessing with my spirit,
I can preach better. Now that's just a fact. I remember
during COVID, remember we had to just record messages and everybody
watch them, And I was here alone. This is the hardest preaching
I've ever done. I got Janet to come with me. At least there's somebody I can
look at and preach to. It was so difficult. The mouth needs
to hear. It's just a whole lot easier
to preach when you see people rejoicing in the message of Christ. When you see the message is blessing
somebody. It's a whole lot easier. We need
each other. We need each other to fulfill
this ministry. that God has given us. And I
said that right, us. This is not just my ministry.
This is our ministry. Everybody has a part in it. Everybody
has a role to play. This is our ministry that God's
given us to preach the gospel to our community. All right,
number three. If a man is God's preacher, you're
gonna recognize power in his message. At the end of verse
seven, it says he gave them power over unclean spirits, power. One of the qualifications of
a bishop is he's apt to teach. God's given him the ability to
teach the word. If God calls a man, he sends
him to preach, now the Lord's gonna give him the ability to
teach the word, to preach the word, to show you Christ in his
word. All God's preachers can take
God's word and show you the meaning of it. The meaning is Christ. Here's how this scripture points
us to Christ. The meaning of every scripture
is there's salvation in Christ. There's righteousness in Christ.
There's forgiveness of sin in the blood of Christ. And if God
calls a man and equips a man, there's going to be power in
his message. Power. Brother John Chapman asked
me one time, how many times over the course of the years, did
you come hear Henry preach? And it was a life-changing message.
That there's power in it. There's power in it. If a man
preaches only Christ, if all he's preaching is Christ, if
all he's doing is pointing you to Christ, do not look at yourself,
do not look at any of your works, not look at anything you do,
but look to Christ only. Trust Christ only. Run to Christ. There's power in that message,
isn't there? Because Christ is the power of God. He has the
power to save sinners. There's life-giving power in
his message. Look down at verse 13. And they
cast out many devils and they anointed with oil many that were
sick and healed them. Now the Lord gave these apostles
and others in the early church the ability to perform these
miracles of healing and casting out demons. And the Lord gave
them those abilities in that time so that people would know
they're speaking for God. What they're preaching, when
they're preaching Christ, they're to be believed because God's
given these men powers that people just don't have. Those miracles
were evidences that God sent them. But now the day of miracles
in that sense is over. I don't have to work a miracle
for you to know whether or not I'm telling you the truth. All
you gotta do to see if I'm telling you the truth is look in the
word of God and see does what I'm preaching match the rest
of the word of God. If I am, it might be a good idea to listen
to it. Ask God to give you faith to
believe it because it's true. And you know what? The day of
miracles is not really over. God's still performing miracles. When a man, a sinful man, a man
of clay, preaches the gospel of Christ, preaches Christ, Christ
the Savior, Christ the God-man to other sinners and other sinners
here, and they believe Christ, they trust their soul to Christ,
I defy you, tell me a bigger miracle. The parting of the Red
Sea is nothing. compared to the power of God
taking the preaching from the lips of a sinful man to the ears
of sinful men and women and making them believe Christ. That's a
miracle. It's a miracle. So really, what
we have today is better than miracles, isn't it? People are
like, oh boy, I'd like to see the apostles lay their hands
on somebody and then be healed. We have something better. The
apostle Peter saw so many miracles. I mean, can you imagine how many
miracles that man saw in the time that he was with the Lord
and they would bring the sick to the Lord and as many as had
need of healing, the Lord healed. Peter saw the Lord raise people
from the dead. He saw them heal lepers. He saw him just, oh, I mean the
miracles. He saw the Lord walk on water.
He saw the Lord command the wind and the waves and the sea. He
saw Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration. But he peeled back for just a
second, that veil of flesh to reveal his glory. He heard the
father speak from heaven, this is my beloved son in whom I'm
well pleased. And after seeing all that, Peter
said, we have a more sure word of prophecy. God's word, God's
word. Believing this word, having this
word, having this word preached to us, have God given us faith
in this word, it's better than miracles. It is better than physical
miracles. You know, miracles, speaking
in tongues, maybe healing somebody, maybe doing some of these things,
you know, that could happen by another spirit. I don't know. It could happen by another spirit.
I know a man who was confident that at one point he actually
spoke in tongues. And this is what he said years
later. It wasn't by the power of the Holy Spirit. It was by
another spirit. That's scary, isn't it? If you and I need miracles in
order to believe, you know what we're saying? God's Word's not
enough. And this is all we need. This
is all we have is the Word of God. The goal of God's preachers is
not to have physical healing and I mean, that would be nice.
I mean, you know, I pray, when you're sick, I pray for your
physical healings. If one of you is just, you know, in a horrible
trial, I'll come cry with you, I'll be with you, you know, but
I can't really do anything about that. I don't have any power
there. But the goal, I mean, the goal
of God's preachers is spiritual healing for the soul. It's comfort
for the hearts of God's people. And I tell you, the one and only
way that can happen is by the power of the Holy Spirit blessing
the preaching of Christ. The work of the Holy Spirit,
that's what this oil, when they anointed many that were sick
with oil, the oil represents the Spirit. And you know, all
the things people say about the anointing of oil at that time,
it was their medicine, it was the best medicine they had, and
all those kind of things. but oil throughout scripture
is a picture of the Holy Spirit. There is no power on earth like
the power of the Holy Spirit, blessing His word to the hearts
of God's people. I mean, you think about the fact
that if you believe, you believe Christ. Those of you who believe,
that's a miracle, isn't it? God, the Holy Spirit, took note
of you. of all people on earth, of all
people that might have the opportunity to hear the gospel, the Holy
Spirit took note of you personally and made you believe. Can you
imagine such a thing? And I'll tell you how he's going
to do it. If he's going to keep doing it
for us, for our community, for our friends, for our children,
for those that know not Christ, he's going to do it by the preaching
of grace that's found in Christ Jesus. There's power in that gospel.
There's power in it. And God as my helper, that's
what I'm gonna preach. That's what I'm gonna preach.
All right, number four. God's pastor is to be supported
by the local church. In verse eight, Mark six, and
he commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey,
save a staff only, something to help them walk, no script,
No money, no bread, no money in their purse. Don't take anything
with you. You just depend on the Lord.
Now, the Lord's not teaching us here that we're not to pay
attention to the finances of the church. Of the 12, one of
them was a treasurer to take care of those things. The Lord
appointed him to take care of that because these are matters
that must be taken care of. We've got to be good stewards
of what the Lord's given us. We can't be foolish in that way.
What the Lord is teaching us is this, that in the ministry,
this is something He told the twelve. In the ministry, don't
depend on the arm of the flesh. That's what He's teaching. Now
be prudent, but you depend on the Lord to provide. That's true
physically, that's true materially, and that's true spiritually.
You depend on the Lord to provide. Don't go out here trying to make
results. Don't go out here trying to make converts and pull people
down the aisle and try to guilty people into going in the pool.
Don't be trying to build numbers. If you do that, all you're going
to have is a bunch of goats anyway. This is what the Lord's teaching.
Just go out and do what I sent you to do. Preach. And you depend
on the Lord to provide whatever you need. You depend on him to
provide physically, materially, and you depend on him to provide
spiritually, the results and the hearts of God's people. God's
preacher is to give himself completely to the ministry, to pray and
study, to preach, and he's to live by the gospel. He is to
live by the support of the church, the support of the people that
believe Christ. And if he's handling the ministry
properly, He's not gonna have time for a full-time secular
job. He's not gonna do it. If he's got to go out in the
workforce, this I promise you, his preaching will suffer. I
mean, you only have X amount of hours in a day. You got X
amount of energy and X amount of hours a day. Your mind works,
and if you've got to give it to a job, I tell you what's gonna
suffer. It's the preaching. Look down at verse 10. The Lord
said unto them, in what place whoever you enter into a house,
there abide till you depart from that place. Now the pastor's
not to go door to door begging. He's not to go door to door to
door saying, well, how much can I get here? How much can I get
here? How much can I get here? He's not working behind the scenes
going door to door to door, trying to manipulate things. God's servant
is not a greedy man. He's not a covetous man. He's
not a man that has to have the best of everything. Now he's
not lurking to enrich himself from the people that hear him
preach. God's servants are not hirelings. Their message is not
for sale. Their number one aim is to take
care of the sheep that God's given them. No matter what, just
preach Christ to them. That's his aim. That's his job.
And a pastor is to stay in one place and to preach to the sheep
that God's given him there. And the church is to support
it so that the pastor lives pretty much like the rest of the congregation,
you know. You always find God's preacher somewhere between poverty
and riches. Somewhere in between, that's
where you're gonna find God's preacher. He's just gonna be
an ordinary working man. He's gonna live like an ordinary
working man, because that's what he is. He's made of works. works in the word. Now look over
at 1 Corinthians 9. I know that's what the Lord's
teaching there. And here's a scripture that shows us that. 1 Corinthians
9. Those who preach the gospel are
to live by the gospel. In verse 7, 1 Corinthians 9. Who goeth to warfare any time
at his own charges? Who planteth the vineyard, and
eateth not of the fruit thereof? Or who feedeth the flock, and
eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these things as
a man, or sayeth not the law the same also? For it is written
in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox
that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?
Or sayeth he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes no doubt
this is written, That he that ploweth should plow in hope,
And he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.
If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if
we should reap your carnal things? Now, you can't mistake what Paul's
saying there. Those who benefit spiritually
by the preaching of the gospel are to give their carnal things
to support it. Seems like a pretty good trade
to me, don't you? To receive spiritual blessing and then out
of a grateful heart give to support that ministry. And I tell you
this, if a person has benefited from the preaching of the gospel,
if God the Holy Spirit's given them a new heart, they have a
heart that will desire to give and to desire to support the
preaching of the gospel because that is how God's pleased to
support his pastors. It's by the giving of the people
who hear. Look down at verse 14, 1 Corinthians
chapter nine. Even so hath the Lord ordained
that they which preach the gospel should live by the gospel. That's
what he means by that. This is how the Lord's pleased
to provide for his pastors is by the giving of the people.
And God's pastor is to live on that, to depend on the Lord in
that way. All right, here's the fifth thing. The message of God's pastor is
Christ alone. Verse nine, he says, be not shod
with sandals and not put on two coats. Now the Lord is still
teaching here that God's pastors to rely on the church to provide
for them. You don't need two of everything.
You don't need to store up two of everything. You just depend
on the Lord to provide. Now if a man pastors a church
full of poor people, he's gonna live like them, like a poor person.
And if a pastor pastors a church that's full of wealthy people,
he's not gonna take more than he needs. He's not gonna take
two of everything. He doesn't have to have the best
of everything, because that's not his manner. But more importantly,
what the Lord is showing here is a picture of our message.
Our message, it's Christ alone. Look to Christ alone. Depend
on Christ alone. God's servants have one message. I don't care from what text it
is. God's servant has one message. It's not grace and works. It's
not grace plus a little bit of works. It's not grace, you know,
plus some psychological mumbo-jumbo. His message is Christ. His message
is one message. His feet will be shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace. He doesn't need two pair
of sandals. He just needs one because we have one message.
It's the gospel of peace in Christ. And his message will have one
Coke. It's the righteousness of Christ. I don't need another
one. If I have the righteousness of Christ, I don't need another
coat, do I? You know, the Lord told them,
don't you take two coats. Remember when he was crucified,
he didn't have two, he had one. Remember, they couldn't rend
it, so they cast lots on it for the whole thing, because it was
woven, one piece, top to bottom, all throughout. That's our coat. It's the righteousness of Christ
and it can't be divided. If you try to tear it and put
it in different pieces and put it in different boxes, you've
ruined the whole thing. It's absolutely ruined. We've
got one coat. It's the righteousness of Christ
and we're going to depend on Christ alone. Look to Christ
alone. It's the constant message of
God's pastor. Look down at verse 12. And they
went out and preached that men should repent. Now the word repent,
it doesn't mean sorry for your sin. It means to turn. It means actually a radical change. It's to change your mind 180
degrees from what you used to believe and what you used to
think. And our message to sinners is change your mind about everything
that you think naturally about spiritual matters. Change your
mind about who you think God is. Change your mind about who
you think you are. You know, if you think that there's
something in you that makes you more savable than somebody else
or makes it more logical that God would save you as opposed
to somebody else, change your mind about that. Now, we're all
the chief of sinners. You know, if you think that righteousness
is something that you do or righteousness is something that you can contribute
to, change your mind about that and trust Christ only. If you
think salvation is something that you choose. You choose to
accept it. You choose to do it. Change your
mind about that. And beg God to have mercy on
you. And trust Christ alone. If you think that you deserve
a chance to be saved, you deserve a chance to decide whether or
not you're gonna accept Jesus as your personal savior or not,
now you change your mind about that. No, you beg God for mercy. We don't want a chance. I want
God to do all of the saving for me. I want Him to impose His
will on me. Change your mind about that.
If you think God's gonna accept you because of what you do, you're
doing this better than somebody else, so God's gonna bless you
more than He does somebody else, I tell you what, change your
mind about that. And beg God that you'd be accepted in the
beloved. See, change your mind about that. There's no salvation
until God gives us the gift of repentance so that we radically
change our mind. and we trust in what we used
to not trust in. Now we trust Christ. See, Christ
alone is always the message of God's servants. Now, I hate to end here, but
this is about the last thing that the Lord says to his disciples
here. We're talking about preachers
and hearers now. There is nothing more important
to you and me than hearing the preaching of Christ. Look what
the Lord says in verse 11. And whosoever shall not receive
you nor hear you, when you depart thence, shake off the dust under
your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you,
it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day
of judgment than for that city. Everyone of us here thinks that
Sodom was the worst place that ever existed on earth. That's
what we think. Maybe we're not far off, I don't
know. God destroyed them for it, and rightfully so. But our
Lord is teaching us something here. You know what a worse sin
than the sin of Sodom is? A worse sin than the sin of Sodom
is to hear the gospel of Christ and refuse to believe it. Now
there are no degrees of glory, but there are degrees of punishment
in hell. And God says those who refuse to believe the gospel,
they hear it, and they refuse it, they're going to have greater
punishment in hell than the people of Sodom will because they've
sinned against greater life. Now, if we believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, even though we're as rotten and sinful as the people
of Sodom, we'll have everlasting life and God's wrath will never
touch us. Spiritual light can only come
from hearing the gospel of Christ preached. The only way we're
going to have a refuge from God's wrath against our sin is to be
found hiding in Christ. So there's nothing more important
for us than to hear Christ preaches there. Because if we hear him,
maybe we'll run to him. Maybe the Holy Spirit will be
pleased to cause us to run to him. And I hope you'll join me
in that determination that we're going to preach Christ. to our
generation, to our community, in the time that God's given
us to serve. All right, hope God will bless that too.