Come back to Matthew chapter
10. I titled this message, God Sent. God Sent. We have many examples of God-sent men in the scriptures. Turn over to Genesis chapter
45. I'll just give you a few, I cannot give you all of them,
they're too numerous. But over here in Genesis chapter
45, then Joseph could not refrain
himself before all them that stood by him. And he cried, cause
every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him
while Joseph made himself known. unto his brethren. And he wept
aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it.
And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph, doth my father yet
live? And his brethren could not answer
him, for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said
unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came
near. And he said, I'm Joseph your
brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Now, therefore, be not grieved
nor angry with yourselves that you sold me hither, for God did
send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath
the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years
in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest. God, he
says, sent me. God sent me before you to preserve
you a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by great
deliverance. So now it was not you that sent
me. Oh, you were a means that God
used. God uses means. He's a God of
means. But you're not the one that sent
me. God did. But God, and he hath made me
a father to Pharaoh and Lord of all his house." Who would
have thought that? Who would have thought that Jew would have
been lord over all the house of Pharaoh, and a ruler throughout
all the land of Egypt? God sent him as a deliverer,
and we know the type there. We know the type. It pictures
the Lord Jesus Christ. And then after many years went
by, God sent Moses to deliver Israel out of Egypt. And we know
that God sent Jonah to Nineveh to preach to them, and they repented. And God sent the prophets. God
sent John the Baptist to preach and prepare the way of the Lord.
These men were sent of God. He sent the apostles, and he
has sent preachers out to preach the gospel ever since. God sent
men. But the greatest of all, as I
was thinking upon these last night, the greatest of all was
this, God sent His Son into this world to redeem us. Turn over to Galatians chapter
four. Over in Galatians chapter four. But when the fullness of the
time was come, the time that God had purposed before the world
began, when that fullness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them
that were under the law that we might receive the adoption
of children. God sent us His only begotten
Son. We can't even conceive that,
not fully, not fully. And God has sent us His Word.
We have in our hands and in your laps, we have the Word of God,
the inerrant Word of God Almighty. He sent it to us. What a blessing. that we have in having the Word
of God. As I read to you there in Acts
10, Peter said, the Word was sent to you. God sent His Word
to Israel. And God has sent salvation to
you. You believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You believe on
the Lord Jesus. God sent the Word to you, the
Word of your salvation. He sent it, and He gave you faith
to believe it. If it is God sent, it will accomplish
what he sent it to do. It will accomplish it. He said,
My word will not return unto me void. It will not come back
empty. It will accomplish what he sent
it to do. And I thought of this. Is Christ
God sent? Well, we know the answer to that
question. Yes. Yes. But then he will accomplish
what he was sent to do, redeem, save. And when all this winds
up, every one for whom the Lord Jesus Christ was sent to save,
every one of them, every lost sheep will be found, every last
one of them. Not one will perish. Not one
will be missed. He will have every one of them. Now, back in chapter 9, let's
look at this chapter. Back in chapter 9, in verse 38,
the Lord said, Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that he will
send forth laborers into his harvest. Pray, ask him to send
laborers into his harvest. And then in the very first verse
of chapter 10, He does just that. He does just that. He sends laborers
into the harvest. Now, we will see this as we go
through this. He calls His disciples, His students,
learners. He calls them to Himself. And
then He gives them power, power to preach, and then power over
sickness Death and devils, He gives them power. Our Lord said, All power is given
to me in heaven and in earth. And He gives them power. You
know, all power is of God. We have absolutely no power except
God give it to us. Pilate said, Don't you know I
have power to release you or I have power to crucify you?
He said, You have no power at all against me except it be given
to thee from above. All power. belongs to God. And
then after he does this, he sends them out. He sends them out to
preach the gospel to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
And then he gives them their message. When you go preach,
the kingdom of heaven is at hand. They are not freelancing. They
are commissioned with a message to preach to a particular people.
The lost sheep of the house of Israel. I don't know who they
are. There's not a mark on them. I don't know who they are. I
preach to all who come. But I tell you this, the lost
sheep will hear, I promise you, the lost sheep of the house of
Israel will hear the gospel and believe it. They will. They're not going out freelancing.
They have a message to preach to a specific people. He said
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The gospel, listen, the
gospel is for lost sheep. It's for lost sheep. He does
not say lost goats. It's lost sheep. Christ died to save the lost
sheep of the house of history. Who are they? They're the elect
of God, chosen before the foundation of the world. And who are they? Sinners. Sinners. Ungodly. That's who they are.
Sinners. Ungodly by nature. Sinners by
birth. But they're still His sheep.
They're still His sheep because He chose them. He loved them
before the world began. A multitude of sinners. No man can number a multitude
of sinners. If He had not chosen them, There would not be one
person in heaven like Christ, not one. We naturally do not
love God. We naturally do not desire His
presence. We love darkness by nature rather
than light. But God in grace and in love
chose a multitude of sinners, unworthy, worthless sinners,
and caused them by His grace. That's who they are. He's on
the trail of His sheep. Now it says he calls his disciples.
They were disciples first. They were learners first. They
were taught of God first, then commissioned to go preach. A
man has to learn the gospel. He has to be taught the gospel
by God. Now we hear pastors, and God
gives pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints,
for our edification, for our instruction. But he's the teacher. He's the teacher and he teaches
them. And then he commissioned them
to go preach. Christ was their teacher and Christ was their
message. He's our teacher. Take my yoke
upon you and learn of me. He's the teacher and he's the
lesson. And that will never change. That
will not change. Until we learn Christ, until
we learn who He is, we have nothing to say. A man has nothing to
say if he has not learned Christ. Nothing. If God is going to save,
if He's going to justify sinners, it's going to be through the
preaching of Christ and Him crucified. No other type of preaching. It's
going to be through the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. His
blood, His righteousness, His person, His work, it's Him. Justified in Him. And that's
the only message God will honor. That's the only message that
will convert. That's the only message that
will save. God will not honor any other message. It will be
the message of substitution. And there's a great responsibility
laid upon those who preach and those who hear. It says down
here, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them
out and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of diseases. That carries, I tell you what,
that kind of power carries a lot of responsibility with And to
be called of God, to be said of God, to stand in a pulpit
and preach to eternity-bound souls carries a great responsibility
to it. A great responsibility. But to
hear it, like you are this morning, to sit and hear the Word, carries
a great responsibility with it. Look in verse 14 and 15. And whosoever shall not receive
you, nor hear your words," because they are the words of God, they're
not the words of men, "'when you depart out of that house
or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto
you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah
in the day of judgment than for that city.'" or the responsibility that is
laid on us when we hear the gospel, with what measure you meet it
with, it shall be measured to you again. Although the gospel
is good news, it's not to be trifled with. It's not to be
trifled with by preacher or hearer. Not at all. That's why Paul told
Timothy, he said, Timothy studied to show yourself approved to
workmen that need not be ashamed. You study. Now, after he'd called
them to himself, after he'd been teaching them, after he'd done
this, he sends them forth. Now he sends them out. They're
ready to be sent out now. He's taught them some things.
They've been converted. They've learned some things from
the Master. They've learned some things about salvation. They've
learned that He is salvation. It's not in a ceremony. It's
not in a service. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's it. He's salvation. And He's taught
them this. Now He says, now go preach. Now
go preach. He ordained them as preachers,
not theologians. They were ordained as preachers,
heralds. He said, you go and herald You
go and cry that the Lord has come, the kingdom of heaven is
at hand. If the kingdom of heaven is at
hand, the Lord has come. You can't have it at hand and
not have him, not have the king. Now, he gave them power to preach. I cannot, and I've learned this
and I'm learning this, I cannot give power to my preaching. I can get loud. I can try and
sound powerful. I can try and sound convincing.
I can't reach the heart. I cannot reach the heart. Only
God can reach the heart. Only God can take the message
and penetrate the heart. Only He can make it effectual.
I cannot do that. I cannot do that. But He said,
I give you power to do these things. And it is Christ who
gives us power to preach. He does this. The power of the
message comes from Him. It comes from Him. The blessing
of it. If you leave here this morning
and you are truly blessed, you've been here, you've heard the Word
preached, you've blessed, you've been enabled to worship God.
He did that. He did that. Now, as they preached the gospel
of the kingdom of heaven, that it was at hand, the gospel of
the kingdom, which is the gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ,
they healed, they preached, and sinners were saved. What happened
back over there in the book of Acts when Peter preached the
gospel, when he preached Christ? Back over here in Acts chapter
10. Let me show you that again. While Peter yet spake these words
concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, concerning His person, concerning
His death, he says, You slew Him. You slew Him. But God raised Him from the dead.
God raised Him up. God made Him the judge of the
quick and the dead. And to him give all the prophets
witness, that through his name, whosoever believes in him shall
receive remission of sin." Now while Peter yet spake these words,
while he preached the gospel, the Holy Ghost fell on him. God saved a multitude of sinners
that morning. He saved a multitude. And that's
what happens. I pointed this out last week.
The gospel is preached and the sinners are saved. God does not
save sinners apart from the gospel. He saved them through the preaching
of the gospel and pleased God through the foolishness of preaching
to save them that believe. What this shows here, this shows
that salvation has come. It has come and it has come in
the name and in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. There
is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved.
There's only one name by which God saves sinners. There's only
one name by which God blesses us. There's only one name by
which God will bless this service. The Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the only name. The healing here that they had
of healing the sick and cleansing the lepers and raising the dead,
it was just a sign of spiritual salvation. It represents spiritual
salvation. He heals us from all these things,
the leprosy of sin, spiritual blindness, spiritual deafness.
This is what he heals us from, these things. And it confirmed
our message. We have the Word of God. We do
not have to have or need a healing service to confirm the message. We have the Word of God. Take
the Word of God and read it. Compare Scripture with Scripture.
We don't need these things anymore. We don't have them because we
have the complete Word of God. It's also evident here that there's
no case so hard that the grace of God cannot heal. No one has gone so far that the
grace of God cannot reach. The stain is not so deep that
the blood of Christ cannot wash it away. It's not so. Notice something here. The message
was the same message that John preached, the kingdom of heaven
is at hand. It's the same message that all
the prophets preached concerning him. The message never changes. It never changes with the crowd. Really, the crowd never changes.
The crowd never changes. They're all sinners in need of
mercy. It doesn't matter what your educational level is or
society or status. It doesn't matter. We're all
in need of mercy. We're all guilty. Guilty. That puts you on just one level,
doesn't it? Guilty. Puts us all on the same level.
Guilty. Puts us all in the same need. Mercy. Mercy. Grace. If sinners are to be healed
and justified, it will be through the preaching of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now he says to them in verse
8, freely you have received, freely give. Do not go out and
charge people for this service. They would heal the sick. They
would cleanse the lepers. They did these things. Now, don't
put a charge on it like a doctor would. He said, I gave it to
you freely. I didn't charge you for it. Now,
you freely go out and do it. You freely go out and do it. Salvation is the free gift of
God to sinners. That's what it is. I didn't pay
for it. Did you pay for it? We didn't pay for it. We don't
have what it takes to pay for it. We don't have what it takes. We don't have the currency that
it takes to pay for it. It's a free gift of God to sinners. The preachers are never to profit.
He says, don't you go out there and profit off of it. Don't you
go out there and fleece the sheep. Don't you do that. Don't you
go out there and do that. God-given gifts are not for our
profit. They're for our edification.
for our good and it's for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Simon Mackis, look over in Acts
chapter 8. Acts chapter 8. Look in verse 14. Now when the
apostles, let me see if I've got this written down right.
Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria
had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and
John, who when they were come down, prayed for them, that they
might receive the Holy Ghost. For as yet he was fallen upon
none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord
Jesus. Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the
Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw that through laying on of the
apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them some
money. He said, now there's a real business
adventure. Here's a real business venture.
I can make some money with this. And boy, do we see it today.
What? Con artists there are out there
today making money off of stuff like this, pretending they can
do these things. He offered him money saying,
give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he
may receive the Holy Ghost. All he saw was dollar signs.
But Peter said to him, thy money perish with thee, because thou
hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. We're not in it for the profit
of it. We're in it for the glory of God and the good of souls. We are not flesh merchants. Our
Lord is the best example. He's the best example. He says
freely. He went through, He healed the
lepers, raised the dead, healed the sick, healed all manner of
sickness as we saw last week, all manner of it. And yet, you
know what it says? He had no place to lay his head.
He didn't charge one of them. Isaiah 55, 1. Oh, everyone that
thirsted and he that hath no money. He just broke. Broke. Boy, just to find some
spiritually broke sinners. We have a good message for spiritually
broke sinners. So we have a message. And then
he tells his preachers here. 9 through 10. He tells his preachers not to
worry about their needs. These men left their occupations.
And some of them have families. You know, Peter had his wife.
Some of them have families. And he tells them, he says, don't
you worry about your needs or how you're going to provide for
yourself or these things. Over here in verse, let me get
back to Matthew over here. Provide neither gold nor silver,
nor brass in your purses, nor script for your journey, neither
two coats, neither shoes, nor yet stabs, for the workman's
worthy of his meat." I wrote out beside of that, no baggage. No baggage. Don't carry baggage. Don't bring your baggage with
you. The Lord will provide. The Lord will provide. I think
it takes a lifetime of learning. The Lord will provide. This is
what he's saying to them. I will provide. You go preach. You do what I've commissioned
you to do. I'll provide. The workman's worthy of his hire.
I'll move the heart of the people to take care of you. I'll do
that. I want to show you this over
here in 1 Kings. Let me read you this story. It's a familiar
story. Let me read it to you again. And Elijah the Tishbite, who
was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God
of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew
nor rain these years, but according to my word. And the word of the
Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward,
and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt
drink of the brook, And I have commanded the ravens to feed
thee." Ravens? I commanded the ravens to bring
you food every morning and every evening. And you know what? Elijah believed
him. So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, and
he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan,
and the ravens Brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and
bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook. And
it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up. Now
what? Now what am I going to do? The
brook dried up because there had been no rain
in the land. He was affected by it. And the word of the Lord
came to him, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth
to Zidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow."
He didn't send him to the wealthy palaces. He sent him to a widow,
someone that could not afford to take care of him. That's where
he sent him, to a widow. And he said, I have commanded
a widow. You know, she didn't even know it yet. I've commanded
it, but she doesn't even know it yet, but I've commanded it.
He wasn't, as we go down through here. This is a command. You know, his commands are already
done. He commanded before the world began, and they're being
accomplished now. I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain
thee. So he rose and went to Zarephath,
and when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow
woman was there gathering sticks. Oh, the providence of God. Oh,
the providence of God. And he called to her and said,
Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water and a vessel that I may
drink. And as she was going to fetch
it, he called to her and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel
of bread in thy house. And she said, As the Lord thy
God liveth, I have not a cake. But a handful of millin' in a
barrel, and a little oil in a cruze. I don't have much. And behold,
I'm gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for
me and my son, that we may eat." And we're going to die because
this is all we've got. We've come down to our last penny.
We're down to the very last penny. This is all we've got. But she's
saying here, come on, we'll eat this and that'll be the end of
it. And Elijah said to her, Fear not, don't be afraid. Go and do as thou hast said.
You do this. But make me therefore a little
cake first, and bring it unto me first. And after, make for thine for
thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, it will not waste,
neither shall the cruise of oil fail, until the day that the
Lord sendeth rain upon the earth." And you know what? She believed
Him. She went. She went and did. She went, it says, let me find
my place here, and did according to the saying of Elijah, and
she and he and her house did eat many days, a full year. Through that whole famine, God
blessed. that widow woman, but he sent
Elijah there, then he sent those ravens. First he sent him to
that brook and sent ravens to feed him, and then when it dried
up, he sent him to this widow woman and he blessed that place.
She didn't have much, but she said, what I have, you know,
we'll eat it and die. God blessed her many days, and
the barrel of meal wasted not. Neither did the cruise of oil
fail according to the word of the Lord which he spake to Elijah." The Lord will provide. He will provide. He tells them the workman is
worthy of his hire. If he's God's man, he's worthy
of being taken care of. He's worthy. Paul said over in
1 Corinthians 9 and 11, if we have sown unto you spiritual
things, Is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?"
He'll provide. The Lord will provide. Now, as
God's preachers were sent out, they would go from town to town.
I'll wind this up. They'd go from town to town,
city to city, house to house, they would go. And they would
stay with people whom they preached. He said, you go to a city, you
look up those. If there's any there that believe the gospel,
It's worthy. They're not worthy in themselves.
You know that. Christ makes us worthy. But there's one there. You go stay with him. Now, when
you leave, you bless that house. You pray God bless that house.
You pray God bless that house. We have examples of this in Cornelius
over in Acts 10. Lydia, when God opened her heart,
she said, come to my house. He opened her house as well as
her heart. And the Lord said to them, He said, You bless that
house. It's the same as entertaining the Lord Jesus Christ when you
entertain one of His servants. It's the exact same thing. When
you entertain them, you entertain Him. But the house that rebels,
or the city or town that rebels and treats you unkindly, shake the dust off your feet
against it. Shake it off. God's judgment,
he says, is going to fall on that place. God's judgment is
going to fall on it. And I thought last night, how
many places, because he says here in the day of judgment,
a lot of them may have prospered and went right on, not even realizing
the judgment of God's fallen on them. But how many places
have gone to ruin over this very thing? We look back at history,
and we see places that used to be thriving places, places that
were just thriving with commerce and people, and now they're no
more. No more. He said, O Capernaum,
thou who art exalted unto heaven are going to be brought down
to hell. Yet the works that have been done in you that were done
in Tyre and Sidon, they were repented a long time ago in sackcloth
and ashes. How many of these places rejected
the gospel, and the servant of God left, and then sooner or
later the judgment of God fell on him. That's how serious it
is. That's how serious it is to hear
the gospel and give it great, great attention. I can't express that enough. No one hears the gospel ever
ever by accident. No one ever accidentally stumbles
in and hears the gospel. They hear it on purpose. God
sends it on purpose. His Word is sent to everyone
who hears it on purpose. To some it's a savor of life
unto life, and to some it's a savor of death unto death. That's what
the Scripture teaches. And this is the most weighty
thing we will ever do. here preach in here all right
Mike