Let's take our Bibles and turn
to the book of Luke. Gospel according to Luke. Our lesson this morning will
be found in Luke chapter six and verses 12 through 16. And the subject of these verses
is an apostolic ordination. Ordination, we hear a lot about
apostolic things today. There's whole churches referred
to as apostolic. But the only thing really apostolic
had to do with the apostles, and there are no apostles today.
So when you hear somebody talking about apostolic gifts or apostolic
ordinations and things like that today, that's just a lie. There's no such thing. Let's
read these verses together. Luke chapter six beginning with
verse 12. And it came to pass in those
days that he went out into a mountain to pray and continued all night
in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called
unto him his disciples, his followers. And of them, these followers,
he chose 12 whom he named apostles. This is the office that he named
for this ordination. Simon, who he also called, named
Peter, Nandrew, his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew,
Matthew and Thomas, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Simon, called
Zelote. Judas the brother of James and
Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor. Now this is the
first ordination of anyone into the gospel ministry. The very
first. Prophets were called of God.
Sometimes a former prophet would go down and anoint that prophet
with oil and give his confirmation of it. But this
is the first public ordination of anyone into the gospel ministry. And while their office and gifts
were particular to that office, and that office and gifts exist
no more, yet there are some things about this to be learned, some
things here that'll help us in our day. And I have three
things concerning these men that we need to look at. First of
all, I want us to consider the preparation before the calling. Nothing should be done in a church
without preparation. Never do anything quickly. Take time, emotions. carry us away sometimes, and
we say things that we wish we hadn't said. I asked Brother
Henry one time, I said, did you ever say anything years ago that
you wished you could go back and take back? He said, I said
some things this morning I'd like to go back and take back.
Well, we're all guilty of that. We're guilty of it. But we're
dealing with things so far above our head. We're going to make
mistakes. We're going to say things that we shouldn't say.
We're gonna have to back up and swallow our pride and move on. But nothing should be done in
a church without preparation. Our Lord told these men after
his resurrection, let me give you an example of what I'm talking
about. He said, now you go down to Jerusalem and you tarry there
until you be endued with power from on high. So approximately
120 of them went down to Jerusalem and they did what he said for
a little while. But Peter, not being a patient
man, he was reading the scriptures and he said, you know this thing,
the old prophets talked about Judas and talked about his falling
and this apostleship has to be by one that had been with Christ
from the beginning. So we gotta fill this office.
Now, if our Lord wanted him to fill that office, he would have
told him, you all go down there and pick a man. That's not what
they did. He told them to go down there
and tarry and not to do anything until they'd be endued with power
from on high. But Peter insisted, and it sounded
logical to the rest of them. So they found a couple guys that
they all approved of and all recommended, and they said, okay,
now, let's see which one of the two that we chose that God's
gonna have. Is that how God works? He lets
you choose a few, and then you hold them out and say, now, which
one of these that we chose do you want? No. No, he chose them
individually. Every one of them knew it. Every
one of them knew it. But it's amazing how much of
our past tradition clings to us, and we go right back to those
things when we want to reason things out. We go right back
to those things instead of the Word of God. And so they chose
these two men, and then they cast lots. They rolled the dice. And it fell on such and such,
and they picked him. Well, that wasn't God's apostle. That wasn't a 12th man. God called
Paul an apostle out of due season. And he caught him up with him
and taught him personally, just like he did the rest of them.
And he's the 12th apostle, and you never find anything written
about that man that they chose and cast lots for. Don't do anything without preparation. Poor old Matthias, here he is
in name, an apostle. And they've not only made a mistake
for which they'll be sorry, but now they've got this man and
he's got a title in an office that God ain't gonna use. These men were commanded to wait
and be prepared, but rather they rushed into a bad decision. Preparation
needs to be had before we do anything. Before we do anything. I spend hours in my study preparing
to preach And though I have been put on the
spot a time or two where I didn't have a lot of time for preparation,
and that's gonna happen from time to time, but I try to be
prepared. I have a message prepared and
I may have to read it. And I may not. But I have prepared. And you need to prepare before
you come here. You don't need to just keep going
with the everyday things in your life, and this officer, oh, it's
church time. No. Begin to prepare your heart. Ask God to open your heart. Ask
God to give you a hearing ear. Ask God to give me the message
and the words and the illustrations and the things that I need to
say, things that'll touch your heart. Otherwise, this is just
a ceremony. We just, nothing happens. You
come in and sit down because it's Sunday, and I get up and
preach because it's Sunday, and we all go home because it's Sunday
afternoon. And we go right on back to, it
ought to be a special time, a special time. And do you know this little
bit of time that we gather in here to worship God, worship
is what we're going to do for eternity, for eternity. We need to prepare. Now most of us look at a passage
like this and the brief time we spend in prayer and we go
away as if we had never prayed at all. Our Lord prayed all night. All night. He didn't rest. He didn't sleep. Don't that make
you think how pitiful you are in prayer? It does make. It does
make. And truly, we do come short of
using this great privilege given to us by our Lord. We have access
to the very throne of God, and how little we use it. How little
we use it. But before you beat yourself
up too bad, let me tell you this. Jesus Christ is God come into
the flesh. This is the God man. His knowledge
of things was unlimited. You think about what I'm saying.
You can't pray without knowledge. And that shows really how ignorant
we are when our prayer life, I mean, it's just a picture of
how ignorant we are. We pray for 10 minutes and you
wonder what else to say, huh? Because we're ignorant. We could
spend two hours in prayer just thanking God for everything that
He's given us. Spend a little more time just
praising His name in prayer instead of running in there with our
wish list and begin asking Him for this and asking Him for that.
Our Lord's knowledge of things was unlimited. It's unlimited. He knew the mob was coming to
take Him. as he prayed in Gethsemane's
garden. He knew who the betrayer was from the beginning. He knew
he had to go to the cross. How many times did he tell his
disciples, I have to go to Jerusalem. Don't go down there. The Jews
are all gathered down there. They'll stone you. I have to
go to Jerusalem. I have to be crucified, I have
to raise again from the dead on the third day and ascend to
glory. I have to do the, he knew that. They didn't. One woman in the
whole outfit knew. The rest of them didn't know. Listen to this. He said, lo,
I come. This is in Hebrews chapter 10
if you want to read it. Lo, I come. Now listen, in the
volume of the book, it's written of me to do thy will, O God. Over in John chapter six, he
says this. I came not to do my own will,
but the will of him that sent me. And this is the will of him
that sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose
nothing, but raise it up again at the last day. And this is
the will of him that sent me, that everyone that seeth the
Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life." He knew
that. He knew that from the beginning.
He knew who they were. Walked up to that boat, follow
me. Walked up to that tax table, Matthew, follow me. He knew who
they were. He knew who all his elect were. He told those Jews, you believe
not because you're not of my sheep as I sit under you. My
sheep hear my voice and I know them. I know who they are. I know who I'm calling. I know
who I've chosen. He knew all things. He could
spend all night in prayer because he knew all things. We ought
to just rejoice that we're able to pray at all because there's
a time when we didn't. We just uttered words. Every
now and then God'll open our heart and we can pray. We can
pray. I know the will of God in general,
but I don't know his will in particular. In particular. You know, his disciples were
told to pray as he went into the Garden of Gethsemane. And
they did for a little bit, and then they fell asleep. He come
back and woke them up, he said, you need to watch and pray, lest
you be tempted. So they did for a little bit,
and then they went back to sleep. When he come third time, he just
told them, sleep on, sleep on. He knows what we are, knows what
we're able to do. And prayer is something that
ought to grow as our faith grows, as our understanding grows. As
we grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
ought to be able to pray more, not less, but more. But I want us not to throw our
hands up, but to see the gracious privilege of prayer and strive
to do it more and more. You have not because you ask
not. That's why you don't have it. And what a privilege. What a
privilege just to have a desire to pray. Just to have the goodwill
of God working in me to cause me to bow my head and say some
words. What a privilege. What a privilege
to know where to pray and who to pray to. To have any understanding at
all. And most of all, to have a man who is the living way, which
allows us to enter. Now listen what the scripture
said. When you enter into that throne of grace, what's he call
that? You ever notice what he calls
that? Boldness, that's what he calls it. If I should enter in,
my soul. Old King Uzziah, you remember
when Isaiah said in the year King Uzziah died, you know why
he died? He entered into that place without
permission. And God smote him with leprosy
and he died outside the camp a leper. If we enter into that throne
of grace, Larry, it's with boldness. Boldness, and that boldness comes
from our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the living way, who made
it possible for us to enter in. And prayer ought to precede everything
we do, every decision we make, and especially when it comes
to offices in the church. And in the activity of worship,
we read the word of God, and then we pray for understanding.
We pray for the spirit of God to attend that service. Our Lord, the one mediator between
God and men. Think about that. Just one, Russell,
just one. One mediator between God and
men. Our Lord, the head and representative
of the church. Our Lord who created all things
and arranges all things, he went out into the mountain and prayed
all night concerning these apostles. These apostles were not just
men. Off time, we'll just look at
the means that God uses. And I know he's God, he could
use anything he wants to. He said, I could raise up children
to Abraham out of them rocks. But these men whom he was about
to choose, he had ordained these means before the world was. And these men are about to compile
the whole of the Word of God. And he carefully chooses these
men and gifts every one of them. Preparation. I don't fully understand
the humanity and deity of Christ, but I try to take things as they're
stated in the Word of God. And the Word of God tells us
He prayed all night before He came and selected these disciples. And then secondly, I want us
to consider what He was doing. Consider the work at hand. He
didn't call everybody in the outlining community to come to
Him. He called his disciples, hundreds of them. And of them, he chose 12 men,
and these he named apostles. An apostle is the highest office
in the church. Their authority was unchallenged
in the churches. It was over all the churches
and their offices were unique to that day, to that time. And
these men along with the prophets would be the very foundation
of the faith of God's elect. You're built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the
chief cornerstone. the prophets, the apostles, and
did you know Jesus Christ referred to himself as the apostle? Over
in Hebrews chapter three. Consider the apostle, the apostle
of our faith. He's all one, and our Lord said,
had you believed Moses, They said, you know, they were big
on Moses. They loved him after he died.
They didn't like him when he was alive, but when he died,
he'd become Saint Moses. And then our Lord said, had you
believed Moses, you'd believe me. Moses wrote of me. What do
you think he was talking about when he talked about that manor?
My father gave you that bread from heaven. I'm the bread, he
said. I'm the bread. Because of the uniqueness of
their office and the purpose our Lord gave to them, He gave
them extraordinary gifts. He gave them the gift of tongues.
This is not some heavenly language that a man can jibber-jabber
and talk to God and nobody else knows what he's saying except
him and God. If everybody's standing around
looking like, what in the world is he talking about? Then God
selects an interpreter over here and he comes over and tells you
what's going on. That's not what tongues are. Tongues was the
ability to speak in any language without any preparation, without
any schooling, without any practice. They stood up on the day of Pentecost,
the Spirit of God ascended on those men and they stood up and
there was, well you can read it for yourself over there, I
forget how many nations he listed and they got up and preached
and every one of them heard them in their own language. That's
what tongues are. They tell me China has, I forget
how many different languages. Mandarin, all kinds of different
languages. Wouldn't make any difference
to them. They'd stand up and preach and you'd hear them in
your own. No preparation, no nothing. That's
an extraordinary gift. Nobody can mimic that. That has
to be given of God. Has to be given of God. They
laid, they laid their sick down on the ground as the shadow of
the Apostle Paul and Peter. When they would walk by, those
men would be healed just being in the shadow. They had gifts
of discernment. They knew when Ananias and Sapphira
lied to the Holy Ghost. They knew it. I can't tell if
you're lying to me or not when I'm known to you, but they could.
They had gifts of discernment. They raised the dead. I'm not
even gonna tempt that. They raised the dead. My soul. Confirmations of God. Paul said this thing, Hebrews
2 verse 3. Verse begin to be spoken by our
Lord. and was confirmed unto us by
them that heard him, God also bearing them witness both with
signs and wonders and diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy
Ghost according to his will. Apostles. A new age was about to begin,
a gospel age, an age where Christ would be preached to men and
women and God's elect revealed by faith in Christ given to them. We don't need apostles in our
day. We don't need prophets. Nor do we need any supernatural
gifts. We have the word of God and it's
complete and it's already been confirmed by those things. I
don't need God to do it over and over and over. The Word of God's complete and
those who wrote it were confirmed by God with all these supernatural
gifts and miracles. And to deny their testimony,
according to 1 John 5.10, is to call God a liar. The reason the Catholic Church
has an apostle as their head and still preaching a law of
salvation is because they will not bow to the Word of God. And
that goes for all these Baptist churches and Nazarene churches
and all these churches that are world-approved, participated
in by the world. They don't know God. They don't
know God. How do I know that? They won't
submit to the Word of God. What did that one fellow tell
you? I don't care what the Word of God says. Whoa, you don't
care what the word of God said? Most people won't admit it, but
they don't. They may bow to him on some things,
but something comes along and rubs them the wrong way, all
of a sudden that becomes something you can't understand that. See,
that's all fuzzy, that's a gray area. But you go read it, it
ain't gray, plain as a nose on your face. Just won't submit
to the word of God. And notice this, even Judas Iscariot
was chosen. Says he obtained a part of this
ministry numbered with the 12. Listen what our Lord said, have
not I chosen you 12? Huh? Did that include Judas Iscariot?
It did. I just read you his name on the
roll call, preserved in Scripture. And one of you, our Lord said,
is a devil. And regardless of what this world
professes, there's only two offices left in service for our day,
evangelists and pastor-teachers. They're not pastors and then
teachers. They're pastor-teachers. You
can't teach what you don't know. You have to be given these things.
You have to be given an understanding of these things. And before I move on, let me
say this. It's the Lord that ordains men
to the ministry. If God calls you to be a pastor
or an evangelist, that is the ordination. That is all we do
in an ordination service is recognize what God's already done. I have
no authority and no right to ordain anybody. God ordains a
man when he calls him, and he'll prove it. He'll prove it in his
ministry. It'll produce those fruits that
God said it'll produce. Listen to this. What must we
do to work the works of God? What did he tell him? This is
the work of God, that you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Well,
how did you come to believe? How you gonna call on him on
whom you had not heard and how you gonna hear that preacher?
Huh? We have no authority and really
no insight as to who God will ordain. And when we do have an ordination
service, it's after the fact. We're only acknowledging what
God has brought to pass. And publicly identifying ourself
with God's man. If he's God's man, I want to
be identified with him, don't you? Whether he's in trouble
or out of trouble, I want to be identified with him. That's
God's man. God's got his hand on him. And
then finally, I want us to see what these men did after being
ordained by our Lord. It says in Luke 6, 17, he came
down with them and stood in the plain. The difference between
a man prepared in a school who has a little document telling
you that he's an ordained minister And one that God has called is
that Christ accompanies the man he calls. He stands with him
where he goes. And he goes where Christ opens
the door for him to go. Listen to what he, he ordained
old 70 and he sent him out to preach. And here's what he told
them when they left. He that heareth you, heareth
me. Whoa. You think on that for a little
bit. He that heareth you, heareth me. And he that despiseth you,
despiseth me. And he that despiseth me, despiseth
him who sent me. There's serious business in him.
Serious business. They stood with him. And he stood
with them. And they followed him. I'm gonna tell you something,
this thing of following Christ, you think that's a natural thing? You think you had that in you,
that you were born with that? And you're just gonna, well,
wherever he goes, that's where I'm gonna go. It ain't been my
experience. Not been my experience. I ain't
seen a whole lot of that, but I have seen some. I have seen
some. These men followed him. These
men were taught by him. They were eyewitnesses of his
person and his glory. And he did what they were chosen
to do. They did that work that God ordained
them for. These men, it says, wrote, it's
what Peter said, they wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Huh? You reckon we can believe
what they wrote? Huh? They did what God chose them
to do. Thank God for his apostles. And might he, by his grace, teach
us something about this thing. Servants of God and preachers
and those that he's put in authority and those that he's gifted to
do what he called them to do. They're no different than you. They have wives, they have families,
they have things just like you do. But God separated them under
that ministry, and they give themselves to it. They just do.
And all these whatabouts, they just go out the window. There
ain't no whatabouts. No whatabouts. My wife told me,
she said, when God called you to go down to Arkansas, she said,
if I wouldn't have went, you'd have went anyway, wouldn't you?
I said, yes, I would have. I wouldn't have liked it, but I'd went,
because I'm sure this is where he called me to be. All right,
thank you.