The first four books of the New
Testament are titled The Gospel According to Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John. These four men, the Holy Ghost,
are separated as witnesses of the life and the death and the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. And this is the gospel. And we've been studying these
things verse by verse, reading each one of the apostles' accounts
of these things. But over the last several weeks,
we've been looking at the book of Mark. And I want us to read
the last 13 verses of this ninth chapter of Mark. Mark 9, verse
38. And John answered him, that is
the Lord, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in
thy name, and he followeth not us. He's not of our company. And we forbade him because he
followeth not us. But Jesus said, forbid him not. For there is no man which shall
do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us
is on our part. For whosoever shall give you
a cup of water to drink in my name. Now listen to this, this
is the title lesson this morning. Because you belong to Christ. Whosoever shall give you a cup
of water to drink in my name because you belong to Christ,
verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. And whosoever shall offend one
of these little ones that believe in me, It's better for him that
a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into
the sea. And if thy hand offend thee,
cut it off. It's better for thee to enter
into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into
the fire that never shall be quenched, where there weren't. Now, I want you to look at this.
I read over this for years and didn't see it. Their worm, how's
that spelled? T-H-E-I-R. This worm belonged to them. And he's talking about hell where
their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And if
thy foot offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to
enter in halt into life than having two feet to be cast into
hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. Where there
worm, he says it again, dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy eye offend thee, pluck
it out. thee to enter into the kingdom
of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell
fire where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. For everyone shall be salted
with fire and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt
is good, but if the salt hath lost its saltness, Wherewith
will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and
have peace one with another. I titled the message, as I said
earlier, Because You Belong to Christ. In verse 41, what gave
recognition to the giving of a cup of water in his name is
actually twofold. First, it was given in the name
of Christ. It was given in his name. And
then secondly, it was given to them that belong to him. I don't know if you know this
or if you've ever heard it or if you've heard me hear it and
it just went in one ear and out the other, but I want you to
hear it again. Everything given of God is given to them that
belong to Christ. Everything, everything God has,
he has for chosen sinners. And everything he gives is given
to them. Blessed are your eyes, for they
see, and your ears, for they hear. He said, Heavenly Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, but gave them unto babes. Everything God
has, he has given to chosen sinners. That's what this book teaches. Peter writes to him, and all
these blessings he states in the first chapter of I Peter,
chapter one. He says, are to the elect of
God according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through sanctification
of the spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of
Jesus Christ. He tells us that these elect
of God, these ones foreknown of God, he says, are begotten
again unto a lively hope. a lively hope to an inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled that fadeth not away. It's reserved
in heaven for all those kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation ready to be revealed at the last day. We're precious
to him because we belong to him. his elect, his bride, his children,
his people. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. And I don't know if I have time,
but let me try to give you four things our Lord declares to those
who belong to him. First of all, he tells us in
no uncertain terms that he has a people who serve him, who are
not a part of our known fellowship. You remember Elijah. In ancient
times, Jezebel and the king had chased him and now he's down
in a cave and he's, you know, he stood valiantly for the Lord
and you remember He dug that big ditch and he watered down
the sacrifices and filled that ditch full of water and then
he prayed and God sent down the fire from heaven and licked up
all the water and the sacrifices. Now he's down in a cave and he's
all alone. And there's nobody around and
they seek to take him away. And he prays and he said, Lord,
I'm all alone, I'm all alone. Just take me home, just take
me home. And the Lord said, you're not
all alone. I have 5,000 men who've not bowed
the knee to Baal. You don't know, but I know. And Paul said, even so, there
remaineth a remnant today. According to the election of
grace, And if by grace, then it's no more works, otherwise
grace is no more grace. There's a remnant. And just as
Elijah thought he was alone, a lot of times, whole groups
that are gathered, just like ours here today. Whole groups.
And this was the case with these disciples. They were all together.
There was 12 of them there. But this guy casting out devils,
they didn't know him. He didn't follow them. He didn't
walk. He was out here on his own. And
so they looked at him and said, well, he don't know the Lord
because he's not with us. The Lord has a people who are
not with us. We discover them all the time.
All the time. He has a people who serve him,
who are not apart, of our known fellowship. This man was, who knows, maybe
converted under John the Baptist. He might have been one of John
the Baptist's disciples. Nevertheless, a true disciple.
He knew God, but we don't really know too much about him. The
only thing we know is he was casting out devils, but now listen,
he didn't just cast out devils, he cast out devils in his name,
in Christ's name. But he wasn't one of them. And
John said, you can't do that anymore. But Christ said, forbid him not.
There is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can
politely speak evil of me. And he that's not against us
is on our part. And another, according to one
of the other gospel writers, he said, he that is not against
us is with us. He's with us. Now this is not talking about
people who preach things contrary to the gospel of God, nor do
things in a name that's not the name of Christ. This is not talking about folks
who do things and preach like a gospel that's not the gospel
of God's sovereign grace, people preaching the free will of man,
preaching salvation by works, righteousness by their own obedience
to the law, and so on and so on. It's not talking about those,
but people who preach his gospel, his glory, and his name, but
who for one reason or another are not recognized by the established
churches at large. Unknown, unrecognized, often
criticized, but nevertheless, they belong to Christ. Now that's
what he's telling his disciples here. Paul said in Philippians
1.15, some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and
some also of goodwill. The one preached Christ of contention,
not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds. But the other, preach him of
love, knowing that I'm set for the defense of the gospel. What
then? Notwithstanding every way, whether
it is pretense or truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. And I fear this is a sin I share
with John. Though I have not forbid some
to preach, I have cut them off for one reason or another from
our fellowship. Have you not? And in so doing, I'm saying to them, You stop
doing what you're doing. You stop doing what you're doing.
Now here's what the Lord told John. Forbid them not. In another, one of the other
gospel writers, he said this. He recorded the Lord telling
him this. He said, you let the wheat and the tares
grow together. because you're not sufficient.
You don't know enough. You don't have eyes to see the
inward workings of God in men. And you leave them alone, and
I'll take care of dividing the wheat from the tares. I'll take
care of that. See, our Lord's ministers are
not qualified by their association with us, but by their association
to Christ. Does that make sense? We start thinking it's by our
association that they get some accreditation. That's exactly
what the Pharisee said to Christ. He didn't go to our school. He
don't have our diploma. He don't wear our robes, so he
can't preach. Said the same thing to the disciples. Our Lord's ministers are not
qualified by their association with us, but by their association
with him. And then secondly, the Lord speaks
very clearly to his disciples about self-denial. Anything that gets between you
and the Lord, must go. It's got to go. Could be your relatives. Could be your friends. Might
be some activity that you love. It may be a bad habit. It may
be your wife or your children or your job or your position
in the community. I don't know what it is. I'm
simply saying if it gets between you and Christ, it has to go. Our Lord uses three critical
things to illustrate this. These are just pictures. He wasn't
literally talking about you plucking out your eye or cutting off your
hand. He's teaching us something here.
These are critical things. These are things that's really
gonna hurt when they're cut off. Your hand is a critical part
of your body. The only way you're gonna cut that
hand off is if you have to. You heard that story about the
man who had his hand caught in a rock and he was out there days
and days and days and finally he had to take a pocket knife
and cut his hand off. Last resort, the only thing he
could do, but he survived. You're not going to willingly
part with a hand unless it's a last resort. And your foot,
anybody here willing to cut your foot off? That'd be a pretty good reason,
wouldn't it? And what about an eye? Man, I can't even stand
to touch mine, let alone pluck it out. If it offends you, if it brings
division between you and the Lord, could you pluck it out? And these are all things common
with others and things that we consider necessary. But here
our Lord tells us that we'd be better off with one hand, one
foot, or one eye entering into his kingdom than to have everything
and burn in hell. Nobody wants to part with a relative. I don't want to part with my
relatives. But circumstance has caused it,
and some I've had to part with. I've had to part with. Anything
that stands between me and Christ, anything that keeps my soul from
Him, no matter how painful, must be cut off. One writer said, we've got to
take it out to the spiritual landfill and discard it with
the rest of the garbage. And that's just so. You think
Paul didn't hope in his past? He tells us in Philippians 3,
he said, you think you have wherein you can trust in? I more. I was born of one of the blessed
tribes of Jacob. I circumcised the eighth day.
When I was a baby, according to the law, I circumcised. As
touching the law, I'm blameless. But you know what he said? He
had to take it all out and throw it on the dung heap. Had to take
it out to the landfill. We must be willing to lovingly
consecrate ourselves to him day by day with all the strength
we can muster. I'm not talking about going out
here and finding reasons for you to separate from your relatives.
Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm saying when that
relative gets between you and Christ, he got to go. Got to go. I don't mean you have to shoot
him or something. I'm just saying you're going
to have to take him off your list of fellowship. That's just so. Doesn't mean
you can't pray for him. Doesn't mean you can't invite
him to church. But if he's standing, if he's
a deterrent between you and Christ, if he's standing between you
and him, using his position as your blood relative to divide
you from Christ, you think Satan don't know how to do that with
your relative? My soul. And then thirdly, our Lord tells us his disciples,
actually he tells his disciples something of the reality of hell.
And this is something, I don't care who you are, you don't know
a whole lot about hell because a whole lot about hell is not
revealed in scriptures. But he begins to tell them something. We don't know a whole lot about
hell. I don't know where it is. Do
you? I hear him talking about casting
down into hell, but I don't know where down is. You know, we won't
say I'm looking up, but we don't know if that's up or down. We
don't know anything at all about heavenly things. Heavenly things. I don't know where it is. I don't
know what it is. I know it's a place of judgment. But other than that, I don't
know what it is. But the language our Lord uses
is enough to make the hair stand up on the back of a man who truly
believes. Because hell is just as real
as heaven. We readily accept the fact that
there's a heaven, Even unbelievers talk about going into heaven. Brian and I were going down the
road the other day and I had this old, real old country and
western station on and song come on there, Texas is a lot like
heaven. No it ain't. No it ain't. I switched channels. We have no concept of it, do
we? But the language he uses here
is talking about hell. To go into hell is to go into
the fire that never shall be quenched. Never. You ever been
burned? Boy, I have. I'm telling you,
that's painful. That's painful. You won't just
leave your hand set on the burner when you get burned. You'll move
that hand. But here he says to go into hell
is to go into the fire that never shall be quenched. Now, is it
real or figurative? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But the reality
is the same. If whatever he's, if it's a figure,
then whatever it is that he's picturing by fire will be equally
as painful. Real or figurative, I don't know. But in either case, the reality
is the same. It never shall be quenched. And
hell, he tells us three times, he said, their worm dieth not. Now this, I believe, refers to
the conscience of men. Old Rock Barnard used to call
it God's blood hound. It'll follow him through eternity.
And that's exactly what he's talking about here. This worm
dieth not. That worm of conscience that
nags and eats at your heart even while you're alive here. It'll
be even worse in hell and it'll never go away. I heard that gospel. I heard
it. God graciously gave me the opportunity,
and I heard that gospel, but I turned my back. I turned a
deaf ear. It refers to the conscience.
It's a worm, even in this life, gnawing at our hearts and minds. We used to have a saying when
I was growing up, somebody beating. all moody and pouty and we'd
say, wonder what's eating him? What's eating him? The conscience
eats just like that, eats at a man, eats at a man. And in hell that worm begins
to eat and eat and eat and he never dies. Hell is a reality
It is the eternal judgment of God to all who will not believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's a place of eternal torment. And then fourthly, our Lord closes
his address to his disciples by telling them a few things
about God's salt. God says to all those who believe
not, who will not part from their sinful consciences, those who
retain their sins, and revel in them. They shall be salted
with fire. The fire of God shall be to them
what salt is to the flesh. It's a preservative. It's a preservative. As salt keeps the flesh from
putrefying and rotting, so the fires of hell shall burn and
torture these judged of God and yet it will preserve them in
their persons forever, forever. The salt of fire will never consume
them, only cause them to suffer forever. Hear the language of scripture.
The Bible said the smoke of their torment will arise forever and
ever. And as God takes their very being
as a result of His holy justice, even so with the sacrifice of
Christ and His sufficiency is the salted sacrifice and the
covenant surety, which He calls in the Old Testament the covenant
of salt. Every sacrifice that was offered
had to be salted. It is the eternal and all-sufficient
sacrifice of Christ that He seasons His people with, the salt of
His grace and glory. And he preserves them, he keeps
us from falling, Jude said. And therefore he tells us, have
salt in yourselves and have peace one with another. May the Lord
be pleased to put that very thing in our hearts today. Thank you.