All right, let's take our Bibles
and turn to Mark chapter 4. Mark chapter 4. In our last study, we looked
at the parable of the sower. The husband man, which is God
our Father, has directed certain of his sons to sow his gospel
seed. It was a necessary job or God
wouldn't have sent him. It was one conducive to the purpose
of God. And again, I say, or he wouldn't
have sent him. And it's one which over time
would yield its own rewards. God's word will not return unto
him void. If God purposes to do a thing,
he's gonna do it. Whether I ever see it or not,
He'll do it. Whether He ever uses me or not,
He'll still do it. Doesn't change a thing with God. Paul spoke in Ephesians 1, 17
and 18 of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
giving to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge
of Him. the eyes of our understanding
being enlightened, that we may know what is the hope of his
calling. Now remember what he's talking
about here. He's talking about our knowledge of him, not his
knowledge of us. And that we might know what is
the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints. We're heirs and join heirs with
Christ, but God's also an heir. He's in there. And He's going
to show us the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the
saints. God's people are His inheritance. They belong to Him. They're His
inheritance. And a rich inheritance they are
because each one is a trophy of His glory and grace. That's
what He's going to show us. That's what He's going to show
us about His inheritance. He's going to show us His glory
in them. The Father purposed to have a
people, and that those people all spring up from His gospel
seed. And so He takes a simple parable,
something that everybody could understand, and He talks about
that. He talks about that great work. And as he likens the preaching
of the gospel to the sowing of our Father's seed, so in this
parabolic saying, he likens it to a gospel candle. Now that's
what we're going to be looking at this morning, Mark chapter
4 and verse 21. He said unto them, those he had
called, separated unto himself for the ministry, those he was
now alone with and speaking very candidly to, very openly to,
making these great mysteries of his will to be understood.
He said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel,
or under a bed, and not to be set on a candlestick? For there
is nothing hid which shall not be manifested, Neither was anything
kept secret but that it should come abroad. If any man have
ears to hear, let him hear. Now there's four things I want
you to consider in this parable of the gospel candle. First of
all, the candle itself. What is a candle? Just think
for a minute with me. What is a candle? It's just some wax, isn't it?
With a string in the middle. It's just some wax with a combustible
string dangling down through the middle, poured into a candle
mold, and poured around a piece of string. And we don't do that
much anymore, but when I was a kid in school, we made candles. Just part of our class, we'd
do different things and we made candles. And it was very simple,
very basic, and very easy to do. Now it's obvious here to me that
he's liking his people to candles. In John's vision on the Isle
of Patmos, he saw the Lord walking among the candlesticks. That
was his churches. He told John that the seven golden
candlesticks are the seven churches. Churches are the pillar and ground
of the truth. He tells his disciples this,
he said, they're a city set on a hill to give light unto the
world. But candles are frail. They're frail. Nothing breaks
easier than a candle. Drop one, you got this big old
tall candle, you know, people put them out around Christmas
time, different times of year they put that candle out, but
if you don't get enough hot wax under it to hold it or it don't
have a good holder and you go to set that thing up and it falls,
one time it broke. Broke. Candles are so frail. Nothing stable about it has to
be put into a solid holder. Something that can hold it upright
and something to keep it from falling. And to really produce
much light, it must be encased in a clear glass shield. Now just think about that. You
just take a candle and light it and see how much light it
really gives. Not much. But boy, take that chimney, that
old oil light chimney, and you put it down on top of that candle,
and it's amazing how that room will light up from one little
candle. Well, that invisible shield around the candles of
God is the Holy Ghost. It's the Holy Ghost. which is
that which manifests the light beyond anything that the candle
could ever muster. And the Holy Ghost takes Christ,
who is the light, and it magnifies Him. And so that you forget completely
about the candle, and all you do is take the benefits of it. You walk in the light of the
candle. But maybe the most important
thing here to know is that a candle is something made. It wasn't something innate. It
wasn't born of itself. It wasn't produced of itself. You don't go out in the woods
and look for a candle tree. Candles have to be made. They're
not natural. They have to be made, they have
to be manufactured. And they're made in a mold. And
what truly makes them beneficial is that which runs through the
middle of the candle, and it stretches from its top to the
bottom, that little piece of string. But that string represents
Christ, who is the light. He's the light. Man is but the
empty shell into which God's candle is poured. He says we
have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of
the power might be of him and not of us, and people will see
that and know that. But all these things aside, the
design of the candle has only one true purpose, and that is
to give light. That's its purpose. They're pretty to look at when
they're set up on the shelf. I've got several around my house
that I never like. I just like to look at them.
But that's not its purpose. Its purpose is to give light. It's of little or no use in a
box or in a drawer somewhere. Its purpose is to give light.
All right, secondly. I want you to see that he speaks
in our text of a candle being brought. These are the important
things to know about this parable. He's setting forth this parable.
He's talking to these men who will go out and preach his gospel
to men. And he's going to talk to them
about what this preaching is and the very nature of it. And
he's using the simplest things to illustrate what this is all
about. And so he tells them that a candle
is brought. Candles don't migrate from one
place to the other. Candle has to be picked up and
brought. You can't invite a candle. You
can sit and talk to that candle all day long. It ain't gonna
go nowhere unless it's brought. And here's what our Lord said
about preachers. How shall they preach except
they be sent? How are they going to do that?
Everything about a preacher of any value is dependent on God,
not on him, on God. If God don't work in him and
through him and enable him, he can't do anything. He can do nothing. They don't migrate. They have
to be brought. And if the candle's not brought
where it is needed, it's not much use, is it? It's not much use. If the center's
over here and the candle's over there, it's not doing him any
good, is it? He might light that whole room,
but there's nothing in the room. He has to be brought. I see so much ignorance and misunderstanding
about this in our day. The Bible says that the Gentiles,
these heathens, lost sinners, if you will, they walk in the
vanity of their minds, having their understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that's in them because of the blindness of their heart. Their
very understanding is darkened, and the reason is the blindness
of their heart. Our Lord said, if the light that
be in thee be darkness, then how great is that darkness? So
we're dependent on this candle being brought. You see what I'm
saying? We're totally dependent, Richard.
If he don't bring the light to us, we're not gonna go to the
light. This is condemnation. Light come
into the world. Men love darkness rather than
light. They don't seek light. The light has to be brought. When our Lord began His gospel
ministry, He went to the land of Zebulon. It was foretold that
He would do this. And He went to the land of Zebulon,
Nephilim, beyond Jordan of Galilee, unto the Gentiles. Now listen
how He describes it. The people which sat in darkness
saw great light. How come they saw it? God brought
it. He brought it to them. Brought
it to them. Candle has to be brought. And
that soul concerning Christ and that soul concerning those he
sends, it has to be brought to the sinner or the sinner sometimes
to the light. No man gonna come to me, Christ
said, unless my father draw him. If he comes to Christ, it's because
God brought him there. Paul said, if our gospel be hid,
it's hid to the lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ should shine unto them. The candle must be
brought where it's needed. And then thirdly, let's talk
about what's not the purpose of the candle. He gives us that
in this parable. He said it's not to be put under
a bushel and it's not to be put under a bed. The candle's purpose is to give
light in a dark place. Now here's what I want you to
take away from this. There's never a reason to justify
hiding the candle. We say, who would do that? You
would, and I would, and they would, and our Lord's telling
them there's no reason to hide the candle. Never. Never. If God purposes for a
people to live out their days in darkness, He won't have His
candle brought. into their house. Just that simple. There's untold thousands of churches
right here in our own country. I had a wad of invitations to
some kind of local revival down here stuck in the door this morning,
and I threw them away with the rest of the trash. They're having
a revival in two or three churches, all different denominations,
and two or three different preachers, and all of them saying something
different, and wanting everybody to come down to a revival. There's untold thousands of churches
right here in our own country who will never hear the gospel. They'll never hear it. And there's
places who once heard it and enjoyed it, but now that candle's
gone. It's gone. But if the candle
be brought, it's not to be covered or hidden. Why would our Lord
teach such a basic principle to His disciples? Why would He
do that? Why would He take the time to
tell them not to hide that candle under a bushel? The thought of
putting a candle under a bushel never occurred to me. And I grew
up with candles. I'll tell you why. Because He
knew they'd be put into situations where they'd want to cover up
the candle. That's why. Fellow, you look just like one
of those Galileans that was following that man, Jesus Christ. What did Peter say? No. No. And then he cursed. What's he doing? He's covering
up the candle. Covering up the candle. Why?
Because of the situation. You think they're not situations
that we get into? He knew they were going to be
put into situations where they'd want to cover the candle up.
Life or death situations like Peter was in. Rejection or acceptance
situations. Oh, if I open my mouth, I'm out
the door. You better open your mouth. How about loved ones and close
relative situations? How about peer pressure situations? He knew there were going to be
situations that they were going to be confronted with that was
going to cause them to want to hide that candle. There just is no situation or
circumstance where gospel preaching should be hidden from view. The
very nature of the candle is to give light. That's its purpose.
That's why it was made. That's why it was put into the
mold. That's why it was brought. And he gives two examples in
the parable. He speaks of putting the candle
under a bushel, in which, in this example, the light is covered
up altogether. And the other is to put a candle
under the bed. What in the world is he talking
about there? Well, if you put the candle under the bed, the
light is not altogether hidden, just most of it. And it's not
giving light where it needs to be. It's giving light down here
at the bottom. It's just casting a light out
at the bottom. And this to me speaks of a partial
covering. This to me is like covering the
light of Christ with intellectualism. You remember what Paul said to
the Corinthians when I came unto you? I purposed to know nothing
save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I came not with excellency
of speech. You know why? Because that covers
the truth up. Doesn't snuff the light out completely,
but it covers it up. Covers it up with flowery speech.
Hides the truth with pointless ceremonies and vain traditions. A little light gets out. but
not enough to save a soul. All right, here's the fourth
thing. What is the true purpose of the candle? It's to be set
on a candlestick, set into a holder where it won't fall down, set
into something that makes it stable. Well, what is that holder? That's Christ, and Christ and
his church are one. They're one. The candlestick,
according to our Lord's own definition in Revelation 1 is the church.
The local church, that body of believers which God has gathered
out of the world. They're the means of holding
up the candle. That's what they do. We gather here and we worship
God. But we don't worship without
the gospel. There's no worship apart from
the gospel, my soul. We sing gospel hymns. The church supports him, and
they hold him up in prayer, and they gather to hear him, and
they benefit from the light God's given him. These things are so
simple and so plain, and yet so misunderstood. I'm
hearing something now and I've heard it for years about men
wrestling over the message. I don't get that. I just don't
get that. God gave you the message when
he saved you, didn't he? Huh? Isn't that the message? Listen to Paul. when it pleased
God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by
His grace to reveal His Son in me. Why? That I might preach
Him among the heathen. So what are we wrestling over?
Huh? We just preach Christ. Now you might get a little confused
over what text you're gonna use, but I ain't wrestling over the
message. The message is Christ. If I'm wrestling over that, I'm
just wrestling for no reason. What am I wrestling for? I know
He revealed Christ in me so I can preach Him among the heathen. And it doesn't matter if I'm
preaching from the parables, I'm going to preach Christ. If
I'm preaching about a candle, I'm going to preach Christ. If
I'm preaching the ark, I'm going to preach Christ. In the first parable that he
gave of the sower, the sower didn't look down in the bag and
start wrestling over which seed to throw, did he? Down there
raking the side, there it is, there it is, got that one, throw
that one out there. No, he just reached in and got
the seed and threw it. You know why? Because that seeds
Christ, and it's always the same. No matter what the text, it's
always the same. If man's not preaching Christ,
like that one preacher said, he said, the old fellow that
that founded the church was sitting there on the front pew and he
got done preaching and young preacher, he didn't say anything
to him and the man was getting the best of him. He finally went
down and sat down beside him and he said, well, you never
did say, what did you think of my sermon? Old man said, well,
to be honest with you, not much. And he said, well, not much? He said, was there something
wrong with my points? He said, no, you had good points.
He said, well, was something wrong with my illustration? He
said, no, you had good illustrations. He said, did I use bad English?
He said, oh, no, your grammar was fine. Well, he said, then
why didn't you like the message? He said, there wasn't any Christ
in it. Oh, he said, but Christ wasn't
in my text. Old fellows say Christ is in
every text. He's in every text. And I'm with
Him. I just don't want to hear it.
Somebody gets up and just goes on and on and on and on. It just
wearies me to death. Tell me something about my Savior.
That's the light I want. I want that candlelight. I want
that light that God put in that man, saved his soul. I want to
hear Him talk about it. Let me say this, and I hope you
will at least consider it. Does the Lord just work through
our emotions? That's what I'm hearing so much
about. Even read about it. Some of the old writers got up
on this quirk. And they're pushing people to
an experience. You got to go to this point,
whatever that point is. They never tell you the point. And they push and push and push
and push and push. I'll tell you what he said. He
that believeth, can you believe? That's what he said. He said
he shall be saved. He shall be saved. Will he experience
those things? Yes. Will he experience them
the same as I did? I don't know. I don't know if
he will or not. But it don't matter. It don't
matter if he believes. If he believes. All right, thank
you.