We'll take your Bibles and turn
with me to Mark chapter 2. Mark chapter 2. I want to combine
the study this morning to verses 1 and 2. And I want us to go through these
verses as we go through these chapters
here in the book of Mark. One at a time, and Lord willing
to pick whatever ripe fruit we find in these verses as we go. Mark chapter 2, verse 1. And again, he entered into Capernaum
after some days. And it was noised that he was
in the house. Now, if you'll recall, our study
where the Lord was casting out the demons, that was in Capernaum.
That's earlier. And then he left. He said, let
us go into the other cities and preach the gospel there. And
so he did. And some days had passed by.
I didn't say how long, a week or two, a month, whatever, some
days. And then he came back to Capernaum. Now, I want to pause here and
call your attention to these first two words in the verse,
and again. Again. Now we tend to look over
things like this, and I've looked over it for years. But as you
begin to learn and get rooted and grounded in the word of God,
you begin to take notice of things that you never saw before. And
it gives an added depth the verse that you're reading. And again, he says, Our Lord
was no stranger in Capernaum at his opening address in Nazareth,
people being enraged at his preaching. He said, he told those Jews that,
he said there was many lepers in Israel. God didn't heal any
of them. He went over there and healed
that heathen king. And as many widows starved to
death in Israel during the time of that drought, God didn't feed
any of them. He went over there and fed a Gentile woman. And so at his opening address
in Nazareth, People being enraged by his preaching took him out
on the brow of the hill. Nazareth was set up on top of
a hill and there was evidently a precipice, there was a big
cliff or something there and they took him out. The crowd
was just enraged and took him out, was gonna throw him off
the brow of the hill. But it said he turned and passed
through the midst. He was the son of God as well
as a man and none could touch him. It was in Capernaum that Isaiah's
prophecy of light coming to those in great
darkness was fulfilled. And it was at Capernaum in Mark
chapter 1 verse 21 when he cast out the demons. It was in the
city of Capernaum where the centurion come interceding for his servant.
And told him, he said, I'm a man of authority too. And he said,
you don't need to come to the house. You just say the word
and it'll be done. He said, I understand how that
works. And the Lord said, I haven't seen this kind of faith in all
Israel. That was in Capernaum. On another occasion, being asked
about paying tribute, he was in Capernaum. And the Jews made
some accusations against him. And Peter said, well, what's
the truth of it? Do we owe taxes? Should we pay taxes? And he said,
well, what, thank you. Should strangers pay taxes or
the children? Should the children of the kingdom
pay taxes or strangers? And Peter said, strangers, I
suppose. And he said, that's right. We don't owe tribute. to anybody. It's ours. You can
read that in the word of God. It's ours. This world is ours. It belongs to us. We're the children.
But he said that the gospel might not have a fence. We'll pay the
tribute. Now he said, Peter, you're a
fisherman. Go down there and catch some
fish. And the first fish you put in the boat, open up its
mouth. You'll find a coin in there. That'll be enough. Pay
my taxes and yours. That happened in Capernaum. Then in John's gospel, he tells
of him and others going to Capernaum in a ship. And this ship was
caught up. You remember he fed 5,000 men
besides the women and children. And they were going to take him
by force and make him king. And he just walked out of their
midst and went to a place alone. And then he told them, he said,
you go down and get in the ship. And you go over. He said, I'll
meet you over there. You get in the ship and go. And
they got out on this, on the Sea of Galilee, and a storm blew
up, and was just tossing and turning, and that ship was about
to go under, and they were scared to death, and every man was up
there doing what he could, throwing things over the ship, trying
to keep that ship from going under, and in the midst of this
storm. Now, we had some pretty good
storms here the other night. Did you, anybody go outside and
look? You don't see anything till that lightning strikes.
And then you can kind of get an idea. Boy, those clouds were
rough looking. And that's the way they were.
They were out on the sea. It was pitch dark in the middle
of the night and the lightning struck and Peter looked out and
here comes the Lord and he's walking on water and he thought
he saw a vision. But it wasn't a vision. It was
the Lord. And he wasn't upset, and he wasn't
afraid, and he wasn't toiling, he was just walking. He was strolling
across that sea, walking on water. And they invited him into the
ship, and you can read about it over in the book of John.
When he entered into that ship, immediately, it says they were
at their destination. Where was their destination?
Capernaum. That's where they were headed.
They were going to Capernaum. And then later on here in our
text, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, and they couldn't
get in for the press, and they got up and removed the tiles
from the roof, and they let this man down on ropes down before
the Lord, and the Lord healed him. So our Lord was no stranger
here in Capernaum. When it was noise abroad that
he was in town, everybody come up. They filled the place up. And then there's one more passage
about Capernaum that I purposely left out in Matthew 11 beginning
with verse 23. Our Lord is pronouncing curses
on those cities. And He comes down toward the
end and He said, and thou Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven. is Capernaum exalted unto heaven? Just ask yourself for a minute.
How could, what in the world is he talking about? Now you're
about to curse this city. And he said, and thou Capernaum
which art exalted unto heaven. I'll tell you how it was exalted,
by the presence and power of the Son of God. by the confirmation
of God right in their midst by miracles which he performed through
his son. They were exalted unto heaven
by the gospel that Christ preached. Think about the occasion. This
world, I know in my mind when I was just a kid growing up in
religion, I thought everybody in the world heard the gospel. Everybody heard preaching. Everybody
went to church. I didn't know any different.
I didn't know that there was people in this world to which
our Lord never addresses with the gospel. He never sends the
gospel to them. And in fact, In this day of computer
and instant information, we kind of got a graph that they published
for us. It's nothing we did, but they
published a graph for us. And they tell us where these
grace churches are and where their ministry is. And there's
a giant hole that runs right up to the center of this country,
and there's nothing out there. Nothing. And just because there's a church
on the corner don't mean those folks are hearing the gospel.
They're not hearing the gospel. They're hearing junk. Might as
well build a totem pole and dance around it naked in the firelight. That's what they're going through.
It's just as much an abomination, what they're preaching and what
they're teaching, if not more. If not more. So now he tells
them. He said, thou art exalted unto
heaven, but you shall be brought down to hell. Now watch this. For if the mighty works which
have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, you remember what
our Lord told Abraham? You can just find me two or three
righteous men in that city, I swear. He couldn't find none. You should be brought down to
hell, for if the mighty works which were done in thee had been
done in Sodom, it would have remained unto this day. But I say unto you that it shall
be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment
than for you. There's a warning set forth here
to those who sit under the gospel revelation of God but refuse
to believe it. They're not affected by it. Their
life's not changed by it. Nothing happens. Nothing changes. They just come into agreement.
They'll nod their head. That's what these people were
doing. They were gathered in there for whatever benefits they
could get, but they didn't believe what he preached. At all. That's
not why they were there. And these people are the most
blameworthy of Adam's fallen sons and cursed above all the
rest. They were people described by
the Holy Ghost as those amazed, Mark 1, 27, by what they saw
and heard. Absolutely amazed. And this man, Jesus, was well
known, he was popular, he was sought after by the population.
But they were religious folks, Pharisees and Jews in general. Even in Nazareth, it said they
marveled. Our Lord marveled at their unbelief. Isn't it a marvel to you sometimes
when you sit down with a relative or a friend and you're showing
him, you're reading it to him out of Ephesians 1, you're reading
it word for word and he's going... Don't you marvel at that? How can you hear that and not
be affected by it? How can you hear that and cling
to those old beliefs? How can you hear these things?
Same way they did in Capernaum. Imagine a people seeing lepers
cleansed, I mean right before their eyes, a leper walking away
just as white as snow, clean as he could be. Devils cast out of men, fevers
vanishing, palsy cured, And no doubt message is the like of
which you and I have never heard. I just can't imagine what it
would have been to hear the Son of God preach. I struggle to
get the truth out to you. And I know without any argument
that I have mistakes and things in it, I struggle to get it out
to you. But this was a perfect man with a perfect gospel, and
he preached it perfectly. And they wouldn't have it. They
wouldn't have it. And yet I see the same thing
and have seen it many times over. We're living in one of the greatest
days of Gospel light and revelation that this world has ever known.
Preachers today have access to material that the ancient prophets
and things had no access to whatsoever. We're throughly furnished with
all of these things. And though the preachers amount
to only a handful, yet the means to take their preaching throughout
the world is more and greater than it was in any other time. Free Grace Radio puts my messages
up. Costs a dollar. For a dollar,
they go on the internet. They can be accessed anywhere
in the world. And I do. I get people to download
things on islands that I've never heard of. It's amazing to me what happens
to these messages. Right here in Arkansas, there
was a group here of particular Baptists. And somewhere or another
they got a hold of my messages and they started promoting those
things and playing those things and putting them on the internet
under their own site and they were going all over Arkansas.
And I was getting calls and things from people that I had no idea
how they were getting to these messages. Relatively speaking, I'm talking
about compared to the world, the preachers are but just a
handful in our day. And yet the means God has provided
for us today supersedes all the means of the past. It's just
unbelievable how this gospel message is able to go out. And you'd think that our churches
would be full. But what I see is the very opposite. The fallen nature of man manifests
itself the brightest as light. Light being manifest, but they
love darkness rather than light. And that's what's going on here
in Capernaum. That's what's going on. Another
thing I see here about Capernaum is that the people responded
to Christ and is preaching outwardly, owning him to be a great man.
a powerful speaker, as a good and wise teacher, perhaps even
as a great prophet. Yet nothing in their lives and
persons changed. Nothing changed. They just went
on like they always did. They still operated on worldly
reasoning. When you went to talk to them,
they just revert right back to that worldly reasoning. You ever
had people do that? They start reasoning out. I start
preaching on the necessity of the preaching of the gospel.
Well, let me tell you, preacher, we didn't have no preachers around
here. You reckon that hindered God?
You reckon that changes the word of God? See, faith don't reason
these things out. Faith looks at these things and
believes God. My soul, you'll never get this
world to own up to God speaking this world into existence. You'll
never get that. Only way you're going to get
that is to believe God. There was nothing here and then
there was something. And the reason there was something
because he said let something appear. And that's the way you're
going to learn everything that faith is made of and that faith
feeds on, that faith operates on. You're going to believe God. They still operate on worldly
reasoning. They still thought in their old
traditional ideas of God and salvation. Well, God's trying
to save everybody, ain't He? God never tried to do anything.
Everything God wanted to do, He did. Who can say, who can stay His
hand or say unto Him, what doest thou? And men and women, they seemed
to realize that a great man was in their midst, and a blessing
of God had come their way, but nothing changed within or without. Now you might not think, I'll
let you read this for yourself, and then you can determine it. You'll find it over in Jeremiah
8, verse 20. But Jeremiah is speaking to the
people here, and he said, the harvest is past. The harvest
is past. That's what happened when the
Lord pronounced that curse on Capernaum. He already harvested
his people out of Capernaum. And here the prophet says, the
harvest is past, summer's ended. Summer's over. And we're not
saved. We're not saved. Isn't that what
Paul prayed for Israel? He said, I bear witness they
have a zeal of God, but it's not according to knowledge, for
they being ignorant of God's righteousness are going about
trying to establish their own righteousness and will not submit
to the righteousness of God. So I hope this will help you
to read this passage correctly. And again, he entered into Capernaum
after some days And it was noised that he was in the house. I was trying to build a small
contracting business years ago, and I didn't know how to go about
it. I had no formal education, and
so I went to people that played a pretty serious part in my business,
and one of them was a banker. I grew up, I knew him, my dad
did business with him. And I went down to the banker
and I said, What is the best way for me to promote my contracting
business? Should I take out a big ad in
the yellow pages, or should I use new? He said, do good work, and
the word of mouth is your best advertisement. That's what the
banker told me. It was noise abroad. He didn't
print up a big banner and have a bunch of guys walk down through
town He didn't send elders from the church out into communities
where he was going and go out there and stir everybody up like
Billy Graham used to do so he could fill up all the pews. He
preached the gospel. That's what he did. That's what
he did. By word of mouth and mostly by
those who were healed and their loved ones, his presence and
location. was usually made known. Everybody
knew where he was at. And I don't subscribe to any
of the means and ways of worldly religion to promote this church. Bake sales and to raise money
and all that kind of nonsense. We preach the gospel and we teach
the word of God and we promote the will and purpose of God in
our preaching both here and wherever God pleases to open the door.
And we wait for the Lord to noise it abroad by satisfied objects
who've received that faith given to them by God. That's all it
takes. It takes one man being converted. It takes one man for this wondrous
work to be done and he'll tell everybody he knows. And you'll know when he tells
you he ain't making it up. He'll know. We wait for the Lord
to noise it abroad by satisfied objects of His grace and the
purpose of God and the salvation of sinners for the glory of His
name. You see, that's what's going
on. This thing's for God's glory.
It ain't for us. It ain't to fill this church
up. It ain't to make a big name in the middle of Arkansas. What
it is, is for His glory. And everything we do is for His
glory. That's what governs what we do
here. His glory. All right, now watch this. Mark
2, verse 2. I'm running out of time. And
straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there
was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the
door, and he preached the word unto them. No false intentions, Promotions,
no Hollywood actors and evangelists, no door-to-door business. This
was a house offered for his use. Perhaps it was a synagogue, perhaps
it was a private home, I don't know. But he went there and he
preached the word to everybody that was gathered there to hear
him. He preached the word. And I want to devote whatever
time I have left to this verse this morning. What is it to preach
the word? Does that mean to take the word
of God and abstract and start defining? What's it mean to preach
the word? Do we go over here and we pick
a subject like creation? Here's creation, that's the beginning
of the Bible. We'll go over there and we take
creation and we start explaining how it could be and how man says
it is and we start, what is it to preach the word. He told Timothy,
he said, preach the word. You know what he said? Before he said that, he told
him that the word of God, it was profitable because it was
inspired by the Holy Ghost. And it's profitable. What's it
profitable for? It's profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
Preach the word. Be instant, in season, out of
season. But what is it? Well, in the
book of Titus, Paul writes about the acknowledging of the truth,
which is after godliness. Now watch this. In hope of eternal
life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began,
but hath in due times manifested this word through preaching. The Word of God is the testimony
of God concerning the salvation of His saints for the glory of
His name and through the person of His Son. That's it. That's what it teaches in Genesis.
That's what it teaches in Exodus. That's what it teaches in Leviticus.
And you can go all the way through the Bible and that's what it
teaches. That's what the Word of God is. Paul told Timothy, God has saved
us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made
manifested by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who
has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light. Now watch it through the gospel,
through the gospel. And then turn with me to 1 John
chapter five. We're talking about, I'm laboring
to answer this question, what is it to preach the word? 1 John chapter five, beginning
with verse nine. If we receive the witness of
men, now God has been pleased to use men to this end. Please God through the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. And you should be familiar
in here, I preached on it enough, you should be familiar with the
means that God has ordained. He's going to use men as his
witnesses. He that heareth you, heareth
me. That's what he told. Now watch this. If we receive the witness of
men, the preaching of these men, the witness of God is greater. That's one thing for that man
to say something. It's another thing to understand
that God's telling you something through this man, through his
word. That's the first thing I recognized
about Henry Mahan years ago. I was coming out of religion
and I went up and met him for the first time, sat on his preaching.
I didn't know exactly what that man was preaching, but I did
know this. When I left that church, I knew that man had God's message
in this book. He had it. He had it. He preached like nobody I'd ever
heard in my life. And all the things that were
troubling me, he had answers. And even some of the things that
wasn't troubling me yet, he had the questions. For this is the witness of God
which he testified of his Son. Now hold your place there and
let me say something. The Son of God is called by this same
apostle, the Word. The opening remarks in the Gospel
of John, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. To preach the Word is to preach
the Son. It's to preach the Son. The scripture
said, it pleased the Father that in him
should all fullness dwell. And it did. And it does. All fullness dwell. And in all
things he had and has now the preeminence. Now if you take Christ out of
the picture, there's no purpose to the word of God. You might
as well wad it up and throw it in the trash can. The purpose
of this book is Jesus Christ and him crucified. You take that
out of this book and this book is of no value to you whatsoever. None. He was appointed as the creator. All things were made by him and
for him. All providence given over into
His hands. By Him all things have their
continuance. All things consist. And God has nothing to say to
fallen sinners except by way of His Son. Listen to this verse. Our Lord said, I am the way,
I am the truth, I am the light. No man cometh unto the Father. What's that mean? comes to any
knowledge of the Father, comes with any request to the Father,
but by me. But by me. And I'm the truth. You're not coming unless you
come in truth. You're not worship God except you worship him in
truth. And no man can be saved apart
from Christ. He's the way, the truth, the
life. None other name unto heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved. You'll be saved in him
or you won't be saved. And no preacher has anything
to say to the eternal benefit of his hearers apart from Christ.
Religion today is all about reformation of life. Get your life in order. I don't know how many churches
I've seen now that have adopted the name Life Church. And that's
what they're talking about. They're talking about your life.
They ain't talking about eternal life. It's all about reformation of
life. Let me tell you something. You can reform your life until
you're blameless in society. Totally blameless in society.
And be more cursed of God than you were before you started.
Is that right? Paul was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He said, I'm a Pharisee. As touching the law, he said,
I was blameless. Superseded all his brethren in
his religious zeal. He didn't lie. He didn't steal.
He didn't murder. He didn't practice lewd or vile
acts. He went to church every time
the door was open. He paid his tithes. He read the
word of God. He studied. He taught the people. But he was lost, and he didn't
know God. And in fact, in that condition,
he said, when I come to Christ, and I'm still coming, it's not
that I came and now it's all done. No, I'm still coming, still
going. And then he says, oh, he said
that I might win Christ and be found in him, not having my reformed
righteousness. And that's what he said in that
passage in Philippians. That I might not be found in
my righteousness. Oh, you don't want to be found
in your righteousness. Salvation not being a good citizen,
it's strangers and foreigners being made fellow citizens with
the saints. And apart from Christ, this is
an utter impossibility. Through this man, Acts 13, 38,
is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that
believe are justified from all things. You know, it says over in 1 Peter,
being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by
the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. And I get
this thrown in my face all the time by people who try to deny
the necessity of the preaching of the gospel. They go here,
see here what it says, you're born again of the word of God.
Well, why don't you finish reading the chapter? Why do you stop with verse 23? Won't you finish reading the
chapter? Down verse 25 it said, But the word of the Lord endureth
forever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached
unto you. What is it to preach the word?
It's to preach Christ. It's to preach Christ. And I'm
going to tell you something. If you're on an island all by
yourself and God gave you a Bible and you read it and read it as
desperate as you are on that island, you read it and read
it and read it and you'll never come to any saving knowledge
of God. You'll come to a saving knowledge
of God when he sends you a preacher. And that man tells you the truth
and you believe it and you see it. You'll see it in this book. And I'm going to tell you something
else. You're going to keep on listening to that preacher until
you die in faith. That's right. You read Ephesians
chapter 4 and see if I ain't telling you the truth. Our Lord
gathered them people there. They were gathered in there for
every kind of reason under the sun. Same reason they gather
here. Same reason they gather in Ashland and anywhere else
where the gospel is being preached. Gathered in there for all kind
of reasons, but whatever reason it was, here's what he did first.
He preached the word to them. Preached the word. And I want
you to keep that in your mind. This is Jehovah's servant. This
is him. This is the eternal word. What's
he doing? Passing out Bibles? No. He's
preaching. He's preaching, and he's preaching
Christ. And he kept on preaching Christ
until they nailed him on a cross. But that didn't stop him. They
raised him from the dead, raised him up, seated him at the right
hand of God, and now he gave gifts to men, and those few men
that he initially began this thing turned the world upside
down. How'd they do it? Passing out
Bibles? Preached. They preached. God help us to
see that. Thank you. I went way over.