Well, we talked of God's sovereign
mercy in our Bible class this morning, and what a blessing
that song is, and it is to be able to sing with them in our
hearts how merciful He was to me. God's merciful to sinners. In Matthew 10, 7, we're looking
at this chapter As our Lord has called his apostles,
we saw how that he called them. He did so with power. He did
so sovereignly. That's the way the king does
things. And powerfully and graciously. He called the unqualified, the
undeserving, the unworthy, He said, I'm going to send you.
That's what apostle means, sent ones. And it means one sent with
orders. And so the title of the message
this morning is Orders from the Lord. In the context, our Lord
said, pray ye the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth
laborers into His field. And so these are the orders from
the Lord of the Harvest to his sent ones. And in verse seven,
he says, as you go, preach. You're sent, so you go. What
are you sent to do? Preach. And as we saw already
in this chapter, everything in this chapter applies to that one word, preach. what to preach, where to preach,
how to preach, who to preach to, what to take with you when
you preach, or not take with you when you preach. It all boils
down to that. Go and preach. As you go, preach. As we've mentioned before, the
Lord gave his apostles power. to heal, to cleanse, to raise,
and to cast out devils. He says here in verse eight,
heal the sick as you go forth, preach saying the kingdom of
heaven is at hand. It's an urgent message. God's
kingdom is at hand. It's to preach the king and his
kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom it's
called in the word, to preach him. And when you do, heal the sick,
cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely
you have received, freely give. He gave these powers as they
preached for three reasons. Number one, to give authority
to the word that was preached. As I said, everything has to
do with the preaching. It has to do with the message,
the gospel of Christ. That's why he sent them to preach. He sent them to preach the gospel
of his kingdom, and he gave them these powers to heal and such,
to give authority to the word. Mark 16, 20, and they went forth
and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming
the word with signs following. It was so that when they preached
this gospel, and then people saw the power that they had,
that only God had, only God can cleanse a leper. It's an incurable
disease. God cures the incurable. Who
can raise the dead but God Almighty? And so when they saw these signs,
it confirmed the word that they preached. They had to say within
themselves, if these men have this kind of power, God must
have sent them. And if God sent them, then the
word that they just preached to us is God's gospel. You see, it confirmed the word
with signs following. Those who claim today to have
healing power don't preach the gospel of the kingdom. And so, We know that their claims of
having power are false because God gives these powers, did then,
in order to confirm the gospel. If you're not preaching the gospel,
then what's the point in the signs? None. Number two, these miracles were
illustrations of the gospel they preached. Leprosy is a picture of sin.
God said, from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet,
there's not any soundness in you. The whole head is sick. The whole heart is faint. You're
corrupt from top to bottom. And there's not any cure for
it. Only God has the power to cleanse the leper. And the apostles'
power here to cleanse them shows how that Christ, by the power
of his precious blood, washes sinners from their sin. And then
thirdly, by these miracles, great crowds of people were drawn together
in God's providence to hear the gospel preached. You see how
it all has to do with the gospel. And people today, false religion
today, many of them, are focusing on the gifts, the signs, and
the spectacular, and have no thought, and no regard
for the gospel. What a... manifestly false religion it
is. It's all about that message.
Who's going to listen to a bunch of fishermen and a tax collector? Just about everybody. Just about
everybody did. And it was because the Lord gave
them these signs following. And the last phrase here of this
verse causes us to consider something that we might not have realized
before. He said, freely you have received, freely give. In regard to these gifts that
he gave them. Now think about this. As you
might imagine, people would give just about anything to see their
son or daughter cleansed of leprosy. or their wife or their husband,
what would you give? Or to see one of their loved
ones raised from the dead? Word's gonna get around pretty
quick, isn't it? And I tell you this, I would
drain my bank account and I'd be there if that's what it took.
How about you? Everybody would. And that's why our Lord instructs
here that these disciples were not to take anything in exchange
for this miraculous work. And there's a good reason why.
They very quickly would have become quite wealthy, don't you
imagine? If they did. But this pictures
our Lord's power and grace upon lost sinners. And so no way can
they take a penny, not a penny. And they wouldn't have even had
to ask. It would have been thrust upon them, wouldn't it? Take
this and come heal. No, no. You received freely,
freely give. You do it for nothing. Why? Because
that's why God saved you. Freely. Freely. God's grace is free, salvation
is free. We don't have anything to pay
if God required it. And so, this must be done this
way. Do you see why? In earthly matters,
if I give you something for free, it means I didn't charge you
any money for it, or take anything in trade for it. In gospel terms,
when God says, I will love them freely, The word there freely in the
Hebrew, in the Old Testament, is Nadavah. And it means of his
own free will. Just because that's his will,
of his own free will. Nobody loves God that way. Nobody loves God of their own
free will. If we have any love in us for
God, or for anybody else for that matter but ourselves, then
it's the fruit of the Spirit in us. God said in Galatians
5.22, the fruit of the Spirit is love. You don't love by nature. You love yourself, but that's
not true love. Somebody sang one time that that's
the greatest love there is, is to love yourself, but they were
wrong. They were dead wrong. They were just the opposite of
the truth when they sang that. Everybody naturally loves themselves.
That's evil. You're not worthy of your own
love, much less God's. This is why John said we love
him, because he loved us freely. And because he did, he bestowed
his spirit upon us. He gave us his spirit. And the
fruit of that spirit is love for him. And so we love him because
he loved freely. You see that word freely. In
the New Testament, we're told by the Apostle Paul that we are
justified freely. Romans 3, 24, being justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus. This word is Dorian. And it's the same word used in
John 15, 25, where our Lord said, this cometh
to pass that the word might be fulfilled that is written in
their law. They hated me without a cause. They hated me freely. Let me ask you a question. Can
you think of a good reason, a legitimate good reason to hate the Son of
God? You think about who He is now
and think about what He did. You think about what He did.
You think about Him coming down here to this
earth and going about everywhere doing nothing but good. You think about in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You think about who he
is and what he did. Can you think of a good reason
to hate him? There's just as much reason as
that for God to love you. That's why when they preach this
gospel, and did these signs, they couldn't take a penny. They
couldn't take a penny. They received freely, and they
were to give freely. So as we see clearly here, the
message that the Lord gave them to preach was paramount. The gifts they had confirmed
the message, illustrated the message, and gathered an audience
to hear the message. That's why they had those powers.
And you see why. When the apostles did that which
signified God's saving mercy and power upon sinners, they
had to do it freely. Freely give. That's the way God
gives. He gives freely. And you're representing
God now when you're preaching his message and showing what
he does for sinners by these signs following. And that doesn't
mean now that God's preachers are gonna be beggars and go around
hungry and have to, you know, when they're done preaching for
the day, they're gonna sit on the corner with a little tin
cup. And I think maybe the disciples, the apostles might've been wondering
about that because our Lord addresses that next. Look at verse nine. Provide neither gold nor silver
nor brass in your purses, nor script for your journey, Neither
two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves. How come, Lord? Seems like we ought to do a little
planning ahead, you know, for contingencies, you know.
We'll plan for, you know, the workman's worthy of his meat.
The Lord knows what you need. He's the one that sent you. He's
not going to let you go without. The script there in verse 10,
that's not a common word that we use. It was a leather bag
that they carried food in when they were going to be away from
home for a while. They would take food in a script. It was
their lunch box. So, no money in your wallet.
No silver, no gold, no money. Don't take any cash with you.
Don't take any food in your script. You're not going to need it.
Why not? For the workman is worthy of
his meat. The Lord is saying here that
having sent them with his orders, he'd make sure they're provided
for, and he does. He always has, and he always
will. Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 9.13,
he said, do you not know that they which minister about holy
things live of the things of the temple, and they which wait
at the altar are partakers with the altar Even so hath the Lord
ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the
gospel. He said in another place, who
goes to war at his own charges or at his own expense? That just
doesn't happen. And so our Lord promised that
they'd be provided for. And I could tell you, I could
tell you some stories now. I could tell you many stories
about how the Lord has provided from my own experience, I could
tell you, and from many things that have been told me by other
preachers of the gospel, how remarkably and how abundantly
our Lord provides for his workmen. He's gracious to do that. He
does it through those worthy ones that he's fixing to talk
about in a minute. I just want to point out one
thing more here, though, before we move on. Our Lord did not
just say here, that it's okay if you can't afford to go on
a journey like this, quit your job now and you go do this. If
you can't afford it, it's okay, I'll take care of you. That's
not what he said. He said deliberately, don't take anything with you. There's a difference. How big
a difference is this? Well, it has to do with God's
honor. That's how big a difference it is. It has to do with the
honor of God. God's not a beggar. And his workmen
are not beggars. And it leads right into the next
verses, as I said. Look at verse 11. And let me say this too, it has
to do with God's honor on both sides of it. With those who hear
the gospel and with those who preach it. We're to trust him
and not lean on the flesh. Verse 11. And into whatsoever
city or town you shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy. Now this is interesting. And there abide until you go
thence. You stay with whoever's worthy
in that town until you leave it. You stay with them. Now think
about this. And when you come into a house,
salute it. You've inquired as to who's worthy. And we'll look at that word in
a minute. And so you go into their house, you've made a judgment. And you go into their house,
and if you were right about it, if they proved to be worthy,
then let your peace come upon it. But if it be not worthy,
if you were wrong, you inquired and you made a judgment, but
you were wrong, and you find out about it, then let your peace
return unto you. and whosoever shall not receive
you, nor hear," what's this all got to do with? Your words. That's the basis upon which they'll
either receive you or not receive you. Your words. It's not whether
you're nice to them or not. It's going to have to do with
your words, whether they're going to receive you or not. When you
depart out of that house or city, if they don't receive you, shake
off the dust of your feet. In another place, he said to
do that as a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, don't miss this. I've never really
seen what our Lord was saying here. And I still don't know
if I have. I think I see it better. It shall be more tolerable for
the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for
that city. Now the word inquire, as I said,
I believe it needs some clarification. It doesn't mean to ask about it when you come into
town, you know, ask somebody who's worthy. Like you'd stop
at a gas station maybe to ask for direction. You're not going
to find out anything like that. Who's going to have any idea
who's going to receive the gospel and who's not going to receive
the gospel? Nobody. You can't inquire like that.
That's not what it's talking about. The word means here to
search out diligently. To look for evidence. to examine, to observe and determine
yourself. Who's worthy? What does that mean? What are
you looking for? You're looking for somebody worthy. Who's worthy?
This word also is more than what appears on the surface. Wherever
God sends his workmen, If there's an audience there at all, if
there's anybody there where the Lord is gonna cause a receptive
ear to the gospel, if he has anybody there that's gonna hear,
if any of the Lord's people are there, if there's gonna be any
audience at all, God always has in place someone who is worthy. The word means having weight. It doesn't mean somebody that
weighs a lot. We know that. It doesn't mean either a big
shot in the community. It's almost never that way. We know that's right. We know
from the word of God and from experience. But that's not who
it is. The kind of weight talked about
here means it means someone of merit. Thus the word worthy. But the root word here means
someone that will lead you to your destination, a helper, a
guide, a helper in that community. So what if you come there for,
what is your destination? Preach, preach to somebody. And so this person of weight
is there to help. He'll be a sort of right-hand
man. That's a, that's a phrase that
we understand in it, a right-hand man, somebody to guide, to lead
you, to take hold of you and say, here's, you know, let's
go here or let's do. It doesn't have to just be one.
Often it's not, but it's not everybody. Not everybody in town
will do this. This is somebody that God has
put in place and told you to look for them, find them. And this was a blessing in my
heart because I've experienced this. I've experienced, and I've
seen it, I've experienced it through others. Search out diligently. What does
worthy mean? We're still thinking about that
now. What does he mean by worthy? Look at verse 14 again. And whosoever
shall not receive you nor hear your words, those are the unworthy
ones. Those are the ones you're to
shake off the dust of your feet and not stay there. And so to
be worthy here is to receive you and to hear your words and
for them to mean something to them, to be receptive and to
be a helper to you. If they won't hear your words,
then find somebody who will. Find somebody who will. That's
what he said. Look, search out diligently those who will and
who will be a help to you in this mission, in this work that
I've sent you to do. When you go there, there's going
to be somebody in the city that's going to be helpful to you, that's
going to receive you and what you say and help you. That's
just, that's still true today. And then when God sends somebody,
You came there in order to preach some words. And if somebody won't
hear the words, then what's the point of you staying with them?
He said, let your peace return unto you, and you go somewhere
else. It's about the words, isn't it? It's not about making friends.
You're going to make some friends. The worthy ones are going to
be more than just friends. They're going to be family. But
you're not going there to make friends. You're going there to
preach. And it's the reception of that that you're looking for. Somebody
to help you in that. And God's put them there and
told you to look for them. And that's what we do. Well, here's a question now that
came to my mind. Doesn't everybody hate the gospel
by nature? Who in the world, you just go
into a town that you've never been to before, who's gonna hear?
Who's gonna wanna listen to you? Who's going to have any desire
to listen to what you say? When you go to preach for the
first time in one of these cities, who's going to hear you? Well,
let me read you a verse from chapter nine in verse 35. And
Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their
synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing
every sickness and every disease among the people. In the previous
chapter, we find that our Lord Jesus Christ has already been
where he sends them. The Lord was here before I got
here to be right. He's been everywhere. He sends
one of his workmen. He's already been there first.
And that's why there's some worthy ones there. That's why there's
some there who are going to hear the gospel and say, oh, what
can I do for you? How can I be a help? I could
name you names. And this blesses my heart so
much because there's not a whole lot said about this. But our
Lord said something about it. When he sent his apostles, he's
already been there. What a wonderful spiritual truth
is taught here. It's undeniable. Wherever God's
preachers go to preach the gospel, if there's going to be success
there, the Lord must go there first. We know from our Lord's
parable of the sower that if the seed, if the word of God
is going to take root and bear fruit, there's got to be good
ground in there. fixing to plant some tomatoes.
Quite a few of you probably will. You're gonna just throw them
out in the field? Throw some seeds out in the field and then
go back looking for tomatoes a little while later? You're
not gonna find much, are you? The weeds are gonna choke it
out. Just lay them up on a rock? No. There's got to be some good
ground. That's what our Lord said. That's
where the seed goes into that good ground and takes root and
comes up and brings forth fruit unto God's glory. There's got
to be good ground. Where does good ground come from?
The scriptures clearly teach that all ground is the same by
nature. It brings up thorns and thistles
and nothing else. It's just one lump of clay. There's
not a good lump and a bad lump. There's one lump. And God makes
vessels unto honor and vessels unto dishonor out of that same
lump. So all ground is the same, but God must prepare the soil.
Our Lord goes before. And he'd gone before these apostles
so that in many of these cities, there were already some who would
receive the word gladly. In this earthly illustration
here, they had heard the gospel from the lips of the master himself.
And I'm sure they were thinking, well, I wish he would come back
through here again. And then the Lord sends his apostle
and they say, what can I do? And when the Lord's sent ones,
not apostles in the true sense of the word, we don't have healing
power and things like that now, but we're sent of God. disciples
of the Lord, his workmen in his vineyard. And wherever they go,
they find that the Lord has been before them and caused his gospel
to be received. And if they go somewhere where
that's not true, how long are they going to stay? Not long. Now our Lord is clear that if
you go into a house and you are wrong, you had been wrong, you
went into their house thinking, there's somebody worthy here. But you discover that they're
not. You don't stay. If they are, you let your peace
come upon it. This was simply a desire for
God's peace to be upon the house. It was a salutation. and a desire
for God's peace to be upon that house because of their hospitality
and your gratitude for them. And a request for God's blessing
upon them. And similar to bidding Godspeed,
as John talked about in 2 John 1, which, by the way, you're
strictly forbidden to do. If someone comes to your house
In our text, you're going into their house. In 2 John 1, it
says if somebody comes to your house and they bring not this
doctrine, what's it all about again? They come in with another
gospel. They come in with false doctrine.
They teach in for doctrines the commandments of men. They're
not teaching the truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus. They're
talking about how God loves everybody and Christ died for everybody.
And two, they're talking about the sovereign Christ who came
and effectually redeemed his people with his precious blood.
If they bring not this doctrine, don't let them into your house.
Don't even bid them Godspeed. Don't even desire God's blessing
upon them. We don't want God to bless them
in that, do we? And so, if you go into someone's
house, if they come into your house preaching another doctrine,
They're not accepted there, they're not received, not in any way. So if you go into their house
preaching the doctrine of Christ and they don't receive you, then
get out. They're not welcome in your house
and you're obviously not welcome in their house, nor do you desire
to be in their house. You don't even want the dust
that has anything to do with them on your feet. And that's
just clear here. And then our Lord makes a shocking
statement. I believe it reveals something
about how our Lord regards his gospel
and those who preach it. Those who believe it and what's
at stake here in the preaching of the gospel. Sodom and Gomorrah
were those two cities in the Old Testament that were so evil
and vile, so openly, disgustingly wicked that God rained fire down from
heaven and destroyed them. They openly defied God And he
openly annihilated them for it. But the Lord Jesus Christ says
here that rejecting the gospel is more wicked than that. It's
more manifestly, it's more an open display of hatred for God than what Sodom and Gomorrah
did. I pray that this will sink into
my heart. Our understanding of what's evil
is a little bit off, I think. The Word of God, the precious
gospel of His grace in Christ Jesus. What we talked about in
the Bible class this morning, that the Lord has mercy upon
sinners. when our Lord declared, all that
the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to
me. If you're one of those who come to me because the Father
gave you to me, I won't cast you out. I'll never cast you
out, not in any wise. This gospel of His grace, the
gospel that points to God's Lamb, and says there's the one that
can take your sin away. He didn't just make it available
and leave it up to you. If you want your sins gone, there
he is, that gospel. It's so precious and the Lord
Jesus Christ who is preached thereby is so altogether lovely
that Paul said If you don't love him, if you hear this gospel
and you love not the one who's preached, then you ought to go
to hell for it. Let him be anathema maranatha. And you sure enough will. And it'll be more tolerable.
How can I express that? For the most notoriously wicked
people recorded in God's book. Otherwise,
it will be more tolerable for them than it will be for you
if you hear this gospel and don't receive it. If you don't receive
the one who preaches it. And I think I cannot hear this. I could not see this without
thinking of those who, in my experience, have heard this gospel
and openly rejected it. and how sobering that is. And
I pray that God would let them hear
it one more time. That God would cause that gospel
to come into their ears one more time yet, and would be pleased
in His sovereign glory to have mercy upon them. Let's bow in
prayer.