Now, if you'll turn with me to
Mark Chapter 16. Mark Chapter 16. Russell read
to us just a few moments ago Matthew's account of the great
commission that he gave these 11 men, telling them to go in
all the works teach all nations, not just Israel, but teaching
all nations these things, this gospel of Christ. Now, just hold your place here
in Mark 16. I'll be coming back to it in just a second. Having risen from the dead, having revealed Himself to many, He came to his eleven disciples. Now you think of the majesty
involved just in what I just told you. The Son of God had been beaten
beyond recognition. His visage was marred more than
any man. Taken down from that cross, put
in a tomb, sealed by a great stone. And then a watch posted
on it so that nobody could come and steal away the body. But
now he's risen and the stone's rolled back and the watch is
gone and the witnesses come forth. And they come to these eleven
men who for three and a half years had walked with him. We're
talking about wisdom incarnate. And these witnesses come, and
they tell them what's going on. They came to these eleven, and
Christ comes to them and listens to what it says here, and upbraided
them with their unbelief and hardness of heart. Because why? They believed not
them which had seen him after he rose from the dead. They just
couldn't believe it, could they? And he said unto them, go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth
not shall be damned. Now it struck me as I read these
words in Mark's Gospel that these eleven apostles chosen of God
to lay the foundation were built upon the foundation of the apostles,
that's these men right here, and prophets. That's what our
faith's built on. I don't have any other reason
for what I believe. except the testimony of these
men. And it struck me as I read these
words that these 11 apostles chosen of God to lay the foundation
of the New Testament church were just common people with common
weaknesses and full of doubt and hardness of heart. And I thought about that. I've
been thinking about it all week. The Lord must press hard upon
the hearts of those He prepares to minister to men that they
themselves are exactly like those they minister to. I'm no different
than you are. I've got the same weakness. I've
got the same hardness of heart that you have. I've got the same
unbelief. The Lord questioned his disciple
and his disciple looked at him and they said, Lord, we believe,
help thou our unbelief. They were full of it. So am I,
so are you. And having walked with the Lord
for three and a half years, been taught by wisdom incarnate, no
truth unopened, no doctrine hidden, no traditional ignorance left
to get in the way. Having witnesses. Not one, but
many. Did you notice that as Russell
read that account, how many witnesses there were? He stopped and he
told this, and then he stopped and he told these, and then he
walked along the way and revealed himself on the way to, he did
all that before he ever got to the 11. So here's a multitude of witnesses
coming. And all of them saying the same
thing, Christ is risen from the dead. Yet they must be upbraided
for their unbelief and hardness of heart. There must be, as you and I go
about to preach this gospel to men and women in our generation,
a sense of our own unbelief and hardness of heart. You're not
going to successfully talk to anybody until these things are
pressed on your heart. Paul reminded the Corinthians,
he said, when I came and preached to you, he said, I was with you
in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. That's what he
told that church. I get the idea sometimes listening
to people talk that they're not like other men, don't you? I
get that idea a lot when I read the old writers. They wasn't
at all like other men. But then when I read God's book,
I find these men to be exactly like me. Exactly like me. We're exactly like the men and
women we preach to, full of unbelief and hearts as hard as flint.
And to minister to men, I must first learn what I am. And that I'm just like them.
Just like them. My flesh is the same flesh as
their flesh. My thoughts are the same as theirs.
I don't have to sneak over to your house to find something
to preach on. I can find enough in myself.
And then I don't have to worry about finding what I found in
myself not suiting you. Because you're just like I am.
And I'm just like you are. You see what I'm saying? I'm
not going to have to read John Gill to find out something, some
fault in man or something. I can find it right here. James tells us this. Listen to
how these men talked. I was just really struck by this
when I read this. Here's James. He was one of those. He said, listen to this. He tells
us to confess our faults, not our sins. We're not going to
build a confessional here. Everybody's going to come up
here and get in a box and y'all tell me what's going on. He doesn't
teach us that, but he tells us to confess our faults one to
another and pray one for another. You know why? Because we've got
the same faults. Same faults. John says this. He said, if we say that we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If
we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his words
are not in us. But if we confess our sins, he
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. I preached this message about
Jacob the other night, Believers Walk in the Full Revelation of
Christ. That is so important that we
understand that. Believers are not blind. They
walk in the full revelation of Christ. They understand that
His death is the only hope of atonement and reconciliation
to God. They understand that. They know
that. They are not looking. They found it. They understand
it. If my sins were not charged to Christ, if they were not imputed
to Him by God the Father, If they were not laid on Him, the
iniquity of us all was laid on Him. If God the Father didn't
lay my iniquity on Him and charge my sins to Him, then I still
owe the debt. It's just that simple. Believers
understand that they have no righteousness except the righteous
obedience of Christ that's imputed to all that believe. There is
no other way. Get it out of your head. There
is no other way to walk with God except by faith. Enoch walked
with God. And when he left this world,
he was translated. He walked right into glory. And
before he left this world, he left this testimony that he pleased
God. Oh, man, how quick was he to
follow that up. But, he said, without faith,
it's impossible. Not hard. It's impossible to
please God. Your best effort to pray, your
best effort to walk, your best gift, the greatest sacrifice
you ever made is no more than filthy rags in the sight of God. I have one hope of righteousness. That's it. That's how I walk. That's what he's talking about,
walking. The believer walks in the full
light of the revelation of Christ. He walks. He's not ignorant.
He's not blind. He's not walking according to
the course of this world anymore. He has eyes to see, ears to hear. Believers understand that Jesus
Christ Himself is the embodiment of all wisdom. You're not going
to sit down with this book. Please listen. I'm trying to
save you trouble. You're not going to sit down
with this book and read it like a math book and figure it out.
There's only one way to understand this book, and that is for this
book to be revealed to you. And when God reveals this book,
He reveals it in Christ. They're not going to be a revelation
apart from Christ. The believer understands that.
Christ is his wisdom. It's his wisdom. When he studies
creation, he studies creation in the light of Christ. When
he studies the Old Testament, he studies the Old Testament
in the light of Christ. When he looks at the law, he
looks at the law in the light of Christ. When he talks about
morality, he understands that morality in the light of Christ.
You see what I'm saying? Jesus Christ himself is the embodiment
of all wisdom. God hath made him to be unto
us wisdom. Wisdom. You know, I can remember
years ago, the first time I ever heard Henry Mahan speak on TV. I knew a few things about God's
sovereignty and a few things that were just totally, totally
opposite from everything I'd ever heard in my life. And somebody
told me, well, there's a man on TV preaching that. And I said,
no way there's anybody on TV preaching that. I done been to
every church in that country. I couldn't find anybody even
hinted toward these things. So I turned him on one Sunday
morning. I thought that's the smartest man I ever listened
to in my life. You know why? Because he knew
the wisdom of God. That's why. The wisdom of God. Paul said, we preach the wisdom
of God. He didn't preach his own wisdom.
He said, I determined, he told those Corinthians, I determined
when I came to you to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That your faith, he said, I didn't
come in the wisdom of men's words and languages and reason and
all that kind of stuff when I came to you. I came in demonstration
of the Spirit and power. knowing nothing except Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And he called that the wisdom
of God in a mystery. In a mystery. You'll never understand
it apart from Christ. There is no conception of God
apart from Christ. That is, that can communicate
a saving knowledge of God. You cannot be saved and not know
who God is. That is salvation. Listen to
this, 1 John 5, 20. And we know that the Son of God
is come and given us an understanding, now listen, that we may know
Him that is true and that we're in Him that is true, even in
His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. That's what it is. There are
no believers running around who don't know God. Man out here
talking about God changing and God doing this and God not being
sovereign and man being holding God at bay. He don't know God. That's the problem. He don't
know God. And he don't know God because
he don't know Christ. The only way you can know God
is to know Christ. Listen to this, John 17 too.
Christ said, this is eternal life, that they might know Thee,
the only true God, in Jesus Christ whom Thou sent. No man cometh
unto the Father but by Me. That's what He said. He's wisdom. All believers know that. All
believers know that. Believers understand that they're
saved by the full, free, and sovereign grace of God. Left
to themselves, they'll never come to Christ. They'll never
learn of the Father. They'll never repent of their
sins. They'll never submit themselves to His authority. The Scripture
says, it's not of him that willeth. And folks run around all the
time and, well, he just don't believe in the will of man. I
never said any such thing. You have a will and you exercise
it. You're exercising it right now
while I'm preaching to you. You have a will, but that will's
bound. It's bound. Man's dead in trespasses
and sins. Man's only eye, his mind, his
only eye, Christ talks about it, got one window in the house,
this mind. But it's evil. And all the light
that comes in is darkness. That's all it is. darkness. Man's held captive
by the God of this world and is by nature, I'm reading to
you the language of Scripture, and is by nature a child of wrath
even as others. Now if man's dead, ignorant,
blind, and chained, so is his will, isn't it? You see what
I'm saying? God's people are made willing. That's the only reason they're
willing. I never said man wouldn't exercise his will. I'm just telling
you that you will. You have to be made willing.
You have to be made willing. I love the way Brother Barnard
put it. He had a way with words. He said, God saves men against
their will with their full consent. And that's exactly what he does.
That's exactly what he does. Man cannot will beyond what he
knows. And Christ said, you neither
know me nor my Father. Boy, that kind of destroys your
theology, don't it? He said, you say I'm rich and
increased with goods and know not. Huh? He knows not that he's
poor, naked, wretched, and blind. I do not preach that men have
no will. I preach that his will is in
bondage to sin. And until a stronger than he
comes in and takes down the rule of that house and fills him with
light and gives him a new heart, he is not going to be willing.
Not going to be willing. Fifthly, believers understand
what sin is. Do you know what sin is? Go home
and look in the mirror. That's sin. It's what we are. It's what we are. It's a nature.
It's a principle of evil that reigns unto death. Sin corrupts
all that we do. It's the fountainhead of man
and corrupts his mind, his affections, his will, and his way. It dominates
this world. In Adam, he said, all die. Why? Because they're all sin. All
have sinned, he said, and come short of the glory of God. Ephesians
2.2 describes the course of this world, of the world, I ain't
talking about of a few, the course of this world to be according
to the prince of the power of the air who is the spirit that
now worketh in the children of disobedience. God demonstrated
the power of sin in the garden, taking down the wisest best man
apart from Christ who has ever stood on this earth and took
him down in one confrontation. God demonstrated the power of
sin and the total destruction of this world. He demonstrates
the power of sin and its total reign from Adam to date. By one
man, sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death
passed upon all men. Where is the evidence of all
sin? All of them sin. But the greatest manifestation
of sin is by the reaction of all men to the appearance of
Christ in this world. Our Lord said to them, this is
the condemnation. Light has come into the world,
and men love darkness rather than light. Why do they do that? Because their deeds are evil.
Why are their deeds evil? Because they come out of that
corrupt heart. Everybody thinks they've got a unique problem.
I've been talking to men and women for a long time. They all
have a unique problem. One of them's problem's alcohol.
One of them's a bad marriage. This one got that problem. The
other one got some. Here's your problem. It's what
you are. It's what you are. If you fix this problem, you're
full of more problems. Out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts. Huh? Adulteries, fornication,
idolatry, thefts, lies, blasphemies. Where'd they come from? Come
out of the heart. Sin's not something you can defeat.
It's not something you can overcome. Sin's not something that's going
to go away. Well, one of these days, no.
No, it ain't going away one of these days. It's still going
to be there. Sin's not something that you
can quit anytime you want to. Preach, I turned over a new leaf.
No, you just turned over the old one. Same old leaf. It's that one God caused to come
forward and bloom and you saw it and thought that was the glory
of man and then he blowed on it and it dried up and the wind
blew it away. That's that leaf. Sin so permeates the man that
when Paul would warn us of the evil of this world, he calls
it the man of sin. Whoo, that tells you something
about man, don't it? Of all the things in creation
that God the Holy Spirit could impress on a man to describe
what sin is, he calls it the man of sin. And he just keeps
telling you that, don't he? That old man of sin. Put off,
Paul said, that old man of sin and put on the new man. The old
man. There is only one hope for any
son of Adam and that is for God to intervene in mercy and grace
and by the power of His Holy Spirit create in us a new man. This old man is never going to
believe. This old man is never going to
be willing. Boy, if I could just, I'm telling
you, if I could just get him to sit down and listen. You're not going to get him to
sit down and listen because he's a sinner. God can make him sit
down and listen, but you never will. God got to intervene in mercy
and grace and by the power of His Holy Spirit create in us
a new man. And this new man has a new heart. He's got a new heart. It's the
heart of grace. It's the heart of mercy and a
heart of love. And this new heart, like the
old heart, is the wellspring of the new man. That's what he says, isn't it?
With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Not with
that old heart he won't, but he will with a new one. This new heart is a believing
heart. Listen to this, Jeremiah 24-7. He said, I'll give them a heart
to know me. How'd they get it? He gave it
to them. He gave it to them. To know me, that I am the Lord. Every believer knows him to be
Lord. Did you know that? Oh, you're
going to know that. You're going to know that. And
they shall be My people, and I will be their God. For they
shall return unto Me with their whole heart. Ezekiel 11, verse
19. And I'll give them one heart.
One heart. Believers all have the same heart. One of the things Henry told
me gave me ten things to do when I stand up to preach. And one
of them was to preach to your heart. Preach to your heart. He said,
if this message don't touch my heart, it's not going to touch
yours. Believers have one heart. One heart. They all love the
same thing. They all rest in the same thing.
They all believe the same thing. They're not different. They're
one. I'll give them one heart and
put a new spirit within you. And take away that stony heart,
that hard, uncaring, untouched heart. And I'm going to give
you a heart of flesh. You'll love what you never loved. Love what you never loved. Salvation,
my friend, is to see yourself in a substitute. It's to see
yourself in the Savior. Can you do that? It's to see
yourself in the Savior, one appointed for you, because you could not
and would not appoint one for yourself. God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation. Why did He do that? Because you
wouldn't and couldn't. chosen you unto salvation, a
salvation not according to our works, but according to His own
purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began. God appointed a Savior for His
people because they were incapable of appointing one for themselves.
Angels can't save you, even though the old Christmas story, one
of my favorites, The old Christmas story always shows that angel
changing that man's life completely. Angels can't convince you of
anything. A man can't save himself. He
said, with man it's impossible. None other name given among men
whereby we must be saved than Jesus Christ our Lord. He has
a name, and his name is synonymous with God. He is Immanuel, God
with us. And then secondly, I must see
myself in a representative. That's what I talked about a
little earlier. Sinners can't keep the law. I passed by a church
up in Kentucky one time, and there was a sign out in the driveway.
Maybe you've seen one similar to it. It had the Ten Commandments
on it, written in Old English. which they were never written
in Old English, but they got them in Old English to make them
look authentic. And they'd sit out there, and
the sign said, these Ten Commandments are enough for me. They're too
much for me. They're too much for me. Sinners
cannot keep the law. Both Jews and Gentiles, Paul
said, are all under sin. He said, I've already proved
that to you. There's no sense in talking about keeping the
law. You can't keep the law. There's none righteous, none
that understandeth. Think about that. You don't even
understand the law. How are you going to keep it? There's none
good. There's no goodness in you. Without
goodness, how are you going to keep the law? There's no righteousness
in you. How are you going to produce
a righteousness? And there's none that seeketh after God.
You're not even going to ask God to help you keep the law
because you're not seeking God. You're seeking your own righteousness.
Is that what Paul said? I bear them witness they have
a zeal of God but not according to knowledge for they going about
to establish their own righteousness would not submit to the righteousness
of God. Every sinner called to faith
in Christ knows that what thing soever the law saith, it saith
to them who are under it, that every mouth may be stopped and
all the world become guilty before God. Oh, but now, he said, the
righteousness of God without the law being witnessed by the
law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God which is
by the faithfulness of Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe. Do you believe that? Then you're
a believer. You're a believer. Believers
have only one hope of righteousness, and that is the faithful obedience
of the God-man. He was made under the law to
redeem them that were under the curse. And then thirdly, believers
understand that they're at the mercy of God's means of grace. We understand that. To be called of God, you must
experience the grace of God in the call, don't you? You have to experience the grace
of God. He has to shut you up. You're
not coming in your sins and in your rebellion. He has to call
you. Lazarus laid in that tomb, dead. He ain't coming out of that tomb
until somebody calls him with the authority to give him life. He never argued that point again.
You know why? Because he experienced a calling.
You didn't have to convince him he was dead, he knew it. You
didn't have to convince him of his inability, he knew it. He
knew it. He didn't have to pile up arguments
around him. He knew exactly what he was talking
about by the experience of the calling. Believers understand that they're
at the mercy of God's means of grace. God saves men on purpose. He teaches us this through a
lifetime. Through a lifetime. God saves
men on purpose. There are no extreme circumstances. or emergency situations that
God didn't foresee. He saw them all. He saw them
all. God knows His elect. Now listen
to me. He said, I am the good shepherd,
I know my sheep, and am known of mine. I know them. I know
them. He knew blind Bartimaeus sat
on a blanket on the outskirts of Jericho, didn't he? He knew
exactly where to go and exactly what to do. He knew exactly. He knew the adulterous woman
down there in Samaria came out at an odd hour to draw water
because she was an adulterous woman. He knew that. He got into
Samaria, John, and walked over to the well and sat down on it
and waited on her to come. He knew that the paralyzed man
laid down there for 28 years on the porch at the Pool of Bethesda. He knew every day he laid there.
And he knew what day he was going down to. Old Phillip, when the Lord called
him, Phillip ran and got Nathaniel. He said, Nathaniel, come on.
He said, I found the Lord. Well, the Lord found him. And
then he turned right around and he told him, he said, I found
the Lord. Both things are true. So here comes Nathanael. And
Nathanael is coming up to Christ. And Christ looked at him and
said, Behold, an Israelite in whom is no guile. You know what
Nathanael said? Whence knowest thou me? He said, I knew you before Philip
called you. You remember sitting under that
big tree? I knew you then. Boy, he didn't have nothing else
to say. God saves men. He knows where
he is. I don't. I don't have a clue. That's why he tells me go preach
to the world. I don't know who they are. I'm
going to preach to all of them the same. Same way, same message,
pointing to the same Savior. I don't know who these are, but
He does. And that's why it says, how shall
they preach except they be sent? Where would you go in the world?
Huh? Where would we go? What would
we do? I know ministers who pastor churches who just take off like
a whirlwind, start setting up tents and holding tent revivals
and everything under the sun. I don't know where to go. It's
a big world. It's a big world. How do we know where to go? He
opens the door. He opens the door of opportunity. He knows. He knew the coin was in the fish's
mouth. And it says, as he prayed in
the garden, when he finished his prayer, it says, and knowing
all things that should come, he said, let's go. Let's go. There's nothing he does not know
or see, even to the hairs of our head. Now, I used to do business
in a lumber company that had a sign. We went to the contractor
sales counter. Huge, big lumber company up in
Lexington, Kentucky. And I'll never forget walking
in there my first time in seeing this big sign. And here's what
the sign said. It said, neglect on your part
does not constitute an emergency on my part. And I knew exactly
what he was talking about. But ain't that what we want to
do with God? Huh? Isn't it? Because we neglected,
we want to say, oh, there's an emergency. Not with him, there
ain't. There's one with you. Not with him. I think William
asked me this question the other day. If a man is found shot to
death on the battlefield, will the Lord use some other means?
No. No, He won't. God's unchangeable. He's not going to change because
you're dying on a battlefield. What's taking place out on that
battlefield is what He talks about over in Proverbs chapter
1. He said, because I called. I called. And you refused. And you said it not, all my counsel,
and would none of my reproof. And I stretched out my hand,
and you wouldn't even look at me. You wouldn't even regard
it. Our Lord held both hands out,
and He said, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen doth her
chicks? And what did He say? You would not. Ain't that what
He's talking about here in Proverbs 1? I put my hand out. I put my hand out, but you didn't
regard it. Now, he said, I'll laugh at your
calamity and I'll mock when your fear cometh. When your fear cometh
as a desolation and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress
and anguish grip your soul, he said, you call me then. You'll
seek me early then." But he said, you won't find me, and I won't
hear you. Let me tell you something. God's sovereign over salvation.
He dictates the ways and means and times. He knows who, He knows
why, He knows what, and He knows when. I got nothing to do with
it. Nothing to do with it. There's
nothing left to change. He said, every good gift, every
perfect gift, cometh down from the Father of lights. Is not
salvation the gift of God? Is not preaching the gift of
God? Is not conversion the gift of God? Well, all these good
and perfect gifts cometh down from the Father of lights, with
whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, but by His
own will begat He us. Now, He said, be careful how
you hear. Be careful. Salvation is of the Lord. It's
an eternal work. It's a sure work. It's a manifested
work. It's an example work. I tell you this, God's not confused
about what He's doing. We are. We're the ones confused. God's not confused. God's not
frustrated. We are. We just get all frustrated,
don't we? We see a guy and the Lord begins
to do a little work in his heart and we all go and get him. You
need to do this. Leave him alone. Leave him alone. Just tell him the truth. Declare
to him the truth and leave him alone. Encourage him. Come in here and then leave him
alone. God knows exactly what he's doing. And those who know
anything at all about the depravity of man and the divinity of the
work required understand that they're totally at the mercy
of God. Do I believe every child of God
is a preacher? No. But I do believe this. I believe
that believing that is what leads to these in-house Bible studies
and these private gatherings that divide and split up churches
and lead to total confusion. I do believe that. Those things of God, we don't
have the option of saying, well, I think we've got thirful options.
You don't have any options. We've got the Word of God. That's
all we've got. Why don't we just take Him at His Word? Here's what He says. How shall
they preach except they be sent? I can talk, but I can't preach. I can testify, but I can't preach. The word preach is a declaration,
but it goes further than that. This declaration of God, this
chosen means of God, is synonymous with the Spirit of God. When
a man preaches, his preaching is accompanied with the Spirit
of God. You know what the evidence of that is? Conversion. Conversion. He's able to touch your heart.
And that's something one natural man can't do to another. He cannot
touch. I can't feed your heart, I can't
touch your heart, I can't bless your heart, and I can't regenerate
your heart, but God can. God can. Paul said he was so
thankful for those Thessalonians. He said, I know your election
of God. You don't know it, but I do. How did he know it? He said, because when the word
came, it didn't come in word only, but it come in power and
demonstration of the Spirit. How shall they preach except
they be sent? Listen to this testimony. Christ
gave some to the church. He gave some apostles and some
prophets. and some evangelists and some
pastor-teachers. Why? For the perfecting of the
saints, now listen, and for the work of the ministry. Ain't that
what he said? Till they all come in the knowledge
of the Son of God, in the unity of the faith unto a perfect man,
the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And as
God demonstrates His sovereign hand of grace in every area of
salvation, so He does in the preaching of the gospel exactly
the same as in the other areas. He does not vary. It's God's
sovereign grace. And He's not going to turn it
over to us. It is. And you can want to preach, and
Paul said it's a good thing. If you desire the office of a
bishop, that's a good thing. That's a good thing to desire,
but you can't get there. He has to put you there. And
when he does, he'll open the door. How do I know when a man's
called a freak? When God opens the door. And
when God opens the door, he opens the heart. That's how you know. Just stand by and watch. That's
all you gotta do. Just watch. Every time Paul came
to these churches, he told them when they got in trouble and
he'd come in and somebody already had them convinced that he wasn't
called of God, he'd come in and he'd call to witness their own
testimony. He'd take them back to their
own conversion. And basically, he said, I'm your
daddy. I'm your daddy. Don't you remember? And they
remembered. Our Father, We know something about our own
heart. And we know a little bit about
your sovereign mercy and grace. And we find ourselves down here
among men. And the responsibility weighs
heavy on my heart this morning. Be pleased. Use these messages
with thy name's honor and glory. Use them in an effectual way.
Use them to touch the hearts and minds of your people and
call them to Christ. I ask you for Christ's sake,
amen.