Alright, look back here in Luke
chapter 9, and I've taught on my message this evening, the
twelve sent forth. There's three different places
where our Savior talks about sending the disciples forth here.
One place, it says that he sent them forth two by two. But our
Lord is doing something different, something he hadn't done before.
He'd been doing all the preaching. He'd been doing all the healing.
Now he sends forth the apostles to do what he had been doing.
He's going to do his ministry through them as what he will
do after he ascends back to glory. And they do exactly what he done. And look what it says here in
verse 1. Then he called his twelve disciples together. He called
them. He called them. They didn't call
themselves. He called them together. And
that's the thing. Look back over here in Luke 6.
You know, that's the thing. Some people want to enter the
ministry and feel like it would be a good profession. Or their
dad was in the ministry and their granddaddy was, so it's a good
thing to do. Go off and get an education. Come back and get
a church. Get a good salary. Get you a
doctor's degree. But our Lord Jesus Christ, He called these
men. He called them. And as He called them, the first
thing before He called them to be apostles, He called them to
salvation. And before He ever calls a preacher to preach, He
calls him to his salvation first. He got to be saved first. He
got to be filled with the Holy Ghost first. And then so the
calling, first of all, the first part of our calling is to salvation.
But look here in Luke 6 and verse 12. And it came passing those
days that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night
in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called
unto him his disciples, and of them he chose twelve, whom also
he named apostles." And then he gave us the names of them.
So these are the twelve that he's going to send out. Now,
beloved, Judas was one of these twelve, and Judas done what the
rest of them did. And that's a great mystery, but
yet it shows us this. The one who betrayed him, this
shows us that our Lord Jesus lets the tares grow up together
with the wheat. And we don't know the tares until
they're separated by the Lord himself. We won't know who a
tare is until the Lord plucks it up. And Judas was a tare. He was drossed among the gold.
And they didn't know. Their other disciples didn't
know. And, beloved, so he called them together. Then look what
he done back here in Luke 9. And then he gave them power and
authority over all devils and the pure diseases. You see, if
anybody has any power, he has to give it to them. There's no
power apart from him. And he gave them the power. He
gave them the authority. He gave them the might, the power,
and the right to do what he called them to do. And you see, beloved,
all power belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. All power over
all devils, all power over all creation, all power over all
flesh. He has power over all things.
God has given all things into the hand of His Son, and He can
give power to those whom He will. And He chose twelve, and they
wouldn't have any power. And they didn't go preach until
he sent them forth. He didn't have any power to cast
out devils until he gave them the power to cast out devils.
They didn't have any authority to preach until he gave them
the authority to preach. Look over in 2 Timothy chapter
1 with me just a minute. This is what I'm trying to say.
You know, that's the same thing with becoming a child of God.
He says, You know, to as many as received him, to them gave
he the power. to become the sons of God which
were born, not of the flesh, not of the will of man, nor of
blood, but of God." This new birth, this life, everything
about it. Anybody has any power, anybody
has any authority, it's got to come from the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if you've got authority from Him, you can go face the devils. If you've got authority from
Him, you can face these diseases. And look what Paul said here
in 2 Timothy 1, verse 1. Now watch it. Paul, an apostle
of Jesus Christ. How? By the will of God. He didn't wake up. He'd been
a preacher. He'd been a very super religious man. He attended
the synagogue, knew the scriptures, but he didn't know anything about
being an apostle. Didn't know anything about salvation.
Didn't know anything about preaching until God called him. And he
was won by the will of God. And all authority that he had
from then on came from the Lord Jesus Christ. And gave him authority
over devils, it seems. Over all devils. And to cure diseases. And I'm
sure thankful. I'm thankful. That, you know,
we don't have this authority and power today. We don't have
it. You see these guys getting on there, you know, commanding
devils to come out of them. Catholic Church has these exorcisms
and all that, and, of course, to be casting demons out of people.
You know, our Lord, to establish His Church on this earth, and
to show that these are the signs of the Messiah, these are the
signs of the Christ, these miracles being done the way He done it,
and to show that He gave authority to men, and only to a few men,
that's why they've done this. And you and I don't have any
power over devils now. We don't have any power. I don't
even have power over my own flesh most of the time. Do you? I have
a hard time with my own flesh. I thought today, oh Lord, my
flesh indeed is weak. But he gave these men power over
the devils and to cure diseases. You see, he's the one with all
the authority. And he has already defeated the
devil for us. He has conquered him for us.
Greater is he that he knew than he that's in the world. And we
overcome the world, even our faith. The victory that overcomes
the world, even our faith. He's the one. You know, remember
when Satan came and presented himself in a prayer meeting?
And God said, have you ever considered my servant, Job, a just and an
upright man and fears me? His shoes evil. He said, oh my,
if you turn me loose on him, and the devil had to have permission
from God. So the same thing happened over
in Acts chapter 19, Paul was casting out devils. And there
was a bunch of guys got together, seven Jews, brothers, of one
man, seven sons of one man. They decided after they seen
Paul cast out devils, they're going to try to do it. They go
up there and said, They got a hold of this fella, and they started
laying hands on him like these guys do on television. Oh, come
on! And all that. Next thing you
know, that fella's trying to cast the devil out of him. He
got mad, and he ripped all seven of them, and stripped their clothes
out, and they went out there running. They said, Paul we know,
Jesus we know, but we don't have a clue who you are. When God
gives a person the authority, even the devils know him. The
devil's known. Old Ralph Barnard used to say,
there ain't very few men known in hell. And Paul was one of
them. The devil's knew him. And our
Lord Jesus Christ and these men. But He's the one with all authority.
And then the cured diseases. They have the power to cure diseases.
But the greatest disease has been cured. By the Lord Jesus
Christ is the disease saved. By His stripes we are healed. He redeemeth thy life from destruction,
and healeth all thy diseases. Thank God that all of our diseases,
whatever they may be, have already been taken care of, in particular
the one that would have destroyed us forever had not our Lord Jesus
taken care of it. And then look what happens. It
says here in verse 2, And he sent him to preach the kingdom
of God, and to heal the sick. He sent him to preach the kingdom
of God. And the preaching they did wasn't like those that the
scribes and the Pharisees had. You know, the scribes and the
Pharisees, when they were preaching the kingdom of God, the first
thing they looked at is this hair splitting. This hair splitting. You know, this is not the kingdom
of God they're preaching. You know, they would say, why
does your master eat with publicans and sinners? Why do you eat with
unwashed hands? Well, when these men came preaching
the kingdom of God, they preached that men would be saved not by
hair-splitting logs, not by straining at gnats and swallowing camels,
not by ceremony, but by God entering into the heart and soul of a
man and establishing his authority there. That's the kingdom of
God they preach. God's going to come here, and
God establishes His. That's why our Lord says, the
kingdom of God's coming to your presence today. He said, if I
by the finger of God cast out the devils, then the kingdom
of God, the power and authority of God's right here, right now.
And when they preach the kingdom of God, God's going to set up
His kingdom and establish His authority. And oh, the kingdom
of God, it means this, God's kingship, God's rule, God's sovereignty. And you know where it's recognized?
It's recognized in the heart of all of God's people. All of
them. We pray, Our Father which art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom
come. Oh, we want this kingdom. And
the kingdom of God, when they preach that it's a complete salvation,
wherever the kingdom of God comes and set up its rule, set up its
sovereignty, where it's acknowledged in the heart of a man, it's a
complete salvation. And in this salvation, where
the kingdom of God is established, All the spiritual blessings for
God's people is in that kingdom and in its king. And all the
material blessings for our soul and our body is that God Almighty
lives in us and we recognize His authority. We obey Him. You
know, that's why Paul, he says, you know, God who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness, translated us into the kingdom
of His dear Son. There's a complete salvation
in this kingdom. It meets all of our spiritual
needs, the needs of the soul. And as our King and our Sovereign,
He meets all the needs of this body, what we need in this world.
And maybe have us do without? Not even close, are we? And then the Kingdom of God is
in the Church also. We talked about the Church. This
is where God's Kingdom is set up. Here we recognize Him as
King. Our Lord Jesus said, told Simon
Peter, upon this rock, I'm going to build my church and the gates
of hell ain't going to prevail against it. What is he talking
about? The church, the kingdom of God
is in the church. We're not looking for a coming
king. We're not looking for a coming king. Are you looking for a coming
king? Christ has got his rule and authority here right now.
Who do we answer to? We answer to Christ. Where do
we get the authority to be gathered here tonight? We get it from
the Lord Jesus Christ. Some denomination. We don't belong
to it. We don't have somebody we have to answer to somewhere
else. We don't have anybody that gives us what we're supposed
to preach and an order in what we're supposed to preach. We
don't have a prayer book that we go through. So where do we
get our authority? Where do we recognize this authority?
Where do we have this power to preach and gather together as
we do here tonight? And it calls you to sit here and listen to
what's being said. The Kingdom of Christ. The Kingdom of God.
And if it's in you, it's in here. It's among us all. That's why
Paul says, you know, I've been everywhere preaching the Kingdom
of God and those among whom I've preached it to, you're going
to be sorry because you're never going to see my face again. He
said he went preaching the Kingdom of God. And then the kingdom
of God is this, it also means this, the new heaven and new
earth with all the glory of it. Look over here at Matthew 25.
Look at Matthew 25, just a minute. Oh my, we're going to where there's
a kingdom, beloved. That new heaven and that new
earth where nothing but the subjects of the king shall dwell in it.
It's called the kingdom of heaven because it comes from heaven.
Our Lord go put the sheep on the right and the goats on the
left, and then look what he says in verse 34, Matthew 25. Then
shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come ye, blessed
of my father, Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world. You know we've read the kingdom,
it's already established before you and I ever got here. And
it's here now, and yet it's yet also future. Oh my, it's called
the kingdom of heaven because it comes from heaven. Called
the kingdom of heaven because it will take us to heaven. And
it's a heavenly kingdom. We sang that old song, Heaven
Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul. Well, that's what we're
talking about. And then look what he says here
in verse 3, back in Luke 9. He says, take nothing for your
journey. Take nothing for your journey. You're going to go out
to preach. You're going to go out to preach
the kingdom of God, cast out devils, cure diseases, preach
the kingdom of God, heal sick people. He said, I don't want
you to take anything. I don't want you to take a thing
in the world with you, but what clothes you got on your back,
what shoes you got on your feet. And why would our Lord do this
to these men? Well, first of all, those who
preach the gospel should live of the gospel. That's what he's
telling. But the greatest reason I believe that he's doing them
this way is to teach them, you trust me. I'll see that your
needs are met. I'll see that you're taken care
of. I've been preaching now all this time, and have I wanted
for anything? And that's what he's telling
me. He said, don't take a stave with you. And that word stave
means a staff, a stick, a stick, a walking stick, a staff that
you walk with, like a shepherd's staff. And our Lord Jesus, what
he's saying is, I'll be your staff. You need someone to lean
on, lean on me. By rod and by staff they shall
comfort me. And then take no script. This
word script means a leather bag, you know, it'd be like a purse
or some people put around their waist to carry their stuff in,
you know, these little packs that people carry. This is what
this is. This is a leather pouch that they would carry with them
to put things in, put their provisions in. And our Lord Jesus said,
don't you take no script, don't you take no leather bag with
you. You don't need no provisions. I'll be, I'm the Lord and I shall
provide. I am Jehovah and I shall provide.
I'll be your provision. And then he said, don't take
any bread with you. Don't take any bread with you. I'll have
people somewhere with bread. If I can feed Elijah, send out
in the wilderness bread by ravens, And give him water out of a brook.
Don't you think I'll feed you? You remember in one place he
asked me, he says, did you like anything when I sent you out?
I said, nothing, no. And oh my, don't take no bread. I'll see that you fed. I'm the
bread which came down from heaven. And money, he said, don't take
any money with you. Don't take any money with you. He's going
to teach these fellows right off the bat, don't you covet,
filthy looker. Don't you go and provide for
yourself. I'll be your wealth. And he says,
you have this treasure and earthen vessels, you don't need any money.
You don't need any money. And I'll see that you're well
taken care of. And I'll tell you, and beloved, what our Lord
is telling these men, don't take two coats with you. Don't take
two coats with you. You know, don't take too, don't
take too, preachers aren't to be, what he's telling me is,
you preachers, you're going to be my servants. You're not to
be taken up with the things of this world. You're not to be
taken up with material things, with wealth and ease and lovers
of pleasure. When you go preach the gospel,
don't let money, don't let clothes. That's why Paul says, you're
my witnesses. I didn't cover your silver. I
didn't cover your gold. I didn't cover any of your arraignment.
I didn't cover anything you had. And that's what he's teaching
these men here. When you go to preach the gospel, when you go
out to be a witness for Christ, you have one purpose that I sent
you to do, and that's to preach the gospel. I'll see that you'll
have clothes on your back, an automobile to drive, and food
in your belly. I'll take care of you. And he
does. He's done that for men as long
as there's been people. I heard just the other day a
man, he'd been preaching, and the Lord's called him to pastor.
And he's busy, busy, busy, busy. The last time I was with him,
he said, it's such a great burden just having to deal with this
business. I'm dealing with this business and it really hinders
me. And in fact, that next Wednesday he's having another preacher
preach for him because he had so much work to do. Well, the
dear preacher's got him off to himself. He says, you're going
to have to let that go. If you're going to pastor this
church, if you're going to pastor these people, that's got to go. And he didn't have to pray about
it. He knew it was coming. And he hadn't turned it all over
to somebody else. And he said, you wouldn't believe the weight
you left off. Oh, my. I've heard a lot of people,
I've heard a lot of men. You listen to me. We don't just
talk a minute. I know a lot of preachers that makes lots of
money out working. Or did. And I've seen men tell and say,
you know, either you've got to get into ministry or get into
work. You can't do both. If you're going to go out here
and make a pile of money, then the church is going to suffer
and the gospel is going to suffer. So, you know, if you're going
to preach the gospel, preach the gospel. If you ain't, forget
it. And I've seen some fellows get
pretty mad about that. And needless to say, there ain't
one out of a hundred that'll pay attention to something like
that. Not one out of a hundred. But that's what he's teaching
here. You trust me. You've got a treasure. And it's
my treasure. You're my servants. I'm responsible
for you. And I'll see that you're taken
care of. And he has never, ever failed yet. And then look what
he says in verse 4, and this goes right on, continues what
he's saying here, it says, Now in whatever house you enter into,
there abide till you depart. This is where you're going to
get fed. This is where you're going to stay. And when you go
into somebody invites you into their house, and you go into
their house, you stay right there. You abide there. When you go out to preach, you
come back to that house. You let these people, they'll provide
you with hospitality and they'll be a blessing to you and you'll
be a blessing to them. And he said, and when you get
ready to leave that town, then you leave from that house. And
why is he telling us this? Now there's things, you know,
there may be things you dislike where you're going to stay. But
your likes and dislikes don't mean anything compared with the
spread of the gospel and the preaching of the gospel. They
may not make the coffee as strong as you like it. They may not, the bed may not
be as soft as you think it ought to be. But that don't have anything
to do with preaching to God. I asked a preacher to come preach
for me in a couple of weeks. And I said, where do you want
to stay at? He said, any place you put me,
I'll be fine with me. And I said, whatever says that?
Any place you put me, I'll be fine with me? Why is that? Because they've
learned. God's taught them that. God's
taught him that. And why he says here, you know,
stay in one place, because if you go from house to house, that's
not good. Do you know why? It'll end up just gender and
strife. Well, wonder why he didn't stay
with me longer than he did. Why didn't I have them folks who
were my preachers? Did they cook what you wanted to eat? And next
thing you know, why didn't you stay with me? Why didn't you
stay with me? And that's why I said, so you
stay one place. And one place, he said, wherever the peace of
God's at, you stay there and let your peace be there. And
then look, and they taught him this also. In verse 5. That everybody ain't going to
believe what you have to say. You're not going to be received
by everybody. Everybody ain't going to invite you in their
house. And whosoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city,
shake off the very dust of them from your feet for a testimony
against them. You know, when the Jews, whenever
they'd be coming from a certain area or something, they was coming
back into Israel, the thing that they'd do when they got to the
border, They would shake the dust off themselves, off their
feet, off their bodies, because they were afraid that if they
went into Israel with the dust from someplace besides Israel,
that they would be unclean themselves, and if they got around other
things, it would make them unclean, make their things unclean. And
what our Savior is saying is, if you reject the gospel, If
they, somebody there rejects the gospel, that place rejects
the gospel, what you do is you consider them unclean and you
treat them as they're unclean. They don't want the gospel? Treat
them like they are. They don't want to hear the gospel?
Treat them like they are. When you leave there, you shake
the dust off of you. As a testimony, what's it? Against
them. Look what happened over in Acts
13. Look here in Acts 13 with me, just a minute. In Acts 13, in verse 50. Oh my, this is, you know, you
don't want the gospel, we'll shake the dust off. I mean, there's
an old man, He lived up the road from us, and he didn't die until
he was almost 100 years old. He'd been a the Baptist preacher
for years and years. Some Jehovah's Witnesses came
by to talk to him one day, and he was sitting out in the front
yard. They talked, and he told them,
he said, I want you to get out of here with that stuff. And
they, they argued around and said, I said, I want you to get
out of here. Well, they wasn't going to go and he went and got
a stick. He said, I said, you're going to go. And if you stop
to shake the dust off, I'm going to hit you with this stick. He said, don't you shake that
dust off. Well, he's dead and gone now. That was hilarious when he told
me that. But that's, you know, that's, This is what really happens
over religion. Here in verse 50, Acts 13, But
the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women, and the
chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and
Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coast. Now watch this,
that they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and
came unto Iconium. You know what? Give you the foot. Give you the
foot. Testify against it. And oh my, look over here in
Matthew 10 real quick. Let me show you this, and I'll
move on to something else. But look here in Matthew 10,
verse 14. And our Lord's speaking now.
And this is the same place where He sent the twelve out. Sent
the twelve disciples out. And he said, Whosoever shall
not receive you, nor hear your words, when you depart out of
that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily
I say unto you, it shall be more probable for the land of Sodom
and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." That's bad,
isn't it? That's a testimony against Alright,
back over in our text. You reject the gospel. You reject
the good news. What else is there but judgment?
What else is there but judgment? And then in verse 6, it says,
And they departed, and went through the towns, preaching the gospel
and healing everywhere. The kingdom of God and the gospel
is one and the same. One and the same. Preach the
gospel. Preach the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ and
His glorious power. And then look at Herod's perplexity
here. Now, Herod the tetrarch heard
of all that was done by him, all that was done by the Lord
Jesus Christ, and how he used these men. He was perplexed because
some came to him and said that John was risen from the dead.
This has to be John. But you see, John never performed
a miracle. John never performed a miracle. Not the first miracle. And then
secondly, they said, well, some say it's Elijah. You know, Elijah
went off in that chariot of fire, went off to glory. They said,
Elijah's come back. Elijah's here. And he's the one
that's supposed to come before the Master comes, before the
Lord comes. Elijah's here. He's the one performing all these
miracles. And others said that one of the old prophets was raised
again. They've raised up Samuel or Isaiah or Jeremiah or Ezekiel
or Daniel. One of them's been raised up.
And they're performing these miracles. But Herod said, John,
I beheaded him, so I really don't believe God's risen again from
the dead. I remember killing him. But who is this of whom
I hear such things? Who is this man? What kind of
power? What authority? What is it? And
he said, of whom I hear such things, and he desired to save
him. Well, Herod did. Herod did in closing. Look in
Luke 23. Look what he did when he did save him. How do you think
he treated him when he saw him? He got to see the master. You
know how Lord Jesus called him a fox. Look what he says here. You know, you desire to see him.
Well, he got to see him. But how do you think he treated
him when he got to see him? Well, here they brought the Lord
Jesus before Pilate, and Pilate heard in verse 6. When Pilate
heard of Galilee, heard that Christ was from Galilee, he asked
whether the man were a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that he
belonged under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself
also was at Jerusalem at that time. And when Herod saw Jesus,
watch this now, he was exceeding glad. Exceeding glad. For he was desirous to see him
of a long time now, for a long season. Because he had heard
many things of him. He said, who is this that I hear
such things of? And he hoped to have seen some
miracle done by it. Wanted him to treat him like
he was a magician. Wanted to treat him like somebody,
like a trained monkey. I want you to do this. I want
you to do that. Let me see you do this. Let me see you do that.
Then he questioned him in many words, but he answered him nothing.
And the chief priest and scribe stood and vehemently accused
him. Now watch this. Inherent with
his men of war, said he had not. You know what it is to set something
at nought? It's useless. It's no good. It's a zero. Set
him out at the side of some nothing. Nobody. Set him at nought. And mocked him. And arrayed him
in a gorgeous robe and sent him back to Pilate. You've seen,
you could see him taking him back over to Pilate with that
gorgeous robe on. And the same day Pilate and Herod
were made friends together, for before they were at enmity among
themselves." And that's the way our Master is treated by the...
You know what? Our Lord said it this way. He
pleased God that the world, by its wisdom, should not know God. It pleased God by His wisdom
that the world in their wisdom would never know Him. Now, the
world in His wisdom, when they saw Him, they said, man, I want
to see Him do something. If He has any power and authority,
why don't you do something? Why, we'll put a robe on him. He ain't nobody. He ain't nobody. Nobody. And to the world, he's
nobody. But to us who believe, he is
precious. Lord Jesus, all blessed be your name. Men
treated you so awful. And oh Lord, help us never to
be ashamed of you. Help us that we'd never treat
you with nothing but love and worship and adoration and acknowledge
your rule, your authority, your power. And to bow down ourselves
before you. kiss your feet, lay at your feet,
embrace your holy heart, and Lord Jesus, you embrace us. Oh,
Father, help us to always preach the gospel. where we go to stay, not never
again to strike. Thank you for the privilege of
meeting here with the people of God. Meet the needs of these
dear saints as they go home, go to their jobs, and as they
travel. We pray, dear Lord, that you
meet every need of every home, every family, every child. We
ask in Christ's name. Amen.