I could not help but think of
the scripture when we were singing that hymn, Once for All. In the
10th chapter of Hebrews, the scripture says, For by one offering
he hath perfected forever those that are sanctified. And we know
that the one offering of the Lord Jesus Christ redeemed his
people. If you will tonight, I want you
to turn with me to Matthew chapter 10. And I want to read three verses
in this chapter, and then I want to tell you why I read these
verses this past week. Matthew chapter 10, and reading
verses 29, 30, and 31. Are not two sparrows sold for
a farthing? And one of them shall not fall
on the ground without your father. But the very hairs of your head
are all numbered. Fear you not, therefore. You
are of more value than many sparrows. I turned to these verses and
read them this past week, of course, very familiar verses
of scripture, but I turned here thinking about the providence
of God. And I did so after reading an
article, and I want to read this article, the first part of this
article to us at least. And I quote, here's a mind boggling
figure. Scientists estimate that in the
United States alone, 13.7 million birds die every day. It's a seemingly random and rather
unpleasant statistic. But when I came across it, this
is the words of the author, my heart was deeply encouraged. Are not two sparrows sold for
a penny? and not one of them will fall
to the ground apart from your father. There are hundreds of
billions of birds in existence around the world today. Almost
all of them have no monetary value whatsoever. Apart from
a handful of endangered or noteworthy birds, we don't track these creatures,
name them, care about them, or know them, but their creator
does. He is in control over every aspect
of their life, their birth, the color and quantity of their feathers,
their nest, their breeding, their migration, and ultimately the
time, location, and manner in which they die. What comfort
does this give to God's children when we think of His superintending
providence over all things? If this were not enough, if this
were not enough, the Lord gives us, the Lord Jesus gives us even
more comfort stating that the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Now I want to go back and read
from verse 24 through 33. If you look back, beginning in
verse 24, the disciple is not above his master, nor the servant
above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple
that he be as his master, and the servant as his Lord. If they
have called the master of the house Beelzebub, How much more
shall they call them of his household? Fear them not, therefore, for
there's nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and hid
that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness,
that speak you in light, and what you hear in the ear, that
preach you upon the housetops. And fear not them which kill
the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear
him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for
a farthing? And one of them shall not fall
on the ground without your father? But the very hairs of your head
are all numbered. Fear you not therefore? You are
of more value than many sparrows. Whosoever therefore shall confess
me before men, him will I confess also before my Father, which
is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before
men, him will I also deny before my Father, which is in heaven.
Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth. I came not
to send peace, but a sword. I wanted to read all of these
verses because we recognize the importance when we read any passage
of scripture, when we look at any verse of scripture, that
we understand the context in which the words were spoken. And I remember writing in a Bible
that, it's an old Bible, I still have it, but the pages are coming
out of it now. But I wrote this many years ago,
in 1535, the year 1535, not quite 500 years ago. The third authorized
Bible was published in English, and Myles Coverdell, he was the
one responsible for this translation. But in the front of the Bible
that he published, and it was an authorized version, in other
words, the king allowed it to be printed. But he wrote these
words, and I can't remember them and quote them exactly, but the
gist of it was this. It shall greatly help ye in reading
the scriptures. Now think about that. For the
most part, and even then, very few people had the Word of God,
could afford to buy a Bible. That's not true in our country,
in our day. That's not the way you and I
were raised. We were raised in a home, probably,
I was, where there was several Bibles. But he said this, and
these words cannot be improved upon. It shall greatly help ye
when ye read the Scriptures, if you mark not only who is speaking,
to whom the words are spoken or written, what are the circumstances,
and with what intent. And there's a few other things
that go along with that, but words which greatly help us when
we are reading the scripture. And so I thought about these
three verses that I read, which are so comforting, that speak
to us of God's providence, His superintending providence, as
the author of that article said, over all things. And we know
that's so. But what were the circumstances
in which these words were spoken? We know the Lord Jesus Christ
spoke them. They are His words. If you look
back, in chapter 10 here to verse 5, it said, these 12 Jesus sent
forth and commanded them saying, these are the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the one speaking. He's the
one who said these words. And we see to whom he spoke these
words. He spoke them to the 12 apostles. And he spoke them, here's the
circumstances, he spoke them, if you look in verse seven, as
he sent them out to preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The circumstances in which Christ
spoke these words to his 12 apostles, the circumstance was he was sending
them out to preach the gospel, the kingdom of heaven, this gospel
dispensation is at hand. That was a message, and he gave
them the gifts of the apostles. If you notice in verse eight,
he says, go forth, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers. Here's the
signs of the apostles, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely you have received, freely
give. And then if you notice in verse
16, he sent them out, he said, behold, I send you forth as sheep
in the midst of wolves. I send you forth as sheep in
the midst of wolves. So these are the Lord's words
spoken to his 12 apostles as he sent them out to preach the
gospel, giving them the signs of an apostle. And yet he told
them, I send you forth as sheep among wolves. Now think with
me. The very least, see if you don't
agree with this. The very least we could say is
that the Lord Jesus Christ sent these 12 men out to do good. Wouldn't you agree? He sent them
out to do good. If a person appeared today with
a cure for the coronavirus, the world would praise him. The world would give him accolades. He would probably win a Nobel
Prize. Yes. Yet when the Lord Jesus
Christ sends his apostles out, to preach the gospel, God's remedy,
for something far worse than this coronavirus. Because you
see, the coronavirus, it may cause a person's physical death. But he sends out his apostles
to preach the gospel, which is God's remedy for sin, which is
ending, or ends rather, an eternal death. The wages of sin is death. What's the difference? Why is
it? Why is it that a man might appear
with a cure for this virus and be acclaimed by the world, and
yet when the Lord Jesus Christ sends his apostles out to preach
the gospel, the glorious gospel of the grace of God, he warns
them of what they were to expect? It tells us something about this
world, doesn't it? It tells us that this world isn't
the world as it was when God created it. When God created
this world, in the beginning, he created man, and man was holy
and righteous and perfect, and yet we know man disobeyed God,
and there is what we know in the scriptures as the fall, the
fall. I listen to preachers sometimes,
and it seems to me like most men who stand before eternity-bound
men and women. They act and they talk as if
there were no fall, as if man was not a fallen creature, if
man was not because of his sins deserving of the wrath of God. Oh, no. You know, evolution. And I believe
the reason for that, one of the reasons for that is because evolution
has taught this generation and maybe the past couple of generations
the idea that man sort of started at the bottom and we are improving,
we are evolving upward, upward, upward. But the truth of the
matter is man began at the top. He was holy. He was pure. He
was created in the image of God, the moral likeness of God, and
yet he sinned and he failed. And we need to know God's cure. This tells us what I've said
here a man comes along with a cure He's accepted by the world cure
for the virus man comes along with the gospel Not so much why
because this world is a fallen world and the Apostle John says
this in the last chapter of his first epistle he made this statement
and it is the inspired Word of God the whole of The whole world
lieth in wickedness, or the wicked one. Now let's consider tonight,
let's consider five truths from this passage about the disciples
of the Lord Jesus Christ in this fallen world. First, The disciples
of Christ must not expect to receive better treatment than
he did from this world. Notice what he said in verse
24. The disciple is not above his
master, nor the servant above his Lord. How was the Lord Jesus
Christ treated by this world? You know, in John chapter 1,
the gospel of John chapter 1, in verse 10, the scripture says,
For he was in the world, the world was made by him, and he
was in the world, and the world received him not. How was he
treated by this world? He said the disciple is not above
his master, he's the master, we are his disciples. How was
he treated in this world? In the prophecy of Isaiah, The
prophet said he would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief. You know, the religious leaders,
the religious leaders of that day, you know what they said
about Christ? Well, it tells us there, doesn't it? In verse
25, it is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and
the servant as his Lord. If they have called the master
of the house Beelzebub. What did they call Christ? Beelzebub. In other words, they accused
him of casting out demons by the power of Satan. And that's not the only term
they called him. They said he was a gluttonous
man. He's a glutton. They said he's a winebibber.
And yes, it implies that they even said he's an illegitimate
son. of Mary. That's what the world
said about him. But let me remind us tonight,
there was one thing that they called him that was true. And
I'm so glad it was true. There's one thing, they called
him a glutton, they called him a winebibber, that was untrue. But there was one thing they
called him that was true. And I'm so thankful tonight that
it is true, because they called him a friend of sinners. A friend of sinners. After all,
that was the reason he came into this world. That's what he said. He said the Son of Man has come
to seek and to save that which is lost. Now he didn't come into
this world to seek goats. and turn them into sheep? You
know better than that. He came into this world to seek
that which is lost. That is, those sheep that were
given unto him by the Father in that everlasting covenant
of grace. And yes, we fell in our head
at him, all of God's sheep, all of his elect. And he came to
seek and to find and to save each and every one. You know,
our Lord gave the parable of the sheep, the lost sheep. There
was nine in nine that were safe in the fold. There was one that
was lost. So what does the shepherd do?
What's the point of the parable? The shepherd goes and he seeks
until he finds that lost sheep. I think about the Lord Jesus
Christ finding his sheep when he was here in the flesh. He
found Zacchaeus up that sycamore tree, didn't he? Zacchaeus, come
down. He found Levi, or Matthew, sitting
at the receipt of custom. Follow me. And then his disciples
who he sent out, his apostles to preach the gospel we read
from Acts, how that he found his sheep using the ministry
of these men. He found Lydia. There was Lydia. She was from Thyatira, but she
ends up in Philippi. You say, boy, that was lucky.
There's no such thing as luck. No, she ends up, she's one of
God's chosen. She's one of his sheep. She ends
up there on a business trip, no doubt, no doubt, in Philippi,
but along comes Paul and Silas. And they go out to where some
women gathered out there outside of town. There was no synagogue,
evidently, in Philippi. That's where he usually went.
But he went out there where these women no doubt sat alongside
the river. I've seen women washing their
clothes in the river, you know, and are drawing water at a well. And I'm sure it's a time when
they get together and talk and discuss different things. But
these women were gathered together for prayer. And Paul and Silas. came along, spoke to them, and
the scripture says, and the Lord opened Lydia's heart, that she
attended unto the things spoken by Paul. What was he speaking?
The gospel. The gospel. Yes, you know, Paul
said this, we think about the Lord Jesus Christ coming to seek
and to save. his lost sheep, the apostles
said, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. They called
him a friend of sinners. Yes, he came to save sinners.
And Paul confessed himself to be the greatest. He said, I'm
the chief. And he didn't say I was. He didn't
say I was the chief of sinners. No. The more you grow in grace,
really, the more you see your need of a savior. That's the
reason the scripture says to whom coming. You know, I believe
one of the greatest problems that we face in the U.S. today is most people in churches
believe they're saved and they do so because of a past experience. And if you talk to them, they
always run back to an experience they had sometime in their past. My friend, salvation is coming
to Christ, looking to Christ. We looked yesterday, we look
today, we come today. Come to homecoming, the apostle
Peter said. You see, Christ didn't come into
this world to reform the world. He didn't come into this world
to set up a kingdom like the kingdom that was the kingdom,
the nation of Israel under King David and Solomon, great kingdoms,
great mighty kingdoms, wealthy kingdoms, powerful kingdoms. No, he said, my kingdom is within
you. And it cometh not with observation,
no, the spirit of God regenerates his people and God's, the Lord
Jesus Christ, he sets up his throne in the heart of his people
and he comes to reign. Yes, his kingdom is a spiritual
kingdom. Now, those who preach the gospel
of grace, we should not expect better treatment than he received. The Apostle John tells us this
about false prophets. This is interesting. In 1 John,
I believe it's chapter four, he begins by telling us to try
the spirits. In other words, try the prophets.
And how do you try a prophet? Here comes a man and he claims
to be preaching the word of God, the truth of God. John said,
you better try him. And how do you try him? With
the word of God. the Word of God. And if he does
not speak according to the law, it's because there's no light
in him. But John said this also in that
same chapter. He said this concerning false
prophets, false preachers. They are of the world, therefore
speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. They
are of the world and they speak of the world. They speak of health. Everybody wants to be healthy.
Everybody wants to be healthy. So let's just preach on how you
can be healthy. You get a bunch of people listening
to you. Now they speak on wealth. Most people desire to be wealthy. So let's speak. They speak of
the world and the world heareth them. But those who the Lord
sends out as he sent out these apostles, we are sent out to
preach the gospel. And let me tell you something
about the world's message of salvation. I don't care what
name it goes by, it is salvation by works. That's it, salvation
by works. I don't care what denomination,
if it calls itself a Christian or Muslim or Hinduism or whatever. It all comes down to this. You
are your own savior, and by your own works, you redeem yourself. But the message of Christ is
altogether different. It's a message that salvation
is by grace alone. By grace alone. Now here's the
second thing. The disciples of Christ must
look forward with patience to the day of judgment. This is
what we read in verses 26 and 27. Fear them not therefore,
for there's nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid
that shall not be known. What I tell you in darkness,
that speak you in light. And what you hear in the ear,
that preach you upon the housetops. The disciples of Christ must
look forward with patience to the day of judgment. We will
be misunderstood, we will be misrepresented as we stick to
the old paths, the old ways. People tell us today, we've got
to change. We've got to change with the
times. Have you ever heard that? I have. We've got to change with the
times. We've got to make the message of Christ more relevant
to this generation. Anyone who would make a statement
like that, doesn't understand the message of Christ. The message
of Christ, the gospel, is always relevant to sinners. Always. I have a good friend,
pastor friend, who preaches in a federal prison. He preaches
there quite often. In fact, I think a couple of
times a week. But over the years since he's
been going there, they've changed chaplains several times. And
he told me sometime back that a new chaplain came in who is
a younger man. And I think he told my friend
something like this. He said, you know, he said, Pastor,
God uses you older man to speak to the older people, but God
uses us younger people to speak to the younger people. And by
that, he intimated that the message has to change, that you have
one message for the older people and another message for the young
people. And my friend asked him, he said, well, let me ask you
this, has God changed? Has sin changed? Has the Savior
changed? No, no. God is still God. One man I was reading this past
week about the scriptures, he said, the Bible is a book of
infinites. It speaks of our infinite guilt. It speaks of God's infinite righteousness
and holiness. And it reveals an infinite atonement
that pays, that satisfies Almighty God. Oh yes, man hasn't changed
and man's need hasn't changed. What did Adam need? He needed
Christ. He needed a covering. He needed
substitution. He needed a sacrifice. That's what I need. That's what
you need. Nothing's changed in that sense. The disciples of
Christ must look forward with patience to the day of judgment. Yes, we're going to be misunderstood.
We're going to be maligned for what we preach by sticking to
the gospel. Someone said that gospel you
preach over there, that's a slaughterhouse gospel, a slaughterhouse gospel. Why do they say that? Because
we continue to preach about the blood, the blood of Jesus Christ. Without the shedding of blood,
without the sacrifice, the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, there
is no remission of sin. Yes. And third, the disciples
of Christ must fear God more than man. We must. Notice what
he said in verse 28. Fear not them which kill the
body, but are not able to kill the soul. But rather fear him
which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Men may kill the body, but that's
just as far as his power can go. And even then, Even then,
my friends, man can only go as far as God allows. I'm thinking about the words
the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to Pilate when he stood before Pilate. And Pilate would have the Lord
believe that he had the power, that Pilate, that he had the
power to release Christ or to have him crucified. And our Lord
said this to Pilate, thou couldest have no power at all against
me, except it were given thee from above. All the power that
Pilate had was power that God gave him. He could not do one
thing more or less to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the same thing
is true of all men concerning Christ's disciples. I thought
about King Nebuchadnezzar. You know, he threatened Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego with his fiery furnace. But they would
not bend. Many, many years ago now, I heard
a message. I still remember the outline.
It's a good outline. They would not bow when they
raised that big statue of Nebuchadnezzar. constructed, had constructed,
the music sounded, everyone was to hit the ground to bow. They
would not bow. And when they were brought before
Nebuchadnezzar, accused of not bowing, they would not bend. And when he commanded that they
were thrown into the furnace, They could not burn. They would
not bow, they did not bend, and they did not burn. Yes, man can
only do so much, only do what God allows and no more. And fourth,
and here we come to the text where I began, the disciples
of Christ must trust His wise providence. You know, I was just
reading through 2 Kings, I believe it was, this past week of Elijah,
maybe 1 Kings. You know, God fed Elijah. He
had room service there. God had the ravens bring him
food every morning. Bring him meat. And ravens, they
eat meat. And yet here, by God's command,
they served Elijah food every day. And then God sent Elijah
to Seraphith to a widow. And think about this. If you
could have looked over that town of Seraphith and everybody there,
every person in that town, and someone, God had told you, there's
one person here that's going to maintain, that's going to
take care of Elijah for the next so many years. No one would have
chosen that widow woman. She didn't have anything. She
had a little meal and a little oil in the crew. That's all she
had. She told Elijah, she said, I'm going to put this together.
I'm gathering a few sticks and I'm going to cook this. My son
and I, we're going to eat this and die. Elijah said, before you fix you
a cake, fix me a cake. She did. And she was sustained. She was sustained. Elijah was
sustained. Her household was sustained during
that drought. Yes, God, His providence, my
friends, is over all. And we have as many promises
in the Word of God that He will support us through the trials
of this life. What comfort in knowing that
that everything around us is under His control. There's no
disease that can seize us. There's no hand that can hurt
us unless He allows, unless He allows. And we read and we know
that all things work together for good. to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose. Now the last,
the fifth thing, the disciples of Christ must remember the day
coming when we shall meet our master, verses 32 and 33. We desire that in that day, he
confess us before his father. We must confess him, we must
own him, confess him before men. I think about the Apostle Paul,
and you read about this in the book of Acts, when he was on
that ship as a prisoner being taken to Rome. And that ship
was in a great storm, you know. And the sailors, the people on
board, they were afraid for their lives. And they had reason to
be. And you know, Paul said this,
listen to these words, whose I am and whom I serve. In other words, I'm the Lord's.
He bought me, he sought me, he saved me, whose I am and whom
I serve. We must confess him before men,
knowing that he too will confess us. One writer said this, to do so
may bring on us laughter, mockery, persecution. and scorn. But now
listen, this is what caught my attention. Let us not be laughed
out of heaven. Let us recollect the great and
dreadful day of account and not be afraid to show men that we
love Christ and want them to know and love him also. I pray that the Lord would bless
these thoughts and words to all of us here today. all of us listening,
and we do give thanks unto the Lord for this wonderful promise
of his superintending providence over all of his children. Now
Kevin is going to sing, he's going to come and sing the hymn
that we all know, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. And that's
number 354. They called him a friend of sinners. Thank God he is. And we're going
to sing this hymn, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. And then after
he finishes with this hymn, he's going to sing a verse of that
hymn that we've asked him to sing the last couple of times. God be with you till we meet
again. That seems so appropriate, doesn't
it, during these times? God be with you till we meet
again. Now it's number 354 in the hymn
books, What a Friend We Have in Jesus.