Now for this morning I want you to open the
Word of God to Mark chapter 6...Mark chapter 6. For you that are visiting with us, we're working
our way through the gospel of Mark and having such a wonderful time doing it. Every Sunday morning when we come together
we spend time with our Lord Jesus as He is the theme of every paragraph. How enriching and wonderful it is. And this morning we come to a section that
begins in verse 7 of chapter 6...Mark chapter 6 and verse 7. It has to do with the calling of the Twelve,
or the sending of the Twelve really on a sort of a short-term internship mission. It marks a very, very significant transition
point in the life of our Lord and is also highly instructive to all who minister the
gospel. God's timing is always perfect. His providence never misses. And here we are at the beginning of a Shepherds
Conference and at a text that is most applicable to those who minister the Word of God and
the gospel of Christ. We will look at this text both this morning
on the front end, and next Sunday we'll complete a look at it. It's really a very, very important text and
I want those of you, in particular, who minister to bear the wonderful implications and fruit
of its riches. Now just a word before I read it to you. Mark loves I guess what we've been calling
sandwiches, a story with two sides and something else in the middle. We have seen that already just in the past
chapter in the case of starting out with the story of Jairus, ending up with the resurrection
of Jairus' daughter from the dead, but in the middle the wonderful account of Jesus
healing the woman with the issue of blood. Well here is another one of those kind of
Marken sandwiches in which he begins with the Apostles and ends with the Apostles and
drops in the middle the account of the horrible execution of the last of the Old Testament
prophets, John the Baptist. Now for us to get the whole story of the sending
of the Twelve then, we're going to take the beginning and the end and leave the middle
story of John the Baptist for the future. Let me read then the pertinent Scripture,
beginning in the second half of verse 6 of chapter 6. "He was going around the villages teaching
and He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs and gave them authority
over the unclean spirits and He instructed them that they should take nothing for their
journey except a mere staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belt, but to wear sandals. And He added, 'Do not put on two tunics.' And He said to them, 'Wherever you enter a
house, stay there until you leave town. Any place that does not receive you or listen
to you as you go out from there, shake the dust off the souls of your feet for a testimony
against them.' They went out and preached that men should
repent and they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people
and healing them." Then comes the story of John and we'll pick
up our account in verse 30 at the return of the Apostles from their short-term mission. Verse 30, "The Apostles gathered together
with Jesus and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, 'Come away by yourselves
to a secluded place and rest a while.' For there were many people coming and going
and they did not even have time to eat. They went away in the boat to a secluded place
by themselves" In this very beautiful, very foundational
act in which our Lord sends out the Twelve on their first preaching mission, we have
essentially the seeds of ministry principles that come to full bloom in the rest of the
New Testament, particularly in the book of Acts and in the epistles. How we view ministry begins here. This is where we have the foundational beginning
implications for the nature of ministry that is so important to all who teach the gospel. Here we see Jesus the perfect leader delegating
His message and His power to the first generation of gospel preachers, His first representatives,
namely the Twelve. Here is the start of what we know as church
leadership and gospel ministry. The Lord delegates to chosen representatives,
twelve of them, the responsibility of representing Him, of taking His preaching and His power
to the villages and towns and to the people of Galilee. Now some of the specifics in this account
obviously are unique to the Apostles, namely the ability to do miracles. We don't have those powers, but the general
features that He required of them, He still requires of us. So there is an awful lot implication in this
passage. All good Bible exposition draws implications,
implications that extend beyond the historical event in which the text was written, or the
event in which the text describes. So we're going to be looking for implications
that go on permanently insofar as responsibilities for those who minister. As we work through the text, they will become
clear to us. But let's begin at the back half of verse
6 because that's really where this section starts. And these words will get us going. "And He was going around the villages teaching." The fact is the main word there is "He", He
was the only preacher. He was the only healer. He was the only one answering the questions
of the masses. There wasn't anybody else. His was an absolutely solitary singular ministry. For well over half of the three years of His
earthly ministry, He did it all. He has passed the half-way point now in His
ministry. He is headed to the cross. There are only a few months left in the Galilee
ministry. There were three tours of Galilee. He is about to launch the third and final
one in the winter of the next to the last year of His life on earth. Up to this point, He has done it all...all
the preaching, all the teaching, all the healing, all the deliverance from demons, all the raising
of the dead He has done. Everybody in order to experience His teaching
and experience His power had to be where He was. That made the crowds larger and larger and
larger and the larger they got, the more limiting and confining they became and the harder it
was to get to everyone. Galilee, as I said, only has a little time. In chapter 10 of Mark and verse 1 Jesus goes
to Judea where He spent the last year of His ministry, Judea being the southern portion
of the land of Israel. Not much time left, only time for one brief
Galilean tour. The pressure of time, the tremendously increasing
crowds make it clear to Him that He needs to divide the responsibility. He can multiply Himself twelve times if He
will delegate the truth and delegate the power to the Apostles and send them out so that
this final opportunity, this final gracious extension of ministry is vastly more pervasive
as they take up His place and His role from town to town and village to village. He has to defuse the single nature of His
ministry, defuse the single crowd phenomenon and take the message to the towns and villages
in a multiplied fashion. It's time now for these men who have been
in training by being with Him day after day, 24/7 for months, for no doubt well over a
year...they know what the message is. How do they know? They have heard it every day repeated all
through the day, day after day, week after week, month after month. And Jesus, as we know from the gospel record,
told the same story in different settings, made the same analogies, made the same points,
calling people into His Kingdom of salvation...they knew the message. Best way to learn the message is to listen
to the best teacher of the message. The best way to learn to preach is to listen
to the Master preacher and they have had their seminary training. It is now time for them to go out on their
first mission. And the objective is, go do it and then come
back and we'll find out what you felt you were prepared for and what you felt you weren't
prepared for and we'll ramp up the teaching that's going to even make you better when
you have to go out permanently in the near future. Now Mark gives us the sequence as to what's
going on. In chapter 5, the double miracle of raising
Jairus' daughter from the dead, twelve-year-old daughter, and then healing the woman who for
twelve years had been hemorrhaging. Then Mark says, "After those monumental miracles
near Capernaum, Jesus made a visit to Nazareth, 25 miles to the west and the south which was
His hometown. This is the second time He went to Nazareth. The first time they tried to kill Him after
one sermon because He indicted their false religion and their corrupt hearts and told
them that they were a generation like past generations with whom God could so nothing
because of their hard hearts. They didn't like the message. They tried to throw Him off a cliff and kill
Him. A long time has passed now in His Galilean
ministry and He returns in the opening six verses of the chapter to Nazareth. They don't try to kill Him, but they take
offense at Him...cold, stone rejection in His hometown by the people who knew Him best,
the people He had lived with for 30 years of His life. He left Nazareth and it was a sad and tragic
leaving. It was so strange that verse 6 says, "He was
amazed at their unbelief." That's a tragic reality. He couldn't do miracles there, except for
a few it tells us in verse 5 because of that unbelief. He doesn't waste His miracles on hard hearts. They were now in the category of Chorazin,
Bethsaida and Capernaum, cursed cities in Israel for having rejected the Messiah. Now that was only a microcosm of the fact
that the whole nation would be cursed and fall under the horrors of the Roman invasion
in A.D. 70. So it is after His rejection at Nazareth that
it says He was going around the villages teaching. Villages were many time was short, grace was
still going to be available as the Savior went from place, to place, to place, to place. But with the constraints of time and the vastness
of the opportunity, it's the perfect moment for Him to empower the Twelve and send them
on an internship mission which will make this extensive proclamation of the gospel even
greater than anything He's been able to do in His first and second trip around Galilee. Remember when He called the Apostles back
in chapter 1 verse 17, He said that He would make them fishers of men? As many as seven of them were fishermen. Now was the time for them to begin fishing
to cast their nets. So in verse 7 it says, "He summoned the Twelve
and began to send them in pairs." They had already been selected as Twelve of
His disciples that would be elevated to the level of preachers. He had many learners, many followers, some
true, long-term followers, some false, short-term followers. But from among the true long-term followers,
He chose Twelve. There were more...there were more. Luke tells us in the tenth chapter of Luke
that later on He selected 70 more of His followers and sent them out on a short-term mission. So He had a lot of disciples to choose from,
but Twelve were elevated to be preachers, we know them as the Apostles. They had four phases to their calling. First of all, there was a heart calling. There was the Spirit of God working in their
heart that drew them to follow Christ. They were interested in Christ from the very
outset. There was nothing coming at them from Him,
it was all the secret, quiet work of the Spirit of God in the heart. They were drawn to Christ. That was the first step. They began to believe in Him, to believe in
Him as possibly the Messiah, teacher from God, the prophet from God and they were drawn
to Him. Secondly, He then called them to follow Him
permanently. He reached out to them and said, "Come after
Me and I will make you fishers of men." That's the second phase. The third phase was He elevated these Twelve
to the level of preachers. They were not only called to Him, they were
to be sent by Him which is what Apostle means, a sent-one. They then were going to be transitioning from
being students to being preachers, from being learners to being messengers. Well here is the fourth feature in their preparation,
their first mission trip as interns. There will be a fifth phase, that will be
the final sending which happens after His death and resurrection when He meets them
on the Mount of Olives and sends them to Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the
earth. So here we are at point four in the preparation
of the Apostles, their short-term ministry where they go to represent the Lord Jesus
with His message and with His power for a short-time to return and report to Him. And when they report to Him, they will then
receive further training based upon that report. Finally, after all of their months and months
of listening, it's their time to repeat the message and they are sent. He summoned the Twelve and began to send them
out in pairs. They went in pairs for obvious reasons...mutual
support, mutual protection, to make everything they said confirmed in the mouth of two witnesses,
to blend their unique gifts and talents and skills and to bring double witness to what
they were going to repeat that they had heard and seen in Jesus. So for all of those reasons, they went two-by-two. And by the way, wherever the disciples are
listed in the gospels or in the book of Acts, they always appear in twos. There are three groups of four, it's always
two and two, two and two, two and two in all the listings. That's the way they functioned. They came back the same way they went out...two-by-two. The idea that He began to send them out may
mean that they all didn't go at the same moment. But it was over a brief period of time that
they were give direction as to where they were to go and they were sent and they probably
came back something the same way. It's time now for them to set aside their
mundane trades. It's time for them to set aside their earthly
vocations. They've had enough training, they've had enough
preparation, it's now time to go and so much is at stake. There is no second string. There is no backup team. There is no plan B. These are the men. Risky from a human perspective? Yes it is risky. We know them as Twelve Ordinary men with extraordinary
responsibility. They are very special men to us but they were
not special to anybody in the religious establishment at the time they were chosen. They are unique to us. We have them elevated in our hearts and minds
and rightly so. They had great positions. After the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ
in the church, they were the ones who established doctrine. When the early church met in Acts 2:42, they
studied the Apostles' doctrine. They were the first generation of preachers,
the first generation of missionaries. They established the churches, that is they,
minus Judas, plus Mathias, and with Paul added. The New Testament was essentially written
by the Apostles and their close associates. So this is where that all begins. One other important note here that you need
to consider. There is also a judgment in the commissioning
of the Twelve, a very severe judgment in the commissioning of the Twelve. Jesus was a judgment preacher. Many things He did were acts of judgment,
and it wasn't just making a whip and cleansing the temple once at the beginning of His ministry
and once at the end, it wasn't just pronouncing doom on the Pharisees, judgment on the Pharisees
for their hypocrisy as He did in His passion week, there were many elements in His ministry
that were acts of divine judgment, sweeping acts of judgment and this is one of them. This is a judgment on Israel. This is a judgment on the nation Israel. Israel was hardening in its unbelief, solidifying
in its rejection of Him as Savior. And as we all know, by the time He comes out
of the grave there are only a hundred and twenty believers in Judea and five hundred
in Galilee. The nation had turned itself against Him and
rejected Him. What happened in Nazareth was a microcosm
of what happened in the nation. It's just really stunning to think about that. If you can imagine a nation in a primitive
time where there was no such thing as an accurate medical diagnosis and therefore no such thing
as a medical cure. In a time when demons were reeking havoc in
the souls of people, in a time when the battle for bread and survival was challenging and
difficult, in a time when the mortality rates were higher and life spans were lower, here
was someone who could heal every disease, without discriminating against anybody, He
healed all the sick all the time everywhere He went. Here was somebody who could deliver someone
from the horrendous oppression of demons, here was someone who could raise the dead,
here was someone who could provide food for the hungry masses and the number of them was
no limitation whatsoever. And on top of that, here was someone who could
show you the way to heaven. Now ask yourself, is that the one you want
to kill? Really? So you come down to the time when He stands
before Pilate and they bring Barabbas and you want Barabbas, right? And what did Barabbas ever do for you? He robbed you and plundered you. This is to show you the depth of the animosity,
the depth of depravity, the darkness of the human heart, the ugliness of wretched sin
and rejection of the truth, and to show you the terrible, damning evil of false religion. It's a stunning thing. But it's against the backdrop of that nation
that He chooses twelve men. Guess what? No priest, no scribe, no Pharisee, no Sadducee,
no rabbi, nobody out of the religious establishment is chosen. The religious establishment is corrupt. The very fact that He chose these men from
the commonest of people, most of them being fishermen, the other common laborers, and
you can throw in a despised tax collector and a deadly terrorist in Simon the Zealot,
and you've got a very unlikely group. It is a judgment on the condition of the religious
establishment that He can't use anybody in the religious circles. This is a judgment on apostate Judaism. That's how His ministry actually began. As soon as He started His ministry, He went
into Jerusalem, the capital of the great nation of Israel, the home ground of the religious
establishment, during the Passover, the one time of year which was the high point of religion
in Israel, He went in to the holy place we know as the temple, the sacred place of Judaism,
populated with masses of pilgrims coming to offer their sacrifices. This was when the religious establishment
was at its pinnacle, and He made a whip and just cleaned the place out. He struck a devastating blow at institutionalized
and apostate Judaism. He unmasked the religious nobility as thieves
and hypocrites. He condemned their spiritual bankruptcy. He exposed their apostasy. He rebuked their sinfulness. He indicted them for gross corruption, denounced
their deception and essentially made it public so that all the people knew what He thought
about them. Now many months later at the height of the
Galilean ministry, their hatred of Him has escalated. It started that day and its escalated in all
the months in between and these leaders of the religious establishment are making sure
that every possible opportunity they have to convince the people that He is satanic
and not from God. They take that opportunity and so they continue
to feed these corrupt downright hypocritical religious people throughout the nation, a
propaganda against Christ and they buy it. They are blood thirsty by the time we reach
this point. The rejection is complete. They despised Him. They despised the doctrines of grace He stood
for. They spurned the repentance He demanded. They hated the message of forgiveness that
He gave. They repudiated the faith that He demanded. And they overlooked all His miracles. All they wanted was a dead Jesus. When He chose twelve common ordinary men to
be the first generations of New Covenant preachers, that was a condemnation of the Jewish religious
system. The Twelve Apostles became, in effect, the
leaders of Israel. How many tribes in Israel? Twelve, now you know why there were twelve
Apostles, not eight, not ten, not six, not twenty-four. There's symbolic importance here. There were twelve tribes in Israel but Israel
was apostate, its leaders were apostate, the Judaism of Jesus' time was a horrendous corruption
of the faith of the Old Testament. Their religion was legalistic. It was self-condemned, shot through with hypocrisy
and self-righteousness. And Jesus picked men who were not at all a
part of it, they weren't even rulers in the synagogue, local rulers. He elevated them. They were the new spiritual leadership of
that nation. Jesus Himself made the connection in Luke
22:29 and 30. This is what He said to the Apostles. He said to them, the Twelve, "I bestow upon
you a Kingdom just as My father bestowed upon Me that you may eat and drink at My table
in My Kingdom and sit on thrones judging the Twelve tribes of Israel. You are the new leaders of Israel, symbolized
in the Twelve as there are twelve tribes. And one day in the glory of the Kingdom, each
of you will rule over one of the tribes of Israel." These are remarkable choices our Lord is making. But doesn't this fit the picture of 1 Corinthians,
that He chooses not many noble, not many mighty, He chooses the lowly and the nothings and
the nobodies so that all the glory may belong to Him? And having already pulled them out months
ago, He now sends them out. And as they go, I want you to see the things
that mark faithful messengers, okay? The features, characteristic elements of ministry
that mark faithful messengers of Christ. For those of us who are called to this high
calling, this is strong, strong foundational teaching. First of all, number one, faithful messengers
of Christ proclaim salvation...proclaim salvation. Does that seem obvious? Well, it should be obvious. We just have one message, just one message. I'm going to borrow from Luke 9. Luke is the parallel text...Matthew 10, Luke
9 and have also this same sending out. And Luke 9 says this, "He sent them out...verse
2...He sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God." He sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of
God. That's what John the Baptist did, that's what
Jesus did. Jesus came to preach the Kingdom. What does that mean? To preach the King and His subjects, the Kingdom
of salvation. What is the Kingdom of God? It is the realm of salvation, it's the realm
of the redeemed and the saved over which God rules through His chosen monarch, Christ,
who is King of kings and Lord of lords. It's the message of salvation. The word "proclaim" here is kerusso , it's
the word preach...it's the word preach. They went out to herald publicly, to go into
the towns and the villages publicly to preach the Kingdom of God that you could come in
to the sphere where God rules. You could enter into His Kingdom of blessing
and promise and hope and deliverance and salvation. They had been learners, they are now messengers. They had been students, they are now preachers. This is their first foray into this. And they were going to do exactly what Jesus
did. If you go back in Mark chapter 1, He was preaching
the Kingdom, simply that the sphere of salvation is now available. The door is opened. If you'll come and put your trust in Me, you
can enter the Kingdom of salvation and be under the beneficent and eternal and blessed
rule of God. But you have to acknowledge Me as your Lord. Then in verse 12 there's a second component
added in their message. Verse 12 says, "They went out and preached
that men should repent." That too was a part of the message of Jesus,
as well as John the Baptist. Repent. That was the message that Israel couldn't
swallow because that affirms that they are poor prisoners, blind and oppressed as Jesus
designated them in Luke chapter 4, borrowing from Isaiah 61 that the gospel was going to
be preached to the poor prisoners, blind and oppressed. It's not talking about physical conditions,
it's talking about heart conditions, to those who realized they're spiritually bankrupt,
who realized they're in prison to sin and death and judgment, who are blind to spiritual
truth and who under the oppressive threat of punishment. The gospel comes to those who recognize their
horrendous spiritual condition, the deadly wrath of God about to fall on their heads. And the gospel says, "Repent, recognize your
religious sins, your hypocrisy." That's what Jesus preached. That's what John preached. That's what they preached. That's what we preach. We preach that sinners must repent, put their
faith in Jesus Christ who enter in to the Kingdom of God wherein lies eternal salvation
and eternal blessing under the sovereign rule of God. The Kingdom is opened up. Matthew 10 says He told them, "Go to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. Go to these lost sheep. They're in the house of Israel, they are lost. They're no different than pagans. And so they went, doing what Jesus did. The implication is pretty clear for us, right? We only have one message to give. We only have one source. We have one book with one gospel. Any deviation from that is a prostitution
of our ministry. We preach the message of salvation. The second thing they did, very important
and all faithful ministers of the gospel, all faithful messengers of Christ do it, they
manifest compassion...they manifest compassion. Verse 7...back to verse 7, "He gave them authority
over the unclean spirits." Now obviously there's more than compassion
here. That is an expression of divine power, but
compare that with down in verse 13, they were casting out many demons and anointing with
oil many sick people and healing them. Our Lord gave them exousia . The word "authority," exousia can be translated
authority, if you're talking about the right to do it. It can be translated power if you're talking
about the ability to do it. They had both the right to declare unclean
spirits to be gone. They also had the ability to do it. That's exousia , both the right and the power. By the way, He delegates to the Twelve power
over demons. How extensive? Luke 9:1 says, "They had power over all demons...all
demons." There were no demons either in groups or alone
who could withstand this power. Now why is this the first thing that is described
here? Because this is the greatest expression of
power. Not healing...not healing because disease
doesn't fight back. Disease in itself is not a personal power. It can't devise means to thwart the efforts
of the healer. Even death is not in itself a power that fights
to thwart the one who would break its bands. Demons? They are personal powers, massive powers,
supernatural powers. And so, the inability to dominate all demons
is in some ways the greatest expression of power because at that point you get the greatest
resistance. He gave them then power to dominate the unclean
spirits and Luke 9:1 says, "To heal diseases," and Matthew 10:8, the other comparative passage
says, get this, "Raise the dead...raise the dead." So what did they do? Twelve men went out to cast out unclean spirits,
heal all the sick and raise the dead. Staggering, staggering commission, they had
all the power, Jesus did, over demons, disease and death. These were the credentials of the Apostles,
the agents of our Lord Jesus Christ. They had these for the duration of their ministry. Second Corinthians 12:12 says, "These are
the signs of the Apostles, signs, wonders and various miracles." Those were the unique credentials of the Apostles. The only time any other people received such
abilities, Luke records in Luke 10 that for a short time He went out seventy other of
His disciples, seventy others to go out and preach the Kingdom and He gave them that kind
of power. It's an interesting thing, why 70? Well it may be that He was connecting with
Moses, you remember, in the Old Testament when Moses was appointed to his position of
leadership, he chose 70 elders to spread the work. But apparently the 70 only had that power
for a very brief delegated period, whereas the Twelve had it as a permanent indication
of their Apostleship. Why would they have those signs? Because that's what makes it clear that they
are speaking divine truth. It's undergirded by these powerful expressions
of miracles. But as I've said before, there's more to it
than the power. There's the compassion in it because there
were many ways that Jesus could have chosen to demonstrate power, many, many ways. In fact, the Pharisees held out to the dying
end that Jesus did not verify that He was the Messiah because He did not do signs in
the heavens. He didn't rearrange the constellations with
which they were so very familiar. He didn't turn the night into daylight, or
the daylight into night. He didn't do things to the sun and the moon
that the prophets talked about. So they held out at the very end, saying,
"Show us a sign," and what they wanted was a sign from heaven. He could have done all of that. He could have done anything. Why...why these things? Why dealing with demons and disease and death? Because you not only demonstrate power but
the demonstration of compassion is overwhelming. Without discrimination He heals everybody,
delivers everybody from diseases, raises dead people, understand this is a very primitive
world where these things were daily reality that inflicted pain on these people and there
was no relief..no relief. The compassion is stunning, it is stunning. There was a little community of Jews somewhere,
we don't know where, to whom the writer of Hebrews wrote his great epistle and he says
to them, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which was, first of all,
spoken by our Lord and then to us by those who heard Him?" And he goes on to say in Hebrews 2:4, "And
they verified it with signs and wonders and various deeds under the power of the Holy
Spirit." Maybe that little group of believing Jews
was a town that one of the Twelve visited. Whoever they were, they heard from the Apostles
and what they heard was verified by mighty, mighty miracles. Supernatural power then was to authenticate
the message, but I think beyond that, it is to demonstrate the compassion of God as over
against false teachers. Listen do you think the people of Israel felt
that their religious establishment was compassionate? I don't think so. Jesus indicted them and said, "You bind on
these people burdens they can't even carry and you don't even lift a finger to lighten
the load. They had turned the Sabbath day, a day that
was supposed to be a day of rest, into the most hated day of the week because there were
so many prescriptions; people could barely do anything. They had added so many laws and rituals and
routines and demands and commands that all of life was externally cumbersome. They were extracting money out of people to
such a degree that even a poor widow threw her last two cents in the treasury in the
temple and went home to die. And Jesus said, "Any religion that does that
to a poor widow is coming down stone, by stone, by stone to nothing." False preachers are pressed people, Ezekiel
says. He says they vex people. Amos says they sell people for any price they
can get. Amos says they defraud people. Amos says they crush people. Isaiah says they grind their faces. Habakkuk says they devour people. Jeremiah says they eat people up, they consume
them. Jesus later in Mark, 12:38 to 40 says, "False
teachers take advantage of widows. They literally take away their houses." That's the kind of system they were living
in. A crushing, merciless system. And it was even to the extent where if you
were a Pharisee, you were proud to say, "I don't go near the Amharitz , I don't go near
the common people. No, not even so much as to teach them the
Law of God, they're so far beneath me." Here comes Christ. Where is He all the time? Among the people, among the people, in the
mass, in the crowd and He's putting God on display, the God who doesn't forget their
suffering, Psalm 9. The God who hears their cries, Psalm 69. The God who maintains their rights, Psalm
140. The God who delivers, protects, exalts and
provides for all who suffer and all who are poor. Psalm 14 says that He is our refuge. Mark it, false teachers are merciless, brutal,
compassionless. They abuse people. They take advantage of people. They divest widows or anybody else of their
last dime, if they can. On the contrary, our Lord is sympathetic,
tender, drawn to the poor, drawn to the sick, drawn to the demon possessed, drawn to the
funerals to relieve suffering. The Lord sent the Twelve to do the same thing
that He had done in order to demonstrate that God is a God of love and mercy and compassion
and kindness and tenderness and He feels your pain. And so, anybody who names the name of Christ,
anybody who proclaims that he is a servant of Christ, anybody who goes as the messenger
of Christ must first proclaim salvation and secondly, show compassion. And true ministers do. They proclaim salvation, they manifest compassion...one
more point, they live dependently...they live dependently. These first preachers set the model for us,
verses 8 and 9. "And He instructed them that they should take
nothing for their journey, except a mere staff. No bread, no bag, no money in their belt,
but to wear sandals." And He added, "Do not put on two tunics." Now here are the rules for the road, folks. Okay, you guys, you're going to go. Matthew adds that He said this, "Freely you've
received, freely give." Don't put a price on your ministry. This is the principle of never charging for
the gospel, never charging for the ministry, not seeking to be enriched by people, especially
by taking from suffering people...which is so common among false teachers. The Bible, all the way from the oldest books
in the Old Testament that mention false teaching, to the New Testament, tell us false teachers
all are in it for the money. They get rich off people who suffer. And listen, sick and suffering people will
pay anything to someone they think can help them. People trade on that all the time, these would-be
healers all over the place who have become filthy rich, can't heal anybody, they can't
heal anybody. But people will pay out of desperation. Can you imagine what they would pay if you
could? Oh the Twelve had to face that reality. They would raise the dead and they would heal
all the sick and they would deliver all the people possessed by demons and the temptation
would be to cash in on it. That's not how it's going to be. "Freely you received," He said to them in
Matthew 10, "freely you give." And then...that's what Peter's talking about. He learned the lesson well. He talks in 1 Peter 5 about people in the
ministry for filthy lucre's sake. Timothy is told by Paul to beware of the love
of money which is the root of all kinds of evil. People love it, pierce themselves through
with many, many sorrows. Paul says, "Look, you have a right to be paid,
those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel," 1 Corinthians 9. You know, you need to feed the ox if you want
him to plow. Paul in Galatians says to share with the one
who teaches you in all good things. Nothing wrong with that. But here this is a training mission, okay? This is a training mission and what's the
lesson here? There's multiple lessons. One, you're going to have My power with you. You're going to preach My message. But you're going to have to learn to trust
in Me for everything. This is..this is a training in trust, okay? This is training in trust. This is your...this is your greatest lesson
on the great theological truth of divine providence. You're going to learn that God will provide. By the way, everything that is mentioned here
that you just sort of grab and go, you don't take an extra pair of sandals, you don't take
an extra tunic. We'll see. You don't take an extra staff. These kinds of things were the normal things
that you packed to leave. All of them are mentioned in Exodus 12:11. When the people were ready to leave Egypt,
they had to go light. You have the same things mentioned there. They were leaving a pagan land and they were
going to leave everything behind and just take what they had in their hand and on their
back. And it's the same thing here. And I think maybe there's something kind of
interesting in that. Could this be a small sign of the beginning
of a new era in redemptive history? Is this a new exodus from a pagan Israel? Is this the gathering of a new nation and
these are the leaders of that new nation? So when you go, he says, taking nothing, packing
nothing except a mere staff, a mere staff, that's a walking stick and a stick you could
use to defend yourself against an attack of a robber, or some kind of an animal. In Luke 9 it says neither a staff, which obviously
means an extra one. People tended to take an extra one, sometimes
over the shoulder with a bag on it. You don't take an extra staff. And then he goes on to say, "No bread, no
food...no food. You're going to learn to depend on Me, no
bag," which means you've got nothing to carry the food in anyway, that's a backpack or a
knapsack. No money in your belt. They carried money in their belt. Matthew 10:9, Jesus also said, "And don't
acquire gold and don't acquire silver, and don't acquire copper for your money belt." Don't start selling your healing power. Take no money, take no extra clothing, take
no bag to put anything in, you just go. This is, dear friends, high level training
in trust, isn't it? Wow. And don't take two tunics. A tunic is translated in Matthew 5:40 shirt. Outwardly they had a cloak which they used
as a blanket and to roll up and sleep on at night, or unroll. Don't take an extra shirt. Just what you've got. This is the stripping of every normal thing
that you would assume you would need to pack an extra pair. Don't take a second pair of sandals also,
the other writers say. Now you say, "Wow, this...is this the vow
of poverty forever? Are you feeling a little guilty as you think
about the four suits you brought to the Pastors' Conference this week? Three pairs of shoes and...?" I feel your pain, I want to help you. Turn to
Luke 22..Luke 22:35. "He said to them," this is the look back,
"'When I sent you out, you remember that, guys?'" He's talking to the Twelve. "'Remember when I sent you out without money
belt, and bag, and sandals? You didn't lack anything, did you?'" What did they say? No, nothing. Did they learn the lesson? Did they learn the lesson of providence? Did they learn that you can live dependently? Is that forever? Is that suppose to be the way you live your
entire life? No. But isn't it good to know that God will provide? Cause there's going to be times and there
have been times in all our lives when we were in one degree of desperation or another wondering
where in the world we were going to be able to get what we needed to make it? "But now," He says in verse 36, "But now,"
now is different than then, okay? "But now, whoever has a money belt, take it
along. Likewise a bag," which assumes you can fill
it up and pack it up. "And whoever has no sword, sell one of your
coats and get a sword. It's not going to be easy out there. You may have to kill your food. You may have to defend yourself against an
enemy. You're going to need supplies." This is the normal thing. Plan, prepare, accept what God has provided. Pack it up, do what you're going to do. But for those Twelve then, the lesson was
on dependence. Go like the rabbis said that people were to
go to the temple with no staff, no shoes and no money. Go sort of symbolically bare before God. This is Boot Camp on Trust. Had they heard Jesus say...had they heard
Him say that if He clothed the lily of the field, He'll clothe you? Sure. Had they heard Him say if He feeds the birds
of the air, He'll feed you? Had they heard Jesus say be anxious for nothing? Seek first and His righteousness and everything
else is going to be added. They learned their lesson on trust when they
responded, no nothing. We had all the food we needed. We had all the lodging we needed. We had everything we needed the whole trip. We had nothing in our hand but the stick when
we left and we had all our needs met. One of the great lessons for all of us in
ministry to learn is dependence. That's what we try to teach the seminary students
while they're here. Keep them as poor as possible for as long
as possible. So somewhere down the road when they have
to apply that lesson of trust, that's going to be in their memory bank. Well if you want to be a messenger that stands
in the long line of faithful messengers descending down from the apostles, proclaim salvation,
manifest compassion, and live dependently. Don't put a price on your ministry. Receive everything God gives you with grace
and gratitude, hold it lightly in your hand and use it for the advance of the kingdom. Well there's three more principles here that
we'll look at next Sunday. Thank You, Father, for such a wonderful and
refreshing time with our Lord again. His wisdom is so overwhelming to us. Every scene like this is precious, precious
to us, a precious experience of communion and fellowship with Him and with You. Thank You for enlightening us today in a new
way, especially those who are those ordinary men called to the extraordinary calling today. We bring the same message. We bring promise of the same power. We can tell them that someday Jesus will heal
all their diseases and He will raise them from the grave to eternal glory, eternal bliss. Father, we thank You that we can validate
our ministry not by miracles but by its accordance with holy Scripture. There's the proof of its validity. We thank You, Lord, for all that You're doing
in our lives, even in this hour, to remind us, to reshape us, to refocus us, to give
us a greater love even as we heard sung, "More love to Thee," that's our prayer, to Your glory we pray. Amen.
