Two Journeys

Take your Bibles and open to Matthew chapter 10. We'll be looking now at the commands that Jesus gave, the marching orders, one could say, to the twelve as he sends them out on mission. You've heard before, and it's a common proverb, that a 1000-mile journey begins with the smallest step. We have in the instructions that Jesus gives here in Matthew 10, the beginning of an incredible march, the advance of the Gospel from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. This is the first indication we get, the clear indication that Jesus is going to entrust to His people to the ministry of reconciliation. He gives to his twelve apostles that ministry.

That 2000-year advance has been irresistible, it's been fruitful, it's advanced, it's been sweet as individual hearts have been conquered by the Gospel message to the salvation of their own souls, and it continues even to this present day. As a matter of fact, I believe that it's accelerating as we reach the end of the age.  I don't have any idea, I'm not standing here to say that we are the final generation, but I do perceive a great acceleration of the Gospel in our time. 

We know that World War II, for example, was a terrible tragedy, we know that many millions of people were killed, but yet through it all, the sovereign hand of God overruled it for good.  I'm thinking right now specifically of the island of Irian Jaya [Papua New Guinea].  Before World War II, many Americans had never heard of it, didn't know anyone even lived there. But because our soldiers were sent there, and soldiers from other lands were sent to fight there, all of a sudden after the war was over, there came a thought, "Why can't we who have gone as soldiers of our respective nations, go as soldiers of the cross and bring the Gospel to Papua New Guinea? So the Gospel went. We have the story, for example, of Don Richardson recorded for us in Peace Child of how the Gospel was taken there. All of this, in fulfillment of the prophecies from the Old Testament, and then the specific commands that Jesus gave in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, Isaiah 42:1-4, Jesus is spoken of there when God the Father speaks of His Son and says, "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, my chosen one in whom I delight. I'll put my Spirit on Him and He will proclaim justice to the nations." In Isaiah 42:4 it says, "In His law the islands will put their trust."

 Well, could it be that Papua New Guinea (Irian Jaya) and some of these other islands that are now hearing the Gospel for the first time were in Isaiah's mind or in God's mind when Isaiah wrote that prophecy? We have here in seed form in Matthew 10, the entire advance of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, and it's an exciting, thrilling chapter. We're going to look today at the scope of that mission, we're going to look at the strategy of the mission, we're going to look at the supplies of the mission, and we're going to look at the support of the mission. We're going to try to learn what God would have for us to learn. For us, we have to understand that the mission has not changed. It has been passed on from generation to generation. The twelve apostles are dead, they've gone on to be with the Lord, and they passed on this ministry to their disciples. Their disciples are dead, they've gone on to be with the Lord, and so it has passed on eventually to us. We are responsible for this generation; we're responsible to evangelize the people in this age. This is our time and this is our opportunity to pass it on to the next generation, if the Lord tarries.

We see in verses 5and 6 the scope of the mission that He gives to His apostles at that time. It says, "These twelve, Jesus sent out with the following instructions: Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans; go rather to the lost sheep of Israel." I want to connect this  to the context that we've been noticing here in chapter 10 of Matthew, and the instructions given at the very end of Matthew chapter 9, in which Jesus saw that the people were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus  says, "I'm going to send you out to the lost sheep of Israel." There's a direct connection between the two. He sends them out in fulfillment of the compassion and the love that He has for them. He sees that they're harassed, He sees that they're helpless, they're like sheep without a shepherd, and they need the ministry of the Gospel.  The first thing He tells them there in Matthew 9 is that they should ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest field. Then He prepares and sends out these twelve to go as laborers into the harvest field.

The scope of the mission here is to Jews only.  It says," These twelve, Jesus sent out with the following instructions: Do not go among the Gentiles, or enter any town of the Samaritans; go rather to the lost sheep of Israel." This is the initial phase of the advance of the Gospel, the advance of the Kingdom of God, and it is to the Jews first. This was Jesus' self-conscious mission in the days of His incarnation. He was not sent, at that time, to minister to the Gentiles. He's going to show that later on in Matthew 15, to a Canaanite woman, who comes to Jesus looking for healing for her demon-possessed daughter. He doesn't speak a word to her, though this Canaanite woman, this Gentile woman, follows and intercedes and begs, He does not answer a word. The disciples come up and say with a disparaging attitude, I believe, "Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us." And Jesus says at that time, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."  Jesus, in the days of His incarnation, was sent specifically to the Jews. He sends the apostles out also specifically to the Jews. The apostle Paul, when he went out on his missionary journey, would go first, always, to the Jews. He would go to the synagogues, and he would speak first to the Jews. In Acts 13:45-46, it says when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying. Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly, "We had to speak the Word of God to you first." Do you hear that? That's what he says strategically. Paul, in every town, wherever he would go, he would go first to the Jews. "We had to speak the Word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles."

Paul articulated this very principle in Romans 1:16, in which he says, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile." He sends the twelve out first to the Jews, to the lost sheep of Israel. But you should not misunderstand; Jesus always had the Samaritans and the ends of the earth in mind. He had the Samaritans and the ends of the earth in His mind even at this point. We know that Jesus ministered to the Samaritans. Even though He said, "Do not go to any town of the Samaritans," He ministered to the Samaritans. In John chapter 4, it said that He had to go through Samaria. A very interesting expression in John 4, "He had to go there." Why did He have to go there? Because there was a woman waiting for Him by the well, and He was going to speak to the Samaritan woman, and He was going to bring her into the Kingdom of God and not only her, but her whole village. When they hear her witness and testify to Jesus' power, she says, "Come and see a man who told me everything that I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" The whole town comes out, and at some point they listen to Jesus, they hear His words, they believe,  and the entire community believes in Jesus Christ. They say to the woman, "It's no longer because of what you said, but because of what we have heard from this man that we believe that Jesus is the Messiah." Jesus clearly, even in the days of His time on earth, have the Samaritans in mind. The Samaritans were a kind of a mixed group of people; they were of Jewish ancestry, but they had intermingled with the Gentiles and had married with those that were still in the land. They were despised by the Jews, but they were clearly a stepping stone, eventually, to ministry, to the Gentiles and to the whole world.

Not only did Jesus have the Samaritans in mind, He really had the uttermost parts of the earth in mind as well. Christ was always thinking about us, He was always thinking about the Gentiles. And so, "To the Jew first", was just a stepping stone, through Samaria, eventually to the uttermost parts of the earth.  God speaks to His Son in Isaiah 49:6, saying, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob, and bring back those of Israel that I have kept." Just stop right there. "It's too small for you just to be a Savior for the Jews, that's not enough, I've got a bigger purpose for you." This is the Father speaking to His own Son. "It's too small a thing for you just to be the Savior of the Jews. I will also make you," He says, "A light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth," including Irian Jaya, I might add. To the ends of the earth, the salvation is going to come. And so this was prophesied at His birth by Simeon, that godly Jewish man who's waiting for the Messiah, and it had been spoken to him and promised internally by the spirit that he would not die before he saw the Lord's Messiah, before he saw the Christ. The baby comes, and the Spirit testifies, "This is the one." Simeon goes and takes that little baby, Jesus, into his arms, and he prophesies over him, praying and saying, "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light of revelation for the Gentiles, and for glory to your people, Israel." Simeon saw it too; Jesus was too big for just one nation. He's Savior for all the ends of the earth, for every tribe, and language, and people, and nation.  

Jesus knew that even in the instructions He gives here to His twelve. He says in Matthew 10:18, "On my account, you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles." In Matthew 10, Jesus is thinking about the Gentiles, but there's a process, there is a procedure to how He's going about it, but for now He's sending them out only to the lost sheep of Israel. This very thing Jesus prophesies later on in Matthew 24:14. He says, "This Gospel of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations  and then the end will come." In the great commission Jesus says, "All authority in Heaven and earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I'm with you always, even to the very end of the age."  Jesus is thinking about the Gentiles, but at this point He narrows the scope of the ministry. The disciples are not permitted to go and speak to the Samaritans. Just an editorial comment; I think they weren't ready to talk to the Samaritans. I think they were still prejudiced against the Samaritans. I think they still wanted fire from Heaven to come down and destroy this Samaritan village. They went into town to buy food and never once opened their mouth and witnessed to the Samaritans. It wasn't time yet for the apostles to go. In Acts  8, they would go, but not yet.

 The time had come just for a narrowing of the scope of the ministry. Jesus says, "I want to send you to the lost sheep of Israel." Here, I think about Isaiah 53:6, in which the prophet says, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him, on Christ, the iniquity of us all." Jesus is truly the shepherd who gathers back the lost sinners, not only from Israel but from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. Every single one of us is burdened by sin. You've come in this day, and you've already committed  sins today. It's not that I know you personally, I just knowing human nature and the Scripture. You've committed enough sin since today to send you to eternity in Hell, and yet the grace of God flows through the blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and there is no other Savior. Jesus is going to send them out with this message to the lost sheep of Israel, that there is a shepherd who will gather them back in, there is a sacrifice, a lamb of God, who will die in their place for their sins, if they'll only believe. We see in the scope of the mission, I think an important strategic principle; we are not called to go to every single nation on the face of the earth. I mean “we” being each of us individually. We can pray all over the world, we can have a worldwide global focus in our prayer, but we have our own scope of ministry, we have our own field assigned to us. There is a scope to what God calls us, calls each group of people, each local church to do. We see the scope of the twelve's ministry right from the start.

Secondly, we see the strategy of the mission, and the strategy is simple, it's going to be the preaching, the proving, or the demonstrating of the Kingdom.  Matthew 10: 7-8 says, "As you go, preach this message: The Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, and drive out demons."  We see the preaching and the proving or the demonstrating. First the preaching, the apostolic task was centrally the proclamation of the message. They were called upon to preach the message. What was the message? The Kingdom of Heaven is near. The center of their proclamation was the Kingdom, the Sovereign God who rules over all things. We've been saying all along that the Gospel of Matthew is written to convince us that Jesus is the King of the Kingdom of Heaven. He is the One who rules over Heaven and earth.  Therefore He has called, He has sent to call, all of us to a full obedience to His sovereign rule, a glad obedience. Therefore, I believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is wherever Jesus is gladly obeyed by the power of the Spirit, from an internal transformed heart — that's the Kingdom of Heaven. The message is that the Kingdom of Heaven is near, it's very near you. The Word of God that we are proclaiming, it's very near you, it's in your mouth and in your hearts, the word of faith that we are confessing. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” That Kingdom is near, it's very close to us, if you will, simply reach out and take it.

Later, after the  death and resurrection of Christ, the Kingdom would come even more alive in vivid color. The historical events had already happened, Jesus' blood had been poured out on the cross. Jesus' tomb had been emptied on the third day. The crucifixion and the resurrection now would be the center of their preaching, the apostolic preaching of the cross, and they would proclaim the cross and the empty tomb to the ends of the earth. But at this point, they're just told to proclaim this message, "The Kingdom of Heaven is near." But not only were they called to proclaim, they were also called to prove or to demonstrate Kingdom power by doing miracles. "Heal the sick," He says, "Raise the dead. Cleanse those who have leprosy, and drive out demons."

I was talking to my children recently, and they said, "It would have been really exciting to be Jesus." I said, "Why is that?" Because they could do all these great... “He could do all these great miracles. Everywhere He goes, He gets to heal people, raise the dead and all that." I said, "So you think Jesus had kind of an easy life?" Well, they thought maybe He did.  I said, "Do you realize that in every place where He was healing, there was immediate opposition, people standing in his face wanting to kill him?"  Yet there must have been for Jesus, a special joy in freeing from bondage those who were so bound.   For example, on a  Sabbath, He heals a Jewish woman who's been bound over and kept in chains through her physical infirmity for many years. Even though He's opposed at that moment, there's a delight in freeing her from her bondage. The disciples, when they came back from this mission trip couldn't get over that the demons were subject to them in Jesus' name. They were so thrilled. They said, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name." Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, rejoice not that the demons are subject to you in my name, but rather that your names are written in the book of life in Heaven." 

So you think, "Why, I'd like to do a miracle. My Evangelistic ministry would just take off if I could just do a miracle." Imagine if you're involved in workplace evangelism, and you just go and try to witness, and you find out that somebody's got some kind of infirmity. If you could just heal them, everybody would listen to your message.  I’ve thought that myself. Actually, it's not far wrong from why Jesus gave the apostles authority to heal. Everywhere they went, they were demonstrating the power of the Kingdom, and huge crowds would gather as a result.  It says in Acts 5:15-16, people used to bring the sick on the streets and lay them on beds and mats, so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed. Peter's shadow just falling on people as he passed by. I believe that was the point, the point was to demonstrate the Kingdom, to give a context for the proclamation of the Gospel in order that people might hear it. It says in Acts 8:6, when the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. I think that's the point; the miracles give a context, a platform for the proclamation of the Gospel. So, it's the proclamation, but it's also the proving of the Kingdom. It also demonstrates God's compassion and His love. He would have us healed, He would have us freed from all effects of sin, just not yet.

It says in Revelation chapter 21, "There'll be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain." What's the next part? "For the old order of things has passed away." It hasn’t passed away yet folks. We're still under the time of death, and mourning, and crying, and pain. It's not going to be a river of miracles, it's not true what the “health and wealth” people tell you, that if you're not healed, it's because of a lack of faith on your part. I say rather, it's because that the old order of things is still here, but someday, it's going to be past. The miracles were given as a kind of a first fruits of what that would be like, to be free from all death and mourning, and crying and pain. 

We see the mission of the apostles. First, the scope, to the Jew only at that point. And then the strategy, the proclamation and the proving or demonstrating of the Kingdom. Next, we see the supplies for the mission in verses 8-10, traveling light and depending on God. I like this better, "traveling light and trusting in God”. You can use the word "depending". Either way, we're called to travel light and to trust in God. The twelve were sent out.  In verses 8-10, "Freely you've received," it says, "freely give. Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts. Take no bag for the journey or extra tunic or sandals or a staff, for a worker is worth his keep." They were to travel free, they were not to be encumbered by the weight that we encumber ourselves with. They were to be, first of all, free from greed. In verse 8, it says, "Freely you have received, freely give." Do you realize how much money they could have charged for this healing ministry? Do you realize how much money people will pay to be healed? They'll pay almost anything. Greed can drive a whole healing system. And they could have commanded probably any price. But Jesus said, "Don't you dare do it, because I am giving you this healing power freely. Freely you have received, freely give. Not only have I given you healing power freely, I've given you everything freely. The grace of the Gospel is free of charge. I have forgiven your sins freely. I'm going to give you Heaven and an inheritance with me freely. I'm going to give you the indwelling Holy Spirit freely. I'm going to give you membership in a local church where there's other believers freely. I'm going to give you every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms freely. Freely you have received, freely give." That's why He says, "Don't charge anything for what you're doing." Healings were to be done free of charge.

They were also to be free, not just from greed, but from material anxiety. In verse 9 Jesus says , "Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts." Those are the three kinds of metals that were stamped into coins. The gold, the most valuable, the silver of intermediate value, the copper of the lowest value. He said, "Don't take along anything, not even any copper coins." Later He's going to say, "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? You won't even be able to buy two sparrows with the money you carry with you. Travel light, travel free, travel free from material anxieties."  What does this mean? First of all, Jesus lived this way. In Matthew chapter 8, one man wanted to come and follow Jesus, and Jesus said, "Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has no place to lay His head."  Jesus traveled and ministered in the same way. He wanted them to be free from material anxiety. If they were carrying huge bags of gold, or silver, or copper, perhaps they would be robbed on the way. When you have possessions like this, you're always anxious on how to protect them, how to keep them safe from harm. It's something that you're carrying with you. He said, "I want you to be free from that burden, so please carry no money, travel light." In verse 10 He says, "Take no bag for the journey or extra tunic or sandals or a staff, for the worker's worth his keep." Don't carry along bunches of stuff. Don't carry all this equipment

I was reading about the Queen Mary, a luxury liner that was fit to carry 1,957 people in comfort and luxury across the ocean. It sailed on its maiden voyage May 27, 1936. But once World War II started and America got involved, the Queen Mary was converted to a troopship. As it was converted to a troopship, the number of passengers it could carry went from 1,957 to, at one point, over 15,000. 15,000 soldiers were carried across the Atlantic Ocean on the Queen Mary. You  may say, "Well, I would think if I owned a luxury line like that, I would want to try to make as much money as I could and I'd try to get 15,000 people on board before the war." Would they have come? No way, because they're coming with baggage, they're coming with 50  or more boxes or satchels of all the things that they would need. They would need state rooms and big room. Luxury liners, right? There's no time for luxury when it's wartime.   They stripped everything out that was not essential, and they put in bed after bed after bed. You had barely enough room to get your body in , and you could touch the rack right above you. There was just enough room for a certain number of people to sleep at a time, and they had to sleep in shifts. Everything had been stripped down. This is what they call "war time austerity". It seems to me that the Gospel calls us to similar wartime austerity, and it's a call that is so often unheeded. To go from being able to carry 2,000 approximately paying passengers to 15,000, means that everything that's not necessary was stripped out.  “Take no bag for the journey, no extra tunic, no sandals, no staff.” 

There was a time, I remember, when we were going overseas as missionaries. We had a yard sale. We stripped ourselves of everything. We were totally liquid at that point. We had money in our belts, that's true, but we didn't have much else. I noticed at one point- I'm always in the habit of patting my pants to be sure that my wallet is there and my keys as well - my wallet was there, but my keys weren't there. And then I realized, "Wait a minute, I don't have any keys. I have no keys. We sold both our cars, we've moved out of our home, we have no keys left." And that became kind of a symbol to me of traveling light. I will say this, we did have four big Rubbermaid Action Packers filled with all kinds of stuff, and that was a challenge to get through Narita Airport in Japan. We didn't travel as light as these men did, but we were stripped down, we had almost nothing, except our clothing and the basic necessities. The key principle here is that ministry is to be supplied or supported by those who benefit. "The worker is worth his keep." You don't need to carry along all this baggage, because as you're doing the work of the ministry, the worker is worth his keep. This is a very, very important principle.

In  Matthew 10: 40-42  He's going to talk about a cup of cold water. It  says, "He who receives you, receives me, and he who receives me, receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet, because He is a prophet, will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man, because he is a righteous man, will receive a righteous man's reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward." These verses are so frequently taken out of context -verse 42, especially, the cup of cold water. Clearly, Jesus is talking here about support for those that are going out to preach the Gospel. Anybody who receives or takes care of those world traveling messengers will receive a reward, just as they will. The worker is worth his keep means, you don't need to carry all this stuff, because out there, there are going to be people who will benefit from your ministry and they will materially support you as you do it.

 The same principle is taught by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:7-14. He says, "Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn't law say the same thing? For it is written in the Law of Moses, 'Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.'" He goes on from there to make it very plain what he's talking about. He says, "Don't you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar get their share from what is offered on the altar?" 1 Corinthians 9:14, "In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the Gospel should receive their living from the Gospel." This is the principle, those who receive the spiritual benefit of the ministry should materially support those who give the ministry. It's taught over and over in many places, and that's what Jesus means when He says, "The worker is worth his keep." They are to go depending or trusting in God. They are basically to put into practice what Jesus taught earlier when He said, "Do not worry about your life, what you'll eat or drink, or about your body, what you'll wear. The pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His Kingdom, and His righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you as well." They're to go out without a tether. It's like, you're out in the space shuttle and you're supposed to go out and there's no line, just going out and trusting in God to provide for your needs. What kind of faith does that take? 

We've looked already at the scope, and the strategy, and the supplies of the ministry. We see the support for the mission in  verses 11-15, “Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it. If it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your word, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgment than for that town." We see here the problem of lodging, where are they going to stay?  There were individual inns. You remember that Joseph and Mary were turned out from the inn. There was a place you could go from time to time and pay for lodging, but these were few and far between, so there was going to be a problem of lodging. We know that hospitality is taught many places in the Bible. Abraham and Sarah entertained three strangers one day, not realizing that they were angels. Lot entertained the exact same angels who had come to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.  It says in Hebrews 13:2, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it."  In the New Testament, we have a command which I love, "Offer hospitality without grumbling." Does that verse not tell you how little human nature has changed in 2,000 years? Offer hospitality without grumbling. Why? Because taking somebody into your home messes up your routine. It's a burden in one sense, if you look at it the wrong way.  Peter said, "Don't look at it the wrong way, but offer hospitality without grumbling."  3 John 5-6 says, "Dear friend, you are faithful in what you're doing for the brothers even though they are strangers to you. They have told the church about your love. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God."

It was for the sake of the Name that they went out. John, in 3 John is talking about messengers of the Gospel who have gone out to preach, and these folks that John is writing to have taken the messengers in. They've accepted them in, they've put them up. They've provided for their needs. It was for the sake of the Name that they went out, receiving no help from the pagans.  In verse 8, “We ought, therefore, to show hospitality to such men, so that we may work together for the truth." So you see, hospitality supports the  ministry of the preaching of the Gospel. The standards and the search are listed in verse 11, "Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave."  “Worthy” means righteous person, an upright person, somebody who keeps the commands of God, somebody who's welcoming to your message. What this shows me is kind of the human-ness of the messengers. Don't go and stay somewhere where the people hate you and hate your message. Rather, go in a place where after a day of preaching, after a day of proclaiming the Gospel, you have a place of refuge to be renewed and refreshed. Be renewed, therefore, and refreshed by staying at the home of a worthy person, search for a worthy person and stay at his house. 

Luke adds more, saying in Luke 10:7-8, "Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you." Don't complain about the food as long as it's nourishing and healthy, eat it, whatever they set before you.  I remember right before we went as missionaries to Japan, we had a prayer time together, and all the missionaries were crying and encouraging each other and praying, and some were concerned about an ailing parent, or something that they might never see again, etcetera. But I couldn't get out of my mind one thing in particular, and when my chance to share my prayer request came, I said, "We're going to Japan, where they eat fish, and I hate seafood. So pray for me that I might somehow be given grace to eat the seafood, and thank the people for it." I wasn't a month after we got there that we helped a Japanese man put his ceiling fan in, and he took us out to eat, and there was no McDonalds, no Kentucky Fried Chicken, we went out to Japanese food. And there before me was a plate of Sashimi, raw fish, staring me in the face. And I liked it, God gave me grace. It says in Luke 10, "Whatever they set before you, eat it," and implied, be thankful for it, be grateful for what you eat.

Jesus also says, "Do not move around." In Luke 10 again, "Do not move around from house to house. Don't try to find a better place, that's not the point. Find a worthy family or a place to stay and then just set up there and stay there as long as you're in that area. Let that be a place of refuge, a place of good fellowship, place of comfort for you." In 1 Timothy 6 it says, "If we have food and clothing, we'll be content with that. We're not looking for a luxury, we're not looking for the best place to stay, we're looking for a godly family that will support us and care for our ministry. If we have food and clothing, we'll be content with that.” "Now, as you enter the home," in verse 12 it says, "Give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it." This is somewhat of a Jewish ritual, but a sense of saying Shalom or peace to everyone in this house. If the home is deserving, the peace will stay there. There's a sense almost of Joseph's blessing. Everywhere Joseph[Old Testament] went, there was a blessing coming, whether it was Potiphar's house, or the blessing that came on the jailer. Eventually, all of Egypt under Pharaoh were blessed by Joseph. Everywhere that Joseph went there was a blessing. It seems in the same way, everywhere that these messengers of the Gospel go, there is a blessing coming to the house that will support them. He says, "Let your peace rest on that home if it's deserving." This is exactly the context of verse 40-42, "He who receives you, receives me, and he who receives me, receives the one who sent me." Anybody who takes you in, it's like they're receiving me, and anyone who receives me, it's like they're receiving the one who sent me, and that's God the Father. So they will never lose their reward.”  This, I believe, is kind of in seed form, the eventual full understanding of the body of Christ. The body of Christ has varied ministries.  Some are what we could call support ministries. They support the proclamation or the preaching of the message. I believe all of us are called to witness, no question about it, but some are specially called out with the gift of evangelism, or say, as missionaries. And the body is to support them materially. The body is to pray for them, to give them money or other resources that they need, to give them a place to stay when they need it.

He says you'll never lose your reward. One is not more important than the other. The eyes should do not say to the foot, "I don't need you." The hand should not be jealous of the mouth, because it's not a mouth. But every part of the body has its role to play.  The cup of cold water, even something that small, will not be forgotten. He speaks here of freedom for the rejected in verse 13 - 14. He said, "If the home is not deserving, let your peace return to you." Then He says, "If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your word, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town." What does it mean, "Let your peace return to you"? “Don't let it bother you, don't let it trouble you if the home is not deserving. Don't get ruffled in your spirit because they won't welcome you or accept you. They're the ones with the problem, and they're going to have a huge problem if they will not repent, so if any home does not welcome you, they won't listen to you, don't let it bother you, let your peace return to you. Walk in the peace that God gives, because you're out on mission from Him. Don't let it bother you when they don't welcome you, when they don't accept you.” Then He says, "If anyone does not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet as you leave that home or town." My missionary instructor, Christy Wilson, was a missionary in Afghanistan who did work there for 20 years. He was one of the most compassionate, loving men I've ever seen in my life.  He helped to set up hospitals there, preached the Gospel, taught the people. His wife, Betty was a godly woman, and the two of them ministered together. They were evicted by the communists who were in the very government that the Russians invaded to support. When the communists took power, they evicted Christy Wilson and his wife Betty from Afghanistan. They did everything they could to stay, but they would not welcome them or listen to their words. At the airport right before they got on the plane, they took their shoes off and clapped them together and then put their shoes back on. They shook the dust off their feet and they moved on.

It's not a burden for the messenger when you're rejected, it really isn't. It really is a burden for the one who does the rejecting because judgment is coming. He said, "I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgment than for that town." This is a terrible curse. The basic idea is that when a king sends out messengers, if the messengers are rejected and treated scornfully, then the wrath of the king may fall on that country or city that rejects them. He says it will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. It gives an indication, by the way, of a certain grading of punishments on Judgment Day. And this is a fearsome thing for America.  The more you know of the Gospel, the more you know of the truth and reject it any way, the more judgment will come upon you on Judgment Day. The less you know the truth, the less you know the Gospel and reject it, the less judgement comes on you on Judgment Day.  Isn't that what Jesus is saying here?  It'd be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah because they had less proclamation of the truth than that home or town or village had. It's a fearsome thing. America is supersaturated with the proclamation of the Gospel. Evangelical churches in every community. There is television,  print media and radio -   a supersaturation with the Gospel, and yet still hearts reject. “It'll be more bearable on Sodom and Gomorrah on Judgment Day than for that town.” He says, "Listen, don't take revenge, don't be concerned about that, leave all of that to God, you shake the dust off your feet and move on." 

What application can we take from this? First of all, look at missionary zeal. Let me ask you, what do you live for? Are you delighting in spreading the Gospel of God's glory? The twelve apostles are dead. So also are their successors. The Ministry has been passed on to us, the ministry of reconciliation. Are you living with missionary zeal for that same Gospel message that Jesus Christ gave to His twelve Apostles? 

Second of all, missionary methods. The missionary methods are still the same, the preaching and the proving of the Kingdom. We are to display Christ's compassion. When we do an inner city ministry like tutoring, when we reach out in some way and try to show ministry to their physical bodies and their felt needs immediately. This is the proving of the Kingdom. We're not necessarily called on to do great miracles at this point, but we're called to prove the compassion. But nobody is going to be saved by our good deeds to them.  They get saved by hearing the preached message, so we must proclaim the Gospel message that Jesus died on the cross, shed His blood, and was raised from the dead on the third day.

Thirdly, materialistic hindrances. Are you, are we, am I traveling light or are we accumulating? You know, you think about one of the wealthiest men in the Old Testament, Abraham. He owned a lot of stuff, didn't he? But he also lived in a tent. Do you know what that means? He could move around, right? Can you imagine moving around from place to place with the things you own? Can you imagine what that would be like? Once you set up in a place with a foundation, it's easy to begin accumulating.  Americans have to especially be careful that we do not put mill stones around our necks and be unable to advance with the Gospel.

I want to speak especially to college students. One of the biggest dangerous is, you have a zeal for the Kingdom of God and for mission work but then you get out and start getting into debt bondage, whether mortgages or credit card payments or other things, and you cannot travel light for the Gospel. Don't do it. If God is calling you to mission service,  keep yourself free and clear, travel light.

Finally,  the missionary supply. How have you used your material benefits, your home, your money, your life, to support those who are specially called to go out as missionaries? 

If you would take your Bibles and open to Matthew Chapter 10, we'll be looking again this morning at Verses 1 - 4. We are moving out across the whole New Testament to try to understand who these twelve men were that the Lord chose and how He chooses to work in them. The context of Matthew 10 is Matthew 9, an understanding of the fact that Jesus is setting up a kingdom, and that kingdom has not finished its conquering work. We pray in the Lord's Prayer, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There's still a journey to be traveled. We see in this text a connection between the end of Chapter 9 and the beginning of Chapter 10. At the end of Chapter 9, Jesus looks out over the multitude, He sees all of these people, and His heart goes out in compassion to them. He sees that they're harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, and He is moved with compassion for them, concerned about their needs.

His first call is to his disciples and He says to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out laborers into His harvest field." The first call from our Lord is that of prayer, a prayer for laborers for the harvest field. At the end of chapter 9 we go right into chapter 10, and right at the beginning it says that Jesus called His 12 disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. Then in verse 2, these are the names of the twelve Apostles. We see the movement from disciple to apostle which is a special call that He was calling these twelve out to serve Him in a significant way. Then in verse 5 Jesus sent these twelve out to do a great work.  From the  Greek word for “sending out”, “Apóstolo”, we get the word apostle. These two actions come together-the intercessory prayer, the concern, the compassion for the harvest, but then the need to go out. Prayer alone is not enough.

This example from the life of shows this. Martin Luther was trained in an Augustinian monastery. He pursued a legal righteousness through the monastic rules and regulations, and eventually came to a saving knowledge of justification by faith alone, freedom from all of that legalism, the very thing that many of you are learning in the Book of Galatians. [By the way, eventually Luther married Katie von Bora. You're not supposed to marry if you're monk or nun, she was a former nun, they came together. And he loved her, he loved the Bible too, he loved the Book of Galatians and he called the Book of Galatians, my Katie von Bora.] He loved the book of Galatians  and he understood justification by faith alone, he understood the Gospel. He felt led by God in a mighty way to lead the German nation in reformation. He had a friend, an Augustinian monk who's there with him, and who said, "I'm going to be with you every step of the way through prayer. If you ever have a need, if you ever need anything, come and tell me and I will pray for whatever you're going through."  He did and they maintained a close relationship. As Luther was out debating, as he was writing, as he was preaching, as he was confronting the force of evil, as he was moving out, this man was step-by-step with him, by faith and prayer. Who can say what was wrought in the prayer closet? There was a great bond between them, but one day Luther came and met and said, "I'm about to face this debate, and I need prayer." Luther looked at his friend and said, "What's the matter?" His friend said, "Well, I've had a dream and it's shaken me up." He said, "Tell me about it." He said, "Well, I dreamt last night that I saw a vast harvest, a huge, huge harvest, and in the middle, there was one man working and I looked and I didn't understand where the other workers were, and then as I moved in in my dream, I saw it was you, and I realized I can't just pray anymore. I will keep praying for you, but I must go out and teach and preach and minister as you are." The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. It's not enough merely to pray. Jesus calls these twelve and He sends them out. 

One of the things about the Christian life that you're going to see after you have come to faith in Christ, after you're justified by faith through the simple belief in the saving work of Christ that God lays before you two almost infinite journeys, overwhelming journeys. One of them is internal and one of them is external. The internal journey is a journey called sanctification, a growth in holiness, where he takes somebody who's living like a pagan, a sinner, and moves them gradually, step by step, dealing with sin, convicting them, shaping them, molding them, like the hands of a skilled potter shaping the clay, until they are more and more like Jesus. That process will not be perfect in this world, but he's working it in us. Alongside that is an external journey, a journey of the Gospel ministry, that we should take the Gospel to the ends of the Earth from Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, even to the utter most parts of the world.

There are two overwhelming journeys. One of them is symbolized by Matthew 5:48, "Be perfect therefore as your Heavenly Father is perfect." The other one, a clear command, "Preach this Gospel to all nations and to every creature." What's so incredible is in the text that we're looking at and in Christ ministry, we see the two come together. Our sanctification occurs in the context of the Gospel ministry that he calls us to do. You can't just sit in a monastery and hope you be sanctified, you’ve got to get out and be active, you've got to get out and work, you've got to  do the ministry that God lays before you. Neither can you do the ministry without growing in holiness and sanctification, the two go together. We see the shaping and the molding of the twelve; it's part of His plan.  Christ called these twelve disciples and designated them to be Apostles. They had a unique role, and we talked about that last time, the strategy of Jesus Christ. They were sent out to proclaim. We saw the centrality of the proclamation of the Gospel: Faith comes by hearing, by the hearing of the preached message, people are going to be saved.  He's sending these twelve out to preach the Gospel of the kingdom.

We see Him delegating the ministry of reconciliation. He knows that his time on Earth is short, so He's going to delegate the work of the church, the work of the Gospel ministry to sinners. That's His strategy, He's going to shape them, and He's going to send them out. The twelve Apostles have a unique role in all history. None of us have been called on to fulfill that role, namely that there were eye witnesses of Jesus' physical life, His incarnation life here on earth, eye witnesses. They wrote down their testimony in the New Testament which we have today. On the basis of that foundation, the church is advanced, the Gospel is built on the foundation with the Apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself [Ephesians]as the chief cornerstone. This is the unique role of the Apostles.

We're going to zero in and try to understand who these twelve were and what were their specific areas of weakness. We're going to look at their sin, because you  think, "How can I be useful to God?" It's one of the things that immediately cuts off the work that God wants to do in your life. He wants you to use your gifts. He's given you gifts, spiritual gift, He's given you opportunities day after day. We are His workmanship, His masterpiece, like He's a master craftsman, He's shaping you. We're His masterpieces, “ His workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” [Ephesians 2:10.] Every day you've got some good works He wants you to do. But then Satan begins to accuse you, he begins to tell you that you're not worthy, you're not up to it, you're too sinful, you're too weak, God could never use someone like you. Have you ever felt that temptation inside yourself? 

If you look at the Apostles, their story is not one of glorious strength and majesty, is it? We're going to look at the twelve sins of the twelve Apostles. I'm not trying to talk them down, they were Godly men, but they were weak, and they were frail. Yet God took that inferior clay and made fine pottery with it. That's what God can do. We see the twelve apostles, not alabaster saints or marble saints, not perfect people, but rather sinners saved by grace and then used in a mighty way to turn the world right side up for Jesus Christ.

The Humility of the Apostles

Let's look at some lessons from the Master's men. The fact is that they were humble, ordinary men. There was nothing unusual or special about the twelve of them. In the Book of Acts, Chapter 4, Peter and John, going up to the temple at the time of prayer seen in Chapter 3, heal a man, and they're hauled up in front of the Sanhedrin to give an account for the healing. They are convicted, and they're going to have to give an answer for being Christians, and it's amazing what happens. The Apostle Peter stands up, filled I think with the Holy Spirit, overpowered with the strength of the Holy Spirit, and says, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." What a bold statement to make, absolutely fearless.

In chapter 4:13, the next verse, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John, and realized that they were, un-schooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took notice that these men had been with Jesus." “Un-schooled” means, they didn't enroll in our seminaries. “We checked the registrations and they were never there. We never trained them theologically. Where did they get this knowledge?”  They got it from the Master, they got it from the best seminary instructor ever, Jesus Christ, the Word of God. They were un-schooled, they weren't trained in the Pharisaical seminaries, they were ordinary men. The Greek word used for ordinary here is “idiotes”, from which we get the word “idiot”. They were common everyday ordinary men.  They were “idiotes”,   ordinary people that God chose and shaped and molded, and as a matter of fact, God delighted in doing this kind of thing. He delights in taking ordinary people and conquering a world with them. He delights in taking regular sinners like us, saving them by grace and then sending them back over the wall of Satan's kingdom of Hades, the gates of Hades will not prove stronger than it. We're supposed to be going up over those gates. Who does He send over those gates? Ordinary people. Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:26 and following, put it this way,  "Brothers think of what you were when you were called, not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, not many were of noble birth, but God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of the world, and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in in Christ Jesus." 

God loves to choose ordinary people and do extraordinary things through them. Tertullian, the early apologetic master of the Latin speaking world, was debating with Romans who thought that the church was lowly and below them as Romans and Tertullian conceded the point. He said, in all actuality, most Christians are slaves. But God delights in taking slaves, common people and overturning perhaps even the Roman Empire in three centuries with His power. That's the power of God. 

The Authority of the Apostles

We see also the order and the authority of the Apostles.  In Mark 6:7, it says that Jesus called the twelve to Him and sent them out two by two, and gave them authority over evil spirits. You see also in Verses 2-4, a pairing up for witness: Peter and Andrew were paired up, James and John were paired up, Phillip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, James and Thaddeus, Simon and Judas.  There's a structuring here for ministry. We also see in Verse 2, the word “protos” which is  first connected with Peter. "First Simon, who is called Peter," the word “protos” indicates that he's the first, he was the leader of the twelve. We're going to talk more about Peter in a moment, but this is not an accident. In every list of the twelve Apostles, given throughout the New Testament, Peter is always listed first. He was their leader. In the same way Judas is always listed last, because he was the traitor. Every time Judas is listed in any of these lists, he's always mentioned as one who betrayed Jesus or as the traitor. 

But then even deeper, there's a structuring and ordering here that you can only get if you look at all the lists and put them side by side. This is the work of New Testament commentators. They show us that in the ordering, there tends to be three groups of four. The first four are always together in their group, the second four are always in their group, and the third four are always in their group. The first group is Peter, John, James and Andrew, with Peter the leader. Peter's always listed first in that group of four. The second group is Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, and Philip is always listed first in the second group of four. The third group of four is James, Thaddaeus, Simon and Judas, and James is always listed as the leader. There is a structure, a hierarchy even within the twelve. Everything in Christ kingdom is order.  We also see the possibility of some family ties here. Peter and Andrew were brothers. James and John were brothers. If Levi and Matthew were the same person, and most commentators think they are, it turns out that Levi's father was Alphaeus [Mark 2:14]. James’ father was also Alphaeus.  Could be that Levi or Matthew and James were also brothers as well? But whether they were or weren't, it's pretty clear that God loves to work along family lines, He loves to work within families. It is so important for Christians to raise up their children in the fear and nurture of the Lord, because God delights to work in Christian households and along family lines.

The Apostles’ Commitment to Jesus

Finally we see how hatred and political ties can be overcome by a greater commitment to Christ. We see that in the juxtaposition of Matthew, the tax collector and Simon, the zealot. A zealot was a member of a political party, who was dedicated to the overthrow of Rome. Matthew was not looking for the overthrow of Rome before he met Christ, instead he was hoping that Rome would go on and on because he was making money off the Roman Empire. Could the two of them naturally  have sat down and shared a meal? They would have hated each other. But in Christ, there is unity; in Christ, there's genuine brotherhood. We look at some of the problems in the world today. Is there any possibility of peace and harmony and unity, let's say between Serbs and Croats, or between Palestinians and Jews? There’s a long, long history of hatred in those groups. But as believers in Jesus Christ, Palestinians and  the Jews, brothers in Christ,  can love each other. It's the only way that that dividing wall of hostility can be torn down.

Description of the Apostles

Let's look a little more closely at each of the twelve. First, Simon Peter. Simon Peter, we know more about than any of the other Apostles. He's very well-written about, we have almost a full character study of this man. Someone said of Simon that He was a “ready-fire-aim” kind of guy. He would speak first and pick up the pieces later. He was often wrong, but never in doubt. You remember when John and Peter ran to the tomb the morning of the resurrection, John got there first and stood and hesitated, a sense of holy fear coming over him, not wanting to go into the place of the resurrection. Did Peter hesitate? Not at all, he went right into the tomb. That is Peter. He was very, very self-confident and that was his greatest weakness. But as one of the twelve he was the greatest natural leader. He was a man full of faith. Ultimately, after his denial of Christ, God put him back together and presented him still as the leader, so that it was he that stood up and gave the great Pentecost sermon, just a short time later. I think about Peter as a symbol for all of the twelve, all of his weakness, all of his sin put on display. In Luke 22, Jesus said to Peter, "Simon, Simon, Satan demands to sift you like wheat. But I've prayed for you Simon that your faith may not fail. After when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers." He's been doing that for 20 centuries, hasn't he? If God can use a sinner like Peter, even after a terrible fall like that, he can still use me. The thing about Peter is that he had the boldness to say “never” to Christ four different times. Four times he told Jesus that he was wrong. That takes incredible courage. One time in Matthew 16, after Jesus complements him and says, "You are Peter and on this rock I'll build my church.” Not long after Jesus reveals that He's going to be crucified. Peter takes Him aside and begins to rebuke Him. He begins to rebuke Jesus, the Son of God! Yes, he did. In the text in Matthew 16, "Never Lord," he said, "This shall never happen to you." Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Out of my sight Satan, you're a stumbling block to me." The last time he said "never" was in Acts 10, after He had received the Holy Spirit. A sheet came down with all kinds of animals. “Rise Peter, kill and eat.” What did Peter say?  “Never, I've never eaten anything unclean.” “This is not a suggestion, Peter, this is a command. What God has declared clean, let man not call unclean. You have no right to declare the Gentiles unclean.”  But this is Peter. It's actually, kind of in a perverse sort of way, wonderful to see him still doing it after the Holy Spirit came. He's still weak, still sinful, and yet God is still using him. He had to be talked into going and ministering to the Gentiles, that is Peter.

His brother, Andrew, was much quieter and not so ready to lead, but John's Gospel shows him constantly, quietly bringing other men to Christ. He actually brought his own brother Simon Peter to Christ.  He's a symbol of those unsung heroes from church history who were always bringing people to Christ. 

James, son Zebedee, with his much better known  brother John, was a fisherman in his father's business, successful enough to employ other men. He was willing to leave his fishing business when Jesus called him. He was willing to call down destruction on the Samaritan City. He was also the first martyr of the twelve, beheaded in Acts 12.

John, we know better than James or anybody, except Peter, also a son of Zebedee, was probably originally a disciple of John the Baptist.  God got hold of him and transformed him. He was arrogant enough along with his brother to ask for a place of honor in Jesus' kingdom. “Grant that I might sit at your right and my brother at your left. We don't care right or left, as long as it's us.”  He was that kind of prideful person, but when the time came for him to write his gospel, he didn't even put his own name in it. He just consistently called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. God did incredible work in him.

Philip, like Peter and Andrew, was originally a disciple of John the Baptist but left him to follow Jesus.  His hometown was Bethsaida. He was the one that called Nathaniel to follow Jesus.Philip had connections to the Greek community. A large number of Greeks came to Philip and it was Philip who brought them to Andrew and Andrew who brought them to Jesus. Philip itself is a Greek name.   At the feeding of the 5000, it was Philip who was tested. Jesus spoke to Philip, "Where are we going to find food for all of these people to eat?" Philip failed the test, saying, "Eight months wages wouldn't be enough to feed all these people. I don't have the first idea how we're going to feed them." But it was Philip who answered that, and it was also Philip who said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough for us.” Jesus said to Philip, "Don't you know me? After I've been with you all this time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." 

It was Bartholomew [many scholars say he was the Nathaniel of John 1, and I think that he was] who said of Nazareth, "Nazareth, can anything good come from there?" He was a straight shooter. He was a true Israelite, said Jesus, in whom there is no guile. 

Thomas also called Didymus [that means “twin”], had a twin. We don't know anything more about the twin, but he's famous for one thing, isn't he? Famous for his unbelief in the resurrection, so he is called doubting Thomas. Yet he is the one who makes the greatest confession of Christ in the entire New Testament. The absolute pinnacle of the Gospel of John is Thomas's confession. He had said, “Unless I put my fingers in His wounds and see his wound, I will not believe the resurrection.” Jesus showed Himself to Thomas as an eye witness and said, "Go ahead, convince yourself." And Thomas then  said to Jesus, "My Lord and My God." That is the confession every sinner must make in order to have eternal life, and Thomas makes it so beautifully.  Jesus said, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Matthew, the tax collector, we talked about several weeks ago, and so there's no need to add anything. He was living a life of sin, collecting taxes, and then Jesus called him and he got up and left immediately and followed Jesus.

James, son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus. We know almost nothing about either one of them. They're symbolic again, even, of the hidden unsung heroes of church history. They slipped to the background, we don't know much about them.

Simon the Zealot was willing to befriend a tax collector, willing to be friends with Matthew, to be part of the twelve apostles, willing to give up his hopes for the overthrow of Rome by the sword, and rather contribute to the overthrow of Rome spiritually by the preaching of the gospel. He was transformed by Jesus.  

Last of the twelve, always last of the twelve, is Judas Iscariot, because the fact of the matter is he really wasn't one of the twelve, was he? In John  chapter 6, Jesus challenges people, saying, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you." And many of his disciples went away at that point. Jesus turned to the twelve and said, "You don't want to go away too, do you?” Peter spoke for all the twelve and said, "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Then Jesus said this, he said, "Have I not chosen you, the twelve? And yet one of you is a devil." He was referring to Judas Iscariot who later would betray Him. Judas is not an example of someone who believed and then lost his salvation. He's not an example of a believer who turned away later from his faith. He never believed in Christ, he was always a devil. Specifically I believe Jesus gave him the role of taking care of the money bag because something had to hold Judas there. Jesus wasn't foolish, He gave Judas control of the money bag, and would judge him for his pilfering of it which of course, he did. It seems that money or love for money was the unifying theme of Judas' life. Seemed everything he did was out of love for money. I think he followed Jesus out of love for money. He  betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver out of love for money. Eventually, it led to his own death and destruction, his suicide.

As you look at these twelve, we see their faith. We see their determination to follow Christ except Judas, but we also see their weaknesses, don't we? I went through the scriptures and I found twelve areas of weakness in which they fell apart.

 First, ignorance or dull-wittedness, lack of understanding. How many times in the New Testament does it say that they did not understand the parables. They had to come and ask Jesus for special instruction. They didn't understand the miracles, they didn't understand the foot washing, and they certainly didn't understand that Jesus had to die and rise from the dead. They were constantly, it seems, clueless. They did not comprehend what God was doing through Christ.

Second, we see argumentativeness. They were constantly bickering, it seems like they couldn't get along. You would think that apostles would rise above this, but they were always arguing about something. In Mark Chapter 9, as they were coming into Capernaum, Jesus went to the house and asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" It seems every time they're arguing they try to hide it from Jesus, "Oh everything's fine Jesus, everything's fine." They're arguing almost always about the same thing, which of them was the greatest. That's why Jesus had to call in the twelve and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the last and the servant of all.”

In Matthew 16, they're crossing the lake, and they start to argue about forgetting to bring bread. This is a very insightful moment, isn't it? “I thought it was your turn to bring bread. I got it last time, it was your turn.” The problem is there's no  McDonalds or anything on the other side. That meant they were going to go hungry that day. It was a big deal. They argued, they tried to blame shift. That was the disciples, always arguing.

Thirdly, we see their lack of faith or their unbelief. Over and over, five times in Matthew's Gospel, He calls them "You, of little faith.” They had enough faith to be saved, but they did not have enough faith to trust Him for bigger things. When Jesus was up on the Mountain of Transfiguration with Peter, John, and James the rest of the apostles were down below and a father brought his son to be healed. In John 17, the father comes to Jesus later and says, I brought my son to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him, and Jesus answered this way, “Oh, unbelieving and perverse generation. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” When the demon is driven out, the disciples came later and said, "Why couldn't we drive him out?" He said, "Because you have so little faith. Jesus had in this chapter, Chapter 10, given them authority to drive out demons. They'd already done it, but this time they couldn't do it because they lacked faith. Over and over, this was a problem.

Fourthly, we see pride and jealousy, repeated arguments over which one was the greatest. The most scandalous of them all was the night before Jesus was crucified. Can you imagine, Jesus is about to die on the cross, He's about to lay down his life, He's going to give them all of that incredible instruction in John 14, 15 and 16, He's going to pray for them in John 17, He's going to love them, and what are they talking about as they walk in that room, which of them is the greatest, they're still arguing about it. Jesus in response took off His robe, put a towel around His waist, got down and washed their feet to show them what leadership in the church was supposed to be like. The context was their arguing over which one was the greatest. Pride and jealousy.

Fifthly, a yearning for power. I already mentioned John and James and their desire to sit at Jesus' right and left. It didn't come from them originally, it came from their mother. The mother came and said, "Grant that one of these sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left." Some of you mothers can relate to this. I want great things, not for myself, but for my sons. Jesus said, "You don't know what you're asking. Can you drink the cup I'm able to drink?" "We can," they said. And Jesus said, "You will drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. Those places belong to those for whom they've been prepared." When the other ten apostles heard about this, they were indignant with these two power-hungry apostles.

We also see over-confidence. The night before Jesus was crucified, Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I've risen I'll go ahead of you in to Galilee." Peter applied, "Even if all of them fall away in account of you, I never will." Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows. You will disown me three times." But Peter answered, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." There is that word 'never' again. “No Jesus, you're wrong about me.” In the next verse the other disciples said the same. They all proclaimed that they would never leave Jesus but they would be with Him. About two or three hours later, they were running for their lives. They were self-confident, they were overconfident, and I think it's demonstrated by the fact that they wouldn't pray in the garden of Gethsemane.

They also had a lack of compassion for the lost. One time when they came to a Samaritan city the Samaritan City would not welcome Jesus in. So the Sons of Thunder, James and John said, “Lord, you want us to call down thunder and lightning on them, destroy the city?”  He rebuked them saying, "You don't know what spirit I have." They  had no compassion for the lost, not naturally, so they were frequently out of step with Jesus. Parents would bring the little children to Jesus for Him to pray for them and place His hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. They thought Jesus was too important for children. Jesus was indignant with His twelve at that point, because they were out of step with Him, He said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Worldliness was another weakness. Worldiness means looking at things from the eyes of the world not through eyes of faith. In Matthew 23 Jesus had just finished giving the seven curses — “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, . . .”and at the end of that, He says, "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you. How often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing. Look, your house, the temple is left you desolate, for I say you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Then He leaves the temple, and at that moment, the twelve apostles come up to Him and say, "Master what incredible buildings, what great architecture, what incredible stones," worldly thinking. He said, "Do you see all these stones.Not one of them will be left on the other, every one will be thrown down."" They had no idea the significance of what Jesus was saying.

We also see prayerlessness. How many of us can confess to that, that we do not pray as we should. Jesus commanded them in Gethsemane, "Watch and pray." The spirit is willing, but the body is weak, but they couldn't stay awake even for one hour. And that prayerlessness in Peter's case led I believe directly to his denial.

Ad also, cowardice. They were constantly afraid —afraid of drowning in the storm, afraid of Jesus walking on water. They thought He was a ghost. They were afraid at the Mount of Transfiguration. They were afraid to ask Jesus a question, they were afraid to go up to Jerusalem and they were afraid to be arrested with Jesus. After Jesus had been crucified and  been raised from the dead, and  had appeared to them, they were still in the upper room with the doors locked, for fear of the Jews. They were afraid.

And then finally and most significantly, they rejected the crucifixion and did not believe in the resurrection. Is that not the center of our faith? They could not accept that Jesus, the Messiah, would die on the cross, Peter rebuked Him over that very issue, and none of the others could understand the crucifixion. A dead Messiah made no sense to them even though it was all laid out in the words of the prophets. They were not expecting it, and they could not accept it. Neither could they accept or believe in the resurrection. Some people say, "Why did Jesus not appear to the skeptics after His resurrection, why did He only appear to the apostles?" Can I tell you something? The apostles were the skeptics. None of them believed in the resurrection initially, they all had to be persuaded.

Twelve ways of weakness: ignorance and dull-wittedness, lack of understanding, argumentativeness, little faith, unbelief, pride, jealousy, yearning for power, over-confidence, lack of compassion for the lost, being out of step with Christ, worldliness, prayerlessness, cowardice, rejection of the crucifixion and unbelief in the resurrection, my goodness. And yet, with these, and people like them, Jesus conquered the world. He conquered the world. Do you see yourself in that list of twelve?  Do you find yourself in there? Unbelief, prayerlessness, weakness, cowardice, do you find yourself there? That's us.  Jesus has conquered the world, but He's not finished yet. There's still work to be done, but don't you see that He's winning? Don't you see that the Gospel is extending to the ends of the Earth? He will complete what He has promised to complete, and He's going to do it through people just like you and me. He's going to shape you and mold you in His school. He's going to work with you, He's going to train you, and He's going to conquer the world through people just like you.

Now what application can we take of this? First of all, be active, get involved in the discipleship, get involved in evangelism, Christ can use any one. Banish forever the sense that you're too weak, too sinful to be used by God. Secondly, be humbly confident, human sinfulness cannot stop Christ's kingdom. God is going to use sinners, just like you and me to advance and our sinfulness will not derail His plan at all.  Thirdly, be molded. Look at the cover of your bulletin.Jesus says, "I'm the potter and you are the clay. I know how to train sinners to be perfection under my hand.” But the thing that's fascinating about that is that the potters wheel has to be turning in order to work, right? It's got to be moving, there's got to be activity, there's got to be a context for the shaping of the pot. You must be active in ministry in order to be fully growing and sanctified in your walk with Christ. More than anything  pray. The Lord of the harvest will send out laborers, but go and be active using your gifts in ministry and let the Lord shape you.  

We are looking this morning at Matthew 10:1-4,  the first of two sermons that I'm planning on these verses. We are talking about messengers for the Master. I want to talk  first about a dark time, one of the darkest times in the history of Israel. In the time I have in mind, the Jews have gone through much suffering, much trouble. Long before Hitler, there was Haman, and the story of Haman as recorded in the book of Esther.  Haman had orchestrated that the people of Persia, the Medo-Persian people, would have the freedom to kill the Jews, slaughter them indiscriminately, without any fear of reprisal from the government. Haman had a wicked plot in mind, and he managed to trick the King Xerxes into signing a law that could not be broken, because the laws of the Medes and Persians could never be revoked. Once that law was signed in, it was permanent.

Yet courageous Queen Esther stood up under the influence of her uncle, her cousin Mordecai. She managed to expose the plot of Haman, and bring him to ruin. But there was still that death sentence hanging over the Jews and what could be done about that? The Persian Empire is one of the largest the world had ever seen. They didn't have telecommunications, they didn't have the satellites or telephones or the things we have for communication today. In Esther chapter 8, the king established couriers, or heralds, and put them on fast horses and sent them to the ends of his empire, and he gave them the seals of his authority. They went out with his command and with His word and with the law saying that the Jews were allowed to protect themselves from this onslaught that was coming and that if any raised their hand against the Jews that they also would be subject to their reprisal from the Jews. In this way, this was a life-giving message. But it had to reach the ends of the empire,  so the heralds were sent out on King's business. In Esther 8:10 and following, "Mordecai," it says, "rode in the name of King Xerxes, sealed the dispatches with the king's signet ring, and sent them by mounted couriers who rode fast horses, bred  especially for the king.”

The king's edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves to destroy kill and annihilate any armed force of any nationality or province that might attack them and their women and children, and to plunder the property of their enemies. The day appointed for the Jews to do this in all the provinces of Kings Xerxes was the 13th day of the 12th month, the month of Adar. A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province and made known to the people of every nationality, so that the Jews would be ready on that day to avenge themselves on their enemies. In  Esther 8:14, “The couriers, riding the royal horses, raced out spurred on by the king's command, and the edict was also issued in the citadel of Susa." Those couriers brought a life-saving message for the Jewish people that day.

In Matthew chapter 10 Jesus establishes heralds to go out on King's business, to bring to a lost and dying world the only message of salvation there is for sinners, the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. He established in effect, ambassadors or heralds, who would go out in his name, with his authority and speak to a lost and dying world.  I think it's important for us to see the connection between the end of Matthew 9 and the beginning of Matthew chapter 10. There is no great divide between these two, we're not into a whole new topic here. At the end of Matthew 9, we saw Jesus as King of the Kingdom of Heaven, opening up His heart, showing His compassion for the lost. He saw that they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, and He had compassion on them. He acutely felt their lost-ness. He spoke to his disciples, and  said to them. "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few,  therefore petition  the Lord of the harvest, that he would send out laborers into His harvest field." At the end of Matthew 9 the first thing that Christ calls His disciples to do is to pray and ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. At the beginning of  Matthew 10, He sends out laborers into the harvest field— He sends out the twelve apostles. We see an authoritative herald system set up here, where these twelve men would be given the authority to drive out evil spirits, and to heal every disease and sickness." In verse 2, "These are the names of the twelve apostles." A disciple is a learner, it's somebody who's set himself out to study the teachings of a master, of a teacher.  Jesus had many, many disciples, everywhere He went, there were people following Him, listening to his teachings, hanging on every word. There was a huge group of disciples. But now these  twelve were selected out.  They were called apostles, they were going to be sent out on King's business, they were heralds with the king's authority, with an authoritative message to take to a lost and dying world. They moved from merely learners, disciples, to being apostles.

The original apostle was Jesus Christ Himself. In the Book of Hebrews 3:1, it says, "Therefore holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess." Jesus was the first apostle. He was sent from heaven above by His heavenly father.  He was sent to this world with the message and with the authority of the Father to speak. Now He himself is going to send out these twelve. At the end of the Gospel of John, He says, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”  The original apostle, Jesus, is sending out these twelve apostles on a mission. The twelve were shaped for the same kind of ministry that Jesus Himself was doing. In Mark 3:13-14, it says, "Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve designating them apostles, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach."

That word “preach” is very, very important, it is Kerykes in Greek. I don't usually pronounce Greek words, but I want you to see the connection because a Kerykes was a herald, somebody who stood in the King’s place and spoke a message with the king's authority. Jesus sent them out to proclaim in the same way that he had been proclaiming in the name of his father. The Kerykes, the herald, was a man officially commissioned by the king to go out and spread a message loud and clear to people who had not heard it. To accept the Kerykes' message was to accept the message of the king. To reject the herald’s message was to reject the message of the king, and to attack the herald was to attack the king himself. So the apostle was sent out. That's what an apostle is. The Apostle Paul called himself a herald of the gospel, an Apostle, and a teacher in 2nd Timothy, that's exactly the same word. Paul considered himself a herald, but the original herald sent out by Jesus were the twelve.

 We see in Christ ministry that it begins with the centrality of proclamation. He sent them out to proclaim a message. Jesus Himself began His ministry by proclamation, by preaching. It says in Matthew 4:17,  “From that time on, Jesus began to preach ‘repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.’” He began to proclaim this message, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near." Everywhere He went, He proclaimed the same message. Again in Matthew 4:23, "Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people." And so Jesus went out everywhere, teaching and preaching to them, and healing their diseases.

Centrality of the Gospel

The strategy of Jesus was to make the proclamation of this gospel message, the center of His program for the world. It was the proclamation of the Gospel that was the hope for the lost and dying world. The Apostle Paul in Romans, said, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it [the gospel] is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile, for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed, the righteousness that is from faith to faith, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith." The gospel message is the power of salvation for the lost, and therefore for the advancement of the kingdom of heaven, the proclamation of the Gospel must be central. These twelve are sent out to preach. Paul put it this way later in Romans 10, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Can I stop right now and ask, have you called in the name of the Lord? Have you been saved by trusting in Jesus Christ? Have you heard this Gospel message of Jesus dead on a cross, His blood shed in your place, taking the wrath of God in your place that you might stand in His righteousness on Judgment Day. Have you trusted in Him? Have you called on the name of the Lord?

If so, it is that someone preached to you, someone proclaim that gospel message, listen to Romans 10:13-15, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?” The sent ones are the apostles. Someone must be sent out to preach this message. The center of Jesus' program for the world is the proclamation of the Gospel and these apostles were going to do it. He was going to send them out and to the ends of the earth. People would hear of the Lord, and they would call on His name. We see the strategy of Jesus Christ.

 Delegation of the Ministry to Others

We also see, secondly, in terms of His strategy, His willingness to delegate this ministry to others. Jesus could easily have done it Himself. He could have gone around century after century being immortal. He could have preached in every town and village. He could have continued to preach and to proclaim, but instead He chose to delegate to human beings the ministry of reconciliation.  I've often thought before, given the kind of inefficient job we've done over the last 2000 years, what would it have been like if He had delegated to angels who obey all the way, right away, with a happy spirit. They immediately go out and they preach the Gospel. How long would it take the Angelic host to finish the Great Commission? They would have done it in one generation. Aren't you glad He didn't do that, because you never would have been born because the end would have come immediately. Instead, He's committed to us a ministry of reconciliation, us sinners, us selfish people, us weak people. He committed it to the twelve, they're weak, they are frail, they're sinners, but He delegated to  them and now to us the ministry of reconciliation.

In 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, Paul says, "All this is from God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them, and He has committed to us the message of reconciliation, We are therefore Christ ambassadors, as though God Himself were making His appeal through us, we implore you on God's behalf, be reconciled to God. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." So Paul says, "We got it, we got the ministry of reconciliation, it's our job." 

Shaping the Ministers

Thirdly, we  see the strategy  in that He sends them out while His ministry is yet going on, He sent them out before he died. We know about the Great Commission. Jesus in Matthew 28 meets with them one final time and sends them into all the Earth, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, the Holy Spirit. That's after the whole gospel work is completed. He sends them out is true, but He does it even before then, doesn't He? Right in the middle of His ministry. He interrupts His own ministry, and takes time with these twelve and He sends them out because they need to be shaped and they need to be prepared, the vessels need to be shaped by the hands of the master.  Jesus wanted to shape these twelve. He wanted to give them opportunities to go out and to fail, and they would fail. There was a time when He was up on the Mount of Transfiguration, and a father brought his son, demon possessed to Him. Jesus was up on the Mount of Transfiguration. The other twelve were still down there, nine of them, and they couldn't do anything for him. Jesus had given them authority to drive out evil spirits, but they couldn't do it, and Jesus said, "Oh unbelieving and perverse generation." He was talking about His apostles. "Oh, unbelieving and perverse generation, How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." And He did it. Okay, they would fail, but He wanted opportunity to shape them in their failure, to talk to them, because they came later after that interaction and said, "Why couldn't we drive him out? Why couldn't we drive the demon out?" And Jesus said, "Because you have so little faith."  He taught them about faith. He gave them an opportunity, He gave time with them to train them and to shape them. 

Spiritual Multiplication

We also see a strategy in terms of spiritual multiplication. Jesus did not have his eyes just to the twelve, did He? He had His eyes on the whole world, but His strategy was to take these twelve and  work with them. He was going to train them so that they also would make disciples and share with these disciples, pouring their lives into them, and so on and so on. It was a strategy of spiritual multiplication. Just as birds, and fish, and beast and human beings multiply physically through this manner, they fill the world with their species. So Jesus also intended the principle of multiplication, spiritual multiplication to work in the advance of the Gospel. He's shaping the apostles and preparing them that they should do the exact same thing for others that were done for them. In the great commission, He says, "Teaching them your disciples to obey everything I have commanded you." It’s a principle of multiplication. The best verses for this that I've ever found is 2 Timothy 2:1-2, Paul speaking to his disciple Timothy, "You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others also."  We have one, two, three, four generations in that verse. We have Paul who's been discipling Timothy, who's supposed to entrust his message to reliable men who will be able to teach others also, that's four generations. The beauty is, you don't have to wait as in biological reproduction for a whole maturation process. Those people could immediately be leading people to Christ within a year or two. As a matter of fact, some of the greatest, most effective disciple makers are new Christians. They're so zealous, they're so excited with the Gospel message. It's a shame on us who have been Christians for decades, if we've lost that zeal for evangelism.

It was the strategy of Jesus Christ that there be spiritual multiplication. Do you understand how essential this is? I think it's important for us to revere and respect the works of great evangelist, people like Billy Graham. But you know if Billy Graham began a crusade today and preach to 50,000 people today, and we're able somehow supernaturally to keep it up, and preach to 50,000 people every single day, do you know how long it would take him to get to 6 billion, the present population, it would take 120,000 years. That's what you call an addition ministry. Adding 50,000, adding 50,000 adding 50,000. Meanwhile, of course, they're biologically reproducing, so after 120,000 years, you don't have six billion anymore. I don't know how many you have, but you’re way behind the game. There must be exponential multiplication. What I figured out is, is if each one of you who are listening to me here today led two people to Christ this year, and then led no one else to Christ the rest of your life, and each of those led two people to Christ, the next year, and they led no one else to Christ the rest of their lives, at that rate, it would take 25 years to reach 6 billion people. That's encouraging, isn't it? That's encouraging, that's also convicting isn't it? Because we've taken 2000 years and we're not finished yet.

 What are each one of you doing for the advance of the kingdom? Do you have someone you've led to Christ? Are you discipling somebody? Men, are you discipling some young man? Women, are you discipling a young woman you're working with? Have you had a chance to lead somebody to Christ? Are you doing your part in the advance of the kingdom of heaven? Coleman, in his great book, Master Plan of Evangelism, sought to determine Christ's strategy for reaching the world. It was simply this; He was going to take a small number of people and work with them, shape them, pour his life into them, and then send them out to do the same. Coleman looks at four things. Number one, men were his method. Secondly, He required obedience. Thirdly, He showed them how to live. Fourthly, he expected results back from them. Multiplication ministry. I think the principles are still the same.

The Unique Role of the Apostles

Fifthly, we see in Christ's strategy, the unique role of the apostles. The apostles, the twelve were unique people in history. We are not them and they are not us. We are different. In some respects, we're identical. We're sinners, we're human beings. But in some respects, they are very different. They are the twelve chosen specifically by Jesus for a role that we do not have. They were first and foremost, eye witnesses of Jesus' ministry. Mark 3:13-14, "Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted and they came to Him and He appointed twelve, designating them apostles that they might be with Him." That they might be with Him, that they might watch the way He ate, the way He prayed and ask would questions of Him and interact and take Him off to the side and say, "What did you mean when you said this?"  The apostles were eye witnesses.

In 1John 1:1, John, one of the apostles, said this, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at, and our hands have touched, this we proclaim to you concerning the Word of life." That is the essence of the apostolic ministry. We were there, we saw it, we touched it. Thomas had the privilege of actually putting His fingers into Christ's wounds if he had wanted to. I don't think he did it actually, I think once Jesus was standing right in front of him, he fell on his face and said, "My Lord and my God," but Jesus was giving him that privilege because he was one of the twelve.  He's not giving that opportunity to you, but He gave it to the twelve that they would be His eye witnesses and would proclaim to the world what they saw, heard and touched, and their interactions with Him. This eye witness testimony would be the basis of the salvation of the world. What do I mean by that?  They were called out to report and to write down and record for future generations what they did with Jesus. Let me ask you a question: What would you know about Jesus Christ, His life, His ministry, His character, His death, His resurrection- What would you know apart from the witness of Scripture? The answer is nothing. That's where the apostles put their permanent eyewitness record so that we might read about it generations later. On the basis of that witness, the Gospel extends to the ends of the earth. They were, in effect, to be like little camcorders, video recorders,  just taking it in, just watching and listening, not having a clue what it meant, but just there taking it in. Remember the foot washing? Jesus who was stopped by Peter who said, "Are you going to wash my feet?" , said, "You do not understand now, what I'm doing, but later, you will understand." That's true of so much of their interactions with Jesus. They didn't get it, they didn't understand but they were there at least. Later on the Holy Spirit would call to their mind the things He said, the things that He did, and that witness would be the foundation of your faith.

Even Luke, who wrote his Gospel, got his Gospel record from eye witnesses. Listen to Luke 1:1, "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eye witnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good, also to me, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." You have, brothers and sisters in Christ, a sure foundation to your faith and it is the eye witnesses, the eyewitness testimony of the apostles who are there.  Jesus When Peter told Jesus at Caesarea Philippi, “You are the Christ, the Son of God." Jesus  said, "I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overthrow it." So people say, "Well, the rock is Peter's testimony." I don't think so. I think the rock is Peter's ministry along with the other apostles. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:19-20, “The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone."

The apostles and prophets testify to Jesus and they speak today, don't they? You pick up Matthew and you're reading an eye witness account. You pick up Luke, you're doing the same. John, the same. You have Christ ministered directly to you by eye witnesses. Jesus also gave them authority, it says, to work miracles. Look again at Matthew 10:1, "He called His twelve disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits, and to heal every disease and sickness." These were open demonstrations of the power of Jesus Christ working through ordinary men, through ordinary fishermen, in some cases, or a tax collector. It filled them with a stamp of authority, a stamp of approval. In Acts 2:43, it says, "Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles." What an exciting thing it was for them. Do you remember when they came back after they've driven out some demons? They said, "Master, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” They were thrilled. Wouldn't you love to do a miracle? Wouldn't that be exciting?  The twelve were given that authority and Jesus said, "I tell you, don't rejoice that you can do miracles, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Jesus said it's better to be saved than to do a miracle. If you're a child of God, this morning, you have that great joy.

The apostles had the unique ability to do miracles as the Apostle Paul says,in 2 Corinthians 12:12, "The things that mark an apostle, signs, wonders, and miracles were done among you with great perseverance." Signs, wonders, and miracles marked an apostle, with their authority. Now, Jesus made no mistakes when he selected all twelve of them. He chose them and He gave them authority.  He made no mistakes. It was no mistake that He chose twelve men. Women had an important part of His ministry, no question about it, supported Him financially, they sat at His feet and learned, indispensable to the advancement of the kingdom, but there is no disagreement between the Apostle Paul and Jesus on the issue of gender and authority. Jesus chose twelve men for the sake of their authority, and He gave them authority or power to drive out evil spirits, and to lead the church. In Acts 16:4, it says, "As they traveled about from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey."  There were leaders set up in the early church with authority.

The selections of Christ, as I said, were not done of His own accord. They were not done in any way that would lead to error. He chose these men, they were flawed, they were sinful and one of them was a rebel. One of them was a traitor, one of them was a devil. Jesus said in John chapter 6, "Have I not chosen you the twelve , and yet one of you is a devil." What process did Jesus go through in order to select them? First of all, understand, Jesus, as an apostle of the Father, did nothing on His own. He went out only in the authority of the Father. He said, "I do nothing, I say nothing on my own accord, but only with the authority of the Father." He spent all night in Luke chapter 6:12-13 in prayer. "Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them whom He also designated apostles; Simon, whom He named Peter, his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Son of Alphaeus, Simon, who was called the Zealot, Judas, son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor." Now, they did not choose to be apostles. Jesus, after spending all night in prayer, went and chose them out. This was done of His own sovereign will. It was by His choice. He said very plainly in John 15:16, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, fruit that will last." He didn't seek any advice from a PR firm. He didn't ask who would be a good selection. He asked His heavenly Father and His Father told him, and these twelve  were selected. 

I want to make a few general observations about them. First of all, in Mark 6:7, it says that, "Jesus called the twelve to Him and He sent them out two by two, and gave them authority over evil spirits." They were paired up for the purpose of witnessing. Look at the list in verses 2-4. First, it says, “Simon, who is called Peter and his brother Andrew, James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, Phillip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, James, Son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him." Why am I emphasizing the “and”?  I think that they were paired up exactly this way. He sent them out by two because in this world in which we live, heralds of the King of the Kingdom of Heaven are not well-treated. They are almost universally rejected. The ones that don't reject, go to heaven, but the rest are rejected. So He sent them out two by two, so that they can encourage one another, they can pray for each other, they're not alone. There's a human side here, so that they could be together and strengthen each other in the ministry. Also, according to the Jewish law, witness must come in at least twos. Deuteronomy 19:15, "A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses." So if they're going to go out and witness for Jesus, it's not just one individual person, but two of us are standing here proclaiming that this Jesus is Messiah. 

Also, we see the strategy of Jesus in calling out an inner circle. This may seem exclusivistic to you. Did He love the twelve more than the rest of the disciples? No, not at all. But He still did call out that inner circle and He bestowed blessings on them, that He did not bestow on the others. They were His inner circle. In Mark 6:30-32, "The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to Him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not have a chance to eat, He said to them, ‘Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and rest.’” Listen to that. Come with Me by yourselves. That's a special privilege that those twelve enjoyed that the crowd did not, time alone with Jesus. Not only that but He gave them special instruction in His teaching. Mark 4:10-12, "When He was alone, the twelve and the others around Him asked Him about the parables and He told them, 'The secrets of the kingdom of God have been given to you. But on those on the outside they get it in parables'." Then He would just explain all the parables, He'd lay it out for them. He gave them special tutoring sessions, in prophecy and in parables.

But even within that inner circle, there was an inner, inner circle, wasn't there? There was Peter, James, and John. At key times in Jesus' life, He pulls them out even from the twelve and spent special time with them. He was alone with the three of them and Jairus' parents, when He raised Jairus' daughter from the dead. Mark 5:37, "He did not let anyone follow Him, except Peter, James and John, the brother of James." The inner circle was there when He raised that little girl from the dead, and they watched. Then there was the time in the Mount of Transfiguration. He went up on the mountain and He took back that earthly, fleshly costume that He was wearing, and showed just a little bit of His glorious, heavenly glory. He shone, He radiated light. Was it the full amount? You tell me? Peter, James and John survived. You remember what God said to Moses? “No one can see me and live.” So the full glory, even then, was held back, but He showed them part of His glory. Peter, John and James. They're up there by themselves. They were alone with Christ praying in the garden of Gethsemane. They went to a place called Gethsemane and Jesus said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." He took Peter, James, and John, by themselves and went off and prayed and He began to be sorrowful and troubled, and He said, "Stay here and keep watch with Me. My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death.”  They were His inner, inner circle. We see the workings of Christ, His sovereign will, choosing as He wills, working in the way He does and yet, His eyes are on the whole world, aren't they? He's pouring into these three. He's pouring into the twelve. He's teaching every day the disciples, He's getting the world ready because when He looked at the crowds, He saw that they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, and He wanted laborers for the harvest field.

Now what kind of application can we take from this? Well, first of all, I just want to speak to you who have never trusted in Christ. I love what Scott said earlier, I never heard that before, you know that God is your creator but you haven't accepted Him yet as your Savior, as your King. I urge you today, don't let today go by without trusting in Jesus Christ personally, for salvation. In effect, the apostles have passed on this ministry to the next generation and on and on, and I stand, to some degree in their place, not in the same way, but proclaiming the same message, the same Gospel message. The only message that there is for salvation, that you would trust in Jesus today. That you will not go to bed tonight, you're not even going to leave this place today without believing in Jesus for your salvation.

 But if you've already trusted in Christ, first of all, I want you to notice, prayer is not enough to reach the world. In Matthew 9, He gives prayer first, but in Matthew 10, He sends them out. How can you pray daily for laborers for the harvest field, and not be willing to go yourself and witness to your neighbor, co-worker, hall mate, relative, or lost friend. You have to be willing to go. Second of all, we've talked about Christ's Master Plan of Evangelism, and that's intensive disciple-making. It's not enough, folks, to make converts, is it? That's not enough, that's not going to make it. If you want to have the principle of multiplication, we need to make disciples, we need to train them and teach them and prepare them, and work with them as Jesus did with the twelve.

Are you involved in that process? Are you being prepared? Do you have a sense that you’re getting ready for something great? And if so, are you discipling somebody? Have you lead somebody to Christ, are you involved? I challenge you, this is Jesus' way. Are you part of the plan? I also want you to marvel, just marvel with me for a moment at Christ's sovereignty. He's getting it done through us. Isn’t that incredible? It's like He says, "Satan, I want you to see what I can do. It's not going to be me, and it's not going to be the angels, it's going to be them and Me working through them. And I'm going to be kicking you from generation to generation, through people just like these. I'm going to build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it."

I want to finish with a story that I read from S. D. Gordon, “Quiet Talks on Service”. It was an imaginary account of Christ returning to Heaven after His ascension, and it really just spoke to me. The angel Gabriel greeted Him and said, "Master, you died for sinners all over the world, didn't You?" To which the Lord replied, "Yes." "Well, you must have suffered much," the angel said.  Christ again answered, "Yes." Gabriel continued, "Do they know? Do they all know about it? Do they know that You died for them?" The Lord answered, "No,  only a handful in Palestine know about it, so far." Gabriel asked, "What is your plan for telling the rest of the world about your saving death?" Jesus responded, "Well, I asked Peter and James, and John, and Andrew, and a number of others, that they would make it their full business of their lives to take this message to the ends of the earth. And that they would train others, and eventually, one after the other, would do their ministry, and it would reach the far corners of the earth." Gabriel asked, "But suppose Peter fails and suppose, after a while, John doesn't tell anyone. And what if James or Andrew are ashamed or afraid, then what?" Jesus answered, "I have no other plans." Will He fail? No, His power is sufficient for us, for His strength is made perfect in weakness, but we must obey we must do our part. 

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-18. The main subject of the sermon is Elijah's ascension into heaven and Elisha's succession of him.

If you would take your Bibles and turn to second Kings chapter two, we're going to be talking tonight about one of the most exciting rides you'll ever find anywhere in scripture, and that is Elijah's ascent to heaven in a whirlwind and a chariot of fire. That's extraordinary, isn't it? And that's an incredible thing. But I'd like to begin with an account from Pilgrim's Progress, and this will be familiar to those of you that studied it with us this summer. This is the allegory of the Christian life that Bunyan wrote in the 17th century, and as Christian and his friend Hopeful come very close to the celestial city, they're about to enter and they noticed between them and the city, a river. And so they've come to the edge of the river, and the river symbolizes death. "Now I further saw that betwixt them and the gate was a river, but there was no bridge to go over. The river was very deep and at the sight, therefore, of this river, the pilgrims were much stunned. But the men that went with them said, ‘You must go through or you cannot come at the gate.’ The pilgrims then began to inquire if there were no other way to the gate, to which they answered, ‘Yes, but there have not any, save two, Enoch and Elijah been permitted to tread that path since the foundation of the world, nor shall to the last trumpet shall sound.’ The pilgrims then, especially Christian, began to despond in their minds and look this way and that, but no way could be found by them, by which they might escape the river."

That's speaking about death, isn't it, and the inevitability that all of us have to face death, that we will at some point die. If we are not that mysterious final generation prophesied about in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and also mentioned in 1 Thessalonians four, we will die. We will come to that river and we may look left and we may look right for a way to get across, and we may be assured that there, "have not any except two, Enoch and Elijah, been permitted that way." Here is the account of Elijah's translation to heaven without dying. Now it's a fascinating thing really, because from the very beginning, sin and death have been linked together. You remember in Genesis chapter two, we have the account of the formation of Adam out of the dust of the earth. God gathered together the dust of the earth, and you will recognize that your body is made out of the same elemental materials that can be found in this world. And so, God used the same stuff but just artfully arranged it, just put it together in an amazing way. And so, he artfully arranges Adam out of the dust of the earth and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. 

But then he warns him. He said, "You may eat from any tree in the garden, but from [the tree in the center], the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you may not eat, for in the day you eat of it, you will surely die." And so the death sentence is over disobedience. Sin is connected to death, right from the very beginning. The wages of sin is death right from the start, long before Paul wrote those words. And you know the story, the tragic story in Genesis three about how Adam and Eve did sin, and how God spoke to them and said that they would sink back into the dust, for dust they are and to dust they would return. And so our bodies sink back into the grave, don't they? They came up out of the earth and they will go back to the earth. I'm talking about this to show you the extraordinary mercy and grace that was shown to Elijah here. It's incredible that God would do this to a man, and I think we need to recognize the sovereign mercy and grace of God here. It's the center of the story here. Elijah didn't deserve this. He would be the first to tell you he didn't deserve this, and yet it was granted to him.

Let's look at second Kings chapter two and read this incredible account. "When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, 'Stay here. The Lord has sent me to Bethel.' But Elijah said, 'As surely as the Lord lives and you live, I will not leave you.' So they went down to Bethel. The company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and asked, 'Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?' 'Yes, I know,' Elisha replied, 'but do not speak of it.' Then Elijah said to him, 'Stay here Elisha. The Lord has sent me on to Jericho.' And he replied, 'As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.' And so they went to Jericho. The company of the prophets at Jericho went up to Elisha and asked him, 'Do you know that the Lord is going to take away your master from you today?' 'Yes, I know,' he replied, 'but do not speak of it.' Then Elijah said to him, 'Stay here. The Lord has sent me to the Jordan.' And he replied, 'As surely as the Lord lives, and as you live, I will not leave you.' So the two of them walked on. 50 men of the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. And when they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, 'Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?' 'Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,' Elisha replied. 'You have asked a difficult thing,' Elijah said. 'Yet, if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours. Otherwise, not.' As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, 'My father, my father, the chariots and horseman of Israel,' and Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart. He picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water with it. 'Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?' he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left and he crossed over. The company of the prophets from Jericho who were watching said, 'The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.' And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. 'Look,' they said, 'We your servants have 50 able men. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the spirit of the Lord has picked him up and set him down on some mountain or in some valley.' 'No,' Elisha replied. 'Do not send them.' But they persisted until he was too ashamed to refuse. So he said, 'Send them.' And they sent 50 men who searched for three days but did not find him. And when they returned to Elisha who was staying in Jericho, he said to them, ‘Didn't I tell you not to go?’” 

That's an incredible story, isn't it? The beginning, in verses one through eight, we see Elijah testing Elisha. In verses one through eight, Elijah and Elisha are walking along and it seems that they have been busy, they have been active. We don't really know what he's done since that whole thing happened with Ahaziah in chapter one of second Kings. But we know that Elijah and Elisha were establishing and working with the schools of the prophets. And so, everywhere they go in this particular account, there are these prophets that come out and meet them and talk to them. And so they've been establishing, in effect, these seminaries. We talked about this last time. And this connects again very well to the sermon that I preached this morning, namely concerning Christ's desire to shape the 12, so also God desired to shape a new generation of Yahweh worshipers, of prophets for Yahweh in Israel, which had been so destitute and stripped of them because of Jezebel, lest Baal worship should ultimately triumph in Israel, lest Baal worship should go on unchallenged. 

Remember that Jezebel had snuffed out the lives of most of the prophets of the Lord. In first King's 18, remember we met a man named Obadiah, and while Jezebel was killing off the Lord's prophets, Obadiah had taken 100 prophets and hidden them in two caves, 50 in each, and then supplied them with food and water. So we see very clearly that Jezebel had a program of genocide directed right at the prophets of the Lord. You remember also in first King's 19, how Elijah complaining to the Lord says, "I've been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, have broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left and they're trying to kill me also." So I don't know if that meant that the 100 prophets hidden in the caves had also been found out and killed, and Elijah really believed he was the only prophet of the Lord left. Now you know that he had reserved 7,000 that had not bowed the knee to Baal, but some hypothesized that they hadn't been converted yet, and it may well be that Elijah had reason to say what he says here. At any rate, there were no open prophets for the Lord in the northern kingdom of Israel. It was a terrible situation.

And so, Elijah and Elisha very boldly are setting up these schools of the prophets so that there would be a witness, there would be a testimony to the Lord after Elijah was gone. Now you know what happened, how in the cave at Horeb God told Elijah to go anoint Elisha as his successor and that Jehu eventually would be king of Israel and he would deal with the house and the family of Ahab. Well, it's interesting that one of the prophets, one of these young prophets from the school of the prophets was the very one who went and anointed Jehu. In second King's chapter nine verse seven, he anointed him and said, "You were to destroy the house of Ahab your master, and I will avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the Lord's servants shed by Jezebel." You see, God didn't forget, and he didn't forgive, and Jezebel would pay with her life for what she did. But we can see the wisdom of God in establishing these schools of the prophets that there would be a testimony to his holy name after Elijah was gone. God is never left without a witness. Amen? He always has someone to testify for him. And so it is that these schools of the prophets were set up.

Now, these schools of the prophets or the sons of the prophets seemed to have special knowledge, didn't they? I mean, is it just me or do you sense that? How do they know what's going to happen? I'd just be, “It's just another Tuesday,” right? It wasn't just another Tuesday. Elijah was going to leave that day and be taken up in a whirlwind. It seems everybody knows it. Everybody in this story just seemed to know what was going to happen. Right? And so these schools of the prophets had specialized knowledge. And if you didn't, well, you didn't belong. Right? You were not included. God was not speaking to you in a supernatural way. But as Elijah and Elisha are walking along, there's just this unspoken understanding that today's going to be a big day for Elijah. They knew that something was going to happen. Elijah knew it was his last day on earth. Elisha knew it was Elijah's last day on earth. The schools of the prophets know it's Elijah's last day on earth. Everybody knows it. Look at verse three. "The company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and asked, 'Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?'" Just checking your prophetic gift, Elijah, but maybe we're in the know, and you didn't know. Did you know? "Yes, I know," Elijah replied. "But do not speak of it," he says. 

Now it's interesting to trace Elijah's steps here toward the end. First, the beginning of his final journey starts in the city of Gilgal, and very appropriate. This was a historic place. All of these places were historically significant. Gilgal was the first stopping place for Israel right after they had crossed the Jordan River and entered into the Promised Land. They stopped at Gilgal and they renewed the covenant with the Lord. It was there at Gilgal that they set up those 12 stones that they'd taken out of the riverbed. You remember? What happened was all of Israel came to the river at the time of the flood. It was flood stage. Was that an accident on God's part? Don't you believe it. He wanted it to be flood stage. He wanted to do a mighty miracle. He wanted to demonstrate his power and intimidate the nations in Canaan that there were about to be destroyed. Their fear and their intimidation was a big part of Joshua's conquest of the Promised Land. And so they still knew. As you know, Rahab still remembered what God had done in drying up the Red Sea. And now here it's the same God doing the same mighty things. At flood stage, the river parts as soon as the priest stepped in. You know, they were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and the priest stepped into the river. And at that moment the river stopped and piled up in a heap, and they went across on dry ground. And this is astonishing. You realize you're talking about several million people? I mean this is a huge, huge undertaking. So you have to wonder how high that water piled up during all the time it took for Israel to cross over, and God commanded that stones be taken, one representing each of the 12 tribes. And they were piled up in a pile at Gilgal. And in future generations, if some would come and say, what do these stones mean, then the miracle could be recounted, God's mighty hand and his outstretched arm. They're at Gilgal.

There also at Gilgal. They had renewed the covenant of circumcision. None of that generation had been circumcised as their father Abraham had. And so they renewed this covenant of circumcision. Here also, they celebrated the Passover for the first time in a generation, the first time in the Promised Land. And here they ate the fruit of the land and the manna stopped. So here at Gilgal, this was the beginning, and it's very, very much tied, I think to the crossing of the Jordan River. Also, he travels on to Bethel. Bethel's very significant as well because this was the place where Abraham first called on the name of the Lord in the Promised Land. Here's where he got the promise that that land would be his or belong to his seed, his offspring. And it was here that he set up an altar, his first altar in the Promised Land, and he called on the name of the Lord at Bethel. Here also it was that Jacob had had that incredible dream. You remember how he had fallen asleep? He had put a stone under his head for a pillow. You have to wonder about Jacob and what was happening there. Can you sleep on a stone? Some said it's about as heart as his head and that's what it took. But he was there resting and a vision filled his mind, a glorious vision of a staircase, a stairway up to heaven, ladder or something, and angels ascending and descending on it. And he said, "How awesome is this place?" And he set up a pillar and he poured oil on it. That was at Bethel.

Here, Rachel had also died giving birth to Benjamin. So this was a significant place as well. So they're going from place to place, and then finally Jericho. And you know the story of Jericho, the first conquest of the Promised Land. Now in every case, as they go from place to place, Elijah tries to get rid of Elisha, doesn't he? "Stay here. The Lord has sent me on." And in every case, Elisha responds, "As surely as the Lord lives, and as you live, I will not leave you today." Not today, I'm going to stay with you. It reminds me very much of what Ruth said. "Your God will be my God. Where you go, I will go, and only death will separate us." Well, death didn't separate them that day. Something else did, something unheard of. But he said, “I'm committed to go with you.” Now, what was Elijah's motive? Why was he trying to get rid of Elisha? Well, there's various opinions. The scholars are always going to come up with different ideas. One is that, this is the least likely and most ridiculous, that Elijah wanted the honor for himself, and he wanted to go up in a chariot of fire all by himself and didn't want Elisha taking part in any way. Does that sound like the Elijah that you know? Of course not. But this is the kind of thing that people say. Some say on the other side very humbly, he did not want to make him feel badly that he didn't have that honor. It was a humility thing. He wanted to say, “I just want to be by myself and the Lord's going to take me and just go on, go about your ministry.” It could be. But I think even better is that Elijah was probably testing Elisha here. Because at one point, after all of the times, he says, "What can I do for you?" He says, “Make a request.” And so I think he's really actually putting Elijah through his paces.

You remember in first King's 19, when Elijah first put his mantle around Elisha. Elijah went on from there, it says, and found Elisha son of Shaphat and he was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen. And he himself was driving the 12th pair, and Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. And this cloak is symbolic of his prophetic ministry, and we see that in the story we just read. That cloak represented his prophetic ministry. And he put that cloak onto Elijah. It was a transfer to some degree, but symbolic at that point because Elijah's still on the scene. And so, Elisha's all excited, saying, let me go talk to my parents and I'll be right with you. And he gives him a very interesting answer. Elijah, it says, "Go back. What have I done to you?" It's a very interesting answer. And then at verse 21, as you remember, first King's 19, Elijah left him and went back. He took those yolk of oxen, slaughtered them, burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat, gave it to the people and they ate. And he set out to follow Elijah and become his attendant. Well, that's pretty dramatic. I mean killing 12 yolk of oxen and burning, he burned his bridge. But what about now? Are you ready now, Elisha, to take over? He's testing him. He's testing him to see if he will persevere.

Realize what blessings Elisha would've missed if he hadn't persevered. Think about that. If he had said, "Okay, see you later. It's been nice knowing you. I hope you enjoy your trip to heaven." Instead, he persevered. And at one point, he gave him an opportunity, asked for a blessing, and we find out what that is in a moment. But he would've missed incredible blessings if he had not persevered. Elijah passed, therefore, his test with flying colors. Is our God the kind of God who tests us? Does he test our resolve? Oh, yes, he does. Genesis 22, sometime later, God tested Abraham saying, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and offer him as a sacrifice." Our God tests our resolve. He tests our determination. He tests our faith. And here I think Elijah is testing Elisha. And so it says, “’Stay here, Elisha. The Lord has sent me to Jericho.’ ‘As surely as the Lord lives, and as you live, I will not leave you.’ And so they went to Jericho." 

Now in verse seven and eight, the 50 prophets observe Elijah's final miracle. The 50 men of the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan River. Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up, and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. Now, and there's no question that this is conjuring up the image of the first crossing of the Jordan River by Israel at the time of Joshua. There was no doubt about it. And so in effect, they're leaving the polluted land of Israel, this idolatrous and wicked place, and really metaphorically Elijah is crossing that river into the true Promised Land. Just as the sabbath rest was only a picture of the final sabbath rest we have in Christ, so also the physical Promise Land is really only a picture of the true Promise Land. And so I think it's not an accident that they cross the Jordan River in very much the same way that Israel had first entered. And so they're crossing miraculously, Elijah and Elisha. A sense of a reverse crossing and an entering of the true Promised Land. Now, a reenactment of this exact miracle would establish Elisha's reputation before these prophets when he came back in a few, maybe an hour or sometime later. When he came back and did the exact same miracle, they all knew that the power of Elijah was now resting on Elisha. 

And so, in this very same way, God had elevated Joshua in front of all the people. And from that day on, the day of the crossing of the Jordan River, all of Israel revered Joshua as Moses' successor, right? And that was a difficult thing, to follow Moses. I believe one of the most incredible verses in the Bible is in Joshua chapter one where it says, "Moses, my servant is dead. Now then you, Joshua…” Dot, dot, dot. How would you like to pick up the mantle for Moses and carry it on? And yet it was the crossing of the Jordan River that really established his leadership over Israel and enabled them to follow him. So also it would be for Elisha in a short time. Notice one more thing, the sovereignty of God in all of this. God chooses the portion for each servant, doesn't he? He chooses what each one gets. What do I mean by that? Well, the company of prophets at Bethel knew that today was the final day for Elijah. They knew that. They were in that way set apart from the populace that surrounded. They had a specialized knowledge and they could interact with Elijah and Elisha in a unique way. We don't have any record of any comments made to Elijah, but they at least knew that that was his final day. But they stayed there in Bethel. That was the end of their blessing that day. The company of prophets at Jericho were privileged to know that it was Elijah's final day, and to witness the crossing of the Jordan River, both across and back, and that was their portion. They had an even greater blessing from God in that they witnessed an amazing miracle, Elijah's final miracle on earth. And then Elisha's first miracle is an inaugural miracle and they got to witness that. But that was as far as they went and no further.

Elisha, for his part, got to see the chariot of fire. He got to stand there and watch it as it ascended up in a whirlwind. He got to have a final interaction with Elijah. He got to be his right hand man and receive a double portion of his spirit. But he didn't go up in the chariot, did he? That was for Elijah alone. And Elijah himself would tell you that was only by the grace of God and by his sovereign choice and his will. He would testify that he was a sinner, that he had fallen short of the glory of God, and only by the grace of God was he given the signal privilege. Do you see the sovereignty of God all over this? And we couldn't come and say, “I demand that you give me what you gave Elijah.” How far would that get you? Would he give you the chariot of fire? Oh, I don't think so. And then in verse nine and 10, we see Elisha's request. "When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, 'Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?' 'Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,' Elisha replied. 'You have asked a difficult thing,' Elijah said. ‘Yet, if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours. Otherwise, not.’" This is the point, I believe, of all the testing. Preparation, final preparation for Elisha's ministry. Elisha's request is laudable. It is praiseworthy. It is not selfish. He did not ask, I think, for anything that would ultimately bless him. He wasn't seeking some blessing for himself. But rather, I think his request was similar to that of the young King Solomon, who feeling overwhelmed with the responsibilities he was taking on as king, asked God for wisdom, the ability to carry out the office. Is that not what Elisha's asking for here? 

Now, you might say, “What is this double portion thing?” I misunderstood this for most of the time that I read this. I thought it meant, I want twice as much of what you have. But I don't think that's what's going on here. A.W. Pink does. He thinks that God gave to Elisha a double portion, in that he had twice as long a ministry and did twice as many miracles. And I think that's a reputable position, but I actually want to go a different direction. In Deuteronomy 21:17, it says there, you don't have to turn there, you’ll look at it later, it talks about sons, rival sons, and their position in the family, and one of them is going to be the inheritor of his father's possessions. In Deuteronomy 21:17, “He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the first born by giving him [listen] a double share [or a double portion] of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father's strength. The right of the first born belongs to him.” I think that's what Elisha was requesting. I think there were many sons of the prophets, and he would desire that all of them receive some of Elijah's spirit, namely the Holy Spirit. But he wanted a double portion, commensurate it with his role as Elijah's successor. The mantle had been cast on him after all. And so he said, give me everything I will need to fulfill my leadership role for these prophets. Give me the share as an heir, as your son, really. And what does he say to him as he sees him going up? He calls him what? "My father." Doesn't he? And so I think this is really, “I want the portion of an heir apparent, the portion of a son.” And so he takes it. 

And Elijah gives him a response. "You have asked a difficult thing. Yet, if you see me when I'm taken from you, it will be yours. Otherwise, not." The gift was beyond Elijah's to grant. It was for God and for God alone. But typical of the prophets, he said, I'll give you a sign whereby you will know. If you see me when I go, then you will have that request. Otherwise, you won't. Then in verse 11 and 12 come the chariots of fire. "As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them. And Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, 'My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel.' And Elisha saw him no more, and then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart."

Brothers and sisters, our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12 says that. "Our God is a consuming fire." And so it is also that fire consumed the sacrifice and the altar on Mount Carmel. It was fire that had fallen down from heaven, and also fire fell down from heaven on Elijah's enemies who came to arrest him from King Ahaziah. You remember that? But this time fire comes down to pick up one of God's choice servants and bring him. He sends the angels to come get him, and that's fascinating to me. One of the words for angels in the Bible is “seraphine”. The Hebrew means, burning ones. Burning ones. They're burning with fire. They're radiant and shining brightly. Psalm 104 verse three and four says, "He makes clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds as messengers and flames of fire his servants." Those are angels, aren't they? Flames of fire going out from God. And so, a chariot of fire, it's really an angelic presence. Psalm 68:17, "The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands. The Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary." 

Later on, interestingly, God would rescue Elisha from the Arameans. How would he do it? You remember, he would send chariots of fire to surround them. And remember his servant was so afraid, so afraid, “Oh no, we're going to go.” He said, "Lord, open his eyes, because there's more for us than against us here on this hill." And God opened his eyes and they saw chariots of fire all around. They're around us all the time. Did you realize that? The angels of the Lord are ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. But here they appeared, and God sent angels to get his people. You know, this is a regular theme in the Bible, and I want to connect it to your life at this point. In Luke 16:22, Jesus told the servant of the rich man and Lazarus, "And the time came," it says, "when the beggar died." And it says, "The angels carried him up to Abraham's bosom." I think that's exactly why Bunyan has angels escorting Christian and Hopeful as they go up to the gate. The angels are sent to get them. In many of the parables, Matthew 13, the harvest, Jesus said, is at the end of the age and the harvesters, are who? Who are the harvesters? They're angels, and they collect everybody and they collect the wheat into the barn, but they burn up the chaff with unquenchable fires, the angels that do the collecting. And so Jesus says in Matthew 24:31, "He will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heaven to the other." He's going to go out through the world and gather his elect, and they're going to come together. And so it says in first Thessalonians 4:15 through 17, boy, this gets me excited. Okay? “According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive and are left at the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with the loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the air to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be always with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.”

Do you realize that Elijah's trip is just a precursor and a type of what every single believer will enjoy at the end of the world? Isn't that incredible? And only by the grace of God. Can any of us say we deserve that ride? To be gathered up by an angel and taken up to meet the Lord in the air, do we deserve that? Well, certainly not, but simply by grace. Philippians 3:20 and 21 says, our citizenship is where? In heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly body so that they will be like his glorious body. Now, God gave to Elijah privilege that day, but I think it's important to understand something. Elijah's body was not fit for heaven. You understand that? Would you, if you were Elijah, want to bypass a resurrection body? Wouldn't you want a resurrection body? I mean, he was old and worn out. Now he had an amazing body, in that he could go 40 days on a little piece of meat. But even so, I want that resurrection body. And the scripture says very clearly in first Corinthians 15, verse 50, I declare to you brothers that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

So did Elijah die? Well, what is death? A separation from the body? Yes, he died. Of course, he did. But his body didn't sink back down into the dust. He had a special ride up to heaven. One final comment. How tragic would it have been for Elijah if God had granted his request under the juniper tree? Do you remember that? When he was discouraged and depressed and beaten down in ministry, what did he ask for? He made a request. He asked to die. I want to die right here, right now, under this tree. Aren't you glad that God holds your life and your days in his hand? No matter how hard it gets, aren't you glad that he's the one that decides when you die and how you die? Because look what he would've missed. Okay, fine. I'll take you now, from under the juniper tree in the ordinary way. Oh, what he would've missed.

The epilogue is in verse 13 through 18. "Elisha picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan, and then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water with it. ‘Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?’” That's quite a statement, isn't it? He's not being presumptuous there. He's just saying, I need you, God. One of the Puritan divines, when he died, right before he died, these were his final words. "Where now is the God of Elijah?" Right before he crosses the river, those were his dying words. Amazing. "When he struck the water, divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over, the company that prophets from Jericho who are watching said 'The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.' And they went out to meet him and bowed down to the ground. 'Look,' they said. 'We, your servants have 50 able men. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the spirit of the Lord has picked him up and set him down on some mountain or some valley.'"

What a downer that would've been for Elijah. You go up and you go back down to minister to Jezebel again? I want to go to heaven. It's time to be done. “No, Elisha replied. Do not send them.” Waste of time. We have work to do. But they persisted until he was too ashamed to refuse. And so he said, “send them.” And he sent the 50 men, searched for three days. They could have searched for 300 or 300 years. They never would've found him. He's gone, gone forever. And when they returned to Elisha, he who was staying in Jericho, he said to them, "Didn't I tell you not to go?" Now, what is the epilogue here? Basically, God's work goes on. There's no servant of the Lord so choice, so indispensable, that God's work stops because that one is gone now. Elisha picks up the mantle and goes on, and he continues to minister, just as Joshua did for Moses. None of us is irreplaceable, none of us.

I think we were talking recently about putting our fist in a bowl of water. And if you pull it out, the hole that's left is how indispensable we are to the Lord's work, right? Try it sometime. You'll see what I mean. You can imagine the hole that would be left. Anyway, God has ways to fill up the difference. But yet, each one of us is utterly unique and God uses us in a mighty way. Look forward, brothers and sisters, to your ride. Look forward to it. We're supposed to encourage one another with these words. And until then, do the work of the ministry that God has laid before you. God willing, next time I'm going to summarize Elijah's life, talk about some lessons overall, and talk about Elijah in the New Testament. So God willing, we'll cover that next time, and that'll finish our study on Elijah.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on 2 Kings 1. The main subject of the sermon is Elijah's interactions with the king's men and his response to Ahaziah's inquiry.

We're going to move ahead in our account to follow the ministry of Elijah to what was Elijah's final mission, his last work. It's not the last account of Elijah, but it's the last time God sent him to do something. And that is in second King's chapter one, the Lord's Judgment on Ahaziah. And as we turn there, I was thinking about the contrast of the morning's message and this evening message. In the morning, we see Christ's incredible compassion for the lost. We see his yearning for them that they would repent and turn, that they would be harvested into the Father's harvest barn, that they come to faith in Christ. And so he is concerned for them. It's the same spirit in which he weeps over Jerusalem, in which he shows compassion for the lost. And we see the mercy and love of God through Christ there.

But here in this story we see the severity and the judgment of God as well. And it's occurred to me that those two themes are so completely interwoven in scripture that it would be impossible to understand the one without the other. And it's impossible, I think, to understand the cross of Jesus Christ without both of those. As it says in Roman's chapter 11, "Consider therefore the goodness and severity of God." Both the goodness and the severity of God go hand in hand in the scriptures, do they not? And so we see the shocking judgments of God in certain cases, like a worldwide flood just erasing all life that breathed through the nostrils, everything that breathed. Everything that wasn't on the ark erased, killed through the judgment of God, or Sodom and Gomorrah reigning fire and brimstone down, or signal judgments throughout the Old Testament and on into the New. We see all of that. That is the severity of God. But we also see the mercy of God again and again, don’t we? We see the kindness of God and the compassion of God. And both of those really do come together in the cross perfectly really. We see the wrath of God and the love of God meeting perfectly in the death of Jesus Christ, don't we? God is so holy that he would rather that his Son die than that any of us get into heaven unatoned for. And he's so loving that he'd rather pour out the judgment on his own Son than on you who have faith in him. And so we see both of those themes coming together in the cross. 

There was a time in the ministry of Jesus, I'm thinking about the account we're going to read tonight in which Elijah is sitting on a hill and 50 men come to take him in and he says, "If I'm a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and burn you up." And it does. I think about that, but then I contrast it to what happened in Luke chapter nine, in which Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem and he goes through Samaria and wants to stop and minister on the way, and a Samaritan village would not accept him because he was going to Jerusalem. They refused to take him in. Now you know that James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were called the Sons of Thunder, right? And you wonder because, how could it be that this apostle of love, especially John of the two, we know much more about John, how could he be called the Son of Thunder? Well, he shows himself here in Luke nine. Because James and John say, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and burn that city up?" And it's not surprising those of us who love the meekness and the mildness and the mercy of Jesus Christ, his response, where he rebukes them, and an extended version says, "You don't understand or you don't know the kind of spirit you are, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." And so we see the perfect mercy of God in Jesus in that he refrains from calling down fire from heaven. 

But James and John weren't really that far off in one sense because one greater than Elijah was there and he'd been affronted, you see? And yet it was not time for the fire to fall in judgment on that Samaritan village, not at that point. And so we see the kindness, the mercy, the love of God, but also the wrath and the judgment and the holiness of God. And we're going to see them coming together, I think, in our story tonight in second Kings chapter one. Now, just in order to get a little bit of a background, we know that King Ahaziah has taken the throne at this point because Ahab has died. Look at second King's chapter one verse one. It says, "After Ahab's death, Moab rebelled against Israel. Now, Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice." Now we already have learned at the end of first Kings, if you go back one page to see the end of the account in first King's 22, Ahab is killed at Ramoth Gilead.

Now we talked about that last time. You remember that the prediction of judgment has gone out against Ahab, not through Elijah's mouth at this point, but through Micaiah has come and predicted that Ahab would die. And so Ahab takes it seriously enough at least to go into battle disguised like a common foot soldier. And you remember Jehoshaphat went in all of his kingly robes. And at one point, one of the archers of Moab, or of who were they fighting at that point, maybe Moab, I don't remember, anyway, was ready to draw his bow and fire and Jehoshaphat cried out to the Lord and the Lord delivered him, the Lord rescued him. But then toward the end of the battle, it says in first Kings chapter 22 verse 34, I love this, "Someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor."

Now this is an incredible thing, isn't it? First of all, we have no idea who this individual is. He's just someone. Now it's a good thing when you make it in the Bible that your name would be there as well. But we have no idea who this individual is. He's just an archer, a random archer, and he pulls his bow back and he lets an arrow fly. And as I mentioned last time, that arrow was a guided missile, right for Ahab's vitals. And it manages somehow to go pierce the costume, the disguise he's wearing as a common foot soldier, and more than that, to pierce between the sections of his armor and to slay him. And he dies in direct fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken against him by Elijah. Someone drew his bow at random and hit the king of Israel between the sections of his armor. The king told his chariot driver, "’Wheel around and get me out of the fighting. I've been wounded.’ All day long, the battle raged. And the king was propped up in his chariot facing the Arameans [There it is, the Arameans, sorry about that]. The blood from his wound ran out under the floor of his chariot. And that evening he died.” Verse 36, "As the sun was setting, a cry spread through the army, ‘every man to his own town, everyone to his land.’ And so the king died and was brought to Samaria and they buried him there. They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria where the prostitutes bathed, and the dogs licked up his blood as the word of the Lord had declared." 

So that's the end of Ahab. And it says in verse 40, “Ahab rested with his fathers, and Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.” Now, Ahaziah is a fulfillment of that common proverb of the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, okay? Because he's every bit as wicked as his father Ahab had been. Look at verses 51 through 53, the end of the chapter. "Ahaziah son of Ahab became king of Israel in Samaria in the 17th year of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. And he reigned over Israel two years," very significant, very brief reign. Verse 52, "He did evil in the eyes of the Lord because he walked in the ways of his father and mother and in the ways of Jeroboam son of Nebat who had caused Israel to sin." Verse 53, "He served and worshiped Baal and provoked the Lord the God of Israel to anger, just as his father had done." And so that's the very end of first Kings. That's the last word of first Kings.

Now I've talked before about the difficulty that comes in the separation from chapter to chapter, and in this case even worse, from book to book. I think there's an intimate connection between the very last verse of first Kings and the very first verse of second Kings. Look again at the last verse of first Kings, chapter 22 verse 53, "He Ahaziah served and worshiped Baal and provoked the Lord the God of Israel to anger just as his father had done." And then chapter one verse one of second Kings says, "After Ahab's death, Moab rebelled against Israel." Now explain why that's significant, but I think the first thing we need to look at is how shocking is Ahaziah's rebellion against God. What more could God have done to wean his people and to protect really Ahaziah against Baal worship than he did through Elijah? There were the three and a half years of drought and famine brought miraculously to an end after the contest between the prophets of Baal and Elijah at Mount Carmel, and then the sevenfold prayer, and on the seventh prayer, Elijah's prayer's answered and rain comes again at the direct word of Elijah. And then you remember that Elijah amazingly runs on ahead of the chariot of Ahab to Jezreel and is there to give a warning about continued worship of Baal. There's nothing more that he could have done. And then we have an ongoing ministry, not just with Elijah, but with the other sons of the prophets to Ahab. And yet here his son continues in the tradition of Baal worship, probably under the influence of his mother. It's a fearsome thing. And I think it's a direct correlation between his determination to worship Baal and the brevity of his reign, two years.

So I think that God is bringing judgment in what I call a threefold external judgment from God. If you look over at second Kings, first of all, there's a political judgment. Politically, God is judging Israel and specifically judging Ahaziah. Moab rebels. If you look at verse one, "After Ahab's death, Moab rebelled against Israel." That means specifically he rebelled against Ahaziah's reign. Now politically, Moab had been in subjection to Israel and paying tribute to Israel since David conquered them. David had conquered them in second Samuel chapter eight, you read the story there, and David in his power and going out in the name of the Lord and for his glory subjected Moab to tribute. And so Moab had been in tribute like a vassal state to Israel all of this time. When the kingdom split, the vassalage and the paying of tribute went to the northern kingdom. And so it continued right up through Ahab's reign. But at this point they choose to break away. And it's significant that Ahaziah is so weak that he will not respond militarily. He will not go out and bring them back in and under subjection. Significant that two chapters later in second Kings three, they do get brought back under subjection. So it's just a very brief time that politically Moab is permitted to break off and not pay tribute any longer to Israel. It's a direct judgment on Ahaziah, no question about it. So politically he's got judgment.

Secondly, economically. By the way, I think that Ahaziah did nothing militarily because he didn't want to put on armor and go out and fight. I mean those guided arrows can have an effect on the son as well as on the father who died. And so I think he knew that his conscience was testifying against him, that if he ever put on his armor and went out and fight it would do him no good because he was under the judgment of God. And so his conscience was uneasy. And so he doesn't want to go take on Moab. He just lets them go. He's going to stay home. It's safe in your home, isn't it? Is it? Well, he slipped and fell through the lattice. We'll get to that in a minute. But if God wants to judge you, it doesn't matter where you are. I spoke earlier about Jezebel. I said if I had been her, I would've stayed away from Jezreel. Look, if God says you're going to die in Jezreel, it doesn't matter what you say, you're going to be in Jezreel. And you might determine not to be in Jezreel ever again the rest of your life. But if God wants you there, you're going to get there somehow. And so the word of the Lord stands and cannot be broken.

But at any rate, I think he's weak and he's afraid, and I'm speculating that. It's probably because of what happened to his father Ahab. And so he will not take on Moab, he will not go out and fight them. He will not go out in battle. But secondly, economically, there was an external judgment. For this one, you have to go back once more one page to first Kings 22. Now first Kings 22 speaks about Jehoshaphat king of Judah as well. And so Jehoshaphat becomes king of Judah. And Jehoshaphat, it says in verse 48, "built a fleet of trading ships to go to Ophir for gold, but they never set sail. They were wrecked at Ezion Geber." And verse 49, "At that time Ahaziah, son of Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, 'Let my men sail with your men.' But Jehoshaphat refused.” He wanted nothing to do with Ahaziah the evil king of Israel. And so this was an economic judgment on Israel and on Ahaziah in particular. So we see a political judgment in that Moab breaks off and won't pay tribute anymore. We see an economic judgment in that this whole venture with the southern kingdom of Judah falls apart and Jehoshaphat will not do any business with him at all.

But then most directly we see a personal judgment on Ahaziah. Go back to second Kings chapter one verse two. "Now, Ahaziah," it says, "had fallen through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and injured himself. So he sent messengers saying to them, 'Go and consult Baal-zebub the god of Ekron to see if I will recover from this injury.'" So he's fallen in his house, he thinks perhaps that he's going to be safe and that he's not taking the battlefield against Moab. But instead the judgment of God reaches him in his inner chamber, reaches right into his home and judges him. He falls through a lattice, a decorative woodwork, and falls a story or two and damages himself. And so he's lying on a sick bed. Little does he realize that he's lying on a death bed, literally. But he's very concerned about the extent of his injuries. 

Now I think it's interesting, despite the threefold external judgment of God, politically, economically and personally, yet we see the mercy of God too, don't we? Because he doesn't die instantaneously. He's given a little more time. And that time is a very significant time, isn't it? When you're laying on your bed and you think there's a good chance you're going to die, doesn't that clarify some things for you? It really is a gift from God to have an opportunity to think about eternal matters, matters of judgment day, matters of God and of the way you've been living your life. It really is a gift from God to give you an opportunity to repent. And so God is merciful and he is gracious. But does he use the time well? Does Ahaziah make the most of that time? No, he doesn't at all. And we're going to see that. The very first way we see that he rejects God even at this point is by sending messengers to Ekron to consult with Baal-zebub.

See what he says here. "He sent messengers saying to them, 'Go and consult Baal-zebub the god of Ekron to see if I will recover from this injury.'" Now the word Baal, or Ba-al is the better pronunciation in Hebrews, it's just harder to say. So we say Baal. It means lord or master, that's all. And so there are actually many Baals. They could serve many different masters or Baals, many different gods. This one was Baal-zebub which I think was a slang term that the Israelites used meaning specifically Lord of the Flies I think is what it means. And that comes over into Luke 12 when they said that it was because of, and Matthew also, they say it's because of the Beelzebub that the king or prince of demons that Jesus drives out demons. So it's the exact same words, just a Greek spelling of the same word. So basically the Pharisees there are ascribing to Jesus that he is casting out demons by Satan himself. So this god, the god of Ekron really represented Satan or the devil, but probably a demon. And I believe behind all false worship, all false religious systems, there is demonic influence, perhaps even supernatural power. And so I believe that these demons that were impersonating Baal-zebub the god of Ekron somehow had some ability to predict the future.

You've heard perhaps of the oracle of Delphi in Greece. And so it could be that God permitted the demons to orchestrate a few minor future predicting miracles. And by the way, who is the only one who really knows the future? Think about that. The one who knows the future is the one who rules the future, right? Because anybody else has got to go through him. And who is it that rules the future? It's God and God alone. So no one can know the future except they go through God and find out. But it could be that God permitted these demons somehow to impersonate fortune tellers successfully enough that they felt that the answer was there up in Ekron. And so this man Ahaziah sends off messengers up to consult Baal-zebub the god of Ekron. Now I see the hand of Jezebel in all of this, I don't know if you do, but to always pushing and shoving toward Baal worship and said, "You ought to go up to that oracle up there at Ekron to find out if you're going to recover." 

Now I think as I probe in Ahaziah's mind, I see insecurity and fear. He's afraid to die, isn't he? Should he be afraid to die? Oh, you better believe it. We should fear death if we're unbelievers, if we've been living like this and we've had this kind of judgment on us politically, economically, and now personally, that's a time to be concerned. And he's worried about death. He's afraid of death. He's insecure. And so he sends off these messengers. But now Elijah gets his final mission. He gets his final work to do. In verse three, "The angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, 'Go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to consult Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? Therefore, this is what the Lord says. ‘You will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die.’”’ So Elijah went.” So this is the last mission, the last message, and what a message it was. It's remarkable to me the number of times that God tests his servants by giving them this kind of a message. It's really no matter of difficulty to go out and proclaim that God is love, to tell them that God loves you and that God wants to bless you and that God is there for you and that God is a God who answers prayer takes, in my opinion, no courage at all. But to be able to go out and confront these messengers as they're en route to this pagan deity and say, "You want an answer to your question? Okay, I'll give you an answer. You will die. Most certainly you will die." Now that takes incredible courage and only a man of God with this kind of God focus, utterly unconcerned what people think, he's just going to go and tell the truth, is going to obey and do this kind of message.

And so Elijah went, and that is really the story of Elijah's life, isn't it? Elijah was so faithful. When God gave him a message, when he gave him a mission, it didn't matter how difficult or how harsh or unpleasant, he obeyed and went. And so Elijah went. Now I think it's interesting. God's honor is at stake here, isn't it? Is it because there's no God in Israel that you're going outside the borders of Israel? Is there not a God with somewhat of a reputation in Israel? Was not Israel set up like a lamp and put up on a lampstand for the whole world to see with miraculous powers, with a mighty hand and outstretched arm? Did God bring Israel out of Egypt so that Rahab's heart melted and the hearts of all those in Jericho melted because they still remembered the power of God? And had not God done many other miracles since then? Had he not even in his own lifetime, in Ahaziah's own lifetime, answered Elijah with fire from heaven and burned up the sacrifice? Is it because there's no God in Israel that you're going outside the borders to get an answer to your question? That is an insult to the God of Israel. It is an insult to our Lord. And so for zeal, for the name of God, does Elijah move out with this message.

There is a God. And by the way, the Hebrews, double negatives very strong. Is it because there's absolutely no God? Could it be there might be a God in Israel? That's almost the sense. Have you forgotten that there is in fact a God in Israel? So the Hebrew’s actually very strong on the negative. Is it because there's absolutely no God in Israel that you're going outside the borders to get an answer to this question? And so Elijah went. Verse five, "When the messengers returned to the king, he asked them, 'Why have you come back?'" Now this is very interesting. Why did the messagengers come back? They were sent out by the king to go to Ekron. They did not complete their mission. They did not go all the way to Ekron. They came back. Why? Because of the authority of Elijah. Do you see that? Elijah just comes out in the power of God and speaks and says, "You don't need to go that far. I'll tell you the answer. We'll cut right through this thing. You don't need Baal-zebub. I'll tell you the answer. You will die, oh king." And so the messengers obey rather the voice of Elijah than the king Ahaziah. And so the messengers returned and the king having timed out the message or the mission knows very clearly that there's no way they could have made it to Ekron. He says, Why have you come back?

Verse six, "'A man came to meet us,' they replied, 'And he said to us, 'Go back to the king who sent you and tell him this is what the Lord says. Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are sending men to consult Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? Therefore you will not leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die.''" Now this is very striking, isn't it? First of all, how many times does that message get into this account verbatim? The answer is three. Three times in 17 versus we get the entire message from God. It's almost like he's rubbing Ahaziah's face in it. And as we look at it's just so prominent. "Is it because there's no God in Israel that you're consulting Baal-zebub in Ekron? Therefore, I will tell you, you will certainly not leave the bed you are lying on. You will die." He says it three times.

I also think it's striking in that these pagan probably messengers, or perhaps they were Israelites, we don't know, but at any rate, the messengers of King Ahaziah are very faithful with the message, aren't they? They don't pull anything back. They boldly told King Ahaziah what Elijah had told them to say. Now you could say, “Well, there's really not much boldness. They were just saying what Elijah said.” But isn't that the very same thing when God sends us with a message? It's not our message. It's not our gospel. It's not our scripture. Then why do we fudge on it? It isn't our message. We just need to say, “Thus says the Lord.” And then in the Word of God, there it is. There's an incredible boldness and freedom to that. It's not me. It's the word of God. But these messengers came back and verbatim they repeated a very distressing and unpopular message. “Oh king, you're anxious about your future. You're worried about what will happen to you. You need worry no longer. I'll tell you exactly what will happen to you. You will die.” That's a tough message. But the messengers come back and are very clear on this.

The king in verse seven asked a very interesting question. The king asked them, "What kind of man was it who came to meet you and told you this?" Verse eight, "They replied, 'He was a man with a garment of hair and with a leather belt around his waist.' The king said, 'Now that was Elijah the Tishbite.'" Now I think it's interesting because in verse seven, I would be concerned with the message, wouldn't you? If you had been Ahaziah, would you really care what the postman wore who brought you the letter? What was he wearing? What's in style these days for prophets? He would be more concerned with the message, wouldn't he? And so it is so often these days that we're more concerned with outward trappings from pastors and others that teach and preach the Word. We're more concerned with how they look or carry themselves or are they good socially and all that? None of that matters. What matters is are they teaching and preaching the Word of God or not? And so in verse seven, we see this predisposition to concern about externals.

But I think you could say he also wants to know who it was that gave the message. And he might have had suspicions that it was Elijah. And it brought with it a certain kind of authority when Elijah says it. I think it also gives us a key insight into some New Testament theology. Because of this description of Elijah, it's the only one we have by the way, of what he wore, a garment of hair and a leather belt around his waist, we were able to link him up with what very significant New Testament figure? John the Baptist, because John wore the exact same clothing. And why is that important? Well, we'll talk about that another time, but specifically because it says in the book of Malachi that Elijah would come before the coming of the great day of the Lord. And Jesus said on the Mount of Transfiguration, as they're coming back down, the disciples are very distressed to see Elijah still up in heaven. And here's Jesus supposedly the Messiah. And he said, “If he's still up there and you're here, why do the teachers say that Elijah must come first?” And Jesus answered and said, "Elijah must come first and restore all things, but to be sure, Elijah has come and they did not accept him but did him anything they want." And then they realized that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

And so John, I think, identifies himself with Elijah by wearing the same clothing, the garment of hair and the leather belt around his waist. And so there's a direct connection because of this question. What did he look like? What was he wearing? And so the king says, "'That was Elijah the Tishbite.' Then he sent to Elijah a captain with his company of 50 men. The captain went up to Elijah who was sitting on top of a hill." Now stop there for a moment. I find it very interesting how many significant things happen in Elijah's life up on hills or mountains. He was a mountain man, I guess. I don't really know. But he felt most comfortable there. We have him on Mount Carmel taking on the prophets of Baal with tremendous effect, calling down fire from heaven on the sacrifice. We also have him at Mount Horeb in that cave when God passed by in a still small voice and spoke to him up on that mountain. And now we have him again sitting up on a mountain looking over the countryside, perhaps praying and fellowshipping with God. And along comes this arrogant, and there's no other way to put it, arrogant captain with 50 men. Now what is Ahaziah's intention? “Bring him in here. The thing that Ahab couldn't do, I'm going to finish. I'm going to put this man to death.” 

 What did he need 50 soldiers to arrest an old prophet for? Did you ever wonder about that? Did you ever wonder about the 600 men who went to arrest Jesus? Well, what are they there for? If he wants to come, he'll come. And if Jesus doesn't want to come, he's not going to come. I don't care if you bring 600,000 men. If he hadn't willed to go, he wouldn't have been able to be brought in that night. And so it is with these 50 men along with this captain. And he says this, I think it's clear that Ahaziah wants to do damage to Elijah and put him to death. So he sends to Elijah a captain with 50 men. And the captain goes up to Elijah who is sitting on top of a hill and says to him, "Man of God, [it's almost a sassiness here] the king says, 'Come down.'" Now, that's how I know that there's an attitude here. If you're a man of God, let me tell you who's really in charge here. The king says, come down. This is a direct affront to God, isn't it? Man of God, the king says such and such. "Elijah answered the captain, 'If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men.' Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men."

Now, it's remarkable to me how the commentators get on Elijah for this. They blame Elijah for a vindictive spirit. Do you think that Elijah had the power to bring down fire from heaven? Elijah it says in the book of James was a man just like us. Who sent the fire? God himself sent the fire. It was not Elijah who sent the fire, just like he didn't send fire on Mount Carmel. It was not Elijah who did that. Not one of us in this room tonight has power to do this. God alone. And so it was God who sent that fire down to kill those 51 men. So if you have a problem with this passage and with the seeming harshness of the judgment, you have a problem with God and not with Elijah. You needn't therefore take Elijah into your arm when you go to heaven and see him and say, "You know Elijah, I loved your ministry. But that thing with the fire from heaven? That was a little harsh. I mean I think you really should have gone and tried to talk to them and minister to them a little bit." It was God who intended to vindicate his name. Man of God, the king says such and such. All right, if I'm a man of God, let's see what God will do to vindicate his name against your king. And the 51 of them perished.

Now realize that we are using up Ahaziah's time for repentance, aren't we? We're using it up. Ahaziah is on his deathbed. He hasn't died yet. He already has the prophecy, doesn't he? It's already in his ears because the messenger's brought it back. You will not get up from that bed. You will die. Like God said through Isaiah the prophet, Hezekiah, “Put your house in order because you will not recover. You will die.” “So might I suggest, Ahaziah, put your heart in order. Prepare to meet your God because it's coming soon.” He's wasting his time, isn't he, with a vindictive mission sending out these 51 men to arrest the messenger. He should have been on his face before God begging for forgiveness and repentance.

If today you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. "As servants of God," Second Corinthians 6:1, "We urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, ‘In the time of my favor, I heard you, and in the day of salvation, I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God's favor. Today is the day of salvation.’" He's wasting his time. He should have been repenting. Instead, he's going to shoot the messenger. And verse 11, "At this, the king sent to Elijah another captain with his 50 men. This captain said to him, “Man of God, this is what the king says. ‘Come down at once.’” Now how far do you think this man's going to get? He's even worse than the first one. “Apparently you didn't understand, man of God, the king wants you down here immediately.” Clearly intending to do him harm. Now realize, once the humble captain comes in a minute, God says to him, "Go with him and don't be afraid." So clearly there's a threat on Elijah here. They say that the mark of insanity is to do the same thing again and again and expect a different result. All right? There's no different result. You come arrogantly to God when he's in the frame of mind to vindicate his holy name and you're going to get the same result. And so this man also is judged by God. "’If I am a man of God,’ Elijah replied, ‘May fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 men.’ Then the fire of God fell from heaven and consumed him and his 50 men." Now realize both times the fire is ascribed to heaven the first time and to God this time. Clearly this is God's fire, not Elijah's fire. It is not Elijah's fault if fault there is. But realize that God reserves the wicked for a day of judgment and he is able to do that. He doesn't owe these 51 men a thing. And so the fire comes down. And I think what I want you to do is realize that you deserve the same thing. Unless you all repent, you will likewise perish, Jesus said. All of us are in this boat. Are any one of us able to say to God, “By virtue of my own merit and righteousness, I come and stand before you?”

Do you realize the kind of boldness it takes to come into the throne room of God, to be able to come into the presence of God and address him as Father? Do you realize the kind of boldness that takes? The answer is no, not properly. Neither do I. I'm telling you, we don't. But if we could see God or see what the seraphim and cherubim see and the elders in heaven, if we could see for just an instant, for the rest of your life, your prayer would never be the same. And you would be thanking God again and again for that new and living way, opened through the body of Christ and through his blood into the very Holy of Holies. Only through the blood of Christ are we able to come into the presence of God. Our God is a consuming fire. And we are like stubble apart from Christ. And so the fire comes down the second time. And again, if you have problems with this or with Sodom and Gomorrah or with Noah's ark or with the outbreak against Uzzah or any of these other judgments, you have a problem with God. But our God is a consuming fire.

"So the king sent a third captain with his 50 men. This third captain went up and fell on his knees before Elijah. 'Man of God,' he begged, 'Please have respect for my life and the lives of these 50 men, your servants. See fire has fallen from heaven and consumed the first two captains and all their men. But now, have respect for my life.'" He's trembling, isn't he? He's afraid. And I feel like if he was like this coming into Elijah presence, what should we be like coming into the very presence of God? You say we should come in boldly. I think we should. I think to come at all is to come boldly. You see, that's what I'm saying. We come at all, but we come realizing who we're speaking to, with a sense of humility and brokenness, a sense of the weight and value of the blood of Jesus Christ. A sense of the awesome holiness of God, and on our faces before him. And so this man comes. "And then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, 'Go down with him. Do not be afraid of him.' So Elijah got up and went down with him to the king. And Elijah told the king, 'This is what the Lord says. Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?'" 

By the way, the hearing of those words is different now than it was before the first two messengers were sent because those things have already happened, haven't they? Fire has already fallen from heaven twice. And now this man who has called fire down from heaven in the name of the Lord is standing in front of him. Is it because there is no God? He's still here. He's still alive. He's still powerful. He's still holy, Ahaziah, and it's time to repent. But the time is almost up. It's almost over. "’Is it because there's no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-zebub the god of Ekron? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die.’ So he died according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken."

When the time for judgment comes, it's over. And God didn't owe Ahaziah another moment of breath. We don't know if it happened as soon as the words were out of Elijah. We don’t know if he gave him a little more time. We have absolutely no idea. All I know is that there's no space between verse 16 and verse 17. It just goes right on into the judgment of God. The time has come. And so Ahaziah died and he went to judgment. Because he did not repent openly in scripture, we have to assume that he went to Hell. And so the time came for him to be judged. He squandered his opportunities to repent. Now, what should this do to us? I think it should give us a sense of the value of the blood of Jesus Christ and the mercy he's had to us. Doesn't it? Doesn't it give you a sense of, oh, but for the grace of God that's me. I deserve that. I deserve to be judged, but God has been gracious to me in Christ. And so therefore, I approach God with brokenness, with humility, with trembling, and with a sense of the awe and the grandeur of the majesty and the holiness of God. Thank you Jesus for my salvation. And if that's what this story does for you, it's done the right thing. It's done the right thing. If on the other hand, you've never trusted in Christ, if this story jars you and moves you to realize that each day is meant for an opportunity to repent, then take that opportunity. And if on the other hand, it jars you as an evangelist or a witness to get out and share the gospel this week, you don't know that the people you're sharing with, you don't know how much longer God's going to give them so that they should make the most of their days and trust in Christ.

 Turn in your Bibles  to Matthew Chapter 9. We're looking this morning at Verses 35 through 38, the compassion of the Lord of the harvest. I remember  I can still see in my mind's eye a harvest so plentiful that I wondered, being a city boy, how they were ever going to take it in. I used to drive from Louisville up to Grand Rapids, Michigan, through the corn fields of Indiana. I remember one farm so huge that it just stretched until the Earth curved, the corn was getting ripe, and it was almost time for the harvest.  I remember commenting to the friend that I was driving up with, "How are they going to take it all in?" He said, “They have big combine machines.” I said, "What's that?" He said, "You've never seen one? They just kind of churn through and they're able to just harvest in an incredible way." I was overwhelmed that day. I was amazed and I was thinking, "How are they going to take in this harvest, how can it be done?" I think the same thing is true if you ever go to one of those huge wheat farms out in Kansas or in other places, you just see it as far as the Earth goes. The harvest is plentiful. How are they going to take it in? 

But I had the same feeling another day and it was on a mission trip when I was in the far, far western part of China in a city called Kashgar. It's an ancient city. It's right on the Silk Road where Marco Polo went.  It developed and thrived in that time, but it seems literally in the middle of nowhere. You have to travel three days by bus on one of the most dangerous bus rides I've ever taken in my life.  We were driving along a ravine and I looked down and saw a bus just like the one I was on at the bottom of the ravine 500 feet down. It wasn't even rusty yet. And  there was the driver chugging along, sometimes falling asleep a little bit, and well, we prayed a lot and we were trusting God to get us there. We finally got to Kashgar.

They told us that the bazaar was coming up. It was a monthly thing, and people would come from miles around to the big bazaar. We were excited. It was on a Sunday, and we went by donkey cart. We went and there were a couple hundred people at this bazaar. I said, "This is not that impressive." The driver said, "No, this isn't THE bazaar. You have to go downtown to the center of the city." Well, we went there and then we saw what they were talking about. Probably tens of thousands of Uyghur people. There are Chinese Muslims that were there, so many people that I was immediately overwhelmed. I felt like I was in a sea of humanity. I was overwhelmed first of all with feeling like I was a drop in an endless sea of humanity, and I thought, "How can it be true what David wrote in Psalm 139, “Oh Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from a far.” How can that be true of all of us? How can you know us that well?" It boggled my mind and made me feel sick to my stomach. I thought to myself, "More than that, we are here as pseudo-missionaries, not real missionaries.” We were only there for a week. We couldn't really speak the language. We knew that the Uyghur people did not really know Jesus. They knew of a Jesus in the Muslim accounts, but they didn't know the Jesus who really is the creator of the ends of the earth, the savior of the world. They didn't know him, and  they were lost.  I stood there feeling overwhelmed, and I said, "How can you do it?" I guess, to some degree, I want to put that feeling inside you today. "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask, beseech the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” We're supposed to feel amazed. We're supposed to feel overwhelmed, and then we're supposed to get on our knees, on our faces before God, and ask him to do something about it.

First, we have to have a glimpse into the heart of the king of the kingdom of Heaven, Jesus Christ, because it all begins with compassion, doesn't it? Jesus has compassion. He looks out, he sees them in a way that no one else can. For me personally, it all begins with having the compassion of Jesus, and we only get it as we read in the scripture. We see in verse 35 of Matthew an assessment of Jesus' comprehensive ministry. It says that Jesus went through all the towns and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom of Heaven and healing every disease and every sickness among the people. Jesus is there ministering and it’s a comprehensive ministry that he's doing.

We've been seeing in Matthew's gospel how Matthew has been giving us the credentials of Jesus Christ as the king of the kingdom of Heaven, that Jesus is fit to be king of the kingdom of Heaven. We've seen that in one of those summary statements after all the miracles that he's been showing us in Matthew 8 and in Matthew 9— the healing of the centurion's servant, the healing of Peter's mother-in-law from a fever, the stilling of the storm, the healing of the demoniac of the Gadarenes, so powerful he could break chains, iron chains, a legion of demons inside him, 5,000, 6,000 demons, and Jesus cast them out with a single word. We've seen the power of Jesus Christ, we've seen his compassion. After giving us all this evidence, he sums it up here in Verse 35, giving a glimpse of Christ's comprehensive ministry. Jesus did everything that the heavenly father wanted him to do. Isn't that incredible? 

Have you ever had a day in which you finished and you laid your head on your pillow, and you could say to the heavenly Father, "Father, I did everything you wanted me to do today. I didn't leave anything out. All of the work that you had for me to do today, I did it." Can you think of one day in which you could have said that honestly to God? Jesus lived his whole life that way. So at the end of his life, in John 17:4, he prays to his heavenly father, saying, "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do." Isn't that amazing? Not just a day, not a month, not a year, but a whole lifetime of works. And Jesus did them all perfectly. 

 His ministry was comprehensive in scope in that he went to every town.  Jesus was not sent into the entire world at that point, understand this. His ministry was focused. It was concentrated on the Jews, the people of Israel. He says in Matthew 15, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." He has a very concentrated focus. He knows he's not sent to the Gentiles at this point, but within His call, he was comprehensive. He went to every town. He went to every village. Verse 35 in the Greek, "he was continually traveling about, going from town to town.” He had an itinerating ministry. He didn't stay in one place. As a matter of fact, as I read through the gospel accounts, especially Matthew, Mark and Luke, I only find one time that people come to Jesus with a need and he chooses not to meet it, and that was a time that he began in his preaching ministry in Luke Chapter 4. Jesus goes out into a solitary place. The people in that town are looking for him and they come and say, "Come back in our town and stay here and preach." They wanted him as their private prophet, I guess. Jesus said, "I can't. I was sent by God to preach to every town and village and that's what I must do." And so he left that area and went to the next town. A comprehensive ministry, he was reaching out.

It was comprehensive also in content. What did he do as he went from place to place? He was teaching and he was preaching the kingdom of Heaven. We undervalue teaching and preaching today. There are certain types of churches that are getting away from preaching. They're getting away from teaching, it's too authoritative. People instead want entertainment, they want skits, they want videos, they want other things. Jesus did not undervalue teaching and preaching, not at all. As a matter of fact, in a parallel account in Mark's gospel, he landed at one point and saw a huge crowd. Let me read so that you see the parallel here. In Mark 6:34, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, so he began teaching them many things." Do you see the significance of that? Jesus's compassion flowed out through his teaching ministry. That's how he showed his compassion is by teaching them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, they needed teaching.

What was the next thing he did in Mark's gospel? He fed the 5,000. Do you see the priority structure in Jesus? Give them the teaching first, the eating will wait.  He taught them and then he fed them. We see the comprehensive teaching ministry of Jesus. Now, what was the focus? What was the content? It was the kingdom of Heaven. It was a comprehensive topic. What does this mean, the kingdom of Heaven? It's the place where God rules over willing subjects. The place where God rules over people who are delighted to have God rule over them.  God is sovereign over the whole surface of the Earth, is he not? The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Everything belongs to him. But the kingdom of Heaven advances when people willingly, gladly turn and put their lives and subjection to his rule. That's the advancement of the kingdom of Heaven. And so it's the place wherever God rules over people who are glad that he's ruling over them. Are you glad today that Jesus is your king? If you are, you're a Christian. You're delighted that you have such a king as Jesus Christ. You want to hear more about him, you want to find out more about his attributes and his nature, because he is the absolute perfect king for the kingdom of Heaven, and you're part of it.

Everywhere Jesus went, he preached the kingdom from the beginning. In Matthew 4:17, from that time on, it says Jesus began to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is near." Then in Matthew 4:23, Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom. He begins the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit or the spiritual beggars for," for what? "Theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." He's preaching the kingdom. He warned at one point about the Pharisees. He said in Matthew 5:20, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and teachers of law, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of Heaven." So the kingdom of Heaven is something you enter into.  He said to people who are tempted to be anxious about what they eat and what they wear, he said, "Seek first the kingdom of God, and all of these things will be added to you as well." The kingdom of Heaven was the focus of Jesus' teaching ministry.

Later on in Matthew, in chapter 13, he's going to preach  a number of parables and all of them are focused on the kingdom, aren't they? The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and then hid it again, and then in his joy went out and sold everything he had and bought that field. The kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl of great value. When a man found it, he sold everything he had and bought that pearl. All of these things were designed to teach us about the kingdom. It was the center of the content of his teaching. As he went about from place to place in Judea, he was preaching in all their synagogues, one place after another, the kingdom. Comprehensive preaching ministry.

But it was also a comprehensive ministry in terms of healing power. Matthew tells us he was healing every disease and every sickness among the people. Not only did he teach them powerfully, but he did powerful acts, powerful miracles, the very likes of which nobody had ever seen before. The power of Jesus Christ. He just touches their blind eyes and instantly they can see. How many of you are worried about the West Nile virus? The Center for Disease Control will tell us all kinds of  diseases that are incurable. Nobody knows what to do about AIDS, nobody knows what to do about Ebola or mad cow disease which people can get. And they don't know how to cure them. Jesus could cure anything, every disease, every sickness, there was never a disease he met that he couldn't cure. He could just touch an AIDS victim right now, just touch them and they're instantly cured. There was no limit to his healing power. It was comprehensive. He stresses it. Look at it again in verse 35, "Healing every disease, healing every sickness." There was nothing he could not do. The comprehensive ministry of Jesus Christ. And so we have a summary, a life of kingly power in word and deed.

In the world kings are known for their power, but our king is known for more than just power, is he not? He's known also for compassion, and to that Matthew now turns. It's a very interesting shift we get, because this is the end of a concentrated account of Jesus' teaching and preaching ministry. Later we're going to see how Jesus begins to involve his disciples in his worldwide work. The advance of the kingdom of Heaven is going to be done through other people. We are called on to advance his kingdom. He's going to involve them, first in the prayer ministry, and then he's going to send out twelve  men in Matthew 10 to do ministry in his name. Jesus begins it all, though, with a compassionate vision. Look at verse 36: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

It all began with a specific vision that only Jesus had, an ability to look right down into your heart and see what your real needs are. He could look at a person and see things that no one else could see. In John Chapter 1 when Nathaniel comes to Jesus and Jesus says of him, "Now, Nathaniel, here is a true Israelite in whom there's no guile. He's not a con artist, he is what he appears to be.” "That's very interesting, Jesus. How do you know me?" "Well, when Philip called you under the fig tree, I looked at you. I looked at you and I knew you completely. I know your heart just by looking. In John chapter 2, it says, "Many people were acclaiming Jesus.” They were saying they believe in Jesus, but Jesus would not entrust himself to them because he knew all men. He did not need man's testimony about what was in man, because he himself knew what was in their hearts. He knew who they were. He had a specialized vision, and when he looked out over that crowd, he saw things no one else could see. He looked with a compassionate vision. He looked at their souls, and he was torn up inside over it.

 John MacArthur says, "The divine eyes of Jesus saw infinitely greater need in their lives, a need that far surpassed a withered arm or a bleeding body, a possessed mind, blind eyes or deaf ears, far greater than that. He sympathized with their physical pains too and would have been deeply moved had that been their only afflictions, but in seeing the multitudes, Jesus saw the deepness and pervasiveness of their sin and the desperate plight of their spiritual blindness and lostness, and consequently he felt compassion for them as only God can feel. He cared for them because he was God incarnate, and it is God's nature to love because God is love." That's the compassionate vision of Jesus Christ. He could see things that no one else could see. It says he was literally moved with compassion. In the Hebrew mindset, the heart is the seat of the logic, it's the seat of the will, the seat of the choosing. As a man thinks in his heart, so he is. It was the bowels that were the seat of emotion and passion. We get an indication of that in the Greek, that Jesus was moved in his gut, as it were. He had a gut reaction, a feeling inside of compassion. It moved him physically. He was hurting for them. The ancient Greeks had their gods just up in Olympus, Mount Olympus, and they prized something about them which was their “apathea”, their inability to be moved by what was going on on Earth. They were just so far separate from mortals, they were up in the heavenlies. We get the word “apathetic” from this. The Greek gods were apathetic. They didn't feel anything. Hindu God's the same way, no compassion. Buddhism teaches that we have to get away from suffering and pain and so there's no desire whatsoever for compassion.  Islam says that Allah is compassionate, but the trail of blood that Islam has left through history belies the fact.

The fact of the matter is, however, our God is gracious and compassionate, is he not? He's a compassionate being. God said to Moses, "I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt, and I'm concerned about them, about their slavery and their suffering. So I'm going to send you to get them out." What does he say to the Prophet Jonah about the Ninevites?  "Nineveh has over 120,000 men who cannot tell their right hand from their left and women and children, and a great many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” Compassionate for the Jews, compassionate also for the Gentiles.

So it is that when Jesus came as a perfect reflection of his father that he would demonstrate compassion as well. Christ stood over Jerusalem and wept.  He wept in front of Martha and Mary at the death of their brother Lazarus. He was a compassionate being. He felt deeply. For that reason, I think Jesus was constantly touching people. He was touching their blind eyes, he was touching their withered hands, or their leprous flesh. He was touching them because he was compassionate. He was moved. He wanted to interact with them, that's the way he was, but what moves him here? It's the sheep's condition. Look  at verse 36. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.” People, in the Bible at least, are like sheep. Does that offend you? Does that hurt your self-esteem that God thinks of you like sheep? We were at a conference this week and one of the speakers said that sheep have 2D problem, they're dumb and they're defenseless. I would add a third, they are delicious. So you've got a threefold problem. They're very, very ready and fit for the prey right. The wolves are surrounding them and they're ready to devour them.There's nothing they can do about it, and meanwhile they're just following their nose to the next tuft of grass, just the next thing. They get themselves tangled up in briers or surrounded by packs of dogs or wolves and there's nothing that they can do, they're dumb and they're defenseless, and they're delicious. In this way, they need a shepherd. We are like sheep, are we not? God says so. David struck this theme again and again in his Psalm 23.  “The Lord is my shepherd.” What does that make you? It makes you a sheep. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.” That's the Shepherd that we have, or Psalm 100:3-4 "Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture."

Isaiah takes it to another level. He speaks about our sin in Isaiah 53,  “All we like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned his own way and the Lord has laid on him, Christ, the iniquity of us all.” When Jesus died on the cross, when he was  there, suffering and dying, when his blood was flowing out and when he was under the wrath of God, it was because we're like sheep going astray through our sinfulness and wickedness.  Jesus took our wrath, our punishment on himself because of our sheep-like nature. If we're sheep that means we need shepherds. God provided that there would be under-shepherds; Israel's kings were called to be Shepherds. David shepherded God's people it says in one scripture. And so also the Levites, the priests were meant to shepherd the people through their hearts to a teaching of the Word of God. The problem was, for the most part, the shepherds of Israel failed them. The kings were wicked. The Levites and the priests were ignorant and wicked and selfish  so the people were very frequently like sheep without a shepherd.

Israel's shepherds were judged for how they shepherded the flock. In Ezekiel 34, "The word of the Lord came to me, son of Man prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says, "Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves.”’”  This was a consistent repeated theme in Israel's history. God's response through the prophets was, "I'm going to raise up somebody to shepherd them in integrity of heart and it's going to be a son of David, David will shepherd them." Micah 5:2 says, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah though, you are least among the rulers of Israel out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.” Who is that? That's Jesus Christ, the son of David. In Jeremiah 23 Jeremiah says the same thing. "Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord," he says, "The days are coming when I will raise up to David a righteous branch, a King who will reign wisely and do it as just and right in the land and in his days, Judah be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which that Shepherd, will be called, the Lord our Righteousness." Jesus came to be a shepherd to people who had no shepherd, they were harassed and they were helpless. The NAS  translation is very strong about this, "distressed and downcast”. The word “harassed” means flayed, like their flesh is being ripped apart. Imagine, if you would, briers that are long and  dig into the sides of the sheep. If they move in any direction, it tears their skin, it tears their flesh. That's the picture that Jesus has. These are sheep that are tormented. They're tormented politically. The Romans dominate them and see them only as silent slaves to row in their galleys, perhaps, and as sources of tax money. They were tormented physically by disease and death over which they had no power. They were tormented religiously by people like the House of Annas. He was more like a mafia leader with his hands financially in every pot, and all of it was for his own wealth. That's why Jesus twice cleansed the temple, because the temple had been made into a den of robbers. They had no shepherd, they were tormented spiritually. If you could have seen in the spiritual realm, this large group of people had a demonic host around them like flies. They were harassed by demonic forces of evil, by Satan himself, harassed and helpless.

More than anything, though, what was the greatest danger? It was the wrath of God. They were under the wrath of God for their sins. There was a record of each of their lives, so accurate and so careful, that nothing was missed, as as long as your arm and 50 times longer of each act of sin, each thought, each word. They stood under the wrath of God, and there was nothing that they could do. They were harassed and they were helpless, defenseless against the coming wrath. The apostle Paul puts it this way, in Ephesians 2, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts,  and like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. Do you know what that means? As an object of wrath, you're designed for destruction. Like a lightning rod ready to be struck by the wrath of God, harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

 Jesus had that vision of their condition, but he didn't leave it there.  He was moved by compassion and he spoke  to his disciples in verse 37. By the way, I feel he's speaking today, isn't he? If you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, he's talking to you today. What is he saying? "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” Realize Christ's strategy. He's not going to just come and die on the cross and be raised from the dead.  A gospel is going to be preached, the gospel of the kingdom of God. Jesus says, in Matthew 24:14, "To every tribe and language and people and nation. And then the end will come." He turns very strategically in verse 37 to his disciples and says to them, "The harvest is plentiful." Do you see this key moment? It's not just me[Jesus].  When Isaiah says, "I've trodden the wine press alone." There were some things only Jesus could do, but in this matter, the matter of the ministry of reconciliation, he turns to his disciples and involves them. "The harvest is plentiful,” he says to them,  “but the workers are few." From the very beginning, that's why he called them. In Matthew 4:19, walking by the sea, he sees Peter and John and James, and Andrew working by the sea, and he says, "Come follow me and  I will make you fishers of men.” Right from the beginning, this was his strategy and his intention.

What does he mean when he says, "The harvest is indeed truly plentiful." What does he mean by that? There's  two different themes in the scriptures about the harvest. One of them is the harvest of wrath and of judgment. In Joel 3:13-14, it says, "Swing the sickle for the harvest is ripe. Come trample the grapes, for the wine press is full and the vats overflow, so great is their wickedness. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the Day of the Lord is near, in the valley of decision." There is going to be a harvest of judgment in which God will visit on all the wicked, their sins.  So also when John the Baptist is preaching about Jesus in Matthew 3:12,  speaking of Christ and he says, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering up the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with unquench-able fire," — the harvest of wrath. 

I don't think that that's what's in Christ's mind at this particular moment. The scripture speaks of another harvest, a harvest of souls for eternal life. Do you remember the account when he is witnessing to the  Samaritan woman at the well? Jesus has sent his disciples on mission.

Their particular view point of the mission is, "We need to go into that filthy Samaritan village and buy some food fit for us to eat." That was their view of the mission.  For them as Jews to go into the village and buy some food. They come back and said essentially, ”We got the food. Let's eat." This is a paraphrase, it's not really in the NIV translation but that's about what happened.”Master have something to eat," and he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." I could almost stick in the word, "I have food to eat that you apparently know nothing about." Why could I stick the word “apparently”, in there? Because of how they behaved. What do they come back from that village with? What did they bring back from that village? Food. What else? Nothing, they bought nothing back. The Samaritan woman goes into the village and what did she bring back? The whole town to come listen to Jesus.  He said, "I have food to eat, you know nothing about.”  "Could someone have brought him food," they thought. "Maybe he's got a food source. But  then why did he send us then to that village to buy it?" “My food”, said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and finish his work. Do you not say four months more, and then comes to harvest? I tell you, lift up your eyes, and look at the fields they are ripe for harvest.” What harvest is Jesus talking about there? Some people think that the village was coming out at that point and he points to them and he says, "Look at them, they're ready, they're ready." And they were ready, they came to faith in Christ when Jesus preached to them. There are thousands and thousands of people coming to Christ every single day. Some people estimate as many as 30,000 a day, 2,300 every hour coming to faith in Christ. Nobody really knows, 20 million a year, 40,000, a day, who can really say, but there's a vast harvest out there of people who will respond to the gospel, if somebody will just proclaim it to them. It's prophecy. Revelation 7: 9-10, "After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were crying out. Salvation belongs to the Lamb and all the glory of Jesus for salvation." That's what they're doing, they're standing around.

How do they come to faith in Christ? In Romans chapter 10, "They cannot come unless they call in the name of the Lord, unless they say, ‘Lord save me.’” Who is the Lord? Jesus Christ of Nazareth. So unless somebody goes and preaches to them, they can't be saved. That's the whole logic of Romans 10:14-15. "How can they call on the one of whom they've never heard and how can they hear unless somebody goes and preaches to them, and how can they preach unless they are sent." As the Scriptures says, "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news." The harvest is plentiful, but we have a problem. The workers are few. 

I saw a movie one time called “Places in the Heart” with Sally Field. It was a story of a woman who lost her husband and in order to try to survive during the Depression, she decides to plant a huge crop of cotton. Things are incredibly tight, and basically the only way she can save her farm is if she somehow manages to get  the first bale of cotton to the gin before anybody else. Finally, the harvest time has come. She's there with her two little kids, a blind guy, and one worker. They're working steadily picking the cotton and putting in the bag, and then the camera just starts to pan back further and further, higher and higher and higher. There's this sea of white and by the time the shot is done, you can't see them anymore. That's what I think of when I think of this passage.  There are some people out there, working for the Lord, but the work is so overpowering, so overwhelming,  so great that they'll never get it done by themselves. The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the workers are few. At present the International Mission Board has 5,400 missionaries.  What's exciting is over a thousand of them have been appointed in the last year. That's amazing, and so more and more people are coming but understand this, that  5,400 represents 0.03% of the total number of Southern Baptists in this country.  That doesn't mean three out of every 100 or three out of every 1,000. It means three out of every 10,000 is a missionary supported by our churches. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

What does Jesus tell us to do? Verse 38 says, "Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into the harvest field." This is amazing. Christ first command, isn't, "We got to get going. You need to move.” There's a sense of urgency, a sense of desperation. “Don't you see that crowd out there? Don't you see those people. They're lost, they're dying, you better go.”  That's not the first thing he tells them to do. What is the first thing he tells them to do?  “Pray. Ask the Lord of the harvest, get down on your knees and why, because your praying is far more effective than your going. It is true, you will accomplish more on your knees, than going.” But,of course, they must go. Later we see that Jesus sends them out.  But he says, "First we need to pray.” 

We Americans are so in love with our plans and our schemes, and our strategies and our promotions and our videos and all kinds of things. That is not what is going to get it done.  So get down on your face and ask the Lord of the harvest to, “Thrust out, eject, evict workers into the harvest field.”  Some people have to be ripped from their lives and sent out into the harvest field. I don't know what it's like, maybe it's like a harvest for yourself, where you're hanging on to them, you get pulled out and sent into the harvest field, he says, "Get on your face and begin asking the Lord of the harvest." Who's the Lord of the harvest? Did not God the Father send his son into the world? Yet, at the same time, Jesus said, in John 20, "As the Father has sent me even so what? I am sending you." So it could it be that Jesus at this present time is the Lord of the harvest. So we pray to the Triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, and we ask that he would send out laborers into the harvest field.

Now what application can we take for this text?  First of all, it would be wrong for me to read over this text and assume that every single person listening to me has trusted in Christ, all the things that I said about you, if you're not a Christian, you're under the wrath of God, you're a vessel of wrath and you must trust in Christ. Could it be that you are right now actually part of the harvest, that you've never given your life to Jesus Christ? You can't let today go by without trusting in Jesus.  I heard it said recently that in every pew, there is a broken heart.  Who's got the broken heart? I don't really know if it’s true but I tell you this, Jesus is compassionate. He is able to see your heart, he's able to look to whatever it is you're facing, whatever issue and he's able to minister to it,  There is nothing that he cannot do, so I would urge you to come to the Lord of the harvest first for healing for a broken heart or for whatever issues you're facing. But now, I want you to get your eyes up off yourself. So much of the grief we face is because we're not in God's will, we're not living the way God wants us to live. Is it not clear from this text that God is calling us as a people? Calling this church, First Baptist Church, to be involved in the harvest that he's involved in? I've given you five steps.

God has brought this church through a lot of things in last two years. I think it's all been about unity for the purpose of the harvest. As I think about it, it's been about unity for the purpose of a great harvest, a harvest so great that a divided church that isn't quite sure what to do with the word of God cannot do it. It's not about this or that or the other issue, it's about this harvest, isn't it?  I want to challenge you to think again about your own life. I want you to think about your own contribution to the advancing Kingdom of Heaven. I want you to realize that God desires that each one of his disciples be involved in his harvest. What is your ministry to the harvest? How are you involved personally? What are you doing? It’s easy to stand up and say applications is always the same, missions. You don't even need to think about it, it is always the same application. Pray, give and go, right? Always the same. No, it's more complex than that now. We need the whole body of Christ, using all of their spiritual gifts in order to accomplish all the mission that God has for us to do.  He's given us a comprehensive ministry as well. He's called us to minister to Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. I believe that's a paradigm for how every local church should see its contribution to the advancing Kingdom of Heaven. What is our Jerusalem? We've got work to do right in this area.  It could be that some of the broken hearts are because we're off of God's plan and we're not using our time and our energy and our money for what God would have us to do. Come and you give your strength and your gifts and your time to the Lord and you'll never regret it. You're on a winning team, it's in prophecy, you're going to win. If you come and help Jesus build his kingdom, every tribe and language and people and nation will most certainly trust and believe.  What are you doing? Are you using your gifts? 

 This church is like a grist mill by a river, and as the water runs by and turns that big wheel and it turns the other cranks, then wheat is ground into flour.The more water runs by, the more we can grind. If it's a drought, that wheel doesn't turn very fast, does it? And when we don't grind much wheat, we can't do many ministry projects, we can't do much. We need more water to flow by. So if we're going to keep the analogy going, I feel like that there's a bunch of blocks of ice further up and they need to thaw under the heat of the conviction of God. Then there's going to be water flowing down by that factory and it's going to and we'll be able to minister to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.

Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest field. Could it be that some of you sitting in these pews right now, right today, are called by God to go as a cross-cultural missionary to an unreached people group. Don't excuse yourself too quickly, because we actually had a family go out right in mid-career, bringing four young kids to go to an unreached people group. Right in the middle of a career. It can be done. Could be the college students who come thinking, "I'm going to do this or that," but God is calling him or her to a cross-cultural mission. Could it be that senior adults that have reached the point where they have more freedom than they’ve ever had in their lives before. God is calling you to be a cross-cultural worker, perhaps to support a missionary, or maybe even to go in a way that you could never have even imagined.

Could it be that God is calling you to be part of the harvest? Might you say to God, "Lord, I feel that I've been like that block of ice, I have not used my gifts, my talents, my money, as would glorify your kingdom. I've not been sold out for you the way I want to." Pay for the harvest and for your role in harvesting.

 We are looking this morning at Matthew Chapter 9: 27-34, two astounding miracles and two opposite reactions to those miracles. In the beginning of the universe, right at the very beginning, God created light. When God said, "Let there be light," in effect, He was saying, "I want to communicate. I want to reveal. I want to show Myself. I want to display Myself and put My glory on display." So God said, "Let there be light, and there was light." Then God went about the business of creating things worth seeing. That's one way to look at Genesis Chapter 1. He created the world in all of its majestic glory and splendor. He separated clouds from water below. He separated water from dry land. All kinds of living things, verdant green, and all kinds of colors came on this earth, and then every species of living thing, all of them worth looking at. Then He created people who had eyes, vision, eyesight, the ability to receive, to take in what God has made. 

David said in Psalm 139, "I praise you, Lord, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well." I think that that applies to every aspect of our bodies, but I think there's something spectacular about the eyes, about vision in particular. At this moment, as you're looking at me, or wherever you're looking, whatever you're looking at, your eyes are making literally billions of calculations and adjustments every second. An astounding amount of information is flowing into your mind through your eyes, and you're processing it. I think about some of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen.  I think about, for example, Acadia National Park, up in Maine, Mount Desert Island, an island  right on the coast of the  Atlantic Ocean. There is one cliff, in particular, that as you're sitting there, you can see, Echo Lake, a freshwater lake, cold in October.  I can see the Atlantic Ocean and the rocky coastline as it goes up and down.  I can see the trees, and I can see eagles riding the thermals in kind of a spiral pattern, up the 600 or 700 feet up that cliff and then up over my head. As I had watched them fly occasionally in a lazy way they would flap their wings and just gain control for a moment, and they would go over us. There would be large ones and small ones, and we would watch them for hours. Now, as I was looking at that, my brain was processing things more complex than I can even understand. There was the form or shape of the birds. There was the motion. There was the color. There was depth perspective. Science tells us that all of those different aspects of vision are handled at different parts of the brain, and yet we only see one image, that eagle that's flying over our heads at that particular moment. What an incredible thing is eyesight.

We are dependent on our eyes for so much, aren't we? So much of our understanding of the world flows in through our sight. Our sight mediates and validates other senses. When you hear or touch or smell something in your world, don't you immediately turn to look at it? Isn't that one of the first things you do? You want to see what it is that you're hearing. In Revelation Chapter 1, John heard a voice behind him of the Lord, the risen Lord. What does he do? He turns to look, and he has a vision of Christ. He hears first, the sound comes first, and then he looks. By the way, that was the order in Genesis, wasn't it? God spoke, "Let there be light, and there was light.” The sound comes first, but then the sight validates what are senses are telling us.

Try this some time.  Look at something, an object, maybe on a table, look at it for a second or two. Then close your eyes, turn away. And reach out with your hand, and almost invariably, you'll be able put your hand on it. Neuroscientists don't understand that. They don't understand how the vision can lock in a spatial relationship around us all the time. We do it naturally, don't we? I know it, because when I walk into my kid's room at night, when it's pitch black in there, and step on something that's been left on the floor, I realize that all I needed was one second of light, and sometimes I'll turn on the hall light for a second, look in the room and turn it off, and then I can navigate around whatever may have been left there and not put away. I won't bump into their bed or into their furniture. I have set the room in my mind with just one second of light.

We depend on our eyesight for so much, don't we? And for that reason, vision, the idea of vision, saturates our language. For example, we speak of insight, something a poet has into the world. Or perhaps you pray for insight when you read the Scriptures, you're asking for insight. Or a foresight. It is something that business analysts are supposed to have to write for  the “Wall Street Journal”, or something that a prophet would have into the future, a vision of Isaiah the prophet. What about hindsight? It's said to be 20/20 for people who are regretful of something that's happened in the past. Or  this expression, "Out of sight, out of mind." That's an excuse for forgetful people. Or, ”We shall see." What does that mean? "We will experience. We will find out. We will learn. We will discover."  

The scripture is filled with the word "behold." In Greek, it's "idou," and in Hebrew, "hinneh." "Behold, something happened." It means, "Look at this, experience it, take it into you." We're dependent on our eyesight for many things. There's also another expression which I think the text will refute, and that is, "Seeing is believing." Is that true? No, because Jesus did incredible miracles in front of his enemies. Did they believe? No. They saw and yet did not believe. It’s a fascinating thing, seeing is not always believing, not for Jesus' enemies.

For this reason, because we are so dependent on our eyesight, a poll was done recently and showed that Americans fear blindness more than any other disability. Think of what your world would be like if you were totally blind. And yet, for all of that, only a few of you, or a certain number of you, have perfect vision. It's perhaps one of the marks of the fall, the effect of sin on our bodies. A quarter of you statistically will have myopia. That means that your lens focus is just a millimeter to the front of your retina, and so you need lenses to adjust it.  I think that blind people, therefore, are perhaps among the most courageous people that there are. Think about it. What would it be like to have to move through the world without being able to see? We're going to meet in the text today two very courageous blind people, who would not be stopped, who are going to keep calling after and pursuing Jesus until they get what they want.

Modern medical knowledge has made incredible strides. Science, specifically eye science, has come a long way since the Renaissance, when Dr. Georg Bartisch, an eye doctor during the Renaissance,  went around healing cataract patients by poking their eyes with a sharp object. It created a little hole and patients could kind of see through it amidst their pain.  But no one, not even today, not even here at Duke or at Johns Hopkins, no one can do what Jesus did in the text. Jesus has power to heal blindness. And that power, I believe, was given to him alone in a very unique way.

We also have another miracle in our text today, that is the healing of a man who is mute. He was dumb, he could not speak because of a demon. I found it a very interesting symmetry. Through the eyes, we take in. Through the mouth, we speak out. And so Christ is healing the means  by which we have to take in the world and then healing the means that one can speak out, hopefully praise to Christ for what He's done. As we've seen in Matthew's Gospel, in these nine chapters, Matthew is step-by-step unfolding the credentials of Jesus Christ to be King of the kingdom of heaven. Right from the very beginning of the Gospel, we have His genealogy, where he lays out the evidence or proof that Jesus is the descendant of David, the descendant of Abraham. He is the Messiah. The genealogy would prove it to any Jew who knew the significance of being the Son of David. We're going to see the term "Son of David" in the text today and from there, we have the evidence in the end of Matthew Chapter 1, and into Matthew 2, of Jesus's supernatural birth, the virgin birth, and what God did at that point.  Evidence that He was not just the Son of David, but the Son of God. He was God in the flesh. We've seen, unfolded from there, the miracles and the teachings of Jesus in an incredible way, more evidence than we need to prove the deity of Christ, and that He is indeed the King of the kingdom of heaven.

In verses  Mathew 9:27-31, we see two blind beggars who are healed by Christ. We begin by seeing their faith in pursuit of Christ. They're pursuing Christ by faith. Verse 27, "As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, calling out, 'Have mercy on us, Son of David.'" These were true beggars, they were totally destitute. In the world today, statistics from the World Health Organization tell us that 45 million people in the world are blind, legally blind. Most of them are in the third world areas, their blindness caused by many things — unsanitary conditions, infectious organisms, blowing sand, accidents, war, malnutrition, excessive heat, bright sunshine. Infants are born blind because of bacteria they'll pick up from their mothers as they pass through the birth canal, or through diseases they may get while in the womb.  When I was in Pakistan as a missionary, I had the privilege of helping an English eye doctor as he performed surgery on a trichiasis patient, and the problem there was that the eyelids had grown inwards so that all of their eyelashes were rubbing on the surface of the eye every time they blinked. What is it like for you when one eyelash detaches and gets into your eye? Are you a multi-tasker at that point? Can you do many things, or are you going to stop until you get that lash out of your eye? Imagine all of your eyelashes rubbing on your eye with every blink. Eventually you will go blind, literally. The plight of the blind is extreme, isn't it? It's impossible to work. They're stripped of the beauty and the information that we get all the time through our eyes. They're stripped also of hope for the future, because they are literally incurable, in most cases. Nowadays,  certain conditions can be cured, but there are so many forms of blindness that even today we will not be able to cure. These two beggars were friends. I guess you've heard the expression, "The blind leading the blind." It actually was something that was known. They would stay together in communities, they would beg together, and they would be together. They were companions in darkness.

Now, for all of that, there are some advantages to being blind. And you think, "What possible advantages could there be?" There are spiritual advantages to being physically blind. Blindness strips you of the illusions of self-reliance, doesn't it? You realize you cannot make it alone. You can't eat or survive alone, you must have help. It makes you a beggar. And it's a good thing to be a beggar before Christ, isn't it? It's when you are self-reliant that Christ will do nothing for you. It's when you think that you can do it or make it on your own that Christ has nothing for you. It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick, and the people who recognize that they are sick will go to Christ for the healing. These beggars are going to pursue Jesus, they're going to follow Him, they're going to  cry out after Him, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us." Another thing that blindness does is it makes you bold and impervious to public opinion. You don't care what people think. You need to eat today, so you're going to beg boldly because you need to in order to survive. We get the same thing with Bartimaeus in Mark 10: 46 and following, "As Jesus came to Jericho and His disciples were leaving the city, a blind man named Bartimaeus was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was going by, he began to shout, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.' Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.'" He didn't care what people thought, impervious to public opinion, and he's going to pursue Christ until he gets what he wants.

 In Verse 27 there's an unrelenting persistence for mercy. As Jesus went on from there, it says, "Two blind men followed Him, calling out, 'Have mercy on us, Son of David.'" They followed after Christ, stumbling pathetically, blind leading the blind, following the sound of the crowd perhaps, or something, trying to find where Jesus might be. Despite the delay, they keep calling out after Christ. They're pursuing him. And what are they calling for? They're calling for mercy. What is mercy? It means getting something from God that you know you don't deserve. I think grace means not getting from God the things you do deserve, namely wrath and judgment, in addition to all the blessings of the Gospel. But mercy, I think, specifically in this sense, means getting something from God you know you don't deserve.

John MacArthur put it this way, these two men came to Jesus not only with a right understanding of His great worthiness, but with the right understanding of their own great un-worthiness. That is the attitude of the heart that the Lord honors and accepts. Christ was the most merciful human being who ever lived. He reached out to the sick and healed them. He reached out to the crippled and gave them legs to walk. He healed the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf, and the mouths of the dumb. He found prostitutes and tax collectors, and drew them into the circle of His love. And He redeemed them and set them on their feet. He took the lonely and made them feel loved. He took little children and gathered them into His arms and loved them. Never was there a person on the face of the earth who showed the mercy of  Jesus Christ. They're crying for the right thing, they're crying for mercy.

 One thing about mercy, by the way,  and this is a very important theological point, you can't demand it.  You can't say, "I deserve mercy." See, those two don't go together. You can beg for mercy, but you can't demand mercy. These blind beggars were crying out for mercy. They had an uncommon faith, because they called Jesus Son of David. Son of David is a messianic title. They recognized and they believed that Jesus was the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. Matthew began his Gospel this very way, in Matthew 1:1, "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David." Those are the opening words of the New Testament. Jesus was indeed the Son of David.

This was later very controversial to the Jewish leaders. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on the donkey, and people are crying out,  "Hosanna to the Son of David," the Pharisees are vey angry. They wanted Jesus to make the children stop, and Jesus said, "Haven't you read in the Scripture? Out of the mouths of children and infants you have ordained praise. I am the son of David." But later Jesus himself also had to correct the understanding of "Son of David." He asked His enemies, "What about the Christ, whose son is he?" And they answered, "Son of David." He said, "How is it then that David," in Psalm 110, speaking by the Spirit, said, ‘The Lord has said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’  If then David calls Him Lord, how can He be his son?” In a Jewish way of thinking, a father would never call his own son Lord. The son would honor the father and the mother, as Moses commanded. How could it be that Jesus, physically descended from David, will be worshipped by David and called Lord? Where do you think David is right now, and what is he doing? Is he not calling Him Lord and worshipping Him in heaven? He is worshipping his own son, because He was more than just a physical descendant of David, He was the Son of God incarnate in the world.

But back to the blind beggars. Leon Morris says, "One of the things we have to recognize about these beggars is that they would have seen nothing about Jesus." Any information they had about Christ came in through hearing.  Where does faith come from? Faith comes from hearing the report.  The blind beggars actually represent us. Have any of you ever seen Jesus? Have you ever seen him do a miracle, like we're talking about here? No. You're hearing about it this morning. Do you believe? Do you believe, the way that these blind men believed? They got all their information through hearing. Faith comes from hearing, and that's how they knew that He was the Son of David.

Jesus is going to test their faith. As He walks by and they cry out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David'? what does He say? Not a word. He keeps walking. They get up, they follow, they're crying out, they continually cry out, the Greek says, after Him. He didn't say a thing. He goes into the house. Is He cold? Is he callous? Is he unfeeling? Not at all. He wants to test their faith.  Further more, when they come in to the house- it was probably Peter's house, where Jesus was staying in Capernaum,- he looks at them and says, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" This is very interesting. Ordinarily, the Scripture does not speak of "believe that" when connected with Christ. It speaks of belief in Christ, and as a result of that, believing that He can do many things. He starts with the healing, "Do you believe that I am able to do this thing?" He asked them that question. It's an interesting question, too, because why do you think that they're there? He knows their hearts. He knows they believe. But what does He want? He wants them to testify to it. He wants them to speak their faith in Jesus Christ. "Yes, Lord," they answer. God, by the way, frequently tests our faith, doesn't He? Have you ever felt like this in prayer? You're crying out to Him, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy," and He just walks right by and doesn't even seem to answer? He is testing your faith to see if you'll be as persistent as these blind men who would not give up until they got what they wanted. So, they come into the house, and Jesus tests them further. "Do you believe I'm able to do this?" "Yes, Lord," they answer. Then, in verse 29, "He touched their eyes and said, 'According to your faith will it be done to you.'"  He touched their eyes. Remember we talked about how Jesus was touchable. Jesus was in the world, incarnate, physical, that He might touch people physically. He did many of His healings by touch. He would lay hands on people and heal them. He didn't need to do it. all He had to do was speak and it would be done. But He loved to touch people,  so He reaches out and touches their blind eyes, and says, "According to your faith will it be done to you." Instantly their sight is restored, and I think it must have been 20/20, absolute perfect vision.   He touched their eyes and immediately their sight was restored.

This astounding miracle, I believe, is utterly unique to Jesus Christ. There is no record anywhere in the 39 books of the Old Testament of a healing of a blind man. It'd never been done. Moses did miracles, mighty incredible miracles to show the power of God. Elijah and Elisha even saw people raised from the dead. Those miracles were done, but this one, for some reason, God reserved to His own Son. Interestingly, after this point, there's no record of it either, except for the scales that fell from Saul's eyes.  I think it's different perhaps there. It seems that the healing of blindness in particular was reserved to the Son of God. In Exodus Chapter 4: 11 we see that the giving of sight is a divine activity. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord?’” There's a lot of theology in that one verse. Theology of suffering, theology of muteness and blindness. "I can make a man blind and I can make him see again. I can do all of those things, I am the Lord." This recovery of sight was something unique to Christ.  The messianic prophecies in Isaiah are clear. Isaiah 29:18, "In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of the gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind will see." Isaiah 35: 5-6, "Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert." Isaiah 42:6-7, "I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness," this is God speaking to Christ, I believe. "I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness."  When Jesus began His ministry in Nazareth, His hometown, He got up on the Sabbath and went to read the scroll of Isaiah the prophet. It was unrolled for Him, and He found the place where it is written, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the captives," listen, “and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down, and then He spoke these words, "Today in your hearing, this Scripture is fulfilled." This miracle, this power of recovery of sight to the blind was unique to Christ. It was His special Miracle. He alone had this kind of power.

Now notice Jesus says to the blind man, "According to your faith will it be done to you." I've thought about this all week long, and  I think this is interesting. There is a direct correlation, in my opinion, between faith and eyesight. Both of them are essentially passive. Both of them essentially take in what God is presenting to you. Does the eye make something red or blue or green? Does the eye make something beautiful or majestic or lofty? No. But it sees it, and receives it and takes it in. Jesus said, "If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light." And so also faith does not make a reality from God, doesn't create something that God wasn't willing to do, but rather by faith we take in what God is doing. By faith, we receive. By faith, we are justified. By faith, we are forgiven. And by faith, these two men were healed. "According to your faith will it be done to you."  Archbishop Trent put it this way, "The faith which in itself is nothing is yet the organ for receiving everything. It is the conducting link between man's emptiness and God's fullness. Faith is the bucket let down into the fountain of God's grace, without which the man could never draw water of life from the wells of salvation. Faith is the purse which cannot of itself make its owner rich, yet effectively it enriches by the wealth he contained."

And so they had faith for this healing, but sadly they did not have faith for obedience. Look how the account goes on in verse 30-31, "Jesus warned them sternly, 'See that no one knows about this.' But they went out and spread the news about Him all over that region." Their faith did not extend beyond the healing to submission and obedience. I think it's easier to believe for salvation than to obey constantly.  It is harder for us to obey the commands of Jesus Christ day by day, moment by moment than it is to trust Him for salvation. It's an incredible thing. They disobeyed Him. There was nothing complicated about the command, "Don't tell anyone about this." You might say, "But, Jesus, why? Why? This incredible miracle, why not publish it abroad?” In many cases, He did want the healing of people to be published abroad. But He is a King, and Jesus did not want them to do this. We can speculate, it could be that He did not want too early an association with this title, Son of David.  Could be He didn't want lots of blind people coming for healings, although Jesus did more blind healing than any other kind of healing. But it doesn't really matter, does it? Do we need to understand in order to obey? We really don't. We just need to understand the command, and then we obey. And they understood, and they disobeyed.

In verses 32 and 33, we see the other healing that He does. It's almost  inserted here as though it were nothing. In verse 32-33, it says, "While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessed and could not talk was brought to Jesus. And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute, [dumb] spoke." We first see that he has demon eyes, that's the Greek word. It means controlled and really, in one sense, possessed, I guess, by a demon. Realize a demon can possess nothing, because they know their time is short, but the demon had controlled this man so much that the man lost the ability to speak. So we see him dumb, mute. Imagine the tragedy, unable to speak to a loved one, a wife, or unable to speak to a child or a parent, unable to pray out loud, unable to sing praise songs, unable to put out any words at all. Chrysostom said this about it, "The affliction was not natural, but the device of an evil spirit. For this cause, H doesn’t require faith of the mute but straight away heals the disease." So he doesn't ask him anything. He doesn't interrogate him. He just heals him. He drives out the demon. This man was destitute. He was a spiritual beggar, he was without hope and without God in the world, completely without resources, so he was a fit vessel for the mercy of God, and he is delivered. A simple command from Christ, and the demon is gone. The formerly silent mouth is now enabled to speak.

Here is where it gets interesting. What did he say? Well, the text doesn't tell us. Did he say "thank you?" Did he praise the Lord? Did he shout, "I can talk again everybody! Look, I can talk!”?  Did he speak? The demon had controlled his tongue and silenced it. The power of the demon over the tongue was broken, but the power of the heart over the tongue is not broken and never will be. For out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks. So, if the man had a regenerate heart, he would speak regenerate thoughts. If he did not, he would not. Who knows, but that later that week, he was heard gossiping or slandering or arguing or telling an off-color joke. Or perhaps he was heard speaking words of praise and glory to God. We really have no idea. Oh, I hope he used his speaking ability to speak words of praise to God.  James put it this way, "We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by a man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison." That's what James says about the tongue.  I have no idea what this man did. But I do know this, Jesus warned us that how we use this thing, this mouth, will be ample evidence or give ample evidence for our eternal destiny, whether heaven or hell. He put it this way  after his enemies did in Matthew 12 the very thing they're about to do in our text, namely ascribed Jesus' healing powers to the devil, they ascribed His supernatural healing power to the devil.  Jesus said to them this in  Matthew 12: 34-37, "You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him. The evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." We have no idea what this man went out and said. But I do know that his speaking record from that point on was kept in heaven, and all Jesus need to do is look at what he said over those years and he'd know whether he was saved or not. How do you use your tongue? You don't have a demon controlling your tongue. You have a heart which controls your tongue. What does your tongue show about your heart? That's a question, isn't it? 

At that point, we have an assessment of Christ. Amazed and open versus angry and opposing.In verses 33-34, “The crowd was amazed and said, 'Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.' But the Pharisees said, 'It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.'"  Christ is on the dock right now worldwide. He is standing there waiting to be assessed, waiting to be judged. It's a very interesting thing, isn't it? Just like Pilate on the judge's seat and Jesus standing before him, we all make an assessment about Christ. Doesn't change who He is, He is God, doesn't change the reality about Him, but we are assessing, we're weighing.  The audience, the people watching Jesus at that moment, weighed who He is. The evidence was the same, but the reaction was very different. On the one hand, some people were amazed and open. They said, "Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel." They searched back and thought about Moses and Elijah and Elisha and Daniel, and all of those, and none of them had done this. This is a first. They'd never heard it before, and they're ready to believe in Christ. But there were others that were angry and opposing. Perhaps they were jealous of Jesus. Perhaps they were offended by His independence. Perhaps they were angry at His rebukes, and felt prideful. Perhaps they were guilty by His holy example. But they were set against Him forever.

Everywhere Jesus ministers, we have a division, every time, into believers and unbelievers. Jesus put it this way, "Do you think that I came to bring peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on, there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two, and two against three. They will be divided. Father against son, and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”  In John's Gospel, again and again, it says, "But they were divided.”  “But the Jews were divided." Again and again it happens. And so in John Chapter 10:19, at this point, it says ,”The Jews were again divided. Many of them said, 'He is demon-possessed and raving mad.'" They ascribed to Jesus the power of the devil, the very same thing we see in this text. But others said, "These are not the sayings of a man possessed by a demon. Can a man possessed by a demon open the eyes of the blind?"

There's a division, and there's going to be a division, isn't there, on Judgment Day? There'll be wheat and chaff. There'll be good fish and bad fish. There'll be  division between sheep and goats. Again and again, the images of division come, and the issue is always the same. Just as it was when the bronze serpent was lifted up and all of Israel is divided into two categories, believer and unbeliever, so it will be at the end of the world.

What application can we take from this incredible miracle story? First of all, the astounding power of Jesus Christ. He creates and He heals, He has power. September 11th in our country showed that shock therapy does not jar anyone out of spiritual blindness. It doesn't matter how many of our buildings will be erased by terrorists. Spiritual blindness will never be healed that way. There is only one Savior from that kind of blindness, and it's the same one that saves from physical blindness, Jesus.  When you look at Jesus, what do you see? Do you see an ordinary man? Do you see a myth? Do you see a God among gods? Do you see a great spiritual leader?  2 Corinthians 4:4 says,”The god of this age, [Satan] has blinded the eyes of the world so they cannot see in Christ what He really is.”True conversion occurs, when God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” makes His light shine in your hearts to give you a light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

When you look at Jesus, what do you see? Do you see a Savior? Do you see Him on the cross, dying for you, shedding His blood that you might have eternal life? Do you see that? Do you see Him risen from the dead, showing hands and feet to Doubting Thomas? Do you see that? Or do you see something else? And then secondly, what do you say? Can you speak a word of confession that Jesus is your Savior? Romans Chapter 10 says,  “The word is near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we are proclaiming, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with the mouth that you confess and are saved." 

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Kings 21:16-29. The main subject of the sermon is God's promise to give the blaspheming Syrians into the hands of Israel.

We're looking tonight at first Kings chapter 21, verses 16 through 29, the end of the chapter. And as I mentioned in my prayer, we'll be considering the demise, the end of evil king Ahab. One of the most perplexing problems that Christians face in this world is the problem of wickedness and evil and specifically the problem of God's patience in dealing with them. It's a problem for us and it was a problem for people in olden times as well. For example, in Psalm 73, the Psalm must begin, "Surely God is good to Israel to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped. I nearly lost my foothold for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked." This was a problem for the psalmist. It was difficult for him because as he looked out over the world, it seemed that the wicked were doing well. And he said, "I almost slipped." Well, what's the use? What's the use in keeping my hands clean? What's the use in being faithful to God if it seems that they always get ahead? And nothing ever seems to happen? We keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. We have the Word of God and the promise that the wicked will be judged, but it never seems to come. They only ever seem to prosper and do better and better.

I've told the story before of an atheist that used to go around in Scotland and tempt the Lord. He had all this presentation for how they could not be a God and at the end he would take his watch and he would dangle it over like this and give the Lord Almighty five minutes to strike him dead for all of his blasphemies. And you can imagine the drama of waiting silently as those five minutes tick by. Now, I wouldn't want to stand anywhere near him because you're never quite sure when it's going to come. But at any rate, he gave him five minutes. And then one speaker in particular got up, very memorable, an older man, a godly pastor, and he said, "Did my esteem colleague think that the grace and mercy and patience of the Lord could be extinguished in a mere five minutes?"

But the day does come, doesn't it? The day comes, and the Psalmist in Psalm 73 in the end said, "You know what helped me was when I went to the temple and then I understood their end. I knew what would happen in the end. Surely you place them," he says, "on slippery ground, you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors. As a dream when one awakes. So when you arise, oh Lord, you will despise them as fantasies." You see, when the day comes, it's finished, it's over and the wrath of the Lord comes. Now, I'm not doing Psalm 73 here, but I can't leave without saying some of the most glorious verses there are in all the scripture. This is how the psalmist in the end came to a sense of peace in the sovereignty of God. He said, "When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant. I was like a brute beast before you." Have you ever felt like that, acting like a beast in front of God? But that's what the psalmist felt. "I was like a beast in front of you, yet I am always with you. You hold me by your right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire beside you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Amen? 

And so in the end, the wicked are judged, and that's what we see in first King's 21. Now you remember last time we didn't really talk directly about Elijah, but we set the stage as we looked at the wickedness of Ahab and his wife, Jezebel. Chapter 20, we saw that what we would've considered a golden opportunity for the destruction of evil King Ahab, God did not choose. Then Hadad came in and God miraculously delivered Israel and delivered evil King Ahab and did him, it seems, many blessings and many favors, sent him prophets to promise him victory, sent him another prophet to warn him to get ready for yet another battle and gave him all of this council. And in the end, he was successful. But then in chapter 21, he becomes distressed and grieved because he can't have something. He's coveting, he's hungry, he wants something. It's not enough for him to be king. It's not enough for him to have all this power and all of his possessions. These things are not enough. He's got to have Naboth's vineyard and he just can't be happy until he can have Naboth's vineyard. And as a matter of fact, when it becomes clear that Naboth will not sell because he can't sell. The Word of the Lord said, "You cannot transfer the inheritance that you got from your ancestors in Israel. It was yours by lot and it was passed on from generation to generation." And so the Word of the Lord overrode the word of the king. And so he could not sell it to King Ahab.

When Ahab realized that he had met his match and one more of these godly Bible fearers, he was frustrated and he went and lay in his bed and wouldn't eat anything. And his wife Jezebel had to come and talk to him and talk him out of his misery and say, "Please, won't you eat something? What do you want? You want the vineyard? I'll get you the vineyard. I know how to do things in Israel." And she did, didn’t she? She knew how to get around. She knew what to do. And so she had arranged some evil men to falsely accuse Naboth, and they did accuse him falsely and he was killed. He was put to death in a very evil manner. And in verse 16, our study begins, chapter 21 after Naboth was dead. Verse 15, it says, "Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death. She said to Ahab, 'Get up and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite that he refused to sell you. He is no longer alive but dead.'” And when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he got up and went down to take possession of Naboth's vineyard.

Now what it doesn't tell us in the text, you have to read between the lines in second Kings nine with the judgment that comes is that actually not only was Naboth dead, but all of his sons and his descendants were killed too. All of them had to be removed. You understand why? Because as soon as Naboth would die, it would revert to the next of kin. And so all of them had to be killed, and they were, all of them killed. And so the way it was clear for him to have his patch of ground. And so in verse 16, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he got up and went down to take possession of Naboth's vineyard. Verse 17, "Then the Word of the Lord came to Elijah of the Tishbite, ‘go down to meet Ahab king of Israel who rules in Samaria, he is now at Naboth's vineyard where he has gone to take possession of it. Say to him, “This is what the Lord says. ‘Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?’ Then say to him, This is what the Lord says, ‘in the place where dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood. Yes, yours.'"

Verse 20, Ahab said to Elijah, "’So you have found me, my enemy.’ ‘I have found you,’ he answered. ‘Because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, I am going to bring disaster on you. I will consume your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel, slave or free. I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like Baasha, son of Ahijah because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin. And also concerning Jezebel, the Lord says, “Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Dogs will eat those belonging to Ahab who die in the city and the birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country.”’ There was never a man like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel, his wife. He behaved in the vilest manner by going after idols like the Amorites the Lord drove out before Israel. When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sack cloth and fasted. He lay in sack cloth and went around meekly. Then the Word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite. ‘Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day, but I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.’"

Now the first thing we see in our account in verse 16 is we see the sinner content and confident. It says in verse 16 when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he got up and went down to take possession of Naboth's vineyard. At last, he has the object of his desire. He has the thing he wants, he has Naboth's vineyard. Naboth has been brutally murdered by false witnesses and Naboth's family as well. Now, it's interesting that Ahab is held accountable for this because really it was Jezebel that did it through some henchman, through some hired killers, really, some false witnesses who are hired for this very purpose. And yet who does God consider accountable for this sin? He holds Ahab accountable because it was his covetousness that drove Jezebel to do it. He didn't lift the finger to stop her. He understood all of what was going on. He didn't interfere but just meekly stood by, king over Israel, but did nothing, meekly stood by and then arose and took possession of that vineyard. And so God considered him accountable. This was a sin of omission on his part. It was something he should have done and didn't do and God holds him blood guilty for it because he had authority to stop it and didn't do anything about it. And so sins of omission led to Naboth's death.

A sin of commission led to Ahab's seizure of the vineyard. Now that was something he did. He got up and took possession. So he's accountable both for sins of omission and sins of commission. There's all kinds of ways to sin, aren't there? There is sins you know about and then there's sins you don't know about. There's sins in things you do, and then there's sins in things you don't do. How much do we need a savior? How much do we need Christ every moment? How much must we be covered with grace? Well, this man was evil in every way. Sin of omission and sin of commission. Now Ahab is content and confident. He's already making plans for what he's going to do at the vineyard. It was a nice patch of ground and it was well located and he was going to enjoy that. Now, what was the source of Ahab's confidence? Was it not like that atheist that gave five minutes to God to strike him dead? How bold and confident was that atheist? He was confident that God would do nothing because there is no God. And so I think also this man was confident. The book of Ecclesiastes chapter eight, verse 11 says this, "When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong." Isn't that true? Does God quickly carry out his sentences against us? Well, in one sense he doesn't, does he? It can go on decade after decade. But you see with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. To him, it's quick. Judgment comes quickly and unannounced it comes. But to us it seems like it goes on and on. 

And so we can be lulled into a sense that there really is no God or that he's not holy or he does nothing, he doesn't act, he doesn't seem to care. Everything seems to go well for the wicked and poorly for the righteous. And so he's lulled into this false sense of security. Chapter 50, verse 21, God speaks to the psalmist and says this, "These things you have done and I kept silent." Isn't that true? God is silent and the silence of God is troubling to us, isn’t it? We expect God to intervene before Hitler gets to that level of power where there's going to be a war, World War II, to get him out. I mean, God must step in, mustn't he? I mean if he's as powerful as we think he is, if he's righteous, he must speak, he must act. But his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts. And so in Psalm 50:21, "These things you have done, these evil things and I kept silent. You thought I was all together like you, but I will rebuke you to your face." You see, God's silence and his patience troubles us, both the righteous and the wicked. It troubles the righteous because we know what God has said he will do, but we don't see him doing it. And so it's troublesome to us. It troubles the wicked in that they're encouraged to do more evil and in the end they'll be judged even more for it. But judgment does come in the end. 

Matthew 10:26, Jesus speaking to his apostles as he's going to send them out. He says, "I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves and you're going to be persecuted. You're going to be attacked. And for a time it will seem that the wicked have the upper hand." He said, "But don't be afraid of them. For there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed or hidden that will not be made known. The private schemes and plots they make against you, I see it all. I see it. And then in the end, judgment will come.” Romans two verse four through six speaks of this. It says, "Do you show contempt for the richest of his kindness, tolerance and patience? Not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance, but because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, your storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done." And so here we're in the day of patience. We're in the time of God's patience, aren’t we? We're in the time of his waiting. But during that time, it really makes a difference how you use it, doesn’t it? It makes a difference what you do with the day. What did Ahab do with his time on earth? Well, he used it to do more evil, always more wickedness. And so he stored up wrath against himself for the day of God's wrath. 

And it says in Romans 1:18, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness." This is very troubling because the scripture says the wrath of God is being revealed. Now. Today. The wrath of God was revealed, but he doesn't send down angels with banners to tell us, does he? It doesn't say this, by the way, this was my wrath. He didn't say that. He just tells us that the wrath of God is revealed every day. He says in Psalm seven, verse 11, "Our God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath everyday." So there it is twice now in scripture, "God expresses his wrath everyday." Go down to the hospital, go down to Duke or Durham, look around, and you will understand that God's wrath is expressed everyday. The problem is you cannot assign it to a room number, can you? You can't assign it to a name. You can't say, "Now this is the wrath of God," and why? Because the wrath of God does not come on those who have trusted Christ as the Lord and Savior. And yet it looks about the same, doesn’t it? Both die kind of the same diseases. They both die in car wrecks and all that, but yet the wrath of God is revealed. 

Says in Psalm 116, verse 15, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." It just doesn't look that way from the outside, but to God it's precious, that child of God has now been taken up into heaven and through the blood of Christ, all of their sins forgiven and they are enjoying righteousness and worship in the presence of God. But what happened to their body is very much like what happened to another person. But yet the wrath of God is revealed day after day. One of the key scriptures in all the scriptures on this is Genesis 15:16. You remember the promise that God made to Abraham that he would have the promised land? You remember that? That God would give him the land, but not yet. You remember that? He said, "You're not going to get it yet. As a matter of fact, you're going to go to your grave and be gathered to your ancestors, old and full of years, you'll have a good life and you will not get the land, nor will your children nor your grandchildren. But in the fourth generation, I will bring them back out of the land of slavery and I'll punish the nation they serve slaves and they will come and worship me in this place." 

But he says, "In the fourth generation, your descendants will come back here for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." Now that's fascinating, isn’t it? Does God have a measure of sin? Is it kind of like one of those mechanisms where once it gets to a certain weight, it trips and that's it, the judgment comes? Well, that seems to be what God is saying. Now, how big is the vessel? Is it a little cup, a little thimble? Is it a big vat? We don't really have any way of knowing. God hasn't told us the size of the vessel. He has told us the wages of sin is death. So every sin deserves the death penalty. He's told us that. And so we don't deserve another day, but he has not told us the size of our individual vessel, has he? And so what must a wicked person do with the time left while they're on earth? They must make the use of that time by repenting and trusting Christ. Do you see what I'm saying? That's what today's for. It says in second Corinthians six, one and two, it says, "As God's fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, 'In the time of my favor, I heard you. And in the day of salvation, I helped you. I tell you now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation.'" The book of Hebrews calls it today and as long as it is called today, repent, trust, follow, obey. That's how time is to be spent. And woe to the procrastinator who thinks, because God doesn't act, he doesn't move, I can just take that vineyard and it's going to be fine. It isn't going to be fine.

And so Ahab wasted his time. He should have repented and he didn't. Well, God sent Elijah on a perilous mission, didn’t he? In verse 17, and following we get it, “The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, ‘Go down to meet Ahab, King of Israel who rules in Samaria. He is now in Naboth's Vineyard where he has gone to take possession of it. Say to him, “This is what the Lord says. Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?” Then say to him, “This is what the Lord says, in the place where dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood. Yes, yours.”'" Now, in chapter 20, junior prophets were sent to Ahab. Now, I don't know that we can call them that, but they're certainly no name prophets because they're given no name and they're given the mission to go and tell him that he will succeed on the battlefield. At the end, a prophet is given the mission to tell him that he should have succeeded more on the battlefield than he did. He should have judged then Hadad and executed him, really. But those missions were given to prophets we don't know anything about. This is a tough mission, isn’t it? Because in this mission comes a message, "You are finished. The wrath of God will come upon you in the end."

So this is the last, and up to this point, all the communication from Elijah to Ahab has been about the end of rain and then the coming of rain and this kind of thing, all of them judgments, but not the final judgment. This is the word of final judgment. And he's going to send a man who's ready for a big job, and that is Elijah. Now, Elijah's been shaped for this. He's been made ready, years of training in the Lord's school, training at the Brook Cherith, when the Brook dried up, praying and trusting as ravens brought him food, and then at the widow at Zarephath, all of the food that God provided in that little jar of oil and also of wheat, and it would never go out. And God had prepared him also in the cave when he appeared to him. And so he was ready for this.Now, I think it must have been a tremendous shock to Ahab to see Elijah. I really think so. I think he probably assumed that Elijah was dead or finished somewhere. He hadn't seen him. He hadn't publicly appeared since he ran for his life from Jezebel. He hadn't seen him, but now he appears suddenly just as he did when he first met him. Remember back in first King 17, suddenly Elijah the Tishbite says, "As the Lord before whom I serve lives, there will be neither rain nor dew except at my word for the next three years." He suddenly appears. Well, now he suddenly appears again with the message of the end. 

Now, Elijah was prepared for this, but even so, he needed to go with a cloak of the Lord's power. It doesn't matter what's happened in the past. You can never stand on your own, can you? Can Elijah go and confront Ahab in his own power? Is he able to go and stand before this wicked king? No, but he must have the power of the Lord. It is in the might of the Lord, in his mighty power that we stand. And Jesus said to the apostles, he said, "I'm going to send you what my father promised, but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high, power of the Holy Spirit. You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria into the end of the earth.” We can do nothing on our own. So Elijah did not go trusting in his own strength and in his own power. And he went to stand before evil King Ahab. And only in the Lord's power can he stand. And when you have the Lord and when the Lord is with you, you can be absolutely, utterly fearless of man. And so he was utterly fearless. You've been studying Galatians in chapter one, verse eight through 10. Did you study that this morning? Do you remember what the apostle Paul said? He said, "Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than what we preach to you, let him be eternally condemned." 

As I've just said now, let me say again, if anyone, even an angel from heaven or us should preach a gospel other than the one you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. And then he says in Galatians 1:10, "Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God?" Does this sound like I'm trying to please people? Is this a populist message I'm preaching here, or am I still trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. You can't have both. And so the Lord sent Elijah to please him, not to please Ahab. And so he stood before Ahab, and Ahab's judgment from the Lord was pretty severe. Ahab's sin would be exposed, it would be revealed, it would be declared, what was done in secret would now be declared openly, and dogs would lick up his blood. Now, this is a severe judgment in the old covenant. You know, it's funny, it's interesting what happens to the body, the dead body is an indication of the honor that should be due to that individual. Steve and I have talked about this before. When dogs lick up your blood, it's not looking good, is it, Steve? And so this is a judgment.

So Ahab's enemy confronts him. Look at verse 20 through 26. Ahab said to Elijah, "So you have found me, my enemy." "I have found you," he answered, "Because you have sold yourself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord. I'm going to bring disaster on you. I will consume your descendants and cut off from Ahab every last male in Israel, slave or free. I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat and that of Baasha son of a Ahijah, because you have provoked me to anger and have caused Israel to sin." And also concerning Jezebel, the Lord says, "Dogs will devour Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Dogs will eat those belong to Ahab who die in the city, and birds of the air will feed on those who die in the country." Now, Ahab calls Elijah his enemy. "You have found me, my enemy," he says. Ahab's hatred for the messenger is really hatred for God, isn’t it? I mean, who is Elijah that he should hate him? Actually, I think Elijah's treated him pretty well. It's really God that Ahab hates. He's an enemy of God. And it's interesting when he says, "You have found me, my enemy." I love Elijah's response. "I have found you." I mean. it's just a brilliant understatement. He's not put off in any way by him. He's not intimidated. He's not afraid. This is what was so unnerving about Elijah to Ahab, there was nothing of fear about him. And so he said, "Yes, I found you. I was looking for you and I found you, and I've got a message for you. Would you like to hear it?" 

Elijah's words of judgment came against Ahab in his house. First of all, he said that Ahab was sold to do evil. Do you see that? Says it twice in the text also in verse 25. What does that mean? He was a slave to wickedness. He could do nothing to break away from it. He was sold. He had sold himself into slavery, to wickedness and evil. Perhaps it began when he married that woman, Jezebel. I mean it matters who you marry. And I think Jezebel dragged him into wickedness in ways that he could not even imagine. Verse 25 says, "There was never a man like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord urged on by Jezebel, his wife." So he married poorly and he married against the law of Moses, didn’t he? Because Moses law forbid this gentile woman from being his wife, but he also decrees disaster on him and his house. His descendants would be completely cut off like the house of Jeroboam and Baasha. Now realize, and this is very interesting, Israel's kings are not under the protection that David's descendants were. Some of David's descendants were pretty bad, actually, not as bad as this, I think, but pretty bad. But God would never completely extinguish David's line because of a covenant he had made, that the Savior would come as a descendant of David.

And so in this morning's scripture, we have the two blind men calling out, "Lord, son of David, have mercy on us." And so Jesus would be David's descendant. And so David would have a lamp that would never be extinguished, but it wasn't the same in the northern kingdom of Israel. And so numbers of dynasties would begin and were cut off because of sin. And this was just another one. Ahab, you're finished. Your descendants are over. There'll be no dynasty and your name will evaporate, except in that it's remembered for wickedness. Furthermore, dogs would eat Jezebel, your wife, by the wall of Jezreel. It's interesting that he tells Ahab where his wife is going to die. That's going to come in later in a minute. But it's interesting that he says where she's going to die. And then fourth, dogs would eat Ahab's family if they die in the city, birds would feast on them if they die in the country. Now, in verse 27, we see Ahab's temporary repentance. When Ahab heard these words, he tore his clothes, put on sack cloth and fasted. He lay in a sack cloth and went around meekly.

In Pilgrim's Progress, we met a character named Pliable. This guy is very pliable. I mean, it depends who he's talking to. If he's talking to Elijah, he does this. If he's talking to Jezebel, he murders innocent people and takes their vineyards. It really just depends who he's talking to. He's blown, tossed to and fro. He's got no strength of his own. And so he humbles himself. It's true that sinners can temporarily repent from their sins and yet not be right with God. And Ahab is a clear case of this. He repents temporarily, but he is not right with God. An example of this in the New Testament was King Herod in Mark 6:20 because Herod feared John and protected him knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. And when Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled, but he liked to listen to him. That was Herod. He protected him. He liked him, He enjoyed listening to him, and in the end he killed him. How does that work? And so the human heart is tricky and wicked and strange. And so Ahab repents and he goes around meekly. And it's a fascinating thing. Now, Ahab's, lack of true repentance is seen over in one chapter.

Look at First Kings 22. Remember the prophet Makaya? You see, Ahab wanted to go to war. You remember that in chapter 22, he wants to go to war. And so he brings a bunch of prophets in here and all of the prophets are saying, "Go, you'll succeed. It's going to be great. Just go and be victorious," one after the other. Jehoshaphat who is a godly king, but should never have hung around with Ahab, good king, but not a good discerner of friends. Jehoshaphat said, "Isn't there a prophet of the Lord around here anywhere?" He could tell right away they're all false prophets. The king of Israel, this is 1 King's 22:8, this is Ahab answer to Jehoshaphat. "There is still one man through whom we can acquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesized anything good about me but only evil." Has he repented? Has this man changed? He's the same man, same guy. There's no difference. This is a temporary repentance. And yet, God is very gracious, isn’t he? Look at verse 28 and 29, back in chapter 21, where we're studying. “Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, the Tishbite. ‘Have you noticed how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself, I will not bring this disaster in his day. I will bring it on his house in the days of his son.’"

Now, judgment's still going to come, but God has taken notice of this public humiliation and he gives him a public reprieve. He's so gentle and patient with us, isn’t he? He wants to teach us the power of repentance and faith. And so while wicked King Ahab will still be judged for his sins, yet it will not happen in his lifetime because of this repentance that he shows him here. Temporary, though it is. But in the end, judgment comes. In first Kings 22, you don't have to look there, but read the story. A bunch of lying prophets come and entice Ahab to go to battle, Jehoshaphat too. Jehoshaphat wears his kingly robes. Ahab being insecure, disguises himself as a common foot soldier and puts armor all over his body. You see, the wicked is uneasy. He's uncertain when the judgment will come. Right? So he's got all of this armor and he is disguised like an ordinary guy. At one point in the battle, an archer is pointing his arrows right at Jehoshaphat thinking he's Ahab. At that moment, Jehoshaphat cries out to the Lord in prayer and God hears and delivers him, for he's righteous. And so the archer looks another way. Then late in the day, one particular archer shoots off an arrow at random through the air and it flies through the air and it finds a little niche in Ahab's armor and kills him. Not right away though. So he's got time to think of what's happened to him.

You see, you can't defeat God. You can't mock God. That arrow was sovereignly guided, like a guided missile from God, right into his point of weakness. And so he is dragged and propped up against a tree. And there he died. First Kings 22, verse 30 through 38 tell the story. Verse 35, "All day long the battle raged, and the king propped up in his chariot, faced the Armenians, the blood from his wound ran into the floor of the chariot, and that evening he died. As the sun was setting, a cry spread through the army, 'Every man to his own town, everyone to his land.' And so the king died and was brought to Samaria, and they buried him there. They washed the chariot at a pool in Samaria where the prostitutes bathed and the dogs licked up his blood, as the word of the Lord had declared." 

God also had a final judgment on Jezebel. Second King's nine tells the story, you don't have to turn there, but listen. Chapter nine, verse 30 through 33. He used this violent, zealous man named Jehu to come and bring judgment on Jezebel. Jehu went to Jezreel. When Jezebel heard about it, she painted her eyes, arranged her hair, and looked out of a window. She got herself pretty. She put on some mascara, some makeup, got her hair looking good. She knew what Jehu was there to do. And as Jehu entered the gate, she asked, "Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?" There's depth in history to that statement. She's a tricky demonic woman." Have you come in peace, Zimri, you murderer of your master?" He looked up at the window, didn't say a thing to Jezebel. He said, "Who's on my side? Who?" Two or three eunuchs who are up there taking care of Jezebel looked down, "Throw her down," Jehu said. So they threw her down and some of her blood splattered the wall and the horses as they trampled her underfoot and dogs ate her body so that they couldn't find anything left.

 Now, what's interesting about Jezebel, the word of the Lord had come to Ahab through Elijah saying exactly where she was going to die. Now, if that had been you, wouldn't you have moved a million miles away from Jezreel? Wouldn't you have stayed away and never been there again the rest of your life? But she had no faith and the Word of the Lord meant nothing to her. After all the miracles and all the truth that God had spoken through Elijah, she still did not believe, and God brought judgment on her as he had brought on evil King Ahab. In the end, judgment comes. But as we think about this story, let's not think about those evil people out there. That's the worst thing you can do with a story like that. Think rather about the wickedness inside and praise God again, that he has not dealt with you as your sins deserve, but rather through grace and mercy and the love of Jesus Christ, he has cleansed you. His blood was shed for you, that you might have eternal life. Rejoice in that and realize that God sovereignly rules over history. He has a day in store for the wicked. He also has a day in store for the righteous who have been made so through faith in the blood of Christ.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Kings 20:1-19. The main subject of the sermon is the war between Israel and Syria during Ahab's rule.

Well we're going to begin actually with the call of Elisha. Now, I touched on this last time, but I think there's still some things that it's worth our study, and that's at the end of 1 Kings chapter 19. Now, we remember that Elijah, the prophet had really reached the end of the rope in one sense. He had stood up in a mighty way and proclaimed the word of God to people who did not want to hear. He had proclaimed it boldly and courageously and God had used him in a supernatural way to bring down fire and consume the sacrifice and the altar, and burn up even the earth around it. And never again since then has the Lord listened to the voice of a man in that same way. And God is always doing new things. And certainly, he listened to the voice of his son in more dramatic ways, but that was an incredible moment in redemptive history. And after that, he prayed seven times. And God heard his prayer and sent rain on the land for the first time in three and a half years.

But after all of that, it seems that Elijah lost his focus. He somehow lost courage. He lost his focus on God. And when he heard that Jezebel had determined to put him to death, he fled for his life into the desert as you remember. And so he ran, and he was exhausted. He wanted to die, and the Lord sent an angel and ministered to his body, and gave him some bread and a jar of water to drink and he went back to sleep, and then he woke up again and gave him some more food. And on the strength of that, he managed to get to Mount Horeb. He went up on Mount Horeb, the very place where God had met with Moses in an amazing way, and he was up in the cave of Mount Horeb, and he reiterated his desire to die. He's had enough. He's had enough ministry. He's had enough of everything and he wants to be finished. The Lord speaks to him and appears to him in a marvelous way. He doesn't appear in the storm or in the whirlwind or in the earthquake, but he appears in a still small voice and speaks to Elijah.

Now, Elijah's complaint at that point had been that he alone was left, that everybody's been slaughtered and he's the only person that's left to minister. And God's response to him was, "No not at all, but I have reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to bail." And he also tells him that he's got a future for the political situation, and that's what we're going to look at tonight to some degree. King Ahab will not go on forever, but King Ahab will eventually die for his sins. The strange thing about 1 Kings 20 is he doesn't die in that chapter. You’d think that Ben-Hadad's invasion would be enough to topple this evil king, but if anything, it shocks us in that God supports King Ahab. He sends a prophet to promise him victory, and he gives him a great victory. And not just one, but two great victories over Ben-Hadad. And you just want to throw up your hands and say, "God, what are you doing?" It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing that God would do, but God has his own ways and we're going to study that.

But one of the things that he does to support Elijah is give him a helper, and his name is Elisha. He's going to call a successor, and Elisha's going to come alongside, and he is going to help him in his ministry. And so we begin at 1 Kings 19:19, “So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. ‘Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,’ he said,’ and I will come with you.’ ‘Go back,’ Elijah replied. ‘What have I done to you?’ So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his [attendant] servant.” 

Here, we see the call of Elisha, and it's a very significant thing. Elijah communicates the call in an unusual way. He takes off his cloak, and he puts it on Elisha's shoulders. Now, you've heard about picking up someone's mantle. It means to carry on after them the work that they've done. Well, that comes straight out of the Bible. And later on, we're going to see this cloak as a significant symbol of the transfer of the prophetic ministry from Elijah to Elisha. Take a minute and look over at 2 Kings chapter two. Now, this is going ahead to the end of our story, but we're going to see the cloak again in 2 Kings two. The time comes for Elijah to be taken up to heaven, and he crosses the river. And as he's crossing the river, Elijah takes his cloak and rolls it up and smacks the river with his cloak. And the river separates. It parts, and he walks across as Moses and the Israelites did at the Red Sea, or as Joshua did crossing the River Jordan, and they entered the promised Land.

Well, now here's this one man, this single prophet and he takes this cloak, and he smacks it, and the river separates. And they cross on dry ground in verse eight. “And when they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Tell me, what I can do for you before I am taken from you?’ ‘Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit, Elisha replied. ’You have asked a difficult thing,’ Elisha said, ’Yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.’” As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, ‘My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!’ and Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own garment and tore it in two.” Now in verse 13,” Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and he struck the water with it. ‘Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?’ he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over. The company of the prophets from Jericho, who are watching, said, ‘The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.’ And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.”

So, that cloak becomes a symbol of Elijah's prophetic ministry. And in rolling it up and hitting the water with it he shows that the power, that double portion of the spirit, the very thing he had asked for, had indeed been transferred to Elisha. And Elisha does amazing miracles just as Elijah had. But the cloak represents the prophetic ministry. Back in 1 Kings 19 as Elijah comes to call Elisha to the prophetic ministry, he places his cloak on him. Elisha understood right away what this meant, didn't he? He knew right away. I mean it was an amazing thing. These prophets in first and second Kings just seem to know things that no one else does, right? They understand it's not just, "Oh, thanks, that's a nice looking cloak. Well, I appreciate that. I needed a new cloak." It wasn't that at all. He knew this meant a transfer of the prophetic ministry ultimately that he was going to be Elijah's right hand man, but he had the problem of 12 yoke of oxen.

Now, that's not an insignificant number of oxen. He's got to deal with his business affairs. Now, I'm reminded of the preaching I did recently in Matthew chapter eight, where Jesus challenges someone to follow and he says, "Lord, first let me bury my father." And he says, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead." But this seemed to be a different situation. He wants to at least greet his parents and tell them where he is going, and then deal with the oxen. And so, what does he do with the oxen? Well, he slaughters them all and he uses the wood to burn them. And then he cooks the meat and gives it to everyone around. It's basically like a farewell party, similar to the feast that was at Matthew's house. It was a time for his calling. It was a time of celebration and everyone feasted on these oxen. To some degree, I'm reminded of the example I used of Cortes burning his ships. There's nothing left. He's burned his 12 yoke of oxen. He has in no way put his hand to the plow and look back. Says in Luke 9:62, Jesus said, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God." Well, he burned his bridge. He burned the yoke of oxen, and it was finished. He was ready now to follow and to serve the Lord.

Recently, I got a prayer letter from the man who discipled me when I was first a Christian. His name was Tim Schumann. At the top of the letter, it says, "The deed to my life." This is a very interesting document. And it said this, "On this day, I relinquish all the rights of my life to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I acknowledge that my life is not my own and I choose instead to live every day as a slave of Jesus. I surrender fully to him as best I know how, every possession, relationship, ambition and desire. As one who is crucified with Christ, I hereby choose to follow wherever he would lead and to live for him and his glory." Now if you can sign a document like that, that's akin to what Elisha did. He burned the yoke of oxen, and he said, "I'm going to follow the Lord. I'm going to follow him wherever he leads." And so in the New Covenant, we understand that Jesus comes and makes this kind of claim. Well, where did this come from? Well, this is actually a statement that led Bill and Vonette Bright, 52 years ago to commit their lives to the Lord. Over 50 years ago, Bill Bright and his wife Vonette signed this document and a short time thereafter, God gave them the vision for Campus Crusade for Christ. And they've lived out their commitment to the Lord, this serious commitment, a covenant, a deed to their life having been signed over to Jesus Christ, fully committed to follow Jesus wherever he led.

Now, I find this challenging. Am I willing to follow Christ wherever he leads? Am I willing to say, "Wherever you go, wherever you lead, I will go. Whatever you tell me to do, I will do"? I was thinking this morning about what I preached, and Jesus being so available to the will of the Father all the time. He didn't seem to have a personal will for the day. You know what I'm saying? It was whatever the Father wanted him to do, whatever needs came his way, he got up and met them. “Immediately, I will go and heal him all the time.” A need comes, and he gets up and ministers all the time. And he ministers according to the power of God and according to the will of God, but it seemed as though he had no personal will of his own, except to do the will of his father. "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and finish his work." Now, that challenges me. Have you made that kind of a commitment to Jesus Christ? Have you burned your yoke of oxen? Have you said goodbye to an old way of life and said, "I'm following Jesus no matter where he leads"? And he's going to lead exciting places. You look at Elisha, and the things that God led him into. It's incredibly exciting and thrilling to follow the Lord, but he demands it all, doesn't he? And so we have the call of Elisha.

Now as we look at chapter 20, we are looking at some history here. And I haven't really known how to attack this chapter. Now, you know I'm a verse-by-verse expositor, but the problem is there's no Elijah in this chapter, and we've got 42 or 43 verses to get through. So I've decided what I'll do is give you a summary of the history of what's going on in this chapter, rather than going verse by verse. Ben-Hadad was the king of Aram and it says in verse one that he mustered his entire army, and accompanied by 32 kings with their horses and chariots. He went up and besieged Samaria and attacked it.

Now, Samaria of course is the northern kingdom of Israel. It's another name for Israel. He goes and he attacks this wicked, this evil King Ahab. He sent messengers to the City of Ahab, King of Israel saying... this is what Ben-Hadad says, look at verse three. "Your silver and gold are mine, and the best of your wives and children are mine." Now, there's a challenge. “The King of Israel answered, ‘Just as you say, my lord the king. I and all I have are yours.’” What a wimp. I mean this guy is weak. He has no strength. He has no courage. Later, other kings are going to take a challenge like that like Hezekiah and bring it before the Lord. You're going to spread out a wicked evil letter like this to the Lord, and they're going to say, "God show yourself powerful and strong, defend your people," but Ahab has no strength like that. He says, "Whatever you say. Go ahead come and take it." I wondered before what Jezebel felt about that. "The best of your wives are mine," I don't know if he thought that she was included. I don't know if he was hoping that she would get hauled off at that point or what happened. It probably would've been an improvement in Israel. But at any rate, he says, "Whatever you want." But then in verse five, the messengers come again and say, "Well this is what Ben-Hadad says. I sense to demand your silver and gold, your wives and your children, but above this time tomorrow, I'm going to send my officials to search your palace and the houses of your officials. And they'll seize everything you value and carry it away." Now this reminds me very much of how the devil works, all right? Give an inch, he'll take a mile, right? You yield for a second, and he'll take it all.

You can't argue with people like this. I mean you can't do anything, but stand firm and say, "No, not an inch." And at this point, he realizes what he's up against. Might as well fight, and that's what he says. The King of Israel summoned all the elders of the land and says, "See how this man is looking for trouble. When he sent for my wives and my children, my silver, my gold, I did not refuse him." The elders and the people answered, "Do not listen to him or agree to his demands." He replied to Ben-Hadad's messengers, "Tell my Lord, the king, your servant will do all you demanded the first time, but this demand, I cannot meet." They left and took the answer back to Ben-Hadad. Then Ben-Hadad sent another messenger to Ahab, "May the God's be with me, be it ever so severely. If enough dust remains in Samaria to give each of my men a handful. I'm going to destroy you completely, so get ready for battle." The King of Israel answered, "Tell him..." I love this line. It's Ahab's best line in the whole Bible. "One who puts on his armor should not boast like the one who takes it off." All right? It's basically saying, "Let's go ahead and fight, because there's nothing else left for it." Don't boast before the victory's over.

Now in verse 13, a prophet comes to Ahab, King of Israel and announces, "This is what the Lord says. Do you see this vast army? I will give it into your hand today. Then you will know that I am the Lord." Now that is shocking, isn't it? When you stop and think about it, the prophet of the Lord comes. Now, I think it's interesting that we don't know who this prophet is. And throughout chapter 20, prophets come in minister to King Ahab, but their name is not Elijah. And so it underscores again what the Lord said. “You're not alone, Elijah. There are other people of God here ministering. You're never alone.” And so this prophet, an unnamed prophet of God, comes and gives him this message from the Lord. And he says, "God is going to hand this vast army over to you."

Now in Romans chapter 11, it says there that God's paths are beyond tracing out. "Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgements, and his paths beyond tracing out! ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?’ For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen." We cannot trace out what God is doing. It seems to us, as we read that Ahab, evil wicked King Ahab, is ripe for judgment. We already know from what God prophesied to Elijah in the cave that he will be judged for his sins, just not yet.

Now the question is why? Why doesn't he give Israel over into the hands of this King of Arab, Ben-Hadad? Well, there's different ways to look at. First of all, if you look at Daniel chapter two, you don't have to turn there. But listen, after Daniel gets the vision of the statue from Nebuchadnezzar, you remember that as I preached about it several years ago, Daniel had a worship time after he understood. And the statue represented the rise and fall of one kingdom or empire after another, from the head of gold through the chest and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of bronze and legs of iron, down to the feet of clay, it represented human history as one king after another rose and fell. And once Daniel understood that, he praised the Lord and he said this, "Praise be to the name of God forever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes sets up kings and raises up others." And he does it in his own way. We can't trace out what he's doing. If you look at the history of World War II, you might have thought maybe in 1941 that God was being incredibly good to Adolph Hitler, as he had been successful everywhere that he turned. Once he invaded Russia, he was just rolling their armies back. And it seemed that everywhere he went, it was nothing, but success. How could it be? How could the enemies of an evil man be given into his hands so easily? God's ways are not our ways. His thoughts are not our thoughts, and we can't trace out what he's doing.

And so this messenger, this prophet comes to Ahab and says that, "God is going to give this vast army into your hands, and then you will know that I am the Lord." That's an interesting thing, because he's never going to know that he's the Lord. There's evidence, isn't there? There's certainly plenty of evidence to the ministry of Elijah, the drought three and a half years, and then the miraculous rain, the fire from heaven. There's been plenty of evidence. Also, this victory over this vast army will be evidence, but I think there's something deeper going on. Remember, how God said to Elijah, “I have reserved myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee to bail?” Could it be they hadn't been converted yet? Could it be that if the king of a sweeps through at this particular moment, they'll be slaughtered? The Lord is patient, not wanting any of us to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. He's giving time for the ministry to occur.

And so he gives the vast army into the hands of a wicked king. "Who will do this?" verse 14 says. The prophet said, "This is what the Lord says, ‘the young officers of the provincial commanders will do it.’" "And who will start the battle?" he asked. The prophet answered, "You will." So in verse 15, Ahab summoned in the young officers of the provincial commanders, 232 men and he assembled the rest of the Israelites, 7,000 in all. They set out at noon, while Ben-Hadad and the 32 kings aligned with him were in their tents getting drunk. The young officers of the provincial commanders went out first. Now, Ben-Hadad had dispatched scouts who reported men are advancing from Samaria. He said, "If they have come out for peace, take them alive. If they've come out for war, take them alive." Now this is a terrible commander here. All his guys are drunk, and an arm's advancing and he says, "Go do something about it. Take them." And he said, "If they've come out for war, take them alive." The young officers of the provincial commanders marched out of the city with the army behind them, and each one struck down his opponent.

At that, the Arameans fled with the Israelites in pursuit, but Ben-Hadad, King of Aram, escaped on horseback with some of his horseman. The King of Israel advanced and overpowered the horses and chariots, and inflicted heavy losses on the Arameans. The word that the prophet had spoken and come true. Evil King Ahab had marched out with a relatively small army, and had conquered the army of 32 kings, plus that of Ben-Hadad. It's an amazing miracle, and it's done for only God's purposes. In verse 22 after where the prophet came to the King of Israel and said, "Strengthen your position and see what must be done because next spring, the King of Aram will attack you again." Again, see the grace of the Lord. He's preparing him for yet another battle. He's giving him wisdom. He's saying, "Get ready because it's coming again, and you need to get yourself ready." Meanwhile, the officers of the king of Aram advised him, "The gods, their gods are the gods of the hills. This is why they were too strong for us. But if we fight them on the planes, surely we'll be stronger than they." And I'll stop right there. I believe that's the key to the whole thing. I really do. Do you really think that God is elevating and blessing King Ahab? Do you think not rather that he is elevating and blessing his own holy name?

And he says, "These Arameans think that I don't fight well in the planes, or I don't fight well in the hills. Just watch and see what I can do." God is extremely zealous for the glory of his own name. One of the most striking verses that I've ever come across in this. If you take a minute, look at Deuteronomy 32:26 and 27. And I think it explains some of first King's 20 if we really can understand what he says there. But in Deuteronomy 32:26 and 27, this is the song of Moses, one of the most striking chapters in the entire Bible. And in the song of Moses, in the book of Deuteronomy before Israel comes and takes the promise land, basically this song is taught to Israel, which prophesies everything that's going to happen, predicts all of what's going to happen, including Israel's eventual exile because of their failure to keep the covenant. It's all in the song. And you know how songs are easy to memorize. You sing a song, you taught it from your youth, and you can remember. All of it's predicted ahead of time. Said, "You are a nation without sense, and you're going to turn away from your true God. And you're going to be evicted."

But there's something interesting right in the middle of the song of Moses. In verse 26 and 27, he's speaking of his own people. He's speaking of the Jews and he says, "I said I would scatter them and blot out their memory from mankind," verse 27, "but I dreaded the taut of the enemy, less the adversary misunderstand and say our hand has triumphed, the Lord has not done all this." Now this is a stunning verse. It's the only verse in the entire Bible that I can find where God expresses fear or dread concerning himself. And I looked up the word in the Hebrew and every other place that has to do with fear or dread. Now, God doesn't fear anything, but he's accommodating his language to us, so we might understand something very significant about him. And that is he is extremely zealous for the glory of his own name, and things are done in a certain order, so that everyone may see who he is and what kind of power he has, and that the enemies of Israel might not misunderstand and think, “We have done this, because we are powerful militarily.” It's not that at all, but rather, God has given his people over, because of their sins. Look at that verse again, "I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, less the adversary misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed. The Lord has done all this.’" He didn't want them to misunderstand. If you look at 1 Kings 20 verse 23, look what the officials of the king of Aram say, "Their gods are gods of the hills.” “Their gods are gods of the hills. That is why they were too strong for us. But if we fight them on the plane, surely we will be stronger than they." Could this not be the secret to the whole thing?

Look down at verse 28. Actually, I'm going to go back a little bit to set the stage, and then you'll understand. Verse 26, it says, "The next spring, Ben-Hadad mustered the Arameans and went up to Aphek to fight against Israel. When the Israelites were also mustered and given provisions, they marched out to meet them. The Israelites camped opposite them. [Listen], like two small flocks of goats while the Arameans covered the countryside." The tiny little army, little flocks of goats and there's the Arameans more than you can count. They just blacken the hills with their military power. It seems very, very plain who's going to win this battle, until you understand what's in the heart of the Lord. Look at verse 28, "The man of God," that's the prophet, "came up and told the King of Israel," that's wicked King Ahab, "This is what the Lord says. Because the Arameans think the Lord is a God of the hills and not a God of the valleys, I will deliver this vast army into your hands. And you will know that I am the Lord." That gives us an insight into the heart of God. He cannot let this Arameans army win thinking it's because he's not good at fighting on the planes. "I can fight anywhere," said God. "I'm a mighty warrior. I am undefeated in what I try to do. I act, and no one can reverse it. When my hand is stretched out, no one can turn it back. Do you understand who I am? I am the God who created heaven and earth, and I am the God who will take this physical universe and wrap it up like a garment, throw it into a hamper, and make a new heaven a new earth. You understand who I am? Heaven, even the highest heavens can't contain me. And so you will lose tomorrow to this tiny little two flocks of goats, because I say so." That's the power of God.

So, that gives us the motive. And I think if we look through in 1 King's 20, I think verse 28 is the key to the whole thing. God is exalting his own name and his own glory. Verse 29, "For seven days they camped opposite each other and on the seventh day, the battle was joined. The Israelites inflicted 100,000 casualties on the Aramean foot soldiers in one day. The rest of them escaped to the city of Aphek, where the wall collapsed on 27,000 of them. And Ben-Hadad fled to the city and hid in an upper room." Now at that point, a prophet confronts wicked King Ahab, because he allowed this man, Ben-Hadad to escape. Wearing sack cloth, verse 32, around their waist and ropes around their heads, they went to the King of Israel and says, "Your servant Ben-Hadad says please let me live." The king answer, "Is he still alive? He's my brother." I'll tell you something, King Ahab is always out of step with God, isn’t he? No matter what's going on, he didn't understand. He was ready to capitulate right from the beginning to Ben-Hadad. It was only when he realized that he wouldn't gain anything, but might as well fight that he was willing to make a stand. And now at this point, once the battle's over, this wicked king of the Arameans who should be destroyed says, "Is there any way I can affect an escape here? Is there any way you can be gracious and merciful?" He said, "You're my brother. Let's eat together, let's be friends." Probably he had more in common with Ben-Hadad than he had with Elijah.

And he said, "He's my brother." Verse 33, the men took this as a good sign, and they were quick to pick up his word. "Yes, your brother Ben-Hadad," they said. "Go get him," said the king. When Ben-Hadad came out, Ahab had him come up into his chariot. "I will return the cities my father took from your father," Ben-Hadad offered. "You may set up your own market areas in Damascus as my father did in Samaria." And Ahab said, "On the basis of a treat, I will set you free. I made a treaty with him, and let him go." Unbelievable, completely out of step with what God's doing. A prophet of God comes along, again unnamed, unnamed. Now, we're going to get in a minute to what I think Elijah and Elisha were doing all this time, but this prophet comes up. And verse 35, by the word of the Lord, one of the sons of the prophets said to his companions, "Strike me with your weapon. Wound me with your sword basically. Poke me. Give me a wound," but the man refused. Now listen, so the prophet said, "Because you have not obeyed the Lord, as soon as you leave me, a lion will kill you." And after the man went away, a lion found him and killed him. Stop right there. Do you realize that the wages of sin is death? Do you understand that? Do you realize that God doesn't owe you as a sinner another day of life on earth? You realize that? The wages of sin is death and we can never say, "Well, I didn't know. I always thought I'd have more time to repent. I'd have more time.” God doesn't owe us sinner anything. And when God speaks, we need to obey. This challenges me because my obedience isn't what it should be. Is yours? Do you realize that when God commands, we need to obey all the way, right away, with a happy spirit everything he says? Well, this man wouldn't wound the prophet, and so God killed him with a lion. That's striking to me, isn't it? The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And yet, I cling to one verse, Psalm 103 verse 10. "He does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our iniquities." Amen?

We have to keep them both there. The wages of sin is death. We don't deserve another day as sinners. Thank you, Herbert. Preach, yes, encourage me please. Yes, he does not treat us as our sins deserve, or repay us according to our inequities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him. And so, the second man, the prophet finds another man and says, "Strike me please." So, the man struck him. Now, that was wise. Now, I don't know if he had heard about the lion, but this time, he said, "Okay, I'll do what you say." And he struck him, and he gave him a wound. When the prophet went and stood by the road waiting for the king, he disguised himself with his headman down over his eyes. As the king passed by, the prophet called out to him, "Your servant went into the thick of the battle, and someone came to me with a captive and said, ‘Guard this man. If he's missing, it will be your life for his life, or you must pay a talent of silver.’ While your servant was busy here and there, the man disappeared." "That is your sentence," the King of Israel said. You've pronounced it yourself. Then the prophet quickly removed the headband from his eyes, and the King of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets. He said to the king, "This is what the Lord says, “You have set free a man I had determined should die."

Now, the word is “herem”. “I had given him over to destruction. I had given him over to be destroyed.” Just like the city of Jericho was herem, it was given over completely for destruction. “So this man, Ben-Hadad was meant to be destroyed and you didn't do it. I had determined that he should die and therefore, it is your life for his life, your people for his people.” Boy, is that striking? “You didn't obey me, and so therefore you will die.” Verse 43, "Sullen and angry, the King of Israel went to his palace in Samaria." Now, that's first King's 20. What's going on here? It's the sovereignty of God. I think that he's giving room for the Word of God to spread through Samaria through Israel, so that those 7,000 would come to faith in the eternal God. But I think also that Elijah and Elisha were busy during this time. What were they doing? Well, I think they were setting up schools of prophets. Now, you have to read between the lines for this, but they were setting up basically seminaries where people could be trained to proclaim the Word of the Lord. Now, we already have some indication of this in the chapter we've looked at. One of the prophets or one of the sons of the prophets said, "Strike me with your weapon." So there's this group of prophets that we have. But you know that in Samuel's day, there was a school of the prophets. Remember, the prophets were prophesying all the time? And Saul went and suddenly, the Spirit of God came upon Saul, and he began to prophesy. And they said, "Is Saul also among the prophets?" So there was this group of prophets in Samuel's Day. You remember that the same thing happened when Saul sent men to capture David. In 1 Samuel 19, word came to Saul, David is in Naioth at Ramah. So he sent men to capture him. And when they saw a group of prophets prophesying with Samuel standing there as their leader, the Spirit of God came up on Saul's men. And they also prophesied. Saul was told about it, and he sent more men and they also prophesied. Then Saul went himself, and he prophesied.

So there was this group of prophets, this school of prophets in Samuel's Day. Well, we get the same thing I think in Elijah and Elisha's Day. In 2 Kings, turnover there, we're just there a minute ago. But in 2 King's chapter two, verse three and five, right before Elijah is taken up to heaven, you see there, it says, the company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and said, "Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?" "Yes, I know," Elisha replied, "but do not speak of it." Verse four, 2 Kings two verse four. Then Elijah said to him, "Stay here Elisha. The Lord has sent me to Jericho," and he replied, "As surely as the Lord lives and you live, I will not leave you." And so they went to Jericho, verse five. The company of the prophets at Jericho went up to Elisha and asked him, "Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?" "Yes, I know," he replied, "but do not speak of it." So we've got a company of prophets at Bethel, and then we've got a company of prophets at Jericho. I think that Elijah and Elisha were not idol during this time, but they were going around basically witnessing and evangelizing in the name of the Lord, God of Israel, setting up schools of prophets. And these were the very ones who understood that Elijah would soon be taken from Elisha.

And so 1 Kings, chapter 20. Now as we end in verse 43, we have the King Ahab, sullen and angry. And he goes to his palace in Samaria. And in chapter 21, we have the account of Naboth's vineyard. Sometime later, it says there was an incident involving a vineyard belonging to Naboth, the Jezreelite. The vineyard was in Jezreel, close to the Palace of Ahab, King of Samaria. Ahab said to Naboth, "Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden since it is close to my palace. In exchange, I will give you a better vineyard, or if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it's worth," but Naboth replied, "The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my father's." Now stop there. What's going on here is that this sullen, evil king really upset at the word of the Lord that he's going to die, but I don't know that he really believes it, tries to cheer himself up by stealing Naboth's vineyard. Now, here's how it works. In one sense, it's a fair exchange. He says, "Listen, I want your vineyard. I want your land for a vegetable garden for myself. I like it. It's pretty." Well, what's going on here? Well, it's nothing less than covetousness. He sees it. He likes it. He wants it. This is the whole problem with kings is that they think they can take what they want. Exodus 20 verse 17 says, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not your neighbor's wife, or his man servant or maid servant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor, and yet this man has set his heart on Naboth's vineyard. 

Now, what's going on there? I think at the root of covetousness is a failure to be content with God, and with what he's provided for you, right? God has given you this. He's given you himself. He's given you salvation in Christ, and then he's given you some earthly possessions, and some blessings along the way to bless and strengthen you and your life in ministry here. Is it enough for you? Are you satisfied with what God's given you? Are you satisfied with your spouse? Satisfied with your children? Satisfied with your possessions? Satisfied with your job and your lifestyle? Is it enough for you? Because covetousness is a form of idolatry, isn't it? It's a form of saying, "I'm not satisfied with God. I want more. I've got to have something else than this. God is not enough for me." Well, it shouldn't surprise us that Ahab had a covetous heart, because there was no God in him at all. He had no desire, no hunger for God, but really was living in this world. Naboth's Vineyard was just another thing to desire. It seemed to him reasonable that he as the king should he really could just take it. I think he believes that. And as a matter of fact, Jezebel in a moment's going to say, "What's the matter with you? You're king, take it. If you want, it take it." But he says, "Listen, I'm offering a fair exchange. I'll give you some money for it. I'll give you what it's worth and money, or I'll give you a vineyard, a better one." 

And Naboth responds properly. You see, Naboth was actually not free to sell. You may not understand this, but Naboth lived in the promised land. And the land he had gotten, he had gotten by allotment from his ancestors traced back to the book of Joshua, when the land was divided up by lot. In numbers 36 verse seven through nine, it says, "No inheritance in Israel is to pass from tribe to tribe, for every Israelite shall keep the tribal land inherited from his forefathers. Every daughter who inherits land in any Israelite tribe must marry someone in her father's tribal clan, so that every Israelite will possess the inheritance of his fathers. No inheritance may pass from tribe to tribe, for each Israelite tribe is to keep the land that it inherits." And so he was not free to trade that land. He was not free to sell it. He said, "I can't." look at his answer in verse three. Naboth replied, "The Lord forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my father's." What a wonderful response. The Word of God is above the word of kings. The word of God is above the word of kings. And so he will not trade his land. 

What does Ahab do? Ahab went home sullen and angry. Have you heard that before? What is it with this man? He's not content. I think the demons are not content. They roam to and fro looking for a place to rest, don't they? The devil is roaming to and fro looking for someone to attack, right? And so this man is restless. The evil are restless, stirred up like waves churning all the time. He doesn't have what he wants. He wants his vineyard, and he goes home sullen and angry because Naboth, the Jezreelite had said I will not give you the inheritance of my father's. And so he lay on his bed sulking and refused to eat. I have no respect for this man. None. He is a weak, evil man and he's laying there and won't eat his dinner. His wife Jezebel comes in to give him some backbone. Jezebel comes in and says, "What's the matter with you? Why are you so sullen? Why won't you eat?” And he answered her, "Because I said to Naboth, the Jezreelite, ‘sell me your vineyard or if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard in its place.’" Can you hear the whining? “But he said, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.’”

Jezebel sees things clearly, "This is how you act as king over Israel? Get up and eat. Cheer up. I'll get you the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite." She's got ways, and she doesn't lack courage and backbone wicked as she is.

What does she do? In verse eight, she wrote letters in Ahab's name, placed his seal on them and sent them to the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth city with them. Now, what's going on here? First of all, she forges letters and she steals his seal, so that it's in his name. It's interesting to me how wicked people will try to cloak what they're doing in righteousness. Why don't she just go down to kill this guy? But instead, she's got to concoct this whole plan to make it look righteous. I was reading recently about the beginning of World War II. Do you know how it started? It started with the Nazis invading Poland, September 1st, 1939. You know how it began? Well, a bunch of Nazis put on Polish uniforms, and attacked a German radio station in Polish uniforms. And then Hitler through a hundred divisions sent a blitzkrieg that wiped out Poland. Why the ruse first? Why not just the invasion first? It's insightful to understand something about wickedness. They try to cloak themselves first with some legality, some righteousness.

And so instead of just killing Naboth, we're going to go through this ruse of a fair trial. She signs letters in his name, puts his official seal on them, sends them to elders and the nobles who lived in Naboth city with him, and in these letters, she wrote, "Proclaim a day of fasting." Why the fasting? “Because there's been some evil in the city, and we have to uncover a crime here. There's going to be an investigation. We need to fast and seek the Lord, and find out who did the evil thing and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people, but seat two scoundrel, sons of Belial [is what it literally says], evil people among opposite him, and have them testify that he has cursed both God and the king. And then take him out and stone him to death." And so she's going to concoct a trial, a false trial against him. And he's going to be stoned to death. I find it interesting, A. W. Ping brings this point out. How much Naboth is really a type of Christ, right? If you stop and think about it, did not Christ also have a vineyard? Remember, the parable? The owner of the vineyard sent his son, and the owner of the vineyard wanted to steal the vineyard from him. What do they do? They try to put him to death. They put him to death, and think that they're going to steal his vineyard. How do they do it? Well, they can concoct a false trial, and false witnesses accuse him. And he's put to death falsely. There's a really a parallel here between Naboth, who I think is a type or a picture of Christ and Jesus Christ himself. And so they through this false witness, they attack Naboth. 

Verse 11, "The elders and the nobles who lived in Naboth’s city did as Jezebel had directed them in the letter she had written to them. They proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth in a prominent place. And then two scoundrels came and sat opposite him, and brought charges against Naboth before the people saying Naboth has cursed both God and the king. They took him outside the city and stoned him to death. Then they sent word to Jezebel, ‘Naboth has been stoned and is dead.’" Verse 15, "As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she said to Ahab, ‘Get up and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth, the Jezreelite that he refused to sell you. He is no longer alive, but dead.’" Does that make your skin crawl, the wickedness of this woman, the evil? Take his vineyard because he's dead, Verse 16. Ahab passive as always, weak before the power of his wife, what does he do? Verse 16, "Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, and he got up and went down and took possession of Naboth's vineyard." Now Elijah comes back into the story and with this, we'll close. Verse 17, "Then the Word of the Lord came to Elijah, the Tishbite. ‘Go down to meet Ahab, King of Israel who rules in Samaria. He is now in Naboth's vineyard, where he has gone in to take possession of it. Say to him, this is what the Lord says. ‘Have you not murdered a man and seized his property?’ Then say to him, [this is what the Lord says], ’In the place where dogs licked up Naboth's blood, dogs will lick up your blood. Yes, yours.’"

We look now at a marvelous account of the power of Jesus Christ at work in the lives of two people, two desperate beggars whose neediness puts Christ on display. Now, the 20th century and on into the 21st century, was a great century of human achievement, of human power. There's many examples I could take of this but I'm thinking of a challenge that was put before the American people in May of 1961, by  President John F. Kennedy, that we should, before the decade was out, put a man on the moon and return him safely back to earth. It was quite a challenge when you stop and think about it. It was mere six decades after Orville and Wilber Wright had flown the first heavier-than-air craft.  So in just a short amount of time, we were going to put a man on the moon and return him back. That was an incredible challenge. You've heard of the expression 'reaching for the moon', in effect we were reaching for the moon. Could we do it? It was ambitious. Kennedy challenged us to put all of our scientific and economic resources behind the project.  You know what happened on July 20th, 1969, at 2:56 AM Greenwich Mean Time: Neil Armstrong came out of the lunar module, and landed on one eighth of an inch of lunar dust and said, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." This is an incredible achievement. After that, a saying came into the American expression:  If we can put a man on the moon surely we can do such and such. If we put a man on the moon surely we can cure the common cold. If we can put a man on the moon, surely we are able to defeat poverty. If we can put a man on the moon, surely I can balance my checkbook. If we can put a man on the moon, we can do anything. There's a sense of human possibility, a sense of human power. We can do anything if we put our mind to it, if we get our resources marshaled, there's nothing that would oppose us.

The  time of the 20th century and onto the 21st is a great testimony to human achievement and power. Yet for all of that, we are still weak and powerless, are we not? We cannot change the weather, we cannot stop a hurricane from devastating the state. We can't stop our own bodies from getting sick or dying. We can't stop ourselves from sinning in certain ways that we've pledged never to sin in that way again. Nations can't stop hating one another and going to war. We can't stop fighting, we can't stop being divisive. And more than anything, we can't stop dying, for we are truly powerless, in the ultimate sense of the word. 

I think the scripture that we're looking at today demonstrates in a marvelous way human powerlessness. We look at a man like Jairus who was a successful,powerful leader, in Capernaum, but powerless to save his daughter from dying and powerless to raise her from the dead once she had died. Secondly, we look at a woman subject to bleeding for 12 years, powerless to do anything about her condition. Both of them knew it and both of them knew where to go  — they knew to go to Jesus, because Jesus is the powerful one.  Our biggest obstacle in the spiritual life is our own sense of our powerfulness. Our biggest obstacle is pride and a sense of what we can do, and as long as there's some option in our hand that we hold stock in, as long as there's something there that we can try, God will say, "Go ahead, try it. And when you've exhausted that come back to me." The Apostle Paul was under great pressure in Asia, far beyond his ability to endure so that he despaired even of life. Indeed in his heart, he felt the sentence of death he said, "But this happened so that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead." How hard it is for us to let go of that white-knuckled grip on our own ability, our own power, and let God show His power in our weakness. That's what this story is all about —beggars whose powerlessness and weakness put Christ on display. The essence of the kingdom of heaven for us is a matter of spiritual begging. We've seen this time and again.  In Matthew Chapter 5:3, Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount, saying, "Blessed are you spiritual beggars, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven." If you're willing to come to me and beg, I'll give you the kingdom. We have here in this account two totally weak, powerless, human beings, a man and a woman coming to Jesus as destitute beggars. One of them powerless to save his daughter, the other one powerless to cure herself. As we've seen before, in Matthew,  we will see Christ's awesome power over disease and His power over death, but we'll also see some other attributes of Christ, we're going to see His accessibility, we're going to see that He was touchable, we're going to see that He was impartial in addition to being powerful.

Let's look at the first, Jesus is accessible. Jesus was truly God come near. He was accessible. You could come close to Him, you could bring your problems to Him. The Scripture testifies to us very plainly that God is transcendent. He's above all things. We have come to learn a great deal about outer space since the Apollo space program. We have a sense more than we ever did before of the immensity of space, and space testifies to God's immensity, for He says, "Do I not fill heaven and earth?"  Solomon, when he dedicated the temple said, "Heaven, even the highest heavens cannot contain you. How much less this temple that I have built."  God is truly immense.  Isaiah says in Chapter 40: 22, of God, "He sits enthroned above the circle of the Earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in." Our God is absolutely immense. His power dwarfs any problem you brought in with you today. He's an immensely powerful God. And yet for all of that, God desires to be very close to us.  He wants you to touch Him, and he wants to touch you. The tangible proof of that is the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The fact that He took on flesh and blood, the fact that He became a human being, that He entered the world, John 1:14 says, “The word [that's Christ] became flesh, and made His dwelling among us.” The Word made His dwelling, literally pitched His tent, among us.  He went through the things that we go through.

 In Matthew, speaking of Mary, the angel said, “She will give birth to a son and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet, ‘The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son and they will call Him Immanuel. Which means, God with us.’”  Jesus is God with us. When He took on a human body, He became God imminent. God with us, God accessible, God touchable, God moving through us.Christ lived and moved and had His being right in the middle of his people, He breathed the same air that they breathed. He saw the same orange sunsets that they saw, He shook the same dust of the desert off His clothes. He filled his stomach with the same barley loaves and fish from the sea of Galilee that they ate. He walked with them. He was among them.

Jairus had a desperate plight didn't he? He had a dying daughter. Verse 18-19, in Matthew 9 says, "While He was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before Him and said, 'My daughter has just died, but come and put your hand on her and she will live.'" Jesus got up, and went with him, and so did his disciples. Jairus was a powerful man, he was the Synagogue ruler there in Capernaum. He had a great deal of authority and power. He was well-respected in his community. He was probably almost certainly a Pharisee because I don't think you could have gotten to that level in Capernaum without being a Pharisee. What do I mean when I say that his plight was desperate? Desperate in that he had nowhere else to turn, he had a dying daughter. She was about to die, when he first came to Jesus. He was desperate because there was no other option. There was no other way that she could be saved,  so he was willing to risk his reputation, he was willing, I believe to enter a tax collector’s house for the text indicates that Jesus was still reclining at table at Matthew's house when Jairus approached him. Jesus was still there at that feast with the tax collectors and the sinners. No other Pharisee would have gone in that house, but Jairus was desperate and he was willing to risk the loss of his reputation. He was willing to risk it all. The Pharisees had probably already blacklisted Jesus and they probably blacklisted anybody who went to talk to Him as Jairus intended to. But Jairus did more than that. He went and knelt before Him. He prostrated himself before Jesus and begged him to come. He was desperate because this was his daughter.  A 12-year-old girl, the apple of his eye, he loved her and  didn't want her to die. There was no where else he could turn, so he went to Jesus, he risked his reputation. He threw dignity to the wind and he prostrated himself before Jesus. Desperate need makes us single-minded when it comes to Jesus Christ.

 People despise something called “foxhole religion.” You know what I'm talking about. You get out there in the battlefield, the shells are blowing up all around you, and all of a sudden you find religion. You turn your life over to Christ, because you think you're never going to get out of this thing alive. Let me ask you a question, why do we despise that? Except perhaps that we hear that people later turn back away from it, I suppose. But it's desperate need that brings us to Christ in the first place. We don't come to Jesus and say, "You know, I've got my life basically together, but if you would just add something to me, I would sure appreciate it." Instead, you come and say, "I'm going to face you before you on Judgment Day, and I am a sinner, and there is nothing I can do to save myself, I'm desperate. Help me, save me." It's desperation that makes you single-minded about seeking Jesus Christ.

 In Pilgrim's Progress Christian leaves the City of Destruction with his fingers in his ears calling out, "Life, life, eternal life”, and the townspeople stand around mocking him. His own family begs him  to come back, but he will not listen. He's desperate and single-minded for salvation.  I don't despise foxhole religion if it's genuine. If people genuinely, in the midst of their distress, turn as that thief on the cross did and realized, “I’m a dying man and I can't stand before God without a savior.” Jairus was desperate and he turned to Jesus. He had a single-minded faith. He knew that Jesus had power to heal. He would not have risked all of this, if he didn't have some faith in Christ, but his faith was somewhat limited in that he asked Jesus to get up and come with him. You remember that the Centurion said, “You don't need to go anywhere Jesus. Just stay where you are, and say the word and my servant will be healed.” But Jairus said, "No, please come and put your hand on her and she will live."

Here we come face-to-face with a problem of Biblical interpretation.  I don't want to hide it from you, but I can't go into great detail. The issue has to do with what we call the Synoptic problem. The Synoptic Gospels see the life of Jesus  from the same perspective. They gospels are Matthew, Mark and Luke. John is obviously very different in the approach that it takes to Jesus' life, but in Matthew, in Mark and Luke, you're going to get similar accounts of the same things in Jesus' life, but they're each going to come at it in a little bit different way. It's only a problem for we who believe that the scriptures are perfect. For those that are willing to say that the scriptures are a human document with errors and all those kind of things, then it's not a problem. But for we who think that the Gospel of Matthew was a perfect record of the life of Jesus, and the Gospel of Mark is a perfect record life of Jesus, and the Gospel of Luke a perfect record of the life of Jesus, you start running into difficulties when you compare the stories one to another. The fullest story of Jairus and his daughter comes from Mark and Luke, not from Matthew. Luke 8 says, “A man named Jairus, a ruler of the Synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet pleading with Him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about 12 was dying." Do you see the difference? In Matthew's account she's dead already. In verse 49-50 of Luke 8,  it said that while Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the House of Jairus, the synagogue ruler, and said, "Your daughter is dead. Don't bother the teacher any more." Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, "Don't be afraid, just believe and she will be healed." That's the full account. And so it really happened in stages, when Jairus first came to Jesus, she was just dying, but before he even got to the house, she was dead.  We've seen before in Matthew, that Matthew constantly reduces or decreases the number of words that he uses to give the miracle accounts. The reason is he wants to give as many different miracles as he can to give us a sense of Jesus' power, His omnipotence. So what he does is he basically takes the point that Jairus ended up at before Jesus went to his house and makes it the initial request. The way I would say it is this, that his faith was enough to believe in a healing and then he had to be talked into believing for a resurrection. But in the end, the request is the same. Please come and heal my daughter. Raise her up because she's dead. And in the end, he had to believe for not just a healing, but for a resurrection.

The gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke leave out many things. They don't add anything that's not true, but they leave out many things. The Apostle John said in his account in John's Gospel, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs besides the ones I've written in this book.”  As a matter of fact, if everything were written, I suppose the whole world couldn't contain all the books that there would be describing the life of Christ, so all of them shortened to some degree.  I would love to read all the accounts of the miracles, because there are many summary statements where huge communities came to Jesus and He healed them all. I'd like to have thorough treatment of each one of those miracles. We'll get it in heaven. But right now, we have to go with the condensed account that Matthew gives us. But the bottom line in this interaction, is that Jesus is accessible, He's reclining at the table, He's enjoying himself at Matthew's feast, and Jairus comes and interrupts Him. He comes and says, "Get up and come to my house, and Jesus humbly stoops at that moment to Jairus’ need and to his weakness, and He gets up and goes with him.

Jesus was truly the servant of all. He had no office hours. It’s been challenging me, because I do have office hours and I'm thinking about how I  should live in this way. How can I be as accessible as Jesus? He seemed to have no personal agenda for a day, except to serve His father and to serve those who came to interact with Him. In Mark 9:35, Jesus called the twelve disciples and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the last and the servant of all." Philippians 2:5 and following says, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a Cross.” That's the savior that we serve.  Servant of all meant that other people's needs were more important than His own desires for that day. As a matter of fact, His desire was other people's needs. He never refused. He never said, "Can't you see, I'm a busy here?" He never rolled his eyes and said, "What! Another healing? It's been a long day, I don't have time for that." He never once did it. Can you ever find a time when somebody comes to Jesus, for some kind of healing or ministry like this, and He refuses? He never said no. We're so selfish aren't we? We pass every demand every request on our time through the filter of what we like and dislike, whether we want to do it or don't want to do it. It's always me first and I'll see if I can fit into this request. Jesus never thought that way. He got up and went, He was accessible.

 Secondly, we see that Jesus is touchable.  In verse 20-21, a woman who'd been subject of bleeding for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the edge of His cloak. She said to herself. "If I only touch his cloak I will be healed." This woman had a desperate physical plight, constant bleeding. Mark gives a fuller account. In Mark 5:24-29 it says ,”Jesus went with him [Jairus]. A large crowd followed and pressed around Him and a woman was there who had been subject of bleeding for 12 years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she only grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch His clothes, I will be healed." And immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering." This woman probably, we can't be sure, but probably had some kind of chronic bleeding from the womb, and she had suffered, it says, much from doctors. We live in the City of Medicine[Durham,NC], and we might say, "Well if she had been under our care, we would have done much better, but if you say that you're missing the point of the story. The doctors did everything they could for her and they couldn't heal her. Actually, she only got worse.   Luke, the physician, didn’t mention this in his book.  I find that interesting. But Mark is bold to say that the doctors didn't help her at all. You can imagine if it was, in fact, this kind of a bleeding problem, how humiliating and how degrading these treatments would have been. And at any rate, she spent all she had. She had nothing left, she had no money left, no dignity left, no hope left except Jesus. Her physical problem, just got worse and worse, but she had a spiritual problem too. Because of her bleeding, she was ceremonially unclean. The Book of Leviticus 15:25-27, basically says, "A woman with this kind of a constant discharge of blood is constantly unclean until the problem is solved,”  so she could not take part in synagogue worship, she couldn't take part in temple worship, and furthermore, anybody who touched her, couldn't either. She was like walking unclean-ness all the time which is also a picture of spiritual unclean-ness before God. There's a verse in Isaiah 64 which is familiar to you. Isaiah 64:6 says, "All of us, all of us, have become as one who is unclean and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags in the sight of God." The word that Isaiah uses there would be similar to the rag that the woman used to care for her problem. That's what our righteous acts look like to God, apart from Jesus Christ. Do we hope to stand up in front of God and say, "Yes, but look at all the good things I've done."?  He sees a pile of filthy rags. On that basis we will never be saved, and so her uncleanness represents all of our uncleanness. All of us, like one who is unclean. All of us, apart from Christ. Hopeless. But the woman also had an indomitable faith. She refused to be stopped.

 The interesting thing about Jesus is that Jesus was so accessible that He became inaccessible. Do you know what I mean? Anybody and everybody came to Jesus. If you were on the outskirts of the crowd, you had no hope of getting close to Jesus. Mark and Luke gave us the clear indication that the crowd is actually almost crushing Jesus as He tries to get to Jairus' house. He can barely walk, that's how many people there are around. And this woman, refused to be stopped. She's pushing and pressing her way through. She doesn't care how many of those people she makes unclean. That doesn't matter to her. All that matters to her is she wants to touch the hem or the tassels of Jesus' garment. In the  Greek it says, "She kept saying to herself, she kept saying to herself, 'If I only touch His garment, I'll be healed. If I can only touch those tassel, if I only get there, I'll healed.'" She kept saying it over and over. Pressing through the crowd.

When I was a child, I used to play with magnifying glasses and burnt leaves. You take leaves all day, and then if it's a sunny day, you could concentrate the sunshine down and burn the leaf. Seeing that white hot light gives you a feeling of power. I don't know what it is, but  I feel like if you could see in this woman's eyes, it was like that. She was boring in on Jesus' hem, the hem of His garment, the little tassels that were bobbing and weaving as He would push his way through this crushing crowd. Now, what were these tassels? According to Numbers 15, the Lord said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them, 'Throughout the generations to come, you are to make tassels on the corner of your garments, on the corners of your garment with a blue cord on each tassel. You will have these tassels to look at, and so you will remember all the commands of the Lord.'" So it was a memory inducer. They would look at the tassels and remember to obey the law of Moses. Jesus had these tassels. It says right in Numbers 15 that he would have needed to. He was born under the law,  so I think he had these little tassels with a blue string in them. She zeroed-in on that, totally focused.

Some commentators say, perhaps even a little superstitiously, that maybe there's a sense of magic. I don't really know, but she knew it was Jesus, and Jesus alone that could heal her. So she presses in and hopes to be healed. I think it's also pretty clear from the account that she hoped to be healed without an interaction. She hoped to be healed anonymously. She hoped to be healed without embarrassment. She just wanted the healing. So she's in there at the hem of the garments down at the bottom. She might have even been crawling through the legs, reaching to grab up for Jesus' hem. She just wants to healing and then she wants to slink off and get on with her life.  Jesus is touchable, isn't he?  In the days of his life on earth, how many times did he heal people by touching them? We've already seen that he touched the leper, in Matthew 8, when he came down out of the Sermon on the Mount. He touches this filthy leper and cleanses him. He touches Peter's mother-in-law, who's lying in bed with a fever and she gets up. He touches the blind man, He touches their eyes and they can see. He loved to touch people with His healing. And again, from the story of the centurion, we realized He didn't have to do any of it. He could have sat in a chair and just healed the world if He had wanted to. He had that kind of power. But He wanted the interaction, He wanted the touch, so she's not going to get off so easily, she's not going to slink away with the healing.

In the Luke account, it says that the woman was there who had been subject for bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind Him, touched the edge of His cloak and immediately her bleeding stopped, just like that. As soon as she touches His garment, her bleeding stops immediately. Jesus stops walking and says, "Who touched me? Who touched me?" Leave it to Peter to say, "Lord, the crowd is pressing in on you. I've touched you a few times in the last minute or so. Everybody's touching you." "No, no, no, no, no. Somebody has touched me, for I felt power go out from me." The way the accounts  are written, it seems as though the Father healed the woman through Jesus without Jesus' direct knowledge in His humanness. There were some things Jesus didn't know. You don't have to read it that way but I think that's probably what happened. He wanted the interaction though. He said "No, no. Who touched me?" The woman saw she couldn't get away without the interaction so she comes back, and she must have been trembling and terrified. She fell at His feet and in the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched Him and how she had been instantly healed. Then He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace." Isn’ that wonderful? Jesus  was touchable, but He also wanted to touch her. He wanted that interaction, He wanted that personal contact.  The King James version of Hebrews 4:15 says, "We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet was without sin."  Jesus is touched by our infirmities, and He wants to touch back, He wants a relationship. Jesus doesn't want to be a theory to you today. I don't know where you're at with Christ.  Jesus wants a personal relationship with you, and anything short of that is not saving. He wants an eternal, intimate, face-to-face relationship with you in Heaven.  He wanted this woman to stand up and face Him face-to-face, so that He could speak a word of a peace right to her.  He wanted to be touched.

 We also see that Jesus is impartial. What does Christ required for this kind of interaction? What does He require? He requires deep-felt personal need. He requires a sense of desperation. He requires that you realize that apart from Christ you are lost, you have no other hope, nowhere else to turn. That's what He requires. And He requires genuine faith that Christ and Christ alone can meet that need.  What does He not require? Well, He does not require position, He does not require prestige, possessions or power. These are the things the world clings to. These are the things the world respects and honors. But Luke 16:15 says, "What is highly valued among men is actually detestable in God's sight." There are no disadvantages if you don't have these things, and there are no advantages if you do, before Christ, because He was impartial.

Jairus came, not as a powerful synagogue ruler.  He came humble and broken with nowhere else to turn. He didn't come and say, "I'm the synagogue ruler. I command you to come and heal my daughter."  He prostrated himself and he begged Him, "Please come." He had positions,  possessions,  power, and prestige,  but they meant nothing to Jesus, and Jairus knew it.  Now the woman, the unnamed, anonymous woman, with twelve years of bleeding didn't have position, power, or prestige, possessions. None of it, but she had desperate need and she had faith and that was all that was required. Jesus is truly no respecter of persons. Jesus' enemies said this in Matthew 22:16, "Teacher, they said, 'We know that you're a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men since you pay no attention to who they are.'" That is so true, our God is not to partial. He is not a respecter of persons and there's going to come a day when Jesus will sit down on the throne to judge the world. You will stand before Him, and He will be your judge, "For the Father Has committed all judgment to the Son that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." Jesus will sit on that throne and He will not care what your position,  your power, your possessions or your prestige were in this world, it won't matter at all. On that day, all that will count is simple faith in Jesus Christ, simple trust in Him as your Savior. The hymn put it this way, "Come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you full of pity, love, and power." The fourth verse says, "Let not conscience make you linger nor of fitness fondly dream. All the fitness He requireth is to feel your need of Him." That’s it. He's impartial.

 But thanks be to God, He's also powerful. Not just accessible, not just touchable, not just impartial, but He is powerful. He's powerful over disease. He looks at that woman and says, "Take heart, be encouraged, daughter. Your faith has healed you." Her bleeding stopped within her, she could feel it was gone. He had healed her. What doctors, what medical science could not do for her, Jesus had done effortlessly.  Absolutely effortlessly, He had healed her.  Jesus is also powerful to save sinners. How do I get that out of this text? The Greek says, "Jesus turned and saw her, 'Take heart, daughter, your faith has saved you.'" would be a better translation. For healings, Mathew almost always uses the word “therapeua” where we get the word therapeutic. He didn't use that one here. He uses “sōzō”, the saving word. "Your faith has saved you,” would be a good translation here. I don't want to lean too much on it, but I know there's a difference between healing and salvation. There are a lot of people that got healed, some got saved. Do you remember the story of the ten Lepers? Jesus cleansed them all. One of them came back and prostrated himself before Jesus and thanked Him and praised God, and Jesus said to him, "Your faith has saved you." “Sōzō”, the same word. Nine were cleansed, he was saved, and I think that's what happened here. Jesus has the power to save your sins. That's the purpose of all these miracle stories that you may know that you can come to Him with all of your mess, all of your sin, and lay it before Him and He can save you. He's powerful to save sinners.

He's also powerful to rebuke unbelief. First, He had to deal with Jairus. It’s not in the Matthew account, but Jairus, when he received word that she was no longer sick, but now dead, wasn't ready yet, I think, at that moment to say, "I know you can raise her from the dead." Jesus turned and said, "Don't be afraid, only believe." Then he was ready to say, "My daughter has just died. Come and put your hands on her and she will live." Jesus was gentle with him. What about when He gets there? In verse 23, when Jesus entered the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, he said "Go away, the girl is not dead but asleep." They laughed at Him.  Who are these people? These were professional mourners.  You say, "What, professional mourners?" Yes. If you were wealthy, you could hire somebody to come and cry at your funeral. Would that minister to you to know that paid people were crying at your funeral? They used to collect their tears in bottles to show that they had done their work well. There was this huge crowd crying and playing the mourning dirge with the flutes. It’s a terrible din and racket, and Jesus said, "Go away and sure don't send a bill to Jairus because she's not dead, she's just asleep." How sincere was their mourning, because at the turn of a hat, instantly, they mock Him and laugh at Him. That's the depth of their mourning. "Get out of here,” Jesus said. Notice that He doesn't do the miracle until they're gone.  He rebukes their unbelief. "She's not dead, she's only asleep."

Jesus is powerful over death, isn't He? He has the power to raise a dead girl as though she was merely sleeping. Verse 25 and 26, "After the crowd had been put outside, He went in and took the girl by the hand and she got up." I love Mark's account here.  “After he had put them all out, He took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with Him, and they went in where the child was, and He took her by the hand, and he said, 'Talitha, koum.'"  “Talitha” means little girl.  "Little girl, get up." She opened her eyes. Her spirit returned to her and she was alive. Praise God. Praise God for His power over death, praise God that He can speak to you in the tomb and raise you from the dead, and some day He will. All who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out. That's the power Jesus has over death.  Can you imagine Jairus' feelings at that moment? When his little treasure, little 12-year old, opened her eyes and smiled at him? Can you imagine the shock of the professional mourners, knowing they would not be paid that day? They would have to go home because Jesus had risen her from the dead. She was only sleeping in a sense, to Jesus, anyway, only sleeping. Imagine the reputation of Jesus' spreading from Capernaum out, a man who has this kind of power over sin, over disease, over death. A man who is like this — accessible, touchable, impartial, powerful. Imagine His reputation.

 What's our application for this? First of all, I want you to feel your powerlessness. Don't be so confident in yourself. Don't look to yourself.  We're good at saying, "You know, we have the ability to go to the moon. I can do anything if I put my mind to it." My senior little caption in my yearbook, it said, "No goal is too high if you climb with care and confidence." I didn't know the Lord yet, when I said that.  There's some goals that are too high, like salvation. It doesn't matter how careful or how much confidence you have. Let go of your feeling of powerfulness. Come to Jesus as a broken sinner. He is merciful, He's tender-hearted, He's accessible, He's touchable, He's impartial. so come to Christ for salvation. Let go of whatever it is you're holding on to that you think is going to save you on Judgment Day.  It's not going to save you; Christ alone will save you. But even if you've already been saved, you already come to faith in Christ, you need to come to Him day after day after day, because we're still weak and powerless. Come to Christ today, again and again. Jesus said, "I'm the vine and you are the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing."

Second of all, as ministers of the Gospel, we need to imitate Christ in ministry. First, be accessible. Are you interruptible? Could you have gotten up from Matthew's feast or would you have sighed, rolled your eyes a little bit, felt a little fussy? Here's another ministry opportunity. Are you touchable? Are you able to be touched by other people's pain, grief? When I was on a mission to trip in Mombasa, we drove in an air-conditioned van through one of the poorest areas of Kenya. We were surrounded by glass and steel and comfortable chairs, and we rode through in safety and in comfort as we looked at poverty. I wish we'd stopped. I wished we'd gotten out. Sometimes I feel that we, Americans, go through life surrounded by protective cocoons, I guess, and we're not really touchable to the true needs that surround us all the time.  And are we impartial? Do we care too much about people's positions, their possessions, their power, their prestige? Do we minister to everybody? More than anything though, we can't imitate Christ's power, can we? We can be accessible, we can be touchable, we can be impartial, but we cannot imitate His power. We need to be instead just clear vessels through which His power operates and does its mighty work.