Now we have an opportunity to learn more of this wonderful Savior that we've just sung about. Will you take your Bibles and turn to Mark's gospel chapter three. We will be looking at verses seven through 19 this morning, under the heading "An overview of Jesus ministry, part one."

Let me read the passage to you. And then we will look closely into it. Mark Three, beginning in verse seven, "Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples, and a great multitude from Galilee followed, and also from Judea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him. And He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready for Him because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd Him; for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, you are the Son of God! And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was. And He went up on the mountain and summoned to those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him. And He appointed 12, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons. And He appointed the 12 Simon, (to whom he gave the name Peter), and James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of Jasmes (to them, he gave the name Boanerge, which means 'Sons of Thunder', and Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew and Thomas, and James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him."

Here Mark provides an overview of Jesus's ministry, and of a short summary overview, and in it, we can glean some wonderful insights that will help us understand more of who Christ is and how we can live for His glory. And, frankly, this is like looking through a diamond once again, every time you see light going through a diamond, it refracts beautiful colors in various ways. And we have an opportunity to see the diamond of the gospel here, refracting the beautiful colors of the glory of Christ. I'm always moved by Paul's testimony what he said in Philippians, three, eight, "I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord."

Dear friends contemplating the glory of Christ, and fellowshipping with him in both private and public worship, there's the greatest privilege that we have this side of glory. And we do that, that we might know him. And I trust that that is the dominating priority in your life, that you might know Christ, and that you might experience the sweet fellowship available to you if you are indeed united to him in faith, and this will be the greatest delight of every authentic Christian.

Unbelievers cannot identify with any of this. It's foreign to them to want to sit down or stand up for that matter and contemplate the glory of Christ. There are many people that are Christian in name only. They just live for themselves, not for Christ, their ruled by their flesh, not the indwelling Spirit and, unfortunately, Satan fuels their self-deception. We know that Satan's devices are legion, however, his primary objective is always the same. And that is to somehow blind men to the truth of the gospel and prevent them from coming to saving faith in Christ, prevent them from seeing the glory of Christ.

And that's why we're here today to see the glory of Christ. In fact, Paul made this clear Second Corinthians four, you will recall in verse three says that "Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, and whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they may not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God." And certainly when we look at the moral freefall in our culture, we can see the effects of Satan's blinding power. Imagine if our government decided to declare a new holiday, it's called the glory of Christ today. We laugh, don't we? Yes, this is the new holiday where we will all have an opportunity to contemplate the glory and the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of all who will trust in Him, the King of glory that is coming again one day, to rule and to reign. Although believers are by definition, those who embrace the gospel and we are able to see the glory of Christ, we would be fools to think that somehow the enemy retreats and doesn't also try to blind us in certain ways. In fact, as believers, he intensifies his attacks on us. He will do everything he can in churches to distort the gospel, and also to dispute the person and the work of Christ, and even distract us from beholding his glory, to a point that we no longer find our greatest joy and satisfaction in him, but we find it in everything else. But once again, this morning, we have an opportunity to correct all this as we look into the Word of God, and we see Christ for who He is the Son of God during His earthly ministry, a little foretaste of heaven here this morning.

Now, let's remember the flow of Mark's historical narrative thus far as he endeavors by the power of the Spirit to draw us into understanding the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. You will remember in chapter one and verse one, he began by saying, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." And then he quoted Isaiah's prophecy that a messenger would herald the Messiah is coming, referring to John the Baptist, that affirmed Jesus as the one that was promised then later on, in chapter one and verse 10, we have Jesus baptism, and there was a voice that came out of the heavens, "You are My beloved Son, in You, I am well pleased." And so there we have God, the Father, affirming the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then you will recall, Jesus is immediately taken into the wilderness where he would be tempted by Satan. And he defeated Satan with his divine power with his regal authority. And then Mark records numerous incidences of Jesus performing miracles, which further validated His deity, how we had power over demons and disease and over sin, that he was the Lord of the Sabbath. He had power, even over fallen men to save them, and to call them to come and to follow Him. And they did. And as I think about it, we're still doing the same thing today, right? We are following Christ. In his amazing Providence, he's continuing to build his church. And beloved, I hope you will never lose the wonder of what we're doing here right now. Do you realize that we have an opportunity to look into the Word of the living God, the self-disclosureof the Most High God, that we might understand Christ and all of his glory, and live for him that we might be saved and sanctified, that we might know the power of his resurrection, that we might become more like Him, and enjoy him forever.

So here Mark gives us a synopsis of what went on in Jesus’ ministry, which includes a glimpse of really three things in our text this morning, we're going to see number one, his followers, number two Mark will speak of His deity. And then number three is apostles. And we're going to look at all three of these but the third one, I'm going to have to finish up next week.

So let's do a little time travel. I want you to come with me. Let's go back to the first century in the Land of Israel in Galilee. And we're going to, first of all try to understand his followers. This is very important, now remember the context of where we're at here. Jesus has just made fools out of the Pharisees. Remember he had an intentional smackdown with the Pharisees, by deliberately healing the man with the withered hand, right there in the synagogue, knowing exactly how they would respond. And in verse six of chapter three, we read that the Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him. So that's what's been going on here. And remember the Herodians now, were secular Jews loyal to Herod, they were considered to be traitors by the Jewish people. And they even had a profound dislike of the Pharisees, but they needed each other at this point, because Jesus was messing up their political agenda. And as the old saying, goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so that's what's driving the Pharisees here. They needed the Greco Roman reinforcements to help hatch their plan, because it would require some legal maneuvering. As we might say, of course, we're not used to any of that in our culture, right? In our politics, we never see that type of thing. But they had that back then. Aha.

So word about Jesus is spreading, all of this healing that's going on. And this brings us to the narrative in verse seven, "Jesus withdrew to the sea, with His disciples, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and also from Judea, and from Jerusalem. And from Idumea." Idumea would have been further south of that area. And then also beyond the Jordan, beyond the Jordan will be further east over in the Dead Sea area, "and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon", Tyre and Sidon was the land of the Phoenicians, Gentile territory way up on the north western coast. And it says, "a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him." So you can kind of draw a circle about 75 miles out and that's basically where people were coming from. So people without question walk for days, to try to get to Jesus. Now, imagine being there. The crowd would be uncontrollable. It would be a mob, people are stampeding to try to get to Jesus. That's what's going on. And if you've ever been around crowds, I mean, real big crowds, you know how stifling they are. I remember, especially when I've been in Russia, that you get on a train, or even a lot of times walking in the subway or whatever, there's somebody touching part of your body the whole time. That's how crowded it is. That's the type of dynamic here. It can be paralyzing.

So verse nine, "He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready for Him because of the crowd so that they would not crowd Him." Obviously, there would be safety in the water going out into the sea of Galilee. Now let's understand this issue of the disciples. Many times people are confused. They think maybe this is referring to the 12 disciples who were the apostles, but not at all; disciples, "mathetes" in the original language just simply refers to a learner, a student that would follow a spiritual leader. We're not sure how many of them there were, but there were many. And most of these people were curiosity seekers. They were fascinated with Jesus, everybody was, and they wanted to see especially what he could do for them. I mean, after all, here's free food, right? Here's free health care. Here's free everything. It was kind of, you know, man centered theology, the prosperity gospel was started all the way back then. And they wanted a Santa Claus, not a savior. All right? So that's why most of them were following him.  

And allow me to expand on this just a little bit to give you a clearer sense of, of who these disciples really were and what eventually happened with them. And because the same kind of demographics exist in the church today, if we were to go to John six, and I'm going to give you a few passages there in a minute, but you will read there about the crowds that were following Jesus. They were great multitudes following Him because of His signs. The signs that he was performing because he was healing the sick. And in John six, we find that these crowds began to take great umbrage with the overall content of what Jesus was preaching. They liked the handouts, but they didn't like the sermons. Especially his teaching concerning God's sovereign grace and salvation.

Which, by the way, it's interesting. You've heard of Calvinism. Calvinism has five points that's been reduced to the acronym tulip. Calvinism is basically a theological understanding of the doctrines of grace as presented in scripture. But the word tulip is the acronym it stands for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. Well, what's interesting is, if you read in John six, in particular, in his discourse there, he covers all of them. If you look at verse 36, and following, he says, "But I said to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe," there's total depravity. Secondly, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me and the one who comes to Me, I will certainly not cast out", there is unconditional election. Thirdly, verse 38, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me", there's limited atonement. Verse 39, "this is the will of Him who sent Me that, that of all that He has given me I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day", there's irresistible grace.

And then finally, in verse 44, "this is the will of the Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day", there's perseverance of the saints. Well, now, none of this fit into their works righteousness system in apostate Judaism. But these so-called disciples were especially upset with his claim to have come down from heaven. In fact, in verse 61, we read that they grumbled over his assertion that he was the source of eternal life. My goodness, that did not fit their theology at all. Worse yet, his assertion that they have to repent, and place their faith in Him in order to enter the kingdom. I mean, what's that all about? After all, we are Jews. We don't need any of this type of thing. We are sons of Abraham. And they really despised his insistence that they were so depraved that they were so alienated from God, that unless the Father draws them by his and influenced sovereign grace, they would never be saved. Of course, these doctrines continue to offend the sensibilities of non-believers, and many believers who reject the clear teaching of scripture.

But additionally, if you want to understand these disciples, you must understand that they could not reconcile the Jesus allusions to his death with their views of a Messiah who was going to establish a kingdom and basically destroy Rome. In fact, later, when Jesus was teaching the Jews in Jerusalem about his impending death, and John 12:34, the multitudes said, say to him, "We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can you say,' The Son of Man must be lifted up?' Who is this Son of Man?" So they were confused over all this and back to John six, they were totally frustrated with his statements concerning eating his flesh and drinking his blood. A metaphor, symbolizing their need to accept his work on the cross. So all that Jesus was saying to them, was offending their sensibilities and conflicted with their preconceived theological views. And so you have these, these multitudes of people now, pressing in on Jesus, they're interested in a social welfare state that met their physical needs, but they did not want a savior of their sin. They wanted a political Messiah.

And so that's why in John 6:63, we read, "It is the Spirit," Jesus says, "Who gives life." Verse 64, he says, "'But there are some of you who do not believe', for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were, who did not believe and who it was that would betray Him." Verse 65, "And He was saying, 'For this reason'", in other words, because of their unbelief, "I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father." What? What about my free will? I mean that's not fair. What do you mean granted by the Father? As a result, verse 66, "Many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore", meaning they completely abandoned him. The greatest church split in history probably, right? I mean, Jesus reduced a crowd of about 20,000 people who wanted to make him king right down to about 12 in one day. You know, the same would happen today in most churches if the preacher preached the truth. I remember a woman who sat over here, it was a number of years ago, boy, she stormed out of here, right at the end of the service, making a scene, saying and this is somewhat of a paraphrase, the spirit is not in this place, the spirit is not in this place. I came to worship and feel the spirit and all he does is preach the Bible. Okay, and to that I say, what's for lunch?

Back to Mark three. My point here is most of the followers of Jesus were curiosity seekers, they were superficial. They were theologically illiterate, self- deceived, religiously deceived, and most were looking for a handout. But there were a few, that by God's grace believed in him and worshipped Him as their Savior and Lord. So that's a bit about his followers.

Let's look secondly at his deity, Mark is going to give us some more examples of this, verse 10, "For He had healed many, with the result that all those who had been afflicted pressed around Him." The term press in the original language carries the idea of, of pushing forward of crowding, even of crashing, in the original language. It suggests the idea of mobbing or literally falling upon Jesus. And they were doing this, it says, "in order to touch Him." Again, think of the context here. Most of the disease in that region was being healed by Jesus. In fact, most of his miracles were acts of healing. I mean, you put yourself out there. I mean, I've got some things I wish were fixed. I'd love to touch Jesus and get it done, right? We got friend the loved ones more. Hey, y'all, come on. Let's go see if we can get near Jesus, all you've got to do is touch him. You're gonna be healed. I mean, imagine that.

By the way, that's going to happen someday isn't that great to know, it'd be better than just getting this old body kind of, you know, I mean, I got high mileage and so do you, but, but it's gonna be a whole new deal. I want you to note, the word afflictions, "that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him." It's the word "mastix" in Greek, and it means lash or scourge or equip, which is interesting. And it only occurs here in Mark's gospel, as well as is Matthew's account and Luke's account as well in Acts 20, to 24 and Hebrews 11:36, where it is interpreted as a quote, "scourging a hideous form of torture." So it says, "And those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him." You see that term affliction later, was used to describe just general sickness, a term for sickness, because many of the Jews believed that sickness and disabilities, physical disabilities, were a form of divine punishment. So diseased and disabled people not only had to deal with their physical misery, but also the terrible stigma of being exceptionally sinful. Imagine that. So they're embarrassed, naturally, they want to touch Jesus. So they're all doing all they can to get near Jesus just to touch him.

You will recall in Matthew nine verse 20, and following, we read in a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years came up behind him and touch the fringe of His cloak, "for she was saying to herself, 'if I only touch his garment, I will get wel,'l but Jesus turning and seeing her said, 'Daughter, take courage your faith has made you well', at once the woman was made well." Many accounts like that were going on, word was getting around. Later in Mark chapter six verse 56. We read, "Wherever He entered villages or cities or countryside, they were laying the sick in the marketplaces and imploring Him, that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak. And as many as touched it were being cured." I mean, folks, what an astonishing display of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice what else Mark tells us here that proves his deity in verse 11, "Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, 'You are the Son of God!' And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was." In other words, he wanted zero publicity from these vile creatures. And it's interesting, isn't it? That the demons recognized who he was, but the religious leaders of Israel did not. Talk about satanic blinding. I find it fascinating. And I put myself in this category, we tend to believe what we want to believe, right? We tend to see what we want to see, regardless of the truth. I remember my mother, when she would get angry with me about something to that effect, she'd say you'd argue with a signpost, which meant it says right there what the truth is, and you're arguing with it? Now, I doubt if I did that very much, but that's what my mom would say.  Now that was certainly what was going on here. It's amazing to consider Jesus power, isn't it over the demonic hosts, that he could tell them to shut up, and they would. That the demons would recognize Jesus and then want to cry out reminds me of Paul in Philippi. I remember in Acts 16, beginning in verse 16, we read and, "It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl, having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune telling. Following after Paul, and us, she kept crying out saying, 'These men are bond servants of the Most High God, who were proclaiming to you the way of salvation.' She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed and turned and said to the spirit, 'I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!'  And it came out at that very moment."

Now, I want to digress for a moment, because this has come up even of late with some. And I'm sure it will come up again. So I'm going to use this as an opportunity to talk just a little bit about unclean spirits today, because people were asking about that. What about unclean spirits today? What about demon possession, this comes, comes up from time to time, usually in the context of, of people trying to deal with someone in their family that is exceptionally wicked in various ways, or whatever. And we're able to conclusively discern how demons operate by looking at Scripture. And when we look at Scripture, we also have to look at other categories. And when we, when we look at the lexical, the biblical, the historical, the theological, and even the practical elements of understanding things, we begin to understand who they are now, that's beyond the purview of our discussion here this morning. But bottom line, may I say that in most cases, demons harass rather than possess. They exert their influence on both non-believers as well as believers, you know, they, you know, how the demons exerted their influence on Saul.

And then we also know on Job, on Jesus, on Paul, on Peter and so forth. However, as in the New Testament, demons also at times reside within human beings. It's the idea of being demonized, the biblical term. That is they spatially indwell certain individuals and then is now demonic habitation results in the demon having such control over the victim that they are unable to resist that control successfully. And the Bible records 15 specific occasions where demons indwelt human beings, and we've seen that even today, demons, demonic possession, I should say, resulted in physical problems as we see in Scripture, such as epilepsy in Matthew 17, blindness in Matthew 12, deafness in Mark nine, the inability to speak in Matthew nine. And when the demon was evicted from the person, suddenly the person was restored to complete health. And not once was the human host ever a believer. You see, dear friends, demonization, is certain evidence of a lack of salvation. Demons do not inhabit believers. When we encounter a demonized person, we do not exercise them, we evanglizethem.  We appeal to God in prayer as we read in Jude nine and we use the power of scripture, we unleash the gospel Romans 1:16, and so forth. It is the power of God unto salvation.

And I routinely get asked about deliverance ministries. And whenever I say that, yeah, we've got a deliverance ministry, it meets every Sunday morning at 10:45 at Calvary Bible Church, and multiple times during the week, and other things that we do, because I want them to understand that true deliverance is the gospel. You know, it is inconceivable and theologically absurd to suggest unclean spirits can co-habit an individual while the Holy Spirit is also dwelling within that individual. Salvation is deliverance is it not? Colossians one verse 13, "For He rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved son." First John 5:18, "We know that no one who is born of God sins, but He who is born of God keeps him and the Evil One does not touch him." We can go to First John two verses 13 and 14 we read how that "we have overcome the evil one." First John, four four, "You are from God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world." We can read about the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit that protects Christians against demonic invasions. Look at Second Corinthians one and Ephesians four verse 30. First Corinthians six beginning of verse 19. "Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price therefore glorify God and your body. " Second Corinthians six beginning verse 14, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are, we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, 'I will dwell in them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from their midst, and be separate', says the Lord, 'And do not touch what is unclean, and I will welcome you and I will be a father to youand you shall be sons and daughters to Me', says the Lord Almighty."

So dear friends, don't waste your time or money on deliverance ministries. Those people do not understand scripture, they are charlatans, they will lead you astray. The deliverance of a Christian from an indwelling demon is an oxymoron. In fact, it's like saying a man can have an abortion. Now, I know there are probably some people today that would say that, but I hope you understand the absurdity of that. Too many pastors are quick to blame life dominating sins, on demonic possession rather than evidence of a lack of genuine saving faith or a refusal to walk by the Spirit. If you walk by the Spirit, you won't carry out the desires of the flesh. So if the flesh is ruling, don't blame it on a demon, blame it on you because you're not being obedient to Scripture and so forth. And typically, these people also have some really bad doctrine that needs to be dealt with.

I cannot tell you how many times I've dealt with people who have been told that they had a demon of pornography, or a demon of obesity, or a demon of alcohol and drug addiction, or a demon of sexual addiction, a demon of depression, a demon of homosexuality and all of this type of thing. When in fact, they are just unsaved people. They have nothing to restrain the flesh because of the Spirit of God does not dwell within them. Ephesians 6:11 tells us to "put on the whole armor of God", why? So "that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil". And this is dramatically illustrated, is it not, with Jesus’ use of Scripture when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. And as a result, we read in Luke 4:13, "When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time." That's how we deal with demonic influence. James describes the same phenomenon when he says, "Submit, therefore to God, resist the devil. And he will" what? "he will flee from you", James four, seven.

And I might also add that believers are never ever instructed in Scripture, to initiate an attack on demonic forces by rebuking them or binding them or exercising them as some erroneously teach in practice, we just don't see that. That's not only unbiblical, it's dangerous. I remember, as you will, the story in Acts 19, the seven sons of Sceva, remember how they tried to cast out the evil spirit. And then they said to the man and the demon, I'm gonna cast you out by the power of Jesus whom Paul preaches and the evil spirit answered, and said to them, "I recognize Jesus and I know about Paul, but who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leapt on them and subdued all them and overpowered them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." That's in Acts 19. So it's not a good idea, you know, to mess with these types of things in that way. And bottom line, while some people can be spatially indwelt, by a demon, in most cases, they are just influenced by demons. Paul described them as deceitful spirits, they propagate doctrines of demons, First Timothy four, one, if you want to see how Satan works, just look at false teachers, false doctrine, and the systems of the world world. He is the God of this world, and we see the world is the whole, the whole realm of Satan, where he exerts his influences on all of the systems of the world to thwart the purposes of God, whether it's the educational system, the political system, whatever it might be.

Now back to Mark, whenever Jesus encountered people that were demon possessed, the demons were terrified, and they recognized Him as the Son of God, and Jesus silenced them. And this must have happened on a rather routine basis. And by the way, these people still live amongst us today. It's not like the only demons only inhabited people back then, they still do it today. But once again, Jesus power and authority over the demons further validated his claim that he was indeed the Son of God. So in Mark's generalized overview here of Jesus ministry, he describes his followers, His deity. And then finally, he brings us to some insights here on his apostles. And the next time we get together, I'm gonna go into this in much more detail. But bear in mind, by this time Jesus has already selected Peter, Andrew, James and John. We read about that in Mark one verses 16 and following, and also he's called Matthew to come follow him, as we see in Mark two, verse 14, and following. But now he's going to formally commission those five along with seven new men. And so Mark tells us here that he went up on the mountain. And I'll stop there for a moment.

This was probably the western mountains that overlook the Sea of Galilee. I've been up on them. If you've ever been in my living room, you see a picture of me that a missionary friend took and I'm up on the mountain and in the background, you can see the Sea of Galilee, and you can see where the Jordan River comes into the sea. And that was the realm where Jesus spent most of his ministry at Bethsaida and Capernaum and Cora zine that's probably where Jesus went, those of you that are going to Israel with me, hopefully we'll have an opportunity to get up there. That's probably where Jesus went to pray, verse 13, "And he went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He Himself wanted and they came to Him."  I might add dear friends, I trust that you have a secluded place that is yours, where you can go before the Lord your God in private prayer, and do that on a routine basis. Let me put it to you very bluntly, you show me a man or a woman that's lacks in prayer, and I will show you a spiritual infant. Get serious about prayer. I'm not saying you have to have a mountain to go to. But you need to have places that are secluded, where you can spend time alone with the Lord, especially when there's some great decision that needs to be made. In fact, Luke tells us in his account and chapter six, verse 12, that Jesus spent the whole night in prayer to God. It's extremely important that he selected the right men for this incredibly important office.

And again, I might add that whenever we're faced with some momentous decision in our life, we need to come before the Lord in earnest persistent prayer, we also need to seek wise counsel, and too often we operate in the flesh rather than the spirit. And we go off half cockedon some fool's errand thinking that we know the will of God, when in fact we don't. We're just teasing ourselves when a tragic thing that can be, especially if you marry the wrong person, for example. So this was a very, very important decision. And Jesus also knew that he was calling these men to suffer for him, and eventually die for the cause of the gospel. So he would need to train them, he would need to empower them, love them as he did. So, "He summoned those," it says, "whom He Himself wanted." The Greek is much more emphatic, it denotes His sovereignty, in the sense that Jesus is summoning those whom He willed. In other words, he's causing them, he's calling them and causing them to come to him.

If I can put it a little differently, the Greek indicates that his will superseded their will. That's the idea. It's not like he's praying, and then he's going to approach these guys and say, Hey, guys, you know, I was just wondering if if you would be willing to be my apostles. That's not what's going on here. Not at all. John 15, verse 16, Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain so that whatever you ask of the Father, in My name, He may give to you." See, this is like our efficacious call to salvation. I mean, we understand that because man is spiritually dead and because he has no capacity to understand the things of the Spirit and because he is totally unable to repent, apart from renewing grace, Romans 9:16. Because of all of that, we have to trust in the sovereignty of God, to do what only He can do; bring men and women unto himself, to save those that he has elected by His grace. Therefore, we reject, for example, the pelagianheresy that would have us believe that man is perfectly capable on his own of surrendering to God and saving faith. And our responsibility is simply to persuade him to do so. That's just not a biblical concept. We are to preach the gospel and the Spirit uses us as instruments of righteousness to bring people unto himself. And so we depend upon the effectual call of God, to use his word, to convert sinners according to His sovereign grace and power.

Well, that's the same type of thing that's going on here, as he chooses his disciples. So he "summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him. And He appointed 12, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach." It's kind of reminds me of Moses ascending Mount Sinai, and to receive and transmit the 10 commandments, as we read in Exodus 18. And he says, "also to have authority to cast out the demons." So this was an amazing commission, that he was making on these men. And this is truly a rebuke and you must understand this, this is truly a rebuke against apostate Judaism of the day against the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Jesus has already called them "the blind leading the blind." Remember, he said in John 8:44, "You are of your father the devil you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

In other words, I'm not going to pick anybody out of your group. I mean think about it, the long-awaited Messiah suddenly appears and instead of choosing key men out of the ranks of the Jewish elite, the leaders of Israel, he considers them to be disqualified. And what does he do? He selects 12 very ordinary, unimpressive, uneducated, religiously and socially unqualified man to be His messengers. To be the men that would one day rule Israel's 12 tribes in the Messianic Kingdom, as we read in Luke 22, and Revelation 21. That was a footnote, apostles, "apostolos" in the original language literally means sent ones. So these were messengers, they were the sent ones of Jesus, they were representatives or ambassadors of Jesus, and originally it consisted of 12 men. Then Matthias took over for Judas when he was banished, and then Paul was commissioned later on by Christ alone. And I want you to understand something very clearly, there are no more apostles today. Apostles had to meet three basic qualifications. According to numerous New Testament passages. First of all, they had to be chosen directly by the Lord, for example, Luke 6:13, "and when the day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose 12 of them, whom He also named apostles."

Secondly, they were able to perform the signs of an apostle, being authenticated by miraculous quote, "signs and wonders and mighty work," Second Corinthians 12:12. And then thirdly, with their own eyes, they had to be witnesses of the resurrected Christ, Acts 1:21, through 25, Chapter 10, verses 39 through 41. In fact, in First Corinthians five eight, Paul explicitly states that he was the last person to have met this third qualification. There are no more. First Corinthians 15, beginning of verse seven, "He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all," as Paul says, “as to one untimely born," referring to himself, "He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God, but by the grace of God, I am what I am." So obviously, Paul saw his unique apostleship as something extraordinary, not something that was a normative pattern for generations to come. And any honest, unbiased assessment of men from that day forward, would affirm the fact that no man has had the abilities that these men had to duplicate the miraculous powers of the true apostle. Moreover, no one has been Christ's authoritative messenger, to receive divine revelation, since the apostles, not the Pope, or any other phony religious charlatan.

So Jesus appoints these 12 men from among the number of all those disciples that were following him. You know, it's really counterintuitive, isn't it? When you stop and think about it, you're going to invade Satan's kingdom of darkness with these guys. And I have to say, it kind of makes me feel good, because he could use me and you, right? I mean, it's not like, you've got to be something special. In fact, their greatest qualification is that they weren't special. And they were knuckleheads, just like me, just like you. In fact, if you look at the New Testament record, you see that they lacked humility. My they struggled with fear, they were immature, unreliable. I mean, they were like the most unlikely candidates. To be his apostles, his representatives, the only thing unique about them was their lack of qualifications. But they were the Father's sovereign choice. Just the kind of folks Jesus loves to radically transform and use for His glory.

Again, isn't it great, therefore he can use us too. And I close with what Paul said in First Corinthians 1:26, "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not so that he may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God."

Well, the next time we get together, we will meet these men and go into great detail to understand who they were and what God did in their life. May I challenge you to make it a priority, dear friend, make it a priority. To contemplate the glories of Christ. We've been given once again, just a little sample of that. What a glorious Savior, He is right? Father, thank You for these great truths. Help us to grasp them intellectually that we may, that we might live them out to the praise of your glory. And for those that do not know you as Savior or father, won't you bring conviction to their heart today, draw them unto yourself, help them to see their sin, and to see what Christ has done on their behalf, that they might repent and believe in Christ, that even today would be the day that they would experience the miracle of the new birth. We commit all to you and give you the praise in Jesus’ name. Amen.