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Bro. Bill Nichols
Thank you. I'm going to take an opportunity to say, along with Brother David, that we would be glad to hear any questions that you may have. The Holy Spirit will be the person that answers the question.
Sometimes it'll be me, sometimes it'll be Brother David, sometimes it may be Ben Mitchell, and sometimes it may be the Holy Word speaking to you as you read and study it. And we will do the best that we can.
I'd like to begin with a quick prayer. Most gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for all our many blessings. Thank you for providing us with this technology. Thank you for providing us with this place or these places where we may come together and meet with you even though we are miles apart.
Bless us and keep us, carry through with us on all the service today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. We're going to begin this morning with Luke chapter 9. And we will do a couple of verses as our normal, and then we will talk about them a little bit.
Luke 9 verse 1. Then he called his twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all devils to cure diseases. Always the case when I first get started. Here we go. Jesus did not only call the twelve, he gave them power to do what he called them to do.
That same principle holds true today. Whom God calls, God equips. Now verse 2. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. That's a simple little short sentence, and it's going to take us about 15 minutes.
To preach the kingdom of God, to preach the gospel and to heal the sick. There's a linkage between these two, to preach and to heal. And I would like to explore that linkage, and we're going to do that by going first to Matthew chapter 12 verse 1.
I'll give you a second to get there, and then I'll begin reading it. At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn. And his disciples were hungered and began to pluck the ears of corn to eat.
But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath. Now, I'm not going to ask this as a question for response, but you can respond if you want to.
Is there any place in the scripture that it says it's unlawful to eat on Sabbath? And I will answer that there's nothing in the Torah. There's nothing in the written scripture that would prohibit the disciples from doing what they did.
They picked the corn. That was okay. They worked it in their hands. They kind of threshed it. That was okay, and they ate it. They were allowed to do that, but there was nothing in the Torah that prohibited that.
But there was something in the rabbinic writings, the Talmud, that said you can't do that on the Sabbath. They said he was in violation of three rules of harvesting, of processing, and of eating on the Sabbath.
All of those were violations not of the scripture, not of the Torah, not of the written word of God, but of their interpretations of it. We've always got to be careful when we look at anybody's interpretation or commentary on the Bible.
Some of what they say is good, and some of what they say is not good. Well, how did Jesus respond to that? If you're going down to Matthew 12, verse 3, he talks about David and what David and his group did that was unlawful, and yet he was not held account for it.
He says, or have you not read in this law how on the Sabbath day the priest in the temple profaned the Sabbath, but they are blameless? Not only did David and his followers eat the showbread, but the priest profaned the Sabbath each Sunday.
And he says, but I say unto you, there's someone greater than the temple here. So let's go on. If you skip down to verse 9, Matthew 12, verse 9, it will read this way. And when he was departed, Vince, he went into their synagogue, and behold, there was a man which had his hand withered.
I highlighted that. I put that in boldface. Underline that, at least in your mind. We're going to come back to that. There was a man there that had a withered hand, and the Pharisees asked of Jesus, said, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?
Well, he tells us why. They asked that, that they may accuse him. They were looking for something for Jesus to do that they could accuse him. Well, if you go down through the next couple of verses, you will come to Jesus's conclusion at the end of verse 12.
Basically, what he says is, it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath. What he wants on the Sabbath is not necessarily sacrifices. He wants mercy. It's always lawful to do good on the Sabbath and every other day.
So, he shows them. Verse 13, then he said to the man, stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth, and it was restored whole like as the other. Now, you would think that the Pharisees would have liked that someone healed from a disease, or in this case, a withered hand.
But they were angry. They held counsel against him, how they might destroy him. They were not interested in anything that he could do. They were not interested in him. They were interested only in trying to destroy him.
But Jesus is a normal man. When Jesus knew it, which was right away, he withdrew himself from and great multitudes followed him. They were looking for the healing, and he healed them all. And he charged them that they should not make him known, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold, my servant.
Now, this is God talking to Isaiah about Jesus. Behold, my servant, that's Jesus, whom I have chosen, my beloved Jesus, in whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not strive or cry, neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. And look at verse 21, and in his name shall the Gentiles trust.
That couldn't have made the Pharisees very happy. Now, if you look down at verse 22, you will see that there was brought to him one possessed with the devil, blind and dumb, and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and the dumb both spake and saw.
And all the people were amazed and said, is this not the son of David? That's the people. But this is the Pharisees. When they heard it, they said, this fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub, the prince of devils.
Jesus knew their thought. And he said unto them, every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And I'm going to skip on down a little bit, but if I cast out devils by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come upon you.
And then he says at verse 33, either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt, for the tree is known by his fruits. And now he goes on in verse 34 to talk about the Pharisees.
He says, O generation of vipers, how can ye being evil speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things.
An evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. Then verse 36 says, but I say unto you, every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words shalt thou be condemned.
And now this is the verse that I was actually looking for when I began this passage. Matthew 12, verse 38. Remember at the beginning there was commandments given to the disciples, preach the gospel and heal.
And I told you I wanted to disclose the linkage between it. Here's where it comes into play. Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered him, Master, we would see a sign from thee. It's not enough that they saw him healing the blind.
They want a sign. Now go to chapter 16 of Matthew, verse 1. And you'll see another instance where the Pharisees and the Sadducees come tempting Christ and asking for a sign. And we will see his answer.
Chapter 16, Matthew chapter 16, verse 1. The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came tempting, you could say testing him, desired him that he would show them a sign from heaven. He has an answer for them.
He says, when it is evening, you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red. In the morning, it will be foul weather today for the sky is red. In the morning, oh ye hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times.
A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign and there should be no sign given unto you. But the sign of the prophet Jonah, and he left them and departed. And what was the sign from the prophet Jonah?
Jonah was dead and buried three days in the belly of the great fish. And on the fourth day, he arose. And that was the sign that they had. But they didn't see it. They didn't hear it. They didn't understand it.
They didn't hear or understand it because the Lord didn't want them to. Let's go on down now to a New Testament reference. First Corinthians chapter 1, verse 21. Chapter 1 of First Corinthians, verse 21.
For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom.
He sent them, the disciples, to preach the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, the Messiah, has come. The king is here. But he hasn't come in the way you envisioned. You thought he would come as a king riding a white horse, coming to judge and to rule with a rod of iron.
Well, he'll do that. But that's for later. Here, he is coming to protect and to serve his flock. You should have known this. You were told. But you did not have ears to hear, and therefore, you didn't understand.
Therefore, you didn't know. Well, if you will turn to Matthew 21, verse 1, we're going to pick up a passage that will introduce this sign that they were given in the Torah, and we will see why they didn't understand it.
Matthew 21, verse 1. And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, they were come to Bethphage, unto the Mount of Olives. Then Jesus sent two disciples, saying, Go into the village over against you, and straight away you shall find an astide and a colt with her.
Loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say aught unto you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them. And straight away he will send them. All this was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy king cometh unto thee, meek and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass.
Okay. Again, we will see later the king riding in on a white horse, coming to rule with a rod of iron. But that's for later. For now he is coming as a meek, humble servant, as the shepherd of the flock.
Later, when he comes riding with a white horse, Revelation 19, verse 11. The king is coming back. John says, I saw the heaven open, and behold, a white horse. And he that sat upon him was called faithful and true.
And in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.
And his name is called the Word of God. Well, if you didn't know until now, you know now, the Word of God, that's Jesus. Now, we're going to go all the way back to Luke 9, verse 2. And I'm going to read that sentence again, and we'll go on.
And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. So now we can see the linkage, I hope. If you can, I'm going to just describe it. The task is to preach the kingdom of God. The sign that the Jews needed was the healing of the sick.
And yet, even with the sign, all of the healings were done in order that they understand that the word that was being preached by these preachers, by these disciples, was true and was sent from the Messiah.
Even with that sign, most did not hear. The reason they didn't hear? Because God didn't want them to hear. Now, I'm going to go now back to the Old Testament, Isaiah chapter 6. We'll pick it up with verse 9.
And we will see in the Old Testament, the prophet that Matthew was alluding to earlier, Isaiah 6, verse 9. Go and tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not. See ye indeed, but perceive not.
Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.
Now, that's what the Lord told Isaiah to say. And Isaiah says this,. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.
But now, verse 13, a little sign of relief. But yet, in it shall be a tenth, we say a remnant, a tenth, and it shall return. And it shall be eaten as a teal tree, and as an oak, whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof.
So, they were given a sign. The sign was explained to them. And yet, most did not believe. The ones that did not believe are the ones that the Lord did not want to believe. Now, I thought it was interesting to note also that after Paul appealed to logic while preaching what might have been his greatest and certainly most eloquent sermon, aimed mostly at the Greeks, who desire what?
The Greeks desire wisdom. Spoken to mostly the Greeks at Mars Hill in Athens, he simplified his message. And here's why. He said, For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, and to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness.
But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, the power of God and the wisdom of Christ. So, what we have here are two groups of people. One group that doesn't believe, that's the big group, and those contain both Jews and Gentiles.
And then there's a remnant, a smaller group, those that are called. And in that group, there are two subgroups, the Jews and the Greeks. The Jews need to have a sign. The Greeks need to have their rationality spoken to.
And the Lord will do both. But the ones that hear him will be the ones he calls and the ones he wants to hear. Okay. Now, that's for the first two verses. We'll pick up the pace now, or Brother David will begin at four o 'clock.
And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey. He sent them out to preach and to heal. And he says to them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor script, neither bread, neither money, neither have two coats of peace.
Now, maybe I didn't tell you, we're back in Luke 9. We're now at verse 3. Luke 9 verse 3. What this verse actually prohibited was the packing of extra staffs and extra samples. The disciples were not to be carrying baggage for a journey, but to merely go with the clothes on their back.
Verse 4 says this. And whatsoever house you enter into, there abide, and thence depart. Now, what he's saying is, when you go into a city, find a place that accepts you, stay there until you're ready to leave the city, and leave the city from there.
Don't bounce from house to house. Stay where you are so that your friends can find you and so your enemies know that you're not hiding from them. Whatever place you go, stay there until you're ready to leave the city.
Now, verse 5 says something about another kind of a city. And whosoever will not receive you when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against thee. Now, I'm going to go into a commentary written by Matthew Henry.
Most of you probably know him. I'm going to read it because he is so eloquent, and this makes me sound like I'm educated. Matthew Henry says this. If there be any place that will not entertain you, if the magistrates deny you admission and threaten to treat you as vagrants, be them.
Do not force yourself upon them, nor run yourself into danger among them, but at the same time, bind them over to the judgment of God for it. Shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony against them.
This will, as it were, be produced in evidence against them that the messengers of the gospel had been among them to make them a fair offer of grace and peace. For this dust they left behind there so that when they perish at last in their infidelity, this will lay and leave their blood on their own hands.
Shake off the dust of your feet as much as to say you abandoned their city and will have no more to do with them. That's how Matthew Henry understood that verse. Now verse 16. And they departed and went through the towns preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
And again, I would look to Matthew Henry. What they did in prosecution of this commission, they departed from their master's presence, yet still having his spiritual presence with them, his eye and his arm going along with them.
And thus born up in their work. They went through the towns, some or the other of them, all the towns within the circuit appointed them, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. Their work was the same with their masters, both doing good, both to the souls and to bodies.
So what they're doing is they're acting with the eye and the arm of Christ with them, going through all the towns, preaching the gospel and healing the sick everywhere. All the work that they did was good work.
All the work they did was for signs to bring the believers to understanding that the message delivered. So now Herod, the tetrarch, heard all this, was done by him, and he was perplexed. Herod heard all that was done by Jesus and by his disciples, and he was perplexed because it was said of some that John had risen from the dead.
So that's concerning to Herod because Herod has had John the Baptist beheaded. Matthew Henry says this. We have here Herod's perplexity and vexation at this. The communicating of Christ's power to those who were sent forth in his name and acted by authority from him was an amazing and convincing proof of his being the Messiah above anything else.
That he could not only work miracles himself, but he can empower others to work miracles too. This spread his fame more than anything and made the rays of the sun of righteousness stronger by the reflection of them even from the earth.
Brother David made a comment in his prayer about the sun coming up. This is interesting. Matthew Henry says the same thing. He says this sun, he could have said this sun of God, the sun of righteousness, but he didn't.
He said the sun of his righteousness was stronger by the reflection of them even from the earth, which meant that such mean, illiterate men as the apostles were who had nothing else to recommend them or to rise any expectation from them, but they had been with him.
Let's see what that says. If you think about it, these disciples that were sent out were all untrained, illiterate men. They were mostly fishermen. There was a couple of educated men among them. Matthew was, but by and large, they were illiterate fishermen.
They had nothing about them to make anyone expect them to be able to do anything. The only thing that they had with them is they had been with Jesus. Acts chapter 4 verse 10 is going to confirm that. Let's look there.
Acts 4 verse 10. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled. And they took knowledge of them that when they had been with Jesus.
I misread that. And they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. When a country sees such as these healing the sick in the name of Jesus, it gives an alarm. Now, the news of Jesus had reached Herod and he was perplexed.
Who was this man creating such a stir? Was it John the Baptist risen from the dead? Or maybe some other prophet? Verse 7 says this. Now, Herod the Tetrarch heard of all that was done by him and he was perplexed because it was said of some that John had risen from the dead.
And of some that Elijah had appeared and of others that one of the old prophets was risen again. And Herod said, John, I have beheaded. But who is this of whom I hear such things and he desired to see him?
Well, I've got a question typed in here. Why did Herod want to see Jesus? Anybody have a comment about that or a question? Why did Herod want to see Jesus? Let me give you some suggestions. Do you think it might have been because he wanted to learn what Jesus had to tell him?
Or might he have just wanted to convince himself that it was not John the Baptist written from the dead? I got an answer that popped up. Fear. He was certainly afraid ultimately to kill him, but he wanted to see who this man was.
Thank you, John. I'm not sure what John that is, but these things are now popping up. And today, Dave, you were seeing it from everybody. He thought he could be John. He thought he could be John. That whoever this was that was creating all this stir, he thought it could have been John risen from the dead.
Now, verse 10. And the apostles, when they returned, told him all that they had done and took him and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. Now, for geographical reference, Bethsaida is on the north shore of the Galilee River where the Jordan River enters the lake.
Peter, Philip, and Andrew had all grown up there. This is the city of Peter and Philip and Andrew. John 1 .44 refers to Philip was of Bethsaida. That was his city. The city also of Andrew and Peter. Now, we know a little bit of history about Bethsaida.
And the people, when they knew it, followed him and received him and spake unto him. I'm sorry. And the people, when they knew it, followed him and he received them and spake unto them of the kingdom of God and he healed those that need him.
Now, we're going to go on. I don't think we quite have time, but I will just give you a little bit of indication of what's going to happen next time. We're going to go into what happens after the mob follows him out into the desert near Bethsaida.
They're out in the desert. There's nothing to eat. They're miles away. And one of the disciples say, Lord, send them home. There's nothing here for them to eat. He showed, the disciple that asked, showed a little sympathy and a little bit of understanding.
He understood where they were. He understood that they were in a desert place and there was no food available to them. Well, fortunately for them, there was some food in the crowd. One young man had brought a lunch.
There were a few fish and some bread. Now, certainly not enough to feed the multitude. So what does Jesus tell them to do? Anybody remember what Jesus tells them to do? This will be right on down in Luke chapter nine, verse 12 and so forth.
I don't have that on my screen, so I can't read it, but all of you, I'm sure can. Let me see. I'll get it on this machine, maybe. Okay. Let me go here and here and nine. And now scroll down. Okay. I'm getting some of that.
He told to make them sit down. He didn't say go get them food. Don't send anything. Sit down in groups of 50. It's kind of like we are here today, right? It's separated into sets. For them, it was more for accounting than it was for anything else.
So one said, send the multitude away that they go into town and the country roundabout lodge and get vittles for we are here in a desert place. But he said unto them, give you them to eat. And they said, we have no more but five loaves and two fishes, except we go and buy some meat for all his people.
Well, there were about 5 ,000 men. Now, if you can't think 5 ,000 men, it's kind of like we look at the number of people here that are attending this service. We're getting one hit per household. There might be five, four, three, seven.
We don't know. We can guess that if there are 5 ,000 men, there's probably at least 20 ,000 people. That is a whole slew of people. And what did they have? They had five loaves and two fish, and they didn't even bring them.
So what did the Lord do? The Lord says, have them sit down. Have them sit down in groups of 50. And they did. I don't know what they were thinking. I don't know what the disciples were thinking. I don't know whether they understood at this point whether he was going to do what he did, perform the miracle.
They had seen him performing miracles. This was not a great miracle for him. This was kind of like an ordinary kind of a miracle. I would think raising someone from the dead would be a greater miracle.
I would think making a lame man be able to walk would be a greater miracle. But I don't know if they were expecting a miracle or not. And the other thing that you may notice, the disciples didn't bring the five loaves and the two fishes.
A little boy did. So he made them sit down. Then Jesus took the bread and blessed it and break it. And he gave it to the disciples to sit before the multitude. So what did he do? He gave them, after he blessed the food, food to pass out to each of the groups of 50.
And so the disciples took the food after he blessed it and break it and passed it out. And they ate all the fish they wanted and they ate all the bread they wanted. And when they got through, they were all filled.
And there was taken out fragments from that which remained to them, 12 baskets, seven fish, two loaves, enough for a young boy to carry in his backpack, 12 baskets left over after everyone ate to his full.
That is a miracle of God. It's not God's greatest miracle, but it is a miracle nonetheless. God will provide that we need to know, especially in this day and this time. Most gracious heavenly Father, thank you for this day and thank you for all the many blessings that you've given us.
Thank you for this technology that we may use to reach out across the nation and across the world to have people join with us. Thank you for allowing us to be together, even though we are separated by miles.
Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to help us to understand the Holy Word, which you have also given us. Thank you most of all for your son that you gave us to redeem us, to pay for our sins, that we may be seen in the eyes of God the Father as the just son of righteousness.
And he may bear our sins on the cross, which he did 2000 years ago when he was nailed at the cross and our sins were nailed at the cross with him. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your remnant.
Bless us and keep us through all the services today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.