In this sermon, Pastor Babij examines the unique challenges that arose in Jesus’s Galilean ministry and how Jesus overcame them. These challenges were: people misrepresenting/mistreating Him, people imposing upon Him, spiritual forces seeking to hinder Him, and ministry needs beyond the capacity of one person. Pastor Babij also explains how these circumstances were instructive to the apostles and ought to be instructive for us.
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all right let’s take our Bibles this morning and turn to Mark chapter 3 Mark Chapter 3 The Gospel of Mark and we are going to continue on in this great gospel as we are learning as the main thrust of this gospel is to learn learning who Jesus is and uh correcting anything that we could be thinking about him that’s wrong and most things that we do think about the Lord God Christ before we become Believers is usually wrong and um so the Bible has to adjust this as to who he is so we can truly understand him and truly come to worship him and so we’re going to be looking at verses 7 through 19 this morning and as we think of that um let me just uh have a word of prayer and then I’ll get into it let’s pray father this morning as we come before the word of God we thank you holy spirit that you have been given to us to give us understanding as we open up the word of God as we hear it preached that you teach us what it says and that we can know the prescriptive will of God found in the word of God and Lord for this we’re grateful I pray that we would always give ourselves to your word so we can truly grow by it truly become strong with it and then ultimately Lord that we may become soldiers as believers in this life so we can Stand Up Against The Wiles of Satan and deal with the problems that is that are thrown at us as Believers and I pray that you would help us to see some of that today and I pray in Christ’s name amen now before I read the text I just want to go back and and just let you know that in this particular passage of scripture it’s going to be dealing with opposition and problems that arise really from faithful Ministry the widespread Fame of the Lord by this time in his Galilean Ministry brought people from all walks of life from all over the place and they came to find out what was going on for all kinds of reasons now because of this they experienced growth of different crowds of people that came to see him and because of that opposition Rose from that instances of crowds coming and problems came now Jesus of course could no longer go uh any place anymore he in fact going to the synagogue was very dangerous at this point in his ministry and we saw last time that the five conflictive narratives that led up to this passage climaxed in a growing antagonism toward Jesus and so Jesus was not going along with the status quo of the religious leaders the the Pharisees and scribes consider themselves remember righteous men who did not see any spiritually healing effects of uh from Jesus teaching or his ministry according to them he just had abhorrent behavior and of course they quickly became his enemies Jesus had been continually undermining the religious leaders to their Traditions to their rules to the status of their the go-to religious men they consider Jesus as a violator of the Sabbath a self-proclaimed holy man who fraternized with sinners and of course he presumed to forgive sins uh and then it becomes very clear at this point in the word of God that the religious leaders just are against him they are not for him at all so the religious leaders did not see that they were uh themselves the worst of sinners than those they despise their blindness closed themselves off to uh the righteousness of God and the reason why is because they established their own righteousness by written in oral law keeping so they saw themselves as strong as able as spiritually healthy and as discerning and of course as far as they were concerned they were not sick they didn’t need any spiritual physician like Jesus but don’t forget Jesus mission is that he came into the world as a physician of Souls and as a physician Jesus was deeply conscious of the sin disease gripping the spiritually dead Souls of those to whom he ministered they were dead and so it’s like Mark said in Chapter 2 of verse number 17 it is not those who are healthy who need a physician but those who are sick I did not come to call the righteous but Sinners so the irony of that text was that the Pharisees the religious moral and upright were just as needy of a spiritual doctor of healing of Medicine just as the tax collectors that they considered Sinners and the wicked so the healthy cannot condemn a doctor for going to the sick so Jesus came to bring healing to the ungodly to the Unholy to the spiritually blind and dead sinners of his ministry and of course those are like you and I we’re the same kind of people we all need Christ so as I already said because of the widespread Fame of the Lord Jesus the spiritually and physically Six Sick are now coming to him he’s no longer going to them they are coming to him so there’s a switch in the ministry so in the next section with the section we’re going to look at this morning we will see Jesus dealing with the problems as they arose during the ongoing forward forward movement of his mission to bring the gospel of the Kingdom to those who have not yet heard it so now the focus of our attention this morning is is Upon Jesus as he models a stick-to-itiveness in in the ministry while dealing with opposition and problems because any time any one of us are going to Faithfully minister and serve Jesus Christ believe me there will be opposition and problems you can mark it on your calendar and it’s going to come from all kinds of places all right so in a sense he’s now teaching his disciples who are watching that listen if you want to follow me If eventually we’re going to see that he picks his Apostles In this passage if you want to be someone who serves me as a servant leader then you have to deal with problems and you have to deal with opposition now if you don’t want to deal with problems in opposition don’t follow me because you will that’s part of the turf as a Believer you’ll you already found out it’s part of the turf to become a believer that you you uh found out that being a Believer you came into and were confronted with problems in opposition that you never had before before you came to Christ from family from co-workers from Associates from Neighbors From out of the blue people and they come they have come against you in some way because you now bear the image of Jesus Christ so now let’s let’s focus our attention on that and I want you to notice I would call it four common problems that arise while Faithfully doing Ministry or or I can say it like this Faithfully living your Christian Life all right so let’s look at read the text verse number 7 of chapter three I’ll read down to I’ll read down to verse 12 and then I’ll pick up the other part when I get there verse 7 Jesus withdrew to this to the sea with his disciples and a great multitude From Galilee followed and also from Judea and from Jerusalem and from I do MIA and Beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of tire and sidon a great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him and he told the disciples that a boat should be 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 then verse 13 says and he went up on the mountain and summoned those who he himself wanted and they came to him now let me just stop there and I’ll pick it up when I get there so here we have in verse number six and seven the first problem that arises of course I have to go back to verse 6 to pick up the problem is going to be those who will try while you’re ministering Faithfully to mistreat you to misrepresent you so after the last crisis narrative the Pharisees and the herodians began to plot against Jesus so Jesus just did not fulfill the religious and political expectations concerning who they thought the Messiah should be which of course centered on an anticipation of his glorious rule of overtaking the political leaders of Rome and then bringing in the kingdom of God that didn’t happen that’s what they were expecting so the religious estab establishment totally missed the messiah’s spiritual saving Ministry and his identity as the son of man so Jesus constantly ministered in the shadow of unbelief and open hostility he was misunderstood attacked rejected by the very people that he came to save and that would have been the nation of Israel he came to save them specifically and bring the gospel to them and of course the Gentiles too but in this case the religious leaders were now rejecting him and so if you go back up to verse number six of chapter 3 it says the Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the herodians against him as to how they might destroy him now if you remember from last week the religious and the political parties united against Jesus now this was very strange because they were definitely not bed fellows they were it was a strange partnership because they both held hated each other in a very zealous way but nonetheless they came together because they had a common Mission and that’s the destroy Jesus so these two unlikely parties plotted not just to stop Jesus or to slow him down but the text says that they may destroy him that means they wanted to assassinate him they wanted to get rid of him once and for all they were called Jesus was calling causing all kinds of problems within the religious realm of his day and they just couldn’t take it anymore and so Jesus gives us a good understanding of their character in The Gospel of Mark where he says about them they caused the scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites and he says the reason why they are is because they have learned to clean out clean up the outside of the vessel of the cup of the dish but inside and he’s talking about their inside is full of robbery and self-indulgence and he goes on to call them blind guides and that when they went out to make a disciple they made their disciple uh twice as much fit for hell than hell than they themselves because they were not teaching the truth they were teaching their rules and their regulations not the word of God and so therefore Jesus finally says about them so you too outwardly appear righteous to men but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness so that’s how the Lord diagnoses uh the Jewish religious leadership of the day and now after several events watching him they’re against him they are so against him and as I mentioned last time these religious leaders had no qualms of plotting murder on the Sabbath remember they had a problem with healing on the Sabbath but no problem with planning murder on the Sabbath and so you can see the hypocrisy blaring in that particular text so how does the Lord the prop so the problem is this the Pharisees and the herodians were plotting to kill Jesus and possibly do harm to his disciples so how does he solve that problem well he solves it um by prudence by wisdom it’s a simple solution actually he what he does is that he moves to a safer place of ministry it’s common sense that’s all he does look what it says in verse number seven this is what Jesus does after that events it says Jesus withdrew to the sea with his disciples that’s it he solved the problem it was a simple yet wise solution no and and sometimes that solution we ought to take too there are times than we when people would meet mistreat us or come against us as Christian The Simple Solution would be uh to go where they’re not all right and these are not people that when you witness to to them they are listening to you these are people who are against you who want to mistreat you who want to malign you and so the common solution could be um go where they’re not all right so Jesus Retreats out of fear and not out of not out of a fear uh but out of providential Providence I’m calling it right and the reason why uh his time had not yet come all right it wasn’t time for Jesus to die that’s going to be off almost another year from this point in scripture maybe more than that all right depending on what where he’s at from where he started his ministry so Jesus still has much to teach and to do before his time of final Conflict comes so Jesus ministry has become a magnet to people but that led to another problem and so here’s the second problem that we see in verse number 7 through 10 and that’s the problem of those who actually want to impose upon you all right and they will now so that the influence of the servant Jesus and his ministry definitely had an element of Attraction Jesus was attracting all kinds of people now look at what it says in verse number seven it says that he went to the seashore all right and so he’s preaching now on the seashore and it says a great multitude From Galilee followed now of course Galilee was where he was ministering all this time this has been his Galilean Ministry so those in the local area knew all about what he was doing they were there probably for all the things that happened from chapter one till now and so they were aware of his character they were aware of his power they were aware of his authority that he had over diseases over demons over all kinds of things and so they were there right on the seashore they probably were in the front rows but maybe they weren’t maybe they were on the side and letting the people who have not heard him yet get close up but notice that was the local crowd but notice the distant crowd that came this is very interesting you may miss it if you read through the scripture too quickly it says there uh it says and also from Judea and from Jerusalem that South Israel and that’s 100 miles away now that that’s that to me that blows my mind they came from they Journey from Jerusalem in Judea to see him and listen to him some 100 miles away and then it says from dumia that’s the Deep South that’s 140 to 160 mile Journey up to Capernaum I to me it was an ancient realm of Edom between the southern borders of Palestine and Arabia so see the message had gone far and wild Travelers were taking you down the main roads now one thing that’s interesting that you may miss here there was good roads from north to south because the Romans built the roads all right now but of course not only uh did they build those roads but those roads were roads that the people were able to use and the people were able to uh get on and move from one place to another so see they and then it says there beyond the Jordan the Eastern crowd came from the other side of the Jordan River and and then of course the vicinity of tire and sidon was the foreign crowds that came from The Phoenician cities of tires some 50 of course that was Northwest of Galilee and tire was about 50 miles and uh side on about 70 miles which lie of course on the Mediterranean Sea Coast in the north from the areas outside Palestine and that would be Northwest of Galilee so like a magnet Jesus drew the sufferers from all these countries and none of them of course reached him in vain however the crowds could be quite imposing and overwhelming that preparations had to be put in place to accommodate those who would take advantage and impose on the goodness and the mercy of a servant such as Jesus Christ so before we see how this problem of the great crowds will solved there must be another question that is raised why did the crowds come from such distant places especially when traveling in those days was dangerous and difficult for you and I to travel a hundred miles maybe uh it would be about in what an hour a hundred a couple hour and a half maybe an hour and 45 if we’re driving about 60 miles an hour all right so things that a couple hours but for them to travel 100 miles would be almost a week to do about 20 miles a day and to take all the remember along the way there wasn’t you know you stop off the road and get a have a market there could have been certain markets set up because they knew they were going to make money along the way but you had to bring a certain amount of provision with you as you go to uh actually Minister um see Jesus preaching so these crowds came and why did they come it says right there in verse number eight notice what it says it says and from Jerusalem and from idemia and Beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of Tire inside on a great number of people heard all that he was doing and came to him all right so why did they come because they heard they heard some heard different things about what Jesus was was doing some heard about his authority the authority of his teaching uh a teaching that they’ve never heard and known before some heard that leopards were made clean some heard that Jesus care in healing a woman with a high fever some came because they heard demons being exposed and cast out of their victims some came because they heard about a withered hand being restored like new some came because they heard about a paralyzed man who was forgiven of all his sins and then was completely healed some came because they heard A Man Called Jesus was acting like the Messiah as the prophet the prophets had written about long ago they heard that they acted he Jesus acted like the god of creation who spoke and it was so they heard that he had compassion like the god of the Old Testament they heard that Jesus displayed his Holiness by judging sin like the god of the Old Testament they heard that Jesus exercised his authority and will as God does some heard some of those things some heard part of those things some heard one of those things some may have heard all of those things so when they heard all these things people from the north the South the East and the West came seeking Jesus and they brought with them those riddled with diseases those burdened by sin and those wearied by legalistic teaching that made life more burdensome than it already was they came with the hope that Jesus Christ could be the Savior announced in the Hebrew Prophets not all came for that reason but some did so okay how did Jesus solve the problem of the great crowds that could impose upon him well he solved the problem by planning a small boat to escape again a simple solution to a problem but look what it says in our text in chapter 3 verse number nine and he told his disciples that a boat should stand ready for him because of the crowd so that they would not crowd him now that’s kind of a Kind way of saying it it’s because the great crowds and their zealous desire to hear and to see and to touch Jesus just kept increasing the so the disciples were told to provide a small boat close at hand so that he could escape from the pressure of the crowd now why such measures well because word got out about the power of Jesus to heal in fact many people saw it look at verse number 10 it says for he had healed many in verse number 10. all right and then but but there was something else in this passage I want you to notice once the crowd got word and realized that Jesus healed many and all the person needed to do was touch him what did they what do you think they started doing it says look at the rest of verse number 10 for he had healed many with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him again a nice way of saying it in other words those who had diseases scourges afflictions continued to fall on him to fling themselves at him and practically throwing themselves at Jesus the verb is durative in force describing a continued action this was going on and on and on this wasn’t stopping and the Lord of course knew this was going to happen so and all that they wanted to do is touch Jesus now we know later on in the gospel when the woman with the blood issue touches Jesus he felt power go out of him and she was healed remember that so see this is this is what they found out hey all I got to do is touch the guy and I’m going to be healed of whatever disease I have and so see what happened this this caused really the people who came for the right reasons ended up being the wrong reasons because Jesus could Escape into a small boat onto the Sea of Galilee actually it means to avoid the crush of the crowd and so the crowd now really did not care about Jesus but only what they can get from him so there’s a switch in the in the Zeal of the crowd the servants that really servants will some way be taken advantage of that’s just the nature of being a servant and if the gospel of Mark is about being a servant then servants have to be imposed upon and they are going to be misunderstood and oftentimes mistreated so in a sense as disciples are looking on this and learning these problems and lessons of course Jesus is going to call them to be Apostles right and of course the question is do you really want to follow me because you know what if you follow me it’s not going to be easy if you are going to follow me you are going to run into problems in opposition if you are going to follow me you’re definitely going to have these things happen so Jesus of course was in this case willing to heal them all and so that means truly the kingdom of God had come upon them however because of this situation Rose another situation all right it’ll almost in Rapid Fire and that situation is now of course we are looking at the Physical Realm now the spiritual realm Rises up and attacks Jesus all right so we come to a third problem and the third problem is those who will seek to hinder and obstruct our forward movement in ministering the Gospel of Jesus Christ now before I look at verse number 11 and 12 so scripture displays the spiritual world as being very active when Jesus is present in other words the demons can’t hide themselves when Jesus is present they have to be exposed they have to be exposed in some way or another they could not be covert when Jesus was around Jesus very presence draws out the unclean spirits so Jesus goes head to head with the power structure of evil so the problem we see in this these verses is that demons give no help to the crowd as to who Jesus is and the reason why is because the nature of demons the nature of demons is not to give truth the nature of demons is to always deceive now what’s interesting about that is that they are always undermining what is true even when they make a truth claim their motives are all twisted and deceiving now look at verse number 11 it says whenever the unclean spirits saw him they fell down before him and shouted you are the Son of God now is that true yes it’s true that is absolutely true um but even though the demons recognize the deity of Christ by shouting you are the son of God there’s something else going on all right by the very behavior of the Demons what is the behavior of the Demons they fall down before him and then they shout this truth claim so by the very behavior of the Demons to prostrate themselves before Jesus as if as if Jesus was there a vowed master and they were his obedient servants that could give the crowd the impression that Jesus was their prince that he was their leader in fact I believe that this is what exactly is going on that the behavior and the verbal demeanor of the Demons were intentionally orchestrated to give that impression to the crowd right that Jesus was the the leader of the Demons because they’re so obedient to him and they’re always bowing down as it to worship Him right now in fact if you look at Chapter 3 of Mark in verse number 22 one made deduce that there were some there was some success to the attempts to accomplish this impression where look what it says in verse 22 of Mark chapter 3 the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying he’s possessed by Beelzebub now Beelzebub is another way of saying Satan right and he cast out demons by the rulers of the Demons so that’s the impression that the demons were trying to accomplish amongst the crowd they accomplished amongst the Jewish leadership from Jerusalem and of course we’re going to look at that at a later time but see in other words the demons even when they make truth claims are not truthful they have another motive going on they were thinking the crowd that Jesus was in somehow In Cahoots with the demons but he was not and only his true disciples would know that so our Lord did not desire the testimony from an obviously Evil source so just keep in mind Jesus is ministering in a context of substantial misunderstanding and constant conflicting Messianic expectations on what he’s supposed to be and what the Messiah is actually supposed to do so Jesus avoids his identity as Messiah being misrepresented especially by demons and the demons wanted to hinder Jesus in order to advance their own diabolical agenda and that is to mislead and deceive people away from the kingdom of light and keep them in the kingdom of darkness that’s what they always do they still do that today so how does the Lord solve this problem well it tells us in verse number 12. all right Jesus Jesus by his authority does not allow the demons to spread the message about who he is so Jesus holds back demonic testimony and solves this immediate Problem by strongly rebuking the unclean spirits look at verse 12. it says he earnestly warned them not to tell who he was all right that’s what he told them and of course they are not given a choice they must listen to him because Jesus is their creator lord judge and King of the Kingdom of Light That overcomes the kingdom of darkness remember what it already says in scripture but if I cast out demons by the Finger of God in the kingdom of God has come upon you Jesus mission is not just to defeat one demon or lay waste in but to lay waste the entire demonic power structure and that is what he’s going to do before it already told us in it tells us in the New Testament in uh the gospel of First John it says the Son of God appeared for this purpose he came into this world for this person that he might destroy the works of the devil all right so for Christians we are not called to cast out demons we have no authority over demons what we are called to do is to resist them in the truth and put on the whole armor of God so we’re able to stand up against demonic warfare all right that also means again disciples looking on problems troubles fighting with demons I don’t want that you know what if you don’t want to follow Christ then those are some things that are going to take place even for believers today and all throughout history Believers have run into these kind of problems and remember the spiritual world is very active and when you become a Believer you begin to see that some of the things that are going on in the world are are see they talk about this in the news and that in the news there’s demonic manipulations in that are going on behind the scenes in governments that we don’t see but the Bible of course shows us like in Daniel in in the great nations of this world that demonic influence was behind the scenes going against the nation of Israel all right so and of course against Believers today but remember we don’t have to fear those things because Jesus Christ defeated Satan on the cross he defeated our greatest enemy on the cross so we have no fear of that so don’t live in fear of that we are to fear God right and we are to fear the God who loves us and who cares for us who died in our place who rose again who gives us eternal life who gives us his Spirit who gives us his word who tells us the truth we are to live there that’s where we’re to live and so you and I with this going on there’s a widespread expansion of Jesus ministry and the crowds are growing and of course When the Crowds grow what usually happens here’s the next problem in the last one this morning the problems of multiplying work more people means what more work that means if you have more people you need more servants right but you need real servants you don’t need just people that are going to use servants or use Jesus or impose upon him you need people who really understand who he is are getting to understand who he is and his mission is and get in there with them in spite of the problems that will come in the opposition that will come and the spiritual forces against us that are already there in spite of those things so what does Jesus do now with this problem of multiplying work well in verse number 13 and 19 you know what he does he solves this problem of needing more servants in three ways and I think this is these are things that we ought to be doing in our own life too here’s the first thing he does he prays now look what it says in Mark chapter 3 13 it says and he went up on the mountain and summoned Those whom him he himself wanted and they came to him now the parallel passage to this is in Luke chapter 12 verse 13 and Luke tells us this it was at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray and he spent the whole night in prayer now Mark doesn’t tell us that but Luke tells us that all right so Jesus here’s this all these crowds these issues that are coming up the work is increasing and so what does he do he goes into a solitary place a mountain and he goes and he prays to the father about what’s going on in his life about what’s going on about the great need and the great need is going to be that he spends all night in prayer to pick the apostles to pick the 12 men that are going to represent him and if it was not for this happening you and I would not be here today you and I could never be saved because these men actually carry down the work and the work is still going on so what they did and what God ordained them to do is still happening today now there’s no more Apostles don’t get me wrong but there are the disciples because there was only 12 of course and then if John was the last one he died all right Judas had to be replaced all right but in the end the the number was 12. so he prays and he prays all night to pick the apostles and of course Jesus prayed because he was a man uh he prayed because he needed fellowship with the father and he needed to ask the father about uh the work that he needed to do while he was on the earth and he prayed because he was dependent on the father for all things and especially uh to be obedient to the will of the father while he was on Earth because Jesus Christ remember had to be obedient perfectly obedient that along with him being the perfect sacrifice those two things had to come together I preached on that several messages ago so between the times of servant work there is alone time with the father in prayer and I said already that if you are are giving out in in service then you must be taking in if you’re going to give out you’ve got to take in and how do you take in you take in by prayer so we gain spiritual resources and wisdom and strength by of course uh continued and joyful prayerful times before God if we meet with people we must first meet with God so a servant is to pray because Ministry is riddled with difficulties and problems of course this is only in this section we’re going to get to the joyful part of it too all right I don’t want to paint such a picture today that I say oh I don’t want I would never want to do that because we must also pray to the Lord for those who wish to be next Deacons and those were next to be the next elders and pastors if we are to continue the unfinished work of the church to make the Disciples of Jesus Christ so prayer of the gathered body is part of how we set people aside and recognize yes they should do this and then of course if you notice in our passage in verse number 13 Jesus does something else he summoned those who he himself wanted and they came to him now what is interesting about that passage is that Jesus picked those he wanted to spend time with he did not let anyone into his inner circle only those who he specifically chose in verse number 13. he only wanted those that he knew would be those who were be Ministers of the Gospel but remember he also chose Judas who would betray him he also chose him Judas did not just stumble into the crowd he was chosen all right and um so for you and I we as a church must call Those whom the Lord gives us to be our next deacons and elders and pastors of course all Elders passage the same thing and test their character to see if they are qualified and willing to do the hard work of ministry not just anybody could do it only qualified people are to do it now everybody’s to be a servant but not everybody’s to do those tasks and then a third thing Jesus Does uh in solving this problem of ministering to the great crowds is it says in verse number 14 and he appointed 12. so that they would be with him and that he could send them out so what is he what he does is he appoints servant leaders to send out to do the work to minister to the crowds that’s what he does and that’s the pattern today we pray we summon workers and we ordain or appoint them to go and do the work so we must we want really Jesus was committed to invest in them and prepare them to carry on a difficult Mission so we also must ordain those who are called and place them in the work of service to the Lord and his people in order to continue to make disciples of Jesus today the work is still going on now what is interesting about where this leads is he picks 12 men to do two things matter of fact he picks them to do the same two things he’s doing and if you remember there are two words that summarize Jesus ministry it’s the same two words that summarize the apostles Ministry now back in chapter 1 and verse 39 of Mark the main activity of Jesus was preaching it says and he went into their synagogues throughout all Galilee preaching and casting out demons and then he says also in Luke chapter 4 I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also for I was sent for this purpose and he kept on preaching so one of the things that Jesus was to do was to preach the kingdom of God that’s how people will get saved and as other activity was found in verse 39 and that was too cast out demons so two things preach the gospel of the Kingdom secondly dismantle the kingdom of Satan and how was the kingdom of Satan dismantled by preaching by rescuing people with the gospel of Christ right they come to Believe In Christ and what happens they get rescued from the kingdom of darkness and once you’re rescued by Christ from the kingdom of darkness to the king of life he has you Satan can no longer get you he has no authority over you anymore but if you look in our text in Mark chapter 3 verse 14 that’s exactly the same thing the apostles are to do the main activity of the Apostles verse 14 to preach he appointed 12 so that they would be with him and that he could spend time spent send them out to preach and then in verse 15 to have authority to cast out demons the same thing so preaching dismantles disrupts disorganizes the kingdom of Satan it is that powerful I don’t know if we always think of the Gospel as being that powerful but you know what for anyone today any one of us today who are saved it took the power of the Gospel of God of Heaven to rescue you from his Dominion there’s no way you could have rescued yourself no one else could have rescued you only the Gospel of Jesus Christ could rescue you from such a dark kingdom in which Satan’s main goal is to keep you there and to deceive you that all is well with you you don’t need Jesus Christ you don’t need his cross you don’t need his resurrection you’re fine go along in your own religion have your own philosophy of how to live life you’ll be all right it’s all be all all the goodness in your life that you’ll come before God and God say oh you’re such a good person come in no no no there’s no goodness there’s no amount of that we can offer God to equal what happened on the cross you had to be per you have to be perfect to be before God perfect and the only one who can make you perfect is Christ himself and once you are made perfect by God that God Nails your sin to the cross and he puts his righteousness on your account and the father sees the righteousness of Christ that’s how you get into heaven that’s how you’re kept saved but if you notice as we go along and almost finish here that the 12 are specifically appointed Servants of the kingdom of God to help carry out the work of Jesus Christ Jesus says I want these guys around me so for the time I have here I’m going to teach them everything they needed to do to go into the world a hostile world and preach the gospel and it says in verse 16 to 19 look what it says and he appointed 12.
right Simon now you say you know if you look at this list and you heard the list before you say well some people think that these apostles were a bunch of wimps Simon who would later be called little Stone John and James are called by Jesus in verse number 17 as the sons of thunder these guys were no wimps these were special operators for the Lord Jesus Christ in fact if you go down to James right James son of alphaeus in verse number 18 he was finally known in history as camel news because he spent so much time on his knees as a prayer Warrior and then look at Simon the Zealot in verse number 18. the last part it says Simon dezel you know what a zealot was it was somebody who was in a group who want to overthrow the government of Rome these guys were no Fly by Night sissies these were tough individuals who are willing on to understand the mission of the kingdom of God and go out into the world and take it to a world that was dying in sin these were tough and they became tougher in fact if you notice when you’re reading the word of God were to be good soldiers that learn how to please our commanding officer Jesus Christ that’s who we are supposed to be soldiers are people who are expecting Warfare they’re expecting battle they’re expecting trouble and they’re trained for it they’re ready for it and they’re ready with the word of God the spiritual the word of God is our sword it’s our weapon against spiritual wickedness because why we have the truth and the truth exposes all deception and all lies that’s what it does so see these 12 Apostles that are listed here were men Thaddeus it says here his name means praise actually the name pointed to the heartiness and Thanksgiving of this particular Apostle hence to his character so in the midst of toughness there was people who can praise who can give Thanksgiving to God who can pray who can carry out the work and of course along with that Judas expect ascariot is chosen and and of course he is disappointing there’s always going to be someone disappointing he he betrays Jesus with a kiss that’s how he betrays them and he betrays them because he loved money and he loved the world and he had no confidence in Jesus mission he wanted the Roman government to be overtaken too so he missed out on it so how narrow after all was this Apostolic Circle and how closely connected most of his members were and those members were gathered around Jesus Christ and those men Faithfully almost all of them lost their life by being persecuted and keeping I mean how how could it be that these these people these men were definitely chosen by God but were they ready they have been watching Jesus they have been following the crisises they have been realizing the problems they have seen the opposition and they were still willing to put it all on the line for Christ aren’t you thankful for that but you know what God’s still calling disciples today and we need Christians that have that kind of character that are willing in this world to give up some things and to realize the problems and oppositions that will come to Faithfully carry out and live the Christian Life and do the work of God and bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who have not yet heard it in your own family where you work your neighbors and the people that are around you you know don’t know Christ and they may be nice fine Pleasant people but nice fine and pleasant does not get you into the kingdom of God and you know that they don’t and Satan wants to keep them comfortable comfortable with that truth you can’t let it be comfortable but I tell you as soon as you open up your mouth and decide to live your life for Christ you will run into opposition don’t worry about it though Jesus says um I’ll never leave you or forsake you I’m with you to the end of the age all his disciples he’s with us to the End of the Age so he’s going to be with us Christ takes sinful tough men and makes them Godly who are not stopped by problems who are not stopped by difficulties but continue to grow grow to be servant leaders and those servant leaders become very very powerful influence against toppling the kingdom of Satan you wouldn’t think that would be the way to do it why isn’t it by swords and tanks and planes it’s not it’s by the gospel so if you want if you want to win over Al Qaeda if we want to win over Isis get the gospel to them somehow pray the gospel gets to them and the Lord will win them one by one and then the whole whole world yield their whole uh perception of what life’s all about will all change see that’s how to do it right so that’s what the Lord has done here he’s taken us through a time where we’re seeing that problems in opposition will come but he is our Lord he will teach us he will strengthen us we can put the whole armor of God to stand up against the wild of Satan and we will have we already have the victory now let’s go do the work let’s pray Lord this morning I do thank you again for the gospel Jesus Christ I thank you Lord for its Clarity I thank you Lord for it s availability to us and I pray Lord that we not forsake it but we would be prepared also always to be in it and Lord to Proclaim it and to live it so Lord we would be found to be faithful disciples like the apostles make us those kind of people I pray in Christ’s name amen