I always think of attending this conference, which
seems to be an annual event, the word
privilege always springs to my mind, because it
really is a privilege to come here at
a fellowship with so many servants of the
Lord whom we esteem so highly in love
for their work's sake.
Tremendous privilege.
Privilege to be here and meet young people
moving out to the field.
I think one of the greatest joys of
my life is to see young people on
fire for the Lord Jesus, forsaking all to
follow him.
He's really worthy.
I think it's a tremendous privilege to be
here with the brothers and sisters from CMML
and MSC, Missionary Service Committees, and see these
living examples of servanthood.
People who are doing everything in their power
to serve the Lord, to serve his people,
and to show us the kindness of God
for Jesus' sake.
It's tremendous.
And it's a privilege to be here and
meet again the Christians from the area who
have a heart for missions and who show
it by their interest and by their prayers
and by their sacrificial gifts.
I think one of the most humbling things
that happens to me in the Christian life
is when somebody comes to me and says,
I pray for you every morning.
And I know that many of the missionaries
have that experience.
I pray for you every morning.
It's tremendous, tremendous privilege.
So we just want to express that note
at the very outset.
When I announce the chapter we're going to
be studying, some of you are going to
have cardiac arrest because you're going to fear
that you already heard it here.
We were on chapter six of Luke, but
we're going to graduate to chapter nine tonight.
Chapter nine of Luke's gospel.
And I'd just like to read tonight the
first fifteen verses.
Luke chapter nine, verses one through fifteen, reading
from the New King James.
Then he called his twelve disciples together and
gave them power and authority over all demons
and to cure diseases.
He sent them to preach the kingdom of
God and to heal the sick.
And he said to them, take nothing for
the journey, neither staffs nor bags nor bread
nor money, and do not have two tunics
apiece.
Whatever house you enter, stay there, and from
there depart.
And whoever will not receive you, when you
go out of that city, shake off the
very dust from your feet as a testimony
against them.
So they departed and went through the towns,
preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
Now Herod the Tetrarch heard of all that
was done by him, and he was perplexed
because it was said by some that John
had risen from the dead, by some that
Elijah had appeared, and by others that one
of the old prophets had risen again.
And Herod said, John, I have beheaded, but
who is this of whom I hear such
things?
And he sought to see him.
The apostles, when they had returned, told him
all that they had done.
And he took them and went aside privately
into a deserted place belonging to the city
called Bethsaida.
And when the multitudes knew it, they followed
him, and he received them and spoke to
them about the kingdom of God, and healed
those who had need of healing.
When the day began to wear away, the
twelve came and said to him, Send the
multitude away, that they may go into the
surrounding towns and country and lodge and get
provisions, for we are in a deserted place
here.
He said to them, You give them something
to eat.
They said, We have no more than five
loaves and two fish, lest we go and
buy food for all these people.
For there were about five thousand men, he
said to his disciples, make them sit down
in groups of fifty.
They did so, and made them all sit
down.
We'll read the next two verses.
Then he took the five loaves and the
two fish.
Looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke
them, gave them to the disciples to set
before the multitude.
So they all ate and were filled, and
twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken
up by them.
Before looking at the word, I'd just like
to say I had a strange experience studying
this chapter.
I found whenever I was reading about the
disciples, whenever they were on center stage, I
became uneasy because I couldn't be sure what
they were going to do next.
But whenever I read about the Lord Jesus
in this chapter, I was perfectly composed, because
I knew he would always do and say
the right thing.
Maybe some of you will have that experience
as we go through the chapter these nights.
And we're at the close of the Lord
Jesus' Galilean ministry.
Pretty soon, he's going to wind his way
down to Perea on the east side of
the Jordan, and then the journey up through
Jericho to Jerusalem for his passion, his death,
his resurrection.
Once more here, he's going to be sending
out the disciples to proclaim the message glorious.
And we know that this was a special
mission on which the twelve were sent.
We know that some of the Lord's instructions
were later reversed.
Luke chapter 22, verses 35 and 36.
Luke 22, verses 35 and 36.
Then he said to them, when I sent
you without money bag, sack, and sandals, did
you lack anything?
So they said nothing.
Then he said to them, but now he
who has a money bag, let him take
it, likewise a sack, and he who has
no sword, let him sell his garment and
buy one.
And so some of these instructions were reversed
later on, and yet these verses are part
of the inspired text of the scripture.
They must have some message for us today,
and we want to look at them and
see what we can find of practical value
in the verses before us.
What might the Lord be saying to us
through these verses?
Before I get into that, I'd like to
say something about the Lord's method.
We must constantly remind ourselves of his strategy.
He had taken twelve disciples, only twelve, and
he was going to train them on an
individualized basis.
He was going to teach them the principles
of the kingdom of God.
He was going to live with them, and
he was going to take them out on
on-the-job training.
If he saw flaws in their character, he'd
tell them about it, so that when he
sent them forth, they were equipped for the
task to which he sent them.
We think of this today as personal discipling,
and I think it's good for us all,
including myself, to ask ourselves, is this the
way you're carrying on the work of the
Lord?
I would say the attitude was, all right,
you're saved now, you're baptized, you're received into
fellowship, your responsibility is to attend the meetings
of the assembly regularly.
That's the way you'll get your training.
That was good, that was good.
And over a period of time, it's wonderful,
the doctrine you receive, the teaching you receive.
But, today's generation of young Christians, I think,
have hit on something that goes back to
the method of the Lord Jesus, and that's
individual discipling.
When a young person gets saved, an older
Christian is a hold of that person, meets
with him regularly, goes over the word of
God with him, gets to know him on
an individual basis, gets to know character deficiencies
and speaks to him about it, gets to
know things in his life that might not
be Christ-like.
They talk together about it and work on
it.
And then takes them out on practical Christian
work.
And it's really wonderful to see how young
people grow under this type of nurture.
This is what the Lord Jesus did.
He wasn't just satisfied to preach to crowds
and teach them in that way, he chose
twelve and poured his life into them, inculcated
in them these great principles of the kingdom,
and involved them in preaching, teaching, and other
branches of Christian service.
I'll never forget when I was asked to
take a funeral.
I was very new in the work of
the Lord, and they said, Oh Bill, Mrs.
Jones died, would you take her funeral?
My legs turned to India rubber and my
lips turned to blubber.
I had no idea how to take a
funeral.
Nobody had ever taken me out and explained
to me how to tailor a funeral for
the individual who had gone home to be
with the Lord.
Certainly there were no books of changed sermons
to use at such a time.
But I'm glad to see young people who
graduated from that and who are interested in
working with individuals, seeing them grow under the
authority of the word of God.
Some time ago we had a young lady
named Charlemar saved in our assembly.
She was saved, I think, on Sunday and
Wednesday night.
She turned up at the meeting with a
head covering, Wednesday night.
And I said to her young brother, I
said, How does she know about a head
covering between Sunday and Wednesday?
Oh, he said, Sandra is discipling her.
The elders never had to say a word,
it was a person who was discipling her
that did it.
And of course, Sandra, that girl who did
the discipling, she's down in Brazil tonight with
her husband, Eric Shortman.
Saved six years, the two of them, and
down on the field tonight.
So I think at the outset of this
chapter, we might very well ask ourselves, Am
I discipling individually those whom I'm leading to
the Lord?
Am I spending time with them every week,
giving them individualized training, on-the-job training?
Am I working on their character?
Am I seeking to bring them up to
their full maturity in Christ?
I'm sure we're all familiar with J.B.
Phillips' paraphrase of Colossians 1, 28-29, it's
really beautiful, worth the price of the whole
book.
He says, so naturally we proclaim Christ.
We warn everyone we meet, and we teach
everyone we can all that we know about
him, so that if possible, we may bring
every man up to his full maturity in
Christ Jesus.
That is what I am working at all
the time, with all the strength that God
gives me.
Now, let us just turn to the text
and look at some of these first verses.
Luke chapter 9, verse 1, we see that
the Lord gave the twelve power and authority
over demons and diseases.
Has he given us power and authority?
Yes, he has.
What is the source of our power?
The source of our power is the Holy
Spirit of God, received at the time of
our conversion.
What is the extent or scope of that
power?
It is the power which he worked in
Christ when he raised him from the dead
and seated him at his right hand in
the heavenly places.
Dear friends, that to me is awesome, that
this power is available to us.
The greatest display of power that has ever
occurred in the universe is the power that
raised the Lord Jesus from the dead.
In the Old Testament, of course, the Jews
look to the deliverance from Egypt as a
great display of power.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus eclipses that.
Although the Bible does not say it in
so many words, it seems that at that
sepulcher outside the walls of Jerusalem, all the
hosts of Satan and hell were encamped there
to prevent the Lord Jesus from ever rising
from the dead.
God stooped, reached down in this tremendous power,
and brought the Lord Jesus out with the
power of an endless life, the first one
ever to rise from the dead to die
no more.
That's the scope of the power that's available
to us.
And it makes us ask ourselves, why do
the chariot wheels of God drag so heavily
if that power is available to us?
Why don't we see marvelous demonstrations of that
power, the salvation of souls and maturity of
saints?
What are the instruments of power?
The instruments of that power are prayer, the
word of God, love, faith among others, prayer.
The poet said, We kneel, how weak!
We rise, how full of power!
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,
or others, that we are not always strong?
That we are ever overborn with care, that
we should ever weak or heartless be, anxious
or troubled, when with us is prayer, and
joy and strength and courage are with thee?
We've said before that man holds the balance
of power in the world through prayer.
That man never comes closer to omnipotence than
when he prays in the name of the
Lord Jesus.
Why are we ever powerless?
Man can move the destiny of nations through
prayer.
What cannot be accomplished by prayer?
Another instrument of his power is the word
of God, the sword of the Spirit, which
is the word of God.
If you want to think of the power
of the word of God, think of what
it has done in your life.
I think of what it's done in my
life.
No book has ever exposed me to myself
like the word of God.
It was the word of God that showed
me what I was, and all my filth
and sin and degradation.
It was the instrument that God used in
the salvation of my soul, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of
God, which liveth and abideth forever.
The word of God is an instrument of
his power.
It's amazing, isn't it, how nations of the
world are afraid of the Bible and do
everything they can to keep it out.
Yet there it flows on majestically in underground
rivers, as it were, and man cannot stop
the word of God.
Paul may be bound, but the word of
God is not bound.
Love.
When we were in Luke chapter 6, we
saw the Lord unleashing this weapon in his
spiritual arsenal, telling his disciples to go forth
and demonstrate to the world an unearthly love,
an otherworldly love, a love that repays every
insult with kindness, a love that turns the
other cheek, a love that goes out to
those who don't deserve it whatever.
The Lord as much as said, if you
only act on a worldly level and love
those who love you, what reward have you?
Love those who don't deserve it.
This will make an impact on the world,
and it's still doing it.
And then faith is an instrument of his
power.
Faith is a victory that overcomes the world.
I used to think about that thing.
How can faith overcome the world?
That's a good question, first of all, to
think about.
The answer is that faith sees beyond the
facade of the world.
The world is make-believe.
Faith deals with reality.
Faith sees the difference between a prayer meeting
and a football game, doesn't it?
Faith sees things in the light of eternity.
Faith sees, for instance, that it's the soul
that counts, not the body.
To faith, the future is real, very, very
real.
Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.
Jesus gave them authority.
He gave them power and authority.
What is our authority?
I think we have it in the Great
Commission, don't we?
in the name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Ah, that's wonderful when you stop to think
of it.
We go out as representatives of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.
We speak and act for Him.
Brother, that's authority, isn't it?
Going forth as His messengers, going forth as
His ambassadors in the all-prevailing name of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
He gave them authority over demons and diseases.
F.B. Myers says, here we seem to
encounter the origin of medical missions.
They're objects in healing body and mind.
Their authority in the command of our Savior.
Their claims for support.
George Eliot once said, the tale of divine
pity was never yet believed from lips that
had not been first moved by divine pity.
Let me say that again.
The tale of divine pity was never yet
believed from lips that had not first been
moved by divine pity.
By human pity.
And then it says He commissioned them to
preach the kingdom of God and to heal
the sick.
Do we preach the kingdom of God?
Yes we do.
We find the kingdom of God in different
phases or different aspects in the Bible.
You have the kingdom of God prophesied in
the Old Testament.
You have the kingdom announced as present in
the Gospels.
The kingdom of God is among you.
The kingdom was present in the person of
the Lord Jesus in the Gospels.
Then when you come to Matthew chapter 12,
you have the kingdom rejected.
The rejection by the religious leaders in Matthew
chapter 12 signaled what the nation was going
to do.
The leaders were out in front, and they
accused the Lord Jesus of performing His miracles
in the power of the elves above, and
thus committed the unpardonable sin.
The kingdom prophesied, the kingdom present, the kingdom
rejected, the kingdom in an interim form, Matthew
13.
That's where we are today.
The kingdom is still here.
The kingdom exists wherever the rule of God
is acknowledged, but the king is absent, the
right hand of God today.
Then of course you have the kingdom in
manifestation when the Lord Jesus comes back to
earth again and reigns sitting on the throne
of David with Jerusalem as his capital.
And finally you have the everlasting kingdom of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And we're in that interim form of the
kingdom today, and we do, yes, we do
preach the kingdom.
And it says, and to heal the sick.
The New Testament was not available in those
days, and these disciples went out and people
had the right to say, how do we
know that what you're saying is true?
God says, all right, I'll give them the
power to perform miracles, to accredit the ministry,
to authenticate the ministry.
God bearing witness both by signs and wonders
and divers gifts of the Holy Spirit.
We read in the book of Hebrews, chapter
two.
What about the miracles?
Well, the Lord Jesus predicted that when he
went back to heaven and the Holy Spirit
was given, his followers would perform greater miracles
than he performed, isn't that right?
Now, John chapter 14 and verse 12, John
chapter 14, verse 12, most assuredly, I say
to you, he who believes in me, the
works that I do, he will do also
in greater works than these he will do
because I go to my father, do we
perform greater works than the Lord Jesus did?
In a very real sense, we perform greater
miracles today.
The Lord Jesus healed men with unclean spirits.
We heal them from the uncleanness of sin.
The Lord Jesus healed physical fever through the
preaching of the gospel.
We healed from the feverishness and restlessness of
sin.
The Lord Jesus healed lepers through the gospel.
We heal from the loathsomeness of sin.
The Lord Jesus healed paralysis, but the servant
of the Lord today goes forth with a
message that delivers from the helplessness of sin.
The Lord Jesus healed withered hands, and the
disciples did too, and we heal the uselessness
produced by sin.
They delivered demoniacs, and we deliver from the
misery, violence, and terror of sin.
They raised the dead, but those people died
again.
We see people delivered from spiritual death to
life eternal.
We hear people talking today a lot about
resurrection from the dead.
I hope if I die, nobody tries to
raise me from the dead.
To go through the article of death once
is enough, you know?
Far better to be with the Lord whom
I love.
Why all the fuss about resurrection from the
dead today?
We're looking forward to the resurrection when we
hear the shout and see the blessed Lord
Jesus.
They healed the deaf and the dumb.
We cure the inability to hear God's word
and to speak forth in testimony from Him.
They healed the blind, and we heal the
blind and beggarly state to which sin reduces
a person.
Then the Lord Jesus said in verse 3,
Take nothing for the journey, neither staff, nor
bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not
have two tunics apiece.
Now we can think about that, we can
think about it in detail.
What's that all about?
And how does that apply to us today?
Does it have an application for us today?
Well, instead of looking at it in detail,
why don't we just put it all together
and say that these instructions can be summarized
in two words.
Simplicity and faith.
And incidentally, the two go together.
The Lord Jesus here is teaching a lifestyle
of simplicity for His servants, and He's teaching
a life of faith.
It was important that these disciples go forth
in dependence on the Master.
And I'd like to go over several reasons
why this is very, very important, and it's
important today, too.
Number one, to go forth well-heeled and
living in luxury would be contrary to Scripture.
Jesus said, Blessed are you poor, for yours
is the kingdom of God.
It would be completely in opposition to all
that the Lord Jesus taught.
To go forth in His service living high
off the hog.
Two, to go forth with material prosperity would
give a completely false view of the one
they were representing.
The one who could say, Foxes have holes
and birds of the air have nests, but
the Son of Man has not where to
lay His head.
I never get tired of quoting Denny, because
it's a sentence that has a profound influence
in my own life.
He said, The only perfect life ever lived
on earth, he owned nothing and left nothing
but the clothes that he wore.
The only perfect life ever lived on earth,
he owned nothing and left nothing but the
clothes that he wore.
Pause here and think how the organized church
in the world today has misrepresented the Lord
Jesus.
Stanley Jones tells of going into a cathedral
in Rome, and there was a statue there
of the baby Jesus.
And they had draped strings of jewels over
the bambino.
This is how they were representing Jesus to
the world.
The baby Jesus covered with the most expensive
jewels.
And then Jones went out into the streets
of Rome and he saw the children gaunt,
pale, hungry and begging.
And he thought, I wonder if the bambino
is enjoying his jewels.
And he said, I decided that if he
was, I could no longer enjoy the thought
of the bambino.
Soren Kierkegaard tells of going into a church
once.
He sat on the velvet pew.
He watched the sun rising through the stained
glass windows.
The minister dressed in a velvet robe came
out.
He opened the gilded Bible, marked it with
a silk marker, and read, If any man
will come after me, let him deny himself.
Whatsoever he hath give to the poor, take
up the cross and follow me.
Kierkegaard said, I looked around and no one
was laughing.
But the world has plenty of opportunities to
laugh, doesn't it?
You think of the evangelical church in the
United States for this last year.
You think of the heyday that the media
has, going over the television evangelists, living in
luxury, comfort and ease with palatial homes and
air-conditioned dog houses and several of the
most expensive cars available.
The world has plenty of reason to laugh.
Number three, it brings more glory to God
when His servants live as Jesus directed.
Somebody has said this, the more primitive the
material and the more limited the resources, the
less credit to us and the more credit
to God.
That's good, remember that.
The more primitive the material and the more
limited the resources, the less credit to us
and the more credit to God.
I've used the illustration before of days when
we were at Emmaus and the Van Ryn
brothers were there.
The Van Ryn brothers had come over from
Holland and they had known, they knew how
to take primitive materials and make nice things
about them.
We would ask them to make something at
the school and they would go down to
the pile of lumber, you know, old lumber,
old wood down there in the basement, and
they would get some of that old wood
and they would bring it up and they
could make beautiful bookcases and other things out
of it.
We also had students at the school, good
fellows, and they had studied in high school
and in trade schools and they were professional
carpenters.
And we would tell them to make something
and they'd go down to the lumber yard
and make some beautiful things with the lumber
from the lumber yard.
But it was more credit to the Van
Ryns, wasn't it?
To be able to take junk wood and
make something good out of it.
And this is true of the work of
God.
God loves to use the poor, the base,
the despised, things that are not to bring
to naught, things that God may get the
glory in it all.
Hudson Taylor said, What we greatly need to
fear is not too little money, but too
much unconsecrated money.
Number four, we're all aware of the effect
on nationals of developing countries when Christ's representatives
go forth and they look like a miniature
Macy's store.
You've all seen that out of the mission
field.
You've seen people go out to the mission
field and they look like an annex of
Sears Roebuck with all the furniture, appliances, transportation,
and all the rest.
And what is the result?
People readily profess faith in Christ with a
motive of bettering their own standard of living.
They become right Christians.
And oftentimes the nationals develop a beggar mentality,
asking and sometimes demanding some of the booty.
The work of God is wrought by jealousy
and infighting as one seeks to outdo the
other materially.
Number five, it's completely contrary to human compassion
to parade purple and fine linen in scenes
of grinding poverty.
It's completely contrary to human compassion to parade
purple and linen, fine linen, in scenes of
grinding poverty.
Six, the lifestyle that Jesus called for here
cast upon God in a life of faith.
Robert Little used to say, God's will for
us is that our lives be a perpetual
crisis of dependence upon him.
That's where faith comes in, isn't it?
God's will for us is that our lives
be a perpetual crisis of faith in him.
Now, the flesh doesn't like that, does it?
It's contrary to all that the flesh wants.
But it's only when a believer does that
that he can truly say, the Lord is
my shepherd, I should worry.
One of the leaders in the assembly movement
in Italy in the early days was a
count, Ricciardini.
He was a very wealthy man, this count.
And when he died, he left an endowment
so that ten national workers could be supported
as evangelists in Italy for the rest of
their lives.
These men didn't have to work hard.
They didn't have to live a life of
support.
Everything was provided for them in advance.
They became known as the ten laziest men
in Italy.
Maybe you thought it sounded good that the
count was so generous.
It was a hindrance to the work of
God in Italy.
Richard Foster said, simplicity needs to be seen
in the light of the whole.
For example, there's an intrinsic relationship between simplicity
and prayer.
Especially that central aspect of prayer, which is
trust.
My children love pancakes.
And every so often I get up on
Saturday morning, he said, and I cook up
a batch of pancakes for them.
And he said, it's interesting to watch those
boys.
They wolf down pancakes as if they were
an endless supply.
He said, they're not worried one bit about
the price of eggs or my ability to
supply them with pancakes.
Not once have I seen them slipping them
into their pockets, thinking, I don't know about
Dad.
I'd better put away a little stash so
that I can be sure of pancakes tomorrow.
As far as they're concerned, the reservoir of
pancakes is infinite.
All they need to do is ask.
And if it's in their best interest, they
know that they will receive.
They live in trust.
And without this spirit of trust, we will
find it exceedingly difficult, should I say impossible,
to live on the basis of prayer for
daily bread.
That's a lovely story, isn't it?
Don't forget Richard Foster baking a batch of
pancakes for his boys.
And they don't stash them away in the
bedroom, thinking there might not be some next
Saturday.
Six, such a life of trust, as the
Lord teaches here in verse 3, gives us
the luxury of having few things to care
for.
I'm sure you're familiar with that paragraph in
Jim Elliott's journal.
He describes how life becomes complicated by the
accumulation of material things.
I'll read it.
I've been musing lately on the extremely dangerous
cumulative effect of earthly things.
One may have good reason, for example, to
want a wife.
And he may have one legitimately.
But with a wife comes Peter the Pumpkin
Eater's proverbial dilemma.
He must find a place to keep her.
And most wives will not stay on such
terms as Peter proposed.
So a wife demands a house.
A house, in turn, requires curtains, rugs, washing
machines, and so on.
A house with these things must soon become
a home.
And children are the intended outcome.
The needs multiply as they are met.
A car demands a garage.
Garage, land.
Land, a garden.
A garden, tools.
Tools need sharpening.
Woe to the man who would live a
disentangled life in this century.
I learned from this that the wisest life
is the simplest one.
Live in the fulfillment of only the basic
requirements of life.
Shelter, food, covering, and a bed.
Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your
environment so you have neither time nor room
for growth.
It makes me think of Malcolm Muggeridge.
He said looking back over his life, he
realized that the happiest times of his life
were when he was living in a simple
cabin.
With a simple table, a simple chair, and
some fruit on some leaves.
The simple life is the best life.
And it's this life, number seven, this is
the life that makes the gospel credible to
the world about us.
I've heard that when Fred Stanley Arnett was
working in what is now Angola, that the
paramount chief, Muschiti, told him once that he
would have killed him if he hadn't come
living in the simplicity in which he came.
And number eight, finally, this lifestyle espoused by
Jesus shuts us up to God and prevents
us from doing things by the power of
money that might not be his will at
all.
I think that the life of faith is
a wonderful system of checks and balances, isn't
it?
If I'm doing the will of God, I
don't have to worry about the supply of
the needs.
God pays for what he orders, and you
have proved that truth in your life.
But if I go around and beg for
funds, which I could very easily do, I
could do a lot of things in the
name of God that might not be God's
will at all.
But I sincerely hope that all of our
missionaries will continue, and all the saints at
home will continue to seriously take the words
of the Lord Jesus, be content with food
and covering, devoting everything above that to the
work of the Lord.
That's it.
Work hard for the supply of your current
needs.
Put everything above that, the work of the
Lord, and trust God for the future.
Shall we pray?