To return
our hymn books to number one, we have
a special treat for you, but we're going
to sing together, first of all, number 107,
There's a Story.
I suppose most of you, when you've been
reading your Bibles, three different men, this of
course is very evident, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
brought together as a threesome, there they are.
Well, you say they were related one to
another, and practically contemporaneous, and therefore we understand
how they would be mentioned together.
Then we turn to the book of Ezekiel,
and we find quite a contrast to that,
where God through his servant the prophet says,
Though Noah and Daniel and Job were in
it, he wouldn't deliver the city, even though
these three righteous men were living in it.
Remember he said one time that he would
spread Sodom and Gomorrah if there were ten
people there.
But here he brings together three men who
lived at different times in the world's history,
and yet they had one thing in common,
and that is that they were righteous men.
And God in this way brings together these
men.
When we turn to the history of David,
and this is a passage I want to
look at in some detail, so I'm going
to ask you to turn please to 2
Samuel chapter 23.
Notice in the eighth verse of that chapter
that we have a reference made to the
names of the mighty men whom David had,
and then three of them are named here
for us.
And each one of these three that are
named in the following verses were stood out
for some particular military feat that they performed,
particularly against the Philistines.
You notice there in that eighth verse there
was the Taqmanite that sat in the seat
chief among the captains, the same as the
diner of the Eznite.
He lifted up his spear against 800, and
he slew at one time.
Evidently he was a loner, because we don't
read here that he had any companions in
what he did.
And we assume that the enemies that he
put to death there were the Philistines, because
they are mentioned again you'll notice in the
next verse.
After him was Eliezer the son of Jodah
the Ephahite, one of the three mighty men
with David when they defied the Philistines that
were gathered together to battle, and the men
of Israel were gone away.
And he arose and smote the Philistines until
his hand was weary, and his hand clave
unto the sword, and the Lord brought a
great victory that day.
And the people returned after him only to
spoil.
And after him was Shammah the Aegean the
Herorite, and the Philistines were gathered together into
a troop, where there was a piece of
ground full of lentils, or wheat as some
translation put it, and the people fled from
the Philistines.
But he stood in the midst of the
ground, and defended it, and slew the Philistines,
and the Lord brought a great victory.
Now here you have three men brought together,
and their names are given to us, but
as far as we can tell they didn't
operate together.
They were in a class by themselves, and
yet the enemies which they fought, or the
enemies which they fought, was a common enemy.
It was the Philistines.
And as we read the history of Israel,
we find that these Philistines were the implacable
enemies of God's people.
Even though they came, shall we say, down
from the same ancestry, they were the descendants
of Ham, whereas of course the Israelites were
the descendants of Shem, but both Ham and
Shem were the sons of Noah.
So that in a sense they were distant.
When my youngest brother, who of course is
a tent in the family, I'm the first,
and this brother said, then you must be
distantly related, because I'm the first in the
tent.
But these people were really distantly related, and
these people have actually left their impress, even
to this very day, upon a land which
is very much in the press reports every
day.
I'm referring of course to Israel, which is
also known as Palestine, and Palestine comes from
the same root as Philistine.
Now, these Philistines, as I said, they were
descendants of Ham, and evidently they settled in
Egypt, and there was a road from Egypt
up to Canaan, which was known as the
Way of the Philistines.
And when God wanted to deliver His people
from Egypt, the Bible tells us that He
took them not by the Way of the
Philistines, although that was near.
In other words, evidently this Way of the
Philistines represents something, and they themselves represent a
certain class which I believe we find in
the professing church today.
They're people who have come in by what
we might call a shortcut.
Some of them get in because their parents
were Christians, or some other relative was a
Christian, and they think it's the right thing
to do to be a member of the
church without ever having been born again, never
having had the experience of trusting the Lord
Jesus Christ as a personal Savior.
I think we can use these Philistines as
an illustration of such, and we find that
wherever they get into control of a certain
group of Christians, they prove to be a
thorn in their side.
I suppose most of the trouble in the
professing church today is due to the presence
and power of those who have never experienced
what the Bible calls regeneration, and these Philistines
are apt type of that.
They gave the people of God plenty of
trouble, and as I said, they've left their
stamp upon that country to this very day.
And it may be that those who call
themselves Palestinians today might be included in that
group, although Philistia itself is at what we
call the southwest corner of the land of
Israel, or the Holy Land.
But here they are, and these three men
distinguish themselves in fighting against these and winning
victories over them.
But there's another group of three men in
this same chapter.
Now, you've got your Bible open there.
Let me just look at verse 13 with
you.
And three of the thirty chiefs went down
and came to David in the harvest time
unto the cave of Adullah.
And the troop of the Philistines pitched in
the valley of Rephia, and David was then
in an hold, and the garrison of the
Philistines was then in Bethlehem.
And David longed and said, O that one
would give me drink of the water of
the well of Bethlehem which is by the
gate.
And the three mighty men break through the
holt of the Philistines and drew water out
of the well of Bethlehem that was by
the gate, and took it and brought it
to David.
Nevertheless, he would not drink thereof, but poured
it out unto the Lord, and he said,
Be it far from me, O Lord, that
I should do this.
It is not that the blood of the
men that have went in jeopardy of their
lives, therefore he would not drink it.
These things did these three mighty men.
Notice how these men are distinguished in the
class by themselves.
We don't even have their names.
They're not operating separately like the other three
that we're looking at earlier in the chapter.
They're working together, and they're doing something not
only in fighting against the Philistines, spectacular as
that can be, but they do something to
minister to the heart of David.
David longed and said.
He didn't command.
He didn't say, I want you three men
to break through there and get me some
of that water.
No, he just simply expressed a longing and
a desire.
And I like to think that in this
they might represent what you and I could
do for our blessed Lord and Savior.
Last Lord's Day morning, we gathered here to
remember him and his death.
One dear brother rose to speak on the
53rd chapter of Isaiah and called our attention
to the wounds of our Lord Jesus.
He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised
again for our iniquities.
I was so moved by it, friends, that
I'm not ashamed to confess to you that
I was overcome with emotion.
Yes, I have tested myself again and again
in this way.
You know, there's such a thing that even
preachers are backslidden.
Whenever I suspect that this is true of
me, I read one of those passages like
the 53rd chapter of Isaiah or the 69th
Psalm or one of the closing chapters of
one of the four Gospels.
And if I can read about the sufferings
of the Lord Jesus and not be moved
in my heart, I know that Carl Ammerding
is backslidden.
I get down on my knees and pray
that once again my heart may be tender
toward these terrible sufferings of his, and that
I might also be responsive to the longing
of his heart when he said, This do
in remembrance of me.
I like to think that these three men
that are mentioned here, unnamed men, might well
represent such.
And that brings me now to what I
really want to talk about tonight, and this
is in the Gospel of Mark.
So please turn with me to chapter 5
of Mark's Gospel, where again we have three
men brought to our attention, Peter and James
and John.
I've often wondered why these three men were
selected, were not told anything that they did,
anything spectacular, but we do know this, that
all three of these men gave their lives
as martyrs to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have the revelation in 20th chapter of
John that Peter was to die by crucifixion.
Another was going to lead him, but he
didn't want to go.
And tradition has it that he was crucified
with his head down, because he didn't want
to be crucified like the Lord.
And John and James, who desired a place
at the Lord's right hand and on his
left, were told that they were going to
be baptized with the baptism that he was
baptized with.
They were going to drink the cup that
he drank.
And while some think that John did not
suffer martyrdom on the basis of that text
and scriptures, I shall point out a little
later on, I believe all three of these
men suffered martyrdom for Christ's sake.
But here we have a story beginning at
Mark 5 and verse 21, and I think
I only need to refresh your memories on
this story.
It's the story of a ruler of a
synagogue.
His name was Jairus.
And he had a little girl who was
very sick and she was dying, and he
fell down at the Lord's feet and he
said, If you'll only come and put your
hands on her, I know she'll live.
The Lord says, I'll go.
And while he's going, another one steps in
and receives a blessing on the way.
A woman who had been suffering for some
12 years with an issue of blood.
And she said to herself, If I only
touch the hem of his garment, I know.
And she did, and her faith was rewarded
in the fact that she was made whole
and she felt in her body that she
was healed of that plague.
Then the Lord Jesus turned around and says,
Who touched me?
And the disciples said, Oh Lord, you see
this big crowd around you?
Why, lots of people are touching you.
He said, But I know that virtue went
out of me.
And the scripture tells us that he looked
around about not to see who, but he
looked around about to see her that had
touched him.
And he immediately commends her for her faith.
But he had no sooner said this when
there came a few from the ruler of
the synagogue's house and said, Don't trouble the
master any further.
Your daughter is dead.
The Lord Jesus looked at the father and
says, Don't be afraid.
Only believe.
The maid is not dead, but asleep.
And the Lord used the word here for
sleep, which the apostle Paul uses in 1
Thessalonians chapter 5, where evidently he's not talking
about physical death at all.
He says, Let us not sleep as do
others.
For they that sleep sleep in the night,
and they that are drunken are drunken in
the night.
Evidently he's referring to a spiritual condition.
But of course to the people in the
house of Jairus, this girl was really dead.
And the Lord Jesus takes with him three
men.
You get that referred to in verse 37
of that chapter.
Mark 5, verse 37.
And he suffered no man to follow him,
save Peter and James and John the brother
of Jairus.
Now, as I said, I wondered why these
three were selected.
Can it be that they, like the three
we were reading about in 2 Samuel 23,
had done something special for the Lord?
May I address myself not only to the
men in the audience, but to the ladies
as well.
Has it ever occurred to you that you
might do something for the Lord that would
satisfy the longing of his heart?
In such a fashion that he would bring
you in to see something that he doesn't
allow others to see?
And what is this something that he wants
them to see?
He wants them to see that he has
power to give life.
And Paul tells us in the first chapter
of Romans that our blessed Lord was marked
out as the Son of God by the
resurrection of the dead.
And the old Scofield Bible puts it correctly
in the margin, I believe, of such as
were dead.
In other words, when the Lord raised people
from the dead, he was giving evidence that
he was the Son of God.
And this is the thing that the Lord
Jesus wanted these three choice disciples of his
to see.
He wanted them to see the proof that
he was exactly what he claimed to be,
exactly what they also believed him to be,
that he was the Son of God.
And this, dear friends, to me is exciting
to think that the Lord would today give
you and me proof of this fact.
Sometimes, you know, we think all the proof
we have is in the written page of
the Word, that we have no objective proofs
that our Lord is what he claimed to
be.
But every time you and I have the
joy of seeing a soul pass from death
to life, we have what is illustrated in
the fifth chapter of Mark.
And the wonderful thing it is to manifest
it, isn't it?
As one who ministered to many sick people
and those who were right on the brink
of eternity, for ten years, I was honorary
chaplain of a Methodist sanatorium in the city
of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In those ten years, I think I saw
more people die than perhaps all of you
in this room have ever seen die, because
they were dying every week.
And in the course of ten years, it
mounted up not only three different occasions that
I wish I weren't there, and those three
happened to be atheists.
I hope I never have to witness the
deathbed of another atheist when I think of
how these unbelievers in God left this life
to go into eternity without hope.
And one of them, mind you, had been
an ordained minister and renounced his faith, became
an apostate, and cursed me when I came
into his room with my Bible.
He told me to get the soul so
out of there, and knowing that he was
not physically able to expel me, I said,
I'll go when I get ready.
And I stayed right with it, hoping that
there might be just one last ray of
hope, that this man might yet trust the
Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior.
But, for the most part, my experience in
that work was glorious.
Sad at times, oh yes, sad to see
the father of a family taken, mother left
with a lot of young children to bring
up.
That was sad.
But, oh, to think that here was the
soul passing from death unto life, when you
brought him the gospel of God's grace, and
now as he goes through the article of
physical death, you go right into the presence
of the living Lord.
You know, it's tremendous, it's exciting.
And it's one of those things that just
keeps one buoyed up.
Sometimes people wonder why you can keep at
it so long.
Well, this is it.
To use a common expression, it's like a
shot in the arm.
You know, this is what some of our
assemblies need, don't they?
They sure do.
And all the wonderful things.
Then, of course, I could have used another
illustration as well.
Those of us who are fathers, who stood
by as our loved ones were bringing their
children into the world, what a wonderful sight
it is to see a newborn baby, to
hear its first cry, take it up in
your arms and hold it to yourself.
This is my own flesh and blood.
Though the experience of leading the soul into
salvation through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
this is equally thrilling, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
And this, I believe, is illustrated for us
in the fifth chapter of this book of
Mark.
And the Lord Jesus choosing these three men,
who evidently were in that state of soul
where the Lord wanted them to have an
experience like that, evidently they had done something
for him, which led him to pick these
three out to see what he was going
to do.
May I challenge you with this word tonight,
my dear brother and sister in Christ, you
who perhaps are saying to yourself, oh, I
wish we could see some real addition to
our assembly, somebody touching the Lord Jesus Christ,
to hear the first cry of a newborn's
pillow.
Yes, it's simply yours.
But I think there are certain prerequisites, and
I think the passage which I read for
you in 2 Samuel 23 might give us
just a little clue, a little hint as
to what that prerequisite might be.
But now please turn to chapter 9 of
this same book of Mark, the ninth chapter
of Mark's gospel, and here we read, He
that the Lord Jesus said unto them, Verily
I say unto you, that there be some
of them that stand here which shall not
taste of death, till they have seen the
kingdom of God come with power.
And after six days Jesus taketh with him
Peter and James and John, and leadeth them
up into a high mountain apart by themselves,
and he was transfigured before them.
You know, it would be difficult for me
even to define this, except that the scripture
here says in verse 3, it tells us
what this transfiguration must have been like.
It says, His raiment, that's the clothing he
wore, became shining, exceeding white as snow, as
no foreign earth can whiten.
And I'm sure that his face must have
glowed well.
And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses,
and they were talking with Jesus, and so
on.
What a wonderful sight.
You know, Peter refers to this in his
second epistle.
He said, We have not, I believe, cunningly
devised Satan.
He said, We have had a real experience.
We were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
Oh, they say they were eyewitnesses of his
power in chapter 5, but now they get
another vision.
They were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
I think I have a little illustration of
that.
When their majesties King George and Queen Elizabeth,
years ago now of course, visited Canada, my
wife was a Canadian, and our children didn't
know just which way to lean at times,
whether to lean toward their father's American side
or their mother's Canadian side.
And one of my daughters was a very
patriotic American.
She didn't know that she was interested in
royalty at all.
But when the King and Queen came to
London, Ontario, where we were staying with my
father and mother-in-law, the King and
Queen were driving through the streets of London,
Ontario, and of course we went down to
see them.
And my daughter, who was a very strong
American, came along with us.
Well, of course, the King and Queen didn't
take long in passing us, and we turned
and came home.
But where was Louise?
I don't know.
But finally she showed up after about a
half an hour, I guess.
She ran up to her mother.
She says, Oh, mummy, what do you know?
I saw her three times.
Imagine, I died in the war.
Thank you.
I saw the Queen three times.
She followed her to various places in London,
Ontario, where she knew they were going.
She did a three-time look at Her
Majesty.
Friends, in this word of God, you and
I did a look at His Majesty.
And this is something which we must not
forget, because the ministry in which you and
I are is really a royal ministry.
When our Lord Jesus Christ commissioned His own
in the 28th chapter of Matthew, remember it
says, All power is given unto me in
heaven and earth.
Go ye there, and make disciples of all
nations.
In the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to
the Ephesians, it's true, he starts out by
calling himself an apostle, which of course he
was.
Then in the third chapter, he descends to
the very depths of humility when he says
he's less than the least of all saints.
But in the last chapter, he just can't
hold back when he says, I'm an ambassador.
It's true, an ambassador in bonds, but he's
an ambassador in everything.
And remember this is one thing he impressed
upon the Corinthians, when he says, We then
as ambassadors for Christ beseech you, in Christ's
stead be you reconciled to God.
All my brethren in the ministry, beloved, this
is a royal ministry.
This is a royal ministry.
There's a dignity about it, which of course
we cannot demonstrate because we're just vessels, earthen
vessels, but the one whom we serve is
great, he's great.
And these disciples are given a wonderful privilege
here in seeing him in his glory.
He was transfigured before them.
And then certain things are included in this
story which show that they hardly appreciated that,
but it's so human that I have to
refer to it.
You notice it says here in verse 5,
Mark 9 verse 5, And Peter answered and
said to Jesus, Master, it's good for us
to be here.
You would have said, you would have expected
him to say, Your Majesty, but instead of
that he just said, Master, it's good for
us to be here.
Let us make here three tabernacles, one for
thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias.
He had not caught what he reveals in
his second epistle.
He had something to learn about the dignity
of the person that was transfigured before them.
And God is teaching him that in the
next verses when it says, verse 7, And
there was a cloud that overshadowed them, and
a voice came out of the cloud, saying,
This is my beloved son.
Here he is.
And suddenly when they looked around about, they
saw no man anymore save Jesus only with
themselves.
Beloved, he's in a class by himself.
He's unique.
And we don't have to say most unique,
which I believe is really ungrammatical.
There's no such thing as most unique, because
anything that's unique is incomparable.
It's in a class by itself.
And our blessed Lord is unique.
One of the pleasures I get out of
reading the scripture in other languages, and give
me an illustration of this.
For example, in John 3, 16, where our
Lord Jesus Christ in our English translation is
called the only begotten Son.
In French, son fils unique, his unique son.
He's in a class by himself.
And this is something that Peter didn't realize
here when he was putting the Lord on
a level.
It's true he mentioned it first.
One for thee, one for Moses, one for
Elias.
But beloved, no matter how great the servant
of Christ may be, and Moses and Elias
were great servants, but they were not in
this class.
Dear friends, oh may you and I who
know and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
remember that he's not only the lowly Jesus
who died upon the cross, but he's the
King of kings and Lord of lords.
And this will give a dignity to our
service.
It'll preserve us from doing things that are
ignoble, or expressing ourselves in the ignoble terms
when we talk about him, ever remembering the
dignity that belongs to him as the unique
Son of God.
But there's one more time that these three
men are brought together.
This same Gospel of Mark, chapter 14.
The 14th chapter of Mark's Gospel.
We'll read here.
We ought to read from verse 32 on,
please.
Mark 14, verse 32.
And they came to a place which was
named Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples,
Sit ye here while I pray.
And he taketh with him Peter, and James,
and John, and began to be sore amazed,
and to be very heavy, and said unto
them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death.
Carry ye here, and watch.
What is that?
They saw him in his glorious power to
raise the dead.
They saw him in his glorious amount of
transfiguration.
But now they see him in the throes
of sorrow as he anticipates the cross.
This is a sight, of course, which we
could never have repeated.
We praise God we never will have it
repeated.
But it's something which I believe the Holy
Spirit of God would bring before us, beloved,
every time we come together to really remember
the Lord.
As we were reminded last Lord's Day of
his wounds, yes, we use the language of
Jeremiah the prophet and apply it to the
Lord Jesus, Behold and see if there be
any sorrow like in my soul.
There have been various speculations as to what
the Lord was really sorrowing about.
Was he sorrowing for himself?
I doubt it.
It is true that he did shrink from
that cup when he said, O Father, if
it be possible, let this cup pass from
me.
Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.
But I can see the weight of sorrow,
I believe, in the Savior's heart as he
realizes that it took all of this to
bring you and me back to a God
of grace.
O beloved, to be spectator of a scene
like that is a special privilege.
That's a special privilege.
And to me, this enhances the value of
our meetings for the remembrance of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that we can give a full
hour at least to this very subject.
We don't come together to listen to a
sermon or to a beautiful solo, however beautifully
and wonderfully it may be rendered.
We're there to be occupied with one blessed
person and his dying love upon the cross
of Calvary.
What a sight.
And we find when we get home to
glory, we'll still be reminded of the same
thing, because in the fifth chapter of Revelation,
when the prophet there heard the voice, he
turned around and saw him, the lamb that
had been slain.
God will never let us forget what it
cost the Son of God to redeem us.
And I trust that having looked at these
three occasions here this evening in the Gospel
of Mark, that more of us will be
filled with a desire, especially as we come
together to remember the Lord, to really be
honored by getting a vision of himself as
these disciples did.
Not only a vision of himself and his
mighty power to pass souls from death into
life.
That's wonderful.
To see him in his glory, and this
also is very uplifting, isn't it?
It's transcendent.
But to see him in his song.
This is it that has moved our hearts.
And like those three men of whom we're
reading in 2 Samuel 23, it might move
us to respond not to a command, but
to a desire.
This, too, in remembrance of me.
In closing, let us turn to hymn number
183.
I am thine, O Lord.
I heard thy voice, and it told thy
love to me.
But I long to rise in the arms
of faith, and be closer drawn to thee.
Number 183.
Let us rise to sing it.
Blessed Lord Jesus, we bow in thy holy
presence with worship, praise, and adoration.
To think that thou, the King of Glory,
shouldst condescend to invite the likes of us,
not only to witness thy power to raise
the dead and to cause souls to pass
into that death and to life, nor yet
even to that majestic transcendent scene when thou
wast transfigured before thy own, and they were
eyewitnesses of thy majesty.
But, O Lord, the most sacred sight of
all, to see thee in the throes of
sin, for those for whom thou hast come
to give thyself.
O precious Lord, we pray that by thy
Holy Spirit this may often be brought before
our hearts, that these hearts of ours may
respond again in loving devotion to thyself.
To this we ask, O Lord, as we
hear thou head and heart in thy holy
presence, to receive now the divine benediction of
God the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit.