Mr. Woolley was talking about celebrating getting older.
Well, I think we're a bit different there.
I wouldn't want to celebrate getting older.
I think that men are quite different from
the ladies in this respect.
I mean, when a man has a birthday,
he sometimes takes a day off.
When a lady has a birthday, she takes
a year off.
Anyway, you're an old-timer if you can
remember when your wife used to think
out a meal instead of thawing out a
meal.
Those were the good old days, when they
used to think out the meals.
But the meals here are very good, as
a matter of fact, rather too good for
me.
And we should have to find ways and
means of escaping some of these special meals,
like Tuesday midday and that sort of thing.
However, we'll see about that.
Delighted to bring you the Lord's Word tonight
again, and we're going to read from Mark
chapter 2, a few verses.
Verse 1.
Again Jesus entered into Capernaum after some days,
and it was noise that he was in
the house.
Straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there
was no room to receive them, no, not
so much as about the door.
And he preached the word unto them.
Verse 14.
As he passed by, he saw Levi, the
son of Alphaeus, sitting at the receipt of
custom, said unto him, Follow me.
And he arose and followed him.
And it came to pass that as Jesus
sat at meal in his house, many publicans
and sinners sat also together with Jesus and
his disciples.
For there were many, and they followed him.
And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him
eat with publicans and sinners, they said unto
his disciples, How is it that he eateth
and drinketh with publicans, that is, tax gatherers
and sinners?
When Jesus heard it, he said unto them,
They that are whole have no need of
the physician, but they that are sick.
I came not to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance.
The disciples of John and of the Pharisees
used to fast.
And they come and say unto him, Why
do the disciples of John and of the
Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not?
Jesus said unto them, Can the children of
the bride chamber fast while the bridegroom is
with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with
them, they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom
shall be taken away from them, and then
shall they fast in those days.
No man also soweth a piece of new
cloth on an old garment, else the new
piece that filled it up take it away
from the old, and the rent is made
worse.
And no man putteth new wine into old
bottles, else the new wine doth burst the
bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the
bottles will be marred.
But new wine must be put into new
bottles.
May the Lord bless to us the reading
from his word.
Now I didn't find much liberty this morning
in my introduction to Mark's Gospel.
I don't want you to think that all
introductions to a series are as dry and
uninteresting as the one we had this morning.
I don't know quite what was the matter,
except that I'm blaming my tiredness for lack
of liberty.
One brother was preaching on one occasion, didn't
get any liberty, and his voice didn't seem
to be coming through the mike or through
the speakers, and he turned to one of
the elder brothers and said, What's the matter
tonight, brother?
He said, Oh, it's all right.
He says, there's a screw loose in the
speaker.
Well, it might be that was the problem
this morning.
However, I do want to recapitulate, therefore, just
for a moment or two, to give you
a little idea as to what it was
all about.
We remember that the Gospel according to Mark
was written by John Mark, John being his
original name, and Mark his Roman name that
was added later on, as was very often
the case.
And this was written from Rome, especially for
the Romans, and Mark is emphasising the servanthood
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You remember in Philippians chapter two, the apostle
by the Spirit says that our Lord Jesus,
being in the form of God, thought it
not robbery to be equal with God, but
emptied himself and became in the form of
a servant, and was found in the likeness
of men.
He was equal with God, became equal with
man, sin apart, and then equal with malefactors
in his death.
But he emptied himself, it says, and that
was, of course, to become the servant of
Jehovah.
He who was the Son now decided to
be the servant and to serve the Father
well in bringing to you and me salvation.
He said, here am I, send me, and
he said, lo, I come to do thy
will, O my God, that is, as thy
servant.
And now God is saying to all and
somebody, as we heard this morning twice over,
behold my servant.
Now to become the servant of Jehovah, the
Lord Jesus must empty himself of something.
But don't get the wrong idea, he did
not empty himself of his deity or any
of his attributes of deity at all to
become the servant of Jehovah, but the something
had to go.
And this something was his rights and his
prerogatives as God the Son, because he came
now to do the Father's will as his
servant.
And to do that he must not only
become one of us, that he might die
for us, but he must become obedient unto
death.
Now for most men, for all men except
this one, death is a necessity apart from
the coming of Christ, but for the Lord
Jesus it was an obedience because death had
no claim upon him.
He was the holy, spotless Lamb of God
and the servant of Jehovah in whom there
was no sin and no guile and no
transgression, pure and holy was he, and he
did the Father's will perfectly.
So this gospel is emphasising the servanthood of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter is behind the gospel.
Mark travelled with Peter as well as with
Paul, and it seems that most of his
information about the Lord Jesus and his words
and works were gained from Peter.
So there is quite a bit about Peter
himself, although Peter is not eulogised in any
way here, but quite a bit about Peter
and his life and his teaching and experience
in this gospel.
We were looking at the Lord Jesus in
Peter's home life and his business life and
in his church life too, and what a
blessing Christ brought in every department of his
life when he gave the Lord Jesus the
right of way.
And of course that is always the case.
When the Lord Jesus entered Peter's home, we
saw this morning, it became a centre for
real blessing, not only for his mother-in
-law, but for himself and his brother and
for all the people of the city.
And then when we came to chapter 2,
in our reading just now, we noticed that
it was noised abroad that he was in
the house, the house in Capernaum, and this
still must have been the same house to
which the Lord Jesus returned, where Peter and
Andrew and the mother-in-law dwelt together.
So Peter's home became a centre of real
blessing.
It was noised that he was in the
house.
Now they didn't have to put a flag
up to say Jesus is at home today,
like they do when the Queen is at
home in Buckingham Palace or in Windsor Palace,
wherever she is at home.
Some friends were talking to me, I think
it was only yesterday, or the day before
we were having a meal with some friends
in Nassau and they were saying that they
went to London and three days running they
tried to see the Queen and there was
no flag flying.
And the next day it was noised abroad
that the Queen was in the home.
There was a flag flying there, you see,
at the top of the mast, denoting that
the Queen was at home.
But she proved to be the invisible Queen
for my friends.
They never saw her so they had to
resort to glancing at some pictures.
Now by the way, the Lord Jesus is
the visible expression of the invisible God, the
visible representation of God in his character and
especially in his love and grace to the
sons of men.
And when the Lord Jesus is in the
home and when he is in the light,
we don't have to put a flag out
to say that Jesus lives with us.
As a matter of fact, every person who
is born again of the Holy Spirit has
the Spirit of Jesus indwelling in his heart.
There are fourteen plain, straightforward scriptures to show
and prove that everybody who is born again
possesses God's Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit
of the Father and the Son.
We will come and make our abode with
him, the Father and I, said the Lord
Jesus, will come and dwell with the man
or the woman that really loves me.
And of course, the Holy Spirit of Jesus
within is the sign or is the seal
in scriptural terminology that we belong to God.
That we belong to God and God is
with us and his Spirit being in us
is the outward manifestation that we are God's
property.
It was noise abroad that he was in
the house.
Oh that the Holy Spirit may so work
in and through our individual lives that everybody
may know that Jesus lives with us by
his Spirit in us and the power of
his Spirit manifested through us.
You'll notice this evening there is quite an
emphasis on the Christian home.
Peter's home became a Christian home because he
welcomed Christ into his home and so did
Matthew as we shall see in a moment
or two.
So his presence was known and the whole
city gathered around there was no room for
them and he preached the word unto them
and many were outside.
There's a great contrast to that a little
later on in the chapter as we shall
see.
In chapter 2 of course, a little later
on in verses 3 and 4 and 5,
there is the case of the man who
was sick of a palsy, who was born
of four people at the end of verse
3 it says, to this particular house and
they weren't able to get in at the
door so they got the man down through
the flat roof having removed part of it
and it says, He, Jesus, seeing their faith,
the faith of the four men, said unto
the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins
be forgiven thee.
Now please notice that he couldn't see the
men, he might have seen their arms letting
the man down but he didn't see them
but he saw their faith and he honoured
their faith and answered their faith and blessed
the man.
Now here is a divine principle.
God will honour our believing faith for others.
This is why we pray.
How does prayer work?
Well you believe and God, you believe and
you express your belief in believing prayer and
God moves by His Spirit and arranges circumstances
to bring blessing where it is needed according
to your prayer and according to the all
-wise God who knows exactly what to give
in answer.
Remember on one occasion in Luke 8 it
is recorded that there were some who came
to Jairus who was seeking help for his
dying daughter aged 12 and they said to
Jairus, Trouble not the master for your daughter
is dead.
Now fortunately the Lord Jesus overheard that and
He said to him, Believe only and she
shall be made whole.
He seeing their faith said unto him, The
blessing is yours.
And Jesus said to him, You believe and
she shall be made whole.
Now you thought, didn't you, that it all
depends upon the faith of the individual whether
he is going to be blessed or saved.
But it doesn't all depend upon that.
A lot depends on you and me.
He said to the father, You believe and
she shall be made whole.
And you remember that finally those who were
not expressing belief, who laughed Him to scorn
were put out and then the miracle happened.
There are three principles here in relation to
He seeing their faith said unto him, Thy
son thy sins be forgiven thee.
First of all it is no trouble to
the master to bless and save our loved
ones.
Trouble not the master.
He said believe only.
It's no trouble to him.
His purpose and plan is good.
He wants to bless not only us but
our loved ones too.
You believe for them.
Many of you are here tonight because your
mothers and maybe your fathers and loved ones
prayed earnestly for you and God worked by
His Holy Spirit and you could tell lots
of stories about that in your personal experience.
God honoured your faith in bringing blessing to
Him.
Of course in the final analysis it is
quite true that all have to believe in
Jesus for themselves as far as the salvation
of the soul is concerned.
First of all the principle is it's no
trouble to the master to bless our loved
ones and the second principle is this.
Our faith can be the means of the
salvation and blessing of our loved ones.
So keep on praying and pray believingly.
When you pray each passing day do you
pray believing?
Do you pray the gospel way?
Asking and receiving?
Believe only and she shall be made whole.
And then He put them, the unbelievers, all
out and then the blessing came.
God forbid that any of us should stand
in the way of the master bringing blessing
to our loved ones and children and friends.
Faithlessness is a terrible thing in the church
of God, in the local assembly and especially
in the heart of the individual.
It will ruin his prayer life, ruin his
communion with God and ruin blessing in his
own life and for a blessing in his
family as well.
Unbelief is a terrible thing.
I believe God Almighty and I believe He
is willing and able to bless all those
who call upon His name.
We'll answer the prayers of those who pray
believingly and send His Spirit to perform the
operation in the world and in the hearts
of those who need Him.
Let us pray in faith believing.
He seeing their faith said unto the sick
of the palsy some thy sins be forgiven
thee.
Now there was a tremendous change in the
life of Peter when he obeyed the call
of the Lord Jesus coming after me and
I will make you to become fishes of
men.
And when he opened his home as well
as his heart to the Lord Jesus.
There was a great change in Matthew as
we read of him just now when he
did the same thing.
Opened his heart to follow Christ, trusting Him
undoubtedly and then opening his home immediately in
service for Christ.
You see if any man is in Christ
he is a new creation.
Old things are passed away and behold all
things have become new.
And it's most noticeable through the gospels the
tremendous and immediate change in the lives of
those who start trusting and following the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And if there's no evidence of new life
in Christ then I suggest there is no
new life in Christ.
There should be manifestations of the power of
the indwelling spirit of Christ in and through
the life of every believer in Him.
There was a young army officer in Britain
some years ago who was addicted to gambling
and horse racing and drink and what not.
But he was quite a pleasant character as
the world goes.
And one day he stood and listened to
the gospel and was gloriously converted on the
spot.
And nobody told him to give up his
horses and his gambling but it came automatically.
He was a new creation in Christ.
And a young lady acquaintance of his by
the name of Lady Betty met him one
day and said to him, Captain what is
it that I've been hearing about you?
And he said, well what is it Lady
Betty that you've been hearing about me?
Well she said, I hear Captain that you've
been converted, is that true?
Yes he said, that's perfectly true.
Well she said, now come along Captain I'm
quite sure that if there were to be
a race meeting in the next town tomorrow
night you'd be there and you'd be participating
and you'd have a little flutter wouldn't you?
He said, listen to me Lady Betty when
I was a boy I was very fond
of marbles.
But when I grew up and got to
be fond of horses I forgot all about
my marbles.
Would you mind going and thinking about that
for a while?
And she did.
Now she was a very pleasant character herself
Lady Betty and the centre of attraction wherever
she went.
She was a very fine whist player, that's
a kind of English card game, and a
very beautiful dancer and the centre of attraction
everywhere.
And then some months after this occasion she
herself listening to the gospel by a lady
friend was led to Christ.
She was gloriously converted, she became a new
creation in Christ Jesus and as you can
imagine the Captain met her about three months
afterwards and said, Lady Betty what is this
that I hear about you?
And she said, Captain what is it that
you hear about me?
And he said, well I hear that you've
been converted Lady Betty is that true?
She said, yes it's perfectly true Captain.
Now he said to her, listen Lady Betty
I'm quite sure if there were to be
a dance in this town tonight you'd be
there wouldn't you?
She said, now listen Captain when I was
a little girl I was very fond of
dolls.
But when I grew up and learned to
dance I forgot all about my dolls.
Would you mind going and thinking about that
for a little while?
And they were both rejoicing in the fact
that old things had passed away.
Where are your new desires since you found
a saviour?
Where was the time when worldliness was eliminated
from your life through faith in Christ?
Where are the expressions of the eternal life
or the life of the eternal in and
through you?
And these two people with whom we have
to do in our message tonight were gloriously
changed, revolutionised by meeting the Christ.
Have you really met him?
Now I had walked life's way with an
easy tread.
I had followed where comforts and pleasures led
until one day in a quiet place I
met the Master face to face.
I had station and rank and wealth for
my goal, much thought for my body and
little for my soul.
I'd entered to win in life's big race
and I met the Master face to face.
And I met him and knew him and
I blushed to see that his eyes full
of sorrow were fixed on me.
And I faltered and fell at his feet
that day and my castles all melted and
vanished away and melted and vanished.
And in their place nor else did I
see but the Master's face.
And I cried aloud, O make me meet
to follow the path of my wounded feet.
My thought is now for the souls of
men.
I've lost my life to find his again.
And since that day in that quiet place
I met the Master face to face.
Did you really meet him?
Did you really hear him say, Come, follow
me.
Did the world grow dim and was your
vision filled with his glory and your soul
with his saving grace?
Did your personal castles all melt away in
the sunshine of his love?
And you became a new creature, a new
creation in Christ Jesus.
So here we have now in this portion
the call of Matthew and his response and
the home of Matthew and his neighbours.
Matthew you see, well Levi, Matthew, the same
man.
This man Matthew was the quizzling of his
day.
Not the only one, there were many tax
gatherers in the employ of the Roman occupying
power.
But I think Matthew was a notable one
amongst them.
I say quizzling, Mr. Quizzling was the man
in Norway who collaborated with the Nazis, you
remember.
He was a Norwegian but he was in
the pay of the occupying power.
And now all those who do that sort
of disloyal thing are called quizzlings.
And Matthew was one of those, a traitor
to his own nation, taking the people's money,
his own people's money and giving it to
the Romans.
So he was despised by them, by his
own people.
I suppose because he was the proof positive
that they themselves were in slavery to the
Gentiles and this above everything else.
They hated very much indeed.
They had lost their privileges as the people
of God and they were very sore and
sorry about it.
You know why they lost their privileges as
the people of God?
Because they failed to understand that alongside their
privileges were great and serious responsibilities to God.
God had entrusted them with the Old Testament
Scriptures and as his representatives on earth and
they had failed and come short of his
glory.
And they had not accepted their responsibilities.
The greater the blessing, the greater the responsibility.
I think you American people have tremendous blessings,
more than anyone else generally speaking on the
face of the earth.
And you have serious responsibilities therefore to God.
And unless you fulfil these spiritual responsibilities, something
must happen of course, as it did in
these New Testament times.
They found themselves in slavery to an occupying
power.
Let's hope and trust and pray that communism
will never gain such ground in this country.
But you know, it was touch and go
in France the other day.
One of the Jews saw it coming and
he said, well I know it's you because
they're joining with us.
Give me a microphone.
He said, I don't know why.
He really scared stiff and it's about time
some of us realised, unless we fulfil this,
you are here as God's people.
Let us make sure we respond to God
and to the call of the Saviour in
a full sense as Matthew did here.
Please note in verse 14, he was willing
to renunciate a lucrative calling at the invitation
of the Lord Jesus to follow him.
He probably guessed by this time there was
something more in life than getting for himself
and for the occupying power.
Like Zacchaeus, we sing of him, there was
a man for whom we read, who lived
in days of old, though he was rich.
And he was a publican, a tax collector.
He felt his need of something more than
gold.
Now this was something real.
The eyes of the Son of God, God
manifest in flesh, met his eyes as he
sat at the desk gathering in the money.
Let the whole thing go immediately.
This was irresistible.
The call of Christ was supreme and he
just had to follow the Saviour.
That's a good sign of a genuine conversion
to God through faith and trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
He as well as Peter heard the call,
come follow.
That was all and now everything else grows
at the end.
And the Saviour must be followed all the
way.
Now God doesn't call every one of us
to do what he did, to renounce a
lucrative calling and go and serve the Master.
But I think there would be more people
called to do this if they were more
willing to do this.
I've often advised brethren who have sufficient money
to live on for about four lives longer,
to give up their money making and give
the rest of their lives to the service
of Christ and pay their own expenses.
A most honourable thing to do.
But very few do that.
I met a man in one of the
out islands in the Bahamas only the other
day.
We were thinking of planning an extension Bible
school in the southern part of Eleuther and
there was a brother there who was a
contractor, a building contractor from the States somewhere
and he'd retired early.
He was paying his own expenses and he
was putting on additions to the Lord's work
here and there in the Bahamas and in
other countries as well.
I thought that was most honourable.
And Matthew at the call of Christ, it
was so real, so wonderful to him.
This is the day of opportunity he said
to himself.
Everything must go from me to Jesus Christ.
And he left it all and followed him.
One of my students named Mike, this is
a student from England, when he was in
the college I heard afterwards, had a fortune
left to him.
Probably about a hundred thousand dollars, nothing to
you maybe, a fortune to an Englishman that
would be.
And within a few weeks he'd given every
penny of it away to the Lord's work.
So let's do that.
Because he had given himself and all he
had two or three years before to Christ
and to his service.
Now Mike had one suit, the one he
stood up in, and he had two shirts,
one to wash and one to wear.
He had a very high university degree, a
Master in Science.
He came to us and got another degree
at Morland's Bible College, theological degree.
And he gave away every penny that was
given to him and he went to India.
And he's been serving the Lord ever since,
knocking on the door, door to door in
northern India, just telling the people about his
Saviour.
And God is calling people like that.
And there are men and women today who
are giving up lucrative jobs at the Master's
call and going to serve him.
And there are some people who are very
effective therefore, I say therefore advisedly, in their
ministry for him.
Because they allow nothing to stand in their
way that they might be effective.
So he was willing.
And he was willing to use his ink
and pen for the Lord, because he is
the one of course who wrote the Gospel,
the first Gospel, Matthew's Gospel, about the kingship
of our Lord Jesus Christ, where he is
writing to the Jews and emphasising the Kingdom,
the Kingdom of God.
He was a writer, you see there, he
was sitting at his desk writing.
And he put his gift at the Lord's
disposal when he started to follow Christ.
I wonder if we've ever done that sort
of thing.
God doesn't want you to use in his
service some gift you haven't got.
I ought to say that again, it's terribly
important.
You're not supposed to take your turn in
doing something because it's your turn.
You're supposed to use the gift that God
has given you, the way that the Lord
opens up for you.
And the Lord said to Moses, what is
that in thine hand?
What you've already got in your hand, Moses,
that is what I'm going to use to
manifest my presence with you and my power
through you.
What have you got in your hand now?
And he looked in his hand and there
was a rod.
He says, the thing that you're using amongst
your father-in-law's sheep in your daily
job, I want you to use that for
me.
And I'm delighted when there's a man who's
a financier in worldly things, he's an accountant
or something like that, and he places his
gift at the Lord's disposal, becomes a deacon
in the local church and uses his gift
in that way.
I think God can use that sort of
thing very much for his glory.
You've got specialists in each department in the
Church of God.
He says, what have you got in your
hand now?
That's the thing I'm going to use.
And through this there was a manifestation of
God's power, of God's life.
And all could see that God had visited
him because he knew what was in his
hand already.
And when David offered to fight the Philistine,
Saul said, now you'd better put on my
armour.
So he put it on and took it
off again.
He said, no thank you very much.
He said, I'll go with what is already
in my hand.
David, what is it you've got in your
hand then?
He said, the thing that I'm using every
day in my ordinary work, looking after the
sheep, a sling and a stone, or rather
a sling.
The thing that I'm using every day to
keep my sheep in the right place and
to keep the wild animals away, this is
what I'll use in my service for the
Lord God of Israel.
So with a sling and a stone he
the giant loaded lay.
And the God that lived in David's time
is just the same today if we use
what we already have, our present gifts and
powers and talents and knowledge in the service
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And this is exactly what Matthew did.
Thank God for Matthew's gospel, that he was
willing to use his pen and his ink
in the Master's service.
And he was willing as well to use
his home for the Lord.
You'll notice, first of all, the grace of
Christ here in calling a national traitor to
follow him and to do his will.
You know, our Saviour is no respecter of
persons.
Some of us might have an ugly black
spot in our lives.
Listen, failure is not final.
You listen to the Master's call tonight and
get up and follow him and leave all
for his dear faith and you'll find his
grace will be manifest in your life and
sufficient for you as well.
Notice also the wisdom of Christ in calling
a man to follow him who knew Aramaic
and Greek and was a gifted writer.
And the Saviour, when we trust him and
follow him, makes no mistakes.
He'll lead us on in his service to
greater things and bless us and make us
to be a blessing.
Well, secondly, the home of Matthew and his
neighbours.
I said he was willing, thirdly, to use
his home for the Lord as well as
his ink and pen for the Lord.
I'm going to read you that verse again.
He said unto him, follow me and he
arose and followed him.
He came to pass that as Jesus sat
at his, at his Levi's, Matthew's house, many
publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus
and his disciples.
There were many and they followed him.
Twice over it says many.
Now evidently he was a wealthy man.
He had quite a big home.
But as Peter put his small home at
the Lord's disposal, Matthew immediately, he got up
to follow the Lord, put his large home
at the Lord's disposal.
And we were given, when we were in
Seacliff, Long Island, New York, some months ago,
we were given a nice home to use,
a nice little home by the assembly there
for the months we were in the district.
We felt we should use our home, our
little home, for the Lord.
And you know, you'd be surprised how it
worked out.
People in our street, Adam's Street, Seacliff, came
unto the sound of the word in our
home, people who'd never heard the gospel before,
people who couldn't find where John's gospel was
in the New Testament, because we all gave
them all a New Testament, you know.
And of course we didn't make them embarrassed.
We were very diplomatic and careful about that.
And there was a Roman Catholic lady who
became quite friendly with my wife and she
heard the gospel on many an occasion.
And these people were brought unto the sound
of the gospel, because we were able to
do that thing.
And I was, some years ago, in a
very big home, in the same area.
And there were loads and loads of people
brought in from the other big homes in
the area, into this home.
And there they heard the gospel by Stephen
Alford.
I think this is a great opportunity, and
Matthew and Peter here show us the way.
His first act, Matthew's first act, as a
follower of the Lord Jesus, was to entertain
Jesus in his own home.
You remember the first act of Saul of
Tarsus, when he was met by the risen
Christ, was to pray.
The Lord appeared to Ananias and said, I
want you to go and meet a man
called Saul.
Is he from Tarsus, Lord?
Yes.
Oh, I'm not going to see him.
Is it terror?
A holy terror.
It's all right, Ananias.
He's a chosen vessel for me, to bear
my name to the Gentiles.
You go and meet Saul of Tarsus.
You'll find it's all right.
He's really been changed, for behold, he prayed.
It's interesting to see the first thing that
happened in the lives of some of these
who met the Saviour and decided to follow
him.
And notice how Ananias took the Lord at
his word, and he didn't go to the
house where Saul was and meet him and
say, excuse me, are you Saul of Tarsus?
Yes.
Well, oh thou Saul of Tarsus and troubler
of the good Christian people, I have a
word, a serious word from the Lord for
you.
Nothing like that.
He stuck out his hand and he said,
brother!
Saul took the Lord at his word.
God expects us always to do that, to
take him at his word and go in
his name.
Nothing doubting.
And in this case, his first thing was
to entertain the Saviour in his home.
If you'll pardon a personal note, we've had
great joy entertaining the Lord's servants, because we've
had a lot of privileges this way through
the years.
Being in Bible college work, we've had the
Lord's servants from all over the country and
all over the world.
We've got a book with their names in
and their pictures in and a brief history
about most of them and it's most inspiring,
but not just interesting and inspiring to us,
to have their names in a book and
to boast about it and say we had
so and so in our home.
No, sir.
Our three children today, while you are sitting
here, this is the Lord's day, our three
children are serving the Lord.
They're all happily engaged in his service, two
of them full time.
They were tremendously blessed by the visit of
these leading brethren, gifted evangelists, able teachers, missionaries
from around the world.
We all sat at the table together.
We didn't stick the kids in the kitchen
and eat at the dining room table ourselves
with these illustrious visitors.
We all got in together and the children
got some tremendous help, I'm sure they did,
from these servants of the Lord.
And some of them wrote in the book,
inasmuch, inasmuch you've done this to the least
of one of my little ones, you've done
it unto me.
Now I could never write that in anybody's
book.
One of the Lord's little ones, me?
So I just put the word inasmuch.
And there are guest books around the world
with my signature and the word inasmuch in
them.
Now of course they haven't entertained angels unawares
when they've entertained me, more like elephants unawares.
But what a tremendous blessing it is to
receive Christian fellowship in the homes of God's
people when they accept you as the Lord
himself.
When I was here preaching some fourteen months
ago, the last message I believe was on
Philemon.
And Paul said to Philemon in that letter,
now he said, prepare a place for me,
get a room ready for me.
And virtually we're saying this, but in between
times, I'm sending Onesimus to you, give him
my room, receive him as myself.
And inasmuch as you receive him, you're receiving
me.
And what a wonderful thing it is to
have the Saviour in your home in the
form of one of his servants from here
or there or anywhere.
Now that's not a hint.
I get too much Christian fellowship.
But I think it's a message for some
of us to make quite sure that we
entertain the Lord Jesus in our homes in
the form of his servants and put our
homes at the Lord's disposal.
Now you have given your home to the
Lord, haven't you?
I mean your carpet, it isn't yours, is
it?
It's the Lord's.
You're not keeping that for yourself, are you?
I mean that lovely piece of furniture there,
it isn't yours, is it?
You mean to say you're a Christian and
you're keeping that for yourself?
Hold on to nothing, give it all to
Christ tonight.
Let him come into the home and take
possession of the lot and then say, now
Lord, use it in your service, it's all
yours.
And you'd be surprised how the Lord will
plan things to do that very thing.
And when you take your wife home tonight,
kneel on the carpet and give it to
God.
And while you're there give everything else and
the house itself and yourself afresh to the
Lord.
You'd be surprised how the Lord will plan
things for his glory in your life and
in your home.
So the next thing he did was to
introduce his friends and his neighbours into his
spacious home.
What a contrast this is to Peter's little
house by the seaside.
There's only about seven people to get in
the house I imagine.
And when one or two more came with
somebody sick they'd just have to go on
top and let him down through the roof.
It's such a small house and all the
people, all the city was gathered together round
the door.
They couldn't get inside in such a small
place.
Never mind, it doesn't matter, the Lord was
inside and the blessing came.
Whether it's a small house or a big
one, like Matthew's, he had a big spacious
place.
There were many people there and he said
that twice over.
Crowds of people came into his home.
I was in a home on Friday night
and this brother has got a restaurant and
he's got a big home at the back,
a lovely big home.
And he said to him, Brethren, come into
my home.
In his home, as he put it, at
the Lord's disposal.
What a very practical and sensible and spiritual
thing this is to do.
Well now, there are some who criticise that
the Lord Jesus explained his grace in being
in this home and having fellowship with publicans
and sinners.
First of all, he said that he came
to seek sinners, not righteous people.
As if there were any righteous people.
He knew very well there weren't any.
But those who will acknowledge his sinnership, their
sinnership, are the ones who receive his blessing
and enjoy fellowship with him.
And he eats with them.
Now you see, the Lord Jesus was holy,
harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners.
Well you say, how could he be separate
from sinners if he ate and drank with
publicans and sinners, tax gatherers and sinners?
Well you see, a lot of people have
taken New Testament separation to mean isolation.
It doesn't mean anything like that at all.
We're not supposed to isolate ourselves from non
-Christians.
No, the Lord Jesus never did.
He was separate in heart.
That's where his separation lay, in his heart.
He was separate from sinners, but he ate
and he drank with sinners.
You are supposed to mix with your neighbours
and unconverted friends for the sake of being
a spiritual blessing to them.
You and I are supposed to open our
homes to them to get them under the
sound of the gospel just like Matthew did
when he met the Lord and Peter in
his small way in his little home.
You know there is a new movement abroad
in this country and in Britain and other
parts of the world as well.
And lots of neighbours are being brought under
the sound of the gospel in their own
district, in their own street by the one
Christian family in their own opening their home
to a bible study, a coffee hour or
a gospel sermon.
Or a gospel meeting of some way or
another.
I know a lot of you know a
lot about this, but it is a movement
of the Holy Spirit.
You could invite some people for 39 years
to a service like this, they wouldn't come.
But you live in their street and you
go along and give them a nice invitation
card that you buy yourself out of your
own pocket money.
To invite them along and you make a
nice coffee supper for them or something, I
don't know what you call these things in
your country.
But you invite them to come and have
a time with you and they'll come along
and they'll enjoy the fellowship.
They'll even take part in the discussion around
the scriptures pretending that they know something about
the bible.
You know very well they don't.
It's quite evident that they don't, but that's
what they're there for, so that you can
preach the truth to them as it is
in Jesus.
The man who is now the principal of
the Morelands Bible College in Britain that I
used to represent, Dr. Copley.
Very gifted man, university lecturer, Manchester University, and
lecturing universities in your country as well.
He started a few years ago a neighbours
meeting in his own home.
There is a flourishing church there now, a
flourishing assembly and he just had the people
next door come in.
They so much enjoyed it he had the
people the other side come in and people
know their own came in.
Now there's a big flourishing church there even
after about six or seven years and that's
how it all started.
This movement is a movement of God's Holy
Spirit I'm quite sure.
Not only did he explain that he came
to seek sinners and not only did he
show that his separation was in heart, but
also he spoke about the fact that he
was going to die and of course die
for sinners.
And this here is unveiled language, but it's
pretty evident to me in verse 20.
They were talking about fasting and it's a
very interesting subject which we cannot go into
tonight.
I might give you a couple of sentences
about it and that's all.
And he said to them, the days will
come when the bridegroom shall be taken away.
Now that word in the Greek means a
violent taking away, taking away with force and
I'm sure he had in mind the death
by which he was going to die upon
the cross of Calvary.
This was the first hint of his passion
and suffering and death from the lips of
the Saviour.
Thank God he not only came to call
publicans and fishermen and sinners to follow him,
but he came to die and to give
his life a ransom for many that you
and I might be long to God.
You know the essence of fasting is self
-discipline, having others in mind.
It's not the formalism of the ascetic, but
it is the voluntary subordination of the physical
with others in mind.
I am so taken up with the service
of Christ, with the blessing of others, with
getting my neighbours under the sound of his
truth and so on, that I am denying
myself having them in mind.
This of course is the mind of the
Saviour.
We saw this when some time ago we
were studying Philippians 2.
Let this mind be in you which was
also in Christ Jesus.
We found from verse 4 that it was
an unselfish mind for he thought not on
his own interests, but on the interests of
others.
And he had you in his mind and
me in his mind when he left the
realms of glory and came to this sin
-cursed earth to die, to bring us back
to God.
And this is the idea behind fasting.
There are some crazy and hazy ideas on
the subject these days, but God gives us
his plain explanation of the doctrine in Isaiah
58.
They said, well we are your people Lord
and we've not only gone to the prayer
meeting and kept the ordinances, but we've even
fasted as well.
God said, but you haven't done the right
kind of fast.
But they said we've covered ourselves with sackcloth
and ashes and we've gone without some meals.
No, he said, that's not the right kind
of fast.
Is it such a fast that I have
chosen, a day for a man to afflict
his soul?
Will he spread sackcloth and ashes under him
and walk mournfully before the Lord?
That's not it, he said.
Is it not this, to deal thy bread
to the hungry, bring the poor of a
caste out to thy house where thou seest
the naked that thou cover him.
Hide not thyself from thine own flesh.
Deal thy bread to the hungry, in other
words, bless others.
Be taken up with others' interests and others'
needs, so the mind of Christ shall be
seen in you.
And that is God's explanation of the doctrine
of fasting.
He was speaking here about new wine being
put in old bottles and how foolish that
is.
And I'm sure he had in mind the
new wine of grace which will not mix
with the old wine of the law, Judaism.
Thank God we are dead to the law
through the death of Christ and the life
of Christ and alive unto God in him.
They fasted because the law said they should.
Christians fast when they are so taken up
with Christ and his service, in the service
for others, that they do not think of
themselves.
Well there's a lot in chapter 2 but
I think especially the Lord has seen fit
to impress upon our hearts, I trust, the
fact that there must be evidences of our
new life in Christ.
You say you are following him, well let
us by his grace show it.
Let us open our hearts to him altogether,
let us follow him all the way.
Let us open our homes and place everything
we have at his disposal, living for others,
so Christ shall be glorified through us all.
Let us pray.
Let us take a moment of silent prayer.
Maybe we feel led to yield to the
Saviour's call tonight.
Come ye after me.
Pray from the heart and say, Lord I
will follow thee by your grace.
Pray from the heart and say, Lord I
will trust thee as my Saviour and as
the Lord of my life.
I give myself to thee.
I give my home, my home to thee.
I give my all to thee.
Take my love.
My Lord I pour at thy feet its
treasure store.
Pray that.
Take my self and I will be ever,
only, all for thee.
Lord as we yield our hearts are finding
peace long sought and Father and God we
thank thee in the Saviour's name.
And may the all sufficient graces of the
Saviour be with us all in all our
need and in all our circumstances and in
all our lives as we follow him all
the way for his name's sake.