We had looked at verse number seven, chapter six of the book of Mark and verse number seven. We'll read it and we'll read it and move on past it because we're going to verse 13. The Bible said, and he called unto him the twelve and began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save only Save a staff only, no script, no bread, no money in their purse, but be shod with sandals and not put on two coats. He said unto them, whatsoever place ye enter into the house, there abide till ye depart from that place. And whatsoever shall not receive, and whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, and when ye depart from this, shake off the dust under your feet, For a testimony against them, verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." Remember that. Remember that. That's one of the most harsh words that you could ever read. Verse 11, when they went out and then, and they went out and preached that men should, what? Repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them. Father, I pray you would help me. God, you know I need you. I know I need you. Lord, nothing but a speck of dirt standing here. And God, I'm asking you to touch my heart, my lips, and my mind. Give us what you want us to have. And Father, we'll thank you and praise you for it. Touch Brother Gary and help him, I pray in Christ's name. Amen and amen. Amen. Brother Gary's preaching over at Brother Dan's tonight and tomorrow night. So let's remember him in prayer. Instructions. I want to preach on instructions. We've talked about that so many times, how we dislike instructions. If you have a young son, teenage, whatever age, maybe younger teenage, older teenage, Teach them to love instructions, whether they be instructions from a father or mother, or instructions that come out of a box to assemble some type of product. I wish my dad would have taught me a little better on that, because I, and he may have tried, he really may have tried, Brother Leo, and I didn't listen. But instructions will help you down the highway of life to overcome some troubles that you really don't need to be into. It'll help you to go around some problems that you don't have to face if you'd only receive instructions. And I found out this, Mother Tracy, I don't think you ever get to an age where instructions will hurt you. I've never been convicted by listening to a preacher, especially an older preacher, when they tried to give me instructions. And some of the instructions that they gave me, or gave at the time I was listening, I thought, this is so minor, Why is he doing that? And then it dawned on me one day, it may not be minor to everybody that's listening. It might be that somebody was sitting there that said, wow, I needed to hear that. And so instructions are very, very beneficial. And I want to look at the instructions that God has given these twelve disciples tonight. And it could be that if you want to do what they pursued to do, you too could take heed to these instructions. It won't hurt you. It won't hurt you. Put them in your pocket. You might not need to use them tomorrow, but on Friday or Saturday or one day next week, Or maybe one day next year, a situation could come up and you say, man, I remember the preacher talking about this and trying to give us some instruction one Wednesday night. And I remember it and I think I'm going to use it and it'll save me some trouble. It'll save me some trouble. Verse number eight, the Bible said, and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey save a staff only, no script, no bread, no money in their purse. So the first thing that we see that the Lord is doing is trying to give them some instruction for the journey. Instruction for the journey. We're so blessed today, how we live in today, we can look up, smartphone, on your smartphone you'll have a GPS and on that GPS you can get maps. Maybe Google Maps or just Map Maps or whatever kind of maps, I don't know. And I found out that it takes real faith to trust the maps on your phone. Somebody say amen right there. We was going to a meeting one time out in West Georgia and Faith had rode with the girls, and they had went out that way, and I wanted to go to a funeral of Brother Gene Wiseheart from Valdosta, Georgia. Some of you might remember him. He had passed away, and I wanted to go to the funeral over in Valdosta. So I told him, I said, you go ahead with the girls. I'm going to go to the funeral on Monday morning, and I'll leave there. I'll jump up on 75, and I'll head north, and I'll just go right straight to the church. I said, OK. So I left the funeral. Before I left, I put in my, on my GPS, I put in the map to the church where I was going to, and Carrollton, Georgia, that's where it was headed. And so, I put that thing on there, and I knew I had to go to Atlanta, I had to hit I-20 and head out toward Birmingham and go out that way, but while I was on I-20, this thing As I got into, I mean, 1975, I got into Perry, Georgia, and it said, get off on exit. I said, wait a minute, I'm in, this is Perry, Georgia. I'm a long way from Atlanta. And so I said, you know what, Lord, I'm going to try and trust this thing. And so I got off at Perry, Georgia, and I took the road going this way, like it said to go, and brother Larry, it took me I'm telling you, I went down every rabbit trail you ever see. I literally drove down a road that was not paved that went through a pecan orchard. I said, Lord, I'm living by faith right here, right now. You hear me? Can you believe because I stayed on the path that that thing was direct... Come on, you better hear me right here now. Because I stayed on the path that that thing was taking me, I ended up on the very road that took me right to the church where I was headed. Then I tell you, in this life, it's going to seem like a lot of times the Lord's taking you places and you'll go, what are you doing, Lord? Why in the world would you want me to do that? Why would you want me to take a week of vacation for Camp Mimi? Why would you want me to go to that church down there where they get all excited and hooping and hollering and praising? Why would you want me to go to a place like that? I can't just stay on the road Just stay in the car. Don't get out. Your GPS is hooked up. It's all right. You're going to the right place. We've already made preparation. Heaven is our home. I don't see God taking us someplace besides there. And I'm telling you, one day you will arrive. You will arrive. He's going to take you there, Brother Darnell. I pray, I pray that He don't take us one by one, but I pray He takes us all at the same time. Amen? There's heartaches. There's heartaches. There's instruction for the journey. He told them what to take and what not to take. There's another lesson. But as yet, there's another lesson in Him giving such particular instructions for this journey. If you is to do everything He said to do, you know absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, you have got to depend on God. You mean you don't want me to take no money? How am I going to buy something to eat? I'll take care of that. You don't want me to take no script? No bread? You don't want me to take no food? I'll take care of that. I'll take care of that. How do you know the Lord will take care of it? Well, why don't we just ask Elijah? Hey, why don't we ask Elisha? I mean, both these men depended on God and God took them to somebody's house that didn't have hardly nothing left to eat. And God told them to depend on Him, fix them something to eat. I think God took care of them. I don't know if there's any truth to this or not, but I've heard it preached like this over the years. Brother Mickey, I've heard it said. I've heard it said. I'm looking at the truth. Now, don't quote me on this. Don't quote me on this. But I heard this, Brother David, that Elijah was eating meat that some unclean bird has brought off the table of Ahab, straight down there to him by the creek where he could drink. I don't know if that's truth or not, but I do know one thing. I do know he didn't go hungry. And I do know in the midst of a famine, he got him right there by the creek where he could have water. I mean, Elijah was a happy man if he'd have just depended and trusted on God. I believe it'll be all right with me and you if we'll just depend, believe and trust on God and stand back and watch God take care of us. You'll scratch your head, you'll say, but I don't know what he's doing. You ain't got to know what he's doing. I don't know. I don't know how he's going to do it. You ain't got to know how he's going to do it. He ain't never said, I tell you what I do, I won't never do nothing before I let you know. You won't find that in the Bible. But by faith, if you'll stay with him on this journey, you'll see that he will do exactly what he said he will do. Let's look in verse number nine. He said, but be shod with sandals and not put on two coats. We see instruction. Now, this is where Lockheed chokes up right here. We see instructions for their personal appearance. You didn't get it. There is instruction for their attire. For their personal appearance. The Lord wanted them to go to somebody's house and knock on somebody's door and be dressed in a manner where they would look like they had been sent by the king. He didn't want them to get all wrapped up in designer shoes and designer clothes and some of that stuff. Some of that stuff that they have come out with in times and days gone by, I can't even pronounce it. I'm telling you, I'm telling you. Some of that stuff, and when I see the price tag on it, I don't even want to know how to pronounce it. Only thing I want to know is how to get out of that store. There's several of them. There's several of them. I ain't never got a dime out of my pocket. That stuff looks like it was something on a yard sale to start with. Amen. I'm talking about the Lord's interest in my personal appearance. Now, He's not interested in you dressing in a manner that you become haughty with it. Anybody know what I mean by that? Prideful, puffed up. I mean, look here, I'm cool. Can I do a little designing out here, a little showing y'all? Twisting and turning? No. No. The Lord just wanted them to go do a job. He said, this is all you'll need. This is all you'll need. Instruction. I'd say that's pretty good instruction for their personal appearance. Verse number 10. I want you to look with me if you would. And he said unto them, in what place soever ye enter into a house there abide till ye depart from that place." Instructions on where to abide. You know, this has always been something that's been really a real snag in my life, is dealing with younger people when they get to a place where they're, now they're Give me a number, somebody there. Young people in there, almost an adult. Give me a number, somebody. How much? 22? Yeah, that's a little bit older than what I was thinking. 16? Is that what you said? Brother Glenn said 10? Wow. Wow. Brother Glenn, 10 years old. Had some problems at the house, did you? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. You've got a great, got a great family, got a great family. I love them. We see right here, we see that we see that where the Lord sent you to, there's good instructions on how to abide there. Do you know, do you know that a lot of folk have the wrong idea about leaving home? I mean, it sounds good. It sounds cool. It really sounds like we're going to have a blast, me and my friends. And if we're going to just go out every night and eat and, you know, restaurants and have a good time, go to Jacksonville Fair and have a good time, that's going on right now. And I can't even bear to ride that stuff no more. They got to pay me big bucks for me to get on some of that stuff right now. I mean big bucks, but I mean big bucks. When I get where my feet ain't holding on to the ground no more, like, I'm nervous. But when them bills come in... I seen someone yesterday and they had almost a fairly new car. It looked really nice. I mean, brother Leo, it looked good. I thought, man, that thing is shiny. Still had the paper tag on it, you know. I mean, it looked good. I said, wow, that's nice. I said, you must be making some big bucks. Any new car, Any new car now is going to cost you a bunch of money. He said, oh, no. He said, I can barely make these payments. I said, I never bought that. Huh? I ain't got to have it. A good used car. I'd rather have something I could pay for. I'd rather have something I could pay for. And maybe even have a couple of dollars left over in my pocket. Well, I've got a good friend over in Waycross. He tells his boy all the time, he said, you're in debtor's prison. And sometimes people in business, they have to take chances. I understand that. I understand that. But I don't want to be in prison where there's bars. Or where it's just a life of debt. Because they bring sleepless nights. You know what the Lord was doing to these men? He says, no, no, no, no. You've got the wrong idea. All you've got to do is heed to my instruction and I will find a place for you to abide. You say, what if they never come? It was inevitable. Their obedience was going to find them a place to abide. When it comes tax time, and the Lord told Peter, he said, you're going to catch a fish, and in his mouth, there's going to be a coin. You can go pay your taxes with it. Now, do you think that was just an accident that Peter caught that fish? No. I mean, that was a setup from the word go. The Lord's taking care of that. And at the end of the day, when you lay your head down on a pillar and you thought things was going to be a lot worse than what they really ended up being, all you saw was God taking care of you all the way. Me and Brother John was talking the other night. I don't like, I don't like doctors. I went to my doctor today, my heart doctor, and got some good news. He said, man, he said, you look good. He said, Everything sound good. He took me off one of my medicines. He said, I'll see you next year. I said, praise Lord, I'm thinking, I hope I ain't here. I hope Jesus come for them. Somebody say amen right there. And can I tell you, whenever, if we're not careful, the most, some doctors, not all of them, but in case you can warn some of them, Some of them can scare you to death with, now I'll tell you one thing, this could be. Oh, let me tell you something could be. I could have a heart attack from you saying it could be. They just, sometimes they scare you to death. We're living in the most negative world that's ever been. The Lord is so gracious to these disciples. He says, hey, hey, hey, if you're willing to go, you're going to have a place to eat and you're going to have a place to sleep. And I'm the one that's going to see to it. Don't worry about your needs. Is that what he's done? You better believe it. How do you do that for me and you? Now, along the way, we all had to learn Brother Glenn, we had to learn about that dead thing. We had to learn about it. We had to learn that we didn't need all the stuff we wanted. We had to learn it. Somebody help me now. We had to learn it. But while we were learning, man, what a lesson God gave us right there. Instruction on where to abide. Verse number 11, the Bible says this, and whosoever shall not receive you nor hear you when you depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the days of judgment than for that city. At this time, we're looking at about 31 AD. Okay? The Lord Jesus is directing traffic. The disciples are doing the work. Even Judas himself is doing things right in the ministry. You say, can you prove that? We'll get to that verse. And now, the instructions that the Lord has given them to do, also lets them be aware that instruction of the rejection is coming. It's coming. He said, I just want you to know, there's some folks that ain't going to listen to what you say. We have to be careful. Can I just preach to you so I don't have to look at nobody back there? Because I don't want nobody thinking I'm talking to them. And I know you ain't. I ain't talking to you. But I look at you. We have to be careful in our preaching. Because if we don't, we want our preaching to be more boisterous than spirit-filled. We're not walking with Christ like we want everybody to think we are. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa, I must have hit a pretty good sump right there. We really, we really want to be a great Christian and we want to be like some old time Christians. And if we're not careful, what we'll do is we'll focus so much on days gone by that we'll want to be more like that than like Christ. Brother Dan said something, doesn't that? And nothing against Brother Dan, I love him. You know, I love him. He's a great friend, and he's doing everything he can, trying to work in that church. But he said something that made me think about this. He said, we're some old-time preachers, what we like around here. I said, well, I like preaching like they used to preach in years gone by. He said, we're just old-fashioned. Anybody old-fashioned in here? Are you old-fashioned? This is a setup. Be careful how you raise your hands. If I know what I said, F.E., you've been here long enough to know. There you go. I'm after you. Old-fashioned, brother Darnell. Yeah. Old-fashioned. Would you like to be old-fashioned? I see you. He said, I'm sitting on my hands. I ain't raising my hands. I know some old-fashioned folk used to go to town in a horse and buggy. That was old-fashioned. I remember whenever we was kids and my dad had bought 25 acres, and before they would ever, before they would ever bring electricity out there to where we lived at, I can take you out there today, before they ever brought us electricity out there, we had to live a week before, out there before, so they would know that we were serious about moving out there before they brought us electricity out there. So we had to have a hand pump. But along with that, nothing like good cold water out of a hand pump. is total opposite of a good cold bath out of a hand pump. The drinking water is refreshing. The bath, well now, that's old-fashioned. I'll be honest with you, my truck out there, one of my favorite features on my truck, when it gets real cold, I can mash that button, and them seats warm up. Anybody know what I'm talking about? I do. Sister Carol, I like that. I like that. Brother Joe, first time he ever rode in it, I turned the cold on. Well, I can't tell you what he said, but he says, yeah, boy, what's happening over here? Jeremiah did say, seek ye the old paths. But he used the word paths. A path is where someone else has trod. A path is somewhere someone has led. And maybe you can use this word instructed. The Lord, the Lord, He's letting them know they're going to be people. It was like this back then, 31 AD. They were people that rejected the gospel, rejected the preaching. And guess what? 2023? They're still rejecting. Do I glory in that? No, sir. No, sir. I don't. You should not. I hope you don't. I hope that you don't glory in the fact that you witnessed to somebody and they wouldn't listen to what you had to say. I hope you don't. Paul said, God forbid that I should glory. Saving the cross. It's the cross. It's the cross. We see instruction. We see instruction is faced with rejection. And then and then verse number 12, he says, and they went out and preached that men should repent. We see some instructions to give sinners, instructions given to sinners from the apostles. What did I say that word apostles meant the other day? Servants. Servants. Those servants are given sinners some good news about heaven, some good news about life, some good news. That's why these precious souls got saved Sunday morning. I ain't got every tip. I've told everybody. I told you. I'm telling you. Everybody called me. They said, how are you doing? I said, I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you about Sunday. I've told everybody. And guess what I'm going to do, Brother Tyler? I'm going to keep telling it. I do not, I, this is not a church that you're going to come to and the preacher is going to stand up here and look like he's mad and look like he's depressed and look like he's discouraged, look like his mother-in-law moved in with him, look like he's just tore out of the frame. Well, it might look like that a little bit, a little bit. But, but I am not, I am not going to come in whining, crying, and worry about the Hamas, or worry about Ishmael. I'm not going to spend God's precious time telling you about how bad everything is, when I can tell you that there's a Christ that loves you, a Christ that died for you, a Christ that rose from the dead for you, a Christ that is seated at the right hand of the Father, waiting to make intercession for you. I've gotten good news from a far country, and I'm happy about it. Brother Bobby said, I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm going to heaven. I'm not going to hell, and I'm not mad about that. I'm pretty happy, aren't you? Anybody? Anybody ever burn yourself? You ever burn yourself? See me at church, I'll burn you too. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I wouldn't do that. You ever been burned a little bit? You'll sure be thankful that you ain't going to hell. I mean, just a little bit. Man, I'm glad. With everything else that goes with it. Brother Larry, the separation from God, the separation from your family. I'm just trying to tell you tonight, there was instruction given to sinners from the apostles. And then there's some instructions given by Christ. And he's blessing them for their obedience. Verse number seven. And he called unto him the toil. And began to send them forth. by two and two, and gave them power over unclean spirits." Destruction. Here's what I want you to do, fellas. If it had been a mixed multitude there, he'd have said, ladies and gentlemen, here's what I want you to do. You got a neighbor? Tell your neighbors about the goodness of God. You work somewhere on the job? Tell the folks you work with about the goodness of God. Let people know that you got saved one day. Tell them how you was headed to hell. And one day the Holy Ghost of God came by where you was and let you know that you was lost and undone and had no hope. And you tried. You tried everything. You tried everything to have peace, but could not find it because the Bible says that there is no peace to the wicked, says my God. We've looked and we've flipped and flopped around by the day in trying to find What we thought was peace. But it wasn't out there. But on January the 27th, 1972, I found peace. I found peace. I laid my head down that Thursday night. That Wednesday night, I couldn't go to sleep. I just found out. I just found out. This young man right here. I just found out. I went to school with his grandmother. Now, if you don't think that'll make you feel old, When you tell somebody, hey, didn't I go to school with your grandma? And I think, somebody bring me a walker. I have to confess my sin, my fault, my fault, not my sin, not my sin, not my sin, my fault, one to another. I got caught in traffic this morning. I was 30 minutes late for my doctor's appointment. 30 minutes, because of the traffic going in the front, they had the bridge in front of them cut down to one lane. From A1A and 17, does anybody know where that's at? To my doctor's appointment and right behind the hospital, one hour. I had Brother Leroy, he's the only thing that rescued me right there. I didn't turn my back on God for a few minutes. He said, where are you at? I said, I'm passing the CBD store right now. I'm thinking about pulling in there. I said, I'm thankful I don't see a liquor store right now. Hallelujah. My blood pressure, I was thinking it'd be 190 over 25 and 100 and whatever that is. I'm telling you, God's took good care of us. Where would you be? Where would you be tonight if it wasn't for instructions that God has given you? Now, Brother John, he's real smart. But he's helped me. But he's helped me. You know Brother John? I see him sitting right there. Just in case you need to know. You need to know. You know what I'm talking about. He's told me over and over, Preacher, I need you to help me. I need you to help me. Now, I'm going to tell you something I really feel bad. He lost his dad here. It's been almost going on two years now. And I felt the same way. He said, you remind me of my dad. I was like, oh, man. People just love to make me feel old. And he said, you see me doing something wrong? Tell me. I said, for real? He said, tell me. I want you to help me. I said, OK. I will. I said, let's start off with this. Study to be quiet. That's biblical. I bet every one of us in here at one time or another has wished, instead of saying what I said, I wish I'd have been quiet. And to do that, It takes hard studying. I'm speaking from experience. From experience. I wasn't trying to hurt anybody, Tracy. You know that. I love everybody in here. I'm telling you. I love this church. I love everybody in here. But I know there's going to be times that you're going to say, hey, what do you think about this? and I'm going to do my best to give you some instruction. I'm going to do it the best I can with kindness, and love, and compassion. But no matter how it comes out, it's still going to be instruction. It's still going to be instruction. That's what we need, and that's what Jesus did. And now, after these men have preached, look at verse number 13. They've obeyed the Lord, they've heeded the instruction, and they went out, and they did what the Lord said to do. The Bible says, and when they went, and they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them. There's a reward for obeying the Lord. And it might not be where you see it right now. But when we get there, whenever he opens up the books, and you see that he's recorded all them good things you did, ain't got nothing to do with your salvation. Nothing to do with getting you to heaven. Just a reminder of how you was faithful to him. I'm kind of happy about that. I could have been a lot more faithful. And I could have done a lot more things. But between now and then, I'm going to do everything I can to heed and to follow his instruction. My dad said this one time, he told me, he was talking about being in school. And I've mentioned this over and over, probably, but he was an extremely studious person. And is there any young people, a young person, be honest, be honest with me, you qualify, you're a young person, okay? You qualify, you're young people, young people qualify. Anybody, maybe younger, ever had a problem with daydreaming? I did. I did. The teacher could be talking and I'd be on the field. Which field? Whichever one we had a ball for. Football field? Baseball field? In my mind, I'd be out there. My dad said this, he said, if you'll pay attention in the classroom, pay attention in the classroom, he said, you won't even have to worry about doing homework and such, except for just the obedient part. You won't even have to study for tests. And he was one of them that, listen, I mean, he studied, but it was because he wanted to know more and more. But he never studied when he came home from school. And he always made straight A's. His family couldn't understand why. He paid attention in class. I just wonder if we should take what we get from church from time to time. I said, you know what, that's a good idea for sure. I think I'll put that under my belt. I'll hide that and put it in my pocket. I'll need it later on. Take it out when I do need it. Might say there was a lot of bumps and bruises there on that highway when I was coming home from church last night. We got almost to the county line there on 95. And on my truck, it tells you everything, except for you're fixing to run off the road or something like that. Now, they got cars that does that. This light came on my dash. It said, low tire pressure. I said, oh boy. It's probably close to 10 o'clock. We went and got us some grits and eggs for supper, and we I'm coming along there, and I said, we got that. We got that. We got that. A1A, I said, I think we might better pull off here. Just let me check this while I have a place to look at it, or at least call Brother Tracy and tell him to come get me. You know what I'm saying? I mean, you didn't want me to call Brother Leo that late, I know. You didn't care? OK. See, I will store that. I will keep that, OK, in my pocket. And I got off, and the power was a little bit low. I pumped it up a little bit. It was worth $2 worth of quarters to put air in that tire than it was to take a chance on ruining a tire. Am I right? That instruction might have helped me a whole lot. Instruction is a good thing, especially when it's given by