Father, we praise your name in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, and for his sacrifice for us at Calvary, Father. We praise you for the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Spirit that reside in the saints. And for this service, Father, we ask that all we do and say today would glorify you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. And be seated. All right, I'm going to ask you to open your Bibles again this morning to Matthew's Gospel. Matthew's Gospel. Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 10. We've looked at Chapter 10 recently, as recent as last week. I'll make some more observations about it. A little more specific teaching on what we see here. And I'll read verses 5 through 15 this morning. and my remarks will be based on that passage. And so Matthew writes, these twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them saying, do not go into the way of the Gentiles, Do not enter a city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and as you go, preach, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs, for a worker is worthy of his food. Now, whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy and stay there till you go out. And when you go into the household, greet it. If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. Oh, Father, let us tread carefully with your word this morning, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we know a couple of things. One, there is a judgment. It is coming. There are essentially two judgments that can be made. I don't think there's going to be a whole lot of different types of sentences given out. That's not the impression I get from the New Testament. You will either be considered worthy before God or unworthy. And he's asking the disciples, the twelve apostles at this time, to begin making some assessments in that regard. And so, we're not to take this as though it's the final word of Christ to all Christians. This is His first command to the Twelve Apostles. Jesus has already appeared on the scene in Galilee. He went up on a mountain and gave a great sermon. We've looked at it for many weeks. and dissected it and went into the deep teaching of it. And so he went out into the countryside again. He preached the word. The multitudes followed him. Presumably these 12 apostles were part of that multitude. They saw people healed. They saw lepers healed. They saw healings that they didn't think were possible, and Jesus displayed himself clearly as an emissary of God, if not the very Son of God himself. Which, by the way, you may have noticed, he doesn't call himself that. He's a man in appearance as any other man, but he is quite an extraordinary teacher. His wisdom separated him from all the wisdom of all the philosophers for ages past, and the mighty works that he did certainly separated him from all of the claims of Godhead and power. of those who preceded him. He called these 12 to himself, and these are his first, his initial instructions to them. Go only to the children of the house of Israel, the lost sheep, he calls them. The Jews to Christ were the lost sheep. They shouldn't have been lost. They had 39 written books of God's word, but alas, we, lostness comes upon our race quite easily, it seems. It seems to me that's why we are commanded by God to come together one day in seven, because we are very forgetful creatures. And so he brings us together. Now, he told him to go only to the lost sheep. We know he gave a great commission in his risen state at the end of this gospel in chapter 28, when he says, go into all the world. Like all things, when we looked at last week the orderliness of God, He told them the second time, the first time I told you not to take money belts, not to bring sandals or equipment or all of these things, but now I'm telling you to bring those things. And so the dispensations of Christ's instructions do change and develop with the times. Alright? I don't suppose too many of you went throughout the countryside barefoot with your staff and knocking on doors, and if they didn't accept you in, you cursed the place and moved on. I don't suppose too many of us have done that in our time, but it was being done then. It was a different culture. Jewish culture was very close, and by the way, very hospitable. Hospitality was taken for granted among the people, as it should be really in the churches of Christ. Hospitality shouldn't go out of style, friends. So let's begin. Verses 6 and 7 say, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and as you go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So we're once again looking into these passages where Jesus specifically commissions the hand-picked twelve. This isn't a commission for everyone. He's talking to the hand-picked twelve, although we will see some overlap later in the gospel that some of these teachings actually apply to all the saints. All right? They are to what? They are to go. So he's sending them out. We find out in another context, they perhaps went out two by two in pairs. You'll notice he lists them in pairs. So they, presumably, they go out two by two. They're supposed to go out through all the cities of Galilee at this time, preach the word of God, proclaim the the prophet from Nazareth, whose fame has already gone out to the multitudes, and show with great credentials that they are the emissaries of that prophet. They too can heal upon request. They too, it says, can raise the dead. And so this is an itinerant mission. They're moving on. They're not staying in one place, right? They travel, presumably by foot, from one place to another there to go with little or no preparation with regard to material provisions. Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts. The mediums of exchange are banned. Nor bag for your journey. Don't pack, just go. Nor two tunics. No change of clothes, friends. Now it says nor sandals. I hope it means nor two pairs of sandals, but it doesn't say that. And some commentators believe they went out barefoot. That's gotta be hard. Don't bring your staff for a worker as worthy of his food. In other words, you work for me now, you will be fed and clothed and cared for. We see reflections of the Sermon on the Mount in that, in the lilies of the field, who is clothed, not even Solomon like one of them in such grandeur, right? Even the birds of the air are fed by their maker who cares for them, and you are worth many sparrows," he said, right? So the task is simple. I didn't say it was easy, but it's simple. Go out and proclaim the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Preach the kingdom. I can think of no other meaning to this one-line sermon than simply this. The kingdom is at hand because the king is in the land. The kingdom is at hand because they finally are reunited with their king. Whoever heard of a kingdom without a king? So he's in the land. He has been seen by many. He has preached to the multitudes. He healed the sick, et cetera. He's done many wonders. And we are his emissaries, the 12. Blessed with commensurate power and with an identical mission, that is, we are to proclaim the kingdom of God. That is the calling for the church, to proclaim the kingdom of God, friends, and my kingdom is not of this world. Now, the young apostles are not to simply go. They're not to simply go and heal. They're not to simply go and heal and exorcise. The power to perform the miraculous is a testament as to who sent them. They are sent by the healer himself, who we will call the healer in chief. The one whose miraculous healings are by this time renowned throughout Galilee. That's why people came to Jesus. They found out he could heal. And this is at a time when you couldn't just call 911 when something happened. But if Jesus was in the land, you were in luck. You went out and asked him to heal, and he healed, it says, everyone who came to him of every ailment that they suffered, an incredible act of divine mercy. So they're not simply to go, they're not simply to go and heal, they are to go and to preach. There's simply no institution, no organization on earth whose mission is so bound up with proclamation. Advertisement, yes. Proclamation, no. Jesus has a message to proclaim. He has emissaries to proclaim it for him. The church of God is his gathered elect. God chose the churches. 1 Peter 1-2. The churches of God are his eternal family, Romans 8, 16. The church is his house. He dwells in us. 1 Corinthians 6, 19. We are also his body. He's the head, we're the body. We're the hands and the feet and the voice. 1 Corinthians 12, 7. We are his purchased possession. He bought you and the price was his life. His life for ours. And we are a church almost entirely dependent upon preaching, Hebrews 5.14. See, if I was preaching a long sermon, I'd go into all those, but I'm going to give that to you so you can do it as homework and go over it later and look those up and see if I'm not right. And so what is preaching? We're to go and we're to preach, we're to build our whole existence as the church of the saints upon this action, this preaching, just proclaiming. Preaching's fallen on hard times. How many times has someone said to you, don't preach to me! Don't be so preachy! The church has gotten so preachy in our day. Heaven forbid we ever stop preaching the Word of God. So what is preaching, friends? I'll tell you what it is. It's teaching with fire. It's teaching with zeal. It's insisting that the teaching is right because it comes directly from the authority who is God. It's declaring with fire and the Spirit of God. That's why Christians feel it when it's preached. Because the Spirit in us feeds upon it. Peter said it nourishes us like food, like mother's milk. What else is preaching? It's speaking in faith. We don't just preach, we don't just babble. I hope you don't think that's what I've done for 30 years. We speak in faith. It's declaring with fire in the spirit, and this has been the mission of the church from that day until this. That's the part of it that's never changed. That's the part of it that's not exclusive to the Twelve Apostles. We all preach. We don't all have the same style, but we all preach. The context here, the context is always important, as you know. If you don't consider the context in which a statement is made, you can go off just about anywhere with any verse of scripture. But the context should corral us into right thinking or thinking God's thoughts after him. The context clearly reveals that this passage is given to the 12 apostles only. We know that from the context. But the balance of the New Testament, the greater context of God's word, calls all the saints to speak the things of God and to preach the kingdom. Having said that, however, I think that the importance of preaching has fallen on hard times. Not that there's none done, but it's very often done regardless of the context. We like to sort of extract little things that please us and not see that it may not even apply in that particular instance. And no wonder, no wonder that preaching has fallen on hard times. There's no other aspect of our faith that's been so attacked. There's no other aspect of our faith that's been so impugned, so corrupted, so neglected as this first and foremost directive of the Savior. And that's why he says, when you go out into Israel, now this is Northern Israel, Galilee. This was an Israel who, during the intertestamental times, that's between Old Testament and New, that 400 years, They were actually idol worshippers at that time. So there's a lot of false belief, but they're still the covenant people of God, sons of Abraham. They should give hospitality to the emissaries of a prophet in their time, but they were not doing that. Jesus fully expected that only some would receive them and some would not. So it's no wonder that preaching is attacked. That's why we in the Reformed churches are so insistent upon rightly dividing the word of truth, which Paul told Timothy, 1 Timothy 2.15. That's why we insist on preparing our sermons. Friends, we insist on preparing our sermons, even though in the next section you will read You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles, but when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak." I've had people apply that to me and say, I will not listen to your sermons, nor will I read them, because you prepared them. Preparation is bad. You see how we pull something out of context? He said, when they deliver you up to councils, this will be, and he's talking to 12 men who have been dead for 2,000 years. But with Christ, right? I've had people say, you shouldn't prepare. You should just stand there and wait. The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and you'll have wonderful things to say. Guess what? I hope that happens. I hope in some way that happens every time I approach the pulpit. I've got up here, and I've said to you many times, I'm so glad I don't have to do this job. The Spirit of God does it through you. But when someone, that one person, not so long ago said to me, I will not listen to your sermons nor read them. And he said, because they are not from the Holy Spirit. And I said to him, why would you limit God in that way? Don't you think when a preacher sits down at the desk to pen some notes for a sermon for good people to bother to listen to, that the Holy Spirit is working in the whole prospect of the preparation? Why did, what, he just shows up whenever we played the flute for you and you did not dance? We sang to you and you did not mourn? So context is important, friends, and I believe in preparing sermons. And so they are to not turn sermons into mere chants or repetitious phrases. or inane formulations. I made up that little phrase. Inane formulations. They are to, as Paul told Timothy, convince, rebuke, exhort. Those are the aspects of the Word of God being preached to the people. Convince. You are convincing people of something. You're not just listening to yourself talk. You're rebuking evil. In other words, you're reforming the morality of a company of people. And you are exhorting them, uplifting them, encouraging them with all long-suffering and teaching. Long-suffering is the divine act of patience. God doesn't strictly have patience. When you know whenever everything's going to happen, you don't have to have patience. God's not waiting and hoping as we are. Follow? He has long-suffering. He knows we're all sinners, but he puts up with us. It's called long-suffering. Preachers ought to do that. They are to be long-suffering like God, and they are to teach. I asked my old friend Dave Kimball many years ago. Dave's been gone for many years now. I was a very new Christian, and Dave was a pastor for 50 years. And I said, Dave, what is the difference between preaching and teaching? And he said, I don't know. But if you ain't teaching, you ain't preaching. You don't just get up and talk and chant and do things that I see people do. We are to do it when? When it's convenient. No, in season, out of season, always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in you. Preaching is the perpetual practice of a functioning church. If a church ceases to preach, if a church ceases to convey God's word through preaching, it ceases to be God's church. It has lost its first love and its first directive. Martyrs, friends, read the great books on the martyrs. Fox's great book of martyrs. Martyrs go to the flames preaching. The gospel is on their lips as they burn at the stake. The truth of God attends the saints in life as well as in death. You think there'll be no proclaiming of the glory of God when we get there before him? And so preaching comes with a healthy dose of striving. That's why you sometimes see the preacher do something like this. It comes with diligence, friends. In other words, we don't give up on it. It comes with a stubborn resistance against those who would seek to silence it. The preacher will not be silenced. The church has a voice, and it's God's voice. And if they receive you, they receive me, the gospel says. If they don't receive you, they don't receive me. They therefore don't receive him who sent me, the Lord said. We're not to tire of it, friends. We're not to tire of hearing of it. We're not to tire of doing it. And it can be a tiresome thing. And so we read of those times when the silencers sought to have their way with the apostles and the leaders of the Sanhedrin. That's the ruling religious class of the day, the Sanhedrin. They call Peter and John to stand before them in judgment for disrupting the land with this new teaching, this gospel, this message of the guy we just tried and condemned and put to death. And so we read this from the book of Acts, but so that this gospel spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten the apostles that from now on they speak no They speak to no man in his name, in this name of Jesus. And then we read this. But Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God you judge. You're the religious leaders. Should we listen to you or should we listen to God who spoke to us personally? For we can not but speak the things which we have seen and heard. The preacher cannot be silenced, friends. The children of the one true God have been given all the tools to develop a healthy tolerance for preaching. We're blessed with faith in the Holy Spirit. There are some very specific gifts of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of teaching and preaching. There's a gift from God that empowers a man to preach, and he must act upon it. There's a gift of God that empowers the saints to teach, as well as other things, to administrate. I will say our deacon, Duane, has an overabundance of the gift of administration, and I've given you those receipts and I want that money back, Duane. The church is not to make light of such things. We're to cultivate the gifts of God among ourselves. We're to encourage them in one another. We're to exercise the gifts we're blessed with for the edification of the church. Friends, you have a gift. It's yours. God doesn't take it away when you misuse it. People misuse the gifts all the time. They still have the gift. But it's for the body. It helps the body for you to exercise your gift. Maybe you're very hospitable. You know, we're a hospitable church. I think we have all the gifts of the Spirit here in this small body. So we're to cultivate those gifts. We're blessed with the edification. The gifts are the blessing of the saints for the edification of the church. So there are gifts of God for carrying on the function of the church throughout the generations. They don't change. Tolerance for preaching. comes with a love of truth. Friends, people that can't tolerate preaching don't love the truth of God. They shall perish because they did not receive the love of the truth. 2 Thessalonians. Love of truth can only come from immersion in the truth. Friends, if you're finding that you're not moved by the preaching of God's Word, Go back to a daily reading pattern of God's Word. It will build up in you a tolerance for it. And yes, there will be things that are troubling. There will be things that are hard to understand. But it will give you a tolerance for not only the way God speaks, but the things that He speaks about. So preaching truth has always been paramount among the true churches of God. Hence the emphasis we put on proper context and informed exegesis. What's exegesis? Exegesis refers to original intent. All right, so we go back and we, instead of just guessing, we go back, we study the histories of these times, some of which are evident from the word itself, some are extra-biblical teachings, and we try to get as close as we can to what that message originally meant to the people who originally heard it. What did it mean? And then we extrapolate that to meet modern times. Times have certainly changed. We're not an agricultural society anymore, are we? We're technological. So we're zealous not to let the meaning of the word be forgotten over time. That's why we do all these things. We rightly divide the word of truth. We exegete the word for the people. So we don't forget this over time. We don't relinquish the power. which is tended to diminish because of fashion and the traditions of society. They would like to tell us that we're a quaint little archaic group of worshipers doing things that ancient people did that are quite out of style and fashion. We really ought to adopt some new modes of getting the message across. We must never lose sight of the fact that the accurate presentation of the Word of God has been systematically and zealously attacked even from the very beginning, friends. Only moments after God's first directive to man in the garden, the message was questioned and attacked by a persistent enemy, wasn't it? Happened right away. I don't know if it was moments. Could have been a hundred years. The Bible doesn't get specific. But it's said right after that point in time. Recall the first most famous test of man's resolve to adhere to a simple command. The serpent asked, has God indeed said, have you ever been asked that has God indeed said that he asked them that and they questioned and they didn't come up with the right answer. Friend, it was by the kind provision of a loving father that his true children would hold that question close to their hearts. Friends, the serpent asked it, but let's ask it of ourselves. What has God indeed said? It's to our eternal benefit that the people of God gather one day in seven to resolve life's most essential questions. What did God really say? The preaching of the word of God is the most essential aspect of God's divine directive to man. It is the most essential part of worshiping God. It is that pearl of great price. And we ought to pray daily that it does not become the lost coin and that we do not become the lost sons and daughters of our father. Recall from the first words of the Apostle John that the word is what? It's the true light that gives light to every man coming into the world. The word is that. He also wrote, these are written that you may believe. Friends, God took the trouble to have his word written down so that it can't change. And He gave us scholars, and interpreters, and translators, and linguists, and archaeologists, and all kinds of people to make certain that what was written then is what is in our hands now, and I'm here to tell you that it is. This sermon is not on that subject, but what we have is what Matthew wrote. These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. James, the half-brother of Jesus Christ, said, receive with meekness, what? The implanted Word, which is able to save your soul. It's the Word of God that saves you. You know, the Word of God has an inherent power of its own. And I'll get to that. Paul writes this, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation. How do you think a man is saved? He's saved by hearing the truths of Christ's sacrifice for your sins and falling to your knees and repenting of your sin and praying that he save you and claiming your faith in his promises. It is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. To them that meant everybody. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Verses 12 and 13 go on. And when you go into a household, greet it. If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And so these 12 apostles are to test the people. They're to evaluate the cities. Notice God talks about cities and towns and nations. He doesn't focus a lot on individuals. We tend to do that in our preaching. But the Lord has this whole communal approach to morality in societies at large, right? He evaluates cities. And they bless or curse cities and towns respectfully. So what does it mean that a house be worthy or unworthy? By this time there would be a grave distinction between who among the people of Galilee had been receptive to the identity of the prophet of Nazareth and who was not. And the teaching of Matthew 7 is not lost on these apostles. The placing of holy things in the sight of those who eschew them is a sacrilege. The Spirit of God will tolerate only so much disgrace where holy things are concerned, and the Twelve Apostles ought to make a distinction between the worthy and the unworthy among them. Do not give what is holy to the dogs, or cast your pearls before swine," he said. So when he says, greet it, when he says, enter the house, greet it. He refers to a salutation or a blessing. You're not coming in saying, hello, house. You're greeting the house. You're giving a blessing to it. But what is a blessing? Is a blessing just a nice thing that we say? Is that what it is? Or does a blessing have power to do something? One of the great commentators of the New Testament, one of the great theologians, R.T. France, wrote these words. The greeting, peace to this house, Luke 10 5 spells out what Matthew's greet assumes. So Luke's version has it this way. Whatever house you enter, first say peace to this house. And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it. If not, it will return to you and you will leave the house. So Luke gives a little more context, France is saying to us. But France goes on to comment on the greeting itself. And this is what he writes. It is thus no mere formality to put a blessing on a house. When Bill gets up at the end of the service, he's giving a benediction. That benediction is coming from the Word of God by a hand-picked emissary of God, and it comes with efficacious power. It is thus no mere formality. It is envisaged, France writes, as an effective blessing which goes out and takes effect provided it is suitably received. If not, if it's not suitably received, it will have no effect but will return like an uncashed check. You had the blessing in your hand, you could have brought it to the bank, but you crumbled it up and threw it away. It will have no power if you don't receive it in a worthy manner. It will have one power, the power to condemn. They're simply to test the people's worthiness and the people are organized by cities. Notice Christ says this, whatever city or town you enter, assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah, which are also cities, right? In the day of judgment, then for that city, he speaks of us in terms of communal organizations, almost always. So there's this communal blessing, and the counter-blessing, that is the curse. I shake off like dust from my feet, right? It's interesting to me how the Lord assesses the receptiveness of towns. I wonder how Lakeville would do. Of towns. Of cities. Of nations. as indicative of the overall acceptance of his word by a group of people. You know, I focused a lot in the last two weeks on what I see as obvious, that the churches have been largely uninfluential in society over time. I don't think their voice is respected as it once was. Do you agree? I don't think the word of holy men is as respected as it once was. And I gave some examples of that last week. This is what he's talking about here. And so he alludes to the communal destruction of the most famously cursed cities in history, Sodom and Gomorrah, as the archetype of God's curse. It's been asked of me, Dan, do you suppose the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament is a literal piece of history? Is it just a symbolic thing to show us, you know, when God gets mad at me, he means business. Is that what it is? Or did it actually happen to those cities of the plain? By the way, there were more than just the two. My answer is this. Jesus treated it as though it were true. Right? Therefore, so must we. Recall the two essential rules of genuine faith. These are my rules. They come from 1 John 1.23. I'll have to check that, I think it's 123, it's been so long, but the two rules of these, number one, we must believe what Jesus believes. Jesus believes the Old Testament, it's the word of God. We must believe what Jesus believes. And that would entail also teaching what Jesus taught. And number two, we must love whom Jesus loves, and Jesus loves the church, who it is written of, gave himself for her. We believe otherwise and love otherwise at our peril. Remember, our default response to every man coming into the world, to whom Jesus gave light, is to love them. That's our default response. The first thing we do is we love all men. We love those who hate us. We love those who persecute us and despitefully use us, he said in the great sermon, right? Yet at the same time, we're not to cast our pearls before swine or give what's holy to the dogs. And that's a directive that does not expire over time. Nor is it for the twelve only. How a person or a society responds to the Word of God openly proclaimed is the only testament of which category of God's affection a person or a city or a society falls into. Will they be blessed? Or will they be shaken off like dust? The act is particularly illustrative, isn't it? The shaking off. I mean, it's not a superstitious thing. It's not as though the dust had any power or that a bad person's bad vibes are sticking to your feet and you want to wash them off. He's just saying it's an act of protest against a particular body of people. Since mankind itself is formed from the very dust of the earth, it kind of makes an illustrative point, doesn't it? Perhaps the most famous of the societies who stood at the precipice of reception or rejection of God's prophet was ancient Nineveh. And I'm talking about Jonah, the book of Jonah, right? Nineveh is a real city. It's been excavated. It's in Iraq. It's an awesome city. If you remember, it took Jonah several days to walk around it, right? So that city, that society, had fallen into communal sin against God, and God held the city responsible. He's going to destroy the city, he said. And so Jonah preached, yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown. I hope that's a section of his sermon, but it's all we're given. It might be the whole sermon. Yet 40 days. In other words, there's no hope for the city. He didn't say, repent and you'll be saved. He didn't do any of those things. There was no gospel message here. There was just a prophet decrying that you have outlived your usefulness for God, he said to ancient Nineveh. And you get 40 more days and it's all going to be gone. Jonah did not provide an alternative course for them. Yet the king of Nineveh The king of Nineveh took the prophet seriously, and he proclaimed a fast. Do you remember the book of Jonah? He proclaimed a fast, and he publicly declared among the people, he said this, who can tell if God will turn and relent? Like, maybe if we do something to honor him finally, even though we've been idolatrous all of our existence, the prophet has come, given us a 40-day limit, I would have headed for the hills, I'll tell you. But the king thought, we have 40 days to show God we can change. And so he proclaims a communal fast. Even the animals were given no food and water. And maybe he would turn away from his fierce anger so that we may not perish. Repentance brought fruit, friends, and God showed mercy because repentance speaks to worthiness. It speaks to the recognition that you are unworthy. You can't repent of worthiness. You repent of unworthiness. The king's reception of the prophet's words made him and they worthy of God's blessing. And so it's in Palestine. And so it is in Palestine in the time of the apostles. There is time. Repent and be worthy before God. Verse 14, whoever will not receive you nor hear your words when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Don't miss the symbol of disassociation. I want no more to do with that house. The house, the town, the city that will not receive Christ or the disciples he's dispatched to serve them will be cut off from his blessing. Do not miss the communal nature of Christ's blessing here, friends. Again, a communal blessing. Nor the communal unworthiness of entire cities and towns. The Great Commission focuses on the discipling of nations. He says, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them. He's still concerned with nations. In a later era, the Lord spoke not to towns or cities who adhere to a synagogue, right? Maybe that's why he looked at cities that way. A city was really a church. There was a synagogue that was the worship center of that city. If genuine worship was being done in that synagogue, then in God's sight, the people were worthy. idolatry or superstition was being taught in the synagogue, they would be unworthy. They would be unrespecting of the prophets of Jesus Christ as he sent them out. Now that's my guess but I'm wondering why he gave such emphasis to cities. You will notice as we come to the end of the New Testament that he doesn't speak of cities or towns or nations but he speaks to churches. The church of Ephesus, which is a city, right? The church of Ephesus he evaluates. And he tells them what they have done that is rightful in his sight and where they have fallen short. They have fallen short in Ephesus because they left their first love, he says. So don't miss the symbol of disassociation. The house, the town, the city that will not receive Christ or his disciples he has dispatched to serve them will be cut off from all blessing. In a later era, the Lord speaks not to towns or cities who adhere to a synagogue, but to the churches of those towns and cities. The risen Christ speaks to the seven churches of Asia, we see from Revelations chapters 2 and 3. From the next chapter we read this, then he began to rebuke the cities. Jesus takes time to rebuke cities, friends, in which most of his mighty works have been done. In other words, I showed my mercy in these cities and they still turn away from me. Because they did not repent. And then he names the cities in their time. Woe to Chorazin, he said. Woe to Bethsaida. For if the mighty works that were done in you were done in Tyre and Sidon, which are Lebanese cities to the north of Israel, right? Not the people of God in the day. If those works had been done in foreign lands, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Friends, we're not a society that's been unblessed by mighty work, so this is our application. We are a society. We are a culture. You could say America, or you could say the Western world, if you will. We are a society. I wonder how he evaluates us morally as a society. I think not very highly. And yet I wonder if our Christian witness is commensurate with the blessings we've received. Friends, Our nation has received great mercies and great blessings of God. There's a pattern disclosed in passages like these ones of how God works among the nations. So if our nation, if our society is not amenable to the presence of Christ and the ones he sends out, I wonder what kind of treatment we may receive from the Lord God in the final act of human history. How will we be evaluated as a culture? Oh, Pastor, don't speak on cultural things. We're not supposed to delve into those. Of course we are. We don't take God's Word out of a whole most important sector of human society, our moral culture. And yet I remind you of one caveat. Even though he talks about all this communal stuff, there's still a caveat of salvation. in God's communal plan. God is able and has shown himself willing to surgically remove a single righteous man from an unrighteous city or society. Hasn't he? Abraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldees, which is Babylonia, right? And even though he speaks of Sodom as being swept away with fire and brimstone of God's wrath, He surgically removed Lot out of Sodom. God is able to take a single man or a single righteous person or a single church out of the fires of his wrath. Abraham called out of Ur. Lot was called out of Sodom. Jonah, though a reluctant prophet, was yet a faithful one. Right? Some of us have been reluctant. I'm reluctant at times. I don't like to be told what to do. That might be an American thing, but I think a lot of people have that. But in the end, I'm faithful to God, and our church is faithful to God. So Jonah, though a reluctant prophet, was yet a faithful one, and yet he was in no danger from the hand of God. God wasn't after Jonah. Even when he thrust him in the deep, even when he was inside the fish, he prayed to God. From the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed. One of my favorite passages of scripture. Don't let your reluctance get the last word in your life, friends. You may be a reluctant prophet, but don't let reluctance be the last thing you say to God. Repent and be baptized for the remission of sins. Paul was pulled out from among the Pharisees, right? Jesus didn't have a lot of good things to say about the Pharisees, but he extracted some people out of there. Paul, probably Nicodemus, maybe Gamaliel, the great rabbi of the era. He pulled Matthew right out of the Roman Empire. Matthew worked for Rome. He was a government worker. Right? He was in Herod's cabinet. The purity of the one leads to the purifying of another. So God pulls them out. The purity of Paul led to the purity, purification of thousands, maybe millions of others, right? Same's true of Matthew, who wrote this gospel. They were in the world, friends. God pulled them out. He's able to surgically remove us. Look at the whole world set afire with the gospel by those who would not be shaken off. Don't let the preacher come to town and shake you off like dust. By those who did not disregard their Savior when he had come among them. Friends, when the Savior or the emissary of the Savior comes among us, receive him and give him hospitality. And who can say who will finally repent? For the moment, the churches will preach that the kingdom of God is at hand. We will command by the authority of Jesus Christ that we are to repent and be baptized for the remission of sin. It is God's command. Baptism is the sign of submission to Christ. It is the symbolic representation of death and resurrection. It's symbolic, friends, but like the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, it is a symbol of our acceptance of Christ, but never assume that it is an empty symbol or a mere ritual. It's a symbol, it's a ritual, but it's not empty of God's presence and of God's power and of his insistence that we keep it up till he returns. And so we will baptize believers in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and we will call for the blessing of those who have shown love and hospitality to the saints in this day, the neighbors on the hill. As you go preach, O Father, in Jesus' name, we praise you for being with us. And among us, as you have promised in the preaching and the proclamation of this, your holy word be with us for the remainder of our service. Indeed, father, for the remainder of our lives, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.