Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13 tonight, this afternoon. What, two o'clock? Acts chapter 13. You know, I read somewhere since the Civil War, there's only been one American service member who was ever executed for desertion. And his name was private, I've got it written down here, Eddie Slavik. Must have been Russian. 1945. I had some snide comments to say about my in-law, son-in-law, being a Slavic, but I thought I'd stop. I'll tell him later, but anyway. Private Eddie Slavic, 1945. Most of us are familiar with the term AWOL, absent without leave, and what that means, there's another term called desertion. And there's a little bit of a difference there. Essentially, the difference is just time and intent, the intent of the desertion or whether it's just AWOL, absent without leave. But every army in the world has had a soldier go AWOL. For some reason, either they were afraid or desertion. They were afraid to fight. Maybe they disagreed with the mission. You had a lot of that during Vietnam. People, soldiers, of course, you brought up a non-volunteer army through the draft and some were vehemently against the Vietnam War and they didn't want to fight and you had problems that way. Maybe they just missed their wife like General Custer did when he went home at one time and kind of a little bit of a desertion there. But whatever the reason, whatever the reason is, for a soldier to walk out on his duties and leave the platoon or leave the team or leave the squad, for them to continue a mission without them is really one of the more detestable things that a soldier can do. Yeah, no doubt. That Bo Bergdahl, remember, he walked off the base here not too many years ago, and Obama traded for him to get him back, and people were like, why'd we trade to get this guy back, right? And it was detestable. The guys that served with him just had great disdain for him. And nobody likes a deserter. Nobody likes that in the military, and we don't like that in churches either. Yeah. Desertion happens in churches. It absolutely does. Now, the military has a protocol for AWOL. They have a protocol for that. But what about the church? Is there a protocol for the church of Jesus Christ when somebody goes AWOL, when there is a deserter? I want to look at this here and what the church did here with a deserter. Now in Acts chapter 12 we're introduced to a man by the name of John Mark. John Mark. He was a cousin to Barnabas. His mother's house was used as a meeting place when Peter was let out of prison. That's where he went to John Mark's mother's house. According to 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 13, let me read this to you. You can see here, as Paul would have called Timothy his son in the Lord, it seems like maybe Peter had led John Mark to the Lord. He said, the church that is at Babylon elect together with you, saluteth you as doth Marcus, Mark is my son. That's the Latin version of the word Mark. Mark was his Latin name. John was his Jewish name. He was called John Mark. And that's about what we know about him. But the ministry of John Mark we see here in Acts that the Church of Jerusalem had sent Barnabas down to Antioch. And so Barnabas had picked up Saul. He had brought him. Remember Saul had been in Damascus, right? On the road to Damascus. He gets stopped on the road to Damascus. He gets He gets brought to Damascus and then what's his name there at Damascus? I just went blank. Ananias, thanks for the help. Ananias was dealt with him and Paul got saved and he was baptized. And he got put in the ministry there. And then Barnabas comes, somehow comes to Damascus and gets Paul and he brings him up to Antioch. And If just an FYI, that's where you get a letter from, right? If you're going to take somebody from another church of like faith, and we're going to say, are you coming by letter, which means that church is going to vouch. Well, Barnabas was the letter for John Mark and he vowed, or for Paul, and he vouched for him that he had been saved. had a good testimony. He had been baptized into the church there at Damascus. And obviously God wanted him there at Antioch for future ministry. He didn't even realize. So, Barnabas brings not only Saul to Antioch, but where he brings Saul to Antioch. But Barnabas and Saul are gonna labor there in Antioch for about a year. And in that time, if you remember Agabus comes and he's a prophet. Now listen, Acts is transitional, so be careful. A lot of the cults get all of their doctrine out of a transitional book. And there are some things that don't quite apply today as they would have been. We are kind of the segue period from the Old Testament into the New Testament. And this Agabus, this prophet, right? It came and he prophesied a great dearth. And he was right. There was a great dearth that came that was going to affect the world. And the Christians at Antioch, at that church in Antioch, they because of this they began to gather up money and send it to the churches in Judea. And and it's going to be Barnabas and Paul who are going to go to Jerusalem to deliver that gift of money during that bad season that they had there. And so they leave Jerusalem and they return now to Antioch. They brought the money up, they delivered it to the church, it was a blessing. They're going to go back to Antioch and in Acts chapter 12 and verse 12 is where we first meet John Mark. Look at this, chapter 12, look at verse 12. And when he had considered the thing, he came to the house of Mary, the mother John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together praying. And so we see him here in verse 25 of Acts 12. And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry and took with them John, whose surname was Mark. So, They are meeting in John Mark's mother's house. Somehow it transpires that John Mark feels led of the spirit of God, no doubt, to go with these men to Antioch. And he travels back to Antioch with John, with Barnabas and Paul, and he is involved there in the work at Antioch. And so when the Holy Ghost had called the church to separate Barnabas and Paul for the ministry that they were called to do, we find out that they had some help. Now here's another little tidbit of knowledge. The Holy Ghost did not say, hey Barnabas, hey Saul, I got a work for you to do. Not what it says. The Holy Spirit of God told the church What does that mean? The church recognized the hand of God on these two men, and that there was an equipping for the ministry in these two men, and it was also evident to the church, right? I'm not saying that God didn't go to Barnabas and Paul, work in their heart, to have a desire to go out in some type of ministry, but listen, don't get the idea. And also you've got to realize that after they had fasted and prayed, twice they fasted and prayed over this thing. It was a serious thing. They weren't just sending somebody out willy-nilly to go out and do something, right? It was of the Holy Ghost of God after they had fasted and prayed. And it wasn't Barnabas Paul going, hey, we think we are sent out, we are going to go and do this in a ministry, right? If they had said that, watch, the church would have, at this point, watch, the church would have said, well, yeah, that makes sense. Why? Because the church had already validated it and verified it to the church that he had called them out, right? So what am I saying? When somebody comes along and says, hey, I'm called to the ministry, and the church goes, really? I don't see that. You know what that's telling you? The Holy Spirit of God has not told that church that this person is ready for ministry. right? And so we see this. So he's that's just that was free. That was extra only have like three pages of notes tonight. So I'm, I'm adding all this extra stuff to make up for all this time we have till seven o'clock. I mean, we've got a lot of time. And so Anyway, we find out here in Acts 13 that they have some help here at Antioch. Look at Acts 13, verse 13, Brother Jim read it. Now, when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga and Pamphylia, and John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. Now, in Acts 13, 13, we see here that Paul and the company are now in Persia, which is Perga, I'm sorry, the very southwest corner of Turkey. They're down there ministering, and they've traveled almost 400 miles from Antioch. They have preached in synagogues across the island of Cyprus, and they have come to see many people come to Christ, right? Remember that Roman deputy, Sergius Paulus, had gotten saved. There was a sorcerer by the name of Bargesus who had gotten saved. Now, I don't know how much time has elapsed here, but watch, they have seen God do some really marvelous great, mighty works throughout all of the areas that they had preached. And when the gospel was preached, people got saved, okay? But notice this, while Paul was preaching, while Barnabas was preaching, while the work was being done, while the Spirit of God was convicting hearts and souls, while people were getting saved, while lives were being churched, John Mark was watching the entire time. He was there. He was a part of it. You're saying, I don't know, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Listen, he was immersed in the labor and the work and he was experiencing the same work of the Spirit of God as everybody else was. You've been in services like that. Well, the spirit of God has fallen, and the spirit of God is working in a mighty way, and it's like, wow, this is really, this is something else, right? What are you doing? You're a partaker of the Holy Ghost. You are experiencing the work of God, and it's a real thing that's going on here. But something has happened in John Mark's life. Yeah. Did you see that again in verse 13? Look at it. when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos and came to Perga and Pamphylia, and John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem." He went home. He had seen the same work of the Holy Spirit as Paul and Barnabas. He had watched people get saved. He had seen lives changed. Think about all of the preparation time from Jerusalem to Antioch to when they finally went and left Antioch and got on a ship. I mean, a lot of time has elapsed, a lot of opportunity to watch the working of God. And for some reason, we don't know why necessarily, but for some reason, John Mark goes home. He goes back to Jerusalem. You know, the Bible never tells us why. We don't know that. It's almost like, I don't care why, he went home. Almost like there wasn't a reason, right? It's just like, the dude split on us, he left. He left us high and dry. Paul had a little bit more to say of Demas, having loved, we know why Demas left, right? Having loved this present world. It's a part in the Thessalonica, right? And he had left him, but John Mark has done the same thing here and over in Acts chapter 15. Go over here in Acts chapter 15, let me show you this. Because the departure of Mark does cause contention. Look at verse 36. And some days after, Paul said unto Barnabas, let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do. And Barnabas determined to take with him John, whose sermon name was Mark. But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work. And the contention was so sharp between them that they departed asunder one from another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed into Cyprus. Paul chose Silas and departed being recommended by the brethren under the grace of God. There's a little bit of an inference here that Barnabas and Mark's trip was not sanctioned. by the church. The brethren acknowledged Paul's trip, but they didn't acknowledge Barnabas's trip. It is a different, totally, I'm not going to get into that tonight, but we see here the contention was sharp over the person of John Mark. Whatever happened, it wasn't a good thing. It wasn't a part of the ministry plan. It wasn't due to illness. Paul would have said, no, I'm not taking him. He might get a cold again. He has a weak stomach. He might barf all over the ship again. We can't have that. I don't think it was due to illness. I don't think he wasn't going home to garner more troops and to get back and raise support and say, let's go back out again. No, it was something that he just, he walked away from the mission. He was AWOL, he was a deserter. He left the ministry that was there. And from everything that we can tell, there was like, he just went home. He went home. Yep. It was a bad deal. You know, from the beginning of time, people have, departed from following God. You know the process in your life, how God has brought you where He has today, don't you? You know that process of the conviction of the Spirit of God, maybe when you got saved, and then when God began to work on you about being faithful, and faithful to the house of God, and faithful to serve God, and you've watched yourself. I mean, a lot of interaction, and experience, and prayer, and time goes into all of that. It's just not like, I mean, there was a lot of stuff going on there that he walked away from. And from the beginning of time, people have done this. They have been, seemed like they were fully in until they were fully out. 1 Kings chapter 3, you remember Solomon. Solomon was pretty in, don't you think? I'm telling you what, I mean, this guy had wisdom. The people of Israel were happy to serve him. I mean, he was just something else. Queen Yeshiva shows up and she's like, I can't believe it, the half has not been told. I look how your people are, they're happy. I look at their clothing. I look at the way that you ascend into the temple and just, I mean, just the grandeur that it looks like and how you ascend up and how your people go up into the temple and how your servants are. She was overwhelmed with what she saw. But in verse 11, in chapter 11 in verse 1 I think it is, the Bible says that Solomon loved many strange women along with Pharaoh's daughter, and his wives turned away his heart. Can I tell you that's not where it started? It started all the way back in 1 Kings chapter 3 when he took Pharaoh's daughter to wife. Remember in Deuteronomy? The kings were told not to amass horses, not to amass gold, and not to marry. The Jews, all of the Israelites were told never to take a foreign wife, a non-Israelite wife. Oh, it was strategic. It was a brilliant plan. Brilliant strategy to keep Egypt from taking over your nation if you marry the guy's daughter. Brilliant. Wisdom. Unbiblical. And it destroyed him down the future. What am I saying? Solomon was all in until he was all out. No, John Mark's gonna come back and Solomon came back. Praise the Lord. But listen, I know what I know from my own experience, and I know what you know from your experience, and I know what John Mark would probably say and what Solomon would say. They would've said, I wish I'd never gotten out. I'm glad I got back in, but boy, I wish I'd never got out. Yeah. No, listen, it can go across your mind. Well, I can come back. Yeah, you can, but you know what? Sometimes the roads are rough and it tears up so much that the car doesn't look the same when you get it back in the garage. Demas, having loved this present world. Colossians 4.14, Demas is greeting them, right? Saying, hey, say hi to the church for me. I mean, he was all in, right? You get to 2 Timothy 4.10. I read it to you earlier. For Demas hath forsaken me. Here's the exact verse. Having loved this present world and has departed unto Thessalonica. What about the disciples of Jesus? Over in John 6.66, you're gonna remember that one, right? A fitting verse for that, wouldn't it? For that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Yeah. From the very beginning, listen, people have departed from following God. Adam, Eve. Amen? Yeah. It happens. There are people who follow God, and because of many different reasons, they turn away. It's gonna happen. and it's going to happen. You know, and maybe you could insert a name in the list of deserters as well, couldn't you? Maybe you know a brother or sister or parent. Maybe you know a grandparent. Maybe you know a spouse. Maybe you know a church family. Maybe you know a close friend. They were all in until they were out. They seem to love the Lord. I mean, even to this day, you scratch your head and you go, what happened? I mean, I learned from this person. They encouraged me. They challenged me. I mean, I felt like I was closer to God with them. And they're over here now? What happened? Makes no sense. But we're all acquainted with it, aren't we? They might have been integral to your coming to Christ. You may have had tapes of there's some great pastor and he ran the circuits and he preached all over the place and I'm telling you everybody wanted him in and you got tapes of him lined up and they're nowhere to be found. Yeah. One of the, probably one of the most, one of the better pastor preachers I've ever heard out in West Texas. And some may, I'm no doubt, people know who he was. Man, what a preacher, what a communicator, what a, just a powerful, powerful preacher. And long gone. Divorced his wife, remarried. Multi-millionaire, big deal. Big deal. Yeah. You know him, don't you? You know them. but they walked away. Not like Solomon or Demas, right? Not like John Mark. Some of the ones that you know walked away, maybe they're still in a church somewhere. Maybe they've just walked away from this. They're looking at every perversion of the Bible now. They're quoting with all of their smugness, some ESV, RSV, NASB, NTV, WZY. Do you know there's been well over a hundred? Let me say it this way. I thought about this the other day. They say, well, the King James Bible's been revised. It's been revised four times in 411 years, 400 years, 411 years. It's been revised, edited. You know how edits go, edited four times. Do you know how many times the English versions off the Alexandrian text have been edited? Over 100 times in less than 100 years. You say, how do you figure that? Every one of those Bible versions is just an edit of the Alexandrian text in English. That's all it is, right? And you know what? They don't even agree with each other, right? No, they've walked away from the Word of God that we have preserved in an era. They've walked away from it. They're wizards of smart now. They know them better than everybody else, right? And they've left it. And you know those. You watch them. You see them online. You watch what they write and things like that. And you're like, how did you get here, right? They've left separation. They have left holiness, right? This is a big thing, too, to leave, right? I mean, God has told us pretty emphatically to come out from among them. and be a separate. I mean, I know it's a battle at times, and I know we battle our flesh at times, but I'm not talking about the day-to-day battles and even the day-to-day, you know, losses that you might have. I'm talking, they just walk away from the whole idea and just think, oh, you're just a bunch of legalists, right? I mean, that's what they come out saying now, don't they? And they didn't believe that four years ago, two years ago, but all of a sudden they've arrived. I said to somebody a while ago, if where you were is wrong, that you preach, I said, you have preached this for 20, 25, 30 years. If you were wrong then, how do you know you're right now? You don't know. No, they were right. They just went off the reservation and walked away. No, some people leave the Bible. Some people walk away from holiness and separation. Some people leave soul winning. Some people leave Bible doctrine, and they go, they grew up in an independent Baptist church, or they grew up and went to a, I mean, you know those, they were in an independent Baptist church, and a day school, and a college, and I mean, they were just immersed in all of it, and now they're reformed. Yeah, they're reformed. What's that mean? They think they're smarter than everybody. Yeah. They're into neo-evangelicalism. That's a big word. Evangelicalism. Harold Ockengay was the father of neo-evangelicalism. They say, oh, we're evangelical. No, we're not. Listen, we're Bible-believing Baptists. We're not evangelical, and we're definitely not neo-evangelical. Harold Ockengay, here's his motto. His motto was, oh, it would be good if I remembered it now. Infiltrate, don't separate. Harold Ockengate, infiltrate, don't separate. Do you know how many people have left good Bible believing Baptist churches and they're out there just trying to infiltrate society and bring God in by being like them? The Bible doesn't teach that at all. Some of them leave this and they get into the charismatic movement and all of a sudden they see signs and wonders and tongues and dreams and all of these things and they have all of this stuff that they've found and listen, what have they done? They've walked away. I'm not talking people that have grown up in this. There's a lot of grace. They can learn. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the ones that have had a great, just a truckload of truth given to them, and they've just walked away from all of it. Why? You know why a lot of it gets walked away? Because it's just an easier life. Can I tell you, going through island after island and preaching and spiritual warfare and battling against the flesh, the world and the devil, that gets tiring at times, right? The separated life is tiring at times. A life of holiness is, I mean, no, there's joy, but it is hard and tiring at times. And sometimes they walk away just because they want the easy life back. It was a lot easier when I could dress like I want and talk like I want and look like I want and go where I want and just add God's name to it and call it good, right? What have they done? They walked away. They walked away. They left church. Some of them just left everything. They're not anywhere. Haven't darkened the door of a church in years. No matter what the reason is, people leave. They left Jesus and they'll leave you too. But they really aren't leaving you, right? Jesus said, it's not you they hate, it's me that's in you that they hate. God told Saul, it's not you Saul, it's me. That's what it is, it really is. So I guess the question that's left for us tonight is what do we do? What do you do when family walks away? What do you do when friends walk away? What do you do in church members that you thought were the closest thing to you, closer than your own family? What do you do when they walk away? What do you do? Would you read verse 14? There's a key in it. But when they departed from Perga, They came to Antioch and Pisidia and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. Huh? What did they do when John Mark left? Preached. Come on, I'm excited about that. Why? Because it's so easy. What did they do when people walked away? They just preached the gospel. They just went back out and did what they were already doing. They didn't go home because somebody else went home, right? They just kept preaching the word of God. They just kept going what God had called them to do. And this is what, no listen, this is what happens when people walk away. This is what we do when people walk away. We just keep doing what God has already called us to do. That's it. You could have said this 35 minutes ago. I had to build it up. Do you know how many people walk away from God because their friend does? Do you know how many people get shattered because a pastor walks away from God? And they just, they had, I mean, they were the biggest help they ever had in their life was that preacher. And he goes left and he gets out of the will of God and it destroys, you know how many people just, I mean, they just drift off and, you know, I got to ask what you had in the first place, but still. There's a lot of damage. When John Mark left the ministry and went back home, Paul and Barnabas just carried on preaching the gospel. They didn't skip a beat. They didn't stop, right? Listen, many are going to go AWOL. But it doesn't change the mission. Could you imagine if one guy in the military goes AWOL and the whole platoon goes home? Well, I can't believe he did that. I'm out of here. I'm just crushed. I thought he was the best soldier I ever knew. And he went AWOL? I'm done. No. Nobody does that. Well, maybe psychos do that, but nobody does that. What do they do? They pick their gun up, they point it at the enemy, and they keep firing. Yeah. It's amazing. It is, you know, listen, you've been out there and you've heard this many times. You've heard this. People say, well, yeah, I used to go to church, but so-and-so did this, and this person said that, and this happened, and that happened. You know, listen, I understand a little bit of that. I know there's abuse that has happened in every denomination outside of the Baptist churches. Every denomination has had abuse in it. The public school system and the foster system has far more abuse than any Christian or Baptist Church has ever had that is a fact you can look it up the the abuse that goes on right and And it's all of its all of its wrong. It's terrible, but people say well this happened that happened to this happened And so I just kind of got out of church. You know to me. That's kind of like that's kind of like That's kind of like you know Your neighbor's saying, yeah, my wife and I don't get along, so we got a divorce. Or you're saying, yeah, my buddy got a divorce, so my wife and I, we just went ahead and got a divorce, too. I just couldn't believe that I got a divorce. I was just shattered that they divorced. They really meant a lot to me, and so I went ahead and just divorced my wife. That makes no sense. that people do this with God. Well, that person really let me down. You know what I tell him? Did God tell him to say that? If it was in the word of God, would God told him to do this to you? Did God tell them to abuse you? I mean, it wasn't God who's the problem, right? Let God be true and every man a liar, right? God's not the problem, they are. So why, listen, why would we allow somebody's actions to determine whether we continue our faithfulness with God? It's like we put more faith in fallen man to determine what we're gonna do. than God. I mean, God even warned us, right? It's going to happen. It's crazy. But it's going to happen. We've had good friends that we don't talk to anymore. They were over the house. They would encourage. They were encouragement. And we encouraged. I can think of some this way. And I tell you, we had good memories. And they seemed to love the Lord and just want to follow God. And something happened. Something happened. And it's the saddest thing to watch, too. I mean, they're just in the world as worldly as can be. Their children have the mark of the world all over them. It looks like they'd never been, like, did you ever know the Lord? Right? It's what it looks like on the outside. It looks like any other worldly family that's just bopping through life, just living their own life. It's like, what happened? But you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna keep preaching. They don't determine what we do. See, there's two categories of believers tonight. There's those who walk with God and those who are walking away from God. If you're in group one, and I think everybody in this room here tonight, I'd probably put most everybody, almost everybody. Martin's marginal, but I'd probably put most everybody in group one. I think most everybody in here just wants to walk with God. I really do. But if somebody, perchance, is drifting into group two, you get a little discouraged. So many people have failed you that you thought were paragons of truth and godliness, and you find out they were just as fallen and wicked as anybody else. I want to encourage you tonight to just stop the drift. and turn around and just get back to what God has called you to do. Faithfulness, right? Faithfulness. People are gonna go AWOL church, they are. They're gonna go, they're gonna leave. But it should never dictate our relationship with God. If it does, it reveals what our relationship really was with God. And that it too is pretty surface. Father, it can get discouraging at times watching so many walk away. It seems like more than ever, it's just more and more people walking away. Sometimes it's like, well, I would have never thought of them doing this, yet they do. I just wanna be like Paul and just keep preaching the gospel. I'm thankful for your faithfulness in my life. I'm thankful for your faithfulness in the lives of everyone who's in here. I'm thankful, Father, for a relationship that we have with you through Jesus. I'm so thankful for that. And Lord, I do not, I do not want to let somebody else's lack of faithfulness determine mine. And so Father, would you help us tonight as we look out across the fields of the day that we live in and all of those that have just fallen by the wayside? Would you help us, kind of like the end of a race, we can see the finish line, would you help us to just dig in and dig in and run harder and faster and be more faithful to you than we ever have been? Would you help us just to get up and preach the gospel to everyone we meet, to just be faithful in the word? and Lord that you would be glorified in our lives and we'll thank you for what you do in Jesus' name, amen. Let's stand tonight, invitation is open. However, the Lord has spoken to you tonight. Maybe some disappointment, discouragement has crept in watching the lives of those that you thought were faithful and loved you and it's just, maybe it's done a little number on you. And you just need to get alone with the Lord and say, Lord, I know they've gone AWOL and I hate that, but I'm not going to. And I just want your help to keep preaching the word, be faithful. Can I tell you, your faithfulness will do two things in their life. It'll be an indictment on them, or it will be an encouragement for them. to maybe see them like John Mark, who no doubt did come back and was usable again. You know what would not have helped John Mark? If Paul and Barnabas went home after John Mark left, if they had just given up and said, well, forget it. John Mark left, we're going home. No, that wouldn't have helped him a bit. Did you know people falling away from the Lord has no bearing on the power of the seed of the Word of God? Has no bearing on it whatsoever. So, well, people aren't getting saved anymore like they used to. Maybe because we're just not preaching it like we used to. It's the same seed. Is the seed ineffective? One day and not another? I mean, it's the same seed and the same Holy Spirit of God. And the same God who has the desire that all would be saved. Maybe it's us who just kind of back away a little bit and maybe should just dig down and put it into high gear and just take off again. Maybe that would help. What page is that? 336. Let's end with this song.