says in every service of the saints let there be a public reading of the word and the didache where they it was an earlier book written about how the saints conducted their service they had a public reading of the word of God so we want to keep that custom in our church Matthew chapter 10 verses 1 through 4 This is the word of God. Jesus summoned his 12 disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Now the names of the 12 apostles are these. The first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, and James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector, James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus, Simon the zealot, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. Father, we thank you for the word of God. We thank you that it is that what we have in our hands, what we read and what we study and what we preach and teach from is a reliable English copy of the original autographs. And it is trustworthy and reliable. We can depend upon it, that it is an accurate representation of what God the Holy Spirit moved on 40 men over 1,500 years to write in 66 books. And we praise you for this. We praise you for the word of God. We praise praise you for the authority that the word has, Lord, in our lives and in the lives of those who believe and that we desire to be in submission to the word of God, that we know we'll be accountable to what it says. And the distinction between how we live and what it says is is got to be constantly looked at and and reduced until we are in accord with scripture. And we praise you that the Holy Spirit takes the spoken and read and studied and sung and prayed word and moves in our hearts and creates miracle after miracle in our lives to cause us to be changed into the image and the likeness of Jesus Christ. I praise you, God, that you called us to be childlike, but not childish. And Lord, you've caused us, oh God, to depend upon you in our very lives. I thank you for every instance of suffering, for persecution, for affliction that you would bring upon your own people. For, Lord, it is in those things that causes us to cease from sin, and it is in those things that causes us to be tenderhearted and kind and patient and merciful to others. And, Lord, we ask, God, that you would continue to change us, that you would mold and shape us, Father, that we may be your people and that you may be our God. In Jesus Christ's most precious name, amen. You may be seated. To the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen. This morning we're going to rejoin our verse-by-verse journey through the Gospel of Matthew. We've covered a lot of territory. We began this journey on November the 14th, 2021, and we are at the point in chapter 10 where Jesus is choosing His 12 apostles. The Gospel according to Luke says that Jesus went into a mountain and prayed all night long. And in very serious times of trouble, in very serious, intense times of spiritual warfare, Jesus fasted and Jesus prayed. And it was not uncommon for him to pray all night long. It was not uncommon for him to fast. And so as our example, it should not be uncommon for us to pray and not be uncommon for us to fast because we're following our captain. And we're at the point in chapter 10 where Jesus is choosing the 12 apostles. And I'm gonna camp out on this passage for a little bit longer because I want all of us to become acquainted with these men because these men literally changed the world. And what we have found out so far as we have come to know Peter, Andrew, and James is two things that are common with all of these men. Number one, they had the single most extraordinary calling of anyone before or after them. I'm not saying the Old Testament prophets were not powerful men of God. They were. I'm not saying that the New Testament doesn't have examples of great men. But the apostles formulated the Christian church. They're the ones that are the foundation of the church, along with the prophets, because of the word of God. And without the apostles, we would not have what we have right now. We take things for granted. But you've got to understand how radical the new covenant was. Because for centuries, men had been sacrificing animals. And the apostle says you don't need to do that anymore, and here's why. turmoil that was in the first century. I said a while ago, we have seminal issues that are in every age of church history. Things that the church people were faced with that were titanic issues of kingdoms, of war, of politics, of human behavior, of all sorts of subjects that the church was confronted with that the Bible doesn't say things as specific as we would like it to. And so we have to take what the Bible says and then extrapolate from that. That's why doctrines are in the Bible. We've got a ton of doctrines now because we're 2,000 years to the right side of the formulation of the Christian church. But what doctrines are, the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the virgin birth, the doctrine of the sinless life of Jesus, all these doctrines were formulated by men who saw a need to combat false teaching. You gotta understand how this thing works. People in the church were loving Jesus. Everything's rosy and just beautiful. And we're just singing praises and we're just loving on Jesus. And then all of a sudden somebody starts teaching something that's off the wall. And it is at that point that the leaders of the church, primarily the elders of the church, must gather together and study this teaching. Give it a fair hearing. Because it might be true. But give it a fair hearing from the word of God and then make a decision. This is right or this is wrong. You can't be ambivalent about things like this. And so when Ellen G. White says that in 1840s, whenever it was, that when they preached and preached and preached and preached and preached that Jesus was coming back on that certain day and he didn't come back. And then all of a sudden they changed their doctrine to say, well, he didn't come back, but he moved from one side of heaven to the other. And now he's in the file room of heaven and he's going through everybody's file. that's been saved by grace through faith but then who keeps the mosaic dietary laws and who participates in the ceremonial celebrations well that's just not true that's wrong and so uh... the seventh-day adventist doctrine is wrong the Jehovah's Witness doctrine is wrong and I'm not I'm not being picky. I'm not picking on people. I'm not saying nobody's right but me. I've been wrong, and I've had to change. And so it's not that any man is immune to this, but when you study the scriptures, you find out that there are terrible teachings out there. When you study heresy, I've got a radio broadcast on the history of heresy. You study heresy, you realize that the men who promoted heresy the most tried to do the right thing. And they wanted to do something they thought was correct. And if you see, especially Augustine and Pelagius, as they were writing letters back and forth with each other, Pelagius had all kinds of scriptures in his argument. And Augustine, I mean, he came to the point where he just said, well, you're just wrong. You're just wrong about the Bible. You're incorrect about grace. You don't understand grace. You don't understand original sin. So guess what? Augustine had to create the doctrine of original sin. And he had to formulate the doctrine of the grace of God and justification by faith alone. Even though the Bible is crystal clear about it, people need to be taught these things. And so this is how we become Bible-believing Christians. This is not something you're going to trip and fall into. You're not going to become biblical by accident. You're going to be biblical because somebody takes the time to teach you the Word of God correctly. This is why Bible study is so important. And look, if I don't teach it, somebody else needs to teach it. So it's not about me. It's not about you being in fellowship with me. It's about you understanding the Bible. And I put a list on the screen, I don't know, a couple of months ago, of about 30 Bible studies that's been in this church since we started, that if you're not coming to Bible study, you've never been taught these things. And so I've moved it around from Sunday night at seven, to Sunday night at six, to Sunday night at five, to Sunday morning at 8.30, to Wednesday night at 6.30, to Tuesday night. Why'd I move it around? Because I'm trying to make it convenient. And that's why I'm doing that, because I want you to know the Bible. I want you to be biblical. Because I've got a responsibility before God to equip you. I'm supposed to be equipping you, and I can't do that if you don't come to church. So I'm not fussing at anybody. I've just got a burden in my heart about this. And if I was preaching false doctrine, I would expect you not to be here, but I would also expect you to get rid of me. If I lose a screw up here, not even for my fault, if I start preaching goofy stuff, you've got two appeals. We're not Presbyterians, so we don't have a national assembly that you can appeal to. But we have the doctrinal statement of the church, and we have the board of elders. And you can go to them and say, Brother Blair's had a stroke or something, and he's preaching terrible stuff. And we love him, but he's not right. And I would expect you to do that. That's love. That's what love is. Look, I would hate to think that the success of the Christian gospel depended on me. That's a scary thought. It's scary to me. So it's not. But it is dependent on the church. And we're part of the church. We're part of the worldwide and part of the historical church. And all I want you to do is understand that. And I love you. But they had the single most extraordinary calling of anyone before or after them, and they were all very ordinary and common men. That almost seems like a contradiction. And I suppose that among all the apostles, I personally relate more to John than any of the other men whom God chose to be in this unique ministry. And I relate to John because I do not feel very qualified or capable of doing what I'm doing. Most of the time I feel as though I am such a child and so unprepared and so unqualified to preach the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. But I do so simply for one reason. It needs to be done. It is deserving that it is done. I do not think I am particularly interesting. I don't think that what I say is particularly powerful or moving. I try very hard to get this stuff right. I study for many hours every week and I research the data. I agonize over the scriptures. I pray very hard that I will not mess anybody's life up by what I teach. And my motivation to do what I do is that the word of the one true and living God is so important, so glorious, so true, so worthy of whatever effort anybody puts forth. And I don't think I am alone in this because I think that's how John believed. You see, I don't believe that any of the apostles thought very highly of themselves. I do not believe they were caught away with the trappings of their position, or their authority, or their calling, or their anointing, as so many people seem to be in our day. I believe that God was very good to these men to equip them with the grace that they needed to be very, very humble. And to that end, God allowed great sufferings, great afflictions, great pain, great betrayal, and great agony to come into the lives of every one of these 12 apostles to assist them in being humble so they would not get caught away and so others around them would not get caught away with what God was doing with them and through them. Here's what the Apostle Paul said about this very issue in 2 Corinthians 12, 1-12. It's just a matter-of-fact statement. I'm going to have visions, and God is going to reveal things directly to me. No big deal. Piece of cake. I knew a man in Christ over 14 years ago, whether in the body I cannot tell or whether out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth, such a one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew a man whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knoweth, how that he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words which is not lawful for a man to utter. Of such a one I will glory, yet of myself I will not glory, but in my infirmities. For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool. For I will say the truth, but now I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me to be, or that he heareth of me." That's King James. And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations that were given to me, there were given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. He says it twice. Why was the messenger of Satan given? So he would not be exalted above measure. Nobody met anybody like Paul before. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. I have become a fool in glorying. You have compelled me, for I ought to have been commended of you. For in nothing," now here we go, in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles. Peter doesn't have anything on me. In fact, Peter's been more wrong than I have. John has nothing on me. Paul is saying that. And then look what he said, though I be nothing. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience and signs and wonders and mighty deeds. Wow, what a man, huh? So as we study the lives of these 12 men, you begin to realize how matter-of-factly the apostles went about their ministry. And even though we marvel today at how God used these men, as we stand amazed at the fact that these men actually did receive direct revelation from the very mouth of God. And these men did have visions. and they did have spiritual dreams, and they did conduct sometimes very lengthy conversations with angels and with the Lord himself. We are silenced at how these men were literally moved upon by God the Holy Spirit in the same way as the wind moves ships through the sea, to pin down the only words on earth that are perfect and without error and eternal. In fact, these men actually did have these supernatural experiences, so that so many lay claim today. But unlike so many in the modern church, these apostles were among the most humble and among the most unassuming. who ever walked the earth, who actually ran away from public recognition and would rather die than be praised. But we cannot and we must not separate how those men suffered from who they were because they were who they were and who they became was in great part due to the many horrific sufferings they endured. And that aspect is completely different from those who they claim to be an apostle in our day. I think you can go many miles before you will find a man whom God is genuinely using and whom God is genuinely speaking through, and yet find that man to not be puffed up, to find him not impressed with his own reputation, but to find a truly humble and gracious and unassuming and meek man who speaks often about his own inherent sinfulness and begs God for cleansing and yet preaches with power and conviction. That is such a rare gift of which we certainly need a revival in the modern church. We need many more of men today who possess both power and humility rather than the prancing peacocks that dominate the pulpits of the modern church. And so we should all pray to that end, that God would be good to send great and horrific sufferings to the men who stand in the pulpit, that God would grace those men with great persecutions, great afflictions, so they may learn the grace of God and be the humble and broken men that God desires them to be. I think John was among the men who knew exactly what they had to do. They knew that God was with them, and they had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that God was going to reveal divine revelation directly to them. And yet, they were gifted by God to not let it all go to their head. And they remained focused on Jesus, focused on the enormous task at hand, focused on the calling, focused on the commission before them. And so even as God moved through them more than anyone else in the history of the world, to a man they were debased in their own minds, and their hearts were kept pure, holy, and humble. And John fits this description perhaps better, at least in my own estimation, than just about anyone else with the possible exception of Paul and Peter. It is important that we all remember that the purpose of strong biblical ministry is to move the people of the church out from the vulnerability of naive and immature childhood and into the wisdom of spiritual maturity until everyone in the church comes to the position of the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. That's the goal, where the called and chosen people of God actually know and love and believe the truth, and to become equipped to be able to speak that divine truth in the divine love of God. People who have already experienced the miracle of the new birth, and who have been justified by faith alone, and who have already been adopted are to grow up in all aspects unto Jesus, who is the head of the church, and the Savior of the body. And part of being spiritually mature, part of being strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might is for us to read what men like John wrote down, to listen to what men like John taught, and to learn what men like John meant by what he said in the five books that God blessed him to write. So just what does it mean to be spiritually mature? It means to have the capacity to speak the truth in love, And that presupposes that we must already know and understand and love the truth. And that's why we have the Bible studies that we have on Tuesday evenings. But friends, we need to know that along with knowing and understanding and believing and loving the truth, it is necessary that we suffer. because it is through our sufferings where we become genuinely broken over the sins of the people and not just angry about them. It is through our sufferings that we learn how to speak that truth and live out that truth in genuine godly love. And if you were on that journey where you were learning and understanding the truth, along with being molded by your sufferings to be a person who does all that he does in love, then you understand exactly what God had to do with John. John had to learn how to balance knowledge of the truth with genuine godly love. And this balance is very easy to talk about, but it usually takes a lifetime to actually achieve it. Because to balance truth and love takes a constant scrutiny on your own life. It takes the ongoing and constant work of the Spirit of the living God inside us along with the ongoing and constant work of the Word in our lives to produce that perfect balance between truth and love. And this balance means knowing sound biblical doctrine. Yes, it does. But it also means bearing the fruit of the Spirit, which is the divine love to be able to teach others the truth in a loving and kind way. But hear me when I tell you that this is a very elusive balance. because by nature as fallen creatures, knowledge almost always tends to puff us up. Understanding truth usually brings forth the most hideous form of pride, self-righteousness, and arrogance that insults the mercy of God and drives people away from Jesus. By the grace of God, John was used by God to teach about the perfect balance between truth and love. And so by reading what John wrote, by understanding what he meant by what he wrote, and through the mighty power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives, we can strive to reach that perfect balance also. But as we do that, we need to be reminded that spiritual maturity is nothing more nor less than us walking in Christ's likeness. It is being in union with Jesus Christ. Because you see, Jesus was the perfect expression of truth and the perfect expression of love. And we need to know that Jesus is the model to follow, not John, even though John can be a great blessing to us. Now, as I said, this balance is very hard to come by. First of all, there are many people in the modern church who don't even understand that reaching this balance between truth and love is the goal. They have learned a small thimble full of truth, and now they're as dangerous as a monkey with a machine gun. But everything we are doing as individual believers and everything we are doing together as a church should be defined by this one goal, reaching spiritual maturity by reaching this balance between truth and love. because everything that comes out of our mouth should be a right representation of divine revelation spoken in love. That's where God is leading us, not because we are intellectuals who are simply smarter about the Bible than everybody else, and not because we are academics who take great pride in how much time we spend in the study of the book so we can win the arguments, but simply because we love Jesus and want to please him. It was Christ who spoke the truth and only the truth. He said, I only speak what the Father shows me to speak. Jesus never spoke a single word that was not an accurate and full reflection of the mind and heart of His Father. And Jesus always spoke that truth in pure love. No one could ever question the love that Jesus Christ demonstrated, not only by His weeping over the very people that God would judge, but demonstrated by His willingness to go to the cross to give up His own life for those God had given to Him. That is the perfect balance, and that is spiritual maturity. Now back in the first century, Jesus was routinely condemned by the religious leaders because they saw him as being much too soft and much too tolerant with wicked sinners. You see, Jesus spent time with sinners, dirty, filthy sinners, and he urged people to forgive their enemies and to pray for them, even do them good. So in their mind, it was obvious that Jesus was compromising with divine truth that absolutely condemns all sin. But if God had waited, and had Jesus been born just 30 years ago, back in 1994, The very same Jesus speaking the very same words and doing the very same things as he did back in the first century would be routinely condemned today as being way too harsh and unloving. I could just imagine that it wouldn't be too long before the Gulf Coast Ministerial Association would pay Jesus a visit to try to get him to lighten up and to be more loving and stop talking so much about sin and repentance. So since Jesus was the same, what changed is us. Back in the first century, the danger inside the religious circles was the heresy of legalism, while today the great danger we face inside the modern church, for the most part, is the heresy of antinomianism. Today, in many quarters, people view genuine love as something that causes people to compromise with the truth, while others say that speaking the truth compromises our ability to genuinely love and work with the sinner. And so people today have either truth or love, but it's very hard to find anyone that has both or who is even seeking to have both. But until we have both truth and love, we are spiritually immature and childish in our walk with God. So I challenge those who say they have love but not truth, because love without truth has much more in common with human tolerance and sinful leniency than it does with genuine biblical love. And I also challenge those who say they have truth but no love. Because whatever truth people who can't even seem to get near the love of God may have, has much more in common with dictatorial abuse than it does with biblical truth. Without knowing and understanding divine truth, all that is left is error and shallowness and contradictory and inconsistent beliefs that don't have the power to forgive a single sin or save a single soul. But without us truly possessing the love of God or without being possessed by the love of God, all that is left is the horror of cold and sinful self-exaltation. I was part of a group on the coast, and we were going to different churches every week on Thursday morning, and we would pray for unity among believers, unity on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. And the thing grew and got really big and really large. And so we started praying, and we would pray that God would make us one, and we would sing songs about God's making us one, and he's tearing down the walls of division that divide us. And then somebody had the audacity to say, But unless we agree on who Jesus is and unless we agree with what the Bible means by what it says, we can't possibly have any unity. Whatever unity we have is is a myth. It's just an emotion. And you would have thought he was advocating the assassination of the president and the group ended very quickly after that. And so that We are divided because we don't believe, we don't agree with what the Bible says. That's what we're divided over. Now, that ought to grieve our hearts, because that's not okay. But, Methodists and Lutherans, the good ones, Baptists, even Pentecostals, we disagree with them over second and third tier issues. With Rome, we don't agree on how lost people are justified. They're preaching another gospel. Most of these other people are not preaching another gospel. We are divided over them on second, third tier issues. But if you meet somebody and they believe in continuationism of the gifts, or they believe in whatever, and they're justified by faith alone and they love Jesus, I don't care if they stick their hands in the air, I don't care what they do, they're my brother in Christ. And I don't care what other people do that are more like me, but yet deny justification by faith alone. They're not my brother and we're not the same. And so it matters what you believe. And so they say, well, doctrine divides. It does. Absolutely. Because people will not obey the Bible. They will not submit themselves to the authority of the Bible. Now, it's the Bible doesn't mean what I say it means. The Bible means what God says it means. And so I can be an error about what I think the Bible means by what it says. I don't want to be an error. I'm not trying to be an error. But I have the ability to be an error. So does everybody else. Most people won't tell you that, though. I just did. But here's the deal. If it doesn't mean what I'm saying it means, it means something. So if you love me, come to me with the Bible open. And and let's get together. And if you can convince me the Bible's and I'll repent and I'll change. I've done that a lot. I'll get on the radio and repent. I mean, I don't have a problem. I want to be right. I don't want to be wrong. But I'm not afraid to stand alone. If what I believe is true is what the Bible is saying, I don't have any problem standing by myself. I shouldn't be by myself. There should be a whole bunch of people that agrees with this. And it's interesting how this all works out. I remember Brother Jason, when we went down to the library and we went to the city councils, Jason said, the smallest church in Harrison County, where in the world is everybody else? Good question. Now, several people called me after the fact. Oh, brother, we're with you. I said, well, you know, I looked all around. I didn't see you. And he said, well, I'll be there next time. I said, fine, because there'll be a next time. Praise the Lord. So, you know, and one guy came and gave and gave an offering to us because he was so impressed with our stand. But that should have been the easiest thing to stand against that I know of in a long, long, long time. That wasn't hard. I'm not some great understanding guy that oh, my goodness, that's we got to stay. That's pretty easy. So It's interesting how this all works out. But friends, it is impossible to read the Bible with any degree of honesty and not see the importance of divine truth. And for anyone to think that they have to sacrifice truth in order to be loving proves that they do not have the truth they're so proud of. But it's also impossible to read the Bible with any degree of honesty and not see how vital genuine love is. And for anyone to think they have to sacrifice love in order to have the truth proves that they do not have the love that they think they have. Divine truth always makes people to be loving. And genuine godly love causes everyone to search for and to have divine truth. I guess one of the biggest complaints people have against the doctrines of grace, they say, well, if this is true, then it will kill evangelism. And so what we need to do is we need to encourage them to go with us as we evangelize the Gulf Coast, because it doesn't hinder evangelism at all. It encourages evangelism, because now we know how the elect will be saved through the preaching of the gospel. And so they're wrong about that. And what they're against, I'm against too, but that's not what the doctrines of grace teaches anyway. So it's ridiculous. So neither of the group has the truth or without love, or those who have love without truth are correct. Neither one of these groups have arrived at spiritual maturity. Neither one is stronger than the other. Neither one is more pleasing to God than the other. Both groups are weak. Both groups are immature. Both groups are childish. Both groups are lacking. And both groups are ripe for deception. Because the reality is that unless we have both truth and love, we have neither. The real problem is that neither group understands the grace of God. To try to hold on to love while letting go of truth will cause you to fall into the heresy of antinomianism that abuses grace. But to try to hold on to truth while letting go of love will cause you to fall into the heresy of legalism that ignores God's grace. Manifesting both truth and love is only possible to the mature believer who has grown into the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Jesus Christ. And the only way you can define spiritual maturity is with these two attributes of truth and love that will work in us, around us, and through us on an ongoing basis. And that's the framework that defines the Apostle John. So you're looking for a biblical example of both of these attributes at work, then John will do you very well. Jesus Christ, of course, is the perfect of those two attributes, while John is the human example of them. And the interesting part about this is that John did not have either one of these attributes when Jesus first chose him. So John had to learn truth, and John had to learn how to love and how to be loving. And so Jesus molded John and Jesus shaped John and Jesus brought John to the perfect balance of truth and love. And that should give us great hope today that wherever you are in the realm of truth and wherever you are in the realm of love, that as you yield yourself to God, God will be faithful to mold you and shape you and change you into his image and likeness. Our God all day. Praise the Lord. Now that could be said for almost every era of the church. It's certainly true today. There's a real struggle to find the balance between truth and love. There was a time when I was first saved, when preachers were just firing out hell, fire, wrath, and damnation, and they needed a dose of balancing love. And now it seems as though we live in a day when it's all about love, and who cares about truth anymore? But this is the objective of true spiritual maturity. Inconsistent and contradictory and unbiblical and shallow teaching abounds in our day. And the result of that kind of preaching is that a tolerance of error abounds. And so the modern church is being filled with error and even ancient heresies that the Christian church courageously confronted and bravely fought against and soundly defeated many, many centuries ago are making a huge comeback. And they are being repackaged and relabeled as new and fresh and improved revelation. Let me give you a perfect example. Anybody with an ounce of intelligence And anybody with about two pints of understanding of history knows that communism doesn't work. It doesn't work. And so the leadership of a country that supposedly where everybody's equal has to be dictatorial in imposing this on the people. Because people want freedom. People are rebellious by nature, and they don't want anybody telling them anything, which is part of why we want freedom. The libertarians among us, you're going to hear that. That's not the good model. It's got error in it. But people want to be free. And so when you impose dictatorial rules to keep them under your bondage, that's not even communism. But it's called communism. And so what socialism is, is communism without a gun. That's the only difference. The same tenets in socialism are present in communism. Why is it that young people today are all enamored with socialism? Because they're being taught that, right? Okay, so history is now going to repeat itself, and we've got to rediscover freedom. We've got to rediscover a 13-cent tax on tea. We've got to rediscover what this experiment with democracy was all about. Because we don't know anymore, okay? And when we rediscover this, if there's going to be a revival of democracy flow out, I hope. But what you've got is people that's never heard democracy taught very well, and that's why they're enamored with socialism. Same thing's true with heresy. Heresy cannot be killed. It lies there breathing the whole time, and then it periodically rises up to see if somebody's going to take the bait. And all these heresies are there. They're never going to be destroyed. They're waiting for somebody else to adopt them. So in reality, they're not new and fresh revelations from God. They're just old-fashioned paganism. There's nothing new under the heavens, the Bible tells us, right? This objective of true But this is the objective of true spiritual maturity. Inconsistent and contradictory and unbiblical and shallow teaching abounds in our day. And the result of that kind of preaching is that a tolerance for error abounds. And so the modern church is being filled with error, and even ancient heresies that the Christian church courageously confronted, bravely fought against, and soundly defeated many, many centuries ago are making a huge comeback. And they are being repackaged and relabeled as new and fresh and improved revelation. And the masses of people in the modern church are just eating it up when in fact most of this is simply old-fashioned paganism and outright heresy and blasphemy. But we who are blessed to have eyes to see this sad decline in the pursuit of biblical truth and doctrinal precision in the modern church must realize that legalism does not defeat antinomianism. Cold orthodoxy is not the answer to religious liberalism. False teaching and loose living. We cannot raise up truth by putting down love. We cannot manifest true godly love by ignoring or minimizing truth. And the critical mix of these two vital attributes of truth and love is visible to us in the beloved Apostle John. Now because of John's treatment of himself in scripture, and because of the way he refers to himself in his gospel account, we tend to think of John as being a very humble man. But we always need to remember that John became humble over time, because he certainly was not humble at first. John was eventually humble, but because he's so self-effacing in the five books that he wrote, it is assumed by most people that John was always that way, sort of a meek, mild, wimpy, pale-skinned, ashen kind of guy, which is the way John shows up in a lot of medieval art. Michelangelo painted John as leaning on Jesus's shoulder, looking up with this blank, doe-eyed stare into space, sort of a gentle, passive, almost effeminate guy. John became very loving and very humble. And John responded to the shaping ministry of Jesus in his life. And he achieved, in great measure, the balance between truth and love, because he surely didn't start out that way. John started out, along with his brother James, as a son of thunder. Over in Mark 3, 17, it was Jesus who called them both Boanerges, which is Aramaic for sons of thunder. So John began as a very volatile, hot-tempered, violent, rude, mean, and angry man when Jesus called him into the ministry. But at the beginning, John was brash. John was aggressive. John was passionate. John was zealous. And John was personally very ambitious. We need to remember that when James was calling down fire from heaven to burn up the Samaritans, John was echoing that very same sentiment. It was always James and John, the two sons of thunder. Now there was Andrew who was quietly bringing people to Jesus, and it was James and John who were asking God to burn them all up. And when their mother, the wife of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said, I want my boys on your right and left hand, it wasn't just James there, it was also John. So John was very driven, very ambitious. John wanted prominence. John was right in the middle of all the arguments among the apostles about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom. Reading the Bible, that's their finished work. Can you even imagine them asking that question? Who among us is the greatest? I mean, it's hard even, but they did. They did. And that doesn't mean it's okay to do that. That's not the point of why it's in the Bible. That ought to encourage every one of us, because we're not even near where they were. So don't assume that when it says James and John, even though James is named first and may in some ways have been the stronger of the two and may have even been the older of the two, that this means that John was silent or neutral, because John was a son of thunder as well. Interestingly enough, if you study Matthew, Mark, and Luke, you always see John with Jesus and Peter is with James. Only one time does John appear and speak by himself in all those gospel accounts. And so if we want to know what John is like, that's a good place to go. So please turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 9. Here we are with Peter. three synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. You see, the first three Gospel accounts are called synoptic Gospels because they are written to be seen together. The Gospel according to John deals more with Jesus as deity being expressed through a series of miracles and self-proclaimed statements of his own identity. But in Mark 9, we get this one picture of John all by himself. And the rest of the things about John we have to construct from his Gospel account, from his three epistles, and from the book of the Revelation. But here's an historical narrative of John. Let's go to the beginning, Mark 9, verse 1. We can get this snapshot of John. In verse 1, John Mark is quoting Jesus as saying, So here Jesus makes this incredible statement that some of the people standing there that day would not die until they saw the kingdom of God coming with power. That's an amazing statement. Some of you people here aren't going to die until you see kingdom power. Well you and I are living in the 21st century, some 2,000 years after Jesus made this statement and the fullness of God's kingdom hasn't come. And yet all of the people who were alive then are all dead now. They have been dead for 2,000 years. So what is Jesus talking about? Is this a place in the Bible where there's a contradiction or a statement by Jesus that's not true? No. Jesus was talking about previews of coming attractions, or as one hymn writer put it, a foretaste of glory divine, which happened immediately after Jesus made that statement. Look at verses 2 through 4. Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them. And his garments became radiant and exceedingly white, as no launderer on earth can whiten them. Elijah appeared to them along with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. So just six days after Jesus said, some of you are going to see the glory of the kingdom before you die. Jesus took Peter, James, and John, that's the intimate circle, that's the inner circle, who were with Jesus more than any other group. And Andrew wasn't in that. And Jesus brought them to a high mountain by themselves, and he was transfigured before them. And they saw the kingdom coming with its power, just like Jesus promised. Now what actually happened here is that Jesus pulled back the veil of his own human flesh and the Shekinah glory of God, the very essence of the nature of the eternal God was shining out in blazing brilliance before them. And that is the power and that is the glory of the kingdom of God, not anything that we do or any act that we perform as so many teach today. Now, the record of Matthew 17 is that this event was so shocking that the disciples were literally terrified into a coma. They fell over like dead men. This is something they had never experienced. There was a transcendental experience, the likes of which they had never even imagined. The very garments of the Savior became radiant, exceedingly white as no launderer on earth could whiten them. There isn't any product on the market today, no bleach, that can get these garments as white as they were white here. The Greek word here is leucon, which means blazing, shining, glowing, white-like light. And then the Old Testament prophet Elijah showed up, and the great lawgiver Moses showed up in some kind of glorified manifestation. And these three apostles became terrified, verse six says, and read verse seven with me. Then a cloud formed overshadowing them, and a voice came out of the cloud, this is my beloved son, listen to him. And then verse eight says, all at once, they looked around and saw no one with them anymore except Jesus alone. Now this is an incredible thing for Peter, James, and John to experience, as well as a very unique privilege. But then to make things worse, In verse nine it says, as they were coming down from the mountain, he gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man rose from the dead. What? Not me. I'm gonna tell everybody. How you not gonna say something? What happened up on the mountain? Well, it was kind of, I mean, how are you gonna explain? The other guys knew you went up there, and you stayed up there. What happened? Well, it's just hard to explain. You know, I mean, really. I mean, think about it. How are you gonna keep it quiet? And he said, don't tell anybody. Now, you just saw the most incredible thing that could ever be seen by anybody, and you can't tell anybody about it? This is a great restraint. to put on these men. But we must remember that it was not God's will at that time for Jesus to be adored and worshipped. God's will for Jesus at that time was that he would be rejected and scorned and brutally beaten and to die for the sins of the whole world. And if people knew that Jesus had been glorified as being deity, they would have worshipped him instead of killing him. But it was God's will for Jesus to die. And so in order to complete God's will, Jesus had to put this restraint on his apostles. And also remember that the apostles were always arguing about who was going to be the greatest among them. And I'm sure it was very difficult for them not to use this experience as ammunition for their own case. I mean, Peter, James, and John, I know we're the greatest because Jesus took us up there and he didn't take you guys. Nanny nanny boo boo. Now, that's being human. And one of them would be so holy, he would say, I just know that I'm the greatest. I'm not going to mention anything. You know, it's just as self-righteous as the rest of them, right? So this is encouraging because they're just plain people. They don't walk on air. They breathe air. They don't float. I mean, they're not super duper. They're just people, right? And these men heard Jesus talk about rising from the dead, and they seized on that statement in verse 10, and they began to talk about it. Now, there was a lot to talk about. They could have talked about Moses, or they could have talked about Elijah, or they could have talked about the glory of God shining through the veil of Jesus' flesh, or they could have talked about the resurrection or the coming kingdom. So they must have been very excited because they saw things that never could be seen or known by anybody. So no doubt, these three men told the rest of the group, look, this is where we're heading, guys. This is some foretaste of the glory that's coming. My question is this, after you see Jesus transfigured, you saw that with your eyes, how would you possibly put together his death? After you saw this glory, how would you possibly understand Jesus dying? How does a guy like that die? I mean, it really blew their mind. And God bless them. They were great men. I can't hold a candle next to them. But really and truly, I wouldn't have understood this stuff either. Now please go a little further in the chapter down to verse 33 and read with me. They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house, he began to question them, what were you discussing on the way? Because he already knew they had talked about it after he told them not to. So how many of y'all know that when God asks you a question, he's not looking for you to answer him? He already knows everything, right? What's he doing? Why do you ask him the question? He's giving them space to repent. He's giving them space to confess their sin and acknowledge that they did wrong. Huh? Right. Now remember, any time Jesus asks a question, it's not because He doesn't already know the answer. Jesus is God, and as God, Jesus is fully omniscient, and so Jesus knows everything about everything, so Jesus is never asking a question because He wants somebody to give Him information that He doesn't already have in fullness. Jesus wasn't looking for information. He was giving these men an opportunity for confession of their sin. He was granting them space to repent. Now read verse 34, but they kept silent. For on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. They just saw Jesus transfigured and the first thing that pops in their mind is which one of them was the greatest. It's amazing. Now why did these men keep silent? Because they were ashamed. Because they knew Jesus, knew what they had talked about as they walked by the way. So this is a great example of their own human sinful ambition. And the Lord had to do a lot of work with that ambition. So they were so embarrassed and ashamed that they didn't even say a word. Busted. Now look at verses 35 through 37. Sitting down, he called the 12 and said to them, if anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. And that word servant should be slave. Taking a child, he set him before them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, whoever receives one child like this in my name receives me. And whoever receives me does not receive me, but him who sent me. Jesus taught these men and said, look, guys, you've got to learn something about the basics of not only true faith in me, but also what it means to lead in the church. If anyone in all of Christianity wants to be first, he must strive very hard and work very hard and pray very hard to be both last and the servant of all. You guys have this thing backward. If you want to be first, if you want to be great in my kingdom, then be like a child. Be like a slave. Jesus told them, instead of arguing and fighting with each other, instead of putting each other down, instead of rejecting each other, why don't you learn that receiving each other as a child is what I require? Because when you receive one another, you receive me, because I live in that person. So instead of fighting each other, instead of conflict with each other, instead of trying to jump over each other on the way to recognition and greatness, you need to embrace each other as if I were coming to you. And instead of desiring to be first, you need to learn to begin to love being last. And this cut them to the heart. This was a serious rebuke, and in particular, John got the message. And here we have the only time that John actually speaks by himself in these three opening Gospels. Look at verse 38. John said to him, Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us. Now this is an example of human nature. Right after a stinging rebuke by Jesus himself, it seems that John tries his best to change the subject and talk about something that has absolutely nothing to do with what Jesus just said. And people do this all the time. The woman at the well wanted to change the subject about how many times she had been married to where people need to worship. So she tried to get theological on Jesus, and Jesus just cut right through all that and went right to the point. Go call your husband. I said, right, because you've had five husbands, and the one you're living with now is not your husband. Right, that's the issue that Jesus was dealing with. But one of the greatest things is in John 11, Lazarus has died, and Jesus came after three days. And Mary's been out of shape, Eddie, because he didn't come sooner. And he didn't come sooner on purpose. He stayed behind on purpose to let the man die and get buried. And then he came and was going to raise him from the dead. And so he's confronting Mary and Martha. with the truth, and it gets a little too hot. I'm going to show you something. In John 11, Jesus confronts Martha with a personal confrontation about her own unbelief. But she responds by just walking off and leaving Jesus standing in the middle of the road. And she went into the house and told Mary, Jesus wants you. Now, Jesus never told Martha to go get Mary. How rude is it to just walk off and leave Jesus standing in the road? But it was getting far too uncomfortable with Martha about how Jesus was pinning her down about her own unbelief. And so she told Mary, Jesus wants you, because I know he's not talking to me. And people do this all the time. And here, I'll never forget, a guy stood up and was testifying, and he was talking about a bad situation. And he said, I turned to my wife, and I said, it's time for you to speak. And she was the one that was going to defend him rather than him defending him. And it was really comical. He said, we need to stand up and talk. So stand up and talk instead of me doing it. And here at first, it appears that John is doing the very same thing. Jesus just got through telling them that one of the deepest and most profound and basic elements in all of creation that if anybody wants to be great in God, then you have to be like a child. And if anyone wants to be first in God, then he must be last. Or in other words, you guys just worry about following me and let me raise up who I will raise up. But instead of even commenting on what Jesus just said, it seems that John tries to change the subject and talk about something that has nothing to do with what Jesus just said. But is that what is really happening here? Is John doing what Martha did? Or is John doing something else? Listen to this. I think John absolutely did hear what Jesus said. And I think that John was not doing what Martha was doing. You see, it isn't because John did not hear Jesus that he said this. It is because John did hear. And it's because he was ashamed of himself. And it's because he was deeply and profoundly convicted that he tried to change the subject. And John said, teacher, we saw somebody casting out demons in your name that we tried to prevent him because he was not following us. Now, this is the sin of sectarianism. This man did not belong to our particular group, so he has no right to do anything in Jesus's name. This reveals to us the great intolerance and prejudice that was part of John's makeup. So this is what it means to be a son of thunder. This is sectarianism and the narrowness of the ambition that desires to have it all for yourself and not share it with anybody else, especially some pagans outside the camp. So this is who John really is. But thanks be to God that something's changing in John. Because as Jesus spoke, John began to see that what he did is something undesirable and sinful. And the result is this statement by John, which is really a confession of his sin. John is saying in response to what Jesus said, teacher, we saw this guy casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him. So what John did back then to that guy That was the old John. Stop, you can't do that. You're not in our group. But what John says here, that's the new John, the one that Jesus is changing. You see, John was not passive. He was very aggressive. He was very competitive and a mean and condemning man who was trying to minister in the name of Jesus. That doesn't tell us anything about the nature of the man that John was talking about. But at least this guy was trying to cast out demons in the name of Jesus. And all John could do was shut him down. And so John is saying here, I confess that we did that. In other words, John was admitting that what Jesus had said back in verses 35 through 37 was true about himself. So he was confessing an example of how he had been sinful in stopping that man. Because now John is beginning to feel that what he did was wrong because of what Jesus had just said. So Jesus is confronting that, saying, you've got to get rid of the sectarian narrow spirit. And John is the only one among all the apostles who actually verbalized that he had done this and said that to the other man. But the fact that he's making this confession is indicative of the transformation that's going on inside of John. And so, even as Martha later changed and became a great woman in God, so too John is changing and his conscience is bothering him. So John is being tenderized by Jesus. He's always been strong for the truth. He's always been zealous and passionate. But now the Lord is teaching John about mercy and love. So here we see the old John as to what the old John did for getting this man. But here we see also the new John, the man who, even though he did wrong, is confessing his sin and admitting his error and being changed so he can be a man of love and a man of mercy, as well as a man of truth. And in doing that, in changing like that, John became a man of God. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you will never leave us like we are. But as long as we're alive, you are determined to change us. And we don't want to fight that anymore. We don't want to rebel against that anymore. We want to go with you. We want to be with you. We want to do what you say. Help us to do that, Father.