Glorious Motivations To Share The Truth | Mark 4:21-24 | Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Gospel of Mark)

If you can, briefly meet me in the gospel according to Mark, and we're continuing through this book together. And the portion that we will be discussing is in verse 21 to verse 23. Mark four twenty one to 23. For a brief moment, I want you to place yourself in the shoes of one of the disciples at this point in the ministry of Jesus. At a very large meeting, you hear the master teaching, and you pick up that the Lord is heavily applying parables to communicate to his audience.

And after wondering about this switch in his teaching style, you inquire about it, and the Lord is gracious. He's generous. He is more than willing to disclose the purpose behind the strategy. And you learn that a significant reason for why Jesus is now teaching by using parables was to conceal the truth from those who have been obstinate and constantly rejecting who he was and what he has to say, while also provoking the genuine heart to inquire further about his message. And so from there, the Lord can obviously tell that you and the other disciples are also asking because you didn't really understand one of the parables that he taught, and that was the parable of the sower.

So he continues to to give you the meaning of that specific teaching. And from there, you discover that that particular riddle further reveals how a majority of people who will hear the truth, not just in Jesus' day, but even today, a majority of people will not truly accept the word for what it is, and there will be a minority who will embrace the gospel on God's terms. Now after hearing the reason for the parables and then the purpose of one particular parable and the meaning of it, the parable of the sower, how would that make you feel about sharing the gospel with others? Think about it. Perhaps you would wonder if the Lord Jesus didn't really want everybody to come to the truth and that he reserved his light for those who are worthy of it in his estimation.

And if you don't think that, then perhaps that kind of insight would dampen your motivation to go out and and put effort into planting the seed in people's hearts because there is a great probability that you will be disappointed in the results. And we have to be honest. Perhaps this could be a discouragement for Christians to be serious about preaching the truth because, you've already been told that you should anticipate different kind of responses, and some of them are unfruitful, and that can really crush crush you because we're human, and we get discouraged so easily. Now it is not told whether or not these disciples were thinking such thoughts. But before anything could be said, Jesus clarifies any potential misconception about the purpose behind his parables and even the meaning of one of those parables that reveals what gospel ministry will look like.

And it's in these verses that we have us before us today. In verse 21, after explaining the parable of the sower, he says to them, is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. Verse 23. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

Jesus asks a rhetorical question. Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket? Is it brought in to be put under a bed and not on a stand? And the obvious answer is, of course not. To hide a lamp would to defeat the purpose of its design.

The very intention, the very goal of a lamp and its purpose is to illuminate its surroundings and to expel the darkness for the sake of visual aid. It has no other purpose. And when Jesus uses this analogy, what he is intending to say is, in like manner, the objective of my truth living inside of you, dear Christian, is no different. It's no different. In essence, what the Lord is saying is he does not want his people to be reluctant, to be vocal, to be intentional with their witness just because there will be a flood of people who will be hardhearted, who will be superficial, and who will be materialistic.

Even in Jesus's day, we are familiar enough with his ministry to understand that his audience included stiff necked Pharisees. And with that, crowds of people who are only interested in miracles and free meals. And yet, we still see the servant of God, the perfect servant of God in Mark, plowing through the vineyard and seeking the lost sheep of Israel. And our hostile age today gives us plenty of reasons to be reserved with dispelling the truth. I mean, we can look out into this world just for a second, and you and I know this already, and and we perceive the rapidly increasing resistance to God's righteousness.

And if we're not careful, that can tempt us to believe that there might not really be a point. Hold on for dear life. The clouds are gonna split open soon. But like a shining lamp, you and I are not fashioned to discriminate against any kind of level of darkness. We're not.

We shine. We continue to shine. By God's empowerment and his help, we continue to go as far and wide as possible with the prayerful expectation that some will actually embrace the light. And so when Jesus says this, he understands that the disciples just heard of the the great possibilities of hypocrisy, or as time goes on that people will prove to not really be born again. And yet he still says, but it's not your job to determine that or to determine your faithfulness and zeal in the gospel because of that.

You keep going. You keep shining. And if you think about it further, the analogy given by Christ here has another purpose has another purpose when you understand the context. What did Jesus just finish explaining? The parable of the sower, but he ended on a specific note.

Look at verse 20 of the same chapter. But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. For four weeks, every week, we touched on the different soils. And the one soil, the fertile ground that that was distinct was distinct because it was the soil, the type of heart that embraced the truth and submitted to it, and as a result, beared fruit, true fruit, lasting fruit, perpetual fruit. And when we understand what fruitfulness looks like, many things can come to mind.

But when you genuinely receive saving grace, something is going to happen. And as time goes on, there will be a conformity. Yes. A patient conformity, but you're gonna look more like Jesus. This is what he's saying.

But listen, when when you think about bearing fruit, what comes to mind? When you think about being transformed in a new birth, what comes to mind? Well, some would say the fruit of the spirit. Right? We know in Galatians five twenty two to 23, it includes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

Wonderful. That's true. There's gonna something's gonna happen to your attitude, to your thought process, to your relationship with your wife, your husband, your children, your coworkers. Absolutely. But Jesus didn't limit it to that.

Because in the mind of Christ, what is included with fruitfulness, when the person really receives the truth, what is included in the result of that is that you will not only hear the truth, but you will also proclaim it. You're also gonna share it. That's the reason the Lord transitions from the teaching of bearing fruit to illuminating the light of the message of the gospel. They are inseparable. They're inseparable.

If your soul is saved, guess what? You're gonna be a soul winner. It's not a negotiable to the Lord. You want cannot hear, embrace, and apply the saving message of Jesus, and then continue to be able to conceal it and not share that news with others. And here's what it means.

When the seed of the truth meets a believing heart, it will not only change your passion to know God. It will not only push you towards personal holiness. It will not only propel you to now be in fellowship with Christians, it will now birth something something else. And that is a conviction to know and to bring people to the knowledge of the Christ who saved you. So I hope that's clear.

The transition of thought is not a completely different teaching. Jesus is not expanding upon what it means to bear fruit, what what your life is gonna look like, and it includes shining your light. And it's not speaking about your conduct. The idea that preach the gospel and when you need to use words, you can't preach the gospel without words. You need to open your mouth.

You need to share. You need to testify. And the Lord is saying, these things are connected. If you truly are good soil, then something's gonna come out. Well, what's gonna come out light?

Well well, yeah, I'm gonna be more loving and more patient. No. No. Not just that. Light truth is gonna now come and radiate from you that will potentially win others to the same Christ that you love.

For any professing Christian to admit that he has absolutely no thought or interest of sharing their faith is an extremely concerning diagnosis. And that's why the Lord in verse 23 of our text says, if anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. In essence, he's saying, pay attention to the implication that I am making. Pay attention to the conclusion of what I just taught. Regardless of your attendance, regardless of your appreciation for sermons, Jesus makes it clear that the good soil is someone who will bear fruit, and bearing fruit includes a conviction to testify of the truth.

I use the word conviction because if I use the word desire, it can be a misleading determiner of sincerity. Feelings are not always good. Some days, they're your ally, and the next day, they betray you. But I say conviction to share the truth because conviction is something deeper. Conviction is about duty.

Conviction is about an ambition, a core ambition for your existence that drives you into a certain direction whether you feel like it or not. And that is what the Lord is speaking about, and I wanna prove that to you according to arguably the greatest missionary who has ever lived, the apostle Paul. Turn to Romans one quickly in verse fourteen and fifteen, and maybe this will motivate and encourage you to understand what the Lord is looking from us. Romans one fourteen to 15. The apostle Paul says, I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.

So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. And in verse 16, he is not ashamed of the gospel. There's three things he's saying there about his his ministry, his preaching ministry. The first one is I am under obligation. The second one is I am eager.

The third one is I am not ashamed. Now here's what's interesting. He begins by saying, I am under obligation. Obligation came first and then eagerness followed. Now the perfect place to be in our journey on the earth as ambassadors for Christ is to have obligation and eagerness hold hands along the way, but that's often not the case.

What is often true is that you and I have an obligation and that drives us, and then some days the eagerness will be there, while other days it's not. We don't go with the eagerness first. It's the obligation that goes first and then everything follows. But you and I have known that that coupling passion, have we not? Especially after we've been saved.

This this this surging energy that just is bubbling in us the moment we have tasted freedom in Jesus, and it required little effort for you to go out and to open your mouth and to mention the name of Christ. You remember what that was like. Right? You had a haircut appointment and you were less concerned about your hair and more concerned about the hopeful opportunity that in that chair, you're gonna share your testimony. In those moments where you were a student and you got saved in college and your daily prayers included, oh God, before the semester ends, give me the opportunity to say something to those in this particular group project of mine.

There was this strength, there was this flame, and it seems supernatural, and it is supernatural. If you remember the altar of sacrifice in the tabernacle, the fire on that altar was supposed to be burning day and night. It was never to be extinguished. But what's remarkable about that altar is that the fire that initiated that burning came from heaven. That's in Leviticus.

It came from heaven and it burned up the altar and it authenticated the priesthood ministry and the tabernacle being approved by God. And it was the responsibility of the priest to make it and continue for it to burn. And that's the truth for you and I. Christ puts that passion in us. The new birth opens our eyes.

There's something in us now that's that's giving us this sense of duty, and there's an eagerness with it. And yet what happens so often is that over time because of the failure to nurture that flame, it becomes embers. And yet there are people after decades still have that passion, still love souls, still are unashamed, still are excited about walking into a new environment and knowing their main mission is I'm gonna share the truth. How? Because they fed the flame.

They fed that flame. And my goal in this service today, how how providential in this Christmas season is for you to hear some just some glorious motivations to be a shining lamp. That's my intention in this message today. I'm only gonna give you some. I'm not gonna give you all.

I can I can talk to you about hell? I can talk to you about the coming judgment. I can tell you about how we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. I can tell you about the rewards that God has reserved for us in heaven, and those are all legitimate reasons, but I'm just gonna give you some, Something that will stir you. Prayerfully, something that will recalibrate your efforts to being intentional and mindful that I am something for the glory of God.

I am a lamp and I'm not meant to be hidden. And so on this brief Sunday afternoon, may I point your attention to just three different thoughts? And my prayer behind this is that there would be an excitement that would be unlocked as you hear every point. And the first one that I wanna mention to you so that you would not hide, or you would not be forgetful, or you would not be kidnapped by slothfulness, or fear, or embarrassment is the first idea, and it is this. You have a treasure too great to keep to yourself.

You have a treasure too great to keep to yourself. And I'm gonna point you to an illustration from the Old Testament. In second Kings chapter seven, six and seven, something happens. Samaria, which is a part of Israel, was surrounded by the Syrians. And and because of this encampment, they were besieged.

And this this surrounding was was a strategy in military times to create a man made famine. The people that were surrounded would not be able to go in and out to to buy or to sell or to receive commerce. They would be stuck. And hopefully, in due time, once they start starving and thirsting and people are dying, they would come out and surrender to their enemy. And the the economic collapse at that point during the ministry of Elisha was drastic.

It was horrible. You had women eating their own children. And without getting into too many details, Elisha the prophet predicts and prophesies one day that overnight, everything is going to turn in Israel's favor. The prices are gonna change. People are gonna survive.

By by a sheer miracle, overnight, everything is going to drastically change for the glory of God. And then while you're reading that, you read chapter six, you read chapter seven, the scene shifts and it takes us to four lepers. Four lepers who are at the gate, and they're having a conversation among themselves. And the conversation is something like this. What are we doing here?

If we go into the city, we're gonna die. If we stay here, we're gonna die. So we have nothing to lose. Why don't we just go to the Syrian camp, present ourselves? If they embrace us, okay, we we'll live.

We'll have some rations to feed on. If they kill us, well, what's what's the point anyway? Because we're gonna die if we just stay. And so these these lepers agree with one another, and they make their way towards the Syrian camp, crossing their fingers perhaps, only to behold an unforgettable sight. In second Kings seven eight, we read, and when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them.

Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid in them. What happened? Not a soldier in sight. God had done something where he made it perceived that the Israelites hired other nations to come against the Syrians, and so all the soldiers by hearing things now flee and leave everything behind, unguarded, unsecured. And it was at that time, while these men were just taking a fifty fifty chance, show up to that site and everything is abandoned.

So they look at each other and say, this can't be, but it is. And so they now begin to eat and drink. They haven't eaten and drinking a meal for who knows how long. They begin to to clothe themselves with with with garments of of royalty even perhaps, and they hide other things to make an investment for later on. And so as they are just indulging and basking in this miracle that God provided, something dawns on them.

This conviction falls upon them in this very happy moment. And the Holy Spirit shows us exactly what it was that was troubling their souls. In verse nine, then they said to one another, we are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us.

Now therefore, come let us go and tell the king's household. So you see, here they are consuming, indulging, and this was God's provision. But then in this process, they stop in their tracks and the conviction settles in. This isn't this isn't all right here because there still are people who are back there and they don't know about this. So let's at least tell them.

And they make their way back and they tell the rest of the city. And here's the point that I wanna make. I believe one of the reasons that we are slow to share about what God has provided for us in Christ is because we have forgotten what it's like to be lost. We have lived with hope for so long, we forgot what it's like to live without hope. We enjoy fellowship with our creator, our savior on a daily basis.

We can't remember what it was like to go day by day without him. We have tasted the goodness of the Lord in so many ways that we don't recall what it was like to be a slave to the false promises of inequity and perversion. And that's why I think in part, we are extra passionate right around the first few months after we come to know Christ. Because we're just steps away from the hellish life that we were saved from. And so the smoke almost is still on our garments and, the the the memories are still fresh and the the saving power of Jesus is in the forefront of our minds.

And then we walk in that freedom long enough. And on top of that, this becomes our world, and we're surrounded with other Christians who have also experienced that joy and that salvation. And over time, you know what happens? We become more and more disconnected with those who are still bound. And so in part, what happens is, not intentionally, but because we're not constantly mindful, we're not just like these lepers who who remembered where others were, the same destitution that they were in, our compassion grows cold.

And listen, you remember. Right? What was a priority in your life and mine? We wanna share the wherever I'm going, man, we're when you're going to that family gathering, you're praying that there's gonna be an opportunity that one of your cousins are gonna hear your testimony. All of that now changes to this.

Be honest. Be honest. You get on the plane, and I'm really I really don't want I hope this person doesn't ask what I do or where I'm from or what I I'm not interested. Doesn't that happen? I know you won't amen it.

And now it's it's almost a burden. And what Paul says in Romans one fourteen, what you just heard, I am under obligation. The Greek word there is very powerful. He says, I am a debtor. I am a debtor.

You know what that means? I owe it to them. I owe it to the Greek. I owe it to the barbarian. What I have been exposed to, what I am in right now compels me to reveal to others at least to know what is possible for them.

A preacher who is now in heaven said something so cleverly, and I loved it. So I'll share it with you. When you and I fish for fish, what we do in that is we take these creatures out of a beautiful life and bring them into death. But when you and I fish for men, we pull them out of a horrible life and bring them into eternal life. Here's the thing you and I have to understand that the message that you and I carry is the only message that can save.

It's a hopeful message. It's a message of love. It's a message of forgiveness. In other words, there is no reason for you and I to be embarrassed about the gospel. Have you heard what people believe out there, by the way?

Have you? If there's anybody who should be hesitant to share what they believe, it's the world out there who have forsaken the wisdom of God. You talk you talk to somebody who just had a promotion or something, you say, hey, that's wonderful, man. That's good. I'm so happy for it.

Yeah. The universe has been really good to me. Oh, the universe has been good to you. Can I tell you something? Rocks and stars don't care about you.

The universe doesn't care about you. Go visit a planet and see what the universe will do to you. And so we look out into this world, and we're we're so sheepish. And it is the message, the only message that can deliver and put hope in a person and open their eyes and set them free. So Paul can also say right after I am under obligation, I am not ashamed.

I wanna point another thing out to you about these lepers who are out here in the field. They would not have been compelled to go back to the city unless they at first enjoyed what was provided to them. Do you understand what that means? It's no different with the gospel. One of the best contributions that you can make to your evangelistic efforts is to take the time to savor who Jesus Christ is.

Is to take the time to relish in what you have in Christ. And what happens there when you begin to, like these men, realize what is before you, the banquet, the joys, the treasures, and you begin to now grow in your delight in God's promise in the person of Jesus Christ, evangelism becomes less of a duty, and it's the overflow of a delight. We've made this very complicated, and it's a very easy formula. I can really prove this to you many examples. Let me give you a simple one.

Who is more compelling to have you spend a Saturday night with your loved one or with your friends at a at a restaurant? The person who read the five star reviews or the person who ate there themselves? Let me ask it a different way. What would make you more animated to be an evangelist for that hidden gem that you found in the city? You reading the reviews and seeing what other people said, or you having an experience with what was in there and tasting it for yourself?

Do you see? And so when you come to the place where salvation is not just experiential, it is for a moment, but when you grow and go from glory to glory to glory, and you realize that the menu in God is endless, and the treasures in his word are continued to be found and discovered, you will be stirred in a way that if you just think it's just a duty or responsibility we'll never be able to offer you. The deeper you go in the things of God, the greater your drive will be for people to hear what you have. And listen. If your pursuit of the knowledge of God is shallow, so will your evangelism be.

If your pursuit of the knowledge of God is shallow, so will your evangelism, your witnessing, your testifying be. You have a you have a treasure too great to keep to yourself. We've all known that at one point, but you have to realize that there is still so much territory to find. And when you find it, I'm telling you, it will bring a jolt to you that will bring you to be more excited to reveal what it is that's been known. Number two, you are the means by which God reaches the lost.

You are the means by which God reaches the lost. A few weeks ago, we heard about Cornelius, this man who was not saved, but he was hungry to know the truth. And God sends an angel to visit him. And when his angel visits him, he tells him to fetch for a man by the name of Peter, and this Peter will come and tell him the message that he needs to hear to be saved. And we touched on this point.

Did you forget it? That God sent the angel not to preach the gospel to him. He could have, and I'm sure that angel would have been much more eloquent and convincing than even the great apostle Peter. But God in his good pleasure reserves that responsibility for the redeemed. But think about that thought for a moment.

Think about that. And I try to think about that as often as possible. What a thrill. What an honor. What a privilege.

Even the seraphim, even the cherubim, even these heavenly creatures, as glorious as they are, have not been given permission to wear the badge of ambassador of Jesus Christ on the earth. You have. I have. By the grace of God. And now I think about this and I know that some of you in here have been saved from a direct encounter with God himself.

And I am not undermining or discrediting such a testimony. But God's method of reaching people, the blueprint, the strategy has always been forgiven souls reaching lost souls, and planting that seed in their hearts. That is really what it's all about. And many of you in here, if you just think about it, can testify, I would not be where I am today. Yes, we know by God's grace, but the means, think about the means.

If it had not been for fill in the blank, if it had not been for fill in the blank, and maybe it wasn't one person. It was one person who planted, another person who watered, another person who watered, another person who watered. And that's how God works. For many of you, it's the presence of godly parents who nurtured you by way of example and taking the time to disciple you. And you are where you are today because of them even if you drift it off for a season.

For others, it was a college student who was unashamed of the truth, and they invited you for a cup of coffee, or they put a track in your hand when you're walking from one class to the other. And now here you are serving Jesus Christ. And perhaps for others, it was a preacher that you heard. Maybe on social media, someone who doesn't even know you exist. Or some some service you were invited to and and you you heard the truth and it shook your soul and here you are.

You're loving the Lord. You're serving the Lord. And the point that I'm trying to make is this, that there is this chain of redemption. There is this chain of souls who have been saved since the the inception of the church and you are a link to that chain and you're not the end of it. If the Lord continues to tarry, you're a link to this chain only for another link to be added to it until the Lord chooses to come back.

And you know, when it comes to studying the word, I I'm always blessed by examining the lives of the men and women of God that are in the forefront of our bibles. But can I tell you something that's even more exhilarating to me? When you carefully read and you discover the unsung heroes, When you see these characters that show up in the pages of scripture like a flash of light and then they disappear, but they were instrumental in the grand scheme of things. And there's so many things I wanna point out to you in that, but I wanna just limit it to another example. You heard an example with Syrians, leprosy, and Elisha.

I'm gonna give you another example on this point with the Syrians, with leprosy, and with Elisha. It's a story of Naaman, that general from the Syrian army. Naaman was told of this prophet who had such a connection with the true and living God that he can heal disease. And so Naaman now comes and finds this man of God, And this man of God sends messengers to meet him and to give him instructions of what he should do if he wants to be cleansed from this this horrid thing. And he was told, go to the Jordan and dip seven times into that, and you'll be healed.

And what an insult. What an insult to this man of status. There was far greater rivers and pools of water, and you wanna take me to the to the the shallow thing called the Jordan? And he was he was offended. And there's a gospel truth in that, that the simplicity of our message confounds the wise.

It calls for people in humility to submit to the imputed righteousness of God. It just asks you to surrender and stop and not think that you have to do anything great to be able to attain what God wants to give you to heal your soul. But have you ever thought about what started it all? What brought Naaman to even come before Elisha? How did that even all begin?

And that's what I wanna show you. So you're there hopefully in second Kings seven, but scroll back to second Kings five verse two. And I want you to see this, and I pray that it inspires you. You know why? Because not all of you are gonna have a platform to preach on.

Not all of you are gonna have a widespread YouTube account. Not all of you are gonna be invited to share a book that you wrote about the things of God. But look at this story in second Kings chapter five verse two. Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria?

He would cure him of his leprosy. So Naaman went in and told his lord, thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, go now and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. This this is before that Syrian scene where they besieged the city. This is this is before that.

Apparently, there were raids that the Syrians were committing against Israel, and in one of those raids they took a little girl, took her from her family, took her from her parents, from her home, from her safe neighborhood. They abducted her, and they gave her a job. You're gonna be a maid. You're gonna serve Naaman's wife. And here's this little girl.

We don't know her age. We don't even know her name. Not only is that fate miserable in itself to the human perception, but on top of that, the house that she's serving in is extra gloomy. Because Naaman now has this incurable disease, and it wasn't just irritating to the flesh. It was a social curse.

He would never be able to relate to his wife in the same way again. He would never be able to go and see his friends so freely. He was stuck. And he tried to cover that thing up as much as possible, but it was known to the household. Naaman has leprosy.

And here's this young lady realizing the opportunity of the moment, and she has enough audacity and boldness to open her mouth and say, I know somebody that can cure you. I know somebody that can solve this. I know somebody that can deliver you. Look, that blesses me for many reasons, and let me give you one. As you heard, this is not a favorable position.

You were taken from everything that you've known, and you are now a servant to the enemies of your people and the enemy of your God. And I when I thought I I looked at that and I said, I know many Christians too who are not in the most favorable position. Nothing even close to this. It almost embarrasses me to use this as an example, but still. You're in that job that you hate.

You're you're not with the best family. You have very difficult people in your life. Providence has not necessarily brought you through the most glorious episodes, but you have a choice in those moments. I see this young girl as a woman who had faith. She had faith.

She believed who God was. She believed who the prophet of God was. And here's this woman choosing not to be bitter against God. You know how I know that? Because she's willing to testify about him.

And more than that, she's not willing to be bitter against Naaman who probably was in charge of this raid. You know, she could have thought to herself, Naaman has leprosy. Good for him. That monster deserves it. I hope he rots in that leprosy.

Brothers and sisters, we have to be careful that as we look out into this world and see what they are doing with the truth, what they are doing against the truth, to not justify our righteousness by being critical constantly and fail to see them as a mission field. There's a very fine line between being righteous and being so critical that we look at them as people that are not even deserving of our efforts, our love, our service. This young girl has a compassion and God's providence even through horrific means brought her into these courts so that at the right time this man can hear about a prophet who is the messenger of the true God. And this man would receive his healing and not just healing, he would say, your God is a true God, and I wanna worship him. What's her name?

I don't know. Was she a prophet? Absolutely not. Had it not been for her, the prophet would never have been able to minister to him the way he did in the subsequent chapters. Think about that for a moment.

This little girl in this awesome scene was really the one who started it all. And you have heard me quote often the great preacher Charles Spurgeon, the prince of preachers. But have you ever wondered, who preached to Charles Spurgeon? Have you ever thought about it? Who preached to Charles Spurgeon?

We are still reading his sermons. We are still borrowing from his commentaries. Long gone after he is in glory. But where did it start for Charles Spurgeon? I'll tell you where it started because God has preserved the records of it.

This man had these empty religious convictions, and he would practice prayer, and he would read the Bible, and he would go to church, but he was not saved. And here he was, 15 years old, on a cold winter morning, deciding to go perhaps to the church that he regularly attended. And as he steps out, he realizes that there is a blizzard, and so he tries to move forward. He tries to make his way into the front steps of that church, but the storm was so intense that it deviated him and caused him to go in a different direction. And here, he finds at a shorter distance a small little Methodist church, and so he enters in, people barely in attendance.

And on top of that, the preacher of that church wasn't there. Maybe he was snowed in. And so what do you have? You have a layman, somebody from the church who goes up to take his place. And this man, according to Spurgeon, was not very impressive.

He seemed to be like a shoemaker or a tailor of some sort. There was no way that from the surface he was a professional preacher, and he wasn't. Because as he went up there from the King James, he quotes from his text in Isaiah forty five twenty two, Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth for I am God and there is none else. And as he was explaining and breaking down this text, Spurgeon remembered that he wasn't even pronouncing some of the words correctly. But here it goes, as he's preaching and looking around and seeing that there's people barely there, that this preacher from this pulpit looks at this young man, Charles Spurgeon, and he says, young man, you look miserable.

You look miserable. You imagine that. That would grab your attention if you're half asleep. But Spurgeon wasn't half asleep. He was gripped, and he leaned in.

And the man continued to exhort him, realizing that he was a stranger. He was not a common attender of this church. And so this layman looks at him and says, and you will always be miserable in life and in death until you obey my text. Look unto Jesus Christ. Spurgeon remembers something happening.

The dark clouds of his soul moving aside and sun shining in, and it was so obvious that when he went back home after that service, his mother without a word being said by Spurgeon looked at him and said, something wonderful has happened to you. Great where people were barely there and the preacher couldn't even show up, was one of the greater, greatest preachers who has ever preached from the bible born. You are a link in this great chain. You don't need a mic. You don't need a pulpit.

You don't need a jacket. You need to be faithful. You need to be hungry. You need to be willing. And God can do miracles through your life.

Lastly, and I'll end here. Not only do you have a treasure too great to keep to yourself, not only are you the means by which God reaches souls, But the response of men this is my final motivation to you. The response of men is not your responsibility. So let's go back to Mark four and look at verse 22. We looked at verse 21 as a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand.

Then he goes on to say, for nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. What does this mean? Jesus is saying this because he just finished admitting that the purpose the main purpose of his parable was to actually hide the truth from those who already admitted that they don't want it. But by saying what he says here in verse 22, he wants to also let his disciples and us know that the parables that he was using was a strategy for a specific audience at a specific time and for a specific period of time. Because he's saying even though that I am concealing the truth here, the characteristics of the kingdom will not remain hidden much longer.

They will come to light. It will be revealed completely. This is just a temporary thing. It's just a partial hardening. But the manifestation of what I have to say will explode and it did when he sent out his apostles and the power of the Holy Spirit.

But it's interesting to note that the phrase here that Jesus uses was echoed in Luke 12 verse two when he was warning his own disciples about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. What he was saying was very similar things that the the things that seem to be hidden, they won't be hidden much longer. They will be made manifest. It will come out in the open. And I think there's a second application to what the Lord is saying at this time.

Because remember, the disciples heard some will reject it right away, some will seem to receive it with great enthusiasm, others will also seem to embrace it. But as time goes on, they're gonna prove to be faulty. And Jesus wants to let him know, listen, don't get caught up in trying to distinguish who is genuine and who is not genuine. Time will reveal. Time will expose it.

Time will make it known. Sometimes it's a short amount of time, oftentimes it'll be stunning to realize how many years it took for somebody to be exposed. But it's almost as though he's trying to bring them relief by using this. Don't get caught up in the responses. Don't get caught up in the results.

Just obey verse 21 and shine the lamp. And when it comes to how people will actually react to what you have to say, time will do its duty. And don't be disappointed. Don't be overwhelmed. Realize that every person will be responsible for the truth that they hear, and that's really what verse 24 verse 25 is, but I'm keeping that for another time.

So you see what the Lord is trying to say, and it's a motivation for you and I. The response of men is not your responsibility. Your responsibility is to simply give what God told you to give. And I think that's important for many people because I know so many who are winded. And if they don't wanna admit it, but they're almost just expecting disappointment when they hear somebody came in, they heard the message, they got saved and they wanna get baptized, and then a few weeks later they're just gone.

And it's just like, you know, I don't know what And this is for you. This is for you. Don't measure your faithfulness based on what people respond with. What did Jesus tell Peter? Do you love me?

Yes, Lord. You know I love you. Feed my sheep. He didn't say, do you love my sheep? Yes Lord, I love your sheep, then feed my sheep.

Do you love me? Do you love me? Yes Lord, then feed my sheep. Your love for souls will not take you very far to reaching souls. Your love for Christ will, though.

Don't forget that. And so I look at this and I realize, okay, Lord. I'm not gonna be exhausted. I'm not gonna get into the place where I preach the truth and have skepticism in my heart. I'm not I'm not gonna I'm I'm not gonna do any of that.

I'm not going to try to manipulate the person, to try to keep them as long as possible because we don't need yet another person to walk out and and prove to be rocky soil. It's gonna discourage everybody else. None of that. You don't need to do any of that. Just shine and let the light do what the light can do.

And the men who reject the light, they will be held accountable for it. Your responsibility is simply love me enough that you wanna tell others about me. I'll share and end a story in closing. I'll never forget the time when I was a college student, some of you most of you know this, where we would spend every Saturday to just go out and share with our college campus, and we would go beyond that. We would go Downtown Toronto, and we would share.

And a group of us would come together, and then we would break up into groups and go out into the Dundas Square of Downtown Toronto, and then we would come back into our apartment and debrief about how our time was sharing the truth with people. Can I tell you something? You would be amazed to know how many people in the middle of the street were willing to have a conversation about God. It it was astounding to me how many people were willing to stop and share and listen. But on this particular night, something happened that was a very rare occasion.

One of one of my friends went out to share with a group of his friends that were connected to that night, and they came back, and I've never seen him so disappointed, so discouraged. He sat with us, and when we went through the circle, he opened his mouth and he says, look, I gotta be honest, tonight was rough. Well, explain. He said, me and so and so, we came up to a group of guys around our age and we asked them questions, and this this this individual with that group began to just relentlessly mock us. And I couldn't even get another word out.

He would just stop me and continue to mock me. And he just it came to the point where I said, look, man. I'm not gonna okay. You wanna just at least take this? I'm I'm I'm done here.

And I could tell that he was so dejected, so just overwhelmed by how he was just publicly mocked like that because we had not seen it like that. And we encouraged him. We said, brother, don't don't be overwhelmed. You did your part. You planted the seed, and that's it.

Months go by. Months go by. I'm out of that apartment even. I get a phone call from this friend. He and he he he calls me, says, you won't believe it.

I said, what? Because you remember that night? And he began to remind me what happened. I said, yeah. He goes, listen, you remember how I flew out overseas?

I went to Germany for a few days. I said, yeah. He goes, so there I am in the airport, Pearson Airport. I'm getting some snacks before the flight. And while I'm in one of those little stores, I see that guy from that time we went out evangelizing and I avoided him like the plague.

He was walking one side of the store. I was walking the other. I was ready to just leave. And before you know it, as my back is turned toward him, I I hear him calling to me And I turn around, I realize it is him. And this man looked at me and he says, do you remember me?

Because he has a, remember you? And he goes, I have to apologize for how I treated you that night. This is not a guy that we saw here and there. This was a guy on the street that we bumped into. And he said, I gotta apologize for how I treated you that night.

Because I have to tell you, the reason why I acted that way was because you and your friends who came up to me convicted me so badly because I could not believe that on a Saturday night there was a group of guys my age that were going around telling other people about Jesus. And it bothered me so much that my defense mechanism was to mock you and scorn you and try to get rid of you as soon as possible. He goes, and another thing, I'm a pastor's kid, and I walked away from all of that. But I gotta tell you now, I'm serving as a youth leader in his church, and I'm walking with Jesus. Now, I believe by God's grace, he allowed a stranger from the streets of Toronto to bump into that same person who witnessed him months later to encourage him and let him know what his efforts did.

But what if he had never revealed it to him? What if the last thing that he saw and heard was a man who hated the things that he was saying and showed that he wanted nothing to do with the truth that he believed? I think we're gonna have a lot of surprises waiting for us in heaven. Not just surprises of, you're here? You're you're here?

There's also gonna be, where's so and so? Isn't so and so supposed to be here? Are you saved? Are you born again? Are you a real Christian?

Are you in for a surprise when you stand before Jesus Christ? I will do to you today in the next couple of minutes what that preacher did for Charles Spurgeon. Some of you today who are sitting here are miserable. You're not fooling anybody with your smile. You're miserable.

You're empty. You're void. You're just wandering in this life trying to fulfill the void that every other purpose that you endeavored to accomplish has failed to deliver. But in God's providence, perhaps, at a church that strangely has a service at 1PM on a Sunday, you're here. And you thought to yourself, I would never come to church on a Sunday morning.

Maybe, yeah, but I have gardening to do, and I got shopping to do, and and so 1PM is just inconvenient. But here you are, 1PM on a Sunday. We're coming up to three. You're probably wondering, when are you gonna stop so I can have my late lunch? Not letting you go right away.

Do you know Jesus? Have you been saved? Are your sins forgiven? Do you have a vibrant living relationship with the living God? Have you made a conscious decision that you will surrender to his saving work?

Do you know in your heart that your name is written in the lamb's book of life? Do you know that if, God forbid, on your way home today, you were to slip into eternity, which you are going at one point, that you have the assurance that the person you will meet who is your maker is indeed your savior? If not, then God in his goodness has presented you the opportunity before it is too late. That at this time, you will say, I realize the severity of my sin. I realize the goodness of his saving love, and I will not leave here without making that decision that I will live for him.

I will trust in him. I will repent of my sins and embrace his goodness and his love by saying, wash me in the blood. Cleanse me, savior, or I die. Today, you can be saved. Today, you can be saved, and all that you've been looking for, you will discover has been and always will be in Jesus.

Believer, I pray that in the simplicity of this message, you will have a newfound passion and desire to be mindful of the purpose that you have on the earth. And don't go with desire and how you feel. Ask God, as we close in prayer today, for a conviction. Ask God for what Paul had. Oh, God.

Put under me the obligation that I have. The obligation. And oh, God. May not just be mere duty, but may it be that I've discovered such deep things in you that the delight of what I have discovered is now overflowing and bubbling over into the people who don't know you. Oh, he will do it.

He will do it. And I pray that this church this church would be filled with soul winners. God can do it. Let's pray. Lord, in this afternoon, we've heard the simplicity of what our identity is, what our purposes as good soil who bear fruit.

Lord, we want not only the conviction, we also want that eagerness that Paul had. And so we just pray that there would be a personal revival in each of our hearts To be able to walk through this life no longer absent minded that the shoulders that we rub, they're more than just business partners, They're more than just coworkers. They're more than just family members. They're potential brothers or sisters in Christ. And we ask, Lord, that we would know the wisdom of the spirit of how to go about this.

And that, Lord, we would just think a little longer and realize that there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to your truth being shared. And so, Lord, we pray by your grace. May we realize that we have a treasure too great to keep to ourselves. May we realize that we are the primary means by which you reach the lost. May we realize that the the response of men is not our responsibility.

And that on that final day, we will see the fullness of the fruit of our efforts. Oh, Lord, just revive us again in this, including the preacher. Revive us again, Lord, to go beyond to go beyond these walls. And, Lord, we just worship you. We worship you that you have indeed come and saved.

For the sinner in this house, may they realize that you have singled them out, and you're calling to them what you said to Charles Spurgeon through that man's lips. Look unto me. In Jesus' name. Amen.