The Slave-Savior's Auxiliary Acts for the Gospel Service (1) & (2)

0:00We praise the Lord for thy great plan that we might well in place may be." Welcome to Life Study of the Bible brought to you by Living Stream Ministry. These programs are based on the ministry of witnessly and his 21-year crowning work, the Life Study of the Bible, which focuses on the enjoyment of Christ as the divine life has revealed in the Bible. We hope that through these studies you'll be brought into a deeper enjoyment of the Scriptures and of our dear and precious Lord Jesus. You can contact us by sending email to radioatlsm.org or reach us toll-free 888-life study. Now let's join today's program. The Gospel of Mark is not a book concerning the great doctrines of the Christian faith. Much more it is a book of many cases that illustrate the reality of the Gospel being carried out,

1:06even lived out by the slave savior Jesus. Early on in the book in the third chapter there is the account of the Lord instructing his followers to prepare a boat so that he could escape the large crowd, the pressing throng that had come to Galilee to see this one who was performing miracles and healing the sick. It was because the pressing of this large crowd had become a frustration to the real seeking ones who did not desire to be part of a great new religious movement, but rather longed for a simple intimate touch with the Lord Jesus Himself. Chapter 5 shows us such an intimate encounter. And when she heard the things concerning Jesus she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his garment. And immediately Jesus, realizing in himself that power had gone out of him, turned around in the crowd and said, who touched my garments? Bill Lawson is here. As we come to these portions in chapter 3 Bill,

2:09we've seen some major cases, five to be specific in chapter 2 and the first part of chapter 3 that are really the cases that illustrate the carrying out of the gospel service by the Lord Jesus. Now we have some secondary or as witnesses we'll call them auxiliary cases that help modify and help develop these points. Quite lovely, the picture here isn't it? It really is, Chris. You have these auxiliary cases, but still they are very enlightening, concerning a number of situations where the Lord revealed Himself, not in the natural way we would usually handle things, but He was a real God man here. He was living out God. And everything that we would naturally do if we were in His shoes, He did not do it. It's almost like He did the opposite of what we think He should do. We think He should go through the big crowds, but He averted the crowds. In a sense He almost ran away from the crowds. He didn't want a big following, a big religious following. He just wanted to minister Himself as life into people.

3:13Yeah, that is really striking in this first section. We'll honestly will point this out, Bill. Just as you said, the normal pattern, and we see this all the time in today's religious scene, you know, a ministry is launching out and of course it's seeking the great crowds. Here the Lord was just now newly in His gospel service, having just begun His ministry and the crowds are coming in large numbers. And we find in chapter 3, verse 7, and in that section in the book of Mark, Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the seat and a great multitude from Galilee followed and from Judea. And He told His disciples to have a little boat ready near Him because of the crowd so that they would not throng Him. So quite the opposite, as you said, Bill, instead of seeking out the crowd, He is doing His best to now to distance Himself from the crowd, quite opposite the natural thought. This is really so. This is really contrary to our natural thought. And as Brother Lee points out in this rich life study, this is the Lord in His auxiliary acts. He did

4:17things particularly and purposely this way, not merely wanting a big crowd to follow Him outwardly and they wanted even to make him a king. If you're looking John 6, they wanted to make him a king by force. He wanted to be the bread of life to him to them to get into them and they wanted him to make him a big king. The Lord had no intention for any large movement of man, any great service. He just wants to minister Himself as the divine life into them to gain even a small number who could properly represent Him. All right, let's join witness with this first segment, Bill. In this portion, from verse 7 to verse 35, we have five items. These are not the direct acts to carry out the gospel, but help the carrying out of the gospel. To carry out a ministry commissioned to us, begot, always have problems, frustrations, bothering, oppositions, and some things that would

5:29help us in a natural way. Now, first of all, you have the problem of being crowded. See, too many people came because they all heard what the Lord did. Your crowd came from different regions, from different directions, and that crowding, frustrated the Lord's ministry. Today, among the Christians, all the preachers, ministers, evangelists, always like to have a big, big crowd. Actually, the crowd doesn't help the real ministry of life. A crowd only can help you to have a movement. You cannot get the help to have a real ministry in life. And here in this short section, two words are used. One is press, and that pressing closed the door for the sincere ones to come

6:39to touch the Lord directly. So, the second word is touch. You need to touch him. In the four gospels, a number of times, people press upon him. But only those who touch him got the benefit. By a direct touching, the power or life out of the Lord himself would be imparted into you. That is a kind of divine dispensing. You must single yourself out from the crowd to touch the Lord himself. Honestly, the you get the ministry of life. Boy, Bill, this is a tremendous point. And as you pointed out, it is so contrary, so counter to our natural intuitive thought process here. He says the crowd cannot help the ministry of life, but becomes a frustration. And we need to, each individual,

7:43believer needs to kind of separate himself out from the crowd in order to have this very intimate touching experience and relationship with him. This marvelous, isn't it? Brother Lee, of course, uses this term ministry of life, which is very rich. The crowd pressing upon him, they, in a sense, were really not seeking to have a personal touch or contact with him. They only wanted to be around a famous person. And many believers are like that. We just want to be in a great movement. We want to be associated with a certain person in a certain religious situation. But the real seeking ones, many times, are frustrated from touching the Lord because of the big crowd. We just need an individual personal touch with the Lord so that the very life and life supply from the Lord can be dispensed into us. And that is the real ministry of life. The Lord really had a ministry of life. Bill, contrast again. I want to come back to this point because I think it bears a little further discovery. The contrast of a movement versus a ministry

8:47of life. Well, of course, I have a lot of books in my library. And I've always been struck with the so-called evangelistic move of ones like George Whitfield. And I know years ago he came to the Boston Common. And he gathered 20,000 people there at the Boston Common to preach the gospel. Of course, he was quite prevailing. And through years into the centuries, we just like to draw the big crowds. And when we draw the big crowds, that is in a sense, it's a movement. God today is after a move where a move is based on the matter of the divine life as the source and the divine life as a means to be dispensed into people so that the Lord can gain something solid for his testimony. But a mere movement can be a large number of people who come and go. And then the next, there's a big revival and then another age, another century, another big movement comes and goes. And the Lord and the long run could never have what he wants. The body of Christ built up because he has a

9:49lot of movements with big crowds. But he has not that many who are really involved with a genuine ministry of life where Christ as life, the divine life, the divine riches are dispensed into a number of believers. They are built up together in that divine life and they become a corporate testimony of his. Bill, that's not to say that we are despising the work of the Lord and saving large numbers at a time and certainly throughout church history. There have been many cases like this. And even in our own century, we've had ones that the Lord has raised up in such a way to be able to present the gospel to thousands upon thousands. But I think the point is that you made quite well. What the Lord is after, he may use this, but this is not his goal. This is not his aim. His end is a body, the body of Christ built up. And this requires a kind of a different perspective, doesn't it? Then just to join ourselves to this mass movement. Right. In my own experience years ago when the Soviet Union collapsed and we went into Russia, in a short period of time, probably within six

10:51months in our labor that we probably brought around 27 or 29,000 Russians to Christ in that period of time. And yet the Lord was able not only to bring thousands to him, but the Lord was able to minister something of life to them to build them up. So today in Russia, there is a solid testimony there of believers in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other places like this who are really built up in a proper way in a church life there. They're growing in life, maturing in life, and the Lord really has a testimony. They're not a movement. Okay, let's go back to our scene here in chapter three. We have the Lord who's now off in the boat to separate himself from this throng, this pressing throng. And he now takes a select group, a very small group of those who even had been not just the followers in a mass way, but those who had been the recipients of this ministry of life. And out of this smaller group, he selects just a handful to go up with him to the mountain. And he here now makes the selection of the twelve who will really serve with him,

11:55co-laboring with him as his twelve disciples, twelve apostles. Here's what is sleep once more. Now the second thing is that you see, to convert the crowd, he went to the sea, even he went into a boat on the sea. Now from this sea, he went up to the mountain. He went to the mountain to pray. To pray for what? To pray for the selection, for the choosing of the twelve from among so many who have received the ministry of life from him. You see, then he was burdened to select some of them and upon them to help him in these ministry of the gospel. So he went to the mountain and he prayed quite much there to select the twelve. Now one among the twelve was a betrayer. Let us consider

12:59what the Lord knew these or not. I believe he knew. He consulted with the Father. He prayed. Actually, his appointment was not a kind of carrying out of his own will. His appointment was a carrying out of God's will. I do believe the Father charged him to select that one, the last one of the twelve. So he did it. This is just in chapter three. Just in such a short time, you see, the Lord could have twelve hapers. And I don't believe these hapers are very much mature. I don't believe. Listen to of them are sins of senders. You just think about it. And among the twelve, one was a text collector. If he was a scribe, I may be okay. Right? I tell you, the natural view is

14:12different from the spiritual insight. The Lord had a spiritual insight, not a natural view. To my observation, the Lord didn't choose one learned one. The Lord didn't choose Nicodemus, chapter one of twelve. Did he? His doing is not natural. His doing is always no doubt in the spirit. And his appointing of the twelve was also not natural. It was all together in the spirit. Now with us. You made a comment at the beginning of the program that in every instance almost the Lord seems to do exactly the opposite of what we would typically do. We would run after the crowd. We would want to cultivate this large following. You know, we'd examine the resumes of all these ones before we selected the twelve. Surely we would not pick these

15:14sons of thunder, these wild ones, and especially this tax collector that, you know, in that context, that's far below who today's used car salesman, isn't it? It really shows so much even as believers, Chris, we just live in the natural life. We live in ourself. We're always wanting our own ways, our own thoughts, our own concepts. And here is a person, the Lord Jesus, a God man, a slave savior, who does everything in resurrection. Bradley kept using this word the natural life, because the natural life is just versus resurrection and versus the spirit. Of course, the spirit is the reality of resurrection. So everything that the Lord did even in these auxiliary services was absolutely in resurrection. His prayer was in resurrection. His choosing of the twelve, even knowing Judas would betray him. That was done in resurrection, according to the Father's will. Everything he did was in resurrection, in the spirit, according to the Father's will. His choice, like Bradley said, was not Nicodemus. We probably would have picked the Jewish Sanhedrin. We would have picked the top

16:18Jewish elders and selected them. And then they'll probably just be a mess. So anyhow, I really appreciate, Bradley here, pointing out the difference between the natural life and the Lord's resurrection and the Lord living in the spirit. So for us, Bill, to learn how to walk and live according to the spirit, it really requires the denial of our natural thought in our sort of default setting, doesn't it? It really does. When we deny the natural life, the natural view and so on, that gives an opportunity for the Lord in our spirit to be expressed and manifested, then what we do and what we say and how we carry ourself is absolutely according to the Father and not according to the natural life. Okay, let's go forward. We come to a section now of scripture that I think many people have puzzled over. It's later in chapter three. I'm going to read a few verses here starting in verse 23 and he called them to himself and he said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan? And if a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom is not able

17:22to stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he is not able to stand but has come to an end. But no one can enter into the house of the strong man and thoroughly plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man and then he will thoroughly plunder his house. Bill, we began the program today somewhat talking about gospel preaching. We're going to end on that topic as well. But I think this revolutionary perspective from which witness Lee is going to develop it in this final portion. Let's join him now. The Lord's Word tells us that Satan has a kingdom with his house and his kingdom is against God's kingdom and his house is against God's house. Number one, a number two, the Lord's Word indicates that while he was preaching the gospel,

18:24he was binding this strong man in order to destroy his kingdom by plundering his house. In other words, the Lord's Word here indicates that his preaching was plundering. He preached the gospel by such a preaching. He plundered his house. Today, when we preach the gospel, we plunder Satan's house. Our understanding is only, well, this is so winning. This is just saved the last sinners. But the Lord's concept was that when he was preaching the gospel to save the sinners, that was to plunder Satan's house, to release his captives. By doing this, surely the Lord destroys Satan's kingdom. And this word also indicates that the Lord did his preaching by plundering

19:31Satan's house and destroying Satan's kingdom by what power? By the Holy Spirit. He did everything by the Holy Spirit, especially he preached the gospel to plunder Satan's house and destroy Satan's kingdom by the Holy Spirit. When the Lord did this, plundering Satan's house, destroying Satan's kingdom by preaching the gospel, he was bringing in the kingdom of God. This is marvelous. So in printed gospel, we must learn number one to pray that we may receive more of the Holy Spirit. You see, we may be empowered by the Spirit. Then we preach. I tell when we praise, we are plundered, Satan's house. And we are destroying Satan's kingdom. It is not a small thing. We must all see this. Bill seems all three of these sections today just run 180

20:41degrees cross grain to the natural thought. You know, we come to this matter preaching the gospel, whether we're doing it or we're, you know, we're assisting or admiring someone else doing it. Our thought is that we're really consumed with the winning of souls. And this is a worthy cause. Don't misunderstand. But here we're getting such an uplifted view. The Lord's view is that God has a kingdom with a house. Satan also has a kingdom with a house. And he's seeing the gospel here in the context of the battle between these two, isn't he? Right. When we talk about preaching the gospel here, we're following the Lord here in the gospel of Mark is the auxiliary services for the gospel. Right away, as Brother Lee says, we think of soul winning. We think of getting people out of hell, you know, and to rescue them from perishing and like the song goes, you know, careful the dying. Jesus is merciful. And Jesus will say, which is very, very true. And we need to do that. But I think if we only look at it from the point of view of getting people out of the negative

21:41and bring them into the positive, we're really short here. And I think Brother Lee is really bringing out something here that behind the gospel preaching, he's fighting here behind the scenes which we don't see. He saw that there is Satan there. Satan's kingdom is there. Satan's house is there. It's a house of sin and it's a kingdom of darkness. So behind these people who are frustrated, you know, who are sick, who have all these infirmities, it is not just that. It's just that there's an enemy behind there who's frustrating these people from being released and freed. So while the Lord was carrying out the service, he was binding Satan. He was plundering that house. He was fighting and he was doing everything by the Holy Spirit within him. And he was by the power of the Holy Spirit, destroying Satan's kingdom, binding the strong man, releasing these people from the stronghold of Satan. He was doing all of those things while he was ministering life and

22:43preaching the gospel. We really have to see this. Really so. So his kind of approach to this, praying needs to be our approach. And we need to be equipped, empowered by and with the Holy Spirit, whether we're approaching our neighbor or the person in the cubicle next to us or sitting in the next desk in the classroom or whether they're occupying the seat on the plane or the bus that we happen to be next to. This is kind of a warfare. This one has been illegally brought into captivity and is being held prisoner in Satan's house. And we need to plunder that house to destroy his kingdom. Right. Without another power, a higher power, a greater power like the power of the Holy Spirit, we cannot do this. You cannot just try to say something to someone without praying, touching the Spirit, contacting the Holy Spirit, being one with the Spirit. And then when we speak, when we minister, there's power there because we're applying the Holy Spirit, and that's binding Satan, that's tying him up, that allows us to go into his kingdom. Right.

23:48All these people in the world today, they are in kingdom, they're in a house, they're in sin, they're in darkness, they're in death, and they're held by a satanic power. If we don't exercise our spirit to contact the Holy Spirit of power, we cannot release those people out of the satanic kingdom and bring them into God's kingdom, because we know God today is after a kingdom, and he wants more and more of these people who are trapped there to be in his kingdom, his kingdom of light. Well, these auxiliary cases really illustrate bill that we need to become people of the Spirit and not people of the natural, so-called common way of approaching our Christian life. As we part, let us give you the toll-free number here so that you can contact us about getting the printed life-study messages that go with these programs, that number 1-888-life-study, 888-543-3788. That's all the time we have today for Bill Lawson. I'm Chris Wilde. Thanks very much for listening. Thank you for listening to Life Study of the Bible with Witnessly,

25:03produced by Living Stream Ministry. Living Stream Ministry is dedicated to the works of Watchmane and Witnessly, two co-laborers with the Lord in China during the first half of the 20th century. After World War II, Watchmane sent Witnessly to carry out this ministry in Taiwan. Later, the Lord led him to the United States and eventually to the rest of the world before he went to be with the Lord in 1997. Living Stream Ministry now has hundreds of titles by Watchmane and Witnessly available in English, plus many in more than 50 other languages. To find out more about Living Stream and all that we offer, visit our website lsm.org. You can also reach us toll-free at 1-888-543-3788 or email us radio at lsm.org. Thanks for listening.