Address—C.H. Brown
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In the 12Th chapter of that.
That's we shall read from the 11Th verse.
Now, when Peter has come to himself.
He said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his Angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectations of the people of the Jews.
And when he had considered the thing, he came to the House of Mary, the mother of John.
Whose surname was Mark.
Where many were gathered together.
Praying.
I will stop there for a little, Peter.
Has had a miraculous escape from prison.
The king had intended to slay him, as he had done games a short time before.
In the middle of the night, an Angel appeared and sat in free.
Games will accompany them out through the Great Iron Gate.
And then left him in the middle of the night, left him there to find his own way, with God's help.
And stop raise the situation and comes to a conclusion.
One he had considered the thing he came to the House of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark.
Where were many were gathered together Pros.
His was not a hasty decision.
He thought it over.
I suppose there were hundreds of homes.
Christian homes there in Jerusalem.
I am quite sure that Peter.
Was well acquainted with them.
But of all the homes that seem to invite him that night was this form of Don Mark's mother?
Evidently, it was a home that was characterized by a godly atmosphere.
They were there in the middle of the night.
So.
Much prayer was made for fear.
And God answers prayer. Peter comes to this home.
I believe who may gather a lesson there.
Peter knew so well.
What kind?
Of an atmosphere was in that hole.
Or I was judged by what he says in the end of his first epistle.
That this young man, John Mark, was a convert of his.
He speaks of him as his son, His son in the faith, I suppose.
Sorrowed out, he was thoroughly conversant.
With that home of John Mark and his mother.
Now.
What kind of a home and do you cover?
Do you cover the home?
Such as this evidently was.
They were having to get together.
In this home that night.
And it was a get together.
That which the Lord Jesus himself was invited to be present.
Tell me the how much you hope to establish. Or perhaps you have established it.
Well, I know that some of you are already in homes of your own, even though to me you're very young.
What kind of a home in your desire?
A home.
Where the Lord Jesus is always welcome. That's what goes on in that home.
Would you be embarrassed or disturbed?
If he suddenly appeared.
At some unexpected hour.
Or in the atmosphere.
Your your evening, the way you're occupied in your home.
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Is it such that a dear exercise believer who is seeking spiritual health?
Would naturally gravitate toward that home of yours.
Is that your ideal?
Off it is happy for you.
Blessed portion is yours.
If Christ is always welcome in your home.
Yes, Peter.
That experience was at home. It was number surprise. It was number shock to hear when he got there.
To find that they were on their knees, that they were in prayer to God for Him, they have the servants of the Lord upon their hearts.
What's up? Let's make this remark.
Most of you come.
Assistant Home. I wonder how much we appreciate it if we do.
That's the home where John Mark grew up.
There's no mention of his father. Perhaps he was deceased.
But evidently.
John Mark was brought up in an atmosphere of godliness.
He told in his later life.
He is one of the most honored men.
When we read about in the New Testament, as we shall see before we get through.
Where did he get the foundation for that career?
He got it in that godly Christian home. All young people, if you have that kind of a home, get down on your knees and thank God for it.
Well, if you don't listen to the solicitations of the enemy.
And ever looked out over the fence into the world? And with that you could get rid of the chains of restraint that you feel are about you in that hole where you are told about the Lord Jesus, His honor and His glory.
It's one of the richest heritage.
Have inquisition that any of us can ever have to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
As long as you live as a precious heritage.
Now worth warning here.
Some of us would have lived a long time in this world, have seen a number of things that have taken place in the lives of those who we've known.
We've known of some who rebel against their upbringing. They rebelled against the string of a Christian home.
They resolved that when they had a home, it would be a home where there would be no restraints, or at least very little restraint.
They were going to give their children the liberties that they were denied.
I can tell you.
Tragedies that would make the tools run down your cheeks.
Of those that I know of that have had that reaction and the awful consequences to their families.
Oh, it's a very common thing to rebel against that upbringing.
And that instruction that your dear parents felt God had laid upon their hearts for the good of your soul.
Or don't ever be guilty of rebelling against it.
Well, this gives us the start then, this young man, John Mark.
We've gone down in that chapter and we look at the 25th verse.
24th verse but the word of God.
Girl and mother Slide and Barnabas and Soil returned.
From Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministry.
And they took Wisdom John, whose surname was Mark.
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John, whose surname was Mark.
It might be well to explain here that Barnabas was the uncle of John Mark.
Perhaps this Mary was his sister and this was the uncle.
So he decides that they'll take along his nephew with them.
Well, I'm sure the Apostle Paul had no objection, and they start out with this young man.
It's natural for us, but our owners who seek to see our children and our relatives go on in the things of God, we desire to help them and encourage them.
So this young man is invited to accompany his uncle and for on this journey.
And we'll go back down to Antioch and then if we look in the next chapter.
And the fourth verse we find the Barnabas and Pharaoh are starting out on a missionary journey.
So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed under the solution, and from them they sailed to Cyprus, and only where thalamus they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews.
And they had John to their ministers.
Now that's interesting.
They decided to take the young man Muslim.
I'm sure he was well pleased to know.
He was interested, he was no doubt.
A young man that wanted to serve the Lord.
Perhaps he was spiritual minded.
His uncle wanted him to have the experience anyhow or had no objection and he was Muslim.
Well, that was very good.
And if you.
Have an opportunity to be associated with those who are older.
As was this young man. It can be a great blessing to your soul.
If you'll pardon the personal reference.
I remember so, so happily and so vividly.
A matter of 42 years ago when Durrell Butter Blount said to me, I'm going to have some meetings and I'd like to have you stay and go with me through these meetings.
Well, I was at the young man.
And.
I hadn't had much experience in this line of things, but this dear old brother invited me to be with him in those SIT meetings.
It was a giant hubby. I didn't have much to do with them. I went and listened to him preach and then tried in a quiet way to do some personal work. But I thank God that from the bottom of my heart for that opportunity that I had at that time.
So here this young man is invited to go with them. It's rather interesting in the end of that fifth verse.
To see the capacity in which he went.
No, had also gone to their minister. Now we have clothes that word minister with a dignified diamond to which it's not entitled in Scripture. The word minister is a very ordinary word. It means a service. It means worth.
Just common service or work, whatever the character may be, they have gone along.
They said young brother John, who can give a help to it. It's nice to have a young man alone. He can help him so many ways. I know that some of those that have been up in the Maritimes this summer have found an ice opportunity to help and the work of the Lord, though they've done. No Christine, Sir.
Thought was this young man.
He was satisfied to go along in that capacity.
Where many younger Christians, a young man especially, have missed the mind of the Lord.
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Is in being too ambitious.
They wanted to start out a full-fledged acknowledged servant of the Lord.
Before they have had opportunity to become seasoned in the school of God.
And in almost every case, such efforts end in disaster, or at least end in disappointment. There's no substitute for students and the things of God.
And I believe it would be a great mistake.
For some young, untried man.
Who expects his brother to send him, perhaps over to the other side of the world?
As a missionary on his own.
It does not seem to be God's method here. We'll find this young man going out under the wing of older brethren. They were happy to have him. It was godly, it was arduous. So far all is good, but we can learn lessons from these things. I believe I would be the last one to discourage.
Any young man or young woman either, who has it on his heart to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh, I say to you, I'm with you. I would encourage you at every time, but let it be in a sphere that's becoming through your years. I believe that's very important.
They start out on a missionary journey.
Mario's gone down to the 13th verse.
Now when Paula needs something loose from papers.
They came to Prague in Pamphylia.
And John?
Departing from them, returned to Jerusalem.
Well, this is the sad part of John Mark's history.
Well, John Mott makes down work. This is the point where he failed.
But I'm so thankful that when God gave us His word.
When he looked down the list of the failures of the Saints.
I will be very discouraged. In fact, I think I would have given up long ago.
If he reading my Bible, I have found that all those whom God used.
All this did the right thing, always have the mind of the Lord, and never made any blunder.
If I had followed through the Word of God and found that to be true, I would have said years and years ago.
Well, Lord, I can't go on. I make too many blunders. I make too many foolish things. So I'm quitting. I'm quitting.
No.
God has recorded the failures in His Word.
Not just to expose the shoddy side of the same fly. Not just that.
But there's a measure of encouragement parts for I will find in case after case where the servants of God hailed in this little as that.
When God comes in later on and uses them for his glory, if God is not going to use failing instruments, he will lose no instruments at all.
But there's only one instrument that God has ever had.
In the whole history of man on earth, that was flawless, and that was the blessed Lord Jesus Christ, praise be to his name. But when it comes to the array of other service, whether we start way back in the Old Testament or whether it's the new, it's the same story.
Failure after failure becomes manifest in the service of God's services.
Well, here John Mark became St. Harper. It wasn't all that he thought it was. It wasn't.
As easy as he thought, perhaps there was some spirit of adventure, in fact, in connection with it.
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But at least for the time we got over the pancilia, he said. I think I'll go back home.
And he went back to Jerusalem.
I wonder how his mother felt when he came home and told the story to her.
I doubt if he got much in the room.
He left those two dear men of God.
Left them in the forefront of the battle and he had come back to an easy place at home. Well, that wasn't very global, was it?
Now you can see that he was a failure there, but let's go on and get the brighter side of the picture further down.
Now turn to the 15th chapter.
We might remark before reading the end of the 15th chapter.
That humanly speaking.
John Mark was very wise.
But was on that particular journey after John Mark left them.
That the Apostle Paul had, perhaps?
The roughest time that he ever had in his life.
It was during that journey.
After John, Mark turned back that the Apostle Paul was stoned.
They thought stoned to death.
Now I couldn't say and I don't know whether to fall you or not. I doubt if he did. He didn't know what he was actually dead or not.
But there were nothing for God, and you may be sure.
They wouldn't have left him for dead unless they thought that they had done the work thoroughly.
Now John Mark has turned back escaped association with that sort of experience. So I'm generally speaking, it was a very clever thing to do, but I've had some solemn repercussions.
Later on, as we'll see here.
In the end of the 15th of that 35th verse, Paul, also on Barnabas, continued in Antioch teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also.
And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again, and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.
This modern idea of getting people converted and then just turning loose and let them find their way to heaven the best they can.
There's a lot of two. The mind of God is expressed in his Word.
It is not enough to get people converted, we must have an interest in their souls to see how they do.
And Barnabas determined or was minded to take with them John, whose surname was Mark.
Now here's the situation again. Remember, Barnabas is his uncle.
So when Paul and Barnabas decide to go on the second trip.
By office says now we'll take Mark with us in love.
But all thought not.
Good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia.
And when what wisdom to the work? And the contention was so sharp between them that they departed the Thunder one from the other. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed under Cypress.
And Paul chose silence and departed, being recommended by the brethren under the grace of God.
Not beloved as valuable instruction for us there, fallen by this, we're about to take this second journey.
The natural relationship between Barnabas and his nephew.
Blinded his judgment.
And he wanted to give that boy another try.
But Power had had such a painful experience in connection with him before.
But he did not feel it would be the mind of God to taking this time at all, and he was very firm in his conviction.
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And the consequence here is very sad.
The contention was so shy between them.
That they departed asunder one from the other. All that is not true, dear young folks, that the difficulties that arise among Saints are only in 1956. And remember that these two men were godly men. They were leading servants of the Lord.
I believe instead of violence, but I do not recall being said of any other man.
That it was a Goodman and full of the Holy Ghost. That was his character.
That doesn't mean that he was always full of the Holy Ghost, but that had been his character.
But there's one thing I believe that will blind our spiritual judgment as quickly as anything else.
And that is the allowance of the natural relationships of life.
Only have to be so in our God.
We won't have the time to turn to it.
But if you remember in the 33rd chapter of Exodus.
When Moses came down from the camp and saw the children of Israel worshiping the Lord and staff, Moses issued a challenge for the cleansing of the.
And he said, who is on the Lords side? And the tribe of Levi gathered themselves through it. And Moses said, now goods his sword and go into the camp.
And slow every mill whose brother?
Consecrate yourselves upon your own son and of himself. And there were about 3000 that fell that afternoon in that flood.
Now, Moses told them.
Don't spare anybody because he's your mother or your father or your brother or your son. It's a large lawyer. That's the state.
Go and enslave in the glory of God.
If a glass of a 33rd captain put around me.
When we get the blessing of the tribe.
We'll find that Levi is signaled up for a very special blessing. I believe that's worth turning to, even though our time does move on.
In the 33rd of the Deuteronomy.
And verse nine, well, verse 8 And of Levi he said, Let thy phenomenon, thy Europe be with thy holy one, whom thou just prove that matter, and with whom now describe at the waters of Marybeth, who said under his father and to his mother, I notice the intimacy of the relationship.
Who said unto his father, and to his mother, I have not seen him.
Neither did he acknowledge his brethren.
Nor knew his own children.
For they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant. Now what does he mean when he's talking about They didn't know their father, or mother, or brethren, or his own children?
He's referring to that day when they put on the sword and went into the camp.
Well, what was the war, Templars?
Then shall teach Jacob thy judgment, stand his will die love.
Those shall put incense before thee, and whole weren't sacrificed upon thine authors.
Now let's remember that that God appreciated and rewarded that tribe because they put the honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ahead of the nearest earthly relationship and whether when it comes to the things of God.
That's what the need to be exercised about. But then going back to our chapter in the 15th of ACT.
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Paul so Silas and departed, being recommended by the brethren.
Under the grace of God.
Don't lift that. We don't read that Barnabas who puts on his refuge with him and went out and worship the Lord. We don't meet with any threat. We don't need of any prayer meeting.
The little rose fool to the love without ring, that they have the fellowship of the state.
Now would it not have been very wise and Barnabas in place of so rudely an autocratically overriding the judgment of a faithful coworker if they had to call them?
Tooth the older brothers and put the case before them and said now brethren help us when little different talking here and we need some advice and counsel.
But evidently the Barnabas was of no mind to hear anything. That was nephew, and it was going to have him with him, and away he went.
And as far as I recall, I may be mistaken, you know, but as far as I recall, this is the end of the history of Barnesville. We don't find him in the service of Christ anymore.
For all the difference of fire, for even though fire may have showed the flesh, and I know that good.
No doubt that in the heat of the occasion.
That he went beyond the mind of the Spirit in the way that the contention was carried on it was very sharp.
Nevertheless, we have the mind of Christ, and when he started out with silence.
He had the fellowship.
Of his brother.
All beloved must emphasize that. Let us young folks.
You know, we hear a meeting sometimes where the young people get up in arms against the older people. We've heard of things like that. And so they resolve to take things in their own hands.
I've known a situation like that. Perhaps you have to.
Beware.
We can never improve on God's order.
Be sure in whatever you do.
In connection with the things of God, that you have the fellowship of your breadth. Now I do not mean by that that we are to have.
A servile attitude.
As though we have to get our brethren thanks and for everything we do. I don't mean that.
But I do believe that was the rarest kind of an exception if you are in the mind of A.
Lord, you'll have the fellowship of your brethren in what you're seeking to do for the Lord.
Now there might be an exception, I know it, but I'm speaking in general terms.
For the big question mark after, if that course upon which you're trying to launch up does not meet the consciences of your brother, put a big question mark about it. Be sure you're right before you go any further.
Being recommended by the brethren under the grace of God.
And now we'll go over to a brighter side of the picture.
So we'll turn now to Colossians 4.
And the tenth verse.
Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, saluted you and Marcus, sisters, sons of Barnabas.
Notice that the Spirit of God is very careful to define just which marks is meant so that we can't possibly make any mistakes. Otherwise we naturally would have said, well, that's another man, you have the same name.
But the Spirit of God anticipated.
00:35:00
Our critical heart. And so he is careful to identify this mark so we know it's the same man.
There's darkest, my fellow prisoners saluted. You and Marcus, sister son to Barnabas.
Such thing whom ye received commandments.
If he come unto you, receive him.
Or that's that's very blessed.
Who wrote that?
Well, that's written by the Apostle Paul.
It's years after that early experience, years afterwards, and now he is writing an earnest exhortation to the disciples at Colossi that if John Mark comes along, you'll be sure and receive him.
Well, dear young folks.
Take courage. Have you blundered?
Have you made a mess of things? Don't give up.
No, you can redeem yourself.
And even with one as straight laced as the Apostle Paul was.
A man who believed in integrity. A man who was most earnest in the things of God. He wanted no foolishness.
Yet He had the grace and the bowels and mercies of Jesus Christ.
And when he saw that a fellow servant, even though he had been a failing 1.
Had already caught and had judged his failure. He was not one to go around nursing a grudge.
No, he wasn't. The way he was wide open with him to speak kindly, uncomfortably to and of such an one. So let us remember.
That what we do fail.
That doesn't mean that God is through it.
I have known those.
Who tried to do something for the Lord?
And God decided.
And they lapsed into silence. They lapsed into themselves.
They, so to speak, went into retreat and we didn't hear anything permanent for a long time.
I remember one young man, a specialist, I said to him.
This was good many years ago now.
Tale, I said to him.
How is it that we don't hear from you at the meeting?
Or he said that I tried it once.
And I made such a failure of it, I resolved and never tried again.
And I know that I told you who that was you would be most disturbing for.
Became later our most gifted, valuable man among us. But that was the result of his first experience, of his first attempt to serve the Lord. He felt it broken down. He was no good, and so he just quit. Well, here's the case.
John Mark failed, but the great apostle discerned that there had been a work of restoration in his soul.
Now another thing right there.
Don't try to force yourself back into the confidence of your presence.
I hope you don't think I'm talking down to you. If I need every word I'm saying this as much as you do, so please don't take me that way.
But when we fail and grieve our brethren.
We don't get back into their confidence by forcing ourselves back.
The Lord has His way and He knows when the time is.
To give the family, use an illustration to give again a green light that all is well.
The John mark evidently had waited and gone on quietly, and the time came when everything was wide open for him, and the great Apostle Paul says that he comes late evening.
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Receiving.
Go halfway about it, you brethren, receive him.
He's all right. Don't hold what he did years ago. Don't hold it against him. Don't keep bringing it up. Receiving. Now, this is in general terms, but now we can go on a step further and we find something that to me is exceedingly priced. It's one of those sweet pictures of the Word of God.
That touched our heart. That's in Second Timothy.
And the last chapter.
Here is dear Paul the agent. That's what he calls himself. I fall the ages.
He's at the end of the journey.
He's just about to be executed.
He's been thoroughly tried.
Last chapter. Second Timothy.
He has a heavy heart in many ways.
A glad heart in other ways, but in me we'll read from the sixth verse. I am now ready to be honest. And the time of my departments at hand. I fought a goodbye, or I fought thee goodbye.
I have finished my course, I have kept the pain henceforth as laid up for me a crown of righteousness.
What's the Lord the righteous God shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them that love His appearing?
Do thy diligence to come unto me. That's semester.
For Demeth have forsaken me, having loved this present world.
I've often thought if dear demons could have known.
That that.
Surrender of his and going back home.
Leaving the apostle to endure those hardships.
If he had known that was going to be put in the word of God.
And we be reading about it nearly 2000 years later. I don't think he ever would have done it. But all beloved young folks you know of what you do in this life is going to have eternal consequences. This isn't just a matter of 2000 years later, but all one of these days the books are going to be examined.
And the times that you and I have turned our backs upon the opportunities that God had for us.
The times that we missed the path are going to come to light again, and they're going to have eternal consequences for your needs. Demons have forsaken me, having loved this present world.
And is departed under Thessalonica.
Customer stipulation Titus and the Dow Mesa only Luke is what makes Now let's have this.
Take Mark and bring him with thee, for he is possible to me.
For the minister for the old Apostles at the end of his journey.
Is throwing his arms around Mars and he's saying bring him. He's profitable to me. He didn't say he's possible to the Saints or impossible to the work of the Lord.
But he's often the most of need.
Paul had learned a lot in those intervening years.
Mark had learned a lot.
Now, at the end of their lives, at least at the end of the life of Paul.
Must a much older and seasoned servant of Christ.
Is found in the embrace of Paul and a loving embrace, the last thing that Paul ever wrote.
Bring my for he is profitable.
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Oh, how different that is from the 15th of the year. Paul wanted no part of it in the 15th of the year.
He's no good. I don't want to take him with him. He left us in the alert. He departed from us.
But he's marvelously redeemed himself, and now here he is at the end of the journey, reinstated in the confidence and affections of the Apostle.
Oh, what an encouraging for our souls, I wonder.
Is there one here this afternoon?
Down in despair, something has happened in your life.
And it's robbed of your happiness.
You're not the same as you used to be, and reproach is still the life and you're under the power of Oh dear soul, take Curry. God has complete restoration for you.
You can get back not only into His graces, but to them again. Have the confidence of your brother. There's a way to go about it. It's not by self aggrandizement, it's not by self insertion, but it's submitting yourselves to the gracious, gentle leading the Spirit of God, and by a godly, quiet life.
Commending yourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
But now.
The best part of the story is reserved to the left.
If God were going to choose.
One to write the life story of his beloved son.
To write the life story, The inspired life story of a beloved son.
What kind of a man would he choose?
Tradition tells us that in the Gospel by Mark.
That the young man, I'm not vouching for this. I only give it as the teaching of tradition, where in the 14th chapter Mark Gospel where you have the young man.
Who was following Christ in the crowd there at the time of his arrest?
Please. Running away, leaving his clothes behind him in the hands of those that were apprehending him.
That that young man was.
Well, if so.
With all the more significant.
That's the kind of a man that God chose.
To write the inspired biography of his dear Son and the first gospel I believe it was ever written. The first story, the first written account at least inspired accounts that the Saints of God ever had the life of our Lord here in this world.
Was written by that very young man, even though he had failures in his life on the past or I think that that's crazy. The man that wrote the story of the servant for that's what Mark says he's writing the story of the service, the person's service, the man whom God gives.
To write the story of the perfect service had been an imperfect servant himself.
And yet God gave him the privilege of running.
One of the Gospels. All the ways of God are wonderful. Take courage, uncle, take courage. We have a wonderful God and Father, and his patience is infinite.
Let's surrender ourselves wholly to His leading and His guidance.
Let's live for it. The time is short and the way of happiness is the way of community.
May we remember these things for our souls good and the glory of our blessed Lord.