#81 Lu. 10:1-16 JESUS SENDING OUT THE SEVENTY Introduction: Back in the first part of Luke chapter 9 Jesus sent the twelve apostles out into the villages and cities of Israel to preach the gospel. Now in our text today He sends out seventy more in addition to the twelve. I. The seventy sent out V. 1, "After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come." Luke says that the sending out of the seventy took place shortly after Jesus taught the three preachers in last week's lesson about commitment. Since His encounter with those three men was prior to His leaving to go to Jerusalem, then the sending out of the seventy also took place before they left Galilee to go to Jerusalem. Jesus had taught those three preachers about the strict requirements that He placed on anyone who would be His follower. If those three preachers profited by the lessons which Jesus taught them about discipleship then in all probability they were included in the seventy. It is interesting to note that the Bible gives us the names of all twelve apostles, but it does not give us the name of even one man of the seventy. Some have supposed that Luke, himself, was in this seventy and that may be so. Luke was not one of the twelve apostles and so he may have been one of the seventy. Just as Jesus had sent the apostles out in pairs, even so He sent the seventy out in pairs. This means that there were thirty-five teams of men whom Jesus now sent out in addition the original six pair. This makes a total of forty-one teams or eighty-two preachers that the Lord sent out to preach during His earthly ministry. Luke tells us that these seventy preachers were sent out two by two to the cities and villages where He would later come. They were apparently sent to prepare the way for His coming and for His ministry in that place. II. The need for more laborers Now eighty-two preachers from one church have been sent out preaching the gospel. That may seem like a lot of men from just one church, but apparently Jesus did not think so. V. 2, "Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest." Jesus thought that considering the great number of people there were who needed to hear the gospel that only eighty-two preachers was still a pitifully small number. There was a great need for many more and Jesus urged the Christians to pray that God would call more preachers to preach the word. Let me point out to you that the need is still great today. We should pray earnestly that God will call more men to preach. We ought to pray that God would call more from Pleasant Hill. But there is a great need for a lot more workers than just preachers. We need more workers in every phase of the Lord's work. Workers are needed to teach Sunday school classes. More deacons are needed. More youth workers and more to go out on visitation. What would I give to have eighty-two men going out on visitation to work for the Lord? Let us pray that the Lord of the harvest will send us more workers. III. Sent as lambs among wolves V. 3, "Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves." Jesus sent those preachers out with a warning. He warned them that as they went that not all people would welcome them with open arms. This is still true today. Not everybody believes in Jesus and not all people are friendly to those who do believe in Jesus. Some are downright unfriendly. They are rude and unkind, not only to preachers, but to any Christian who tries to witness to them. Christians should not expect that the unsaved people of the world will roll out the red carpet. We are sent out as lambs among wolves. Wolves do not have a reputation for being kind to lambs. They rip them apart. They tear them to pieces. Jesus also gave another warning in this. The seventy were not to retaliate for the unkindnesses shown to them. They were not sent out as wolves among wolves, but as lambs among wolves. So it is with us today. We are not to return unkindness for unkindness. We are sent as lambs among wolves. IV. Other instructions In verses four and five, Jesus gives some of the same instructions to the seventy that He had earlier given to the twelve. V. 4, "Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes..." That is the same as He had said to the twelve. They were not to carry money with them money with which to buy supplies. They were to carry no money for food or clothing or anything else. In telling them not to carry shoes, Jesus was not telling them to go bare-footed. Rather, He was telling them not to carry with them an extra pair of shoes. If one pair wore out, they were to depend on the people to supply. They were to depend on the Lord to lay it on the heart of the people to supply their need. (V. 4), "...and salute no man by the way." Now there is a new one. Jesus gave no such instruction as that to the twelve. In fact, at first, we may have a little trouble understanding why Jesus would give such a command. "Don't salute anybody along the way," Jesus said. Why would He say that? By "salute" Jesus was not talking about a military salute, of course. He was talking about the kind of formal greeting to which Asiatic people were accustomed. They did not simply say, "Hello" or wave to another party as they walked along. They had a whole series of questions and answers. It might take ten to twenty minutes just to greet a passerby. It was an unnecessarily time-communing event. Jesus said, "Don't do it. Your mission is important. Do not waste time on such frivolity." Furthermore, there was a great deal of hypocrisy in the customary greetings of the Asiatic people. They would ask questions about the welfare of all the members of the family when they were not at all interested in the welfare of those people. Jesus did not look with favor at all on hypocrisy of any kind. So Jesus said, "Don't do it." I must admit right here that there might be just a little hypocrisy in some of our greetings today. "Hello. How are you? How is the wife? How are the kids? How is grandma and grandpa? How is Aunt Sue? How is Uncle Joe? How are the grand-kids?" I strongly suspect that some of our own greetings are tainted with hypocrisy. Don't you? V. 5-6, "And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. "And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again." The idea is: When you go into a home, you pronounce the blessings of peace upon that home. Then, if the people of that home has made their peace with God through Jesus Christ, they will gladly repay your kindness for Jesus's sake. You pronounce God's blessings on them and they will give their own blessings on you in return. To put it another way, the people of that house are Christians, they will be generous and kind to you for Christ's sake. They will want to help you for Jesus's sake. V. 7, "And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give..." The idea is: Once someone welcomes you into their home to provide for your meals and a place to stay, you stay right there as long as you are in that town. Do not be going from one place to another seeking something better. You accept whatever they provide for you whether it be sumptuous or whether it be meager. Do not accept the provisions of one family and then start looking around for someone else who can provide for you in a better way. Do not turn down an offer to stay in the home of poor folks in order to go to the home of rich folks. V. Support for the ministry (V. 7), "...for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house." There is a Biblical principle set forth here. It is Biblical for the called preacher to be dependant on the people whom he serves for his financial support. Jesus, Himself, said that the worker is worthy of his hire. That statement actually applies to anyone who labors in any field of labor. That is true of a carpenter. It is true of a barber. It is true of a doctor, lawyer or even a ditch digger. However, Jesus here is talking about the preacher of the gospel. Jesus here teaches that it is the responsibility of those who benefit from a preacher's services to help support him on the field of labor. I do not believe that anyone here at Pleasant Hill thinks otherwise. However, there are people in a lot of churches who do think otherwise and are quite willing to say so. What they ought to do is to stop and think whom they are contradicting. They are not contradicting me; they are contradicting Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I certainly do not hesitate to tell you that I agree with Jesus on the matter. I have two good reasons for agreeing with Him. The first good reason is that Jesus is Deity God dwelling in human flesh and Jesus is always right. He is never wrong. When it comes to a choice between believing Jesus or believing someone else, I believe Jesus. The second good reason why I believe in this principle is that this is the way I get my support. Now I will confess that this is not as good a reason as the first, but to me it seems like a pretty good reason. If I were not supported by the people whom I serve, I would be in big trouble. VI. Further instructions V. 8, "And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you." Don't be picky about what people give you to eat. Just be grateful that they are generous enough to give you something to eat. Don't say, "I don't like that." Eat it and thank God for it. V. 9, "And heal the sick that are therein..." You will note that Luke does not say anything about casting out demons. He just says that Jesus told them to heal the sick. However, I think you can see that this implies that they were also to cast out demons. Some of the sicknesses were caused by demon spirits and there would be no way to heal them without casting the demons out. VII. The grand opportunity and great responsibility of the hearers (V. 9), "...and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." Jesus here is not talking necessarily about the home that has opened up to the preachers. Rather He is talking about any home that they come to. They are to tell those people that the kingdom of God is come nigh or near to them. They are to tell those people that God is now offering to them the opportunity to get saved and to enter into God's kingdom. This was an accurate evaluation of what was taking place. By the sending of these men to their home to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, then God was making them a special offer of salvation. If they would receive that offer and believe in the Christ and trust in Him, they would be saved and would thus enter into the kingdom of God. However, if they would not receive the message that these preachers were bringing to them and they would not trust in the Christ, they would face a most terrible punishment. Unsaved people who hear the gospel of Jesus Christ have a responsibility to God to receive that message. If they turn down that message their punishment will be all the more greater. Let me put it this way. If you never heard of Jesus you would still go to hell when you die. But if after hearing the gospel message you reject it and go to hell you will suffer greater torment than ever. Listen to what Jesus told those preachers who went out. V. 10-16 "But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of our city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell. He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me." If those preachers went into a city to preach the gospel and the people of that city would not believe their message, then the people of that city would receive a more terrible punishment in judgment. As a testimony of that judgment the disciples were to wipe the dust of that city off their feet. Jesus gave the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum as examples of cities which would receive greater judgment. Capernaum was the very headquarters city of Jesus where the greater amount of preaching by Jesus, Himself, was done. It was there that the greater miracles and the greater number of miracles of Jesus were done. If the people of any city in the world ever had the very greatest opportunity of being saved, it was the people of Capernaum. Some of the people there did get saved. They repented of their sins and believed in Jesus as the Savior and got saved. But the greater number of people in that city still did not get saved even though they had the greatest preacher who ever lived and the greatest evidence in the form of miracles that He preached the truth of God. Jesus said that the people of Tyre and Sidon and the people of the wicked city of Sodom would receive a lighter punishment than those cities which had such great opportunity to be saved and yet turned it down. Listen to me, lost sinner friend. Every time you hear the gospel message and put off turning to Jesus until some other time, that is marked up against you in the books of God. God is keeping up with the many times that you have had an opportunity to hear the gospel and be saved and you turned Jesus down. The longer you put off salvation, the greater the suffering you will have in hell. Hell is not going to be a little hotter for you because you keep putting it off, but hell is going to be a lot hotter for you because you keep putting it off. Conclusion: Let me urge that every unsaved person here turn to Jesus right here in this service and ask Him to save your soul. I said that I am urging every unsaved person present to turn to Jesus and get saved right now. But let me get more personal than that. Let me speak personally to you. Whether anybody else is willing to turn to Him right now or not you should. So I am going to ask that you turn to Jesus right now and call on Him. I assure you that Jesus will hear you and Jesus will save you. You do not have to say anything out loud. Silently right now in your heart you can call on Jesus and Jesus will hear you. Trust Him right now and get saved. I feel also that I should make this invitation. If you know that God has called you to preach and you have never committed you life to Him to do the work that He has called you to do, then I am going to ask that you come this morning and publicly surrender to His call. If you are saved and you are in need of a church home, then I am going to ask that you consider joining this church here at Pleasant Hill. Then, if you feel that God would be pleased for you to come and unite with us, I will assure you that we won't get mad about it if you come. Come today and present yourself for membership in this church.