1. When our Lord originally called the 12 apostles, His purpose was to teach and train them so that they could go out and preach the Gospel (Mark 3:14).
2. The Lord chose them in order to send them, and He has chosen you and me for the same purpose (cf. John 15:16).

1. OUR LORD HAS COMMANDED US TO "GO" (Mark 6:7-9)

1. Once again, I want to emphasize that God has commanded us to go also (cf. Mark 16:15,16). The Great Commission is for the local church.
2. Some here today are probably thinking that you are not able to go out and tell others. That is not true. Think about the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). She had just gotten saved, and immediately she went out and told others about Jesus.
3. Why did our Lord send them out "by two and two" (6:7)? For encouragement, mutual help, strength, etc. (cf. Eccl.4:9-12).
4. Also, sometimes it helps avoid moral problems.
5. The Lord’s disciples were to "take nothing for their journey, save a staff only" (6:8). It was customary for travelers in those days to walk with a staff. Perhaps it would protect them from animals or thieves.
6. The idea is that they were to travel light – "no scrip (luggage), no bread, no money in their purse: But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats" (6:8,9). This is in contrast to many jet-set preachers today with their fancy cars and expensive jewelry, etc.
7. They were to accept hospitality wherever it was afforded them, and were to stay there till they left the area (6:10).
8. Let me stop here for a minute and point out that these instructions were of a temporary nature. Later on, our Lord did instruct them to take a purse, scrip and a sword (Luke 22:35,36). Conditions at that time necessitated a change – it was a longer journey, perhaps more dangerous, etc.
9. Today, situations are much different than they were 2,000 years ago. Sometimes it is quite expensive and very complicated for missionaries going into foreign countries.
10. But the principle remains the same – we are to "go" (cf. Matt.28:18-20). Times change, conditions change, governments change, modes of travel change – but the Great Commission never changes.
11. Perhaps some of you cannot go overseas, but you can help send someone else. Example: faith promise giving at All Nations Missions Conference.
12. The local church is not just for worship – though that is very important. The local church is not just for fellowship – though that too is very important. The local church is not just for edification – though that too is very, very important.
13. Christ established the local church so that we could go out and tell others the Good News that Christ died for them on the cross and if they repent and believe in Him they too will have eternal life.
14. Some Christians are like "sponges," always soaking up good Bible teaching but never giving any out. Take what you have learned and go out and tell others.
15. Not only has our Lord commanded us to go out, He has also told us what to say.

2. OUR LORD HAS TOLD US WHAT TO SAY (Mark 6:12)

1. If you were working for someone, and he told you to go out and deliver a message, you would want to know what the message was.
2. Well, our Lord has commanded that we go out, and He has told us what to say: REPENT (6:12).
3. This was the message of John the Baptist (Mark 1:4), and this was the message of our Lord (Mark 1:14,15).
4. This does not just mean that they went around preaching, "Repent." It means that they preached in such a way as to produce repentance. Certain preaching produces repentance, but much of what passes for preaching does not.
5. A.J. Gordon said, "The sincere milk of the Word may be dispensed from the pulpit, yet be given out so frigidly and unfeelingly as to make it hard to receive. In Siberia, the milkmen sometimes deliver their milk in frozen chunks, not in quarts."
6. Straight preaching against sin produces repentance. A pastor friend of mine received a phone call from a lady who wanted to know about his church. She asked his opinion on certain worldly pastimes and after hearing what he had to say, she said: "I see nothing wrong with rock music and dancing and drinking, etc." He said: "Lady, if you were used to hearing some straightforward preaching against sin you would see a lot of things wrong with rock music and dancing, and drinking, and so on."
7. Preaching about the judgment of God produces repentance (Acts 2:37,38; 24:24,25).
8. Preaching about hell produces repentance. When George Whitefield and some of the other old-time evangelists used to preach about hell, people used to say that they felt like they were slipping into the flames and could smell the smoke!
9. This brings me to my third and most important point.

3. THERE IS A HOTTER PLACE IN HELL FOR THOSE WHO HAVE HEARD THE GOSPEL AND HAVE REJECTED IT (6:11).

1. If a place rejected the Gospel, the disciples were not obligated to remain. Upon leaving, they were to "shake off the dust" from under their feet "for a testimony against them" (6:11).
2. This symbolizes God’s rejection of those who will not repent.
3. Please mark the words "more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment" (6:11). This is an important warning that runs through the entire Bible but yet is so often overlooked.
4. We know from Jude 7 that the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrha are now "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." If they are suffering in hell, what could possibly be worse than that?
5. When God describes the torments in hell, He makes it very clear that hell is a horrible place, a place of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, a "furnace of fire," a terrible place "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:44).
6. And yet He says in Mark 6:11 that "it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment" than for those cities that have rejected the Gospel (cf. Matt.11:20-24).
7. Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum were cities that had heard the Gospel preached many times but they would not repent. And now our Lord makes a solemn declaration – "That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment" than for them.
8. In Mark 12:38, our Lord warned His disciples about the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of their day, the Pharisees. He said that "these shall receive greater damnation" (Mark 12:40).
9. A "greater damnation," a more severe judgment, worse than the suffering endured by the horrible Sodomites, yea a hotter and more painful place in hell.
10. In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12, our Lord told His disciples an interesting parable about a servant who knew his lord’s will but would not do it. He said that that man would "be beaten with many stripes" (Luke 12:47).
11. But the servant who "knew not" would "be beaten with few stripes" (12:48). Most of you here today understand the Gospel. If you have heard the Gospel and still not repented, than God is going to hold you accountable. You "shall be beaten with many stripes" (Luke 12:47).
12. There is a hotter place in hell for those who have been warned but refuse to listen.

CONCLUSION:

1. Many years ago, in the city of Chicago, there was a wealthy family who had a daughter who came down with an unusual disease. They heard about a specialist in Vienna, Austria and paid him $25,000 (a lot of money today but especially back in those days) to treat their daughter.
2. There was another lady in the same neighborhood who read about this in the newspaper and was very surprised because her daughter was afflicted with the same disease.
3. However, this second daughter was unable to afford the treatment. But she prayed that God would send the doctor somehow, some way, to her house to help her daughter.
4. The doctor was an elderly man and was in the habit of going for long walks every day. On this particular day it looked very cloudy so he asked his chauffeur to follow him at a short distance in case it started raining.
5. Sure enough, it started raining hard but the doctor looked all around and could not find his driver. He spotted a nearby house with a front porch and ran up to it. The lady who lived there saw him coming and slammed the door in his face.
6. So he stood there on the front porch for a few minutes until he saw his limousine pull up. His chauffeur got out with an umbrella and escorted him into the car.
7. That evening there was an article about the incident in the evening paper. It told of the doctor’s experience and how he caught a bad cold, and how this lady would not let him into her house. The lady was shocked – she was the lady with the sick daughter!
8. She raced down to the hotel to apologize to the doctor and to beg him to come back and treat her daughter. But when she got to the hotel she found out that he was already on his way to NYC where he would get on a ship heading back to Austria.
9. The woman broke down in the hotel lobby, lying on the floor crying out: "Oh God, he was at my house and I would not let him in! He was at my front door and I shut it in his face!" She screamed hysterically and wound up in a mental hospital.
10. Some here today may wind up in hell screaming for all eternity: "I was so close to getting saved but I put it off! I could have been saved but I refused!"
11. Hell will be so unbearable because for all eternity you will remember the times you shut the door in God’s face.