Participants: Bill Santos
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201218
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00:02 <<Bill: Back in the 15th century in a tiny village near Nuremberg, Germany
00:06 there lived a family with eighteen children. 00:08 That's right. eighteen! 00:12 In order merely to keep food on the table for this large family, the father 00:15 (who was a goldsmith by profession) worked almost eighteen hours a day at 00:20 this trade and any other paying job he could find in the neighborhood. 00:26 Despite their seemingly hopeless condition, two of the older children had a 00:31 dream. 00:33 They both wanted to pursue their talent for art, but they knew full well that 00:38 their father, with all that he had on him, would never be financially able 00:43 to send either of them to Nuremberg to study at the Art Academy there. 00:49 After much discussion, the two boys finally worked out a plan. 00:53 They would toss a coin. 00:56 The loser would go down into the nearby mines and with his earnings, support 01:00 his brother while he attended the Art Academy. 01:03 Then, when that brother who won the toss completed his studies in four years, 01:08 he would in turn support the other brother at the academy either with sales 01:12 of his art work, or, if necessary, also by working in the mines. 01:17 So, one Sunday morning after church, they tossed a coin. 01:20 Albrecht Durer won the toss and went off to Nuremberg to study art. 01:25 His brother, Albert, went down into the dangerous mines and for the next 01:31 four years, financed his brother's studies at the Art Academy 01:48 >>Announcer: It has stood the test of time. 01:50 God's book, The Bible 01:54 Still relevant in today's complex world. 01:59 It Is Written. 02:01 Sharing messages of hope around the world. 02:16 Albrecht Durer's etchings, his woodworks, and his oils were far better than 02:20 those of most of his professors, and by the time he graduated, he was 02:25 beginning to earn considerable fees for his commissioned works. 02:30 When the young artist returned home to his village, the Durer family 02:34 held a festive dinner on their lawn to celebrate Albrecht's triumphant 02:38 homecoming. 02:40 After a delightful meal with lots of music and laughter, Albrecht Durer 02:44 rose from his honored position at the head of the table to express his 02:48 deep appreciation to his beloved brother, Albert, for the years of sacrifice 02:53 he had put in that had enabled Albrecht to fulfill his ambition. 02:59 His closing words were: "And now, Albert, blessed brother of mine, now it is 03:03 your turn. 03:06 Now you can go to Nuremberg to pursue your dream and I will take care 03:09 of you. 03:12 " All heads turned in love and eager expectation to the far end of the table 03:16 where Albert sat. 03:19 Tears were streaming down his face. 03:22 Slowly, Albert stood to his feet and softly he said, "Thank you, my 03:26 brother, but no I cannot go to Nuremberg. 03:30 It is too late for me. 03:32 Look, look what four years in the mine have done to my hands. 03:38 The bones in every finger have been smashed at least once, and lately, I have 03:42 been suffering from arthritis so badly in my right hand that I cannot 03:47 even hold a glass to return your toast, much less, make delicate lines 03:51 on parchment or canvas with a pen or a brush. 03:55 No, my brother, for me it is too late. 04:02 " More than 450 years have passed. 04:06 By now, Albrecht Durer's hundreds of masterful portraits, pen and 04:11 silver-point sketches, watercolors, charcoals, woodcuts, and copper 04:16 engravings hang in every great museum in the world, but the odds are great 04:22 that you, like most people, are familiar with only one of Albrecht 04:26 Durer's works. 04:29 More than merely being familiar with it, you very well may have a 04:35 reproduction hanging in your home or office. 04:39 One day, to pay homage to Albert for all that he had sacrificed, Albrecht Durer 04:45 painstakingly drew his brother's abused hands with palms together and 04:51 thin fingers stretched skyward. 04:56 He called his powerful drawing simply "Hands", but the entire world 05:01 almost immediately opened their hearts to this great masterpiece and renamed 05:06 his tribute of love, "The Praying Hands. 05:12 " The next time you see a copy of this touching creation, take a second 05:15 look; let it be a reminder that no one. no one ever makes it alone! 05:24 Take Simon Peter, for example. 05:27 He was one of the great leaders of the original disciples of Jesus. 05:30 He was one of the great servants of the early church. 05:34 He was one of the most beloved and respected saints in the history of 05:38 the world, but he did not achieve that all by himself. 05:42 The truth is we are incredibly indebted to Simon Peter's brother, 05:48 Andrew, for the gift of Peter to the church and to the world. 05:52 Andrew was the one who brought his brother, Simon Peter, into the presence 05:56 of Jesus. 06:00 Let's meet another of the disciples, Andrew, Peter's brother. 06:05 By the way, his name means manly. 06:08 He too was a native of Bethsaida, that little village in Galilee. 06:14 And he like his brother was a fisherman. 06:17 In fact, in Matthew 4 he was down at the sea when Jesus came along, he had 06:23 already met Jesus, he had already believed in Jesus, he had already affirmed 06:29 Him as the Messiah, but after going back to his fishing, now the Lord 06:34 appears again to him at the shore, and calls him permanently to follow and 06:39 He will make him a fisher of men. 06:44 Prior to coming to follow Jesus Christ he had been a pious Jew, he had been a 06:50 godly Jew, he had been a God- fearing Jew. 06:53 He had also been a disciple of John the Baptist. 06:58 In fact, it was one day at the message of John the Baptist that his life was 07:00 changed. 07:03 For John the Baptist saw Jesus in John 1 and said: "Behold, the Lamb of God." 07:07 And Andrew was there that day, along with John who was also a fisherman , and 07:11 surely an acquaintance as well as was James. 07:17 And he and John heard John the Baptist say that, and they followed after Jesus 07:22 immediately and Jesus turned and said to them, "What seek you?" 07:25 And they replied, "Where do You dwell?" 07:29 And they went where Jesus dwelt and they spent the entire day with Him and 07:33 immediately it says that Andrew opened his mouth and said these first 07:37 words, "We have found the Messiah." 07:40 No sooner did Andrew discover the reality of Jesus Christ for himself, 07:46 than that he announced to his brother Peter that very phrase, "We have 07:48 found the Messiah." 07:51 Peter and Andrew lived together, it says in Mark 1:29. 07:57 And no doubt they shared everything. 08:00 And especially did Andrew want to share with him the Messiah. 08:05 And so from this very beginning he becomes a part of that intimate 08:07 four. 08:11 In fact, if you study through the New Testament, it's James and Peter and 08:18 John and Peter, James and John, and John and Peter and James, they're always 08:23 the inner circle and nobody is ever let into that inner circle except 08:29 once when Andrew gets in and it's Peter, James, John and Andrew in one 08:34 incident. 08:38 He was in the most intimate four but he never quite cracked that inside 08:41 three. 08:44 But he was greatly respected. 08:47 In fact, Philip who was in group two, a little less intimate with the Lord, 08:53 one time had some Greeks come to him and say - We want to see Jesus. 08:59 And you know where Philip took them? 09:02 He took them to Andrew. 09:03 Why? 09:05 Because I guess Philip thought that if you want to get to Jesus all you've 09:11 got to do is get to Andrew. 09:13 Andrew was intimate with Jesus. 09:15 And Andrew was respected. 09:18 And even yet he isn't in the inner three. 09:22 But all of a sudden in the fourth gospel, the gospel of John, Andrew begins to 09:27 emerge from the background. 09:30 And we see Andrew three times in the gospel of John. 09:34 And all three times Andrew is doing the same thing. 09:38 It's easy to characterize him. 09:42 The first time is in John chapter 1 verse 40 which I just reported to you. 09:46 It says in John 1:40; 10:03 And by the way, Andrew is always called Simon Peter's brother with, I 10:09 think, one or two exceptions, maybe just one. 10:13 That's always how he's identified. 10:15 "And he first finds his own brother Simon, and says to him, We have found 10:21 the Messiah," which is being interpreted the Christ, the anointed one, 10:25 "and he brought him to Jesus." 10:29 Now if you want to know how to characterize the life of Andrew it's very 10:34 simple, he is the one who was always bringing people to Jesus. 10:38 The second time we see him is in the sixth chapter of John and the eighth and 10:43 ninth verse John 6: 8 - 9. 11:01 A vast multitude of people are gathered, Jesus is teaching, it's late in the 11:04 day, the crowd is hungry. 11:06 There's not enough food and Andrew brings to Jesus this time a little boy. 11:11 And the little boy has five loaves and two fish. 11:13 It doesn't mean five big loaves of bread, it means five little flat barley 11:20 crackers and two fish. 11:23 And they would take those fish and they would pickle them and then they would 11:27 eat them with the crackers. 11:30 So he brought a little fellow with five barley crackers and two pickled 11:33 fish. 11:34 He brought him to Jesus. 11:36 I guess Andrew must have thought the Lord could make a whole lot out of a 11:40 very little. 11:43 The third time we meet him is in John 12. 11:48 And I've already alluded to that incident. 11:50 And in John 12: 20 12:07 Philip is approached by the Greeks, or the Gentiles, and they want to 12:11 see Jesus. 12:13 And Philip tells Andrew and together they went to Jesus. 12:18 The assumption being that they took the folks there too. 12:24 And so, whenever you see Andrew he is involved in finding Jesus so that 12:30 Jesus can meet someone, bringing people to Jesus. 12:37 I guess maybe he didn't think there was anybody that Jesus didn't want to 12:42 see. 12:44 Or there was anything Jesus couldn't respond to, or there was any problem 12:47 Jesus couldn't solve. 12:50 Because he's characterized as the one who brought men to Christ. 12:54 Now in these three incidents, if I can just sort of draw some pictures 13:01 for you, in these three incidents several things become clear. 13:04 First of all we see Andrew's openness. 13:08 He knew that they were to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 13:13 He knew that primarily it was the Jew first and then to the Gentile. 13:18 And yet he also got the spirit of our Lord because the Lord originally had 13:23 revealed His Messiahship to a Samaritan woman, so Andrew was never choked by 13:28 a hyper-Judaism. 13:32 I mean, he didn't have any problem at all with bringing some Gentiles to 13:35 Jesus. 13:37 So we sense a little bit of the openness of his heart. 13:40 There just wasn't anybody outside, there wasn't anybody that he didn't 13:43 think Jesus would not want to see. 13:46 We also see his faith. 13:49 He had a simple faith. 13:51 I don't know what he was thinking when he brought those five crackers and 13:55 two fish with such a huge crowd. 13:58 I don't know what he was trying to do, running around looking for whoever 14:00 had a lunch. 14:02 But he must have had some kind of faith to believe that the Lord could do 14:06 something with that. 14:10 After all he had seen Jesus make wine, why couldn't He make food? 14:17 A third thing we see is not only his openness and his faith but we see his 14:22 humility. 14:25 I mean, he spent his whole life being known as Simon Peter's brother. 14:29 And now when he had found the Messiah, there might have been a temptation to 14:33 say -Boy, now I'm not telling Peter. 14:38 This is my chance to be somebody. 14:41 But no he runs to get Peter knowing full well that as soon as Peter 14:46 enters the group he will run the group, because that's Peter. 14:50 And Andrew will be right back where he's always been, as Simon Peter's 14:56 brother. 15:01 But he thought more of the work to be done then who was in charge. 15:06 He thought more of the cause of the eternal virtue of the Kingdom then 15:09 he did of his personal and petty problems. 15:13 Sad to say but there are some people who won't play in the band unless they 15:17 can beat the big drum. 15:19 James and John had that problem, didn't they? 15:21 But not Andrew. 15:24 I don't find Andrew fighting about whose going to get the glory in the 15:27 Kingdom. 15:29 You see, Andrew is the picture of all those who labor quietly in humble 15:32 places. 15:35 Not with eye service as men pleasers but as servants of Christ doing 15:39 the will of God from the heart. 15:44 Andrew is not the pillar like Peter, James and John, he is a humbler 15:47 stone. 15:49 I mean, after all, he was one of the original two called and yet he wasn't 15:54 in the inner three but it didn't seem to bother him. 16:00 He was always Peter's brother. 16:05 He's one of those rare people who's willing to take second place. 16:09 One of those rare people who wants to be in support. 16:13 Or one of those rare people who doesn't mind being hidden as long as 16:17 the work is done. 16:19 He is the kind of man that all leaders depend on. 16:23 He's the kind of person that everyone knows is the backbone of every 16:26 ministry. 16:29 The cause of Christ is dependent, beloved, on self-forgetting souls who 16:35 are content to occupy a small sphere and an obscure place, free from 16:42 self-seeking ambition and yet he will sit on the throne judging the tribes 16:50 of Israel. 16:53 Daniel Mc Lean, a Scotsman, who has a special affection for 16:58 Andrew writes about his beloved Apostle these words: 18:03 God uses people like that. 18:06 And only God can calculate their value because sometimes it takes an 18:10 Andrew to reach a Peter. 18:13 There's an early Methodist preacher, his name was Thomas Mitchell. 18:16 You never heard of him. 18:19 I had never heard of him. 18:20 But he was an Andrew. 18:23 And he died and the conference of ministers who ministered with him 18:29 wrote his obituary and this is what it said: 18:42 How's that for an obituary? 18:45 Slender abilities and a defective education. 18:49 And yet one friend wrote this: 19:00 A man of slender abilities and defective education yet he was the means in 19:06 God's hands of bringing to Christ one of the greatest of early preachers by the 19:13 name of Thomas Olivers, the writer of the great hymn, "The God of Abraham 19:17 Praised." 19:18 A man of slender abilities? 19:21 That is the official record and yet one of the strongest and most 19:27 faithful souls who ever lived. 19:32 It was he who went to the little village of Rangal in Lincoln-shire, and 19:38 arose at 5 o'clock in the mornings to preach the gospel in the open air. 19:40 And so fiery was his preaching that he was arrested. 19:44 And in the midst of his arrest a mob attacked him. 19:48 He was taken to the public house and the curate of the village was consulted 19:51 as to what to do with him. 19:54 They said don't let him go and so they decided they'd put him in the pond. 19:57 They took him to a pond which was full of filth and they threw him in. 20:02 He tried to get out and seven times they threw him back in. 20:05 Then he was taken again to the public house, having been in the meantime 20:08 painted from his head to foot with white paint. 20:13 Then they didn't know what to do with him so they decided to drown him. 20:17 They dragged him to a railed in small lake outside the village which 20:21 was at least ten feet deep and they took him in their arms and threw him into 20:24 the water. 20:27 He sank to the bottom and when he came up to the surface and man in the 20:30 crowd with a long pole and a hook on the end, played with him as if he were a 20:33 fish. 20:36 They brought him out more dead than alive and he was taken to a little house in 20:40 the village where he was looked after by a pious lady. 20:44 But when the mob found that he was recovering they sought him out and 20:48 went to the house and to his bedside and said they would rend him limb from 20:52 limb unless he promised never to preach again. 20:56 To which he said - I can promise no such thing. 21:02 And somehow or other he got away from the place and he made this record of 21:08 the whole incident. 21:10 He wrote, "All the time God kept me in perfect peace and I was able to 21:15 pray for my enemies." 21:19 It doesn't sound like a man of slender abilities to me. 21:23 No one knows about him. 21:26 No one ever heard of him. 21:30 He ministered in obscurity. 21:33 He was a faithful man. 21:35 God needs Thomas Mitchells. 21:37 God needs Andrews. 21:40 People who quietly obscurely bring others to Jesus. 21:49 I regret the hours I have wasted 21:56 and the pleasures I have tasted 21:59 that you were never in. 22:05 And I confess that though your love is in me, 22:12 it doesn't always win me 22:16 when competing with my sin. 22:22 And I repent, making no excuses. 22:31 I repent no one else to blame. 22:39 And I return to fall in love with Jesus. 22:49 I bow down on my knees and I repent. 23:05 I lament the idols I've accepted, 23:12 the commandments I've rejected 23:16 to pursue my selfish end. 23:22 And I confess I need you to revive me, 23:28 put selfishness behind me 23:32 and take up my cross agian. 23:38 And I repent, making no excuses. 23:47 I repent no one else to blame. 23:56 And I return to fall in love with Jesus. 24:05 I bow down on my knees... 24:10 And I return to fall in love with Jesus. 24:21 I bow down on my knees and I repent. 24:34 I bow down on my knees and I repent. 24:52 >>Bill: Thank You, Father, for Andrew, and the lesson of his life. 24:54 May each of us become the men and women You want us to become, by the power of 24:58 your sweet Spirit we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. 25:24 >>Dave: What kind of people can God use? 25:26 Any kind! 25:28 All we have to do is make ourselves available. 25:31 That means that there is hope for you and me. 25:33 Pastor Bill has written a book "All The King's Men". 25:36 It includes all the messages in this series. 25:38 We would like to send it to you. 25:41 Here is the information you need to get your free copy. 26:41 >>Bill: Thank you for 26:41 joining us tay on the "It Is Written" program. 26:45 You know, if your enjoying this series on the disciples, we have a study 26:49 guide and the DVD of the series that makes for excellent Bible study in 26:54 small groups or individually or in your churches. 26:58 If you would like to pre-order that, it will be available at the end of 27:01 the series. 27:03 You can visit our web-site www.ItIsWrittenCanada.ca. 27:05 Here is how it works... 27:08 if you can send us a donation of $50, we will make that DVD, study guide 27:13 and the book available to you and that can form the basis of your study in 27:18 small groups or in your church or individually. 27:21 If you would like that series in Portuguese, it's available in Portuguese 27:25 and in 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Revised 2015-02-06