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from three chapters of the book of the Acts of the Apostles. From the 13th chapter, the second and third verses. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then after fasting and praying, they laid their

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hands on them and sent them off. In the 14th chapter of Acts, the first three verses. "Now at Iconium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and so spoke that a great company believed, both of Jews and of Greeks. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the

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brethren. So they remained for a long time speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands." And then finally from the 15th chapter of the book of the Acts, I begin the reading at the verse number 36. "And after some days Paul

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said to Barnabas, 'Come, let us return and visit the brethren in every city where we have proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are.' And Barnabas wanted to take with them John, who was called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphilia and had not gone with them to

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the work. And there arose a sharp contention so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia,

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strengthening the churches." And may the same Spirit that inspired these words incline our hearts to their understanding. Pray with me. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. I have a fat friend who's lost a lot of weight recently. He attributes his weight

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loss to some ingenious changes which he has made in his refrigerator. First of all, it locks at 8 o'clock at night and will not unlock itself until 8 o'clock in the morning. Second of all, if you approach it more than twice in any four-hour period when it is unlocked, it will not open to you and a loudspeaker

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will say, "Hey, lard legs, keep your fat hands off me." Well, there's enough there to stop you. I sometimes allow my imagination to get the best of me. Occasionally as you walk the streets here of the city, you come near one of these young people with a ghetto blaster, one of these loudspeakers that knocks

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down everything within 30 feet. And I thought I'd like to rig up a device, a briefcase perhaps, like my friend's refrigerator, so that I could be standing perhaps 30 feet away from this individual and all I would have to do is press a button on the outside of the case and immediately a truck horn would

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sound. Or maybe it would be the snarling bark of a Doberman, perhaps a screaming woman, or a 747 taking off. In any case, it would scare them out of about 18 months of their total lifespan. What I'm trying to say is I sometimes have within me the desire to fight back and I admire other people who are the same way,

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who have an explosive level, if you will, which when they reach that level goes bang. I'm fascinated by tornadoes and hurricanes and thunderstorms and other things that clean the air, including people who will take so much and no more and then say what needs to be said. I must confess that I'm rather

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charmed by Moses' anger and by Jeremiah's frankness when he cries out to God, "Where were you when I needed you?" and our Lord himself when he cleansed the temple, or Peter when he fought with Paul, or Paul when he fought with Peter. The fact of the matter is most folks don't stand for anything and so they fall for anything.

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I'm encouraged when I meet people who have standards, who have limits. You can go so far with them and no more. And that's what interests me about Paul and Barnabas as I think of them tonight. Now these men were great missionary comrades. They had crossed dangerous seas in what we would describe today as, at

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best, very frail and inadequate vessels. They trudged long trails in Panfilia, mile after mile together. They climbed mountain passes like the one at Pisidia and stood there with their hands above their eyes looking out over the lands they hoped to conquer for the sake of Jesus Christ. These men quite literally

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risked their lives for one another. One moment they were being deified by those to whom they spoke and the next moment they were being stoned. Still in the face of all of this, they won many converts. When they set out on their journey, they confronted a pagan world. When they returned from that journey and came to

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the cities which they had visited on their outgoing trip, in each of those cities they now found a flourishing church. When they came back to Jerusalem like two great galleons of the Spirit, they left behind them a wake of thriving Christian fellowship. These were great souls, the soul of Barnabas and the soul

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of Paul. At long last they decided that it might be well to head out on a second missionary journey, revisiting the places they had gone before. Barnabas was very anxious to take with him his young cousin Mark. Now this created a problem. Mark, you see, had been on the first journey but when the first expression of

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trouble came up, he turned tail and ran. Barnabas was anxious to give the boy a second chance, but Paul vetoed the idea. He would not have anyone on the journey who would not be an aid but rather be an encumbrance, and the scriptures say that a sharp contention arose between Barnabas and Paul, and they departed asunder, one

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from the other. And there is no record in the Bible that they ever met again. Here was the unstoppable Barnabas. Mark has to go with us. Here was the immovable Paul. Mark may not go with us. They took stands that were exactly opposite and it broke them apart. I wonder what the debate between these two men was like. Remember,

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both of these men are described in the scriptures as being good men who were full of the Holy Spirit. Both of them are defined in such a way and yet here we find them diametrically determined. What did Paul think as Barnabas rose to speak? Barnabas' real name was Joseph, but he was called Barnabas by the early church,

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which means "son of encouragement." He was one who lifted others, and as Paul listened to Barnabas in the debate, he could not have helped but remember how Barnabas had encouraged him. You remember the story of Paul's conversion and how after he was converted, he was received by Ananias and others, but when Paul came

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back to Jerusalem, the Christians at Jerusalem were not willing to receive Paul. They rejected him. They described him as a murderer and a killer of the faithful. They would have nothing whatever to do with him. Their doors were closed to Paul. Peter rejected him, James rejected him, John rejected him. Only one

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man came to Paul's assistance, and that man was Barnabas. He argued that Paul should be given a chance, that he should be given the opportunity to use the gifts and the talents which God had given him. Now it's easy to speak for a man when the man is doing well and when his record is crowded with successes, but

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at this time remember the record of Paul was not an impressive one. He had been a persecutor of the faith, not one who propagated it, and Barnabas spoke for Paul when Paul's record was decidedly negative, and because of Barnabas, Paul was accepted into the Jerusalem church, though he was given no tasks to do, no

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responsibilities to fulfill. Which brings us to Barnabas helping Paul again. Barnabas had been working in Antioch and he decided that he needed some assistance there, and as he cast about in his mind and in his prayers for God's guidance, he was led to think of Paul. He said, "Paul, you are the man that I need,"

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and he went quite a journey to where Paul was in Tarsus and brought Paul back with him, brought Paul, as it were, into the arena of active Christian service, and it was just after this that the Holy Spirit set Paul and Barnabas apart and sent them off on their first great missionary journey. It's a very beautiful

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thing when lesser men bring to the fore greater men. Now Barnabas was not as great a man as Paul, but we would never have known of Paul if it had not been for the encouragement and the support and the welcome that was given him by Barnabas. Without Barnabas there would have been no Paul. There was a time back

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in the year 1536 when three travelers, two men and a woman, brothers and a sister, were traveling being driven by religious persecution out of France into Switzerland. They were on their way to Basel. There, one of them, a young man, 27 years of age, with dark hair, a rather pointed dark beard, shining eyes, a

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brilliant intellect who had already produced one of the two great systematic theologies in the history of Christianity, the Institutes of the Christian religion. One of these men, named John Calvin, was on his way with his brother and sister to Basel. They stopped one night at an inn in Geneva.

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Now one of the local pastors was a man named William Farrell, and Farrell came to that inn and knowing the brilliance of the intellect of Calvin, entreated Calvin to stay in Geneva and lead the Reformation from that city. And Calvin said he could not do so. His health was not good, he had to go on to Basel. There

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he wanted to rest and also to study. Farrell was unwilling to accept this, and in great indignation he said to Calvin, "God's curse be upon your rest and God's curse be upon your studies. In the name of God I tell you you will be cursed if you dare hold back from God's call in the leadership of this thing." And under

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the power of the onslaught of Farrell's words, Calvin yielded. And he stayed in Geneva and made it the central city of the Reformation. When John Knox, our spiritual ancestor in Presbyterianism, went to Geneva to study, he called it the perfect school of Christ on earth. Now Farrell was not as great as Calvin, but

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chances are we would never have known of Calvin had it not been for the insistence of Farrell. And as Barnabas rose to speak, I don't think Paul could have been thinking of anything other than this. What I am in the church and the opportunities of service which have been mine, I owe to the encouragement and

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the support of this man. Now Barnabas undoubtedly spoke with deep feeling, because this was his young cousin. I mean here was a man who had heart enough to try to go out and reach a pagan world. How much more sensitive would he have been when he was speaking about someone in his own family? And I imagine that he

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wept bitter tears as he recounted the young boy's earlier failure. Perhaps he said, "It is because Mark has failed before that I have been so anxious to win him now, and I do not want you to reject him, for in rejecting him you may break his spirit and he might never be willing to launch out in faith again." I

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will acknowledge to you that on this first journey he was weighed in the balance and he was found wanting, but I would remind you that all of us have failed. Which one of us would claim to be able to come before God with an unblemished and an unblotched record? Every one of us has launched forth in

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one undertaking or another for the glory of Jesus Christ, and in the moment of trial retreated. And I think as Barnabas made that point, every head in the room would have bowed at least for a moment. When he went out on that first trip he was young, he did not know what he was getting into. His heart was right, but he

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was ignorant, and he ran. But now he says he is ready to go again, and he knows what he is getting into. Why then would you discourage him? He has repented and is ready to begin once more. Our Lord has taught us that if we do not forgive others, then we ourselves will not be forgiven. Did Barnabas remind them of

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those verses in the Old Testament where it says, "The bruised reed is not to be broken, the dimly burning flax is not to be extinguished." Did he perhaps sum his argument by saying, "If our Lord Jesus could forgive Peter who denied him three times, can we not forgive young Mark who failed his Savior only this

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once?" And I think when Barnabas sat down, everybody in the room must have been deeply moved, for as the Scriptures say, he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit. And then Paul rose to make reply, and it must have been very hard for him. I admire the fact that Paul wouldn't let his friendship with Barnabas limit his

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effectiveness in spreading the gospel. I mean, this shows the priorities of Paul. To him, the most important thing in the world was getting out the gospel, even if it meant taking a position opposite to that of this one who was so dear to him in the faith. I recall in my seminary days leading a group of Christian

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athletes in a town near Pittsburgh, and these athletes got together to present a program in their high school. In those days, religious programs could be presented in high schools without dispute. And the program was built about the Ten Commandments, and the young athlete who led the program, he was an

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outstanding boy, very bright, very intelligent, very, very good-looking, personable, popular, and a superb sportsman. He was the leader of the program, had great impact in the Lord's service that day, and the program itself had significant impact in that school. Three days after it was over, I got a

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call from the boy. He wanted to see me, eight o'clock on a Saturday morning, and he came with a young lady who was pregnant with his child. They were crushed, they were ashamed, they were repentant and hurt. The word, of course, spread throughout the town. The witness of the program was lost. It became an

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object of derision. This one who had stood up and talked about the Ten Commandments now caught with a young lady pregnant. He was ridiculed, the Christian athletes program was ridiculed, it became in fact a joke, an object of humor throughout the whole high school campus. I am sure that souls were lost at

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least for a little while. He remained as part of this group of Christian athletes, but the next time they put on a program, I did not let him take a leadership role in it. I loved him very much and I would have liked to have been able to do have done so, but what he had done had brought such derision upon the Christian effort

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made that I was unwilling to risk that again. And what led me to that position was the position that Paul takes in this argument. See, Paul did not want to oppose Barnabas. He was touched with Barnabas' words. They echoed in his heart, for his old friend's sake he would have loved to have gone along. And I'm sure there was

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great love in Paul's heart for young Mark, but this was a kingdom issue and it had to come before friendship and affection and all inferior concerns. Barnabas' relationship to Paul was a rare treasure, but Paul wouldn't even let that stand in the face of his mission. He might have said something like, "The sad

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fact is this young man proved himself unequal to the task." Now there are quite likely, by the Spirit's grace, other tasks that Mark could undertake. He has shown skill in writing. Perhaps he could be in a manuensis for another. Maybe he could write down the witness of others who have known the Lord, for we are passing

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on. But the fact is, his heart is not hot enough, his thinking is not cool enough, his nerve is not steady enough to be out there on the mission field. He's filled with fear in the time of testing. And when he ran, our efforts were ridiculed. The Jews said, "Follow the Christ until it comes to the cross." They laughed at his

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lack of conviction and laughed at us because of him. Young converts were weakened in their discipleship because of what they saw this young man do. I do not hold this against Mark. I have forgiven him in my heart. I have forgiven him many times over. I feel very sorry for him. He has a very gentle spirit. It's

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just not the spirit for riots, it's not the spirit for word wars, it's not the spirit that stands up under arrest and stoning. He loves Jesus and we love him, but let us not lead him into a place of severe temptation which he's already shown he cannot handle. It's because I love him that I will not subject Mark to

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this kind of temptation again, and it is because I love Christ that I will not let the mission of the kingdom be so imperiled. So let us deal wisely with this tender and sensitive spirit. It is wicked to send him into such temptation once more. Mark cannot go. So the unstoppable met the immovable, and

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neither would yield. Both of them under great conviction. And my friends, it's just ridiculous to say that the two of these men should have just kissed and make up. Great men with great feelings don't just kiss and make up. I mean what they were feeling, they were feeling in their souls. They were speaking out of

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the deepest convictions of their heart. Don't cheapen it by saying they could just casually allay this aside in the light of love. The word that is used to describe the contention that arose between them is the word paroxysmos. It's the word which refers to a sharp dagger. In other words, this cut right to

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the heart of their relationship. They were both good men, they were both full of the Holy Spirit, but they were wounded by this. I've known men like these, deeply committed, deeply convicted, sure of themselves because they were sure of their relationship to God. And I've seen them come to places of argument, and

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sometimes their love for each other was so great, and their conviction of the principle for which they stood so high, that their hearts were so full they could not talk. Their vocal cords were paralyzed, their powers of speech were gone because the issue was too deep for words, and all they could do was shake

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hands and walk away from each other. They still love one another, but the difference was too great to be cheaply and easily laid aside. And I will confess that I admired them. To be willing to sacrifice old and precious friendships for the sake of your conscience when you are good and filled with the Holy Spirit,

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well I cannot argue with that. So Paul and Barnabas parted, and there is no record that they ever met again. Barnabas, according to the Scriptures, did not establish any other new churches, but he did make a lion out of Mark. Did you know in the iconography of the Christian Church the symbol for Mark is a lion? He

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was taught by Barnabas, and he grew up to be a stalwart soldier of the faith, and Paul came to depend on him. At the end of his life, Paul writing to Timothy says, "Please bring Mark with you, for he is profitable for me in ministry." Paul longed for the company of Mark, and Peter chose Mark to be the one to write down

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all of his experiences. The Gospel of Mark is the remembrance of Peter penned by the young boy. And must it not have been wonderful when Peter and Mark sat talking, and Peter remembered when he had denied Christ, and Mark remembered when he had denied Christ, and run from that first missionary journey. And I'm sure

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they shed deep tears together as they wrote that Gospel. Paul, of course, went on to other missionary journeys and victories for Christ, and he wrote those epistles which still flamed with the truth of God. The mind of Paul was so great that if he had never been a Christian, I am still sure he would have

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heard of him. His writings would have come down to us today. I mean, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, whatsoever things are good, whatsoever things are holy, whatsoever things are of wonderful report, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God who giveth us

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the victory, for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities." And do you think possibly that when Paul wrote, "Love suffereth long and is kind, it envieth not and vaunteth not itself, it seeketh not its own but rejoiceth in the truth. Love beareth all things, believeth all

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things, hopeth all things." Could it be that when he wrote those words, Paul was thinking of his old friend, Barnabas? My friends, sometimes in the following of conscience we are drawn apart from each other. There can be deep disagreement. The unstoppable sometimes

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meets the immovable in the kingdom. At such times we must do our best and then part, and trust that God will do the best with us and with the kingdom. For, praise God, the kingdom is his and not ours. Let us pray. O God, if any word here uttered is true, may we never forget it.

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And if any word here uttered is not true, may we have forgotten it already for Jesus' sake. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, be and abide with you both now and forevermore. Amen.

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I can do it.