The Believing Life

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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We are in the Gospel of Mark in the very last passage in the

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Gospel of Mark. And so if you would turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 16 in verse 9.

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And as we do, I want to frame our time today speaking for a moment on the goal of preaching.

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What is biblical preaching? Why do we preach? Why do we get up on a

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Sunday afternoon and preach the Bible? If you know me very well, you will know that I love the

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Bible and that I love preaching the Bible. As a matter of fact, perhaps my two favorite places would be, one, behind this pulpit, and two, in my study, preparing to be behind this pulpit.

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The order of my affairs in life, of my priorities in life, are

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God, wife, children, church, and the ministry of this church.

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And so as a result of that, I love not only preaching, but reading about preaching. And it's interesting how you can ask for a definition on something, and something as simple as preaching, and find so many different definitions.

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But I wanted to bring before you, just as we open up our time, three definitions of preaching. And then

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I'll explain why I'm doing that in a moment. But if you're familiar with the man, Dr. Al Mohler, who is the president of Southern Seminary, my family and I were there this summer, or this fall, or spring, and we were looking for Dr.

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Mohler. We never found him. But one of the things that he has said in his definition of preaching, is that preaching consists of these three steps, read, explain, and repeat.

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And how the world would be changed if every pastor, elder, in every church, in every country, would just do that.

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To read, explain, and repeat. Dr. Martin Lloyd -Jones, he gives a second definition of preaching, one that's a little bit more feisty.

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He says that biblical preaching is logic on fire. The truth of God's word, inflamed by the power of the

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Holy Spirit in the pulpit. But I think one of the most helpful definitions of preaching is given by Dr.

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Stephen J. Lawson, a well -known expositor of scripture. And he says, in as many words, that preaching is the act of proclaiming

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God's word, and then persuading God's people to obey it. To proclaim

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God's word, fearlessly, and then to persuade God's people to take heed.

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Every preacher has the privileged task of expounding the word of God. Yes, of clarifying and explaining, of highlighting the literary and the cultural and the redemptive historical context of scripture.

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To read, explain, and to repeat. Amen. But the end goal of every sermon is not to create a sermonic masterpiece that everyone can come and appreciate from the room.

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It's not to get the applause of people, or even to entertain people, or to draw a crowd to hear the

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Bible preached. But the telos, that is the end of every sermon, is always to secure the faith and the obedience of the listener.

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A good sermon is a sermon that moves God's people to hear, believe, and obey

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His word. The call of every preacher is to say, thus says the

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Lord. Now come and believe it, and then let us go and obey it. And you know

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I'm not lecturing on homiletics today, so why am I telling you all of this? It is because, as the preacher for the day, or maybe the preacher for the next few minutes, we'll see how my voice holds up.

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We have our work cut out for us. I have my work cut out for me. And I say this because in these closing verses of Mark, what we are given as God's people, as believers, what we are compelled to, is to believe and to live in such a way that it's not only counter -cultural, contrary to all of the currents in the world in which we live, but it's in fact counter to our own fleshly inclinations.

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And it's in fact altogether impossible, apart from the sovereign power of God working within us.

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You see, over the last year and a half, we've been studying this gospel of Mark.

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And we've seen for ourselves how Mark has constructed this masterful gospel masterpiece, this account of the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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In Mark 1 .1, he set out to show us that the Lord Jesus Christ was the

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Son of God. That was Mark's agenda as he wrote this gospel. That every reader would get to the end of the book and say,

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Ah, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. With his characteristic sense of urgency.

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You'll remember that we looked at it right from the beginning. How Jesus went from immediately to immediately to immediately.

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Immediately teaching, immediately healing, immediately proceeding to the next town. Through his miracles, through his teaching, through the power, even his own power over the forces of nature, and even his suffering on the cross, we're left with only one conclusion.

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Like the Roman centurion that stood below the cross and looked up at Christ as the sky was darkened.

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And as he said, it is finished. We must conclude with the author of the gospel of Mark, Mark himself, that Jesus Christ is the

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Son of God. As we reach the end of the book, then the deafening summons becomes this.

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Believe. Believe that Jesus Christ is who he said he is. Believe Mark's assertion that Jesus Christ is the

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Son of God. Believe that God sent his only Son to die on the cross so that whoever believes shall not perish but have eternal life.

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The summons of Mark's gospel is this. Here is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Believe on him and so live in your belief.

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So what's so hard about this task then? To call you all to believe and to live believingly.

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It seems pretty easy, doesn't it? That we would proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and the gospel of Mark and then say believe.

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And yet our text shows us that our default position, every single one of us, our default position is set not to believe but to unbelief.

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And we're going to see this in the life of the disciples. We're going to see this in the lives of ourselves even. That we have every reason to believe.

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And yet I think that many of us, if we were to take an honest assessment of who we are and our faith in the

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Son of God, we would say that we have a very weak faith. A faith that is lacking.

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So this afternoon my task is this, by God's grace and dependent on God's power,

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I'm standing behind this pulpit to proclaim God's word and to compel all of us as we reflect on these last verses in the gospel of Mark to believe.

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Oh that the Lord, what a miracle it would be if every man and woman and child in this room were to leave that back door at the end of the day believing in Jesus Christ, the only

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Son of God. And for those of you who believe in Him already, that you would leave here believing more still, trusting

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Him more still, living for Him more still with the life that He has given you because of what

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He has revealed about Himself in this gospel of Mark. To believe then and to live believingly.

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And so let's, I had us turn already to Mark chapter 16 in verse 9. You'll have to excuse my cough once in a while.

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We're going to start in verse 9, but even before we get to verse 9, there's something, a bit of an excursus that we need to take.

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Because if, who here has a King James Bible? Maybe just a, or a new King James Bible? We've got a few

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King James Bibles on this side of the room. So your neighbors are going to help you for a little bit. You have the advantage of not having this parenthesis in your

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Bible. But right before verse 9 in Mark chapter 16, we see something in brackets if you have the

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ESV or maybe the NIV or the NASB, one of the modern translations. And it says this, some of the earliest manuscripts do not include chapters 16 verses 9 through 20.

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And it begs the question, why is this note here and what are we to do with it?

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As I prepared this sermon, I thought I might be cutting myself off at the knees by immediately going to this.

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Maybe I should have just skipped over it and we could have just started at verse 9. But I think it's important for Christians to understand why this little parenthetical note is in your text.

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And I think that it'll be a great help to you to understand and to have greater confidence in Scripture.

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If we were to go to a King James only -ist, and if you're a King James only -ist, I don't mean to offend you, I'm just saying.

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If we were to go to a well -intentioned King James only -ist and ask them about this parenthesis.

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I have a good friend who's in this camp. He would say that this parenthesis is destructive to every

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Christian. Because it undermines their confidence in the Bible or it seeks to undermine their confidence in the

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Bible. But in fact, I would say to the contrary. That when we have

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Bibles that include comments like this, it actually seeks to increase our confidence.

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To increase our assurance in the reliability of the Word of God and in our New Testament. And what it all boils down to is this.

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Why is this parenthetical comment in our Mark chapter 16? It boils down to an issue of what's called textual criticism.

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Our brother Lowell introduced that a moment ago. Textual criticism, what is that? Well, there are many different kinds of textual criticism.

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Some of them, some textual criticism I think is a noble pursuit. A good example for instance, if someone were to hand you the

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Book of Mormon. And say, this is the whole Bible. And you were to go through it and you were to come across Nephi and some other different parts of the

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Book of Mormon. And you were to say, well this doesn't belong in the Bible. You would become a textual critic.

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Because what textual criticism is, is trying to determine what belongs in the text.

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And what is a textual variant that should be removed for the sake of the integrity of the text.

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That is textual criticism. And there are two schools of thought as it pertains to textual criticism.

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And as it pertains to this particular passage. There are two schools. One is called the

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Byzantine family of texts. Or the Byzantine school. And the other is called the

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Alexandrian family of texts. And I'm not going to go into it at great length.

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But I want to explain a little bit of this so that you understand why we have this parenthesis. You see in the earliest

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English Bibles that were translated. The only manuscripts of the

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New Testament that the translator had access to. Were from Byzantium. Byzantium was a region in the northern

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Mediterranean. And many of these texts can be dated back to about 500

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AD. So about 500 years or 450 years after Christ. And as a side note.

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The text that we would find in this Byzantine family of texts. Number somewhere over 5 ,000.

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So 5 ,000 New Testament manuscripts. And so it was from this sampling of the

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Byzantine text family. That a Catholic priest named Erasmus. Maybe you've heard of him before.

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He was a Catholic priest. Erasmus in the 1500's. That he assembled from a sampling of these

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Byzantine texts. His own translation. Greek translation of the New Testament.

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That he called. Does anyone know it? The acronym is TR. The Textus Receptus.

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Or translated from the Latin. The Received Text. Meaning that it was the text to be received by all.

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And for a short time it was the text that was received by all. As a matter of fact. If you go back to the lovely and noble work of William Tyndale.

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In his New Testament. And you were to open that Bible and read from it and benefit. You'd notice two things if you were a

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Greek and an English scholar. As an English scholar you might notice. That this is remarkably similar to the

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King James Version. Because much of the beautiful language of the King James Version. Like your word scapegoat in the

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King James. That doesn't come from King James' translators. That comes from William Tyndale.

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But what you would also notice is that. William Tyndale's translation comes from the TR. The Textus Receptus.

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As does the King James Bible. If you're a fan of John Calvin's work.

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The Geneva Bible from Geneva, Switzerland. Came from the Textus Receptus. And many others.

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And for many years the Textus Receptus. And these translations went completely unquestioned.

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As they should. They're remarkable translations of the scriptures. And if you have a King James Version. You're rich for having it.

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However, in the 1800's. What began to happen is. Is that biblical scholars started looking for other texts.

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One German biblical scholar. By the name of Konstantin von Tischendorf.

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In 1844 went to the purported site of Mount Sinai. St. Catherine's Monastery.

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And there as he was sifting through the monastery. He found what has become known as the Codex Sinaiticus.

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So named after Mount Sinai. Codex Sinaiticus. And the Codex Sinaiticus. Is a translation that is about 200 years older.

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Than the oldest Byzantine text. So those Byzantine texts came from 500. Codex Sinaiticus came from about 325 to 350

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AD. So just a couple hundred years after the life of Christ.

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And the years that followed. Other discoveries were made. The Codex Vaticanus. Can anyone guess where that Codex was found?

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The Vaticanus. In the library of the Vatican. There in the library of the

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Vatican. They found another text. Another Greek manuscript. That was about the same age as the

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Codex Sinaiticus. And others after that. And then after that. And after that. And I'm not here today to pick a side.

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And to say. You must accept the TR. Or that you must accept the

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Codex Sinaiticus. And the Alexandrian family of texts. But what

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I want to show you is this. That in fact when we see this parenthesis in your Bible. What you should do is give thanks to God.

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That he has preserved his Bible so well. That we can trifle over some of these small details.

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In the Bibles. And this is why. When they discovered these new texts. Rather than noting that there were some differences.

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And there were some differences. What was remarkable about these manuscripts. Is that they aligned almost perfectly.

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Despite being separated. Think about this. By thousands of miles. And by hundreds of years in their origin.

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There were only minor differences. Mostly grammatical differences. And only a few others like this.

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That are bite sized sections of text. But nothing that would undermine the major doctrines of scripture.

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Nothing that would call into question the deity of Christ. Or the character of God. Or the fact of the gospel.

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Or how we are to respond to that gospel. The Bible that the Christians believed.

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And preached in the 15th century. As recorded by the Byzantine texts. Or the 15th century.

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Was the same Bible that was believed on. And preached in the earliest days of the Christian church.

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And there were only these few small sections. That were noticeably absent from the older manuscripts.

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And can you guess what was absent from the Alexandrian text. Here verse 9 through 20.

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Mark 16 verses 9 through 20. Now it is possible that these verses were omitted. Simply because they were missed somewhere along the way.

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In the Alexandrian texts. It's also possible that a well intentioned scribe.

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In the early church felt that Mark's ending in verse 8. Was too abrupt. After all if we look at verse 8.

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Who would want a gospel account to end with this? And they went out and fled from the tomb. And trembling in astonishment had seized them.

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And they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. The end. So it's very possible that a scribe thought.

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Well we have all this information from the other gospel accounts. Maybe we'll just include that.

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In case someone only gets the gospel of Mark. We don't know for certain. We won't know on this side of eternity.

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But what we do know. And what I want to instill in us is this. That because of little footnotes.

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Little sections like this in our Bibles. We can have unshakable certainty. And tremendous confidence.

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In the reliability of these Bibles. That are on our laps. In fact the debate about this textual variant.

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Highlights I think the fact that. That the biggest dilemmas about the transmission of the Bible. Are really only regarding minor variants.

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That are almost of no consequence whatsoever. The variant as I pointed out.

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Does not call any major doctrines into question. Everything that it says is repeated elsewhere in scripture.

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The question just becomes. Does it belong here at the end of Mark? And our brother Lowell pointed to it.

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I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it. But you can turn over to the back of your bulletin. And see that little table that I've included there.

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That there is no book in all of human history like the Bible. Brothers and sisters that you can.

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Who knew that I could preach this long from a parenthetical note in Mark. There is no book in the world like the scriptures.

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There is no truth to be found. That is comparable to the glorious.

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The wonderful. The perfectly preserved word of God.

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Our secular professors. You go to the university. And take some literature classes.

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Take some philosophy classes. Our secular professors will quote. Aristotle and Plato without batting an eyelash.

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They have less than 50 manuscripts. The closest one being a copy. A thousand years after the original.

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You can hear a literature professor speak about Homer's Iliad. We have 643 copies of that.

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You can hear the most atheistic historian talk about Julius Caesar.

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And how he was assassinated by his best friend Brutus in a crowd. And he's quoted as saying et tu

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Brute? And yet there is less than 10 copies of that historical record.

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Dating back hundreds of years afterwards. And yet brothers and sisters.

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We don't have 10 manuscripts. Or 50 manuscripts. Or 643 manuscripts.

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We have at least as of 2018. 5 ,856

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Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. The oldest fragment is from approximately 125

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AD. To put that into perspective. The Apostle John died in 99

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AD. That's 26 years after he died. While his friends and his disciples and his students are still mulling about.

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And we haven't even talked about the Old Testament. I wanted to talk about the Old Testament. But we have tens of thousands of copies of the

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Old Testament. Some of which you can go and visit in museums. That were in use by the priests when

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Christ was still walking on the earth. We have a book preserved like none other.

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We can preach. We can believe. We can obey the Bible. And so the question becomes do we preach

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Mark chapter 16? Maybe if I was feeling really sick I would say no we don't. But I think the Lord is sustaining me right now.

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So we'll keep going. We should. And I stand with a long list of men who believe likewise.

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That we should read and study and preach and obey the Gospel of Mark. And this is why.

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For the brethren in the room who have King James Bibles. And maybe because of the Textus Receptus. We're going to preach from Mark 16 verses 9 to 20.

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Because even if you were to side with the Alexandrian text family. You might be wrong. I like what

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John MacArthur says. That we might find that this text belongs to Mark after all one day.

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And after all the Lord saw fit to include it in thousands of manuscripts. Over the course of the centuries.

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The millennia. And the number two is this. That everything that we read for the exception of one small detail about poisoning.

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Everything else that we read in this passage. Comes from. Is a summary of another text in scripture.

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That is clearly and unequivocally taught. And so even as we look at Mark 16 verses 9 to 20.

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What we can say with certainty is. Even if Mark didn't say this. The Bible says it elsewhere.

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And it's a good reminder for us to look at anyways. So brothers and sisters. We can have tremendous confidence in the

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Bible. And so with that excursus. Hopefully I didn't cut myself off at the knees. We'll look now at verses 9 through 20.

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Verse 9 reads like this. Now when he arose early on the first day of the week.

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He appeared first to Mary Magdalene. From whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him as they mourned and wept.

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But when they heard that he was alive. And had been seen by her. They would not believe it.

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After these things. He appeared in another form. To two of them.

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As they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest. And they did not believe them.

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Verse 14. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves. As they were reclining at table.

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And he rebuked them for their unbelief. And hardness of heart. Because they had not believed those who saw him.

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After he had risen. Now I want to highlight verse 16. Whoever believes and is baptized. Will be saved.

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But whoever does not believe. Will be condemned. I've broken up our exposition.

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Into three. I guess we could say commands. Or imperatives.

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That we should take from this text. Three commands or imperatives. That are impossible apart from the work of God.

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In your own life. And yet are necessary. For a believing Christian life. And the first imperative.

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Looking at verses 9 -14. And verse 16 is this. Believe. Oh that the world needs to hear this.

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To believe on Jesus Christ. And to be saved. How many times.

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Is the gospel preached. To friends and family. And neighbors and co -workers.

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And yet this one imperative. Is left out. People are told.

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That Jesus Christ died for their sins. That they are sinners. And they are in need of God's mercy and grace.

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But who will tell them. Believe. Oh to believe. We must all believe.

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Believer you need to believe. Unbeliever even more. You need to believe.

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This is where we see it. In verses 9 and 10. We see that.

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This recounting of the resurrection. Of Christ. We see Mary Magdalene.

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Whom had cast out. Christ had cast out seven demons. We find that account in Luke's gospel.

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And how she told those. These are the 11 disciples. Who were mourning.

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And weeping. Verse 11 says. And when they heard that he was alive. And had been seen by her.

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They would not believe. In this short section. What we see.

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Is something that I have already asserted. That the default position. Dear friends of all of us.

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Is a position of unbelief. That we are like. I was talking about my

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Invisalign braces. The reason why I need to wear my Invisalign braces. Is because if I don't. My teeth just move back to where they were.

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And in the same way. If we are not always. Reflecting on Jesus Christ. And the gospel.

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And the need to believe that gospel. Just like teeth without braces. They move back to their old place.

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They drift back to their own home. And in this short section.

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We see it clearly. In three different accounts. Of the disbelieving disciples of Jesus.

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First in verse 11. Where Mary Magdalene. Tells the remaining 11 disciples.

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Who were told with grief. With bitter grief. They mourned and wept. And yet they would not believe her.

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Some might say. Is this novel? Is this unique to Mark's gospel? It is not.

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In Luke chapter 24. In verses 10 to 12. We see exactly this.

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This is an accurate statement. It says. Now it was Mary Magdalene. And Joanna. And Mary the mother of James.

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And the other women with them. Who told these things to the apostles. But what? But these words seemed to them.

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An idle tale. And they did not believe them. Second in verses 12 and 13.

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It says after these things. He appeared in another form to two of them. This is certainly.

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Without a doubt. A reference to the two men. That were walking on the road. On the road to Emmaus.

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Luke also speaks of this account. In Luke 24. In verses 13 to 35.

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And as they were walking. On that road to Emmaus. We might remember. That our Lord said to these two men.

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He said. O foolish ones and slow of heart. To believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary.

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That the Christ should suffer these things. And enter into his glory. And beginning with Moses.

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And all the prophets. He had interpreted to them. In all the scriptures. The things concerning himself.

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And later on. When they did believe. They said to themselves. Did not our hearts burn within us.

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While he talked to us on the road. While he opened the scriptures to us. But the disciples would not believe.

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Their account either. And so in the third account. In verse 14. Christ appeared directly to his disciples.

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Is this a novel account? Again. If this was an account. That was borrowed from a scribe.

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The scribe borrowed it from Luke's gospel. Because in Luke 24. It says this. In verse 36.

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Jesus himself stood among them. And said to them. Peace be to you. And a few verses later it says.

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While they still disbelieved. For joy and were marveling. He said to them. Have you anything to eat?

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They were still disbelieving. Even when Christ appeared. The disposition.

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Of the human heart. Defaults to unbelief. And notice with me.

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That Christ's chief concern. In this whole passage. Is not that his disciples.

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Would have sound doctrine. As wonderful and as good. As sound doctrine is.

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You know that I value sound doctrine. His chief concern.

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Is not that his disciples. Even would be obeying. His teaching. Walking in his teaching.

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But what is his chief concern? What is it that he calls out? And what is the word that repeatedly.

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Appears in this first section. Of the passage. Do. They. Believe.

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Oh do they believe. And dear friend I ask you. I put the question to you.

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Children in the room. Do you believe. Do you believe the gospel.

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That Jesus Christ is. The son of God. Who went to the cross. To die for sinners.

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Many of us in this room. Brothers and sisters we know. That our faith. Is not what it ought to be.

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What it must be. I think that we. Could relate to the man.

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Who cried out to Christ. In Mark's gospel. In Mark chapter 9 verse 24.

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Who cried out. As his demon possessed son. Was writhing.

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I believe Lord help my unbelief. Many of us. Believe and yet.

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We need the Lord's help with our unbelief. Many of us. Have a weak and a fragile faith.

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And this adversely affects us. In almost every. Area of our lives.

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It's interesting that. Christ's own disciples. Were told that they mourned and wept.

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That they were miserable. There are many of us that go. Through this life. Depressed mourning.

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And weeping why. Because we do not believe. As we need to believe.

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Because we do not trust. In the promises of God. In the promises of his word.

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How many of us. Would be lifted. Out of the doldrums. If on maybe a bad day.

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When you're having a rotten time at work. Or your kids. You're overcome with the stresses.

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Of school or the difficulties. Of a relationship. And if the

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Lord were just to. Show you for a moment. The future. That every

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Christian has. In Christ for all of eternity. And yet. We are short sighted.

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And we focus on our problems. And we live in our misery. Because we do not believe.

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There are many of you. Maybe not many. Some of you in this room. You're not a

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Christian. You don't claim to be a Christian. Christ means. Almost nothing to you.

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And the command of God's word. Is this. To believe. That one day

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Christ is going to. Come to you. And question you.

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On your hardness of heart. And on your unbelief. And what does.

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Christ want for you. But to hear. To see the gospel. And to believe.

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What is the work that God wants us to do? John 6 .29 says this.

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Jesus answered them. This is the work of God. That you believe in him. Whom he has sent.

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A brother read. Romans 10. Verses 2 -4. And he spoke to the

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Israel's issue. With the same thing of believing. That they had a zeal for God.

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Oh how many of us. Have a zeal for God. We want to have a zeal for God. But they had a zeal for God that was not.

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In accord with wisdom. I might need your prayers friends.

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A zeal of God. Not according to knowledge. He says this. For Christ is the end of the law.

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For righteousness to whom. Romans 10 .4. To everyone who believes.

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This is one of the things. One of the reasons why I love. The story of the protestant reformation. And Martin Luther.

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Martin Luther was reading the bible. And discovered. In Romans 1.

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That one is justified. Not through the works of the law.

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But through believing. Through faith. That the righteous shall live by faith.

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I was recently watching a documentary. With Noah. Tim Challies.

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Has a documentary called Epic. It is epic. It's excellent. It's great for kids. And he tells the story of Martin Luther.

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Going to Rome. And ascending. I believe it's called the Strata Sancta. On his knees.

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Going up the steps. On his knees. To earn indulgences. And finding that that did not do anything.

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How he would go. And confess in the monastery. For hours and hours. And he would leave.

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With some levity of conscience. But for a moment. Until he realized that he had forgotten.

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One sin. Or that he had sinned once. And he would have to wait until tomorrow again to confess.

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And then as he read. Romans chapter 1. That the just. Shall live.

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By faith. And what that became of him. There are so many people in the world.

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Many of our Catholic friends. Many others who think that God will justify them because of their works.

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That he will justify them because of their church attendance. And their Bible reading. Or their participation in the sacraments.

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No. But that the just shall live. By faith. By believing in the only son of God.

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I love what Martin Luther said about this faith. He said, faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace.

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So sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times.

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The confidence in God's grace and knowledge of it makes all men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God.

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And all his creatures. And this is the work of the Holy Ghost in faith. There are some of you who think that faith is folly.

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That it is folly to believe in a crucified Christ. I was recently looking at something that was speaking to the very first depiction of Christ on the cross.

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What do you think it was? Some might think that it was in a cathedral somewhere. Of Christ on a cross painted in a beautiful mural on the ceiling.

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Or in some stained glass window. But the oldest living depiction of Christ on the cross was a carving of a donkey on the cross.

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And a caption that says, here is so and so a Roman man, here is so and so worshipping his

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God. A stick figure, worshipping a donkey on the cross. Many think that believing on Christ is folly like that.

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To worship a crucified Christ. But Paul says in 1

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Corinthians 1 .22 For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but what but we preach

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Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews, and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called both

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Jews and Greeks Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

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Friends, that we would have a greater sense of God's love for us in Christ.

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That in Christ there is no condemnation. That in Christ we have eternal peace with the

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Father. That in Christ we are just by faith.

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And that we would read Mark's gospel again. And the gospel accounts again and again. And the epistles.

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And the Old Testament. And this trustworthy Bible that God has given us. And dear friends, that we would believe.

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And we would cry out to the Lord Lord, help, I believe help my unbelief. The second that we find here the second command or imperative is this in verse 15.

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And he said to them, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.

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I'll read verse 16 again. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. But whoever does not believe is condemned.

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Again, is this novel to Mark's gospel. We find the parallel account in Matthew chapter 18 verses 18 through 20.

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The great commission that all authority on heaven and earth has been given to the Son. And what does he say then? Therefore, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and behold, I am with you to the end of the age. And in this verse 15, he says, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel.

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What does it mean to proclaim? It comes from the Greek word keruso which means to be a herald.

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Picture a herald. A messenger sent from a king to proclaim an edict from the king's throne.

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The role of that messenger is not to dress up the message. The role of that messenger is not to be ashamed of the message but to go and to proclaim it faithfully.

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As you've heard me say before, our job is not to make the gospel palatable to people.

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It's not to dress it up or to dress it down. It's like to be a faithful mailman. You get a letter in the envelope, in your satchel, you walk, you take it to the recipient.

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And what is the message that every Christian has been given by this to herald the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And because many of us are weak in our faith, we are weak in our speech. You see how one builds on the other.

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We're commanded to believe. And because we believe, therefore we speak.

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And he says in verse 15 at the end, to the whole creation. What does that mean? There's an interesting story about St.

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Francis of Assisi, the Catholic monk. And I'm not commending this to you.

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It is an interesting story though. There's a record. If you go on to my computer, you can find all the records of all my sermons.

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I keep a detailed account. But you can go online and find a record of his sermons.

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And he has one sermon. It says a sermon to the birds. And he said this.

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He went into the forest and he said, my little sisters, the birds, you owe much to God, your creator.

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And you ought to sing his praise at all times and in all places. He has given you liberty to fly about in all places.

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And though you neither spin nor sow, he has given you a twofold and a threefold clothing. He goes on to speak about how

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God preserved them in the ark. And how every one of their species went into the ark. And therefore they should praise

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God. And that his creator feeds them. Their creator feeds them.

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Brings them to bounties in the meadows. And he says this. Beware, my little sisters, of the sin of ingratitude.

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And study always to give praise to God. It's an interesting thought to go into the forest and to preach to the birds.

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Is that what Mark had in mind? When he said, preach the gospel to all creation. I don't think so.

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The men know we were given a creation mandate to work and to keep.

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To exercise dominion. Yes. I don't think that means preaching to the birds. Then what does it mean?

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It means taking the gospel in this context not just to Israel.

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Not just to the Gentile nations surrounding national Israel in the first century.

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But to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the whole world.

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That there is one world and billions of people. And yet there is only one savior.

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And his name is Jesus Christ. And his gospel and no other needs to go into all the world.

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Acts 1 .8 says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses.

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Here we see it in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

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Who here has heard of the Joshua Project? Has anyone here heard of the Joshua Project?

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The Joshua Project is a group you can go to, probably thejoshuaproject .org or something like that.

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And they have a people group of the day. And every single day you can read about, I believe it's 16 ,000 some people groups in the world who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And this command given by our Lord was given so that some of us would go to those people groups.

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That some of us would go to all of God's created people.

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Every image bearer of God. And to say, there is a God.

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Romans 1 tells me you already know that. But Romans 1 also tells me that you don't know all the details about that God.

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There is a God. And He is good. And He is holy. And He created you. And man, you are a sinner.

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You will go to no country in the world and find what has been called by some missiologists, the noble savage.

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But you will find that every people group you go to, not only are they without Christ, but they are without righteousness. They are without hope, without God in the world.

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They are sinners. And you will go to them and say, you have sinned. And yet God has sent

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His Son, Jesus Christ, to die. And there is a response. And what does He command? But to believe.

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Just as Mark 16 says. How many of us has the Lord called to be frontier missionaries to those people groups?

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How many of us has the Lord called to be missionaries to the people that we work with and live amongst every single day?

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I love an arrangement that Andrew Fuller and William Carey, the father of modern missions, had.

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William Carey said, I will go down into the mine and you hold the rope.

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And the Lord has called us to one of those two tasks. To go down into the mine.

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To proclaim the excellencies of Christ. To those who live in darkness.

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Or to hold the rope, meaning to support them. To pray for them. To help with finances.

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To help with logistics. Whatever that looks like. To encourage them. Find a missionary.

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Get their phone number. Get their Zoom number. Call them. Encourage them. Pray for them.

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I like what Paul Washer said one time. He said that there was a season in his life when the

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Lord would wake him up. And his chief concern at every moment when he woke up was this.

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There is a place where he is not worshipped. There is a place where he is not worshipped.

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Every believer who believes and who sees this text, that drum must be beating in our hearts.

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There is a place where he is not worshipped. And either I or someone

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I'm supporting is going to go to that place. And we're going to hold up the banner of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And we're going to give them hope that is only found in the gospel.

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C .T. Studd says, some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell to go to the lost and to bring them

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Christ. Brothers and sisters, you have the benefit. You've heard me.

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I love preaching. I love the word of God. You've not had the benefit of having the best preacher.

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But you have had the benefit of hearing the truth preached. And there are other people in the world that need that also.

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We believe, therefore we speak. And the third imperative is this. Trust.

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This is the strangest section of the text, isn't it? So what do we make of it? Verse 17.

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And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons. They will speak in new tongues.

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They will pick up serpents with their hands. And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.

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They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.

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And while they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.

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What we see here, again, is nothing novel. But in fact, everything, save one item in this list, is stuff that we see in scripture.

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For instance, he says in my name they will cast out demons. We see that in the book of Acts. They will speak in new tongues.

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Again, we find that in the book of Acts. In 1 Corinthians, we're given instructions on that.

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In verse 18, they will pick up serpents with their hands. It might not have been on purpose, but in Acts chapter 28, we remember when

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Paul was collecting firewood. It was bit by a serpent. And the people expected that he would die, but did he die, kids?

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He did not. And then what did they want to do? They wanted to worship him as a god. And if they drink any deadly poison.

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That is the only strange part of this where we find no context for that in scripture.

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But it is interesting. Josephus, a Jewish historian, tells us that there was a

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Judeo -Christian cult around the turn of that first century, in the late 90's

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A .D., where they would engage in these occult practices, including having poison with them.

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He writes in his own history, he says, No one should possess magic potions or poison, nor any of the harmful things made by the

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Israelites for harmful purposes. And so, if you've ever seen those videos of the

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Appalachian Christians who are snake handling Christians, you can find this on YouTube, where they worship with rattlesnakes and copperheads and all kinds of serpents in their hands, and they drink cyanide.

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Mark is not telling us to do that. This is not prescriptive. But simply that there are situations where the

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Lord will preserve you. There's an account of that in the early

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Christian church in the third century. A man named Felix of Nola lived in Rome.

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He was being hotly pursued by Roman persecutors. He was building and he found a building with a broken down wall inside, just big enough for him to fit inside.

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So he squeezed through this hole. Kids, think about this, playing hide and seek. Where would you hide? Only you're not being chased for a game, you're being chased because if they find you, they're going to kill you.

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And he snuck into this little crevice in the wall, and as he sat there in the dark, hearing the

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Roman persecutors in the distance, he watched as a spider web came down and made a web in front of the hole where he had just crawled through.

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And as the persecutors came, they looked at the missing chunk in the wall and they looked at it and they said, a spider has been here.

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He would have broken the spider web. We'll keep going. And they continued the pursuit. In God's providence, he preserved his life through that.

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There's another account of a man named Hermaeus. He was a soldier who had spent two years in the

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Roman army, and he was again being persecuted for being a Christian. And what they did was they threw him in a burning furnace, but he did not burn.

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And then they called a witch doctor of sorts, a man, what was his name here,

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I'm going to find it, named Morris, who concocted a poison that was sure to kill him.

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And they gave Hermaeus the poison. And when Hermaeus drank it, he blessed the poison and then he drank it and Morris was amazed that this deadly concoction that he had made up did not kill

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Hermaeus. So what did Morris do? He became a Christian himself. And then

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Morris was killed with a sword, beheaded. And Sebastian, the

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Roman cohort, when he found that they were unable to kill Hermaeus, he took the job into his own hands and beheaded him with a sword, eventually killing

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Hermaeus as well. What does it mean? Not that you will never die, that you should go handle snakes, that you should drink poison, but essentially this, that God who has decreed all things from the beginning and who oversees all matters of providence will preserve your life until he chooses not to.

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That in a sense, each of us, we are immortal until God determines otherwise.

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Now for some of you, you don't need to hear that. You shouldn't take that too far. And for others of you, you need to hear that because you live with a crippling fear of death and of what is to come.

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And that you can know with certainty that if you get cancer and you die, it's because the

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Lord wills it. But you don't need to fear death at every minute of every hour because until the

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Lord chooses to call you home, you are safe in his providence. And scripture is replete with these examples.

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You always hear me go to Romans 8 .28, so I'm not going to go there today. If you don't know what Romans 8 .28 is, write it down, go to it this week.

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But Isaiah 14 .24 The Lord of hosts has sworn, as I have planned, so shall it be.

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As I have purposed, so shall it stand. Deuteronomy 32 .39

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See now that I, even I am he, and there is no God beside me.

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I kill, and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. And there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

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Isaiah 46 .10 God declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying,

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My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.

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Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have a Bible that we are to believe, that we are to trust, that we are to treasure.

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When we see those parenthetical comments, don't get scared away. The reason why we have those is because we have so many copies of the

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Bible that we can nitpick about some of these little details. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have a

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Savior who lived, as Mark has just recounted, who did all of these wonders, all of these works, who was righteous in every way, who died as a penal substitute in our place, as we have heard, under the dark sky of God's displeasure, taking

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God's wrath so that you might have His grace and peace and His love and His fellowship forever.

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Brothers and sisters, we have that good news now to proclaim.

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There is no priestly class. There is no, in the true sense of it, there is no professional evangelist who comes from heaven and who delivers the gospel.

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Each of us is to do the work of an evangelist. There are some who are more gifted, yes, but yet each of us is to do the work of an evangelist, to proclaim the gospel, to find those unreached people groups, to go to all of creation, save the birds perhaps, and to preach that gospel.

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And here we see we have a God whom we can trust, who executes

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His providence perfectly, that there is not one thing in this life that is going to happen outside of His will, outside of His purpose for you.

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And so we can live, we can believe, and we can trust in Christ forever.

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And if you read the gospel of Mark all the way through, that's what we should be left with. There is a