The Herald of the King

Well, we are continuing tonight in the gospel of Mark so if you have your Bibles out turn with me to Mark chapter 1 and Hold your place at verse 1 now if you weren't here last week We did do a pretty lengthy introduction of the gospel mark in fact I did the whole night on just introducing the gospel just introducing who wrote it what he wrote it for and How it distinguishes itself from the other three? Gospels and we noted that mark is a fast paced Often described as an action oriented account of the gospel of Christ It is not it is not one that belabors long over any one event, but it continues to rush through taking us Straight to the cross as it were It gives us very little account of Jesus speaking even though he does speak throughout the text we don't we don't see the long Sermons like we do in Matthew and Luke the long texts of him speaking.

This is much more fast-paced much more action oriented And as I said last week, the Gospels are not what we would call Strict biography that is to say they're not just fact based Texts which tell us, you know who Jesus was where he was born and things like that but the Gospels have an intention in mind and the intention is to Cause us to believe and in that sense.

They are Gospel tracts they are they are written so that we would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ In fact if you You may have heard this before But oftentimes the four gospel writers will be called the four evangelists So Matthew Mark Luke and John are called the four evangelists because they each took up the task of writing a gospel a Message about Jesus Christ and what is the purpose of all four of the Gospels that we would believe? Matthew writes to the Jewish community and he and he and he front loads his gospel with with all of these Old-testament passages that point to Christ Mark focuses on Christ as the servant of Yahweh Luke focusing on the history of Christ and him as a True son of man and John of course focuses on Jesus as son of God Now having said all that I just I want to point to something in chapter one that you may have you if you've read over It in preparation for tonight, or maybe you have it chapter one of Mark is 45 verses But in those 45 verses, there's like 10 different things going on.

It's not 45 verses about one event It begins with the preaching of John the Baptist it then moves to Jesus being baptized and witnessed from heaven and then moves to Jesus being tempted by the devil and that's only to verse 13 and Then it goes to Jesus preaching in Galilee calling the four disciples Peter Andrew James and John it then goes on to several healings in a row the healing of a woman With a a one with a possessed by an unclean spirit the healing of Simon's mother-in-law hearing a healing various diseased people Jesus leaving the people and going off to pray by himself and then finally it ends with the cleansing of a leper It's really an action-packed chapter and I've been trying to figure out what's the best way to preach this book because if I stop at each one of those and preach each one of those as a sermon and certainly they could each be a Sermon if I will never get out chapter one but at the same time I don't want to do what I did in Genesis and that was do a whole chapter at a time because That that I feel like we we go too fast and we don't see all the things that we want to see Years ago I bought a book it was called the outline Bible.

It was by Harold Wilmington and What it is, it's very interesting He was a seminary professor and he outlined Every book of the Bible every chapter in every verse Everyone has an outline and this is available.

You can buy it on Amazon.

It's like 17 bucks.

I've had it for 15 years I've had this for a long time and when I was trying to think about how I wanted to prepare the lessons and mark I Pulled it off my shelf.

I hadn't used it in so long I had a hard time finding and I had to go find it But when I found it pulled it off my shelf, I said well, okay.

He's got a pretty good outline and So anytime I use someone else's outline in teaching I like to at least give them credit for that.

I abhor Plagiarism, you know that from my class Daisy because you're in my miss Jackie in the Academy class I always say I have horror plagiarism I do not like it when people take from others and pass it off as their own and I'm not going to use his Outlines strictly but there are going to be some broader senses in which I think he's he kind of hits the nail on the head And I think this is a good way for us to learn.

So here's the outline for tonight We're going to look at verses 1 to 13 so mark 1 The first item number one is the witness of the Old Testament and that's verses 1 to 3 Item number 2 this is a terrible marker Is the work of the Baptist and that's not a that's not a Southern Baptist That's that would be John the Baptist The work of the Baptist is verses 4 through 11.

And then finally the third thing we're going to look at tonight is the wrath of the devil the other thing I like about Dr.

Wilmington, I Spelled that wrong.

I said, I don't know what I was doing The wrath of the devil not the Devin the devil and that's verses 12 and 13 I do like that Dr.

Wilmington's outlines are almost always alliterated and I'm a big fan of alliteration in my outline So I appreciate that.

So this is how we're going to do tonight.

We're going to look at first the witnesses of the Old Testament Then we're going to look at the work of the of the Baptist that is John the Baptist Then we're gonna look at the wrath of the devil.

Will we get through it all? I Am trying to to try to keep this to a 40 35 40 minute lesson that's been that's going to be my goal each week That gives us time for prayer at the beginning gives us time to sing a song and also Gives us a little bit of time for fellowship, you know, so we'll see how it goes Let's begin though turning in our Bibles to Mark chapter 1 and we are going to read verses 1 to 13 just to Just to sort of set the stage for what we're what we're doing.

So if you have your Bibles open To Mark chapter 1 it begins with these words the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God as It is written and Isaiah the prophet behold I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way the voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare the way of the Lord make his paths straight John appeared baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and All the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the River Jordan confessing their sins Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locust and wild honey And he preached saying after me comes he who is mightier than I the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.

I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit in those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan and When he came up out of the water immediately, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit Descending on him like a dove and a voice came from heaven.

You are my beloved son with you.

I am well pleased the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan and he was with the wild animals and the angels were ministering to him So ends the reading of God's Holy Word Isn't it interesting? I don't know if you're picking up on this or not.

It just goes so quick.

I Mean we read 13 verses We just went through like a whole lot of information and if you compare this to the other Gospels Which we are going to in a few minutes.

This is so this is just so fast and it's I Like I said, it's to me.

It's just an interesting way of Telling the life of Jesus.

It's almost like CliffsNotes Right.

You guys know what CliffsNotes are Don't know what CliffsNotes are you were homeschooled weren't you? If in in high school when your teacher would assign you a book if you didn't want to read that book they had these things called CliffsNotes, which were essentially a a Smaller version of the book that gave you all of the high points So if you were going to write a book report or something on it, which you shouldn't do you? Yeah, you you could use CliffsNotes and and and and and do that again Not not I'm not endorsing it.

I'm just explaining to Caleb what CliffsNotes are But it's interesting how this book begins.

We talked about this a little bit last week It begins the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God compare that to how Matthew Luke and John begin Matthew and Luke both begin with extended genealogies about who Jesus is Matthew gives us the genealogy of Jesus Going back to Abraham Luke gives us the genealogy of Jesus going all the way back to Adam and If you look at the gospel records, you also notice that there's a lot of other preemptive information both Matthew and Luke tell us about the the Situation where Jesus had to be born in Bethlehem and all of these different things and we we learn about this every year We talk about it around the time of the incarnation the celebration of the birth of Christ so we know about those stories from those Gospels mark doesn't deal with any of that and If you go to John what do we see in John in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word Was God Right.

So John begins his prologue with this massive Sentence about the person of Jesus Christ being one with the Father Saying that he was with God and he was God and all things were made through him and was nothing that was made that was Not made by him And then you get to mark and it's the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God It seems in comparison somewhat anticlimactic But I want you to for a moment just imagine That you'd never read Matthew Or that you never read Luke or John Imagine yourself in the first century imagine yourself in Rome in the first century And this was the first time you had ever been given the opportunity to read a gospel Right.

There's a good chance that mark may have been the first one that you got if you were in Rome and you read these words our K to Evangelia That's the word the beginning of the good news the beginning of the gospel What's interesting about that phrase our K? It's the same word John begins with John begins in the beginning Was the word that is in our K ain't ha lagas in the beginning was the word but here he just says the beginning our K to Evangelia the beginning of the good news the beginning of the gospel and what gospel what good news is it? And we're going to talk about this more next week because next week We're going to see the very first words of Jesus in his sermons was repent and believe the gospel it says the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ The Son of God That's not anticlimactic.

That is actually huge This is the thing mark is not giving us a massive Genealogy taking us back to Abraham or a or a lengthy genealogy taking us back to Adam He is getting to brass tacks and the brass tax is this This is the good news about Jesus Christ the Son of God.

I mean just We should never get over that It should never be that when we think of the Son of God Came to dwell among men that should never ever be allowed to become mundane So just this sentence is an amazing sentence the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God and then he moves in verse 2 to referencing the witness of the Old Testament that we mentioned in our outline as It is written in Isaiah the prophet Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way the voice of one crying in the wilderness Prepare the way of the Lord make his paths straight now This is as I said, just not necessarily trying to preach.

It's more like a Bible study, but I want So I do want to interact if you have questions and I bring that up because This is a chance where some people would have questions if you know anything about the history of these two verses that were just quoted Because it says in the ESV as it is written by who? Isaiah the prophet and then he quotes two verses he quotes behold I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way and he quotes Prepare the way of the Lord make his past rates.

He quotes two verses, but only one of them are from Isaiah the other one is from Malachi so Certain Skeptics have Attempted to use this as one of those places where they attack the for the veracity and historicity of the Bible They say see Mark can't even get it right.

He don't even know who he's quoting He says he's quoting Isaiah, but he actually quotes Malachi.

He doesn't even know what he's talking about You can hear you can hear the the skeptic saying something like that, right? See this is an error Now if you're holding a King James Bible, which I know at least one of you is Two of you I look at you you'll notice it's absent something.

What is yours missing? Doesn't say Isaiah at all The King James Bible simply says as it is written in the prophets Now that wasn't an underhanded trick by the King James translators who said well, we know Isaiah didn't write this I'm gonna pull it out.

That was actually based on the manuscripts that they were using because the manuscripts that they were using do not have the word Isaiah in them and So this becomes a question of what we call textual variation Does the word Isaiah belong in the text or does it not now? I don't want to bore you with a whole page of quotes as to why it should or shouldn't be there I do have them I always bring them in case somebody has a question But I encourage you to on your own when you have time examine textual variation Because it is an important subject and it does lead to questions about whether or not certain texts read certain ways Very seldom.

Does it ever change the meaning of a text typically textual variation is very small one letter one word something like that But in this case, it does raise the question if the original author mark did write Isaiah But he's not quoting from Isaiah.

Does that mean he got it wrong? and My answer is no Because I don't think that he is intending at this point to Indicate Isaiah as the only author but rather he is doing something which was common in the tradition of the day And that is if you are quoting from the prophets that you will quote from the largest of the prophets and you will use his Name in the citation.

So who is the largest prophet? That's among these two Isaiah is much longer than Malachi, correct So there's nothing wrong with him saying in Isaiah the prophet because he actually does quote from Isaiah But he's quoting multiple prophets in this and we see this in other places as well We will go in not that the name of the author But we see other places where like the Apostle Paul in Romans 3 He quotes a bunch of different Psalms at one point and he doesn't link them together He just quotes them as if they're linked together.

And so what we have to understand that it wouldn't necessarily be a problem If it does say Isaiah is there.

However, if you have a King James Bible, you don't have to worry about it It's just not there but it is something to consider it's something to To to think about and I want to read my I have a note here If the reference to Isaiah is authentic It would not be an example of a contradiction or an error But simply a use of simplified language by Mark he does quote Isaiah in this section and it's possible that the reference to the more well-known and longer writing prophet was an idiomatic way of referring to the prophets in general and That would be my answer if somebody tried to make this a contradiction issue.

I don't think that it's a contradiction in fact You may not know this how many of you? Know that the way that the Jews Have their scriptures It's the same books that we have but they're in a different order and even a different number We have how many books in our Old Testament? 39 39 books in our Old Testament.

How many books are in the Jewish Old Testament? It's 24 Because they count all 12 of the minor prophets as one book.

They don't have first and second Kings.

They have Kings They don't have first and second Chronicles.

They have Chronicles.

And so where we have 39 books, it's the same books it's just ordered differently and they have what they call the Torah the Ketuvim and the I'm sorry said that wrong the Torah the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim The Torah the Nevi'im and the Ketuvim are the are the law the writings and the prophets and you've ever heard the phrase Tanakh The Tanakh is the Jewish Old Testament and that's how they describe the Torah, which is the law of Moses the writings and Or some sorry the prophets and the writings which would be the Psalms and things like that So we see this also in Jesus refers to the Old Testament He'll say you'll you've heard it written in the Psalms, but it wasn't in the Psalms It was from that that heading because again, there was the law the writings and the prophets So did I take you longer than you wanted to go on that a little deeper? No, this is good, right? This is important stuff because somebody comes along and they see that and they say hey, this is wrong.

No, it's not wrong It's just another way of expressing a particular truth.

Now.

What is being said in these passages? We talked about the passages What are they saying? He says in Mark is saying as it is written Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way in the ancient world when a king would enter into an area he would send before him a Messenger whose job it was to prepare the people for his arrival Whether it was for conquest The messenger may come in and say look He's he's he's willing to enter into an agreement with you If you don't want to fight if you want to just surrender now, you can be safe Or he might come in and with a laurel of some kind of peace or something there was always a messenger who preceded the king in his entrance into an area and So in keeping with this When God sends the king of the universe into the world Jesus Christ he sends before him a forerunner to go before him and Prepare the people to hear his word and this was promised by the prophets the prophets said behold, I Will send my messenger before your face He will prepare the way and he will say prepare the way of the Lord make his paths straight This person was responsible for announcing the king And of course, we know who it is.

You already said it Daisy.

I heard you say it quietly, but you were right.

It's John The person being referenced here is John now.

I do want to mention something.

I said this last week.

I do believe Mark was written To Gentiles You can talk about why another time but I and in that sense We all we we we know Matthew is written to Jewish people Matthew is filled with Jewish quotes Mark is not but it still begins with a quotation of the scriptures this is again another reason why it may may reference Isaiah because Isaiah would have been even known among the Gentiles because he was such a well-known prophet and These quotes are to show even the Gentile people that this King Jesus Didn't just come out of nowhere but that this is a promised Messiah from From hundreds of years before in fact, when did Isaiah right you may know around 700 BC around 700 BC so 700 years prior to Christ There is a promise Not just about Jesus but about Jesus as forerunner that there was going to come one who would say Prepare the way of the Lord.

All right now Something else to mention about John before we read verse 4 is Jesus says That when it when when we think of John the Baptist He said this and I've always found this to be fascinating.

He says Among those born of women there is none greater than who? John the Baptist that's in Matthew 11 11.

He says among those born of women.

There's none greater And you say why in the world would John the Baptist be considered the I mean isn't Jesus the greatest? Yeah, I don't think Jesus was necessarily including himself He's the God man.

We get that just like when we talk about Solomon being the wisest of all men Yeah, it doesn't count with Jesus the God man, right? So when we talk about John being the greatest of all who were born of women, why is John considered that why does Jesus say that? Well, my answer I think is is I think it's correct I think it's simple is that he had the greatest message of all of all the prophets John's message was the greatest because his message is not that the Messiah is coming But the Messiah is here you see John fits into the category of an Old Testament prophet We're gonna see in a minute that he's clothed in camel's hair and he's wearing a leather belt What does that represent it represents the prophets like Elijah? It represents those Old Testament.

He is the last in the line of the Old Testament prophets to do one thing to finalize what they had promised they had promised Christ was coming and John stands up and says he is here.

All right.

So now let's look any questions before we go further any questions good All right It's not not good that you don't have I like questions.

So not good that you don't have but it's I guess I'm doing Okay, if you're if you don't have questions All right.

So verse 4 John appeared Baptizing in the wilderness and Proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him We're being baptized by him in the River Jordan confessing their sins Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and he ate locusts and wild honey And he preached saying after me comes he who is mightier than I the strap of whose sandals I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit That's basically what we get About John.

I mean we go a little further in verse 9 and we see Jesus baptized by John, but basically those five verses is The ministry of John that we see again.

I can't help stress marks brevity and His quick nature.

He just get it in get it out.

Get it done.

Get it get it moved and So what I've done And I'm not going to make this a harmony of the Gospels because if I did we'd be here for three years But I am at times going to reference other scriptures when I when I see that Mark only gives us a taste Sometimes we want a little more than just that because think about what we're given about John in the other Gospels What are we told about John and the other Gospels? Well, his birth is foretold in Luke chapter 1 in fact, he is foretold and Then Jesus is foretold John actually his birth story is contained His mother is visited by Mary in Luke chapter 1 verse 39.

And what happens when? Mary visits John and Jesus is in Mary and John's in Elizabeth.

He does a somersault I'll tell you when Jennifer was pregnant with with Theo.

I used to love I sit next to her We have a couch you guys been in my house but we have a couch with a little thing in between and I would just lay there kind of looking at her with my hand on my head and I'd look down at Her belly and it did look like he was doing somersaults I'd see a foot go by and he just Is the most amazing thing to see a child in the womb people who think children in the womb are not alive are Absolutely deceiving themselves.

In fact, I don't even think they're self-deceived.

I think they know they're lying and To say a child in the womb is not alive.

It's just ridiculous But yeah, John leapt in the womb the scripture says So he indicated life, but he also indicated sentience It's an amazing thing his birth is given to us in Luke chapter 1 verses 57 to 80 and His baptism ministry is recorded for us in Matthew chapter 3 Luke chapter 3 and John chapter 1 So we have so much more about John than what we're given in Mark But as is Mark's custom, he quickly recounts the story and moves on because he's he is in a hurry for something He's in a hurry to get to Christ and what we're gonna see throughout the book.

He's actually in a hurry to get to the cross Because as I said last week what Mark is is a is it is a passion narrative with a long introduction He's just trying to get us to the cross.

He's trying to get us to that moment in time Where God brought forth the remission of sins through the blood of his Son the suffering servant of Yahweh Is the focus of the book? So I want to ask a discussion question and I do want you to interact if you don't mind What is it about John's ministry that we see a focus on if we say okay, there's five verses here There's only a few things that are focused on.

What do we see the focus on in this? What would you say? Did you say something? Okay Focus on that because we have the scripture.

Yeah, I'm thinking specifically verses four to eight That's it that's what that's really the thing it's his message his message the message that precedes Christ is the message of repentance and That is a message that Christ continues because what we're going to see next week if we if we get to it is We're going to see the first words out of Christ's mouth are repent One of the most frustrating things that I find is people who want to disconnect repentance from the gospel Is that the case do people do you see people do that? People who don't want repentance to be a part of the gospel.

In fact, they would say repentance I've heard it said repentance is a work and we don't believe in works based salvation So therefore you can't have repentance in the gospel But what they've done is they've neutered the gospel of its power when they say that repentance is not part of it now I want you to think about what John preaches he preaches a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

He's telling the people that repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins Now we have to be careful and we have to be careful tying the sign To what it signifies and that's what we were talking about earlier about the Church of Christ The Church of Christ does tie the sign to what it signifies and therefore if you are not baptized a specific way Usually by them in their church then you haven't really received forgiveness of sins and that becomes a problem because there is a sense in which baptism is a sign and Is attached to something that is happening But I do think it's important that we understand that when we talk about the subject of baptism Baptism is an important part of what it means to be a believer and a person who says I can believe But I don't need to be baptized or I can believe and I don't need to come under the water or come into the water Or be baptized.

I think that's wrong.

And I think that people often Think that we get to come to God on our terms But we don't we come to God on his terms Right and all throughout the New Testament the command is a baptized now I will say this I do believe there's a distinction that can be made between John's baptism and Jesus's the gospel baptism and here's here's why I say that in the book of Acts Think it's in chapter 19, but I could be off on my address there There's a point in which Paul meets a group of people and he asked them if they've received the Holy Spirit and they say no We didn't know there was a Holy Spirit and he and they said we've only been baptized by John's baptism So Paul baptizes them again, and they received the Holy Spirit So there was a distinction between what John is doing and what later the Apostles would do after Pentecost So I do think that we can make at least that distinction that after Pentecost.

There was a connection between Understanding the gift of the Holy Spirit and being in Christ as Opposed to simply repenting and being wet so and again, I'm not saying it's just being wet, but there was a distinction between John's baptism and the baptism of of of the Apostles Now having said all that the focus though is the repentance John is calling people to repent and here's the thing that is so important and again I don't want to get bogged down in this but it is important When John calls men to repent Men and women when he calls men and women to repent He is saying something about them.

What is he saying? You're sinful In fact, if you read the other gospel accounts, I do want I have to I have to just mention this if you go to Matthew chapter 3 Because again Mark says so little I want us to hear in Matthew 3 7 The way Matthew recounts John's baptism because Matthew recounts John speaking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees the the political and religious men of his day and It says in Matthew 3 7 it says but when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism He said to them you brood of vipers Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come bear fruit in keeping with repentance remember He's preaching repentance and do not presume to say to yourselves We have Abraham as our father for I tell you God is able from these stones to raise up children from Abraham Even now the axe is laid at the root of the tree.

That means judgment has come Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire I baptize you with water for repentance But he who is coming after me is mightier than I whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear the threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire So John is a hellfire preacher y'all John is Preparing the way of the Lord with words of admonition and correction and judgment He says Christ is the axe laid at the root of the tree and any tree that doesn't bear good fruit It's going to get chopped off He's got his winnowing fork in his hand.

That was what was used to stick in and shake loose He said he's going to come in and he's going to shake you loose But John's language eventually cost him his freedom We see this in Mark's gospel in only one sentence and we're gonna look at it more next week and that it says He ended up going to prison and even to his death because of preaching this hard gospel Now we have a Few minutes left.

So what I want to do now is go to verse 9.

So we're back in Mark 1 John has preached.

Oh one other thing.

I have to say in verse 5 When he says all the country of Judea all Jerusalem are going out to him and we're being baptized by him in the River Jordan That's an important I actually did a video on this on how many of you guys see my little short videos that I do but I did a video because When the term all is used some people think that always means every single person all around the world all the time and that's often a Way that people try to argue against reformed theology well God loves all people the same way and that he has elected all people or and but this text when it says all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem came out and were baptized by John.

Do you think that means every single person? Well, I can prove that it doesn't because if you go back to Matthew 3 It says that the Pharisees and Sadducees weren't there for baptism They were there to see what he was doing, but they weren't there to submit to him.

They weren't there to get baptized and Not everybody came not everybody came to be baptized by John but if I were to say All Jacksonville turned out for the Jaguars.

First of all, I'd be lying Jaguars having a terrible season by the way but if I said all Jacksonville turned out for the president's visit or all Jacksonville turned out for whatever that is a Use of term that simply means many Does not indicate every single person and we see that here and I think that that's just important because I've heard pastors I'll say well all means all and that's all that all means it always means every single individual.

Well, obviously it doesn't All right, any questions about verses 4 through 8 before we move on? Yes, sir I don't believe that I let me back up because what I said earlier may be confusing and I want to clarify I don't know if everyone who was baptized by John was was rebaptized In Christian baptism.

I don't know that we don't have a record of that I know that it happened once which leads me to believe there's a distinction But I don't know that there was not some form of overlap I don't that we don't have any record of Peter being rebaptized or anything like that So we have to consider this as an instance where it shows a distinction, but we don't know that Every Christian was rebaptized into Christ, but we do know this while John was baptizing His disciples were baptizing also because we read that in the Gospels It says that John was baptized.

We read this later in Mark 1 or no, not Mark 1 It was I was doing my study earlier and one of the other Gospels.

I think it's John it says John was baptizing in one place and Jesus's disciples were baptizing another place So there was a time where there was an overlap where John's baptism in Christ Disciples were doing baptisms as well I was just making the point earlier that I do believe that there's a distinction between John's baptism and what would come after Pentecost But I don't know necessarily that that means that there was a requirement of rebaptism however we do know at least one group was rebaptized and that was that group in Acts and I and I I Often hear people say rebaptism.

Rebaptism is wrong.

Rebaptism is sinful Like some fair some as they say Pharisees Presbyterians the same thing.

No, just kidding Love my Presbyterian friends No, but but but I've heard some Presbyterians say if you if you receive another baptism After your initial baptism that you're somehow questioning God's goodness or questioning his promise or questioning the Covenant and that was the issue with the Anabaptists in the During the time of the Reformation.

It was illegal to be rebaptized the term Anabaptist means rebaptizer and that was a crime In fact, I think it was Conrad Grebel's who was one of the first Anabaptists was drowned Because of being rebaptized So they took him out and drowned him Now this is Christians killing Christians so to speak sad history so yeah, I Hope that didn't make it more confusing Okay No, no, I don't think you're being I don't think it's it's it's hard to make a hard and fast answer Because we would say everyone who came before Christ was still saved by Christ Everyone in the Old Testament who was saved was saved ultimately by the work of Christ But how they understood it and to the level that they understood it We don't know and so when someone hears John preaching and he's saying One is coming after me who's sandal.

I'm not, you know willing to or able to untie He's saying there's one coming who's greater than I and my assumption would be that anyone who's receiving his baptism is coming underneath His teaching would be willing to follow after Christ But here's the thing all Judea and all Jerusalem went out were baptized by John three years later Many of those same people were saying crucify him.

So It's hard to know for certain Someone's spiritual condition based purely on what they were doing physically.

I mean how many people unfortunately I Andy and I would you know I Probably shudder to think how many times we've I mean, he's been a minister for years I've been minister for years how many times we baptize people only to see them go back to the world What a break what a heartbreaking thing that is, right? But what were they saved by they were saved by the work of Christ ultimately So if they come under his teaching and they're hearing the gospel Which is the King is coming and is here and they're trusting in that then I believe that they're they're saved Yeah, absolutely Yeah Yeah, the whole line is is what happened in Acts 2 right that's the moment where And and some people take issue with this because they'll say this is dispensational talk But it's not when I say the church was born in Acts 2 what I mean is the new covenant Church in the receiving of the Spirit The new administration of the Spirit where he came and lived within all of the believers That was new Christ promised that in John 15 and other places What did he say? He says I'm gonna go away and the Spirit is going to come so there is a change that takes place after Pentecost and So everyone who is saved prior to the new covenant are still saved by the work of Christ But they are saved looking forward to what is to come Yeah So it would still they would still be they would they are saved in the same way Isaiah was saved and things like that, you know prior to the giving of the new covenant Did you have a say did you want to say something? Andy, oh, I thought you I thought you raise your hand so again, good question not not Not one I was thinking about but a good question.

Yes, they believed they Repented and they were saved if they truly believed in repenting and it wasn't just like I said an act of some people that just Get wet Yeah Well, I think that is a good place for us to stop because the next thing we're gonna see is Jesus being baptized And if we go into that, I'm never gonna finish it by the time we're done and we are at 730 basically, so I think that's a good place to end.

Anybody else have any questions? All right.

Well, let's end with a word of prayer Father I thank you for your word.

I Do pray Lord that tonight we have been Encouraged by it to learn more about John the Baptist and what he did and making the path straight for Christ And I do pray Lord that we would understand that we are very blessed to be members of the new covenant We're very blessed to have a new administration of the Spirit whereby when we come to faith in Christ the Spirit comes to live in us and and and he Causes us to desire and to follow after Christ So, thank you for that gift and blessing in Jesus name.