So we're reading together in
Mark's Gospel, chapter 16 and verse 15 through to verse 18. And he, that is the Lord Jesus,
said unto them, that is his disciples, go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these
signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they
cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall
take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall
not hurt them, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
recover. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. After his appearances on the
day of his resurrection, the Lord Jesus met his disciples
during the next 40 days or 39 days on at least five further
occasions, in Jerusalem and in Galilee. He repeated his visit to the
gathered disciples seven days after he had met them on his
resurrection day. Remember, last week we spoke
about the fact that late in the night the Lord visited his disciples. Thomas wasn't present, and there
he spoke to them and told them, showed them that he was risen
from the dead. One week later, he met the disciples
again in the same place and this time Thomas was present. And the Lord confronted Thomas
concerning his groundless unbelief. Thomas on that occasion confessed
his foolishness And the conversation ended with the Lord bestowing
a blessing on all who, not seeing Christ, yet have faith. This is a blessing from the lips
of the risen Saviour for you and me today. John chapter 20
verse 29, Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen
me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not
seen, and yet have believed. So it would appear that there
were some in Jerusalem, even at that time, who believed Christ
had risen from the dead, though they had not seen the Lord personally. and the Saviour is here commending
and blessing them for their faith. And likewise, with them, we have
not seen Christ with our physical eyes and yet believing we are
blessed from the lips of Christ himself. And Peter One of the
apostles, he writes in 1 Peter chapter one in verse eight, whom
having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see him not, yet
believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. And so here were the disciples
realizing that they had been blessed with this view, this
vision, this visitation by the risen Christ. very real physical visit and
yet there would be many who would not see Christ with physical
eyes and yet believe. The visit of the Saviour a few
days later to Peter was another occasion when he met his disciples
in this period between his resurrection and his ascension. He did so
at the side of the Lake Galilee after a barren night of fishing. That's a story, a message for
another day. But by it, the Lord tenderly
restored Peter, his bruised friend, to full fellowship and renewed
Peter's commitment to the cause of the Lord's flock. in a most
loving and gracious act indeed. And so the Lord was tenderly
and graciously encouraging his disciples during this period. And this passage before us today,
these verses that we have before us today from the end of Mark
chapter 16, they are telling us of another of the visits that
the Lord made to his disciples during this period. And it may
well be that these words were spoken to the group while they
were still in Galilee. They then would return to Jerusalem,
to the Mount of Olives, where the Lord Jesus Christ would ascend
up into heaven. But it's likely, particularly
if we read it in according to Luke's account, that these words
were spoken to them while they were still in Galilee. The Lord
delivered these words. It is Christ who is speaking
and he is speaking to his disciples, soon to be called the Apostles
because they were sent out as messengers of the Lord. And these words that we have
before us today are what is called the Great Commission. In one
short sentence, the Lord gives this commission to his disciples. but it is a mission, it is a
commission that has challenged and motivated the Lord's people
to preach the gospel and bring the word of truth to their own
generation ever since the time of the apostles. And I have a
few things to say about these words today, which I trust the
Lord will use for our blessing and our encouragement, our edification,
and perhaps even for our motivation. I want to take my thoughts under
three headings. Firstly, to point out that the
apostle's task was to preach the gospel. Secondly, to note
that there would be signs that would follow the faithful preaching
of the gospel. And thirdly, to note that the
power behind those signs was Christ's own power as the God-man. So the first point that I want
to make with you today is the apostles' task was to preach
the gospel, the good news. Now, I don't imagine that anyone
present when the Lord Jesus Christ gave this commission had to turn
round and ask their neighbour, What good news is he talking
about? What gospel is he talking about? When the Lord says, go ye into
all the world and preach the gospel, I don't think any of
the men there that day had to wonder what the gospel was that
he was talking about. It was obvious. Jesus, who had
been dead, was standing before them. risen from the dead. And yet, as they thought about
it, I'm sure that the depth and dimensions of this gospel began
to form more completely in their minds and in their hearts. Yes, Jesus was risen from the
dead. But the good news, the Gospel
was not simply the resurrection of Christ. Not simply that death
had been defeated, wonderful as that was. The Gospel to be
preached included the purpose of Christ's death. And what was
achieved by that death the work of redemption and the reconciliation
of sinners to God. The disciples were to go everywhere
as the Lord's messengers. They were to go into all the
world. They were to spread out and take this message of the
gospel as his messengers and they were to preach the word
of peace by Christ's atoning sacrifice. They were to preach
the doctrine of free and full pardon for sin by the blood of
Jesus Christ. And they were to preach the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. and his power over death and
hell and the grave. In short, they were to preach
complete salvation by Jesus Christ. But this too must be enlarged
upon because they had to declare who Christ is. as the God-man
because only then is the significance of the work upon the cross fully
appreciated and understood. They had to show that the Lord
Jesus Christ had a variety of roles and offices. Do you remember we've spoken
about the offices of the Lord? He was prophet, priest, and king. The Lord Jesus Christ came as
that one who brought God's message and God's revelation of salvation
in its fullest form. As prophet. He came as priest
to offer up his own blood. that he might reconcile sinners
to God. He came as king to reign in his
kingdom, that body of people, that elect group that had been
given to him in the covenant of God's grace and peace and
who he had delivered by his death on the cross. They had to preach
His incarnation, the fact that He was born of the Virgin, God
with us. They had to preach His humiliation,
that the Lord Jesus Christ humbled Himself to take on the flesh
of men and women. They had to preach the suffering
of the Lord Jesus Christ and all that was accomplished by
it, and the death of the Saviour. and certainly the apostles would
speak about Christ's resurrection, but also of his ascension into
glory, his glorification at the right hand of God, his intercession
for his people, and the promise of his return to glorify the
righteous and to judge the wicked. They, the disciples, the apostles
of Jesus Christ, having this commission given to them would
go into all the world and they would use words like sin and
grace and love and mercy. They would speak of the covenant
of peace. They would tell of the Father's
election. They would speak about the Saviour's
redemption and the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration and
sanctification for the complete deliverance of God's people from
captivity to Satan. And all would be said plainly
and boldly and faithfully according to the things that they had been
taught, and constantly, because all of this is the gospel. Any less is an incomplete message,
any more gives men and women ground for pride. Let me say this another way,
if I may. If the apostles went preaching
anything other than the full, free, and efficacious gospel,
efficacious, you know what that word means. That's, efficacious
means it gets the job done. If the apostles preached anything
more than the full, free, and efficacious gospel that got salvation
done, they would not be preaching the gospel at all. They would
be failing in their task. The Lord said, go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel. and any who preach another gospel,
which is not another, but a distortion and a corruption of the truth
are, says Paul, perverters of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He
says that in Galatians chapter one. So that it is possible if
the full gospel is not preached wholly, that there is a perversion
which is not a gospel at all. And we who hear and we who preach
have got an obligation and a responsibility to test the words that we hear
that it is the full gospel. It is the gospel of free, sovereign,
efficacious grace. Furthermore, this gospel that
was to be preached is the gospel that is also to be believed. The Lord Jesus Christ says, if
any believe this gospel, the apostolic gospel, the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel that he committed into
the hands of these faithful men, if any believe this gospel, they
shall be saved. You can't be saved if you believe
a perverted gospel. You can't be saved if you believe
another gospel. If any believe this gospel, then
the salvation of the Lord will be upon them. This is the gospel
that is to be believed. And here I think is another important
point. It is not the act of believing
that saves a sinner. Believing does not bring a person
to faith, no more than faith brings a person to God or Christ. The world is full of people of
faith. There's more faith in the world
today than there has ever been in the history of humanity. Now I don't want to overcomplicate
this or seem to be splitting hairs and making words mean just
exact precise things but it is important that we are clear on
this matter. It is Jesus Christ Himself who
saves sinners. It is not the believing in Christ
that saves a sinner. It is not the faith of the believer
that saves the sinner. It is the work of Jesus Christ
on the cross that brings salvation. to the hearts and souls of men
and women, sinners like you and me. It is Christ who saves sinners. It is Christ's blood that cleanses. It is Christ's sacrifice that
atones. It is Christ's righteousness
that justifies. It is Christ's advocacy that
intercedes for us with God. We're not saved by faith, but
we experience the blessings of our salvation, the blessings
of grace, the blessings of God's mercy, when we trust and believe
the promises of God concerning Christ's work on the cross. Our
faith brings us into the experience of these great things that the
Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished on our behalf. True faith, that
is saving faith, when it is understood in the context of the fact that
it is Jesus Christ who saves sinners, is God's empowering
gift. to sinners who are dead in their
trespasses and in their sin. And this would be the work of
God the Holy Spirit going with the apostles as they carried
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ out to the ends of the
earth. Go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel. So it was that God the Holy Spirit
gave the gift of faith to those who heard the gospel preached.
He quickened, he energized, he brought to life, regenerated,
called. We have a number of words, scriptural
words that describe and explain this work of the new birth. but it is that new birth, being
born again, that enables faith and thereby trust in the complete
and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that this empowering
gift enables a sinner to believe the gospel that the apostles
preached. That gospel which the apostles
preach, that is the gospel all of grace. and all who believe
that gospel will be saved and have grounds to know that they
are saved because they look to Christ, they look to his blood,
they look to his work, they look to the efficacy of the work of
Christ upon the cross and the satisfaction that God had in
that blood atonement. Christ's priestly office of offering
his blood as a sacrifice for our sin. And equally, those who
will not believe They display the continuing rejection of God
and rebellion against God and his son, Jesus Christ. It is
as straightforward as that. If you will not believe, then
you testify to your own rebellion and you condemn yourself. and nor does baptism save us. Neither does faith save us, nor
baptism. Neither believing nor baptism
are the cause of our salvation. Yet just as believing brings
us comfort in experiencing the grace of God, so baptism allows
us to testify to our faith and profess our confidence in the
baptism of our Lord into his death, his burial and his resurrection
as the grounds of our acceptance with God, as a statement of our
belief in our spiritual union with Christ in each part of his
work. so that in our baptism as believers,
we say, as the Lord Jesus Christ died, we died with him. As he
was buried, we are buried with him. As he is risen, so we are
also risen in him to newness of spiritual life and everlasting
glory. Our obedience in baptism is a
statement of our faith, a statement of our union and confidence in
the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that was the
first point that I wanted to make. It was this gospel that
the apostles were called to go out and preach. Go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel. And then the Lord tells them
that there would be signs following. There would be signs following
the preaching of the gospel and there would be conversions that
would signify the divine power at work in the gathering of God's
elect. And the divine protection at
work in the provision of all that was needful for these disciples
as they went out to gather God's elect. The apostles would be
enabled and protected. They would cast out devils, they
would speak with new tongues, they would take up serpents,
they would drink any deadly thing, and it would not hurt them. And
these signs were true in the experience of the apostles themselves. We remember the case of Paul
when he was shipwrecked on the coast of Malta, Melita as it
is called in scripture, that there was a viper grabbed onto
his hands and bit him and he shook it off into the fire. So
that he literally handled a poisonous snake and yet he was not harmed. Casting out devils was a picture
of the entrance of Christ into a soul and the expulsion of Satan
at the new birth. Satan is no longer on the throne
in a new believer's soul. Christ has taken up residence
and possession of that soul. We are indwelt by God the Holy
Spirit. Also, as faith cometh by hearing
and hearing by the word of God, which is the preaching of the
gospel, the message would be heard as the apostles preached
it, the message would be heard and understood in the real languages
of the hearers. So on the day of Pentecost, the
people cried in amazement at the apostles preaching, confessing,
we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of
God. You see, they were preaching
in what were to them unknown languages that they had not naturally
learned. And yet in order to spread that
gospel, God the Holy Spirit equipped them in order to speak the words
of eternal life in languages that were understood by the hearers. I wrote yesterday in that little
introduction that I sent out, I keep mentioning this, if you
would like a copy and don't get it, let me know, I'll make sure
you get a copy. But I mentioned in it yesterday
that taking up serpents and drinking deadly potions without harm was
never intended as a trick to impress natural men and women. But that has not stopped people
bringing snakes into churches and handling them in the pulpit. And some people have died in
the process of doing that. That's not what these verses
are talking about at all. These are rather reassurances
that the Lord Jesus Christ was giving his disciples that the
God who sends forth his ministers also controls and protects their
steps and provides their needs. The signs and the healings reveal
the power of Christ both in those converted and those who bring
the message of grace. And this is my third point and
then we're going to be finished. That power of Christ that I've
just mentioned there is also highlighted before us in this
incident. Though not, I confess, in the
actual passage here in Mark's Gospel. So in order to make my
third point, I need to make a reference to Matthew's parallel passage
and to draw this to your attention. This one more thing with respect
to this commission. The Lord Jesus Christ had said
something else to his disciples just before he gave them this
commission. Now Mark doesn't record it as
I've said, but Matthew says this. It's in Matthew chapter 8, sorry
28 and verse 18. This is what it says. And Jesus
came and spake unto them. So this is another one of these
post-resurrection appearances. Jesus came and spake unto them
saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. And then he continues, go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel. or in Matthew it
is, go ye unto all nations and preach the gospel. That's the
context in which this commission is given. The Lord Jesus Christ
says, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Now this little extra tells us
that all power and authority concerning the affairs of Christ's
church and kingdom were now completely vested in the hands of Jesus
Christ, the God-man. Now, what I mean by that, was
not Christ always the all-powerful, omnipotent God? Yes he was. The miracles that he did testified
to that. But now the Lord Jesus Christ
is telling his disciples that in honour of his successful work
on the cross as the God-man In order to encourage and embolden
his disciples, and also through them to inform the church in
every age of his, Christ's, personal, omnipotent dominion as the God-man,
he gives the disciples this fact. All power is given unto me in
heaven and in earth. For what? For the establishment,
for the gathering, for the building up, for the deliverance, and
for the glorifying of his church. That was the great task, the
great commission that was before these men. All power in heaven
and earth was vested in the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
God-man for this purpose. This is the people that had been
given to him. This was the prize. He hung upon
the cross and he saw the travail of his soul and was satisfied.
He saw the body of people The church, the great congregation
that he was dying for and now all power was given into his
hands in heaven and in earth to secure their conversion and
their gathering in. Now I don't know exactly what
this all means. I'm sure that there's so much
more to this statement, all power is given unto me in heaven and
in earth, than I can possibly explain to you today. But certainly,
it means that he would gather in his people, that he would
establish them as congregations throughout the earth. It means
that he would take care of those congregations by supplying them
with ministers as he did in saying to Peter, feed my sheep. That he would ordain elders amongst
them and establish and ordain the practices that they would
follow. Because this is Christ's church. This is the church of the God-man.
These are his people. This is his bride. Why do we
share communion with one another? Because the Lord Jesus Christ
tells us to. Why do we preach the gospel?
Because the Lord Jesus Christ tells us to. Why do we worship
and pray and read the scriptures? Because the Lord Jesus Christ,
the God-man, is king in his kingdom and has all power and authority
given to him. And that rule, that power and
authority, it extends to heaven, where all the angels of God are. And they are at Christ's disposal
to go and do His bidding on behalf of you and me, of the church
of Jesus Christ. God sent men to preach the gospel. He could have sent angels, but
He sent men. to preach the gospel and gather
in his church, but the angels are at his disposal to defend
those men and to accomplish his purpose here upon earth. And
they do his bidding and they do his will. But that rule of
Christ is not only in heaven, but it is on earth also, where
the thrones of kings and the terms of presidents and prime
ministers are under Christ's dominion and reach no further
than he permits for the prosperity and the well-being and the protection
of his people. Even the wicked of this world
are made to serve the ends of Christ's kingdom, of his rule,
of his government in this world because all power is given unto
me in heaven and in earth. Let me put this into one sentence
if I may. All power in heaven and earth
is in Christ's hands to do the greatest good for the best outcomes,
for the everlasting well-being, security and happiness of His
redeemed people, so that we may know and say with all assurance,
all things work together for good to them that love God, to
them who are the called according to His purpose. What an amazing boost the Lord
gave his disciples as he sent them forth to preach the gospel.
What amazing assurances and comforts he has left to his whole church
today. Whether it is a preacher or a
hearer, we may be confident in this. All power is in Christ's
hand and he is bringing all things to pass, ordered and sure. in his church according to his
own good pleasure and for the love of his church and for the
love of his people. Our little congregation has many
needs and many challenges, some we've been hearing about over
the past couple of days. May the Lord give us faith to
believe all he has said concerning his power. And may he give us
grace to stir up that confidence that our burdens might be lightened
and our passage through this evil world sweetened as he does
so. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Thank you for listening. Amen.