Thank you, Joy. Good morning. Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 15 from your hardback hymnal. Brethren, we
have met to worship. Let's all stand together. Brethren, we have met to worship
and adore the Lord our God. Will you pray with all your power
while we try to preach the word? All is vain unless the Spirit
of the Holy One comes down. Brethren, pray and holy manna
will be showered all around. Brethren, see poor sinners round
you Slumbering on the brink of woe Death is coming, hell is
moving Can you bear to let them go? See our fathers and our mothers
and our children sinking down. Brethren, pray and holy manna
will be showered all around. ? Will you join and help us ? Moses'
sister aided him ? Will you help the trembling mourners ? Who
are struggling hard with sin ? Tell them all about the Savior
tell them that he will be found. Sisters, pray and holy manna
will be showered all around. Let us love our God supremely,
let us love each other too. Let us love and pray for sinners,
till our God makes all things new. ? Then he'll call us home
to heaven ? At his table we'll sit down ? Christ will gird himself
and serve us ? With sweet manna all around Please be seated. Good morning. Will you open your
Bibles with me to the book of Mark? Mark chapter 1. Our hope this morning is that
the Lord will rain that sweet manna we just sang about from
heaven to our souls and feed hungry sinners with his mercy
and with his grace. Trisha and I want to ask and
Lord grace you all to pray for Jennifer. Her liver cancer symptoms have
gotten worse and she's homesick today and they're going to do
a procedure on her this month and next month that they've never
tried before. And potentially the Lord could
use it to heal her. It's been an experimental treatment
for years that we knew about, but they've just recently approved
it by the FDA, and we're hopeful. So please pray with us for Jennifer,
as the Lord enables you. All right? Joy, thank you for
playing this morning, wherever you went. There you are. Delfus,
good to have you here. I told Delphus this morning,
I said, well, soon you guys will be true snowbirds like Cyril
and Anor who are here today for the winter. So we look forward
to that. Let's ask the Lord's blessings.
Our merciful heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. knowing that you are pleased
with him, knowing that he has authority and access and that
all the hope of our salvation and the hope of us having your
ear and your heart is bound up in his glorious person and in
his accomplished work. And so we pray that for his namesake,
that you'd be pleased to bless us this morning. We pray that
you would send your Holy Spirit in power. We pray that you would
open your word, open our hearts, speak to us of your mercy and
of your grace. Lord, we come before you with
no hope of righteousness in ourselves. And we thank you that we have
an advocate Jesus Christ the righteous one Father we do pray for your mercy
on Jennifer Pray that you'd be pleased to
place your hand of healing upon her and we pray that you would
use this medical procedure to that end pray for the doctors
and ask Lord that you'd give them a extraordinary wisdom,
knowledge and understanding. We know that you are the great
physician and that all healing comes from you. Lord, we pray
that you would give us the desires of our hearts in this regard. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. I want to encourage you If you
haven't already done so, to read through the book of Mark, 16
very short chapters, and just read through it without stopping
and get a tenor of the theme of this book. The one thing that
will stand out to you is the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. His authority over all men, His
authority over sickness, His authority over devils. He just
is revealed as the omnipotent God of glory that exercises His
sovereign authority over everything. And if He's given you grace to
bow to Him, you'll find great comfort in knowing that he reigns
sovereign. You'll also notice that one of
the themes of the book of Mark is our Lord's popularity with
sinners. over and over again in the book
of Mark, the Lord has to withdraw himself from the masses because
they're so persistent. And everywhere he goes, the people
hear of his grace and of his healing powers and of his mercy
towards sinners and they throng him. And that's a clear theme in this
book. And thirdly, one of the other
themes in this book is the hatred that the religious establishment
had for our Lord and how threatened they were by Him. Well, you know,
nothing's changed. Our Lord's authority is the same
now as it was 2,000 years ago. His power was without limit.
Sinners still throng to him. They flee to him. They run to
him. And he is and his people are still hated by the religious
establishment because the gospel of his free grace in his finished
work threatens them. It threatens them of their salvation. And it strips them of all their
hope. So that which is a saver of life to us is a saver of death
to them. And I pray that the Lord will
be pleased to make himself life to us. We'll begin in verse 12
and we'll see that the Lord has authority first in this passage
of scripture over Demons and over Satan. This word authority, it means
power. Men pride themselves and deceive
themselves in thinking that they have power over their choices. But that's really what the meaning
of this word here is, that he has power and authority over
choice. He does whatsoever he wills,
and whatever he does is right. We have no power in that regard. We have no authority over our
will. We are subject to him. And we
look to Him for all power and for all strength. The Lord said
in Matthew chapter 28, all authority, all power has been given unto
me in heaven and in earth. Therefore, you go and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. and teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I've commanded you and lo, I am with you always."
Always. What hope. Notice in verse 22, we're going
to begin in verse 12 but I want you to skip down with me in verse
22 because this verse summarizes the theme of the book of Mark
and they were astonished at his doctrine for he taught them as
one that had authority and not as the scribes. Now a scribe
is a lawyer and the scene here is the lawyer that's presenting
his case but the lawyer has no authority. The judge has all
the authority and once he drops his gavel and declares his judgment
then all is settled. and all arguments are over, and
there's no recourse. And so that's what they're saying.
That's what the Lord's saying here. He spoke to them as one
having authority, not as the scribes who presented their arguments
and their cases, but as one who had the final say-so, the final
word. We worship a God who has authority. Turn over with me to Mark chapter
11, I'll show you another verse that summarizes this book. Verse 28, and say unto them, by what authority
dost thou these things? And who gave thee this authority
to do these things? Now that was there, that was
the religious establishment. By what authority do you do these
things? And who gave you that authority?
And that's the instance where the Lord answered their question
with a question. He said, I'll answer that question
if you'll answer one of my questions. Was John? Speaking of John the
Baptist, was he of God or was he of man? And they consorted
among themselves and they knew that if they said he was of God,
then why didn't you believe him? And if they said he was of man,
then the people would hate them because
the people knew that he was of God. And so they refused to answer
the Lord. They said, well, we don't know.
And the Lord said, well, I'm not gonna tell you the answer
to your question either then. We know where he gets his authority.
John chapter 17, verse two, that God has given him power over
all flesh. He has power. There's power in
your life, power in my life, power in our circumstances, power
to save. Power over the events of this
world. We worship a God who has all
authority. He has power of rule, power of
judicial decision. He is the King of all Kings and
Lord of all Lords. He reigns sovereign and he hath
done whatsoever he wills. So the question that you and
I have to ask, does that comfort us? Do we bow to him? Or is there a spirit of rebellion
against his authority? Faith just bows to Christ. That's what it does. Just bows
to him. All right, go back with me to
chapter 1, verse 12. And immediately the spirit driveth
him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness
40 days, tempted of Satan, and was with the wild beast and the
angels ministered unto him. Now Mark is an abbreviated gospel
account. He doesn't give the details that
some of the other gospel writers give. That's all he tells us
about the temptations of Christ in the wilderness. We know from
the other gospel writers that there were three temptations,
that Satan tempted him to turn stones into bread to satisfy
his hunger, his flesh, and the Lord responded with the word
of God, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. and then Satan took him
up on the pinnacle of the temple and uh... promised to uh... and and challenged him to jump
off the temple quoting misquoting a verse from the Psalms that
said that he would not bash his foot against the stone and so
Satan said jump off the temple and uh... right there below the
temple wall was the marketplace we saw that uh... Was that Wednesday
night? Yes, Wednesday night from Psalm
3, the Kidron Valley where the Lord went through weeping and
went up on the Mount of Olives and that's where the market was
and all the people were gathered there. And so Satan said, cast
yourself off and the angels will catch you before you hit the
ground and you'll not dash your foot against a stone. And the
Lord responded by saying, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God. What was that temptation for?
The first one was for pleasure. The second one was for popularity. And the third one, he took him
up on the mountaintop and offered to give him all the nations of
the world if he would bow down and worship him. What was that
temptation? It was for power. You think about
every temptation of sin that you and I deal with, and it has
to do with one of those three things. Every marketing campaign, every
advertisement that you see is an appeal to pleasure, popularity,
or power. It's an appeal to one of those
three things. I was talking to a professor
at UCF who teaches marketing and I mentioned that to her and
she said, I never thought about it like that before. That's right.
She said, that's true. That's what men are drawn to,
aren't they? That's the means by which, and
it goes all the way back to the garden. When Satan saw the fruit
that it was good to the taste, that's pleasure, pleasing to
the eye, that's popularity, and able to make one wise, that's
power. And John put it this way in 1 John, he said, all that
is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life. That's where we're vulnerable,
isn't it? Everyone is vulnerable. We're
vulnerable to pleasure. We're vulnerable to the opinions
of men. And we're vulnerable to wanting
to have power over our circumstances. And Satan knows that we have
chinks in our armor in all three of those places. And that's where
he fires his fiery darts every time, doesn't he? The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one. When he took him up on the mountain
he said, you worship the Lord thy God and him only shall thy
serve. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only man who ever resisted all the temptations of the devil.
Why? Because he has authority over
the devil. Don't think for a moment that
God and the devil are somehow in competition with one another.
Don't think that. He has power over us, Satan does. The devils do, we're constantly,
he's called the accuser of the brethren. What does he accuse
us of? He accuses us of not being righteous
and not being saved and he uses the law to accuse us of that,
doesn't he? And Peter put it like this, he
said that Michael, the archangel, would not contend with the devil
over the body of Moses, but said unto him, The Lord rebuke you. Now what is the body of Moses?
We're not talking about the physical body of Moses, although that
was something that God buried himself, but the body of Moses
is the law. It's the law. Satan is constantly
using the law to accuse us, isn't he? The Lord Jesus Christ is
the only one that kept God's law. He kept it perfectly. He resisted Satan at every turn. Well, the devil is his devil. He can only do what the Lord
allows him to do. Notice, go down with me to chapter
1 verse 23. And there was in the synagogue
a man with an unclean spirit and he cried out, saying, Let
us alone. What have we to do with thee,
thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the
Holy One of God." Now, turn over with me to chapter 5, chapter
5, and look at verse 6. This is the event where the Lord
went over to the Gadarenes, and there was a man chained to the
tombs in the Gadarene, a wild man possessed with devils. And
when he saw Jesus, verse 6, afar off, he ran and worshipped Him
and cried with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with
Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of the Most High God? I endure Thee
by God, adjure Thee by God, that Thou torment me not. And here's
the devils begging the Lord not to torment them. He has authority over devils.
He has authority over Satan. We don't, except in Him. In Him we do. He destroyed the works of the
devil. He set captivity free. He went into the very, what did
He say to the disciples? He said, whom do you say that
I am? Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona. Flesh and
blood did not reveal this unto you, but my Father, which is
in heaven, He made it known unto you. And upon this rock, the
declaration you just made, that I am the Son of God, I have all
authority and all power. I'm gonna build my church. I'm
gonna build my church. And the gates of hell shall not
be able to prevail against it. The gospel is going to go right
into the pit of hell and pull my children out. Why? Because I've got authority over
the devils. I'm not in competition with them. They're afraid of
me. And so you say with Michael the archangel, when Satan tempts
you with the law, when he accuses you with the law, the Lord will
rebuke you. The Lord fulfilled the law on
my behalf. He satisfied God's righteousness. He's my advocate
with the father. You have no power with him. You
take it up with him. I'm not going to contend with
you, but he will. And when he does, you're going
to run with your tail tucked. You're going to run. You're going
to be just like these demons, scared of Christ, afraid of him. He has authority over the devil. Don't think that when Satan,
when Lucifer and his demons fell in heaven that somehow it was
a surprise to God and that they'd been in competition with one
another ever since. That's not the case. When God
made the angels, he made fallen angels and he made elect angels,
just like when he made man. He made those that are reprobate
and those that are elect. God knew that Satan was going
to rebel. God knew he was going to fall.
God knew he was going to take a third of the angels with him.
God made him for that purpose. So, the Lord's not competing
with the devil. He has authority over him. He
went into the wilderness and in his weakest hour, He did for
us what we've never been able to do, stand up against the devil
and defeat him. And he defeated him finally at
the cross, didn't he? So when we're having to deal
with Satan, what do we do? We flee to the only one who has
power over him. We flee to Christ, the one who
has authority over Satan. Not only did he have authority
over the devil, but look at verse 14. Now, after that John was put
in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom
of God. The Lord Jesus Christ came first
and foremost as a preacher, as a preacher. Now, I know that
preaching has fallen into, well, no one's interested in
it, are they? No one's much interested in true
gospel preaching. God's people are. But what's
happened in religion is pop psychology, entertainment, doctrine and theological
debates, men doing all sorts of foolish things in the pulpit
calling it preaching. The Lord Jesus Christ came preaching
the kingdom of God, the rule and reign, the authority of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And God's elect gladly bow. They gladly bow to Him. I can't
tell you how many times people say to me over the years, well,
don't preach to me. Don't preach to me. I want somebody to preach
to me. What is preaching? Preaching
is thus saith the Lord. That's it. All our authority
in preaching comes from the Word of God. If we're not preaching
what God has said, then we're not preaching. And that's why
we just go right to the Word of God. What does God say about
it? And God's people want to know
what God says. Don't give me your opinion, preacher.
And I'd say this as clearly as I know how to say it. If I say
something that's not true to the scripture, you don't believe
it. All the Lord Jesus Christ had
to do was open his mouth. Everything he spoke was the word
of God because he is the word of God. He has all authority
in preaching. What he says, what they say when
they came back after trying to arrest him, never man spake like
this man before. We couldn't take him. He didn't
preach like the scribes. He didn't give us his opinion.
And what did he say? You have heard it said of old
that thou shalt not, but I say unto you, I'm going to speak
to you with authority. The only authority that a gospel
preacher has, the only authority I have, is the authority of God's
Word. But what authority that has in
the hearts of God's people. They delight in bowing to what
God says. We're not exercising man's authority. We're preaching the Word. We're doing what Paul told Timothy
in 2 Timothy chapter 4 when he said, Timothy, preach the Word. Preach the word in season and
out of season, when it's convenient, when it's not convenient. For
the time will come when men will not endure sound doctrine. They're not going to want to
hear what God has to say. They're going to want to have
their ears tickled. Remember He said that they will
gather to themselves teachers having itching ears. They'll
want to be entertained. that want to be told how wonderful
they are and how good they are. They won't want to hear what
God says. The Lord Jesus Christ came declaring what God says. The last part of that verse,
that passage in 2 Timothy chapter 4 says, and they shall turn their
ears from the truth. They don't want to hear the truth. May God give us grace to just
declare simply and clearly what God has said. No ifs, ands, or
buts about it. No, the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help us God. Christ came preaching the gospel
of the kingdom of God and saying, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom
of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel.
Now, you remember what the word repent is? The word repent means
change your mind. Have a changed mind about how
it is that God is pleased to save sinners. That's what repentance
is. How is God pleased to save sinners?
How is he pleased to remit our sin through the sacrifice of
his own dear son by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ?
It's the only means by which our sins can be forgiven. What
does the law say? Do this and you shall live. What
does religion say? If you'll do this and not do
that, then you'll have favor with God. And the Lord Jesus
Christ said, repent of that. Don't think that way. It's not
true. Believe the gospel. The gospel is good news because
it's all finished. It's accomplished. The Lord Jesus
Christ fulfilled the law. He put away sin all by Himself. It's done. God's people rest
in Christ and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the
message that Christ came preaching. He has all authority to do it.
He had authority over the devils. He had authority over the gospel
and over preaching. Look at verse 16. verses 16 through
20, he has the authority to call. He said, you did not choose me,
I chose you. I'm the one that's got the authority. See, men pride themselves in
thinking, well, I can choose God when I'm ready to choose
God. No, you can't. He's the one that's got the authority
to do the choosing. And here it is, look at verse
16. Now, as he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon
and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they
were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come
ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.
And straightway, he didn't interview them, and they didn't interview
him. They didn't say, well, where
are we going? What are we going to do? What's it going to cost
me? No, he spoke with authority. He said, you follow me and I'm
going to make you fishers of men. These were successful businessmen. They had servants helping them.
And they walked away from everything. The call, his authority hasn't
changed, has it? When David fetched Mephibosheth
out of Lodabar, Mephibosheth didn't say, well, I'll think
about it when I'm ready. No, no, he picked that cripple
up and he carried him all the way back to Jerusalem and put
him before the king, didn't he? It's fetching grace, irresistible
grace. When God's pleased to call, God's
people just come. They don't ask any questions.
They don't want to debate it. They hear his voice and they
follow him. They just bow to His authority. It's all about
His authority. Look what He says in verse 18,
straightway they forsook their nets and followed Him. And by
the way, you remember after the resurrection Peter had denied
the Lord and when the Lord went and met with Peter, went back
to his fishing nets. He went back to his fishing nets
because he thought, you know, it's over for me. God will never
be able to use me after what I did. And the Lord went to Peter
and what did he say to him? Peter, lovest thou me more than
these? He wasn't talking about the other disciples that were
with him. Do you love me more than the other disciples? Do
you love me more than this fishing profession, this job? You see,
in other words, are you gonna trust me to provide for you or
are you gonna trust your work? Straightway they forsook their
nets and followed him. And when he had gone a little
further thence he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother
who also were in a ship mending their nets. And straightway he
called them and they left their father Zebedee and the ship with
hired servants and went after him." Now there's the irresistible
call. When God calls you don't debate
Him. You don't think, well, you know, I've got to go bury my
father or I've got to go, you know, tend to this property or
I've got to do this or do that. When God calls, you just come.
You just come. Because He calls with authority.
He doesn't say, well, you know, you need to think about coming
after me. No, He puts His finger in your heart and He says, you
come. I've got all authority, all power, I'm your only hope for life.
You come and follow me. Authority to call. John 17, 2,
thou hast given him power, authority over all flesh to give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given him. And finally, number 4. He had
authority over Satan, he had authority over preaching, has
authority in preaching, he has authority to call. And all these
authorities are still, they're just as true now as they were
then. Finally, notice in verse 21,
and they went into Capernaum and straightway on the Sabbath
day he entered into the synagogue and taught and they were astonished
at his doctrine for he taught them as one who had authority
and not as the scribes. He has authority in public worship. When the Lord Jesus Christ is
pleased to exercise his authority in public worship, all our thoughts
are on him, aren't they? And we just, we're here to worship
him. I have set my King upon my holy
hill of Zion, kiss the sun. That's what worship is. Worship
is kissing the sun. And what did Cornelius say to
Peter? What Cornelius say? Peter showed up, we are all here
to hear. Whatever the Lord has commanded
you, tell us what God says. He went into the synagogue and
he took authority over their worship. Might he be pleased
to do that for us? All right, let's take a break. Thank you.