Son of God. And John comes as
the messenger who is sent before the Lord. He's a voice. He cries
out and he comes baptizing in the wilderness, preaching a baptism.
And as we've seen before, it's an immersion in repentance. Repentance is something that
we begin with and something that's an ongoing activity. And it's
a repentance for the remission of sins. So John's baptism is
a picture of what believers will do in the person and of their
substitute. And Jesus' baptism to fulfill
all righteousness is symbolic of his death, his burial and
his resurrection. And so believers say with Paul,
in Galatians, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live,
but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I
live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me. So that's why we're a Baptist
church, even though we don't have that name officially, because
Believer's Baptism is a declaration of the Gospel. So John's message
prepares the way for the one who will come after him, the
one who will baptise with the Holy Spirit, and at the Lord's
Baptism, heaven is opened and the Father says, You are my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased. And then a few weeks ago we saw
that the Lord was sent by the Spirit into the desert where
he was weakened in his body and suffered enormous temptations
from Satan and triumphed. But in Mark now we come to verse
14 and it says, Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came
to Galilee. The persecution of God's children
does not stop or hinder the work of the gospel. In fact, it always
furthers the work of the gospel. And he was preaching the gospel,
and it's the gospel that comes from God. Paul describes the
gospel he proclaimed as not coming from man, nor was he taught it,
but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. and when it
pleased God to reveal His Son in Paul, that He might preach
Him among the Gentiles. So now the Lord Jesus, having
bound the strong man, He can come and take all of his from
Satan's house. And the next verse gives us the
gospel as first mentioned from our Saviour's lips. And it's
really worth studying these words carefully. The time is fulfilled. the time. As we have so often
said, all the events that ever happen occur with absolute, exactly
according to God's perfect timing, as ordered from before the foundation
of the world. Everything that ever has happened
and ever will happen is exactly planned and purposed and designed
for the glory of God and the good of His children, without
any exceptions ever. As David said at the end of his
life, God has made with me an eternal covenant, ordered and
secure in every detail." So now the Lord Jesus begins speaking
in Mark by declaring that the time of His ministry has come.
The time is fulfilled. The time is caused to happen
with the implication of fulfilling some purpose. So this has been
caused to happen, it's been made happen, it's been fulfilled. So these are not random events. This is the beginning of the
culmination of all that the Old Testament prophets eagerly looked
and longed for. As Peter says, as to this salvation
the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to
you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what
person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating
as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to
follow. It was revealed to them that
they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which
have now been announced to you through those who preached the
gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven." These are
things that angels long to look into. And so there is a time
that's fulfilled. Then the Lord Jesus says, the
kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is that spiritual
kingdom, which is the church of God, the kingdom in which
God rules by his son through his word. And the best way I
come to understand what kingdom means, it means the king's dominion. the dominion in this world of
the King, of God Almighty, and He reigns through and by His
dear Son. In Daniel 7 we have just a wonderful
description, and I'll read it to you. In Daniel 7, verse 13,
I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of
heaven, one like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to
the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him, and to Him was given
dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and
men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting
dominion which will not pass away, and His kingdom is one
which will not be destroyed. Men think that they govern and
rule their own lives, and some think that they govern and rule
the lives of others. But Isaiah says of them in the
passage that we are taken to at the beginning of Mark, a voice
will cry out in verse 6, All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness
is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flower
fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely
the people are grass, the grass withers and the flower fades.
But, and it's a wonderful but, the Word of our God stands forever. For God is the King and He rules
all things for His glory in the saving of His children. But this is not an earthly kingdom.
The kingdom is about the king ruling his creation for his church. God's kingdom is a spiritual
kingdom. It can never be understood except
through God-opened eyes. God never operates in any way
which man would think wise. Even we believers only understand
God's wisdom in hindsight. We walk by faith and not by sight. We see all His faithfulness in
the past and we look to Him in faith to do all that He has promised
into our future. So it's possible to know intellectually
all of the doctrines of grace in this book. All of the understanding
about God's infinite eternality, about God's absolute sovereignty,
about the Lord Jesus coming particularly for His people, about perseverance
of the saints, about heaven, about hell, it's possible to
know all of those things and not have a clue about who God
is. Just ask Nicodemus. God's kingdom
is a spiritual kingdom. It's seen through spiritual eyes.
And this kingdom now is at hand. This means that it's drawn near,
it's come near, and it's approached. The kingdom in the person of
the Lord Jesus has come and approached. When Solomon dedicated the temple,
he says, Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold the heavens
of heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple?" It
was a great question that Solomon asked. Would God dwell with sinners
like him? And the answer in the Lord Jesus
is absolutely yes. So everything in the Old Covenant
was designed to remind people of the distance between God and
sinners. Only through the Lord Jesus,
typified in the sacrifices and the priesthood, could men approach
God. But note carefully where the
initiating movement comes from. It is not man drawing near to
God, but God drawing near to man. Simon spoke to us last week
about the depth of our sin in our father Adam and the disastrous
effects. Every aspect of our being was
totally corrupted. There is absolutely nothing in
us or about us which would lead us to draw near to God. Every
fibre of our being wants God to be as far away from us as
possible. So here are eight effects of
Adam's fall on the human race, and these things are true of
all men and women by nature. Man cannot see the kingdom of
God, John 3. Man cannot understand the things
of God, 1 Corinthians 2. Man cannot do anything pleasing
to God, Romans 8, 8. Man cannot hear the word of God,
John 8. Man cannot receive the Spirit
and the truth of God, John 14, 17. Man cannot come to the Son
of God, John 6.44. Man cannot call Christ Lord. Man cannot believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, John 12. Man is held captive by Satan,
who has blinded their eyes, so they cannot see the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 4. So this total
depravity means that you cannot be saved by your free will. You
cannot be saved by your works. Total depravity means that salvation
is of the Lord entirely. If you are ever to be saved,
you must be saved by grace alone. Salvation is not determined by
you. Salvation is not dependent upon
you, even one fraction. We so often hear the cry for
human responsibility, but can you think or show me anywhere
in the Bible where God's image bearers are not responsible to
be perfectly holy, perfectly obedient in spirit and action
to every command of God? Trying hard, doing your best,
is not good enough. Without holiness, no one will
see the Lord. For those who would mistakenly
lead people back to the law of Moses for sanctification, God's
law is holy, and only holiness is acceptable. And holiness is
an absolute. Either a person is 100% holy,
or they are 100% defiled. And so here we have in these
words one of the distinguishing marks of grace. God draws near. God comes near. God approaches
at the time of His love and moves the hearts of chosen sinners
to repentance and gives faith. John 6.44 says, No one can come
to me unless the Father draws him, and I will raise him up
at the last day. And then the Lord Jesus goes
on to say, repent and believe in the gospel. Repent and believe. In these two words are all the
differences between heaven and hell, life and death, everlasting
peace and everlasting damnation. John, full of the Holy Spirit,
proclaimed the same message as his master. John preached an
immersion. in repentance. Repentance remains
a normal part of Christian life as God works in His children
to see that in their flesh dwells no good thing. Sin stains every
activity, and mercifully we are left depending upon our Saviour
for everything. But the question must be asked,
how did people come to godly repentance? Why did these people
come to John the Baptist to be baptized? Why did John refuse
to baptize the Pharisees who came to him? This answer is made
more difficult when we remember Romans 3, 10-18. As it is written, there is none
righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God.
All have turned aside. Together they have become useless.
There is none who does good. there is not even one. Their
throats are an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their
lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in
their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There
is no fear of God before their eyes." Again, how do people come? Romans 9.16 makes it even more
difficult. It is not of him who wills, nor
of him who runs. And John 13 talks about the children
of God. They are born not of blood, nor
of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man. To make matters
even worse, Romans 7 clearly states that if this is a command,
then our flesh will rise up And as Paul said, sin taking occasion
through the commandment deceived me and it killed me. Because
I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing I do not
understand. For what I will to do, that I
do not practice. But what I hate, that I do. So how then do people come to
repent and be immersed in repentance? The answer is beautiful and comforting,
and as with all biblical truth, it exalts our sovereign God.
The kingdom of God is the answer, and it draws near in the Lord
Jesus. Psalm 65, 4 is wonderful. Blessed is the man you choose
and cause to approach you, that he may dwell in your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, of your
holy temple. Here is the simple scriptural
answer to all these questions. When Christ commands a sinner
to do, He is not waiting on a sinner to find strength, or the will
to do the impossible. He is performing a powerful miracle
of grace. The truth of this is plain when
any converted sinner remembers his own conversion. In 2 Corinthians
4, for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness
has shined in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So when Christ
in the beginning said, let there be light, and there was light,
there never had been light before, and there never would have been
light without his word. So many are called by the outward
means of gospel preaching, but the few are chosen, Matthew 22,
14. and they are saved by power. As 1 Peter 3.18 says, For Christ
suffered once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he
might bring us to God. That he might bring us to God.
This is the answer and the heart of the gospel. I will have mercy,
said God. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,
and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Hebrews
8.12. As Jesus says so wonderfully
in John's Gospel, My words are spirit and life. It is the spirit
who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The
words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. So when God speaks, things happen. So let's just look at a few verses
of scripture that just reinforce the fact that repentance is a
gift from God. In Acts 5.31, he is the one whom
God exalted to his right hand as a prince and savior to grant
repentance to Israel. As for the Gentiles in Acts 11, When they heard this, they quieted
down in verse 18 and glorified God, saying, Well, then God has
granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to
life. Romans 2.4, Or do you think lightly
of the riches of his kindness and tolerance and patience, not
knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? in 2nd Timothy 2.25 when Paul
is dealing with the problem of the false teachers in Ephesus,
he talks about with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition,
if perhaps God may grant them, may grant them repentance, leading
to the knowledge of the truth. Romans 11 29 is a wonderful verse
that says for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable and this
is not just a New Testament pattern in Jeremiah 31 and He says, I
have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, thou hast chastened
me and I was chastised as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. He
says, turn me and I shall be turned for thou art the Lord
my God. In a similar way with faith,
we know those famous verses in Ephesians, is for by grace you
have been saved, have been saved through faith, and that's not
of yourselves, it's the gift of God. In Ephesians, the prayer
at the beginning of Ephesians, he says, and what is the immeasurable
greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the
working of his great might. in Philippians 1 29 it has been
granted to you that you for the sake of Christ that you should
not only believe in him but also supper for his sake no wonder
the Apostle says thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift
So if you think faith and repentance are acts of the exercise of your
will rather than grace, gifts of God, I pray that the Lord
would lead you into the truth, for he will not share his glory
with another. Psalm 21, he says, that his glory
is great in thy salvation, honour and majesty thou hast laid upon
him. So you must repent. And you must
believe. This is the foundation of our
Lord's ministry, and so of ours. If God has granted you repentance
and faith, then He has promised to complete the work He has begun. If you know in your heart that
you haven't, I beg of you to seek the only One who can give
you these gifts. Cast yourself upon His grace
and mercy, and never give up, pleading with Him. Like Jacob,
don't let Him go until He has blessed you. And this comes to the main point
of what I wanted to talk about this morning. It's now the gospel,
isn't it? The time is fulfilled. The kingdom
of God has drawn near. The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe in the gospel. One of the things that struck
me last week, I was with a friend of mine and he blasphemed the
Lord, and I was thinking as he blasphemed, because he used the
words Christ Almighty, and I wondered whether in his blasphemy he was
actually saying more about the Lord Jesus than many people in
professing churches these days. Christ Almighty, the gospel is
the power of God. The gospel establishes you. The gospel is eternal. And we
must never forget that this kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. We walk in the light. We are
the children who have an inheritance of the saints in the light. And
so the gospel is absolutely critical to our understanding of who God
is and to who we are in this world and how we work. And that's
why one of the reasons we have called our church Shulhaven Gospel
Church. So let's turn to Romans chapter
1 and then hold your place there and we look at 2 Timothy chapter
2. Romans 1 begins by Paul declaring
who he is and his calling as an apostle and is set apart for the gospel
of God. And as Mark says, it's the gospel
that comes from God. In verse 2 he says, "...the gospel
He promised beforehand through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures
regarding His Son, who as to His human nature was a descendant
of David, and through the Spirit of holiness was declared with
power to be the Son of God by His resurrection from the dead.
Jesus Christ our Lord." Through Him and for His namesake, we've
received grace and apostleship to call people from among the
Gentiles to the obedience of faith. 2 Timothy 2.8, Paul again
talks about his gospel and he said, Remember Jesus Christ,
raised from the dead. This is my gospel. So there is
no more critical issue in the world than to have a correct
understanding of the Gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Gospel. As the Apostle said, we proclaim
Him. It is a message from God about
His King and the work He will do for the glory of God in the
salvation of His children. It's the King's dominion in the
fullness of His time. So God so rules all things that
He works for our good despite our thoughts and actions. We
think we know what's best but God Almighty alone truly knows
and thankfully He does not leave us as orphans finding our own
way through the storms of life but He leads us. God draws near
and draws each one at the fullness of His time. The Gospel is a
declaration, a proclamation of God the Son and perfect redemption
accomplished in Him. It is finished for his bride,
for God's dearly, infinitely loved children. John preached
an immersion in repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But
how are sins forgiven? Sins can only be forgiven when
the justice of God is fully satisfied. Only the God-man can. He was
fully manned so that he could identify and be the substitute
for his bride and then die under the wrath of God. and he had
to be fully God to suffer infinitely and satisfy justice for infinitely
offensive sin. When John the Baptist preached
a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins he was proclaiming,
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And so for Jesus to be the Lord
Jesus Christ, he has to be Lord, he has to be God. As Colossians
2 says, all the fullness of God dwells in him. And you shall
call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins. And Christ, His God's anointed
King, who reigns over His people, reigns over Satan and the world,
and reigns most victoriously on the cursed tree as He dies
under the judgment of God, satisfying God's justice for His chosen
ones. And so in Romans 1 you have Paul
saying that it's written in the scriptures and now Jesus comes
and says the time is fulfilled, the scriptures are fulfilled
in his person. All the Old Testament prophecies,
all of them talk about the Lord Jesus in extraordinary ways and
they are yes and amen, yes and truly in the Lord Jesus. He is our righteousness. He is
our sanctification. He is our redemption. He is everything. We must look to Him for everything.
And the gospel in Revelation 17 is an eternal gospel. So it comes from God out of eternity. The gospel had its origins before
the foundation of the world. The events that happen in history,
as we've so often said, are the unfolding of God's eternal covenant. In Mark 1.15 we've just seen
that it's the gospel of God, it comes directly from Him. Romans
1.16, it is the power of God. Acts 20.24, it is the gospel
of grace, it is the gospel proclaimed by all the apostles. and they
spoke as one man about the gospel. It's not a mystery. It's the
gospel that chosen sinners receive in 1 Corinthians 15. It is the
gospel by which they are saved. It is the gospel that chosen
sinners believe. It's the gospel that they stand
in. It is the gospel by which they
are established, Romans 16.25. It is the gospel by which men
are judged. It is the Gospel that exposes
all false Gospels and professes a false religion. The Gospel
is not an offer. The Gospel is not an invitation. The Gospel does not ever convey
a possibility. The Gospel does not create a
potential. A king who tries to save but
can't because his love but his love has no power and a Jesus
who dies in some way for all people is not the God of this
book. As Mark will say later on, for
the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give
his life as a ransom for many. He will not fail. And almost
the culmination of Mark's Gospel is at the cross when the centurion
sees, a Gentile sees the Son of God dying. He stood in front
of him and saw how he died. He said, truly this man was God's
Son. But this gospel is the gospel
of the glory of Christ, in 2 Corinthians 4.4. And as we've seen, to be
Christ is to be the one who, as anointed by God, fulfills
absolutely everything that God prophesied and did it all on
behalf of his people. So they stand before God clothed
in a perfect righteousness. Any gospel which at any point
diminishes the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ and at any point
conveys even a hint that he has not fulfilled all the Old Testament
promises, both in the saving of his bride and in the just
condemning of those who reject him, is not the truth of the
scriptures and is offensive to his glory and entraps people
in a delusion. One of the illustrations I like
using is that We know what seesaws are like, and in Christian life
there is a seesaw. Whatever diminishes the glory
of God necessarily exalts man, and whatever exalts God diminishes
the glory of man. And as we've said so many times,
the safest and best place for all of us is in the dust at the
foot of the cross, gazing to our Saviour. So there is nowhere
where the gospel requires anything of human involvement. All we
touch is sin. All we do is sin. We are saved
and we live by grace. But also there's a seriousness
to the gospel. If it's the gospel of the glory
of God, then other gospels are serious. God says they're serious. In Galatians 1.6 Paul says, I
am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you
by the grace of God to a different gospel, which is not really another,
only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel
of Christ. But even if we or an angel from
heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have
preached to you, he is to be accursed. As we have said before,
and so I now say again, if any man is preaching to you a gospel
contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed. So why
such serious language? Either Almighty God is deadly
serious, or He is joking with men, just teasing them. The thought
is blasphemous. Nothing matters more to our God
than the death of His darling son, the object of His infinite
perfect love as we read in Mark 1 at His baptism. As the Lord
Jesus identifies with repentant sinners, and by this figure shows
what he will do, all points to his sole purpose in coming, having
established perfect holy righteousness under the law, then to go to
the cross. This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. Everything in all history centers
and is driven by what happens at the cross. His servants come
proclaiming, blood redemption accomplished. Behold the Lamb
of God who takes away the sins of the world. baptizing the brokenhearted
for the forgiveness of sins. And there is no forgiveness of
sins without the satisfaction of divine justice. Proverbs says,
He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the just, both
of them alike are an abomination to the Lord. God must deal infinitely
with sin. It must be punished infinitely
to satisfy a holy God. So any change to the gospel either
by addition or subtraction directly challenges our Saviour's glory. Our church is called Shellhaven
Gospel Church for one crucial reason, and that is that we have
not found in this district a church which preaches the gospel of
God, and if we ever do, let us, without a moment's hesitation,
join them. Our existence in this community
is a challenge to every church member we meet. What do you say
about our Saviour? What do you say about my husband? What do you say about my Redeemer? Needless controversy is an abomination
which we should all hate, but the Lord God our Father has his
heart-affection set upon his darling son. and he challenges
all humanity everywhere. What about my son? That is why the gospel is an
issue worth suffering for, worth contending for, worth dying for. May God heal our lukewarmness. People get so emotional about
every issue, but only one issue matters to God, the glory of
the Lord Jesus. Did He do what the Old Testament
promised that He would do? What do the scriptures say about
God, His gospel? May God, the Holy Spirit, teach
us here all the truth of the Gospel, that we might know that
when He said it is finished, His people have for all eternity
stood perfect in their Saviour. They have been loved infinitely
by God Almighty. And at the time of His love,
God must, in His Holy Spirit, come to His chosen sinners and
gather them to Himself. The strong man has been bound.
And now the Lord Jesus freely and openly plunders his house
and then he takes his little ones and holds them close to
his heart and leads them in paths of righteousness for his glory
and for his name. So the Lord Jesus Christ and
all the fullness of those words is the gospel. So salvation is
looking. Salvation is coming, and if you
don't know Him, then look and come. And we who believe live
on His life, looking and coming, repenting and believing His faithfulness. And His life and His death and
His resurrection and His exaltation are all ours, now and forever. The new creation and all of its
glories are going to resound with the songs of heaven at the
moment. Worthy is the Lamb. He is everything to us. And may
He work in all of our hearts that we might proclaim Him. May
He force us to proclaim Him and the wonder of His beauty and
salvation in this world. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father
in Heaven, we thank you and praise you that you have sent your Son
into this world to die the death that we needed to die, to live
the holiness that we needed. And without that holiness, we
could never see you. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
that you see us as perfect and sanctified. We praise you that
you sent a shepherd who will carry his sheep, he will protect
his sheep, and he will lead his sheep. into the new creation. Heavenly Father, we pray that
the sin-atoning sacrifice of our Saviour would be something
that we hold dear to our hearts, that we would spend as much of
our days as possible gazing at our Saviour and the wonder of
His redemption. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that You would bless us and keep us, and as a Church, You would
cause us, our Father, to proclaim His glory to this dark and dying
world. And we do commit ourselves into
your hands, Heavenly Father, trusting that you have been so
faithful in the past that we have every reason, by your grace,
to look to you for all things into the future. We thank you
that you guide and direct our footsteps, even ones that we
would not take ourselves, for you are absolutely sovereign
and you love us infinitely, our Father. And we thank you and
praise you for your dear Son. Amen.