Amen. Turn with me, if you would,
to Mark 16. Mark 16. The Lord willing, we're
going to finish the book of Mark this morning. We started this
book in May of 2015, and this has been a wonderful book. I've
enjoyed every minute of it. We're going to take both the
Bible study and the morning message to finish this. We're going to
look at Mark 16 here in both of them, but we're going to go
out of order. In verse 9 through verse 15, our Lord gives a warning and
then He gives an exhortation, and I want to look at that during
the message. For the Bible study, I want to look at two things
specifically that He said from verse 16 to the end of the chapter,
two statements he made. And these two statements are
incredibly misunderstood. There are some scriptures in
this text I've thought about doing a Bible study before on
verses that are misunderstood. Well, here's two of them. These two statements our Lord
made are so misunderstood by the masses of religion. And I
pray the Lord would let us see the truth. I pray he would really
convince us that we see the truth on this. Now, our Lord said to
his disciples in verse 15, he said unto them, go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And I want
to look at that in the message. Right after that he said, he
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth
not shall be damned. Now this is the first misunderstood
statement. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. True belief is inside a person. True belief is inside a person. And I thought of different illustrations
and I decided I'm not going to give them. But I have two kids
who believe in things or don't believe in things that we all
either believed in or came to a point where we no longer believed
in them. Like the tooth fairy. I got one who believes with confidence. I'm going to put my tooth under
that pillow to the point where she was afraid. She wanted to
put it under our pillow. She didn't want the tooth fairy
coming into her room, but she wanted to reach her hand up under
that pillow in the morning and get that money. You understand
what I'm saying? Belief is inside a person. If
it's true belief, it's inside the whole person. It's in the
mind. Your rationale, this makes sense
to me. It's in your heart. It comes
out of your mouth because out of the heart the mouth speaks.
It's in the action. Right? You take that tooth and
you put it under that pillow. Isn't that right? True belief.
And the fact of the matter is we believe God. I mean, when you want to get
to the end of the whole matter, God's people believe God. We don't question him. We don't doubt him. I'm not talking about in the
weakness of our flesh. I'm not talking about in the
sinfulness of our flesh. I'm talking about when you get
down to the absolute core of our hope, when God's Spirit enables
that new man to rise up and you talk about the doctrine. This
word talks about the doctrine of Christ. You talk about the
entire word of Christ. You talk about the work of Christ
in that new man, creating that new man. The true child of God
believes God. That's the difference. Really, wherein do we differ?
We believe God. That's the difference. We believe
God. Our Lord said at the end of verse
16, he that believeth not is going to die in his sins. He's
going to be damned. We believe that, don't we? We
believe that whoever come the end, when they leave this earth,
if they leave this earth, having never in complete inside mind,
heart, mouth action, if they don't believe God, they're going
to die in their sins. We believe it. This scripture says, Abraham
believed God. It was counted unto him for righteousness.
He believed God. You may remember we were going
through Acts at the end of the book. In Acts 27, they put the
Apostle Paul on a ship. He was a prisoner and they were
ultimately getting him to Rome. And they put him in a ship that
was sailing to Italy and a great storm came. It was called a Heraclodon,
this huge storm. And the ship was sitting so low
in the ocean, the waves were sinking the ship. So they started
throwing out everything they could throw out to try to lighten
the ship, raise it up in the ocean so the waves wouldn't.
And during the midst of all this, the Lord physically spoke to
the Apostle Paul and he said, not one life on this ship is
gonna be lost. Paul stood up in the midst of
276 men on that ship and he said, sirs, I believe God. God just said to me, nobody's
gonna die. And he said, I believe God. I
believe God. I believe what God has said.
That's what every single child of God says. I believe what God
has said. This is what He has said. Turn with me over to Ephesians
chapter 2. Ephesians 2 verse 8 says, For
by grace are you saved through faith, through believing God. By grace are you saved through
believing God. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Isn't that what our Lord said?
He that believeth not shall be damned. For by grace are you
saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God. Believing God is the gift of
God. Isn't that right? We can't take
credit for believing God. We cannot take credit, and we
don't. We believe God, but we don't take credit for it, do
we? Faith, the ability to believe God is not something that's natural
to us. It's not of ourselves. It's not
something that we can produce on our own. The only way we can
have it is if God gives it to us. It's a gift of God. Galatians 2 says it's the faith
of Christ. What that means is it's natural
to him. It's not natural to us, but it's
natural to him. It's of him. It's something he
produces. It's something he gets credit
for. Philippians 2 says he's the one
who works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. He works that will in us toward
him. Hebrews 12 says he's the author
of our faith. He's the finisher of our faith.
It's not of ourselves. It's the gift of God, right?
We believe that. We believe that. That's what
God said and we believe God. God said it's not of yourself
to believe me. And we believe that. All right.
Now look with me back at Mark 16. Verse 16 says he that believeth
and is baptized. He that believeth and is baptized. Now, can you think of one reason? One, just one reason why you
would not want to confess your love to the Lord Jesus Christ.
One reason. I can't think of one reason why
I would not want to confess my love to my wife, much less the
God who saved me, right? He redeemed me from eternal destruction,
gave his life, shed his blood, He did all that to show kindness
and mercy to me. I truly do want to confess him
every day. Every day in whatever way he
would enable me to. He said, we do that through believers
baptism. That's what he said in this word.
But there's a truth we must understand. I think a lot about baptism.
I think a lot about it. It's so confusing to people.
It's so confusing. It brings such turmoil. Wouldn't it be easier to just
get rid of it? Wouldn't that be easier? Every time an issue
comes up, and it's always going to be this way, there are going
to be people who are wondering and struggling and trying to
decide, wouldn't it be easier if we just got rid of it? No. Because then we would have
the guilt that we've taken away something God commanded us to
do. Isn't that right? But there's a truth in baptism
we need to understand. Go with me to Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1 verse 7. This is talking about John the
Baptist. It says, he preached saying,
there cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose
shoes I'm not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have
baptized you with water. And I can say the same thing
to some of you. Yeah, I indeed have baptized you with water. But he went on to say, he shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost. Every believer, when the Holy
Ghost comes, he brings faith to believe God. That is the baptism
of the Holy Ghost. Every believer is baptized. Every believer, whether they
ever make it in tap water or not. That thief on the cross
didn't make it in. Every believer is baptized by
God's Holy Spirit. Baptism is not of me. It's not of Gabe Stoniker. I
want to come to you because I'd like to be baptized. Okay, but
first we need to understand baptism is not of me. It's of God. It's of God. The baptism is a
work performed by God's Holy Ghost. It doesn't have anything
to do with us. It's not a decision we decide to to do. The reason
the word baptism is used is because the word means immersion. That's
what the word means, immersion. Salvation is only found in Christ. I think this is really important.
Salvation is only found in Christ. And maybe the Lord will let us
enter into what this is saying. Salvation is only found in Christ. You know how we stand up and
say, come to Christ? Salvation is only found in Christ. All
of the blessings of God are in Christ. Forgiveness and remission
of sin is in the blood of Jesus Christ. Now, how does a person
get in Christ? I remember asking that question
when I was a young child. I used to hear my father and
other men stand up and say, you must be in Christ. And I remember as a child thinking,
what does that mean? How does a person get in Christ? How does a person get in Christ?
Is that a figure of speech? No. Salvation is only found in
Christ. You must be in Christ. How does
a person get in Christ? The Apostle Paul wrote, of God
are you in Christ? That's the answer. When it comes
to salvation, should I get baptized or not? You can just stop all
that. Should I, you know, obey God and believe God and confess
Him? Yeah, yeah. Do I love that woman
that sits right there? Should I confess her in marriage?
Yes, I should. Yes, I should. That's the answer
to the question. But of God are we baptized into
Christ? God's Holy Spirit lays hold of
each child when they're dead in sin, before they ever know
anything about any of this. This all happens before, and
if I don't stop right now, I'm going to preach the next message.
But God's Holy Spirit lays hold of his child and immerses him. He lays hold of that child and
he, life, if you want to be saved, if you want to be given life,
you have to be baptized. That's all there is to it. God's
Holy Spirit has to come to you, He has to lay hold of you, and
He has to shove you inside Christ. You have to be baptized. That's
all there is to it. You cannot be saved unless you're
baptized. What's baptism? It's not that
water. It's the work of God's Holy Ghost,
of God. Are you baptized? All right. And here's what I
do want to say to anybody who really is struggling with this
thing of baptism. And I want to say this forever.
We're going to have people come in here and wonder about this.
If we believe that a preacher and some tap water is God Almighty's
eternal, holy baptism that remits a lifetime of sin, I think we've
missed it. I think we missed it. And again, do we throw it out?
No. I don't want to throw it out.
Every time we have a wedding here, I love it. I get the warm
and fuzzies. I just do. I like love. I just like that kind of thing.
And every time we have this, I love it. I love it. It's not,
I just love it. And we don't throw it out. And
we believe Him and we confess Him. But here's what the truth
of the text is saying. Go back to Mark 16. Mark 16 verse
16. He said in verse 15, you go preach
the gospel to every creature. And then verse 16, he that believeth. And if we understand the truth
of that word, we have to understand that it's he that has received
the gift of God. He that has received the gift
of God and is baptized. He that has received the work
of God shall be saved. What he's saying is salvations
of the Lord. He that has received the gift of God and he that has
received the work of God shall be saved. But he that has not
received this gift of mercy shall be damned. This is all in God's
hands. It's all of God. He said, you
go everywhere and you preach the gospel. You preach the sovereignty
of God. And he said, I'll make it evident
who I've given this gift to and who I've done this work in. They'll
believe it. They'll confess Christ. He saved me. All right, now here's
the second statement he made that is terribly misunderstood.
This one is not going to take as long. It won't take as much
explanation. Verse 17, he said, In these signs
shall follow them that believe. In my name, they shall 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. People have made entire religions
out of believing that they can perform these miracles. They've
made entire religions out of them. Believing that performing
these signs are the evidence that they're the children of
God. You can't be the child of God unless you can do these miracles. Lay hands on people. That's not
at all what our Lord is saying right here. Not at all. When
he says, these signs shall follow them that believe, he is not
saying those who believe will be able to perform these signs. What he's saying is this, these
signs shall follow them that believe. All right, now here's the key
to the whole thing. The word follow means, if you go look
it up in the concordance, the word follow means to follow up
a thing in the mind so as to attain the knowledge of it. To
understand. to follow a matter up, to trace
its course, to examine thoroughly, to investigate, to fully know,
to have an understanding of. He's talking to his apostles
right here, isn't he? Twelve apostles. He did give,
we could try to explain these away, but he did give these miracles
to his apostles. They performed every single one
of these. They could do it, they could transfer it, and then that
was it. That was it, it's over. He said,
I'm giving you these signs to confirm the word. Those were true miracles, and
they did confirm the word of the apostles, because here's
what we have to understand. The apostles traveled around
and talked to people, just like I'm talking to you. And as they
talked, the word of God was being written. I mean, physically,
when Peter answered a question, we now hold it as God's holy
everlasting word. Isn't that right? I mean, they
had the Old Testament, but they were going around speaking the
New Testament. And he said, I'm going to confirm the word of
you apostles. They're going to know this is
God's word. They laid sick people out in
the street. Peter, just passing by, just the shadow of Peter
healed the sick people. Paul raised a man from the dead.
Can you imagine how he preached a long time, that man was sitting
in the window, fell down, he died. Paul went and brought him
back to life, brought him back up to the room. Can you imagine
how everybody started listening a little harder after that? Maybe
we didn't, I think this is the word of God. Peter physically
walked on water. I was thinking about this this
week and I'm so glad God gave these miracles to me. I think about them. I do. I think about these. These miracles
that I can't do them, but they confirm this word in my heart.
They do. I don't believe that I'm seeking
a sign. Nicodemus said, he went up to the Lord and he said, no
man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with
him. Isn't that right? No man can do that except God
is with him. And I think about these miracles that he gave them
to confirm their word and they follow me. I dwell on them. And we all do. I know we all
do. And I believe God has given us
some understanding, a small understanding of the fact that they all point
us to Christ. Isn't that right? We'll follow them up. We'll search
to understand them, search to know them. And all those apostles,
that's what they said in doing them. They came to the apostles
and they said, by what name are you doing this? And they said,
be it known unto you all by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. This
is how we're doing this. We're doing this through him.
We're doing this because of him. He's doing this in us. So here's the point. We're never
going to have to bring rattlesnakes into this building. Never. Not
to prove that we follow God. We're never going to have to
drink poison. We're never going to have to
start laying hands on each other and talking gibberish to each
other. We just don't have to do that. That's not what our Lord
was saying. These signs were given. They
did indeed confirm the word. And now they follow every child
of God to bring that understanding, that All power is in His hands. This spiritual salvation, just
look at the physical. All power is in His hands. So
verse 19, So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, He was
received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.
And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working
with them. in confirming the word with signs
following. Amen. And I love how all the
Gospels end with amen. Most of the epistles end with
amen. So be it. I believe this. I believe
it. I confess it. And by God's grace,
that's what we'll do. I hope we do it in just a minute.
You're dismissed.