The Lamb is indeed all the glory
of Emmanuel's land. And no greater sight or vision can
be given to a man than to behold Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
What a privilege that is. And so we're in the 16th chapter
of Mark. And when the Sabbath was passed,
Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome had
brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him. And
very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came
unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun. And they said among
themselves, who shall roll us away the stone from the door
of the sepulcher? And when they looked, they saw
that the stone was rolled away. for it was very great. And entering
into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the right
side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, be not
affrighted. Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which
was crucified. He is risen. He is not here. Behold the place where they laid
him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth
before you into Galilee. There shall ye see him, as he
said unto you. And they went out quickly and
fled from the sepulcher, for they trembled and were amazed.
Neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid. Now when Jesus was risen early
upon the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene,
out of whom he had cast seven devils. And she went and told
them that had been with him as they mourned and wept. And they,
when they had heard that he was alive and had been seen of her,
believed not. After that, he appeared in another
form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country.
And they went and told it unto the residue. Neither believed
they them. Afterward, he appeared unto the
11 as they sat at meat and upbraided them with their unbelief and
hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen
him after he was risen. And he said unto them, Go ye
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and 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. So then after that 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 and confirming the
word with signs following. Amen. There are several things
that we can see in this passage of scripture. One that I would
like to point out is, and we sang about it a moment ago, we
sang and give thy word success. Now, many people believe that
when the Lord's word has success, that that means that all that
hear it believe. But the word of God has success. It's a saver of life unto life
to some, it's a saver of death unto death to others. Because
some will believe it. by the grace of God. Some will
not. And they will manifest themselves
to be those who are not of the people of God. Now they're happy. You see, a man that doesn't believe
the gospel, he's fine with that. You don't think he's trying to
believe and he can't. Or he wants to believe but he
can't. But, or he's prevented from it, though he's satisfied. He thinks you're foolish to believe
such things as this. And so it is that the Lord records
in his word many different accounts of the things that happened during
the time of the Lord, of his sojourn here, that many look
at and say are contradictory. to one another. Now I will say
to you that there are puzzling scriptures that I don't have
explanations for. But I'm certain of one thing
and that is that there are no contradictions in the scriptures. This is the word of God and he
has sent it forth as he saw fit. It is not enhanced by men's coming
along down through the ages and trying to make it better. You
know, there are many that have thought, well, you know, we need
to change this around a little bit and make it like this or
like that. God's word is stood as he would
have it stand for ages. And so it is, it shall stand
forever. But in this passage of scripture,
there are some accounts that differ from what some of the
other writers of the same events, how they saw them and how they
recorded them. Now, I'm not gonna go into great
detail in trying to synchronize all of these happenings and whatnot,
but suffice it to say that if you look at things, from different
men's perspective as the Lord gave them sight to see these
things, and they recorded it exactly as he would. They didn't
make a mistake. Mark didn't make a mistake when
he wrote down what he wrote down, neither did Matthew, Luke, or
John. They wrote the things exactly
as God would have them to be. And, you know, there is a passage
of scripture that said God will send men strong delusion that
they might believe a lie. And so we see the hardening of
men's hearts by the delusions that the Lord is pleased to allow
them to continue on in. Just like Pharaoh hardened his
own heart, but yet the scripture plainly says that the Lord hardened
Pharaoh's heart. And so it is that men are without
excuse before God, and no man can say, well, I didn't understand
it. No, it doesn't matter whether
or not you understand it. You see, the understanding is
that which is given by God. So it doesn't matter whether
you understand something in your own understanding or not. Lean
not to your own understanding. But in all thy ways acknowledge
him, and he will direct your path. And so it is that the first
thing that a man must do in order to ever have any comprehension
of the things of the word of God is to bow down before the
one who gave it. I mean, you can't come here as
a scholar you know, as a man of great wisdom,
and say, well, I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna set it forth. And I'm gonna figure it out,
it can't be done. And the Lord has not called the
wise. In fact, the Lord Jesus said,
I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things from
the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes. And
so it is that when the Lord gives a man the gift of faith, it's
not a thing that men can rightly explain. I have no idea how it
is that one man can see these things, hear these things, and
have no concern for it at all, and another man, he just broken-hearted
in his mind, he's called in his mind and heart to cast himself
upon the Lord. I don't know why that is, except
to say that it is the gift of God. And lest any man should
boast. Because you see, if we could
figure this all out, then we could say, well, we got it down
now. We know how it is. And so it is that when we come
preaching what we See here in the pages of God's Word, we believe
it to be God's Word. And we believe that it will accomplish
the thing that He sends it to do. It will not return unto Him
void. There'll be no empty spots in
Heaven where the Lord prepared a place and somebody didn't show
up. It's not gonna be like that. He knows them that are His. And
He calls them out of the darkness into the light and He prepares
them unto that end. What a glorious privilege it
is to be so prepared by Him. Now, so the first day of the
week, the Sabbath was passed, which was what we call Saturday.
And this was Sunday morning. and Mary Magdalene, Mary the
mother of James and Salome, that's three women. Now the scripture
also records in one of the gospels that there were some other women
that went with them. Okay, so though Mark speaks about
three women, there were actually more women than that that came
there, evidently. For whatever reason, Mark wasn't
given to write that, and so it is. And they had brought sweet
spices that they might come and anoint the body. But as they
came, they said among themselves, who shall roll us away the stone
from the door? Now keep in mind that they had
heard the Lord say he was going to arise the third day. This
was the third day. But guess what? They didn't believe
him. I mean, you know, they were thinking
in their own natural thinking, well, you know, I mean, he couldn't
have meant he was gonna actually come back from the dead. I mean,
that doesn't, you know, people don't come back from the dead.
I mean, when somebody's dead, they're dead. We're gonna go
and want the body. I mean, you know, that's just what we normally
do. They went about their normal thing. If a loved one, that was
what they did. They didn't have funeral homes.
You know, they took care of the bodies of their loved ones as
they saw fit, whatever the practice was in that time. And so they
pondered in their mind, who's gonna move this stone? And lo
and behold, when they got there, the stone was rolled away. But
guess what? They still didn't believe. They
didn't think that he had risen from the dead, because, well,
they say, well, what have you done with him? See, in their
mind, somebody had come in during the night and stolen his body
away. And they saw a young man sitting
on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they
were afraid. Now, one of the other gospels
says there was two men, one on the right and one on the left.
Mark only speaks of one. That doesn't mean there was not
another one there. But the Lord saw fit to tell
Mark to talk about this one. And he saith unto them, Be not
affrighted. See, he knew what they were there
for. Guess what? Why was the stone rolled away?
The stone was not rolled away so that the Lord Jesus could
come out of it. because he came into a room where
the disciples were, and the scripture says the doors were shut. So
he certainly would have had no problem coming out of the tomb.
So why was the stone rolled away? The stone was rolled away so
the women could come in and look. Oh, what the mercy of God, but
yet they still did not believe. You seek Jesus of Nazareth. He's
not here. He's risen. He told them again. They were told again. He's risen. Go your way and tell his disciples
that he goeth before you into Galilee. There you shall see
him as he said unto you. And they went out quickly and
they trembled and were amazed. They didn't tell anybody on the
way, but when they told the disciples. Now they said somebody's taking
his body away. He's not there. I mean, they
were already given this witness. He's risen. And then one of the
other gospels says that Peter and John ran to the tomb. And Peter, he just, he went in there. John, the scripture
says, he looked and he didn't go in, he believed. Now many
have made a big deal out of that. Well, John believed that the
Lord was risen. No, John didn't believe the Lord was risen. He
just believed that the body was gone. And they went back. And they were with the disciples. And they were all saying, what
in the world is going on here? Now when Jesus was risen early
the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene,
out of whom he had cast seven devils. Again, here we have the
Lord appearing to Mary. Evidently, see, the women had
left, and it appears that Mary must have come back, and the
Lord saw fit to appear to her. What a testament of mercy that
the woman, out of whom was cast seven devils, the Lord saw fit
to appear first unto her. And she went and told them that
had been with them, and they mourned and wept. And they, when
they heard that he was alive and had been seen of her, believed
not. I mean, here she is. She said, look, I saw him. They
said, man, you, listen, you're crazy. There's no way that you
saw him. You just thought you did, you
know. There's no way it could be. They didn't believe. After
that, he appeared in another form unto two of them as they
walked and went into the country. That's given in detail in Luke's
Gospel. The two disciples on the road
to Emmaus. And they were talking among themselves.
You know, they're saying, you know, this is all real strange. I mean, this one who we thought
was gonna be the deliverer of Israel, now he's been crucified
and some say that his body had been taken away. And then the
Lord, he was walking with them all this time. And he hid where his face from
them. The scripture says their eyes
were holdin' that they could not see him. Now I don't know
that that means that they could not see him with their literal
physical eyes. I believe it means they couldn't
see him for who he was. Why? Because they didn't believe.
They didn't believe. They didn't know what had happened,
but they certainly didn't know. But the Lord appeared to them. Or the Lord revealed Himself
to them after He had gone away. And they said, did not our hearts
burn within us while He spoke to us? Because you see, when
the Lord is pleased to send His Spirit to lead men into truth,
they know the truth when they hear it. I believe this is a
true thing, is that, you know, there are many who are walking
in the place where the Lord would
have them to be at the present time, because it hadn't seemed
fit to open their understanding fully. And oftentimes, they may
be in places where we would not necessarily agree with them doctrinally. In fact, they might look at what
their leaders would say, well, these things are not true. This
is not the right way. But yet, when they hear the truth
of God, they believe it. They know what it is. I mean,
I've seen this with my own eyes. God's people know what the truth
is. Their leaders and teachers might not think so. But you see,
when God is pleased to write the word of God in a man's heart,
he knows what it is. And the spirit of God constrains
him unto the truth of these things. They believed not. After he appeared
to them, they went and told it unto the residue. Guess what? They didn't believe him. Now
here's two eyewitnesses to the risen Lord. Yet they believe
not. Remember what I believe is a
parable. Some believe it's an actual account,
and that's fine. Of the rich man and Lazarus. And
the rich man says, you know, if you'll send Lazarus back from
the dead to go and witness to my brethren so they don't come
to this awful place. He said, though one were risen
from the dead, they would not believe. And so we see the impossibility
of the flesh, of our natural man to embrace the things of
the gospel. It's just too outlandish. I mean,
it's just, it's foolishness. Is it not foolishness to the
world? I mean, to the natural thinking
of man is not all the things that we talk about. Oh, I know
you can talk about, you know, how you ought to go about and
do good to one another and love one another and do all these
things which are all very good. Be kind and considerate and all
of that. That's good. But when you start
telling men that Jesus Christ is the Lord of glory, who died
on Calvary's cross to pay for the sins of men who are corrupt
to the core and who cannot save themselves, nor can they bring
anything of any value into the presence of God that he will
receive, then they say, hold on. Now that is going a little
beyond the pain. You know, we can get along with
this. If you do good, you know, all the people that do good,
they go to heaven. And all the people that do bad,
they go to hell. Now that's a good popular message,
is it not? So go out and do good, and God
will be happy. And you know, if you want to
go to hell, you can go on to hell. But you know, all you gotta
do is just make out like you don't want to go to hell, ask
the Lord not to send you to hell, and you won't go. And that's
good, I mean, people like that. But you see, a risen Christ seated upon the
throne of God, who is God, who determines the end from the
beginning, who holds the destinies of all men in the palm of his
hand that's not a message that the natural man can receive he
will not receive it but oh something's fixing to happen
it's going to cause all of them all of a sudden their unbelief
is going to be turned from unbelief. Afterward he appeared unto the
eleven as they sat at meat, and he upbraided them with their
unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them
which had seen him after he was risen. Now they didn't believe
the messengers that he sent, but he told them that the hearts
were hard. Now, you know, Thomas gets a
pretty rough rap, not this Thomas, but the Thomas in the scripture.
One of the disciples, because he was not there when the Lord
first appeared to the disciples, and later on he came. And he
said, I won't believe. But he wasn't any different than
the rest of them. They didn't believe. None of them believed. In fact, in one of the gospels,
the scripture says that when the Lord appeared to them, he
said, here's my hands and my side. He showed it to them, just
like Thomas said, I won't believe unless I see it. Well, he'd already
shown it to them. So yeah, they had been brought
to faith, had they not. Thomas just wasn't there yet. And so, this unbelieving rabble
were not fit to go and declare the gospel worthy. I mean, if
they didn't even believe, how could they How could they go
preach that Christ was risen from the dead? But something
happened. An amazing thing happened. Every
one of them who didn't believe and said, Thomas said, I won't
believe. There's no way this can be true. That's just absolutely not true. But you see, the Lord brought
them to faith. He gave it to them. Because they
didn't have it. Couldn't have it. Wasn't going
to have it. But the Lord gave it to them.
And then He said these words, Go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature. Now He equipped them. See this
is the thing that we must understand. That men cannot equip other men
to preach the gospel. Men can't send men to preach
the gospel. Men can't call men to preach
the gospel. But those whom the Lord calls
to preach the gospel cannot be hindered. Oh, they might be killed. I'm not saying their bodies can't
be, you know, put to death and all of those things, but you
cannot hinder the gospel. You can't hinder the message
which God is pleased to send. Because you see, when He sends
one and they destroy him, He'll send another one. Because He's
able. And He said, go ye into all the
world. Now this is a particular commission given to a particular
group of men. Now, I know there is a general
sense in which we are all to be witnesses of Christ. Let the
redeemed of the Lord say so. But there is a sending of these
messengers that is particular. Now, these things that he speaks
of here are particular to those apostles that he is speaking
to there. Go ye into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature. Everyone. Now we can learn something
from that, can we not? That's how the gospel is to be
preached. It's just to be preached. Some will believe, some will
not. But we preach the same message to all. He that believeth and
is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be
damned. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. Now notice that it does not say,
but he that is not baptized. shall not be saved. I wrote a little bit on the Grace
Gazette this week about baptism. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. Now what is baptism? Baptism
is the answer of a good conscience toward God. Baptism is a testimony. It's an outward act of faith. Are there men who are saved who
have not been baptized in water? Well, sure there are. because
it's not a requirement but it is that which the Lord commanded
it is that which if a man believes why would he not? I mean can a man say well I'll
believe but I'm not going to be baptized No. I mean, here's the Ethiopian
eunuch. He's going along his way. He's
wondering what in the world does the Scripture say. Well, the
Lord sends Philip, a messenger. He comes to him and he preaches
to him Christ. And somewhere in the course of
that discourse, evidently, he must have mentioned something
to him about baptism, but he didn't say to him, now you've
got to be baptized. But he's coming along and he's
thinking to himself, you know, I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. What is it that would, hey, here's
some water, what would hinder me to be baptized? Now don't
you imagine they had a little bit of water with them? I mean,
they weren't traveling on a long journey and didn't have some
drinking water. Couldn't Philip just as easily stop by the side
of the road and pour a little in his hand and sprinkle it on
his head. Well, sure he could have. Would the man have been
baptized? Not according to the word of God. Because the very
word baptized means to immerse. See, when the translators translated
this, the book, they were a little bit concerned because they were,
you know, most of them were members of the Church of England, and
they didn't want to upset the apple cart, so they just put
the word in there. You know, they didn't really
go on and say what it was because it would have upset the people,
you know, because that wasn't what they were used to doing.
So, but that was all in the Lord's purpose. See, the Lord hid these
things from the wise and prudent, but He's revealed them unto babe.
And here's a babe in Christ who's going along the way, and He said,
wait a minute, stop the chariot. There's some water. It was a
lake or a river or something, and He said, I want to be baptized.
And they went down into the water. That's about as plain as you
can get to me, unless you don't want to believe it. Now, the
man that don't want to believe that, he'll come up, and I've
read them, I've read so many different things, you know, what
I call the baby baptizers, you know, have written about this
subject. And they'll close one eye and put their hand halfway
over the other and go along and try to explain why John was baptizing
where there was much water. Well, he just needed a place
to reach down and dip his pitcher up where he could pour it over
their head. You know, it's just because men don't want to embrace
these things, it's natural. And we shouldn't be amazed, you
wouldn't believe it either if the Lord didn't give you grace
to do so. But he said, he that believeth to be baptized shall
be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned. What is it that
keeps a man, or what is it that is evidence of the the curse
of damnation upon a man is that he believes not. Now, I remember one time, and
I wrote Grace Gazette on this, but I saw a sign in front of
a church house, you know, one of these marquee signs, it said,
there will be no unbelievers in hell. I said, that's not true. Hell's full of unbelievers. Men
don't start believing the gospel because they wind up in hell.
See, I mean, when a man goes into hell, it's not he's wanting
to worship God in hell. No, he's in hell because that's
what he is. He hates the way of God. He's
not going to believe because he's cast into hell. And these signs shall follow
them that believe. Now again, I believe that this
is a specific commission for a specific people and time. Otherwise, you'll have a hard time with
this passage of scripture. And these signs shall follow
them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils. They
shall speak with new tongues. And they shall take up serpents.
Now there's a lot of people that will fight you tooth and toenail
about the business of speaking in tongues. And I'm not, Paul
said forbid not to speak with tongues. I wouldn't forbid somebody
to speak with tongues. If God gives somebody the gift
of tongues, have at it. I mean, you know, do it like
the scripture says to do it. If there's an interpreter present,
let the interpreter speak those things. So I'm not against that. But what I'm against is picking
and choosing what you're gonna do here. He said, they shall
speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and if
they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. Now there
are groups of people that really go all into this, do they not?
And they pick up snakes, and they drink poison. And guess what? Sometimes they
die. Now why is that? Because you
see, anybody that has common sense knows that a rattlesnake
might bite you. And that if a rattlesnake might
bite you, you might die. And if you drink strychnine,
the good possibility is that you are going to die. And so
what the Lord is saying here is I'm putting my protection
upon you and I'm sending you forth with this protection and
He didn't tell them go and find you a snake and pick him up and
hold it up to people so they can see but it's demonstrated
when the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked, and when they were gathering
sticks for the fire on the seashore, that a snake latched on to his
hand, come out of those things, and it was a poisonous snake.
And all the people said, He's gonna die, he must be a murderer
or something that's escaped and now God's judgment's upon him.
And he shook off the snake into the fire and he was fine. That's
an illustration of exactly what he said there. Because the Lord's
protection was upon them for a specific time and for a specific
purpose. I believe, my own personal feeling
is, that these sign things that he's speaking about here ceased
when the apostles ceased. Now, regardless of what men might
tell you, there are no apostles in the world today. There's plenty
of people that claim to be an apostle. And if I say this, if
they're an apostle, then this is going to prove it right here,
whether or not they are. Because these things are not
given so men might do them. The Lord's telling them how His
mercy will surround them as He sends them forth that they are
not to be concerned about these things. I'm going to be with
you, He said. And they shall lay hands on the
sick and they shall recover. Now there's plenty of healers
out there today, are there not? And every now and then somebody
claims that they got healed. True miraculous healings are
very few and far between. And there's very few that when
they lay hands on somebody, they shall recover. Not they may recover. Not if they'll have enough faith
they'll recover. But he says here, they shall
recover. Now I've never seen that. I've
been in some meetings and stuff where some of these guys claim
making lengthen legs and stuff and you know, all that kind of
craziness. But not what he's saying here.
So then after the Lord had spoken to 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 and confirming
the word with signs following. And thus he did. Because that
was the purpose for which he sent them. And the signs that
followed them were for that end. And if the Lord sees fit to raise
up men in that fashion, to do that again, he most certainly
can. But I do not believe that we see it in the present time.
I'm not saying God can't do it or that He won't do it. I'm saying
I haven't seen it. And that doesn't mean it don't
exist. I've just not seen it. May the
Lord help us. May our trust be in Christ. and
may our desire to preach the word of god be uh... that he might be exalted not
that men might see what powers he's working in us many people
get caught up and they say oh see these signs you'll see we're
going to have this holy ghost meeting and you're going to see
signs following you know and that's the drawing card but that's
not a drawing card It's just a fact. When the Lord does what
he does, signs will follow. And the signs will be that some
will believe and some will not. And he'll be glorified in the
midst of it all.