Well, good morning. If you'll
open your Bibles with me again to the Gospel of Mark, Chapter
1. Mark, Chapter 1. Before we begin,
let's go to our Lord in prayer. Our Father, how thankful we are
that one more time you've given us an opportunity to meet together,
to worship your precious name, to open your word, to read and
study it. And Father, I pray that you would
reveal your son to us out of it this morning, that you would
reveal the incarnate word from the written word. And Father,
give us faith to believe. Oh, give us faith to trust and
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as our all and in all. And Father,
we're thankful that we can come in prayer and be heard before
the God of heaven and earth. How thankful we are to be able
to beg forgiveness of our sins from the God who forgives sin.
How thankful we are to beg for salvation from the God who saves
sinners. How thankful we are to call out
for our daily bread, the needs of this life from the God who
owns the cattle on a thousand hills, who's always able to save,
to heal, to comfort. Father, we're thankful. Father,
I pray you, Bless our time this morning here and bless especially
our children's classes, Father, that you might be pleased to
use this time to plant thy word in their hearts, that you might
cause it in your time to grow the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
And Father, we dare not forget to pray for those who are hurting,
who are sick, who are in deep waters and difficult circumstances. Father, we pray that you'd be
with them, that you'd heal. We pray you'd lead and guide
them to know which way to go. Father, above all, that you'd
give them a special portion of your presence in their heart
while they're in these difficult waters. In all these things we
ask and we give thanks in that name which is above every name,
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen. In our text this morning,
just two verses of scripture, Mark describes to us the ministry
of John the Baptist in just two verses. He shows us a good bit
about who the messenger is and what his message is. So first,
I've titled the lesson, The Messenger and the Message. Now first, let's
look at the messenger. Mark one, verse two. The voice
of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord.
Make his paths straight. Let's start in verse three, verse
two. As it's written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before
thy face, that's John the Baptist, which shall prepare thy way before
thee, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare you
the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Now God's preacher,
he's a voice. That's what he's called here,
a voice, nothing more. The preacher does not make up
the content of the message. God's preacher, all he can do
is preach the message that God gives him to preach. The preacher
is just a voice that God uses to preach his message to needy
sinners. Now, if we're going to hear from
God, we're going to have to hear the voice of a man. God's not
going to speak audibly. He's not going to speak to us
individually. God speaks to his people through the voice of a
man. He gives that man the message to preach. It pleased God by
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Now,
it's the gospel message. That's what's important. The
voice really isn't all that important. Who it is preaching the message
really isn't all that important. It's the message that's important. It's God's message that gives
life to dead sinners. The messenger can't do that.
It's the message that does it. The voice can't comfort and instruct
God's people. I mean, I hope I can say things
that are kind and comforting to you, but the voice can't comfort
your heart. The voice can instruct your heart,
edify your heart, cause you to grow in grace. It's the gospel
message that comes first. It's the message that instructs
us in it. The message from God, that's the most important thing.
The preacher, he just gives voice to it, as God enables him. So
he's a voice. Scripture also describes God's
preachers as servants. In Romans 1.1, Paul says he's
a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated under
the gospel of God, God's servant is separated unto the gospel
of God. That's his message. He's separated
to it. He just, he determined to preach
it. God's servant, what he does is
he preaches the gospel of God and that's all he preaches. That's
all he does. And you know, it's so obvious
that God's God's preacher, he's a servant. It's so obvious. Even
the demons know it. In Acts 16, there was a demon-possessed
woman. She was a divination and all
these different things she did because of this demon that possessed
her. And she followed Paul, those men that were with him, crying,
these men are the servants of the Most High God who show us
the way of salvation. Now the demons knew that. Now
they didn't trust him. They didn't believe the message,
but they said, this man is a servant of God. He shows us the way of
salvation. Oh, wouldn't it be a blessing?
for God to send us one of his servants who shows us the way
of salvation, who points us to Christ. The end of 2 Corinthians
4 verse 5, Paul says, we preach not ourselves, but we preach
Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves, we're your servants for Jesus'
sake. We're your servant. That's what I am. I'm your servant
for Christ's sake. My job as a servant is to set
the table, to set the table with Christ so that you can come and
eat and live. My job is simply to lift up Christ
so you can look and live, so you can believe on him. That's
the job of a servant. You know, the servant doesn't
have any choice in the matter of this message that's gonna
be brought. It's God's message. It's the servant that's not important. The master's important. And that
relationship between the servant and the master, the master's
the one that's important, isn't it? So if we're gonna hear from the
Lord, our master, I tell you, we're gonna have to hear by the
voice of one of his servants. And that makes it mighty important
for us to find one of God's servants and hear his message to him.
Because if he's God's servant, he's preaching you the message
that God has for your heart. Scripture also calls God's preachers
ambassadors. 2 Corinthians 5.20, Paul says,
now then, we're ambassadors for Christ. as though God himself,
God Almighty, did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's
name. Paul said, if the Lord Jesus
was standing here, this is what he'd tell you. And it's the same
thing I'm telling you. So I'm his ambassador. Be ye
reconciled to Christ. That's what God's ambassadors
are sent to say. Be ye reconciled to Christ. Now,
ambassador, I mean, I know it's a pretty prestigious appointment. You know, the president appoints
Ambassador, boy, that's awful prestigious. But you know, the
ambassador, I mean, he ain't much. He doesn't decide what
to do. He didn't decide where to go.
Ambassador is the country to the country the president sends
him to, right? And when he gets there, he's
not the one that decides policy. He's not the one that decides
how we're going to interact with this country. The ambassador is in a foreign
country. And all he's doing there is carrying out the policies,
the instructions of the president, of the king. That's what he's
doing. And all an ambassador is supposed to say is let me
tell you what my boss said. This is what he told me to tell
you. That's what an ambassador does. An ambassador is not there
to promote his own agenda. He's there to promote the agenda
of the king. And that's the preacher's job.
The preacher's job is not to promote himself and get a following
for himself. He's there to promote the agenda
of the King, which is Christ our Savior. That's his agenda.
Look and live. Who the preacher is really doesn't
matter. It's the message God's given him to preach. Now all
that being said, God's preachers are still to be loved and respected.
Scripture says for the work's sake. for the work's sake, there
to be loved, there to be respected for the sake of all the work
that they put in to find God's message. And listen, he's finding
God's message for you. For you. You. You're on my heart. You're in
my mind's eye every single day. I sit down to study. Everybody
sits in the same spot, so it's not easy for me to just go through
the congregation. You're on my heart when I prepare
these messages. We pray for people all over,
don't we? But I'm telling you, you're the
ones on my heart. I beg God to take this and put Christ in your
heart. Give you faith in Christ. The
pastor's seeking God's message for you. And then he's to preach
it. If he finds it, when God shows
it to him, it's his job to preach it. Now, that's hard work if
it's done right. But a pastor, God's servant,
God's ambassador will do it because he loves you. Look at 1 Thessalonians
chapter five. See, God's preachers are to be
loved for the sake of the love and the care that they have for
you, both your soul and your body. 1 Thessalonians 5. Verse 12, Paul says, and we beseech
you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over
you in the Lord, and admonish you. God's preacher, his ambassador,
his servant, he's over you in the Lord, but he's also your
servant. Now figure that out, but that's so. over you in the
Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly in love for
their work's sake. For their work's sake. Be at
peace with one another. I, like probably all old daughter
and grandfathers, I love to watch my baby grandson with his parents. Now, he's seven months old, eight
months old now. He can't speak yet. He can't
say, much to my chagrin, he can't say Papa yet, but I'm working
on that. He can't talk yet. He can't tell
his mama and daddy, I love you. But I tell you what, you let
one of them walk in the room, and his eyes and that big old
smile he breaks down, it says it. I love you. And you know
why he loves them? Now they're over him. They rule
over him. They're already trying to teach
him no. Mom and dad say, no, you don't
do this. They're over him. They rule over
him. They do things already that are for his good that he don't
like. But even though they do that,
he loves them so much because they love him and take care of
him. That's what Paul's saying here.
God's pastor. You know how he shows his love
for the people? By working hard to take care of them in preaching.
to work hard to take care of them, pointing them to Christ.
And in return, he's to be loved and respected for it. Now, he's
not the issue. You understand, he's not the
issue. The message is the issue. Christ is the issue. The gospel
is the issue. But that voice is still to be
loved and respected for it. Even the apostle Paul wrote that
great letter of intercession for Onesimus to Philemon. Paul
told Philemon, he said, Now, I'm not even going to tell you
that you owe me your own self-sides. I always love that. I mean, Paul
tells him that, but then he said, I'm not going to tell you that,
but you do owe me your own self-sides. Now it's the message that saves
it. It's Christ that saves, but we sure do owe a debt of love
to the voice who preached it to us, don't we? We do. Look at Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews 13 verse 17. Obey them that have the rule
over you and submit yourselves, for they're watching for your
soul, as they that must give account, that they may do it
with joy, not with grief. That's unprofitable for you.
And then Paul says, and pray for us. Obey them that have the
rule over you and pray for us. Pray for us. There's no man sufficient
for these things. See, this law, it's a two-way
street. God's servant loves those sheep that God's given him to
preach to, to pastor, to lead. And the sheep love him in return.
Now it's God's message for me, for me to hear right now. That's
what's vitally important to my soul. But I sure do love the
voice that first preached God's message to me. That's made me
think a lot about Brother Henry in the past days as I've been
preaching this. Oh, how much I just love him. I'm so thankful for him. But
now Lord's called him home. We better find a voice today.
We better find a voice today preaching to our generation because
he's preaching the message that I need. That's the messenger.
Now, the second thing I want to look at is the message that
God's messenger preaches. Verse two back in our text. Says,
as it's written, in the prophets. Behold, I send my messenger before
thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Now, Mark
describes the message of God's messenger in just two verses. And the way he does it is he
quotes to us from two different Old Testament passages. Now,
there are a lot of different messages, gospels, if that's
what you want to call them. Another Jesus being preached
out in the world today. There are many of them. Many,
many, many. Well, how can I tell which one's God's message and
which one is not God's message? Now, I wanna know that. If this
is vitally important to my soul, how can I tell which one is God's
message and which one is not? Well, one good way to identify
God's message is God's message matches all of the Old Testament
scriptures. God's message has got to agree with every verse
of scripture, Old Testament and New Testament. You can never
just pluck a verse you know, out of scripture and take it
by itself and say, this is what this means. So you always have
to compare it with other scriptures. And it'd be very wise of us to
look in the Old Testament. If we want to find out what a
verse in the New Testament means, it'd be a very good idea to look
and see what the Old Testament has to say about that. The Old
Testament is Christ in picture, Christ in promise, Christ in
prophecy. The New Testament is Christ revealed. Paul told the church at Corinth
that the gospel of Christ, he said, this is the gospel, the
gospel, tells us how that Christ died according to the scriptures.
Well, what scriptures was he talking about? Had to be the
Old Testament, had to be, because the New Testament was still being
written. How that, why did Christ die? What did he accomplish in
his death? He died according to the Old
Testament, scriptures to fulfill all those Old Testament pictures.
Christ died like Abel's lamb, died as a sacrifice for sin.
God can only be approached by the blood of the lamb. Now if
you come to God in the blood of the lamb, knowing nothing
but I'm a sinner, I can't do anything, I don't know anything,
I deserve God to send me to hell, but I'm coming to Him pleading
the blood of Christ, God will accept you. If you come bringing
your works like Cain, he won't. Now, if a man's message doesn't
match Abel's sacrifice, don't listen to it. It's not God's
message. Christ died like the Passover lamb. Christ died as
a substitute for a particular people, God's elect. That lamb died for the firstborn
in this home, not the neighbors, not my buddy down the road, not
my buddy across town, the firstborn in this home. That Passover lamb
died for somebody in particular, didn't it? So did Christ. And
he saved him. If that father in that home sacrificed
that lamb, roast his body with fire, put the blood on the door
and went in, shut the door and sat down, ate that Passover lamb,
his son lived. His firstborn lived. If Christ
died for you, you're gonna live. You will live. You must, God's
justice demands it. Christ died like that lamb on
the day of atonement. That lamb died for the sin of
Israel. Not every nation, no. It was
sacrificed for the sin of Israel. And God accepted them. God accepted
them because of that lamb that pictured Christ. If the Lord
Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, died for you, the Father will
accept you. The blood's been shed. If a man's
message doesn't agree with that, don't listen to it. Because it's
not God's message. The reason God accepts his people
and doesn't condemn them is the sacrifice of Christ. And no other
reason, no other reason whatsoever. That's how that Christ died.
He died as the successful, victorious savior of his people. And I tell
you why we live, why his people live, is because Christ both
died and rose again for us. The message of God's servant
today, look back at Malachi. It's the very same message that
the prophet Malachi preached. The last prophet in the Old Testament. This is what he preached. Malachi
three, verse one. Behold, I'll send my messenger
and he shall prepare the way before me. See, that's what Mark's
quoting back there. And the Lord whom ye see shall
suddenly come into his temple, even the messenger of the covenant,
whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. The Lord practically ended the
Old Testament with the same promise that he gave to Adam all those
years before. He's coming. The seed of woman is coming. Now the key Malachi's message
is Christ. It's the messenger of the covenant. It's the message of the covenant
of God's grace. That's what Malachi was preaching.
Notice I said the messenger of the covenant. Not just the covenant. The messenger of the covenant.
Our message is not all the whys and the wherefores and the legalese
of God's covenant of grace. You can know what God's covenant
of grace says. You can know the words of it.
You can know the doctrine of it. You can know what it says.
You can know what it means. And still be lost. Our message
is not the covenant. Our message is He whom you seek. He whom you seek. You cannot
know Christ and be lost. It's an impossibility. That's
why we preach He whom you seek. It's the messenger of the covenant
who saves. God's message is not a covenant
of the law. Adam already proved the covenant
of the law can't save anybody. God just gave Adam one rule and
he broke it, and probably right quick. What makes us think we
can keep the pages and pages and pages of all the Old Testament
law? We can't do it. The covenant law can't save anybody.
God's message is the covenant of grace. The salvation is by
grace alone. And that message is seen. You
know how we know God's message of grace? The messenger of the
covenant came. Now I see. Now I see what all
that law was about. Now I see what all that ceremony
was about. Now I see what all that sacrifice
is about. The messenger came and fulfilled
it. Now I see. God's message is that Almighty
God in His covenant of grace promised He would save worthless
sinners by the doing and dying of His Son. See, the message
is Christ. He came and fulfilled the covenant. He came and ratified that covenant
by His blood. He died. The sinless Son of God
came into flesh to die for worthless sinners like you and me. He ratified
it with his blood. See, God's message of salvation
is all of grace. It's in, by, and through the
Lord Jesus Christ. Here's grace. God gives his people,
not what they earned, but what the Lord Jesus Christ earned
for them. As a man made under the law, he obeyed God's law
perfectly, and God says, My people are righteous. Christ came as
a representative of his people. He obeyed the law, and God said,
my people are righteous in him. Salvation is accomplished by
the doing and the dying of Christ alone. Period. Period. Our works don't ever
enter into it at all. Someone says, well now, now,
you know, You must believe, and that's true. You must believe. You must. If you would be saved,
you must believe on Christ. But here's the truth, you can't
do it. You can't do it. God, the Holy Spirit has to give
it to you. Let's not preach grace and then
make it work out of faith now. Even that faith, God's got to
give it to you. Well, what about all the good
works I'm supposed to do? You can't do it. You can't do
it. Yeah, you're supposed to, but
you can't do it. Not unless God puts it in your heart to do it.
It's all Christ. You see, that's the message,
the messenger of the covenant. And Malachi said, Christ is going
to suddenly appear in his temple. By the time the Lord Jesus was
born in Bethlehem, everybody but just a very few people had
given up looking for him. Think, he's not coming. He's
just not coming. Maybe he'll come someday, won't
come in my lifetime. And suddenly he appeared and
Simeon saw him. There he is. There he is. There's God's salvation. Now
they weren't expecting him, were they? They weren't expecting
him. Oh, they're under the bondage
of Rome And maybe they were expecting a mighty warrior to come, would
conquer Rome and defeat Rome, just by himself, like Samson,
defeat all those Philistines. Or like David killed his 10,000s,
you know. They were expecting an earthly
king, a military might. They weren't expecting a spiritual
king, were they? They weren't expecting a substitute.
They were looking for a substitute because they didn't think they
needed one. They weren't looking for a poor man of the flesh,
come to save poor sinners of the flesh, but that's who came. He came and he fulfilled all
of God's covenant and he ratified it by his blood so that sinners
would be saved. I'm telling you this, if God
the Holy Spirit ever shows you Him, ever shows you Him, not
just shows you the covenant now, but shows you Him, Oh, you'll
be delighted. You'll be delighted. Now look
back at Isaiah chapter 40. Here's the other passage that
Mark quotes. Isaiah chapter 40. The message
of the messenger, the message of Christ the messenger, is a
message of comfort for God's elect. Isaiah chapter 40, verse
one. Comfort ye. Comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem
and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity
is pardoned. For she hath received of the
Lord's hand double for all her sins. Now the message of the
gospel, the message of salvation in Christ is a message of comfort
for the hearts of God's people. If a message is not comforting
to your heart, Something's wrong. It's either the message or your
heart, but something's wrong. The message that declares salvation
in Christ. And it's yours for free in the
end, if you believe it. Now, that comforts your heart.
That comforts your heart. Now, our comfort, the comfort
of our message, the comfort of the gospel, is not to say, now,
it's going to be okay. It's all going to be okay. It's
going to be okay with your body. You've got some awful disease
and somebody says, oh no, it's okay, this disease won't kill
you. Well, it might. Something will someday, it might.
But if you're a believer, you know what? It's still good for
you. It's good for you. Our comfort is not, well now,
all these things you're worrying about, that won't happen. It
might. I don't think you'd comfort somebody
by lying to them, can you? It might happen. But if you believe
Christ, it's well with your soul, even if it does happen. See,
here's our comfort. This is the believer's comfort.
This world's a tough place to live. And these bodies are tough
places to live, because they're infested with sin. Here's our
comfort. There's gonna come a time it's
not well with your body. There's gonna come a time it's
not well with your mind. There's gonna come a time it's
not well with your emotions. But if you trust Christ, it's
well with your soul. It is well with my soul. The
believer's comfort is what Isaiah says here. Brethren, the war's
over. The war's over. Christ, the captain
of our salvation, has already defeated every enemy. Quit worrying
about him. Don't let them bother you anymore. They're defeated.
Come rest in peace. Rest in Christ. You can have
peace in Christ. Peace. I mean peace in the heart. Even in the midst of the battle. Now our message of comfort. It's
not for every son of Adam. No, it's not. Don't cry peace,
peace. There's no peace. Don't offer
somebody comfort when they're in any comfort. This message
of comfort is for God's elect. He says, Isaiah, you go tell
my people you have comfort. You tell my people that. My people. Now, when the Lord says they're
my people, doesn't that mean they belong to him? Doesn't that mean
he owns them? If you belong to God, what on
earth do you got to worry about? Really? I mean, yeah, the Lord's
gonna send something someday to kill your body, but you don't
have to worry about it. You know what the Lord uses the death
of these bodies to do? Take us straight into His presence. Now that's comfort. That's comfort. I mean, I just don't have anything
to worry about if that's true. And Chris, it's true. It's true. The believer has comfort. Because
what Isaiah says here, we have received of the Lord's hand double,
double for all of our sin. Where our sin abounded, oh, God's
grace much more abounded. This double that Isaiah prophesies
of here is the double cure for sin that's found in the sacrifice
of Christ. See, it all has to be Christ.
It all has to be in him. When that Roman soldier pierced
the side of our Savior, John said, no, I saw it. I saw this
happen. What did John say came out of
the Savior's side? Blood and water. Blood to atone
for sin. Blood to pay for sin. Blood to
pay that awful debt of sin to God's justice. The blood that
redeems His people. If Christ shed His blood for
you, there's no charges left against you. None. Oh, Satan
will accuse you of things. Your mind will accuse you of
a lot of things. but none of those charges can stick, even
though they're true. Oh, they're true charges, I did
it. That's the way I am, there's no question about it. But that
charge can't stick, Christ died for you. His blood put that sin
away, it can't stick. Out came blood to atone, and
out came water to cleanse. Water to wash away every stain
of sin. You can't even tell it's ever
been there. To cleanse our souls, so that we can never sin again. That water that came out of Christ's
side is a picture of this. He cleansed his people. Now they're
clean. They're holy. They can't rack
up any more sin debt. They can never sin again. That
new man born of God, born of the word, born of the water can
never sin again. See, our message is this. Christ
has saved his people and Christ keeps his people saved. You know,
if our message was, you know, now Christ will save you, but
you got to keep it, you know, by earning, doing, you know,
following some of my pet laws. Well, there's no comfort there,
is there? No comfort. But as comfort for our souls
to know Christ is my savior and he's the one that keeps me saved.
Christ paid for our sin and he made it so that we can't sin
again. The double cure. He paid for sin and took away
the power of sin. Now that's the message of John
the Baptist. And that's the message of God's preachers today. If
you hear a message that doesn't match that, don't listen to it. Because look what John said,
verse three. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness.
Isaiah is prophesying of John the Baptist coming. The voice
of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley should
be exalted, and every mountain and hill should be made low,
and the crooked should be made straight. and the rough place
is plain, that here's the job of God's preacher. Tell you,
go to Christ. Go to Christ. Every mountain
that's in the way between you and Christ, John says, take it
down. Every valley between you and
Christ, John said, fill it up. Make it plain. Make Christ plain. Remove every obstacle between
the sinner and the Savior, so the sinner sees the Savior. So
the sinner runs to the Savior. If you can find a man that does
that, now if you find a man putting some obstacle between you and
Christ, you know, you've got to do this, and you've got to
do this, and oh, you know, if God saved you, you'd never do
this, he's putting an obstacle, he's putting a condition between
you and Christ, and that's an obstacle. If you can find a man
that makes Christ plain, that makes the way plain, so you go
straight to him, you'd be wise to listen to him, because that's
God's message. All right, hope God will bless
that too.