Mark's Gospel, chapter 1, and
we're going to read from verse 1 and we will read down to verse
15. The beginning of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, As it is written in the prophets,
behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare
thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John did baptise in the wilderness
and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And there went out unto him all
the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized
of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed
with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins, and
he did eat locusts and wild honey. and preached, saying, There cometh
one mightier than I after me, the lachet of whose shoes I am
not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptised
you with water, but he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those
days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptised
of John in Jordan. And straightway, coming up out
of the water, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit like a
dove descending upon him. And there came a voice from heaven,
saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit driveth
him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness
forty days, tempted of Satan, and was with the wild beasts,
and the angels ministered unto him. Now after that John was
put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel
of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled. and the
kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye and believe the gospel. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. I admire the way that Mark begins
his account of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. We do, of
course, have these four Gospels, each of them bringing perhaps
a different slant, a different aspect to the life of Christ. And Mark is perhaps one of the
briefest, the tersest, the simplest of the writers when he sets before
us the Lord Jesus Christ. But I love the way in which the
Apostle writes that this is the Gospel. He writes in this opening
verse, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know we call it Mark's Gospel. I did when I was directing you
to turn to this book that we were going to read together,
and I will continue to do so because that's the name that
it takes. But we see in the opening verse
that that's not what Mark calls it. Mark calls it the Gospel
of Jesus Christ. and I appreciate the reminder
which Mark gives us here, not to be limited in our description
or definition of the gospel, not perhaps to press too hard
the gospel into some sort of narrow, rigid structure of a
few doctrines, but to see that the story of Jesus, the account
of Jesus, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is the gospel. Now that is not to say of course
that doctrine is unimportant and confessions, they have their
place. and systematic theology can help
us to learn and to glean and benefit from the wisdom perhaps
of greater minds than our own. And a framework for theological
reasoning and doctrinal clarity is useful, all good. And please
don't think that I'm endeavouring in any way to undermine that.
But if Mark tells us, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
that his account of the life, and the ministry, and the miracles,
and the sermons, and the statements, and the sufferings, and the death,
and the resurrection, and the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ
is the gospel of Christ, then it behoves us to agree with the
sacred writer. and there's something beautifully
simple about this gospel, which has to do, I think, with the
modest and straightforward aim and objective that Mark appears
to have. It's almost as if he says to
us in this opening verse, let me tell you something about Christ. Let me tell you something of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me give you an account of
the coming into this world and the beginning of the ministry
of the Son of God. He calls it the beginning of
the gospel, not because it was brand new and first seen at this
time. That would be to limit the meaning
of the word beginning to a certain point in time. Because we know
from Mark's own testimony, he gives reference here to the fact
that the prophets spoke about the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. So this was not the beginning
of the gospel. That had been well recognized
in the Old Testament. And we can find, whether it's
in the Psalms, or whether it's in Isaiah, or whether it's in
some of the other prophets, We know that the Gospel was foretold
and it was anticipated. Indeed, this Old Testament reference
that we have here in verse 2 is from the book of Malachi, where
Malachi is very explicit about the coming of John the Baptist
as a forerunner, as a trailblazer for the soon arrival of the Lord
Jesus Christ after him. And we rightly say and acknowledge
that this message goes back all the way to the settled counsel
and purpose of God in the eternal grace and peace of the covenant
which he proposed in the eternal Triune Council. John says that
the Apostle John writing in the book of Revelation, he says that
the Lord Jesus Christ was the lamb slain from the foundation
of the world. And so this is not the beginning
in the sense of it just becoming known or indeed having its source
or its origin here with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. rather
it is that it begins to be preached by the Lord Jesus Christ. This
was the beginning of the gospel preached by Christ himself, whose
coming brought to an end that old era of the law and ushered
in a new dispensation of a fuller revelation of the grace of God
and the peace of God and indeed the person and attributes of
God in the revelation of the person of the Son of God, the
Lord Jesus Christ himself. And so Mark introduces to us
here the person of John the Baptist who is that forerunner. And while
in honouring the Lord Jesus Christ, he shows how John the Baptist
states that this one that he foretold, this one that he anticipated,
this one of whom he declared according to John 1, verse 29,
as the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. was the one that had been anticipated
throughout these Old Testament years and was the Messiah to
whom all the Jews were called to look. And it's lovely to see
that as Mark begins the gospel here, the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that he draws upon this theme, which was the theme
of Peter and Paul and John, those who would more fully spend time
with the Lord Jesus Christ and more fully have revealed to them
the true extent and nature of the gospel. And Mark here speaks
of that one who was the Messiah, the looked for one, the promised
one, the anticipated one, who was to come. We know that right
from the earliest revelation of God, what we call the Proto-Evangel
in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, where God said to the serpent
there in the Garden of Eden in the hearing of Adam and Eve. I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise
thy head, thou shalt bruise his heel. This was what was looked
for. This is what the Jews, the believing
Jews, had understood, that there would be one who would be sent,
one who would come, who would be the fulfilment of this prophecy,
even in the Garden of Eden. And we see it continued in the
Mosaic promises of Christ, where Moses could declare in Deuteronomy
chapter 18, that there would be a prophet who would be sent
and who would be given amongst men. In chapter 18 and verse
15, we read that the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a
prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me,
and unto him ye shall hearken. And so the Jews, as the followers
of Moses, had been taught from the earliest of days to anticipate
the coming of Christ. and in the tabernacle, which
was raised by Moses in the wilderness, be it in the form of the tabernacle
itself or the furnitures and the fixtures, the types of the
wilderness journey, the miracles that were given there, whether
it was Mara or the water that flowed from the rock or the pillar
and cloud of fire, which led the people through the wilderness,
whether it was the brass serpent that was raised up, all of these
people were looking forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the coming of the promised Messiah. And now Mark is here
telling us in these opening verses, he has come. This is the one. This is the one that was anticipated. This is the one that was promised. You remember what we've been
seeing on a Lord's Day morning. when Paul preached this gospel
as he went around to these different cities, these different towns
and villages preaching the gospel, what did he do? He began by going
into the synagogues and declaring that Jesus Christ of Nazareth
is the Messiah, the long looked for one. And this is the force
of Mark's introduction to us here in these opening verses
of his gospel. It is as if to say, all of these
strands, all of these threads, all of these streams of prophecy
and revelation, all of these ancient expectations and anticipations,
these revelations and prophecies that God had given down through
the ages of the Old Testament saints, have been bound together,
have come together. And in this period from the ending
of Malachi and the coming of John the Baptist, so here comes
out of Nazareth, Jesus Christ himself, the saviour of his people,
the anointed Messiah of God. the one who is the Lord God himself,
Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God. John the Baptist in his
Elijah-like ministry fulfilled that messenger coming to point
to Christ. And that's what makes Mark's
Gospel the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of the Son of God,
because he is showing us here that it is going to be all about
Christ. His life, his ministry, his words,
his works, his sacrifice, his death, resurrection, ascension
and the salvation which he ushers in. This is God himself come
to earth to save his people from their sins. Now this Mark of
whom we are speaking here is very likely the John Mark of
the Acts of the Apostles and we know about him. He was Barnabas's
sister's son. He was a companion of Paul and
Barnabas in their first missionary journey. Perhaps as a young man
found it very difficult and we learn that he went back and we've
already read something in the history of acts as to how that
caused a little bit of friction. Well, you know, quite a lot of
friction between Barnabas and Paul. But we also discover that
after a faltering start, this young man becomes a stalwart
in the faith to both Paul and Peter. Both of these great apostles
mention Mark in the highest terms, speaking of him as faithful,
speaking of him as helpful, speaking of him as a son in the faith. And it is a delight to see the
way in which, after this troubled beginning, Mark proves himself
to be faithful and dependable. And if indeed we are right in
thinking that it is the same man, here we have him put to
evident use by God the Holy Spirit in writing this gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and leaving to the history
of the church such a delightful testimony and statement of gospel
truth to us. Now some see the hand of Peter
behind this Gospel and particularly and especially because we see
a number of Peter's personal experiences being recounted here
in Mark that we don't have with such frequency or indeed intimacy
in the other Gospels. So there may be some value to
thinking that Peter's involvement in this gospel was there, and
Mark was the writer or the scribe to it. But that's not testified
to in scripture, so there is an element of assumption in there. But one of the interesting things
which I hope you'll notice, and I'm not going to make too much
of it, but I do think it's noticeable, mentionable, is that Mark doesn't
make any reference to the birth of Christ. He doesn't declare to us anything
about the coming or the virgin birth or the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ into the world. It seems as if the early mention
of John the Baptist is sufficient for him to link the Old Testament
prophecies of the coming of the Messiah and the beginning of
the Lord's public ministry. following his baptism and the
coming of the Holy Spirit, without him feeling the need to go back
and establish and ascertain the miraculous circumstances around
the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it may well be that in the
Holy Spirit's providence that the emphasis of Matthew and Luke
upon the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ was perfectly sufficient
for us to know that history without there being a repetition here
in the Gospel of Mark. But we see here the way in which
Mark has drawn upon, just even in these first few verses, this
testimony of the Old Testament in the person of John the Baptist,
and then the beginning of the ministry of Christ in the way
in which he was baptised and the coming of the Holy Spirit
upon him in the form of the dove. and the voice coming from heaven,
declaring that he was the beloved son of God. And it almost appears
that Mark is, dare I say, ingeniously drawing together these threefold
testimonies. The testimony of John the Baptist,
who declares that the Lord Jesus Christ is the son of God, as we've thought before, already
behold the Son of God that taketh away the sin of the world, that
here was the Holy Spirit descending in the form of the dove and resting
upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and this audible testimony by the
Father out of heaven, the voice of God from heaven. And it is
almost as if this threefold testimony is sufficient for Mark to give
us this declaration, this copper-bottomed statement that this is indeed
the Son of God, the promised Messiah and the one to whom our
eyes should be directed and our ears should be drawn. Ecclesiastes,
verse 4, verse Chapter 4, verse 12, after all, says that if one
prevail against him, two shall withstand him, and a threefold
cord is not quickly broken. So here is the Baptist, here
is the Father, and here is the Holy Spirit, and this threefold
cord of testimony and witness to the identity of the Son of
God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah being come. is the way in which Mark brings
this authentication to the person of Christ before our attention. Now what I want to do this evening
as we just think about these first few verses that are before
us is to very quickly just give you a few headings by way of
opening up this gospel to us and perhaps just touching lightly
upon some of the major themes in these few verses. And the
first one I want to draw your attention to is this baptism
of the Holy Ghost and baptism of water that is in a sense contrasted
here. because John the Baptist's baptism
is to the fore. We see that here is John baptising
in the wilderness and all Jerusalem and Judea going out to him and
there John is preaching and he is baptising and he is baptising
with what is subsequently called by the Apostle Paul a baptism
of repentance. Though I think that there is
good reason for us to identify that baptism as being no different
in essence or in content with the baptism which was of repentance
and faith and therefore the same as Christian baptism that we
practice today. It was administered by John upon
a statement of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance for sin and faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, in essence, it
is no different from the baptism with which we follow the example
of the disciples and the apostles as they went out preaching. and baptising in the name of
the Father and in the name of the Son and in the name of the
Holy Spirit. And what we can see from here,
however, is that both John the Baptist and Paul, as he was to
later make reference to this baptism, distinguish between
a water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or the baptism
which will come by fire, which is emphasised elsewhere in the
other Gospels. And we see that there in verse
8, where the, well indeed verse 7, where John the Baptist is
distinguishing between the baptism and the preaching which he is
doing and the baptism which will come with the revelation of the
Lord Jesus Christ. So this shows us that John was
preaching about the coming Messiah as indeed Malachi testified that
he would prophetically as the Elijah that would come to prepare
the way of the Lord. And John the Baptist there declares,
verse 7, that he preached saying, there cometh one mightier than
I after me. So he was calling about the fact,
the after there meaning that he would appear after the Lord
Jesus Christ would appear after the ministry of John the Baptist
had come to its conclusion. And so he is speaking about the
coming of Christ and he says that he is one mightier than
I, the lachet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down
and unloose. So he was using a phrase of Servitude,
a phrase of the servant here who would perhaps loosen and
remove the shoes of some great man for the purpose perhaps of
washing his feet after a dusty journey. And here John the Baptist
is taking that servant's and indeed that servile position
in order to exemplify the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ who
was coming after. So John the Baptist was very
clear and definite that he was pointing to one who was coming
after him. But he goes on to say in verse
8, I indeed have baptized you with water That is, he was baptising
people with water upon their profession of faith, their repentance
before God and their profession in the preaching testimony that
John the Baptist was given, namely, that the Messiah was coming who
was greater than John. And those who heard John and
who were baptised by John were fulfilling the direction of John's
preaching, which is entirely what happens when we believe
and are baptized through the preaching of the gospel today. And he goes on to say, I baptise
you with water, but he, that one who is coming, shall baptise
you with the Holy Ghost. And if we understand that in
the sense of the coming of the Holy Ghost through conversion,
then we will see that that is entirely in accordance with the
profession of faith, repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And again, that is what happens
indeed. We as preachers of the gospel,
we baptise with water. and in a sense that doesn't matter
as far as whether it's infants, children or adults because it
is simply water that is used as the means of baptising. The water itself doesn't affect
or confer any spiritual benefit. and all who baptise acknowledge
that and attest that. It is a mere outward profession
and it is an outward testimony. Now as those of us who are Baptists
believe that baptism ought to be given upon the profession
of faith, which is clearly what John's baptism was. And it was
the baptism of the apostles. It was the baptism that was practiced
upon the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't have any place in our
ministry for the baptism of infants any longer. It's not taught in
scripture as far as we believe. And therefore, it is nevertheless
the case that the water confers no spiritual benefit. It has
to do with a picture of that spiritual baptism which comes
through a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and indeed through
the initiative of the Lord Jesus Christ. For it is he who baptises
us into the spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, the spirit of
power. And John's words here are showing
us that the source of spiritual work is always the Lord Jesus
Christ. And that's something that we
adhere to. It is something that we profess. It is something that
we maintain. We preach the gospel. We apply
these blessings of gospel faith through the medium of water baptism,
not in any way to anticipate or suggest that there is anything
in the picture except that it itself points to the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ in the soul of an individual. Now John
is saying here that he was a preacher but he could not save. A new
life is always the work of God, always the work of the triune
God. The Father in choosing its recipients, the Son in securing
its blessings, and the Holy Spirit in applying its effects to individual
sinners. So much here for the baptism. Let us think a little bit about
the Lord Jesus Christ's baptism also. The Lord Jesus Christ's
baptism is an evidence of his condescension. And again, I think
it's lovely the way in which Mark opens up this gospel account
by showing us that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came
out of Nazareth where he had lived all of his life from his
time as a child through all of his adult life up until his early
30s and then he came at the age of 30 and he began his ministry. But the beginning of that ministry
according to Mark is that the Lord Jesus Christ comes out of
Nazareth We call it despised Nazareth because it was despised
by the Jews. Nathaniel was able to give us
that little insight. Shall any good thing come out
of Nazareth? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ came
out of Nazareth. And it speaks of his humility
and it speaks of his condescension. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
succumbs, as it were, to John's baptism. And that is a testimony
to his humility. This is the Son of God. Mark
has identified him as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But here is the
Son of God. coming to John in order to be
baptised by him. John says, no, I can't do that.
I'm not willing to stoop down into the dust and fix the latchet
of your shoe. I'm not worthy of doing that.
And the Lord Jesus Christ says to John, Now you should do this. Now let it be that we should
fulfil all righteousness. What was the purpose of the Lord
Jesus Christ being baptised? The Lord Jesus Christ did not
need to be baptised. There was no sin in the Lord.
There was no need for him to be baptised in repentance or
in faith. There was no need for confession
in the Lord Jesus Christ or in any way to go through that picture
of having his sins cleansed. But it spoke of his humility,
it spoke of his condescension, it spoke of him stooping as the
God-man and coming into man's realm and taking upon himself
the role of our substitute and our representative. And so he
pictures here in his humility the union that he has with the
fallen creature as their representative before God. And I think also
another aspect of the Lord's baptism is that it gives a tacit
approval to the ministry of John the Baptist. John came baptising
in the wilderness. He came with a message of repentance. He came and he spoke again. He declared against the wickedness
of his age and these false religionists in the way of the Pharisees and
the scribes. And he says, who warned you to
flee from the wrath to come? And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
succumbing to the baptism of John, approved of that message
that John declared in his day. And he honoured John the Baptist. And he also, in being baptised,
became an example for his people. If our Saviour could be baptised,
then what stands in the road of his people being baptised
in like manner? If the Lord Jesus Christ could
humble himself and step down into that water, If he could
be taken by John the Baptist and laid into that water, because
it certainly appears that it was a baptism of immersion, then
we also ought to follow that pattern. And so it is a pattern
and an example of the Lord Jesus Christ for his people. And we
might say, fourthly, that it prefigures the beginning of the
Lord's own ministry and as such it is a useful description of
the way in which a believer's own service and ministry might
be seen to begin as far as his service before God and his service
to Christ and his service on behalf of the Church is considered
that the public declaration of our awareness of being a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ and our dedication to the service
of our Christ and our brethren in the church comes through our
baptism. So these four aspects of our
submission to the ordinance, in the way in which Christ humbled
himself, in the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ approved
of the ministry of John the Baptist, and we in our baptism approve
of the gospel preaching which we have heard as a means of introducing
us to the Lord Jesus Christ through faith, The witness that we make
to others in the way in which the Lord Jesus Christ also witnessed
to those around about him and the dedication of ourselves to
the service of one another is prefigured in the Lord Jesus
Christ being baptised. And then we see that the Holy
Spirit descended as a dove upon the Lord. And as believers follow
the example of their Saviour through the water of baptism,
it looks to that time when the Lord Jesus Christ was given this
authority by God from heaven. to be our leader, to be our king,
to be our prophet and our priest. The Holy Spirit descended as
a dove and the Father's testimony from heaven point to the glory
of the Son. So whether it was Moses' prophecy,
whether it was John's preaching, whether it was the attestation
of heaven, here we see that our Saviour Jesus Christ is the well-beloved
Son of God. And of course, one of the great
attributes of our God is his unchangeableness. And if the
Lord Jesus Christ is the beloved Son of God at his baptism, he
is still the beloved Son of God now. And he is the beloved Son
of God as our Saviour. He is the beloved Son of God
as our Redeemer. He is the beloved Son of God
as our Intercessor. He is the beloved Son of God
as our Saviour to all eternity. Christ was a son beloved of his
father and at this chosen moment at his baptism here he declares
in confirmation to John the Baptist and to others present God the
Father speaks to confirm that this is indeed his dearly beloved
son. His dearly beloved son who in
humility is exercising obedience to him not simply a servant,
but a son, the son who was loved. And the son indeed, who we shall
see in a moment, was about to be tried and tested by Satan
and who had received personally this confirmation and also this
encouragement as he was led and driven, we're told here in Mark,
out into the wilderness to be tried and tested by Satan. This is, says Mark, the revelation
of God's personal involvement in the world of men, and the
Lord Jesus Christ is set before us as that one who is well-pleasing,
who is beloved, and who is the Saviour and the Son of God. We can apply these things to
ourselves I think also. Let us just take a moment and
enjoy something of the application of these truths to our own hearts.
If God so attested his Son, Is that Son not worthy of our attention? Is that Son not worthy of our
hearing? Is that Son, so spoken of by
God as the dearly beloved Son, not worthy of our obedience and
of our faith? Men in this world arise from
amongst men. and they become famous, and some
of them become powerful, and some of them become celebrated,
and some of them are able to attract to themselves a following,
and some of them are promoted in the minds and the hearts of
men as being in some way special. But none, none were like this
one, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Beloved Son, that one
in whom the Father is well pleased, and that one in whom we have
access by his mediation into the presence of God himself. Third thing I wanted to notice
out of these verses was just the fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ was immediately afterwards, immediately after his baptism
tempted. No sooner had this witness of
his glory been made than the Lord Jesus Christ is driven by
the Spirit into the wilderness and a period of trial follows. It is perhaps evident from this
word driven that it is a period of temptation that is purposefully
instigated by the spirit. as though almost to reveal the
Lord to Satan and to announce to Satan and to the kingdom that
reigned in this world, as it were, that it soon would come
under the destructive hand of the Son of God. The destruction
of Satan's kingdom was imminent, and it seems as if the Spirit
drove the Lord Jesus Christ out into the wilderness. Now, because
we know that John was baptising in the wilderness, this would
suggest that it was deeper into the wilderness. It was into a
place where only wild beasts roamed, where no men were to
be found. and there the Lord Jesus Christ
spent 40 days and a variety of trials beset him over that period,
or perhaps particularly at the end of that period, so that there
was this period of 40 days during which the Lord Jesus Christ waited
and was fasting and without food, Interestingly, we are told that
during this time the Lord didn't hunger, which is a strange thing. But it is also interesting to
note that here it would appear that blessings and trial go hand
in hand. The Lord Jesus Christ at the
commencement of his ministry had been blessed by this attestation,
this confirmation, by God the Father, that he was a beloved
son who carried the pleasure of the Godhead with him. And
now he is immediately tried and tested in the wilderness. We
should note that, I think, because the Lord's people, I believe,
have evidence to testify of this in their own lives. That very
often a period of trial and a period of blessing will go hand in hand. That whether blessing comes first
and trial will follow, or trial is given and blessing results. There is often these two-fold
aspects to the experience of the Lord's people and perhaps
we ought not to be surprised when this is the case. The wild
beasts are only spoken of by Mark, as I suggested, maybe speaking
about the remoteness of this place. But it is noticeable,
too, that the Lord was untouched by these wild beasts, confirming
the identity as the God-Man, no doubt, as Lord of the earth
and Lord over the created beings of this earth. and yet surely
contrasting too with the Jews who attacked him for the rest
of his ministry, who saw an occasion to harm him with their words,
with their hands, with their stones, with their sticks. and
ultimately were able to take him even to the cross to Pilate
and to the Romans and to the cross itself and down to death. The Lord is spoken of prophetically
as being surrounded by dogs and beasts or bulls of Bashan and
here the very animals, the lions and the bears did not touch him
but the Jews and men sought to bring him down even to death. He fasted for these 40 days.
I wondered if there was some symbolism in this 40. It's a
number that is used often in scripture. There were a number of people
in fact who fasted for 40 days. Moses fasted for 40 days, Elijah
fasted for 40 days, and here we discover that the Lord fasted
for 40 days and 40 nights, which is perhaps even more significant
because although there are those who fast by day, invariably they
eat by night. So this does suggest that the
Lord went without food for 40 days and 40 nights. The only real thing that I could
pick up with respect to this reference to 40, because 40 years
also is spoken of, is perhaps it is used as a division of time
to indicate a breaking of one dispensation with another. For example, It rained for 40
days and 40 nights and Noah was in the ark for 40 days before
he allowed the raven to go out. The children of Israel spent
40 years in the wilderness. There are others, there are other
references as well. The spies were 40 days in the
land of promise. The Lord Jesus Christ stayed
upon earth for 40 days after his resurrection. And so perhaps
there is this picture of 40 being in some way symbolic of one age
passing and another age beginning, or one time passing and another
time beginning. But for whatever reason, the
Lord was without food in the wilderness for these 40 days. It seems to suggest that he was
hungered at the end of that time of fasting and at that time of
trial. And it was at that stage that
the angels came and ministered to him. Verse 13 says, He was
there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan, and was
with the wild beasts. and the angels ministered unto
him. At the end of those 40 periods
they came in order to revive him. And just as a final point
by way of drawing these verses to a conclusion, we can make
some mention to these last couple of verses, verses 14 and 15,
and how they Gospel writer here, Mark, draws
our attention to the beginning of the ministry of the Lord.
He has called it the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son
of God, and that gospel ministry is here marked in its initiation. With these momentous words, as
it were, with these momentous events of the baptism of Christ,
of the attestation of Christ, of the driving of Christ into
the wilderness, of his trials, and then his restoration by these
angels, we discover that the mantle of ministry passes from
John the Baptist, the one who had been the signpost as it were,
now having fulfilled his role with the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ out of Nazareth, passes that mantle of the prophetic
ministry onto the shoulders of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
John's role was at an end. Prison and death awaited him.
but he had the knowledge of knowing that the Lord Jesus Christ's
ministry had begun. And what a distinctive ministry
that was too. He comes, we are told in verse
14, now that John was put in prison, now after that John was
put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel
of the kingdom of God. So here is the beginning of the
ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, this ministry which would extend
three years and culminate in his crucifixion and his resurrection
and ultimately his ascension into glory as Truly the fulfilment
of those words which John the Baptist had spoken of him, behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world. But the Lord Jesus Christ's ministry
is amazingly terse in the way in which it is presented here,
amazingly distinctive. He spoke both in these few words,
preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. He says, The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel. The time is fulfilled. All of that prophetic ministry
for thousands of years had been fulfilled. It had come to its
end, its conclusion in the ministry of John the Baptist from that
early Edenic statement of the one that would come from the
lineage of man, that would come from Eve herself, born of men
who would bruise the serpent's head through Moses declaring
that one would come as a prophet who would be like unto his brethren
and like unto Moses. All was prefigured in the Old
Testament types, from the tabernacle to the serpent of brass, prefigured
in the prophets, spoken of by John the Baptist, now had come
and the time was fulfilled. The Kingdom of God is at hand. That Kingdom of God speaks of
the establishment and revelation of the Church of Jesus Christ.
The preaching of the Gospel to the gathering in of the elect
of God. The preaching of the Gospel which
saved both Jews and then ultimately was taken to the Gentiles by
the preaching of the Apostles. This is the kingdom of God that
is at hand. It was a kingdom because Christ
was king. It was a kingdom because it would
overthrow that kingdom of Satan which Christ's wilderness experience
and trials prefigured also. And here the Lord Jesus Christ
declares that that which I've shown in type now will be fulfilled
spiritually, as his kingdom would be established, never to be destroyed. The time is at hand, the kingdom
of God, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand.
Now repent ye and believe the gospel. I think there's a lovely
blend here of the Lord Jesus Christ putting in, as it were,
that worldwide dimension, that historical dimension now comes
to its conclusion. That worldwide dimension of the
kingdom of Christ being established first at Jerusalem, then Judea,
and then unto the ends of the earth, with the sending forth
of the apostles, now beginning, that gospel beginning, and the
way in which the Lord applies it personally to individuals,
calling on men to repent and to believe the gospel. Repent ye and believe the gospel. The kingdom of Christ, the kingdom
of heaven in this gospel age is now set up and Christ will
rule in the hearts of his people. How will he do that? Through
the preaching of the gospel and through man's submission to that
preached word. That's what we do. We preach
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We preach the accomplishments
of Christ, the words of Christ, the works of Christ, the testimony
of Christ, His death. We preach His death. We preach
the fact that there has been a change. that the old dispensation,
the old patterns of legal obedience, of sacrificial ritual, of the
rites, of the tabernacle and the temple, they have been ended. And it's no longer this formal,
outward practice of ritual and ceremony, but a spiritual response
that is called for. from man's hearts and through
the preaching of the gospel. We look to the words of Christ
and the works of Christ and the accomplishments of Christ as
that way of salvation, set forth in his death and his resurrection
and his ascension. This is the message of the Lord.
This is the message that Jesus of Nazareth preached. This is
the message which he came into Galilee declaring. And it was
the message that the apostles took up. It was the message that
changed the hearts and lives of men and women in their thousands
and their tens of thousands as the gospel went out into all
the world. And it is the message which has
touched the hearts of men and women in the gospel church in
every age since then. salvation by grace, eliciting
repentance for sin in the hearts of men through God the Holy Spirit,
humbling and bringing men and women to trust in the sufficiency
of Christ's sacrifice for peace with God. In Acts 4, verse 12, we read,
Within a few verses here, Mark has set forth the foundation
of the Gospel truth. He has pointed to the divinity
of Christ. He has pointed to Christ as the
fulfilment of all that had hitherto been promised. He had spoken
about the fact that spiritual life was essential, that repentance
of sin and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was now that message
which is going forth through the preaching of Christ and his
apostles and preachers to the ends of the earth. And Mark very
simply declares, this is the gospel. This is the good news
that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come into the world
in order to save sinners. The peace of God is not by works
that men can do. Peace with God is not obtained
by obedience to the law, by any form of man's obedience or effort
on his part. but it is received graciously
through the pardon that is in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is received by grace, in justification
by God's gifted righteousness to men and women, sinners like
you and like me. and it is received by faith in
the free and full salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent
and believe the gospel, says the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent
and believe the gospel, say the apostles, because there is no
salvation in any other. There is no other name given
under heaven amongst men whereby we must be saved. Repent and
believe, say gospel preachers, down through the ages of the
church, for this is the way, this is the means, this is the
door by which we enter in to the experience of grace with
God. We have a great salvation and
we have a wonderful Saviour who is worthy of our faith, worthy
of our faith, worthy of our trust, worthy of our confidence above
all others. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to our hearts for his name's sake. Amen.