I invite you to take your Bibles
this morning and turn with me to Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1. Each of the four Gospels are
written by four different men that the Lord separated for that
very purpose. And then moved in them with the
Holy Ghost to write their individual testimonies of the life and the
death and the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If you read and study the scriptures,
you'll see that The Holy Ghost moved in such a way that their
writings were inerrant. But at the same time, he didn't
block their individual personalities. If you read the Apostle Paul,
even the books that they say they don't know who wrote them,
you can see his personality in the book if you've studied the
Apostle Paul. And so it is throughout these
that these Each of these men gave their individual testimonies
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God. And each of these
men set forth our Savior in a specific character. So if you're reading
the book of Matthew, he presents our Lord as king. That's the
major portion. All through his writings, Matthew
sets forth Christ as king. He's the king. And then if you
read the book of Luke, he sets him forth as the son of man. He's our representative. He's
our covenant head. He's the beginning of man and
the ending of man. incarnate God in man. And then
John describes him as the Son of God. All through the book
of John, he just repeats over and over and over that Jesus
Christ is God come into the flesh. This is the Son of God. And then
here in the book of Mark, Mark sets him forth as Jehovah's servant. So just keep that in mind as
we go through the book of Mark. that this is the character in
which Mark is setting forth our Lord. And everything that he
has to say is geared toward that. This is Jehovah's servant. Now if you will, look down here
at verse one of Mark chapter one. And he begins his testimony this
way. He said, the beginning of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Now Mark is not declaring
here that the gospel had its beginning at the birth of Christ. Jesus Christ is the gospel. He is the gospel. And he's eternal. I brought a message up at Paul
Mahan's a few years back, and the title of it was, There's
a Beginning Before the Beginning. And Jesus Christ is that beginning. In Revelation 14.6, he calls
the gospel the everlasting gospel. This is the everlasting, it has
no beginning. Its beginning is with God and
God is eternal. In Hebrews 9.12, he calls the
redemption set forth in the gospel eternal redemption. And I know
men in our day who object to the doctrine of eternal justification. But our justifier was in the
beginning. He was in the beginning. And it says that God blessed
us in the beginning. Now did he bless us or did he
not bless us? Or did he promise to bless us?
What did he do? He blessed us. That's what it
says. So what Mark is talking about
here when he talks about the beginning of the gospel, he's
talking about the gospel as it's manifested. in the person and
work of Jesus Christ our Lord. Turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter
one. I preached on this here a few
weeks back. And I want you to see what he
says after this. In 2 Timothy 1.9, he said, who
has saved us, that is God has saved us. and called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Now watch this next verse. But
is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ,
who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel. So the beginning of the gospel,
of which John Mark is here talking about, is the gospel as it's being manifested
by the appearing of the Lord's Christ, Jehovah's servant. In 1 John, where Clay so well
instructed us as to the manifest difference between believers
and unbelievers, One of the things he writes in chapter five verse
one is this. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. Who is this Christ? Who is he who was born and God
witnessed that he was the Christ? Who is this man? He's Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. He's the Christ. Now if he's not the Christ, then
we're idolaters. If he's not the Christ and he
didn't accomplish our salvation, we're not saved. That's just
how important it is. It's everything. It's not just
something optional to look at. It's everything. It's all wrapped
up in him. If this is not the Christ, then
we're still looking for the Christ. in which the Jew, the strict
Jew, he's still looking for the coming Redeemer. He's still looking
for the Christ. But he both knows and believes
that all which was promised from the beginning was manifested
in the appearing and accomplishments of Jesus Christ, our Savior and
Lord. And Mark calls this the beginning
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That tiny babe
born in The born of the Virgin Mary is God Almighty. He's God our Savior. That's what
the scripture, that's how it identifies Jesus of Nazareth.
He's God our Savior. And if Jesus of Nazareth is not
God incarnate, he cannot be the promised Christ. You see, people
take these points that I'm talking to you about, and I want you
kids to listen to me this morning. People take these things, these
points, And they debate them like you would something you
learned in math class or science class or something. This is his
opinion, this is his opinion, that's his opinion, and they
go around, around, around. Opinions don't make any difference.
It's what does the, we don't have any information on God except
this book. And what does this book say of
the coming redeemer? What does it say? How does it,
how do we know that Jesus is the Christ? because he set forth
in the Old Testament prophets. And the fact is, when you read
the book of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you read the book
of Acts, and Romans, and 1st and 2nd Corinthians, and Galatians,
and Ephesians, and you go right on through the New Testament,
there was no New Testament when these men were preaching. They
were the writers of the New Testament. They were using the Old Testament
scriptures to preach the gospel in that day, all through the
book of Acts. You'll never find a sermon in the book of Acts
where he says, turn to Mark chapter three, or where he quotes Galatians
chapter four. Every quotation throughout the
book of Acts is a quotation from the Old Testament prophets. So
how do we know that Jesus is the Christ, and why would I make
a statement like that, that if he's not God, then he can't be
the Christ? I'll tell you why. Isaiah writes in chapter nine
of his book that bears his name, he said, unto us a child is born. He's talking about the coming
Redeemer. Unto us a child is born. There's gonna be a little
child born. And unto us a son is given. What
son? The son of God. The son of God. And his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor. Now listen, the mighty God. Isn't that what it says? Alright
then, if he's not God, he's not the Christ. He's not the Christ. If he's not God, he can't do
the work of the Christ. His sacrifice won't be sufficient. His walk won't be sufficient.
Nothing he does is gonna be sufficient if this is not the God-man. It calls him the mighty God.
It calls him the everlasting Father. He's equal with the Father. He said, if you saw me, you saw
the Father. The fact of it is we have no
idea anything about the Father except as we see it in Christ. The Gospel set forth in prophecy
and immediately after the fall of man God set it forth in the
garden both by type and by application and by prophecy and then it was
exampled And Adam's two sons, Cain and Abel, proving without
a doubt that the gospel was set forth in faith, and it was faith in that gospel
that Adam preached to them, and both the rejection of it and
the sure judgment of those things, was demonstrated in these first
two sons who come to worship God. So this gospel has been
set forth all through the Old Testament. All through the Old
Testament. But strictly speaking, Jesus
Christ is the gospel. And so Mark calls his appearing
the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All right, how did this gospel
begin? How did it begin? How did God
begin to manifest his gospel? How did it take place? Well,
it took place just as I told you before, according to the
scriptures, it took place. In verse two, in Mark chapter
one, verse two, it said, as it is written in the prophets, behold,
I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare the
way before me. Now Isaiah chapter 40, and especially
Malachi chapter three, says, behold, I will send my messenger
and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord whom you
seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of
the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. So what's gonna be the first
sign of the coming of the promised redeemer? John the Baptist. John the Baptist. Why did he
have to appear? Because God said he would. God
said he would. This is the king who's getting
ready to appear, and the king shall have a herald, and the
herald is John the Baptist. So then according to the prophets,
the appearing of Jesus Christ begins with the appearing of
his forerunner. which is what he called in the
scripture John the Baptist. Well, why did God purpose John
the Baptist to come before the Christ? Well, there's several
reasons. First is the obvious, it's written
in the prophets. All that's written of him had
to be fulfilled. And it's written, I quoted you
two scriptures, Isaiah chapter 40 and Malachi chapter three.
They both foretold. of the coming of Christ being
preceded by John the Baptist. And if everything that the prophet
said did not come to be, then Jesus of Nazareth is an imposter,
which is what the Jews say. And then secondly, he hints of
this reason in Mark chapter 1, verses 2 and 3, to prepare the
way of the Lord by preaching his true purpose and reason for
coming. The Jews had long since lost
the purpose of the gospel. They were practicing ceremonialism
and they were practicing some kind of personal holiness by
the law, righteousness that they gained by their own obedience
to the law. And they had levels set up in
it. You would go to this level and you'd be that much righteous,
and then you'd go to this level and you'd be that much righteous,
and then you'd graduate to be a Pharisee. And kind of like
the Nazarenes that I grew up in, they said from that point
you were sinless. But you know what John said about
that, right? He makes God a liar, that man
who says he has no sin. The reason for Christ and the necessity
of his coming as a man has always been a mystery to the general
population of this world. They all speculate about it and
who he was and so on. And his coming has always been
a matter of speculation and natural reasoning and mostly imagination. That's what it mostly is. It's
just men and women's vain imaginations. We're told today his coming was
as a martyr. As a martyr. He would die a very
visual A very impactive death on the cross, stripped naked,
beaten beyond recognition, and nailed to the cross. He'd be
the martyr of martyrs. That's how religion sets him
forth. Every Easter, churches practice now putting a man on
the cross in a play. His coming was not as a martyr.
And then they say His coming was as an example. He come to
set an example. But we've had the gospel. It
tells us that these old men of God that suffered these things,
they're all examples. That's what He tells us. And then they tell us it was
a last and desperate attempt to save sinners who never wanted
to be saved in the first place. God began to be desperate, and
so he sent his son. And then some see his coming
as a guide pointing the way. And he said, whether I go, you
know, and you know the way. And they said, wait a minute,
we don't know the way. What did he tell them? I am the way. He comes to point the way. He
is the way. And it is exactly this ignorance
of men by Satan's deception that prompted the coming of the forerunner. That's what prompted the sending
of John the Baptist. He was to come and God would
endow him with ability to preach as no other man. This man was
the prince of preachers. He was the greatest born of woman,
that's what our Lord said. God covered him with the Holy
Ghost in his mother's womb. gave this fetus, if you will. You can't even imagine such a
thing, can you? This fetus leapt for joy when
he heard about the coming of the Christ. What about that? Well, babies
don't have no understanding. That one did. That one did. There was no other man that you
could compare with John the Baptist. And our Lord said, nevertheless,
he that's least in the kingdom of God greater than he is. Oh, my soul, what God hasn't
given us in wisdom. And John the Baptist's purpose
was to make his path straight. He set before a deceived world
who this coming Redeemer is, and why he had to come, and what
he was about to do. and where he must go after he
dies. This is John the Baptist. When John the Baptist saw Christ
walking down the path, he didn't say, there's my cousin. What'd
he say? There's the lamb. Well, what'd
that mean? He'd already told him what the
lamb meant. The Lamb of God had to come, had to sacrifice himself
on the cross, had to pay for their sins. This is the Lamb.
He's the Lamb of which all these other lambs were just pictures
and types. This was the Lamb. Why would he say, behold the
Lamb? And then listen to what he said,
that taketh away the sin of the world. This is the one who takes
away the curse, right here. This is the only one, this is
the coming redeemer. John made his path straight. He made people at least understand
what he was saying about this coming redeemer. Mark chapter one verse four says,
John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance
for the remission of sins. Now John is called John the Baptist
because he was the first to administer baptism. Well, what do we know about baptism?
What do we know about his baptism? Well, we know quite a bit. We
know quite a bit, actually. First of all, he preached the
baptism as the commandment of God. How do I know that? Because everybody got baptized.
That's why. You quit messing around with
baptism when you understand what baptism is. It's the commandment
of God. He's not asking you pretty please.
He's not saying now, when you feel like it, you can be baptized. It's the commandment of God,
and that's exactly the way John preached it. That's exactly the
way all the apostles preached it. How do I know? Because they
were baptizing people at three o'clock in the morning. This is John the Baptist, and
he's preaching a baptism according to the commandment of God. He preached it in association
with the gospel of Christ. And then Mark 1 5 tells us that
they went out unto him All the land of Judea and they of Jerusalem
and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan confessing
their sins. Now, beside the river where the
evangelist might have scooped up a handful of water, he could
have led people down there to the edge of the river, this is
what people tell me, and reached down there and scooped up a handful
of water and sprinkled sprinkled it on the head of all the people
who came to him for baptism. But our Lord came to him, and
it said they went out into the water. Why'd they do that? Why couldn't
they just stand there on the bank if he was gonna sprinkle
him? because he didn't intend to sprinkle
him, he intended to bury him. And then it says, and they both
came up out of the water. Now there's no way you can sprinkle
water on somebody if he comes up out of it. They buried him beneath the water
and our Lord become the prime example of this baptism. Great way coming up out of the
water, he saw the heavens opened and the spirit like a dove descending
upon Christ. And then thirdly, there's no
way of confessing your sins being taken away except by our union
with Christ who died and was buried and raised for our justification. And that's what baptism does.
It confesses our faith. What is our faith? Our faith
is that he put us in union with his son. And when he buried his
son, he buried us. When he killed his son, he killed
us. And when he raised his son from
the dead, he raised us up with him. And when he ascended into
glory, Paul says in Ephesians chapter two, he raised us up
with him and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ.
That's what baptism confesses. I believe this. I believe that
God made me one with his son. That's the only hope I have. And being in his son, I have
righteousness, I have wisdom, I have sanctification, I have
redemption, I have everything I need. In Romans chapter six, verse
four, it said, therefore we are buried with him in baptism into
death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory
of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life. And then here in Mark, his baptism
is called the baptism of repentance. Why is that? Well, you'd be surprised
how many people try to separate the baptism of John the Baptist
from believer's baptism. Because they don't know what
that means, that baptism of repentance. So that's how they get away with
it. They just say, well, that's just something John the Baptist
did. Nobody else did it. And that's why you can't take
that burial and that resurrection from the water. You can't use
any of that, because that was just for John the Baptist. Well,
let me tell you something. is the first fruit of faith. When you hear somebody explaining
the gospel to you and they get repentance first and then faith,
they got it backwards. If you don't believe Jesus is
the Christ, what are you repenting of? Huh? And how'd you know he
was the Christ? God gave you the gift of faith.
Faith comes before repentance, and repentance is the first fruit
of it. That's how I know that God has given a man faith when
he can't stand himself anymore. He sees his sins, he sees what
he is. That's the fruit of faith. And
when John saw those Pharisees and Sadducees, those self-righteous
preachers of the law coming to his baptism, he said, oh, you
vipers, you vipers. Who hath warned you to flee from
the wrath of God? Bring forth therefore fruits,
meat for repentance. Then I'll baptize you. This was
a baptism of repentance. It was a confession that you're
a sinner and that your only hope is being one with Christ. And true faith is always accompanied
by repentance. And true repentance is always
followed by the fruit of submission, surrender, and obedience to the
authority of Christ and his ambassadors. And the true evidence of election,
Paul said, of the Thessalonians, he said, you become followers
of us and of the Lord. That's how I know your election.
So the forerunner preached the gospel of Christ and commanded
his hearers to believe and repent or die in their sins. Christ
is coming, and here's what he's coming to do. As our eternal
head and representative, he's coming to provide us with a perfect
righteousness and a perfect redemption. bearing our sins in his own body
on the tree. By his divine sufficiency and
according to the redemptive will of God, we shall be and we are
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once
for all. That's what he's coming to do.
And that's what John preached to the people. Do you believe
that? You believe what John preached? That's what he preached, and
he commanded by the authority of God for men to believe it
and confess it in public baptism. He was to make his path straight
and make men and women understand who this coming Redeemer is.
You know, when Christ came up to John, John said, Lord, I'm
not worthy to loose the sandals on your feet. I have been baptized
today. He said, suffer to be suffered. Because that's what I came to
do, fulfill everything that was written in the law of God and
to fulfill all that the prophet said of me. Christ is the bridegroom. John
said, I'm the friend of the bridegroom, which standeth and heareth him
and rejoices in his voice. This, my joy, therefore, is fulfilled. He must increase, I must decrease. So then the beginning of the
gospel is an understanding of who Christ is, why He's coming,
what He's coming to do, and where He must go. This is Jehovah's
servant. He's coming on purpose. He's coming to do something that
God sent Him to do. You follow what? This is what
Mark's telling us. First John 5.20, John said, and
we know that the Son of God has come, giving us an understanding
that we may know Him that's true. He's going to manifest what John
the Baptist said He was coming to do. He's going to manifest
that to us. This was John's ministry to make
clear, make straight, to show to men and women the Lamb of
God prophesied and promised from the beginning and now ready to
be revealed and manifested to the world. Now look with me just
real quickly and I'll close. Mark chapter 1 verse 9. And it
came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth to Galilee
and was baptized of John and Jordan. He was the herald, the
forerunner of the Christ, and as he proclaimed he would, the
Lord came. The Lord came. Next week, Lord
willing, we'll continue here in Mark's Gospel. May the Lord
give us eyes and ears to hear these things and see these things
and rejoice in these things. And have confidence that what
I'm preaching to you is true. Have confidence that him in whom
you've looked is exactly who God said he was according to
the scriptures. All right, thank you.