Mark's Gospel chapter 16. Let's
read verses 15 through verse 20. If you have your Bibles and
want to turn there with me, if you have a few Bibles, it's on
page 1103. Mark chapter 16 and verse 15. The Lord Jesus had raised from
the dead He was ready to ascend back into glory, and this is
the instructions that He gives to His apostles and the disciples
that were gathered there with Him. And He said unto them, Go
ye unto all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth
not shall be 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. And then after the Lord had spoken
unto them, he was received up into heaven. and sat on the right
hand of God. And they went forth and preached everywhere, the
Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following."
Amen. Go and preach the gospel. That's what I want us to think
about this morning. Go and preach the gospel. And
as you and I consider this, I want to remind you of a few things
in regard to this command that we find in Matthew and Luke's
account of this also. These three accounts, as you
compare them together, we see several things in regard to this
account. First of all, this command was
obviously spoken first and foremost the early church to these apostles,
to these disciples of the Lord as they were gathered here, somewhere
probably upon Mount Olives. We are told here in the last
part of this chapter that the Lord spake unto them. The command
come to his apostles and the disciples in the early church.
And it's obvious that they took this command serious because
it's not long after this, you see them going up into Syria,
Antioch, and then they go up over to Cyprus, the islands,
and then you see the gospel begin to spread throughout Asia Minor. So the first commandment was
spoken to them. But as we read Matthew's account,
it is evident that the Lord speaks not only to the early church,
but He speaks to the church of all ages. This command was to
the apostles, but it was to the church right down to the end
of time. Listen to Matthew chapter 28
at Matthew's account in verse 20. The Lord Jesus said, teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and, lo,
I am with you always, even to the end of the world." Now, that
tells us that this command was not only to the apostles in the
early church, but it was to the church throughout the centuries
of time. It is obvious that the apostles
died and the early church died, but he speaks here of his church
at the end of time. I am with you, my church. We
said the other day, all them through time, and as long as
this world stands, there will be a church in this world. Neither
the gates of hell nor the world will prevail against the church.
And when the Lord comes back, there will be a church, and this
command that was given to the early church is given to us today. And may the Lord revive, may
He motivate our affections, our desires, our will to take this
commandment as serious as the early church took it. You and
I are still in this world today, brothers and sisters, with this
command from our Lord. Go and preach the gospel. Whatever means we have to preach
it with, with our lips, with tracts, with CDs, whatever means
that the Lord has to use, this commandment is as much for the
church today as it's ever been. That's why we believe in missionaries,
isn't it? That's why we have missionaries
in Mexico and other places that we support, because this command
is from our Lord and our head. Go thou and preach. That's the
first thing. The second thing that we see
is this. My, my, what is required in this
command? Go ye unto all the world. Can you imagine that? Here's
a little band of poor disciples. Some of them are on the verge
of poverty. Peter said himself, silver and
gold have I none. They were fishermen. They were
uneducated men. They had no influence outside
their own family. Nobody knew them. And here the
Lord gives this command to them, Go thou into all the world and
preach the gospel. Can you imagine what a command
that is to this little band of 120 or so disciples. Can you imagine as they looked
north towards Syria and they looked out into the Gentile world
and they began to think to themselves, go into all the world? Us? And think what a world, brothers
and sisters, they had to go face. Some of you may have seen The
Dust Bowl. Seen some old films of the Dust
Bowl, the dust storms back out in the middle western states,
out in Kansas and those places. They plowed up so much of the
ground out in there back in the 20s and 30s. Finally, the wind
was coming through and whipping up that dust and storms. And
if you've seen some of the old film of that, it would show the
huge clouds, just a solid cloud of dust. coming across the plain. And men and women would put on
the rags around their face and run and hide in their houses
or in their barns to try to avoid that blackness, that suffocating
dust, that cloud that was coming across the plain. Can you imagine
as this band of disciples looked out north through Samaria and
Syria And the kingdoms beyond that, can you imagine what a
black spiritual cloud they saw? They looked into those Gentile
kingdoms and all of them had been led away by Satan. They worshipped demons. They
lived in gross idolatry and open and profane sins. Can you imagine
what a dark cloud they faced? And now you're the Lord Jesus
Christ is telling them to go into that dark cloud and preach
my gospel? Boy, I imagine they felt the
weight of this command, don't you? I tell you, this would have
driven that honest and sincere man to desperation, would it
not? You fishermen, You poor men,
you that have no means, no wisdom in and of yourself, here's my
command to you. Leave this city and begin to
spread out and go into all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature. What a command! What a command! But you know something, brothers
and sisters, is this any different? than any other command the Lord
gives His people. Have you ever had Him to give
you one command that wasn't impossible to keep in and of yourself? He
gives the command to all men this morning to repent, to believe
in His only begotten Son, To take up the cross and follow
Him daily? To be followers of God as dear
children? To be tender in our hearts and
forgiving one another? He gives all of these commands,
but can we keep any of them in and of ourselves? You find the
least commandment that the Lord gives you, if there is such a
thing, And set your heart upon that and see how closely, how
fully you can do that in and of your own self, in your strength
and in your wisdom. And see if the least command
will not drive you to desperation. The Bible says that in our best
state we're altogether vanity. Does it not say that? And even
when we would do good, evil is present with us. And the Lord
Jesus told His apostles, without me, you can do what? Nothing. Nothing. I tell you, when the Lord Jesus
gave this command to these handful of apostles and disciples, He
meant for them to take it seriously. He meant for them to feel the
weight of this command. But He meant also for them to
feel the utter impossibility of obeying this command by their
own strength and their own wisdom. I was reading an old preacher. I won't even mention his name.
He's not worthy to even mention his name. But I was reading a
message, and he quoted the passage in the Old Testament where the
Lord said, Make you a new heart and a new spirit. Make you a
new heart and a new spirit. And he says that the Lord would
never command a man to do anything that that man did not have the
ability in and of himself to perform. Well, I'll tell you one thing.
You look at this command. You look what a command He gave
these poor disciples. To go into all the world. How were they to do that? The
Lord commands us to do many things. Does He not? But He qualifies it with this. Without Me, you can do nothing. Nothing. The answer to how this early
church was to obey this command is found in Matthew and Mark
and Luke's account. Let me read you first Matthew's
account. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew
28, 18, All power, all authority, is given to me in heaven and
in earth, go you therefore and preach the gospel." On whose
authority were they to go? The same one's authority who
sent them to preach the gospel. If anyone should say, what are
you doing? Why are you going into all the
world? Why are you preaching the gospel?
What was their answer? On the authority of Him who possesses
all power in heaven and in earth. That's whose authority. But Luke
tells us something else. Not only did they go by His authority,
but listen to how Luke says it in Luke 24, 49, I send the promise
of my Father unto you." Now listen, this is very important. "...but
tarry you in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued, until you
be filled with power from on high." What will it take for
this early church to be obedient to the Lord's command, it will
take no less than this, power from on high. That's it, ain't
it? Power from on high. What He commands
a man to do, that man cannot do apart from power from on high. You may be here this morning,
you may be lost. Dear soul, you may be lost. You
know what it's going to take to save you? You know what it's going to take
to save you if you're here and you're lost this morning? It's going to take
power from on high. You may be here and you think
you can decide your way into the Kingdom of Christ. You may
be here and you think you can pray your way into the Kingdom
of Christ. You may be here and you may think
that somebody can baptize you into the kingdom of Christ. That
somebody can bring you up front and have you to repeat a sinner's
prayer and that'll get you into the kingdom of Christ. Listen,
dear brothers and sisters. Listen, my lost friend. The only
way you can get into the kingdom of Christ and get out of the
kingdom of darkness is by that power that is from on high. Now, that's the only way. That's
the only way. How does a man come to believe
the gospel? By power from on high. How is
a man regenerated? By power from on high. And let's
go one step further. And how easy it is, brothers
and sisters, that you and I forget this. And I want to remind us
of this this morning. How can you and I who live the
Christian life Are you concerned about that? Not just going through formality,
fighting the good side of faith, worshipping the Lord in our private
homes, worshipping Him in public, following Him, overcoming, living
and walking by faith. How can we live the Christian
life? I think sometimes we forget this, don't we? There is but
one way to live the Christian life as we're commanded to in
the Bible, and that's by power from on high. There's no other
way. There is absolutely no other
way. And you can tell when we forget
this, when we think we can just go on in our lives and we can
do this, We can pray, we can worship, we can read, we can
witness, we can follow God His dear children. You know how when
we begin to think that we can do this in ourselves, you know
what we do? We become careless. It doesn't bother us to grieve
the Holy Spirit because we've forgotten. We've forgotten that
we can't take one step. We can't be strong in the Lord
and in the power of His mind. without the blessed Holy Spirit. How were they going to fulfill
this command? Powerful on high. Has it changed? Has it changed? Would the Lord tell His apostles,
you can't do this? What I'm commanding you to do,
you can't do it without you wait and tarry until you be endued
with powerful on high, and then turn around and tell us that
we can? We can't, can we? We can't. We need the same power from on
high as a church today, as individual believers, as they did back then. Who can do anything pleasing
to God apart from the power and the influence of the blessed
Holy Spirit? Power from on high. Sounds sort
of radical, doesn't it? Sounds sort of Pentecostalistic.
Power from on high. But we are talking about the
power in the inner man. Strengthened with might by His
Spirit in the inner man. Oh, what a task that was set
before this early church. And I tell you, they were daily,
I would say almost daily, reminded of their inability to perform
such a task because every day they were to go Every day, go,
go, go. And almost daily they were reminded
of the impossibility of this task because when the Lord sent
them out, the first thing they faced was opposition. Opposition. Isn't this strange that the Lord
commanded them to go and then set in their way such great opposition? Sometimes we think, well, if
the Lord's in it, it's going to be easy. If the Lord's in
it, it's probably going to be hard. As soon as they begin to preach
the gospel, what happened? They started getting threats. You preach in His name one more
time and we're going to whip you. Then they started whipping
them. Then they started stoning them.
Then they started killing them with a sword. The Apostle Paul talks about
when the Lord Jesus sent him to preach, what did he run into?
Pearls, he said. Robbers, pearls in the sea, pearls
among false brethren, and fastings often, and nakedness, and cold. What was all of this about, brothers
and sisters? The Lord, when He sends us out
to do anything, He lets opposition arise against us to prove us. Are we going to abide by His
Word or not? And boy, He reminds us, doesn't
He? When He raises up opposition, Lord, we can't go on. Lord, we
can't go on. No, you can't. And here's what
you need to do. You need to tarry. You need this
strength from heaven. this power from on high. That
is what he was teaching his disciples. William Tyndale, one of the most
blessed old men in all the Reformers and the translators. Listen to
how William Tyndale says this. If God send thee to the sea,
and He promised to go with thee and bring thee safe to land,
He will raise up a tempest against thee, To prove further, thou
wilt abide by his word, and that thou mayest feel thy faith and
perceive his goodness. For if it were always fair weather,
and you were never brought into jeopardy, which only the mercy
of God could deliver you from, your faith would be mere presumption. You would be unthankful to God
and unmerciful to your neighbor. Go unto all the world and preach
the gospel. Wasn't that an impossible task?
Yes. Without heaven's power. Without
heaven's power. And has it changed? It hasn't
changed, has it? It hasn't changed at all. If
anything is going to be accomplished today for any good in God's glory,
it will be accomplished by the same power that that task was
accomplished. Power from on high. And here
in my text in verses 19 and 20, we've got a perfect, perfect
example of what he's telling them. Look what he said in Mark
chapter 16 and look in verse 19. Then after the Lord had spoken
unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right
hand of God. And they went forth preaching
every word, just as he gave them commandment. They waited to be
endued with powerful moon high. They went forth preaching his
word in spite of all opposition. And look at this, the Lord working
with them and confirming the word with signs following them. the Lord working with them. That's what Christianity is,
isn't it? That's what it is. That's what
it is to walk with the Lord. That's what it is to be a Christian. It's to have the Lord abiding
in your heart. It's to have the Lord there working
with you. We are workers together with
Him. Ain't that amazing? These signs, most of these signs
are gone, and aren't you glad for that? What would you think
of me this morning if I was so ignorant to get up here with
a box full of rattlesnakes and go to hell? Most of you would
get out of here and rightfully so, wouldn't you? And if there's
any poison to be drank, I'm going to select somebody in the congregation
to drink it but not me. We don't need these signs like
that, do we? They confirmed the gospel in
the apostles' day. The gospel doesn't need confirming
now. But there is one sign, the essential
sign, that is still around today, and bless God for it. Go and
preach the gospel. He that believeth shall be saved. Oh, that's the only sign we need,
isn't it? To them who are perishing the gospel is foolishness. But
to you who are believing it, it is the power of God. That's
all we need today. That's all we want, isn't it?
The gospel. Preach the gospel. Well, there's
the command. Go. Go. And there's the means
by which they did it. Endued with power from on high.
And here is the message. They were to preach the gospel. The gospel. That wasn't all they
did. They fed the poor. They remembered
the poor. We know that. There's a time
to do other things, but nothing replaces the gospel. The church
is not to quit preaching the gospel and go off into building
houses. The church is not to quit preaching
the gospel and go deal with social issues, no matter how pressing
they may seem to be. The church has one thing to preach,
brothers and sisters, and that is the gospel. And when we get
away from the gospel, what happens? We get ourselves in trouble,
don't we? We get ourselves in trouble. Here is what we should
dwell on. The one thing that we should
preach is the gospel. Go and preach the gospel. Let me read to you with just
a little comment in his quote, William Tyndale definition of
the gospel. He was a Greek scholar. He knew
Greek. And he gave a definition of the
gospel. Listen to this. What is the gospel,
he asked. The gospel is a Greek word and
it signifies good, merry, glad and joyful tidings. That makes
a man's heart glad and makes him sing and makes him dance
and makes him leap for joy. The gospel is all Christ. How that he left heaven and came
to earth and took our humanity to himself and fought with sin
and with death and the devil and overcame them and has gotten
for himself a great and everlasting victory. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that wonderful? What is
the gospel? The gospel is not about us, is
it? It's about this wonderful Son
of God who came in our humanity and fought the battle Himself. And He won the battle. He got
the victory. Mr. Tyndale goes ahead to say,
which victory has been made evident because God raised Christ from
the dead and exalted Him in heaven. Whereby, now listen to this,
here's what makes it good news to you and me. whereby all men
that are in bondage to sin, do you ever feel that in your conscience,
dear soul? Do you ever feel the bondage of that sin in your conscience? And those who are wounded by
death, do you ever feel the dread of that in your soul? Death,
oh, death. And those who have been overcome
of the devil and his darkness, or without their own merit are
deserving, they are loosed. They are justified and restored
to life and are saved. Listen to this. Not according
to their own merits are deserving, and they are brought to liberty
and reconciled unto the favor of God and made one with Him
again, which tidings make all of those who believe them praise
and thank God and makes them glad and sing and dance and rejoice
from the low bottom of their heart. That's about as good a
definition of the gospel as you can give. That's why they call
it the gospel. It's good news. And what makes
it so is somebody else has taken the responsibility to Himself
and upon Himself to do for us what we could not and would not
do for ourselves. If I was going to take one verse
this morning and preach the gospel to you, I think it would be Hebrews
chapter 7 or chapter 9 and verse 12. Listen to this beautiful
passage. It is speaking of the Lord Jesus,
who by His own blood entered in once unto the holy place. That's God's presence. Having
obtained, listen, the victory is won. The battle has been fought. Sin has been purged away. Death
has been annihilated. Satan has been overcome, defeated
with his works. Listen, having obtained eternal
redemption. Isn't that wonderful? Two thousand
years ago in the history of this world, the Son of God came down
from heaven in our humanity and He did something all by Himself. He did something. What did He
do? He took on sin and defeated it. He took on death and put it away.
He took on Satan and he whipped it. He obtained eternal redemption,
and listen to these next two words, for you. For you? For me? Wretched, miserable? Who for? Those who believe His gospel. Eternal redemption for you. One of the most difficult and
impossible things to do is believe such a gospel. It's too good
to be true, is it not? It's too good to be true. Those who believe it so easily,
they've never heard it. Listen, listen, it's too glorious,
it's too wonderful. What's been accomplished already,
it's so wonderful, it's almost impossible to believe. Have you
ever heard of such a deal? You know, we're leery of these
great deals, aren't we? You read it in the paper. You
see it advertised on some of our media. We have got a great
deal. You just won't believe it. You
probably shouldn't believe it. The world can't afford to give
all these wonderful, marvelous deals. It would go broke. But you know something? God is
rich. He can afford to give us the
best deal you ever heard in your life. And what is the gospel?
It's the best thing you ever heard in your life. That somebody
else took your place and wrought against sin and put it away and
satisfied the awful justice of God and brought in everlasting
life to those who believe on Him for it. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, how wonderful. He's gotten
the victory. Oh, my text says this, go preach
the gospel to every creature and he that believeth shall be
saved. Ain't that wonderful? When will
he be saved? As soon as he believes it. He's
saved as soon as he believes it. Immediately. There's no reformation. The Lord's not in the remodeling
business, is He? Oh, believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you shall be saved now, right immediately. That's
the marvelous thing about it. You see, the work's done. You're
not waiting on anything else to be done. That's the wonderful
thing about the gospel. As soon as you look to Him, you're
saved. As soon as you believe in Him,
you're saved immediately. Ain't that wonderful? Can you
imagine yourself being saved this morning? Dear soul, you're
here this morning and you're lost. Can you imagine this? The
instant you look to Christ, you're saved. And here you are now living
your life every day, working a job, taking care of your family,
whatever you have to do in this world, and all the time, you're
saved. The courts of heaven can be searched.
The books of heaven can be searched. Any blame, any charge that's
brought against you, justice opens the book. Yes, here, cleanse
poor. No, his record is clean. Leave
him alone. There's no condemnation. He's
saved. Isn't that amazing? And you come
down to die and you're saved. And you stand before God in the
judgment and you're saved. Oh, think of that, brothers and
sisters. What does it mean to be saved?
Everything that entails to be saved, to be delivered from that
which is dragging your poor soul down to eternal misery, you're
saved. You're saved. Oh, it's almost too good to be true,
isn't it? He's saved. Saved. Look at the horrible consequences
of not believing. They're in verse 16. He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved. And if you believe
this morning, you know you should be baptized. We don't make no
quorums about that, do we? We don't talk about what's essential
and what's not essential. If you believe Him, profess Him
in water baptism. But look at the consequences
of not believing. He that believeth not He that
believes not is condemned already, isn't he? He's already guilty. He's already cursed before God.
But that's not the worst part of it. The worst is yet to come. He shall be damned. You and I love His shalls, don't
we? We love the first shall. He that believeth shall be saved.
And if we had the privilege to take the last shall out, we'd
never do so. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Who? He. Who is he? Anyone that believes not. It doesn't matter who he is,
does it? It doesn't matter if it's a male or a female, old
or young. It doesn't matter what position
they may hold in this lifetime. God is no respective person. He who believes not, whoever
he is, shall be damned. Oh, that's a consequence, ain't
it? See the importance of this message? It's not only to those
who hear and believe, but it's the dreadful consequences of
those who hear and do not believe. What will it be to be damned? Well, it means when you die,
the angels will carry you down to hell. Isn't that awful? You say, Bruce, you shouldn't
say these things in the ear of these children. Listen, what
does it mean to be damned? What an awful concept. When a
man's spirit leaves his body for the angels to come and get
him, and bind him and take him and cast him into hell, into
a flame where he'll lay and be tormented until the day of the
resurrection. And then he'll be raised and
stand before the Son of God in his weak body. And he'll stand
there trembling while he gives account in detail of all his
life of unbelief in this world. And he'll be asked questions
and he'll be interrogated as the Lord of Glory sets all his
sins before his eyes. What does it mean to be damned?
It means when that great transaction is finished, the Lord, the King
of Glory will say to his angels, bind this man hand and foot and
take him away and test him. Don't lead him. Don't place him,
but cast him as some refuge from my sight, as you would cast refuge
upon a trash heap. Cast him into outer darkness
without any regard for his humanity, without any regard for his suffering,
without any pity. Cast him out of my sight. That's what it is to be damned. He that believeth in the Son
of God, he is saved. He's heard the gospel. He's rested
his poor soul upon the finished work of Jesus Christ the Lord. He is saved. But those who do
not will not rest for all eternity. They will be damned. And as this
little handful of apostles and disciples left Jerusalem, they
went out with this burden upon their souls to preach the gospel,
and to preach the gospel only. They knew the consequences of
believing it, and they knew the consequences of not believing
it. And if you are here this morning, dear soul, I hope the
Lord confronts you with the consequences. And the church here this morning,
I hope you and I can be refocused on what our mission is from God. It's to take this gospel to our
neighbors and our communities. And as God gives us grace in
the means, wherever we can take it. Because the consequences
are serious, isn't it? The Lord bless this message.