Mark 1. Our Bible reading is just going to be two verses. Mark 1 and we'll read verses 14 and 15. Mark 1, verse 14, 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. Well, in the Bible reading there, just those two verses, and let's seek the Lord in prayer together. Let's pray. Our Father, this evening with our Bibles open before us, we pray that as we consider something of the theme tonight of the preaching of Jesus Christ, that our hearts will be encouraged at this message preached by Christ, by those in the Old Testament, by John the Baptist, by the apostles, by preachers all throughout history, a consistent, unchanged, unchangeable, and unstoppable message. And so we pray for help as we consider these things tonight. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. The way Mark records the events in this first chapter, you might be led to believe that this was the very beginning of Jesus' preaching ministry in the sense that this was Jesus' very first sermon. However, when you consider the other gospels, we learned that Christ was preaching before John the Baptist was cast into prison. And so we see that in verse number 14. Now, after that John was put in the prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching. Well, Jesus had been preaching before that, but as Mark records it, you might be led to believe that this is when Jesus actually started. Jesus had preached to many. Jesus already had a following of disciples, and as you trace this through the Gospels, you'll find that Jesus' disciples were actually baptizing more people than John the Baptist was baptizing. We think of John the Baptist, this great baptizer, and you know, hundreds and hundreds of people being baptized, and you know, maybe the case, but Jesus already had disciples that were doing that ministry as well. Luke 4, verses 13 to 21, I won't read all of that, but in Luke 4, 13 to 21, it gives us a more detailed account of Jesus' preaching in Galilee. We read there, in when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season, and Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, and there went out a fame of him throughout all the region round about, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. And it was in that event just after the temptation of Christ that Jesus went into the synagogue. And you're familiar, I didn't read all this, but you're familiar with that famous passage where Christ asked for the scroll and he turned to that place in Isaiah and he read that portion concerning himself and he closed the book and he said, today this is fulfilled in your hearing. That really was Jesus's first sermon, if you will. But what Christ came to do is he came to preach to men and women who were lost in their sins. And Mark here is just giving a summary of really the sum and substance of Jesus's message. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye and believe the gospel. I wanna preach this evening on the subject of the preaching of Jesus. How did Jesus preach? What did Jesus preach about? And what was the nature of his message? I want us to see first of all, that Jesus' preaching was an unchanged message. It was unchanged in the sense that it was the exact same message that John the Baptist had been preaching, when Jesus came along and John the Baptist pointed and said, behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. We read in Matthew 3, in those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This was John's message. And so Jesus comes along and Jesus begins to preach. And what does Jesus say? The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye and believe the gospel." They're preaching the exact same thing. It's an unchanged message. And what John the Baptist, Christ, and the apostles, as they went forth preaching, were preaching, turns out was the exact same thing that we see preached in the Old Testament. I'll just give you as an example, Ezekiel 18, 30. Therefore, I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore, turn yourselves." And so you see the Old Testament prophets were preaching this same message of repentance. And so the Old Testament prophets were preaching this. John the Baptist came along. John was preaching this. Jesus comes. Jesus was preaching this. The apostles were preaching this. And this is perhaps the most striking. When Jesus died, was buried, and rose again, and ascended back up into heaven, you find the apostles. preaching the same message after the resurrection of Jesus. Acts 3, verse 19, repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. So you see this message is unchanged. It's the message Paul preached. It's the message the reformers preached. It's the message that I trust by the Lord's grace is the message preached from this pulpit, both from Pastor Kimbrough and from myself. With the Lord's help, the message preached from this entire denomination of preachers in the Free Presbyterian Church of North America. We preach this message of repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. This is the unchanged message of the gospel. Now, repentance is not a saving work. Repentance is simply the outward manifestation of the fact that the Holy Spirit has already done a regenerating work in the heart. A dead man can't repent. The Holy Spirit comes and he regenerates the heart. He makes a person who is spiritually dead now alive. That person alive is irresistibly drawn to Christ. He sees Christ as the one who is the only savior of sinners. And he comes in humble faith and confession of his sin and repents. And this is the message of the gospel that we preach. The message that has been preached. It is the only message. Jesus Christ will save a man from his sins, but he won't leave a man in his sins. When Christ does save a person, they will inevitably repent and forsake sin. And so the message we preach is unchanged from the message of Christ, the message of the Old Testament prophets, the message of John the Baptist, the message of the apostles, and the message all down through the history of the church. But not only is it unchanged, but it is also unchangeable. It's unchangeable. Because to change it makes it something false, makes it different, makes it not the gospel at all. And so when we say it's an unchangeable message, Nothing can be added to the gospel. The gospel does not demand for a person to stop sinning in order to be saved. The gospel demands for a person to be saved in order to stop sinning. You are very well aware, there are some who have added to the gospel, and they say that once you are saved, The only way to stay saved is to not sin. And if you die in sin, then you lose that salvation and you go to hell. Well, they've added to the gospel. They've made personal, ongoing good works a condition to maintain this state of grace. And they argue you can lose, you can fall out of this state of grace. They've added to the gospel. They've added, in essence, the work of human merit into the picture of salvation. The death of Christ, the blood-shed sacrifice of Christ for the cleansing of sin is not sufficient to secure your place in glory. It takes that plus your obedience. Well, they've added to the gospel, and they've made it not the gospel at all, because what good news is there in how can I know that I've ever done enough? And there's so many in the church today that labor under that burden of guilt. How can I ever be sure that I've done enough? And you can never be sure that you've done enough, because how much is enough? But what we see in the Scriptures that God demands is absolute perfection and obedience to His law. And we failed in every point there. And that's where the glorious message of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ comes in. And we understand our standing in Christ and the gospel is because of a righteousness that's alien to us, a righteousness that's been imputed to us by and received by faith alone. We can't add to this gospel, can't add to this message, it's unchangeable. Because if you change it, you've perverted the whole thing and it's gone. Not only can you not add to it, but you also cannot take away from it. You can't, as some in the modern church would argue today, that a person can be saved without repentance. That a person can be saved and they can continue on indefinitely, really, in a walk of worldliness, and maintain a sinful lifestyle. Well, what you've done there is you've taken away from this message of the gospel. Because the message of the gospel is repent of sin. So it's unchangeable. It's unchanged. What we preach is what has been preached. What we preach cannot be changed without making it something entirely different and making it, therefore, a false gospel. So unchanged. unchangeable, but also unstoppable. From the beginning, the ungodly have always hated the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Satan, from the very beginning, has launched full attacks against the gospel of Jesus Christ. Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice. By faith, he offered that more excellent sacrifice. And what did he do? But put it in the heart of Cain to destroy his brother. You have the history of the church. You have the history of Israel in the wilderness. And what do you see over and over and over again? But Satan putting it in the heart to try to destroy the people of God. But you see God in ways that are incredibly and unbelievably miraculous, preserving His name and preserving His witness. Joseph says it, what you men meant for evil, the destruction of the promise, God meant for good, to preserve a people alive. And he used bondage in Egypt to do it. Who would write that script? But he used bondage in Egypt to do it. And then Pharaoh tries, he may, to destroy the people of God, but only to have his own army wiped out in the Red Sea. You come to David and Goliath. David there standing before that giant and the giant seeking to destroy the people of God. What was at stake? What was at stake there but the utter destruction of the promise of a Redeemer to come? And David recognizes the situation and he cries out, is there not a cause? Well, what's the cause but the preservation of the promise of God to redeem his people? And David, by faith, goes and he slays Goliath. You see in verse 14, John the Baptist was put in prison. This is the context of what we're dealing here with this summary by Mark. You see, John the Baptist was put in prison. In Matthew's gospel, we learn that John the Baptist had preached boldly to the religious establishment of his day. and pointedly preached to Herod that he was in sin for having his brother's wife. You need to repent. Eventually he was put into prison. He identified the religious leaders of his day as a generation of vipers. He warned them, flee from the wrath that is to come. He preached boldly and Satan put it in the heart of the leadership of that day to destroy this man. And if I can put it this way, putting in prison the most famous preacher of the day still didn't stop the message of the gospel going forward. Because they arrest John the Baptist, they put John the Baptist in prison, and who, if I can say this as reverently as I can, who immediately ramps up his ministry? But Jesus himself, publicly. Preaching the same message, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So it is unstoppable. Even imprisoning the most prominent preacher of the day couldn't stop the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. No one could silence the preaching of the gospel. Even the most extreme example, let's arrest the leader Let's crucify him. Let's put him to death. Maybe this will stop it. And so they arrest Jesus. They hang Jesus on a cross. And has anything stopped? No, they may as well have poured gasoline on a fire because Jesus rose from the dead. And then 40 days later, the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes and he fills 120 to go and to preach. And Peter, the spokesman of them all, preaches and 3,000 in one fell swoop added to the kingdom. Because the message of the gospel is unstoppable. And from there, the gospel exploded across the known world. We aren't 100% sure what happened to all of the apostles. There's a few that we have a better idea about than others. It said of Thomas, the one that, you know, doubting Thomas, it said of Thomas that he went west, I'm sorry, he went east as far as into India. What we know, the land mass today that we know is India, went that far east preaching the gospel. We don't have all that recorded for us in the scriptures, but church history tells us of his exploits to some degree. John preached in Asia Minor. At the end of his days was in exile there on the Isle of Patmos. We know that the gospel went down into Egypt. We have very early church fathers in Alexandria who are preaching the gospel. The gospel had come there. There are some who, some very well-known Bible scholars believe that the Apostle Paul went as far west as Spain. There's some speculation among many. We have some gaps in the Book of Acts as to exactly where Paul was at certain times, but there are some that speculate that Paul went as far as the islands of the United Kingdom. That's a little bit more speculation there, but there are some that would argue that Paul went that far. We know he did have a desire to go to Spain. He tells us that. And many believe that he accomplished that purpose in spreading the gospel and it being exploded throughout the whole known world because it was unstoppable, this message that had been unchanged and unchangeable. And it went everywhere, and the apostles went everywhere preaching the gospel. Throughout church history, Satan has tried over and over again to stamp out and to stop the message of the gospel with the help of none other than the Roman Catholic Church. Through medieval times, Satan tried to destroy the Bible. He tried through superstition to keep the Bible out of the hands of the layman. It was illegal in places to read the Bible until Wycliffe, others came along and began translating the Bible into the language of the common man at the risk of their own life. It wasn't the bad, evil governments that were trying to kill these men. It was the church. It was the Roman Catholic Church that was trying to kill them. But yet again, the message of the gospel is unstoppable and it prevails. Islam spread all over the world in an effort to do away with the message of the gospel, but the gospel prevails. Satan has raised up all sorts of rationalistic and humanistic philosophies in an attempt to eradicate the scriptures, but again, unstoppable. A story you might be familiar with quite humorous, but quite ironic and rejoicing in the sovereignty of God. The famous French philosopher Voltaire said that within 100 years of his lifetime, the Bible would be a relic of the past. It would be found only in a museum. And it would be only a curious onlooker that would have any interest at all in reading anything from this relic of the past. Well, if you will, God had the last laugh. Because instead of 100 years later, the Bible being consigned to a museum, the Geneva Bible Society owned the very home that Voltaire lived in and used it as a printing shop for Bibles. They printed Bibles in his very house where he lived, and he said it would not be there, be it inside the four walls that he lived in. They were printing Bibles, storing Bibles, distributing Bibles. Christ will always have a witness for himself, because the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is a message that is unstoppable. It cannot be silenced. Now, we, very thankfully so, are part of a denomination of believers that preach this same gospel, a message unchanged, unchangeable, and a message that by the Lord's grace unstoppable even in our context. And so I told you this morning I want to give some update from our Presbytery meeting and from the week of prayer, some of the goings on of what happened. I announced before we left, I think you all know we met in Cloverdale