One of my all-time favorite lines from any song ever is from one of my favorite hymns ever, Joy to the World. And the line I'm thinking of is this, I love that line. Wherever the curse has messed something up, let His grace flow there, and of course that hymn is about the Second Coming and how Jesus is going to bring in new heavens and new earth and all that. When the Messiah comes, He comes to fulfill all of the Old Testament promises of eternal blessing on the whole universe. And that renewal and that restoration and that blessing will extend into every corner wherever anything is wrong, wherever any relationship is wrong, where there's evil, sin, pain, suffering, all of it. The renewal will be as extensive and pervasive and comprehensive as the effects of sin and the curse. At this point in Jesus' ministry, in the book of Mark, in chapter 3, Jesus still has a ways to go to get that done, right? I mean, He's got His work cut out for Him. He's healed some folks around Israel, and He's preached in several villages around Galilee. But he's really got a long, long way to go for that blessing to be heard as far as the curse is found. The enormity of the problems of the curse are so massive and so pervasive, and they're portrayed here in Mark as being overwhelming. If you were here last week, the masses of broken, sick humanity And the problems of the curse came from countries all around and just mobbed Jesus to the point where He has to actually plan an escape route with a boat. That's the picture we have of Him, just being overwhelmed by the problem of the curse. What is Jesus going to do to get this job done? If you draw a graph of Jesus' progress towards redeeming the universe, and you draw it from beginning of chapter 1 to chapter 3, and you extrapolate that line out on the graph, it doesn't seem like Jesus is going to have enough time in his lifespan to make much of a dent, even. You've heard that famous line from Jaws, maybe, we're going to need a bigger boat. You know, they see the giant shark, we're going to need a bigger boat. You see what's happening here in Mark 3 and you just think, we're going to need a bigger plan. Jesus going around just touching a few people and healing and preaching in some villages, it just doesn't seem like that's going to do it. We need a much bigger plan. And there is a bigger plan, and we find out right here in this passage that Jesus has a bigger plan. This, what He's been doing, that's not His plan for reaching the whole world. He's got something much bigger in mind, and that plan gets unveiled right here in chapter 3. We've seen Jesus silence demons multiple times already. He did it again here in verse 11, Mark 3, 11, when they start announcing that He's the Son of God. It said, "...whenever the evil spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, You are the Son of God! But He gave them strict orders not to tell who He was." The objectives that Jesus has, the goals that Jesus has for flooding this world with His grace as far as the curse is found, it's not going to come through demons. They're not going to do it. They know the truth about who He is, but they can't be entrusted to proclaim that truth because they're always up to no good. And so it's not His plan, it's not going to be disseminated, His truth is not going to be disseminated that way. It's also because it's not Jesus' plan to have His message, it's not going to be in the hands of them. It's not going to be in the hands of the people that He's healed. He's already told them not to go propagate it because they don't understand the whole picture. He's got another plan and it's right here in this passage where we see Him put that plan into motion. And the setting for this unveiling of this plan is very, very dramatic. Verse 13, He went up on a mountain No. Anytime you see a mountain in the Bible, look out. You know something like really, really big is going to happen if it's on a mountain. It always, you know, everything Moses getting the law, or God visiting Israel in Sinai, or Abraham sacrificing Isaac, or Elijah calling down fire on the prophets of Baal, Mount Carmel, the transfiguration, right, the Mount of Transfiguration, the Sermon on the Mount, just the list goes on. So this ascent up onto a mountain signals the reader something really, really significant is about to happen here. And that's even clearer in Luke's parallel account, because Luke says, he got up on that mountain and he spent the whole night praying. That's the first time we've ever seen Jesus do that, the whole night praying. So, something big. What is he praying about all night long? Well, here it is, verse 13. He went up on the mountain and he called to him those he wanted. And they came to him, he appointed twelve. Now that whole verse there, the language is unusual and striking. First of all, it happens on a mountain. Second, when it says he called them, instead of the normal word for calling, it's a strengthened, very strongly strengthened form of calling, which has the idea of an official summons. You might get a call, like from your wife, to come home early from work or something like that, but you get summoned by a king or a court, some official body. Jesus issues a summons to these 12 men. It's not kaleo, it's a... I forget the word. Is it proskaleo, I think? It's got some preposition on the front that's attached that strengthens it, makes it mean official summons. And then it says, He summoned those He wanted. That's also, that word wanted is a strong word. It's the word for the will of God. describing the will of God, divine election. He appointed these men. So it's all very high, lofty, majestic, divine kind of language that he's using. It's a monumental, history-changing moment right here in Mark 3 that's about to happen. When it says that He appointed them, the word appointed is also a significant word. Instead of the normal word for appoint, which is a word that means to set in place, He uses a word that normally means to create, or to make something. So it's actually the same word that's used in Genesis 1-1 in the Greek translation when God created the world. It's the creation word. Now on rare occasions this word does mean appoint, and so it's an okay translation here, translated appoint. But given the context, I think it's significant that he uses a word connected with creation. In appointing these men, these 12 men, Jesus is creating something. He's creating something. And what is he creating? Something like a whole new Israel, and we talked about that last time. He chose 12. You cannot miss the significance of the number 12, right? I mean, it's one thing. I've lived in Colorado my whole life. I do not know how many counties there are in Colorado. I do not know how many political parties there are in the United States. I do not know how many countries there are in Africa. But everybody knows how many tribes were in ancient Israel, right? 12, 12 tribes. The Jewish nation came into being with Jacob, who is renamed Israel, having 12 sons, and each one of them became the head of a tribe. Now Jesus, who is the true Israel, He's the fulfillment of Israel, He's the ultimate Israel, appoints 12. So you can't miss this. And if you have doubts about whether that really is intended to signify some kind of connection with the 12 tribes, we can look in the parallel Gospels. Mark implies that Luke just says it, Luke 22-29. I confer on you a kingdom just as My Father conferred one on Me, Jesus says, He's talking to the twelve, so that you may sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. He's talking to twelve guys, He says you're going to sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes. Matthew 19.28, When the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you will also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Revelation 21.14, The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. So there's no denying the connection. And I made the statement last week, Jesus is recreating the ancient people of God on completely new foundations. That statement, Jesus is creating the new people of God on new foundations, taking the kingdom away from the Jews and giving it to a new nation, a people who will bear its fruit, that whole concept is not only implied here, but it's spelled out in detail later on in Mark, especially in chapters 11 and 12. And I'm not going to get into it now. We'll get to it when we get to there. But in chapters 11 and 12, Jesus is going to curse a fig tree, which represents Israel. The fig tree, often in prophecy, represents Israel. He's going to curse this fig tree because it's not bearing fruit. Then after cursing it, he goes and wipes out the temple, just drives everyone out. Then comes back to the fig tree and it's dead. And he makes a big point about how it's dead. And then, right after that, he tells a parable about Israel's rejection of him. And then he comes to this conclusion, Matthew 21, 43. Therefore, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people an ethnos, a nation, who will produce its fruit. The 12 tribes of Israel were not bearing fruit. And so Jesus is right now taking the kingdom away from them and giving it to a new nation, creating a new people right here, right now, on this mountain in Mark 3. Now, that brings up a lot of controversy. Does that mean that God is rejecting the Jews altogether? No. No, I'm going to argue in a minute that he did not reject the Jews altogether, but I believe he did reject this particular generation of Jews. The generation of Jews that rejected Christ. Christ rejected them. And that's nothing new. Lest you think that's somehow anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish, it's actually nothing new in Scripture. To speak of God rejecting a particular generation of Jews has happened before. For example, in Hosea 1.9, then the Lord said, this is in the Old Testament, then the Lord said, you are not my people and I am not your God. He said that to Israel in Hosea. So when that happened, that wasn't the end of God's relationship with Israel altogether. They weren't done being God's people as a nation altogether, but that particular rebellious generation was rejected. God warned the Jews Right out of the gate when they first became the when it became a nation way back in Exodus 19 He warned them that that his promise to them to be His people special people was contingent. It was conditional on obedience Exodus 19 5 now if You obey me fully and keep my covenant then out of all the nations You will be my treasured possession verse 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to be a kingdom priest, holy nation, my people, my special people, you have to obey. If an individual Jewish person or for that matter a particular generation of Jews wants the promises that were given to the Jewish people to Israel, they have to obey God, they have to keep the terms of the covenant. If they rebel, all bets are off. So that part, that much, the rejection of a particular generation of Jews, that's happened before, but there's something else Jesus did here that's new, that has not happened ever in the Old Testament. He took the kingdom of God away from them and gave it to another nation, another people. What nation? The church. The church. He took the kingdom away from the physical descendants of the 12 tribes of Jacob and gave it to the spiritual descendants of the 12 new patriarchs that Jesus is establishing right here on this mountain in Mark 3. Now, if you don't know already, everything I just said is extremely controversial. Very controversial. This is where the theologians from the various factions of the church will really just put up their dukes on this stuff. And here's why. It's because of the promises God made to Israel. Is God going to make good on his promises? In the Old Testament, the prophets promised two things. especially in Isaiah. Israel, you're going to be punished, and you're going to be restored. Okay? Punishment, restoration. Punishment, restoration. The judgment happened, right? The punishment happened, no question about that. That happened in the Old Testament. But the promises for restoration haven't happened yet. I mean, there are some grandiose promises. They have not been fulfilled yet. So when are they going to be fulfilled? When is it going to happen? That's a matter of tremendous debate. And the debate, a lot of it happens between the Reformed side and the Dispensational side. So if you can bear with me on a little bit of seminary lingo here. The Reformed side, their argument is, ethnic Israel is done, forever. They're insignificant now. All the promises of restoration from the Old Testament, they're going to be fulfilled in the church, spiritually in the church, and that's all the fulfillment there's going to be. Ethnic Israel is done. The Jews after the flesh will never be restored. So whenever Isaiah promises judgment, punishment, that applies to ethnic Israel when he says, but don't worry, I'm going to restore you. That doesn't apply to them, it applies to us. That's the Reformed side. The Dispensationalist side, and I'm painting with some really broad brushes, so I know there's a lot of nuances and differences, but just to give you an idea. The Dispensationalist side, on the other hand, will say, no, no, no, the church and Israel are two totally distinct, completely separated things. The promises made to Israel will be that ethnic Jews will be fulfilled to ethnic Jews. That's going to happen during the millennium, the 1,000-year reign of Christ. After the Second Coming, Jesus is going to reign on earth for 1,000 years, and that's when He's going to fulfill all these promises about the land and everything else for the Jews. And those promises don't apply to the Church at all. So, which is it? Usually, when you have a theological debate that's been going on for hundreds of years, the reason for that is because there's really strong statements in Scripture supporting both sides. And that's the case here. Is ethnic Israel done forever, never to reappear with any theological significance? No. Romans 3.1 says there's an advantage to being a Jew. And Romans 11.26-31 says that unbelieving Jews, people who are unbelieving Jews right now, who are enemies of the gospel. It's not talking about the church, this is talking about ethnic Israel. Enemies of the gospel. Those people are still loved by God on behalf of the patriarchs and so someday they're going to be saved. The time will come when ethnic Israel will finally bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved and be grafted back into the people of God. And so God does still have a future plan for ethnic Israel. So we can't go as far as some of our Reformed friends and say that God is just completely done with ethnic Israel. But on the other hand, we also can't go too far and get carried away on the dispensationalist side and say that the promises only apply to ethnic Israel and not to the church. Because there are so many passages that the New Testament writers quote from the Old Testament made to Israel and apply them to the church. It's everywhere in the New Testament. You can't deny that. It's all over. In Exodus 19.6, God promises to make Israel a kingdom of priests. In the New Testament, multiple places, that's applied to the church. That's fulfilled in the church. We're a kingdom of priests. For example, Revelation 5.10, you have made them to be a kingdom and priests. And we know that isn't talking about ethnic Israel because the verse right before it says He's talking about men from every tribe and language and people and nation. We've made kingdom of priests. Jeremiah 31-33, Israel is identified as the people of God. Daniel 7, Israel is identified as God's chosen race, people belonging to God, and a holy nation. That's all ethnic Israel. Now listen to 1 Peter 2-9, talking to the church. You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God. He might as well just say, you're Israel. He's taking all the lingo used to describe Israel in the Old Testament and applies it to the church. I think what some of our dispensationalist friends fail to see is the fact that the ultimate fulfillment of Israel is Christ. We could do a whole Bible study just on this, just how Christ fulfills everything Israel was supposed to be. He is the ultimate Israel. And we are in Christ. So we get everything Christ gets. We're co-heirs with Him. So much language in the Bible referring to the church as the New Israel, the Israel of God, the descendants of Abraham, the chosen people. Pretty much any designation you can find in the Old Testament for Israel, you'll find it applied to the church in the New Testament. There's just no denying that we are, in a very real sense, the New Israel. One of the reasons why so many Jews, and this is just kind of a warning about your eschatology, your end times thinking. One of the reasons so many Jews missed the Messiah is because they had a conception of the end times that didn't allow for anything unexpected, like the Messiah coming twice with a gap in between. wants to suffer and die. That wasn't revealed in the Old Testament, and they weren't ready for it, and so they missed it. We need to make sure we don't make that same mistake with our theology, with our end times theology. If the Bible says Jesus is going to return, and Judgment Day is going to happen, and Satan is going to be defeated, and there's going to be a new heavens and a new earth, we all agree with that. But I don't want to come up with a timeline that's so rigid about the end times that if there's some things that unfold in the end times that I didn't see coming because they're not in prophecy, that I'm not prepared to accept them, I don't want to make that mistake. I think it would be very much in line with what we know about how God fulfills prophecy if we get to the end times and lots of things happen that we don't expect, and there might be a time period in there that we don't expect, and there wouldn't be anything unusual if God decided to do it this way. Make the promises to Israel, fulfill those promises in spiritual ways, in very profound spiritual ways in the church, and then later on in physical ways to ethnic Israel, right? He could do all of that. So, I don't want to get too hung up on any system that is going to be so rigid that it can't handle one side or the other of these statements in the Bible. All right, so let's get back to the text here. He appointed 12, designating them apostles. Let's talk about the term apostle. Out of his big group of many, many disciples, Jesus selects 12 and makes them apostles. It's very important when you're interpreting the Bible to understand the difference between a disciple and an apostle. Every Christian is a disciple. There's only 12 apostles. There's only about 12. Paul and Barnabas were added later, maybe a few others. But however you take that, and there's debate about that, but however you take that, still the Apostles are a very, very limited group, the Apostles of Christ. Then you have another category in the Bible, the Apostles of the Church, which are basically missionaries. The Church sends out missionaries like Epaphroditus and stuff. But we're talking about, capitally, Apostles of Christ, sent out by Christ. Very, very limited, unique group. So let's think about the difference between a disciple and an apostle. The word disciple means learner. The word apostle means one sent on a mission. In fact, that same word is used in verse 14. The verb form, when it says that he might send them out in verse 14, that word send is the verb form of the word apostle. So it sounds like he appointed 12, designating them apostles that he might apostle them out to preach and to have authority over demons. That's how it sounds in the Greek. So this apostle is a sent one. By calling these 12 apostles, he's indicating that he's sending them out on a mission, and then he defines the mission. Now, isn't it true that all Christians are sent out by Christ on a mission? Yes, yes, but not like this, not like the apostles. Theirs is unique. There are many passages in the New Testament that distinguish between apostles and regular Christians. For example, I'll just read one of them, 1 Corinthians 3.9. Paul says, We, the apostles and our associates, are God's fellow workers. You, the church, are God's field, God's building. I laid a foundation as an expert builder. You are the building. So the apostles were the builders laying the foundation. The building that was being built on that foundation was the church, the rest of Christianity. So in the Gospels, and this will help you understand and interpret Gospels, when you read the Gospels, the 12 play two roles. They wear two hats. And you need to figure out which one they're wearing in a particular context. They were both disciples and apostles. Sometimes they're portrayed as disciples and sometimes as apostles. And when they're disciples, they are examples for us. They're like prototype disciples. They're model disciples. They teach us how to be disciples. As apostles, they're not examples for us because they're called to a role that we're not called to. So when you read about something involving the 12 and their role as disciples, then you should read that and say, okay, this is instructing me on how to live. I need to live like this. When you read about an event involving their role as apostles, That's not for you to imitate. So, what is it for? You're having your devotions, you come across a passage where Jesus says something to the twelve that applies just to apostles, not to the rest of us. And then you close your Bible, it's time to go to work, you go off. How do you apply that passage? How do you put that into practice? How does that help your Christianity? Because it doesn't apply to you, it's not for you, it's not something that is spoken directly to you, so what's the application? There's a very, very wonderful application, and that's what we're gonna learn tonight. We don't have to guess what Jesus' purpose is in appointing the 12 as apostles, because Mark tells us exactly what the purposes were. Four things, four things. Three that he mentions and one that he implies. So when you read them, it actually sounds very familiar. Look at verse 14. At the end of verse 14, he called them that they might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. Does that sound familiar? What does that sound like? Where have I heard that before? It seems like I've heard that. Going around preaching and having authority over demons. Where have we heard that before? Seems like really familiar, doesn't it? Oh, that's right, that's right. That's the only thing Jesus has been doing the entire book so far. The constant, repeated description of Jesus' ministry throughout the book of Mark so far is He goes around preaching and driving out demons and healing. Now, what's happening? He's deputizing 12 men to do the exact same thing that He's been doing. Now Mark doesn't mention the healing part here, but we know that that's included in chapter 6. It shows up when they actually go out, so that is included. So this is a very deliberate way that Mark, in writing this, is showing that Jesus Christ was conferring on these 12 the very task that He was doing, the very work of Christ Himself. Now they're going to be doing that work. The reason He called these 12 and made them apostles was to do His work. We're going to need a bigger plan. We're going to need a bigger plan? Here's our bigger plan. This is it. This is the bigger plan. This is how Jesus is going to reach the whole world. It's going to be through these guys. But they don't actually go out and start working at it until chapter 6. So he makes them apostles in chapter 3. Finally, they go out on their first short-term mission in chapter 6. They can't do it now in chapter 3 yet because they're not ready. And they need to be trained, and that's the first of the three things that Mark mentions. Remember I said when Mark tells us Jesus' purpose in making apostles, there's three things. First thing has to do with training. He appointed 12, designating them apostles. Why? Reason number one, that they might be with Him. That they might be with Him. before these men can go out, and I think there's more to it than just training, I think that there's companionship and all that, there's definitely friendship with Jesus, no question about that, but primarily I think it's preparation. Before they can go out on this mission trip, they need some intensive training by the Lord Jesus Christ, and Mark is going to keep us up to date on how that's going as we go through the book, alright? So we're going to see this pattern, we're going to go through Mark, Mark's going to alternate between telling us these accounts of what Jesus is doing, and then he's saying, oh, let me give you an update on how the apostles' training is going. And then some more stories about Jesus, and let me give you another update on how the training is going. And so we're going to see that through the rest of the book. So that's number one. He trained them. He trained them to do what? Well, that's number two, to preach. To preach. Verse 14, he appointed the twelve designated apostles that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach. So these 12 men are going to be the conveyors of the message of the Lord Jesus Christ. Up until now, nobody's allowed to say it. Everyone, he just shuts them up. Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody. Demons, shut up. People that I heal, don't tell anybody. Keep it quiet. Now, these guys are going to go out and they're going to be able to actually preach the message. They're going to be the conveyors of Jesus' message to the world. We see later that they also have a teaching role, not just a preaching role, but also a teaching role. And we've seen that with Jesus too, both teaching and preaching. But the emphasis here is on preaching. And somebody might ask, what's the difference between preaching and teaching? Preaching is louder than teaching. Preaching is proclamation. It's an announcement. Preaching does involve teaching. Anytime you're preaching and you explain something, then you're teaching. But preaching comes across as an announcement, as proclamation of news from the king. It's loud. It's done before a crowd. There's a rhetorical force. It's strong. And above all, it's authoritative. It's authoritative. That is God's ordained method of propagating the gospel, preaching. And I just mention that because every generation comes up with a better idea. Every generation thinks they've got some way to convey the truth better than preaching, something else that's going to work better. But preaching is the primary tool that God gave us. One-on-one is great, small groups are great, multimedia is great, all that stuff, but preaching is the tool that God gave us. It was Jesus' primary tool, it was what He commissioned the apostles to do, and it's what the apostles handed down to pastors to keep doing. For example, 2 Timothy 4.1, in the presence of God, listen to the strength of this command that Paul gives to Timothy. in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge. Preach the word." So, Paul's about to die. He writes his last letter to Timothy. Timothy, of all the things I've taught you all these years in all of ministry, if you do one thing, if you remember one thing to keep doing after I die, make it this, preaching. Preaching, preaching. You say, well, what if I get into a culture that preaching isn't very effective? People don't listen to preaching. They don't have the attention span. They don't want to hear it. What if I get into a postmodern culture where they don't like authority, and so they don't want anybody telling them what to do, and preach is a negative word, like our culture. Then what? Well, if you get into a culture like that, that's all the more reason to preach, because That's what he says in the next verse. He says, Timothy, preach the word. Why? For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Therefore, preach the word. So if they don't listen, that's all the more reason to preach. Double down on your commitment to it. And what is it that we're to preach? The apostles' doctrine. The same thing they preached. 2 Timothy 1.13. Paul, the apostle, says to Timothy, what you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching. Teach that, the gospel. 2 Timothy 2.2, and the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others. Four generations in one verse, the same message keeps going all the way down. This is what the church was devoted to from the very beginning. That great summary of the church in Acts 2.42, just the summary statement says, this is what the church right from day one is absolutely devoted to. Very first thing, Acts 2.42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' doctrine. Daily, that was their devotion. The body of teaching that we receive from these 12, from the Apostles, is not a changing, developing, growing thing. It is a single body of doctrine delivered in full, intact, by the Apostles in the first century, delivered to the Church. In fact Jude 3 says contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the Saints once for all delivered to the Saints So the message doesn't keep changing It's one message and it came from the Apostles. So All that to say this whenever you see the Apostles referred to in the Bible You can just pencil in the margin and just say New Testament That's what that's what we get from the Apostles the doctrine of the New Testament. That's the significance, Ephesians 3.5, "...which was not made known to men in other generations, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit of God, of God's holy apostles and prophets." So this New Testament doctrine, it wasn't known before now, it came to us through the apostles. and prophets. Both offices were involved with Revelation but the Apostles' job is bigger and broader and included other things and so when Apostles and prophets are mentioned together it's always Apostles first. In fact 1 Corinthians 12.28 explicitly ranks Apostles first and prophets second. And this is why passages like John 14.26 are so important. Listen to this. In John 14.25 he says, Now that's an example of one of those verses that applies to the apostles. It's not applying to us. When you see that, don't think, oh, God is promising that I'm going to have perfect recall of Bible verses and whatever. That's not what it's saying. It's a promise given to the Twelve that they would have infallible recall of everything Jesus taught them, and on top of that, the Holy Spirit would also teach them even more so that they would get it exactly right. When you read John 14 about that promise, I'm going to remind you of everything I said to you, and the Holy Spirit is going to teach it. If you come across that in your devotions, the application isn't, oh, I'm going to have perfect recall today. No, the application is, praise God, I can trust my Bible. I can trust my New Testament. Because the Holy Spirit gave the apostles perfect recall, infallible recall of everything Jesus taught them. I can have full confidence in the New Testament. So, what Jesus refused to allow the demons to do, what He refused to let anyone else do, He now commissions the Twelve to do, namely, to be the proclaimers of His message in the world. And they did it. They obeyed. The Twelve did this. After Jesus died, rose from the dead, ascended back to heaven, the Apostles went around preaching this message, teaching this doctrine, repeating it over and over, going around teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching, and then finally, towards the end of their lives, they wrote it down. They committed it all to writing. And that's the New Testament. And by the way, that just as an aside, it's kind of an interesting thing to keep in mind when you're interpreting the Bible, that the church had been hearing this message for years before they get these letters. So if you're reading, if you're studying one of the epistles and you got something in chapter 2, don't assume that the readers were ignorant of all the stuff in chapter 6, because they're only in chapter 2. The people had heard the message many, many times verbally before it got committed to writing. But the Apostles did finally write it down, and the Church preserved those writings, and they rejected other writings by false Apostles because there were other people running around claiming to be Apostles. The Church back then knew the difference. They rejected some. They kept the ones from the Apostles that they knew were from the Apostles. and preserved them. John, the Apostle John, wrote five books, the Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Revelation. Peter wrote two, 1st and 2nd Peter, and then he provided all the information for a third, which is what book? Mark, yeah, very good. And Matthew wrote one, the Gospel of Matthew. Paul wrote twelve. And here's the thing that is so important for you to understand about all those writings. They're all plagiarized. It's all plagiarism. The whole New Testament was all taken from Jesus. None of it came from the Apostles. The Apostles did not originate one word of it. It all came from Jesus. None of it was original with them. 100% of that material they got from Jesus. No, they had permission, so it wasn't illegal. In fact, they actually had a command. Now that, you might hear that and say, wait a second, that doesn't compute, because I've read things in the Book of Romans that I never saw Jesus say in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And that's true. But that's just simply because not everything Jesus taught the apostles is recorded in the Gospels. Matthew 10.27, Jesus says, what I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight. What's whispered in your ear, proclaim from the rooftops. So, all that stuff in Romans, or Hebrews, or 2 Peter, or James, or wherever you look in the New Testament, in the epistles, you don't hear Jesus announcing that in the Gospels, but He did teach it. Those times when He's behind closed doors with the Twelve, He's teaching them that stuff. He's teaching, He's whispering it in private to the Apostles and telling them, shout this from the rooftops after I'm gone. So don't ever think of the New Testament as having two parts, like you have the Gospels and then you got the Epistles. Jesus taught it all. It all came from Jesus, all the teachings of Christ. The apostles, all they did was teach what Jesus revealed to them, nothing else, nothing else. In fact, if you want, you could put the entire New Testament in red letters. It's all the words of Christ. All came from Jesus. Now, the apostles used their own words. Jesus explained the principles to them. They put it in their own words. The Holy Spirit made sure it was written down infallibly, but it all came from Christ. 2 Peter 3.2, I want you to recall the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. And by the way, for those in the Greek class, if you remind me afterwards, I'll tell you about this genitive. It's a really interesting genitive. Not for right now. Hebrews 1.1, in the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days, He's spoken to us by His Son. He used to speak to the prophets and all that. Now, His Son. Why doesn't it say, in the last days, now He's spoken to us through His Son and the apostles? He doesn't say that because it's not two different things. The apostles, all they're doing is communicating what the Son said. So it's from the Son. Ephesians 2.19, you are fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. So the foundation is the apostles and prophets. the churches built on them. The cornerstone was the foundation of the foundation. So the way they would build a building with stones, they would cut a perfectly square cornerstone, get it perfectly square. And that was the guide that they used to lay the whole rest of the foundation. It supported everything and was the standard to which every other stone had to conform. So the point there is that the Apostles were perfectly in line with Jesus Christ. And the reason the whole church could be built on the foundation of the Apostles' doctrine, which is the New Testament, is that those foundation stones aligned exactly with the mind of the cornerstone, the Lord Jesus Christ. Make sense? So you look at this passage, when we think about this passage here in Mark, just think for a second the importance of these men. What do you know about the life and teaching of Christ that didn't come from these 12 guys? Nothing. If we include Paul. Nothing! Outside of what's revealed about the Messiah in Old Testament prophecy, we know nothing specific about the Lord Jesus, nothing of any significance, a couple mentions in history, but nothing of any significance about Jesus that didn't come to us through the apostles. Jesus didn't write anything that we have. Whatever written records there were back then, all of them are lost except for what the apostles put into writing. All we have is what the apostles and their associates gave us. How much of the New Testament would we have if it weren't for the apostles? Not one word. Not one word. How many of us in this room would be going to hell if it weren't for the apostles? All of us. Everyone. Because the gospel came from the... Christianity was propagated through these men. I mentioned this in my prayer, I think, last week or a couple weeks ago, but I'll just mention it again. It's fashionable these days to do research to check into your ancestry. Have you heard about the ads on radio stuff? You can find out your ancestry, see if you're related to someone famous. If I could somehow discover that I was descended from Abraham Lincoln, that'd be kind of cool, but really, honestly, what would it mean? After that many generations, how many genes of Abraham Lincoln would I possibly have? It would really be meaningless. But in the kingdom of God, the heritage that matters is not the heritage after the flesh with genetic markers, but spiritual heritage. Paul called Timothy his son. Not after the flesh, but he wasn't a biological son, but he was his son spiritually, and that's really what matters. Would you rather be the spiritual son of Paul or the physical son of Paul? I mean, that'd be pretty cool to be a Timothy, right? So spiritual heritage is what matters. And I looked into this, and I don't, you know, I hate to brag, I don't want to brag or anything like that, but I happen to know that my spiritual ancestry, when I trace it back from my dad, grandfather, son, goes all the way back to one of the apostles. It does. Because all believers came from them. I don't know, I haven't pinned down exactly which one of the 12 it was. Shut up, Bill. I know you're thinking Judas. It wasn't Judas. But no, our ancestry, our spiritual ancestry goes back to the 12. Now, when you hear all that, that the only thing we know about Jesus comes from these men, does that make you a little bit concerned about the reliability of the apostles. We know nothing about our Lord and Savior except what came from them. I hope they're reliable. If they get anything wrong, it's just wrong, right? There's no remedy. There's no way to check it or correct it. Can you see why Jesus spent the entire night in prayer before picking these guys? I don't know if he's seeking God's guidance on who to choose or if he already knew who he was going to choose and he's just praying for them, for their ministry, to bless their ministry, protect them from the evil one, whatever, but whichever it was, a whole night of intensive prayer is a big deal. We are basing everything, our whole lives, on the words that these men wrote. And we're betting our eternal destiny on them being reliable, faithful witnesses, truthful, which is why the third element is so important. So back to verse 14. Jesus, He appointed 12, designated the apostles, why? Number one, that they might be with Him, that's one, that He might send them out to preach, that's two, we just talked about that. Now the third part, verse 15, and to have authority to drive out demons. Jesus gave them miraculous power. power over demons, power to miraculously heal people, as we're going to see in chapter 6, and not just random miracles, but the same exact kind of miracles that Jesus was doing, this is how we know we can trust them. They could do miracles. That confirmed it, and that's the purpose of miracles. is to confirm the message as being from God. That's what we see with Jesus, Acts 2.22. And I could read a million verses, but I'll just give you a couple of samples. Acts 2.22, Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs. John 14.11, Jesus said to the Twelve, Believe me when I say that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. Or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. So we know Jesus was legit because of His miracles. We know that He spoke for God because of His miracles, that proved it. And the miracles had the same purpose with the Twelve, with the Apostles. Acts 14.3, the Lord confirmed the message of His grace by enabling them, the Apostles, to do miraculous signs and wonders. 2 Corinthians 12.12, the signs of the Apostle were done among you with great perseverance with signs, wonders, and miracles. Romans 15-18, I will not venture to speak anything except what Christ has accomplished through me by the power of signs and miracles. Hebrews 2-3, this salvation which was first announced by the Lord was confirmed to us by those who heard Him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders, and various miracles. I mean, that's just all over. Why did the New Testament church, the early church back then, why did they accept the 27 books of the New Testament and reject all the other writings, all the other teachings of all the other people claiming to be apostles and speaking for Jesus and claiming authority and all that? Why? Because they were there and they saw the miracles of the apostles and they saw these other men who could not do the miracles and they could tell, these people are being verified by God. We're going to keep their writings. We're not going to accept the other writings as God's Word. And so those 27 books were universally accepted by the church back then because they saw, they knew what was going on. So if you're having your devotions and you read something in the Gospel about the 12 that applies only to them and their role as apostles and not to us directly, How do you apply that to your daily life? Wrong approach is to try to dumb it down to something that actually does apply to all Christians. The right approach is to say, praise God, I can trust my Bible. Praise God, I can trust my Bible. So when Jesus appoints these 12 men, He trains them to be the ones to publish His gospel to the world through preaching, and later on by writing, and then gives them miraculous power to prove that they are speaking for Him. Those are the three stated purposes. And then I told you there's a fourth one, right, that's implied, and that's the one we've already seen. That's the number 12, the fact that there's 12 of them. Jesus made these men leaders of a new people of God. It's significant that Mark uses the word authority in verse 15. Jesus gave them authority. Can anybody think of why that's significant in Mark? It's because that's what Mark has been emphasizing from the very beginning. Authority, authority, authority, authority of Christ. Tremendously important word in Mark. It's been the theme of his book, really. It's been all about Jesus' authority. His authority at first, he had authority unlike the scribes, the people heard him preach like, we've never heard someone preach with this kind of authority. Not even the scribes, nobody preaches with this kind of authority. And then he has authority over demons, and then he has authority over disease, and he's the Daniel 7 son of man who has authority over all things. kings and all kingdoms and all people forever. So he has all this authority, authority, authority. And now he confers this authority on these 12. That's a big deal. They carry Jesus' authorities. What the apostles wrote and taught is authoritative, it's binding. To reject it is to reject Christ. To accept it is to accept Christ. Luke 10.16, He who listens to you listens to me. He who rejects you rejects me, but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me. 1 Thessalonians 4.8, He who rejects this instruction does not reject man, but God, who gives you His Holy Spirit. In Acts 5, we see someone lies to the apostles, and then they say, you lied to the Holy Spirit, and they die on the spot. You ever notice that? The guy lied to Peter. He said, you just lied to the Holy Spirit. Why? Because Peter was an apostle. If an apostle taught something, it was true. If an apostle told you to do something, it was a sin not to do it. The apostles of Jesus Christ were the highest authorities ever to walk the face of the earth, other than the Lord Himself. So what's the bottom line of our study tonight? What should you take away with you tonight? I can't think of a better application for this message than the one Peter gives in 2 Peter 1. Listen to the words of the man who was there on that mountain that day, Peter, who became the leader. He's the first one mentioned. He became the leader of the twelve. Listen to what he says, 2 Peter 1.16, This is my son whom I love with him. I am well pleased we ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on that sacred mountain and we have the word of the prophets made more certain Here's the application and you will do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Let's pray. Father, if the Old Testament was already as certain as it could possibly be, and then you made the word of the prophets even more certain through your Son, revealed through your holy apostles, Lord, we would do well to pay attention to it as to a light shining in a dark place. And so let us do that, Lord. Give us an attentiveness to what you've said through your apostles, unlike anything we've ever had before. Make us alert to your commands when we read the Bible. Make it so we notice the commands. Make it so we're alert to the statements about what you're like, about what we're like, about what's going to happen, the things you've done. Lord, give us a sense of urgency in paying attention to this light that shines through your word in a dark place. We ask it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Questions? Question, how do we know which passages are them with their apostle hat and which one is them with their disciple hat? I don't really have a simple formula for that, I kind of take it on a case-by-case basis, but I think that mostly it has to do with their commissioning. With the miracles, with the task of leading the church, those things that you don't see them repeated anywhere else, they're only said to the apostles. That's one principle. Another principle is when Jesus tells them something that is beyond the scope of what 12 men can do, like the Great Commission, when he says, go and make disciples of all nations, that's obviously a task that goes beyond 12 men. That's got to be the whole church. Other than that, I don't really have a formula. Okay, so weren't there other people doing miracles besides the twelve? Yeah, so you have in the book of 1 Corinthians, you have this very interesting thing where he says, he talks about these are the marks of an apostle, the signs of an apostle, signs and wonders and all this. And then in the very same book, he talks about the people in the church just in general having gift of miracles and so on, gift of healings. So what's the difference between those miracles that people in Corinth were doing and the miracles of the apostles? I don't know the answer to that question. All I would say is there's definitely a distinction. So many of these verses that I read tonight about the miracles of the apostles, the way they're stated, they set them apart from everyone else. In fact, there's another verse that I didn't read from Acts where it says, I read you Acts 2.42, but I'll just keep reading. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer, and everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were being done by the apostles. It's just striking, because the whole church is there. Why doesn't it say, many wonders and miraculous things are being done by everybody? By the church, by the saints. It specifies the apostles. There are a lot of passages like that that kind of make it sound like the miracles of Jesus and the apostles were unique. They're in a category by themselves. They're different than the things that were going on in the church. So I don't deny that there's miracles going on in the church, but I do think that they're in a different level, different category. And I don't know what, but it was significant enough to where when the people saw what the apostles were doing, they're saying, word of God. And maybe it could be this. Maybe the people in the churches that had miraculous gifts were never claiming any authority like the apostles claimed. Maybe they just did a miracle, and they say, I'm not an apostle, I'm not speaking the word of God, I'm not giving scripture here, and you don't have to submit to me. I'm just doing a miracle to verify, and then I'm telling you, look at the apostles' doctrine. Maybe it was something like that. But I just see a distinction. There's something special about the apostles' miracles in the New Testament. That's about as good an answer as I can give to that. Miraculous ability? Not that I know of. I don't see any place he passes the baton of preaching, but I don't see him passing a baton of healing or doing any wonders or miraculous signs that I can. So for a preacher, should a preacher always be commissioned by another preacher? I wouldn't go that far. I don't think there's anything in Scripture that restricts the way that a preacher can come into the office of preaching. If we went by Timothy's example, it would require miraculous signs at his ordination. Because Timothy had miracles. I mean, they laid hands on him, the apostles, and there were signs, and he actually received his gifts with the laying on of the hands. He had a very unusual ordination. It was a big deal, very unique. I don't think we'd have very many preachers if we had. Timothy had to be the standard for how everybody's ordained. No, I think people have come You know, like in the book of Acts, you have Philip who has quite the preaching ministry, but he's just a deacon. He's not one of the apostles. He's set up as one of the deacons. Next thing you know, he's going over and he's doing miracles and he's going all over and he's doing stuff. So I think that call can come to anybody. Yeah, it's remarkable the degree of authority Jesus gave the apostles, where they could just command someone to walk or command, you know, instead of, like you said, being used by God to do a miracle through you. When they had the beggar who said he wanted money, and he said, we don't have silver and gold, but what we do have, we'll give you. They didn't say, well, we'll pray for you and see how it works out. They said, we have this, we'll give it to you. Get up and walk. That's quite the level of authority. The teaching of it. Exactly. That's the measure of a pastor. So we don't judge pastors? Oh, we don't judge pastors. No, but I mean, you know what I mean. Well, you do judge, because if a pastor is not faithful to the Apostle's doctrine, then you have to make that judgment. That's right, that's the standard. That's Christ's teaching. That's the thing, you can't distinguish between the Apostle's teaching and Christ's teaching. Right, so there's a lot. They say the only thing you can know about Jesus is what we got from the apostles except for what's revealed in the Old Testament. So there's actually a lot revealed in the Old Testament about the Messiah. But the specifics about what Jesus said and did, yeah, you're right though. There's a tremendous amount that we can know about Jesus from the Old Testament. Although, without the New Testament, It's tough to know for sure what some of that stuff means. It's clarified. It's not specific in a lot of cases in the Old Testament, and it gets clarified once you see Jesus. Like, oh, that's what that means. What point do you think the apostles went from being stumbling buffoons to being the writers we see in the Bible, and it caused Christ's ascension, something else? Okay, so cross, the Ascension, something else. Where do they make that transition? You never see them make the transition to the Book of Mark. You'll wait a long time. In Chapter 8, you're going to finally see Peter say, you're the Messiah, but then two seconds later, Jesus is calling him Satan because he's trying to keep Jesus from going to the cross, so that's not super impressive. They look like buffoons all the way through to the very end of the Book of Mark. They don't look super impressive after the crucifixion. They're scared to death. After the resurrection, they're not impressive. They don't even believe it happened. Jesus keeps telling them, I'm going to be crucified. Three days later, I'm going to rise from the dead. Tomb's going to be empty. Three days later, meet me in Galilee. Three days later, he's crucified. Three days later, the tomb's empty. And they're like, what could have possibly happened? Where's his body? I mean, you know, they're just like, so that's not real impressive. And then something happened and then they're suddenly so rock solid, they believe and they're going to die for this. What in the world was that? Well, it was the appearances. It was the appearances. Jesus appeared to them and he made it crystal clear. He did something that really woke them up and changed them. And and then he commissioned them. And when did it all take? it seems to take on the day of Pentecost, right? We don't see much. It's impressive before that, but boy, the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes on them, and then Peter preaches the sermon, 3,000 people are saved, and it's just no stopping after that. So it was the arrival, I think, of the Holy Spirit. Great question. Oh, yeah. Signs and wonders was something that even the rabbi said, oh, Messiah's going to do signs and wonders. Jesus definitely fit that bill. Yeah, yeah, a lot of them are spelled out, the kinds of things. So he did all the kinds of miracles that were expected and more. Yeah, right. Oh, and you know, I'll add one thing about Doug's question. I don't want to make it sound like they were abs-only failures in the Gospels, because they did do some good things. I mean, they played a support role. Their very first task is getting that boat ready. So I guess they did okay on there. Although we don't ever hear about them getting the boat. Maybe they botched that, I don't know. But we do see them go out on a short-term mission, and they come back and they're pretty excited. I don't think it's in Mark, but I don't remember which gospel, but they're pretty excited. They tell Jesus, the demons are submitting to us. This is crazy, what's going on? And He said, don't rejoice about that. Rejoice that your names are written in Heaven. But then they try and cast out a demon and they have trouble and they can't do it. So they don't have a ton of success, but they have enough to where they're encouraged. So, you know, it's starting to happen. See, we don't know what tribes of Israel, because all 12 apostles were Jews, so which tribes do they come from? We don't know. We know the tribe that I think we know the tribe that Mary, well we know Mary's tribe, but we know someone else in the temple, someone in the birth narrative mentions their tribe. I was just reading about it, I can't think of it right now. But yeah, the apostles, we don't know what tribe they came from. It would be. Yeah, it would be. The reason I was just thinking that was significant is because some people say, well, the 10 tribes are lost by this time. Nobody even knows. There's no record. Nobody knows what tribe they are. But that's not, because the person I'm thinking of, I think, was from the tribe of Asher. Was it Anna, maybe? Anna? Yeah. So she knew. So anyway, yeah, I don't know. And really, the number 12, the fact that it gets a little fuzzy when Paul comes along and then Barnabas and you get... Actually, the 12 patriarchs is a little bit fuzzy, right? That's not exactly 12, because you've got 12 sons. But then Joseph isn't one of the tribes, but his two sons are. They're adopted by Israel. So you've got Ephraim and Manasseh. So actually, that's 14. But you take Joseph away, you're down to 13. And then you take Levi away, because he's the priestly tribe. So now you're back down to 12. Some lists Levi, but leave out Ephraim and Manasseh. Others put Ephraim and Manasseh. The math is a little fuzzy even then. The point is, the number 12 is symbolic of Israel, and that's why it's important. Are you curious about the genitive? You want to hear that? Anybody who wasn't in the Greek class, welcome to go and get some of those energy pills or whatever those are. I'll just tell you, because I just thought it was interesting. I want you to recall the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles, through the apostles of you." Now, all the translations translate it, your apostles, which is what kind of genitive? Possessive genitive, right. Excellent. Ten extra bonus points for that. The reason I bring it up is I've been wrestling with that this week because it seems odd. Your apostles? Why are the apostles called your apostles? It just seems strange to me. And so I was thinking, could it be another kind of genitive? And one of the genitives that we didn't cover in the class is one that's called the genitive of advantage. And it's translated for instead of of. So it would be the command given by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through the apostles for you, for your advantage. I think that could be a generative advantage. So I just thought that was interesting. Anyway. If it's not possessive, it's got to be a generative advantage, and none of the other ones work. So it's either through the apostles for you or through your apostles, which I just don't know what that means.