Reading from God's Word, Mark 8, verses 34–38. When he had called the people to himself, with his disciples also, he said to them, Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Amen. Father, I thank you for the gospel of Mark, and I pray that as we dig into this gospel, you would enable me to faithfully communicate some of the contents of this, and for each one of us to grow in our love for your word and our appreciation for the uniqueness of this gospel. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You might wonder why God gave us four Gospels, since there is quite a bit of duplication between the various books. Mark is already—91% of Mark is already contained in Matthew, so why do we need Mark? And 53% of Mark is contained in Luke. Why do we need these duplications? Well, by the time we get to the end of all four Gospels, I think you're going to appreciate that each Gospel was written to a unique audience, has a unique impact, has unique ways in which it's drawing out different facets of Christ. And you're going to be seeing we really do need all four Gospels. Matthew, was written to a Jewish audience, and it is absolutely saturated with Jewish customs and language and idioms and Old Testament prophecies. And because a Jewish king had to have a lineage from David, and it had to be the right line of David, there had to be genealogies for Christ. Mark doesn't have a genealogy because it does not serve the purpose of the book of Mark. Though Matthew shows other aspects of Christ's person and work, its emphasis is to show that Jesus was the king of Israel and to get the Jews to embrace Jesus as their king. Mark is not written to Jews, it was written to Gentiles, specifically to Romans, which makes sense since Mark was very involved with Barnabas and Paul and their first missionary journey to the Gentiles. Even though he wasn't able to make it all the way through that entire journey, he had to come back to Jerusalem. Barnabas invited Mark on another missionary journey with Paul and him, and Paul said, no, no, that's not going to happen. Valuable as Mark was, and I will give you evidences that Paul did indeed value Mark as being a powerful instrument in God's hands, he realized that Mark could not endure the kind of rigorous missionary work that he was engaged in, and so There was a bit of debate on there, but this was Paul's calling. And so Barnabas worked with Mark on his own missions trips to the Gentiles in Acts 15, 36 through 51. And we will see later that Mark had already been working with the Gentiles in Rome long before his trip, the first trip with Barnabas and Paul. Though Mark was a Jew, he had already been honing his skills to be an effective minister to the Gentiles. And you can see this in so many different ways. I think he was one of the original 70 prophets, lesser apostles, that Christ had sent out in Luke chapter 10. We might get to that a little bit later. And we'll get to the rift between Paul and Barnabas. Not between Paul and Mark, but between Paul and Barnabas. and show how that ties in with the dating of the book. But my point here is that the Gospel of Mark was perfectly designed to reach the Romans. It uses Roman time, Mark 6, 48, Mark 13, 35. Actually, I won't take the time to go through all of these references, but it uses Roman time, translates words that Romans won't understand, explains Jewish cultural issues that would be very difficult for the Romans to make sense of, has a special emphasis upon suffering and martyrdom, I think, to prepare the Romans for the very soon suffering and martyrdom that they would be facing as well. Though the Old Testament is quoted as authoritative Scripture, Mark does not spend the time that Matthew does painstakingly showing how Jesus fulfilled all of the expectations of the Old Testament, the expectations of the Jews. So there's only one time that the gospel of Mark says, so the Scripture was fulfilled, which says. Otherwise, he just straight quotes the Scripture. But because of Mark's emphasis, he devotes an unusual amount of time far more than the others, but an unusual amount of time talking about Christ's ministry to non-Jews, to various Gentiles that He healed in the earlier chapters, and then He devotes three chapters to describe His ministry among the Gentiles in Tyre, and Sidon, and through the whole region of Phoenicia, then through the Decapolis, and then Caesarea Philippi. Proportionally, three chapters out of 16 is pretty significant. It is Mark, the Gospel of the Romans, that particularly shows Christ's love for the Romans. In addition, Ochtemeyer, Smith, Decker, and others have pointed out that Mark went to pains in communicating well with his Roman audience because he used Latinisms that are very unique To the the Greek that was being spoken in the the capital city of Rome and in Italy at least during the time of Mark later on some of those caught on elsewhere But these include not only Latin words, but also Latin syntax and idioms. You see, Mark wrote his gospel. He's seeking to reach Romans for Christ, but he's also ministering to Roman Christians who were in a different culture. And I think this teaches us that we really are authorized biblically to adjust our language when we're talking to unbelievers or even When we're talking to Christians and other cultures, when I was making all of these trips to Asia and to India in the past, I could not use American jokes. They just would fall flat. Could not use any American idioms or illustrations. It had to be adapted, and it was hard work to do that. Well, God enabled Mark, by inspiration, to do a masterful job of communicating across cultural barriers, so much so that some liberals question whether Mark could have written this. But it is the unanimous testimony of the early church that he did so. And Roman citizens would have connected with this gospel much more easily than they would have with the gospel of Matthew. This book portrays Jesus as a man of action. It skips the earlier years of his life and it just immediately plunges Jesus into an incredibly busy public ministry. One of the characteristic words used in Mark is the word immediately. In the majority text, the Greek word eutheos occurs 40 times. That's half of the 81 times that the word occurs in the entire New Testament. It's just one of many ways in which Mark makes this a very fast-paced story. And so where Matthew portrays Jesus as king, Mark portrays Him as servant. Luke portrays Him as man, as the second Adam, and John portrays Him as God. Now, I hasten to say every gospel portrays Him as God as well, but we're talking here about a special emphasis in each book. And my second point in your outlines fills out this picture of what is unique to the gospel of Mark. First of all, it's by far the shortest gospel. For Roman men of action, this was a plus. You can read the entire Gospel of Mark out loud in one and a half hours. Okay, it's a very, very quick read. And yet, despite being short, this is a book that is loaded with action. And especially with miracles, far more miracles proportionally than any other gospel. Just as an example of the ratio of miracles to teaching, there are 24 miracles in Mark, and there's only five parables. Okay, so you can see the emphasis there. And again, it shows that Mark was portraying Jesus as being very busy and being about his father's business and serving the world. Now, of course, these miracles had other purposes as well. I don't want to downplay those. They demonstrated that he had power and authority that no Caesar ever could have. Power over disease and disability and demons and nature itself. They showed that the kingdom had come. but they do emphasize that point as well. Second, as I've already mentioned, the book of Mark is fast-paced, extremely vivid, and action-packed. And commentators talk about all of the incredibly vivid language that is used, even when they had those people that they're feeding, and they're sitting in groups like lily pads out there, the language that's used in the group, very, very vivid. And people have pointed out that the Romans were tell-it-like-it-is kinds of people. And Mark, in speaking to them, speaks with candor about the amazement of the disciples and how the disciples didn't have a clue what Jesus is talking about. And he speaks about the Emotions of Christ and the compassion of Christ and it presents all of these men as real men and women With all of their failings now all of the Gospels portray them as real men But this one does so in particularly vivid ways Another unique feature is the percentage of the book that is devoted to the Passion Week in Mark 8 verse 31 Jesus started telling people that he was about to be crucified and From that moment on, you can just see over and over, Jesus is setting his face like a flint to die on the cross. He tells them, I'm going to be crucified, I'm going to die, I'm going to be resurrected. He is entering into the fray very self-consciously. And for soldiers, Jesus would have been a man of heroism who was, even knowing he was going to die, he's doing his duty, his servant's duty. And 36% of Mark's narrative is devoted to the Passion Week. So that's chapter 11, verse 1, all the way through to the end of the book. Another feature is that of all of the gospels, this one is the most strictly chronological. Now, obviously, it doesn't include Jesus's earlier years, just the three and a half years of his ministry. But those would be the years that Romans would have probably immediately connected with. And let's spend a little bit of time on the central theme of this book, that Jesus is the servant of the Lord that is prophesied in Isaiah 40 through 53. Now, I want to emphasize, sometimes people say he's just presented as a servant. No, not just any servant. He's presented as a very specific servant, the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 40 through 53, who is both God and man, very unusual servant, in that passage. And so, eight times in this book, Mark, not surprisingly, emphasizes the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. And I'm going to take you through some of those. The very first verse of the book says, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And then he quotes from Isaiah and Malachi to prove the same point. Caesar claimed to be the Son of God. Okay, that was not uncommon for Romans to believe the Caesar was the Son of God. But he was a pretender. The only Son of God who had the right to be the ruler of the universe is Jesus. And this gospel will make it very clear. He's not a pretender. He really was divine. He reigned over man. Now take a look at verse 1, excuse me, verse 11 of chapter 1. God the Father Himself identifies Jesus as being His Son. Immediately after the baptism, that's what ushers Him into His ministry. It says, Then a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Now, commentators point out that this is an exact parallel to God the Father speaking to the Son in Isaiah 42, verse 2, where sonship and servanthood are linked together very, very tightly. So, this is a servant son. Somehow, this divine being has a very humble servant attitude. He's not like the spoiled sons of the Caesars, and he's certainly not like these Caesars Some of those Caesars, you know, had supposed miraculous legends that were connected with them to prove that they were God. But there were no, you know, there were no credible witnesses, and compared to the rending of the heavens here, and His power over demons, and His power over nature, the Caesars looked like pathetic fakes. Take a look at chapter 3 and verse 11 for the next mention of the fact that this servant of the Lord was the Son of God. which, by the way, Romans would have had no problem with the idea of God incarnate. They had messed up ideas. This book is going to correct those ideas, but they didn't have a problem with that concept. Chapter 3, verse 11, And the unclean spirits, whenever they saw him, fell down before him and cried out, saying, You are the Son of God. Notice the word whenever. This testimony from the demons happened over and over again. They recognized who he was. They recognized that he was the Son of God. Now, did demons make humans bow before Caesar and declare him to be God? Yes. But here, it's the demons themselves that are scared to death of Jesus. They're bowing. They're forced to bow before Jesus. They know the difference. Look at chapter 5, verse 7. This describes the time that Jesus ministered to a Gentile who was possessed by a legion of demons, and starting to read at verse 6. When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him, and he cried out with a loud voice and said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore you by God that you do not torment me. Not only did Jesus have power over demons, they were frightened by Him and declared that He was God, the Son of the Most High God. So, none of these declarations are in any way contradictory to the central theme, He's the Servant of the Lord, because the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 40 through 53 was divine. In chapter 9, verse 7, God Himself descended upon Jesus in a cloud, transformed Christ's body and His clothing so that it shone bright as the sun, and said, This is my beloved Son, hear Him. So once again, the Father is declaring, This is the Son of God. Chapter 13, verse 31, Jesus told His disciples that His words would never pass away. And in the next verse, He told them why. He's the Son of the Father. Chapter 14, 36, he called God his father. And I think one of the most powerful declarations that he was divine is in chapter 14, verses 61 through 62. So he's being tried by the Sanhedrin. And when the high priest asked Jesus, are you the Christ, the son of the blessed? Jesus answered, I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven." Well, they immediately accuse him of blasphemy because he's quoting from Daniel 7, where the Son of Man was recognized by the Jews of Christ's day as being a divine being. So he's the Son of Man, Son of God. He's both man and God. And while the Jews rejected Jesus as in any way being a God-man, The Roman soldier at the cross, after seeing all of the supernatural darkness and the supernatural earthquake and all of these strange happenings, he was totally convinced. He said, truly, this man was the Son of God. Mark 15, verse 39. Uniquely, portrays this Roman as being convinced, convinced of this fact. And I give those references not to say that being the Son of God is the central message, but just to show that this is the kind of servant he's talking about, the servant of the Lord from Isaiah. But this brings us up to the next point. Unlike Caesar, this Son of Man did not need man to affirm Him. Unlike Caesar, this son of God was so unbelievably humble that he embraced his call as servant of the Lord, fully doing and only doing the will of the Father. Scattered through all the passages that I read to you earlier is another theme that contrasts Caesar, who was the fake son of God, with Jesus, the real Son of God. It's what some people call the secrecy motif of Mark. His humility throws through this and he does not need anyone's acclaim. Let me just give you some examples. In chapter 1, verse 24, a man with an unclean spirit identifies Jesus as the Holy One of God. Jesus rebukes the spirit and commands him to be quiet. So the demon knows who he was and they feared him, but Jesus didn't need or want their testimony. He didn't need their help. Mark 1 34 says he did not allow the demons to speak because they knew him. We read in chapter 3 verses 11 through 12 that this occurred every single time he cast out demons They fell down before Jesus and cried out you are the Son of God Now since he cast out a lot of demons, that means there's a lot of testimonies that he's the Son of God but What was Christ's constant reaction? Verse 12 says, but he sternly warned them that they should not make him known. Now, Romans would have wondered why Jesus would be secret about the fact that he really is the divine son, because the Caesars, who claimed to be the son of God, they welcomed it. They're trying to build temples to themselves. They welcomed worship, and other people are building temples to themselves. But Jesus did not need that fake acclaim. His kingdom was an upside-down kingdom that exhibited God's power through loving service. And he was the exemplar of this service. And to secrecy, Jesus commanded of demons. He also commanded of humans that he healed. In Mark 1, 40 through 45, Jesus healed a leper. And listen to what he says in verses 43 through 45. And he strictly warned him, and sent him away at once, and said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone, but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded as a testimony to them. However, He went out and began to proclaim it freely. Now, liberals have come up with all kinds of strange and wacky theories as to why Jesus was being secret in the Gospel of Mark. But if you understand that Jesus was opposed to the political Messiah of the Jews, as well as to the messianic state of the Gentiles, it makes perfect sense. in the Servant of the Lord songs in Isaiah 40 through 53, which is the background to so much of Mark. It points out there was absolutely a number of things that were absolutely a kingdom that was totems of the world. I think by way of application, we need to ask ourselves, which kingdom do we represent? The self-seeking kingdom of man or the God-centered kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. This Son of God was not insecure like Caesar. He did not need a claim like he did. He was content for the Father to get the glory. This King came in weakness but demonstrated an inner power that nobody could conquer. And every detail of the Gospel of Mark is designed with that Isaiah 40 through 53 as background. What I want to do right now is I want to take you through an outline of the whole book so that you can see this is the master outline, the servant concept that helps to explain this book. Well, before I do that, let me just give you some more of the secrecy things that I apparently skipped over. Mark 7, 31 through 37, he does the same thing with humans that he did with demons. He heals a deaf man, charges him to speak to no one, he blatantly disregards it. Mark 8, 22 through 26, does the same thing with a blind man. He tells him, neither go into the town nor tell anyone in the town, so it's secrecy. Then he asks his disciples who they thought he was, and in verse 29, Peter rightly says, you're the Christ. So that is a very important theme of the book, that Jesus is the true Messiah, not Caesar. So why does verse 30 say, then he strictly warned them that they should tell no one about him? Here they know he is the Messiah of the Old Testament. He is the God-man, but he says don't tell anybody about them. There's a lot of reasons that evangelicals give, but I believe a central one is that his kingdom was not going to come as a result of human support, political support, religious support, financial support, any other kind of support from below. This is a kingdom that invades from heaven and grows through supernatural power. And when you have grown up in a statist empire like Rome, you need the gospel of Mark to undo faulty thinking about what God's kingdom truly is all about. And Mark systematically destroys ideas about kingdom life. Just one more example. Look at, and I'll go ahead and read all this. Look at chapter nine, verses one through 10. This is Mark's version of the Mount of Transfiguration. And the disciples' reaction is a very typical reaction of humans. They want to build three tabernacles, one to Jesus, one to Moses, and one to Elijah. And that's kind of weird, actually, that they would put Jesus on the same level as Moses and Elijah. But by building tabernacles to Moses and Elijah, they are elevating, worshiping, honoring the wrong things in life. So this would have been really a powerful story for the Romans who were particularly prone to this error. So let me read the account, and I think you can see for yourselves why Jesus commanded them to keep this secret. Even though he's going to use his disciples as tools and ambassadors in the last verses of Mark to extend his kingdom, he wants to first of all make it clear his kingdom is not dependent on his disciples, not at all. Okay, so Mark 9, beginning at verse 1. And he said to them, assuredly I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power. Not the kind of power that the Romans believed in, You know, that's political power. That's what they were proud of. This would be a heavenly power that transforms everything on earth, even has the power to transform bodies and souls. Verse two. Now, after six days, Jesus took Peter, James and John and led them up on high on a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them. His clothes became shining, exceedingly white like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them. And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, Rabbi, it is good for us to be here, and let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah, because they did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid. That's probably the time to keep your mouth shut when you don't know what to say, right? But that was not Peter. But notice that God is not impressed with man's help, man's praise, man's voice. Listen to the rebuke in verse 7. Suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves. Now, as they came down from the mountain, he commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant. See, once the resurrection had happened and the followers had been winnowed down to just a few, God was going to cause this kingdom to grow from a tiny mustard seed into a huge plant that would indeed fill the earth and reverse everything that was lost under Adam. Christ's kingdom would eventually rival the Roman Empire's Pax Romana, the piece of Rome that they claimed to bring. It would rival the extent of the Roman Empire even at its height. His kingdom would not only embrace the universe, it would embrace everything inside of us. Our thoughts, our motives, everything. Only the supernatural power of heaven could accomplish this. But what is the most remarkable thing about Mark is that this divine being, who is a king over a universal kingdom, has the humility to embrace servanthood. This whole book is such a rebuke to pride. and stinginess, and self-seeking, and hoarding, and laziness, and materialism, and all of the other things that men tend to find meaning in. This too is the opposite of Caesar. Caesar made the whole world selfishly serve him. Not, he's the selfish one, right? They gotta serve his selfish interests. There's not a lick of selfishness in Jesus in this book of Mark. The theme verse of the whole book is Mark 10, verse 45, And after rebuking his disciples, because they came to him, they said, you know, I'd like to be at your right hand or at your left. I want to be the greatest, you know, in your kingdom. He said, man, that's not the nature of this kingdom. So he's contrasting the nature of pagan kingdoms with the nature of his kingdom. So let me read Mark, yes, 10, chapter 10, verses 42 through 45. But Jesus called them to himself and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you. But whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. You can underline that verse 45. That is at the heart and core of what the whole book is all about. This is clearly an upside-down kingdom with a king totally different than any other king and followers of his kingdom that are totally different than the followers of any other kingdom. As the next point states, all the upside-down aspects of the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 40 through 53 are true of Jesus in Mark. It's remarkable how saturated Mark is with that section from Isaiah. You could really say that that section structures Mark. Now, we're not going to have the time to trace all of the evidence, but let me just give you a few so you get the idea. The servant songs of Isaiah start in Isaiah chapter 40 with a voice crying in the wilderness saying, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God, etc. In other words, it starts exactly where the book of Mark starts with John the Baptist preparing the way for Christ's kingdom. and rebuking them, telling them they need to repent of all their man-made ways of thinking about the kingdom, just like Isaiah did. So there are parallels that you see between Isaiah and Mark. Then Isaiah goes on to describe the baptism of the Holy Spirit coming upon Jesus. This is in chapter 42. I'll just read you the first four verses. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my elect one whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. He will not cry out nor raise his voice, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and smoking flax he will not quench. He will bring forth justice for truth. He will not fail nor be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands shall wait for his law. Wow, that's exactly the same upside-down kingdom that Mark talks about. It doesn't use Roman power or any other kind of human power to accomplish its will. Instead of crushing, It heals, it lifts up, it exalts. Instead of forcing conformity, it wins people to the truth. It will never be discouraged or give up until justice happens by grace rather than by brute force. So it's not the sword that conquers people's hearts as in Islam, it's the cross that conquers people's hearts. And so as you go through the servant of the Lord passages in Isaiah, you see Mark written all over them. Let me outline Mark now. I skipped ahead earlier. Let me outline Mark now on its emphasis of different aspects of the servant of the Lord passages. It's on the back side of your outline. You'll see right in the middle, there's a five-point outline of the whole book. Mark 1 verse 1 through chapter 2 verse 12, we have the presentation of the servant of the Lord. So he's presented to us by Mark in verse 1. He's presented then by the Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Malachi in verses 2 through 3. Then he's presented by John the Baptist. Then he's presented by God the Father speaking out of heaven. And then by his triumphant power over Satan, demons, disease, and disability. In other words, he's clearly presented as being who Mark says that he is. Mark 2. Verse 13 through chapter 8, verse 26, we have the opposition to the servant of the Lord. Now, this was not unanticipated. Isaiah said, this is what you're going to expect. And Mark is trying to convince his readers not to be surprised that they are receiving opposition. Hey, if Jesus received it, you're going to receive the same opposition too. And this opposition is a testing of the authenticity of the kingdom life that we have within us. If you cannot stand up to the opposition, it's evidence you have not yet tasted the power of Christ's kingdom. And it encourages us. Nothing can successfully resist the power of the servant of the Lord. Even death cannot stop his purposes. We face death totally convinced if we die, it's advancing his kingdom. There is nothing Satan can do to oppose that. In Mark 8 verse 27 through chapter 10 verse 52, we then have the instructions that the servant of the Lord gives concerning the nature of this upside down kingdom. It's a kingdom that starts small and grows. It's a kingdom of service, not lording it over others. It's a kingdom in which infants and children play a part. It's a kingdom where riches do not buy influence, and generosity is more important than hoarding. In short, it is a kingdom that is the diametric opposite of the Roman Empire. In Mark 11, verse 1 through 15, verse 47, we have the rejection of the servant of the Lord. Also anticipated in Isaiah, you know, discussion of the suffering servant there. There should be no surprise when the world rejects Christ's kingdom. In fact, you read Mark, Jesus makes it quite clear, that's the only thing the world can do until they receive God's grace. Now, I think Romans would understand a kingdom's going to be opposed. They're used to being opposed, right? Nobody likes to be conquered. But the weird thing about Christ's kingdom in these chapters is once they are conquered, they love Christ. They're willing to lay down their lives for Christ. So again, it's a different kind of a conquering. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Anyway, the suffering servant passages in Isaiah are fulfilled to a tee in Jesus. They are such astounding prophecies of every detail of Christ's suffering and crucifixion that Jewish rabbis to this day avoid that section. They don't like to read him in their synagogues. It just looks too much like Jesus. Dangerous. It was dangerous, actually, to Romans and all power religionists, because it's the cross, again, that conquers hearts, not the sword. Now, the last section, Mark 16, 1 through 20, you've got the victory of the servant of the Lord through the resurrection and through the Great Commission. Now, all of the specifics of those prophecies lived out in Jesus. I can't go through all of them, obviously, but Jesus is said to have no, the suffering servant, no deceit in his mouth. Well, Jesus is a tell-it-like-it-is kind of a person. He did not play politics. He tells the truth. Isaiah 48 portrays Jesus as being fully God. In fact, why don't you turn with me? This is my favorite verse in the whole Bible on proving the Trinity. It's Isaiah 48, verse 16. I love this verse. I think it's just as clear a description of the Trinity as any New Testament verse is. So it's a prophecy of Jesus who has already been described as the first and the last, which the New Testament also describes Jesus as the first and the last. And this first and the last says, Isaiah 48, 16, come near to me, hear this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord God and his spirit have sent me. New King James, capital me because it's a reference to Jesus. Now, let me just explain something. I've explained before when Lord is all capital letters, that's Yehovah. Well, when you have in the Hebrew Adonai Yehoah, they do the reverse. They do all capital letters for God being Yehoah. That's just a convention that the new King James uses. So literally, the Hebrew says that Yehoah says Adonai Yehoah and his spirit have sent me. What could be a clearer description of the Trinity? Yehoah and his spirit send the first and the last to minister as the servant of the Lord, and he himself is God." Three persons, one name. Three persons, one God. Now, not all commentators accept that. There are a lot, even evangelicals, that say, well, this must be Cyrus that's speaking here. It seems weird, but it must be Cyrus. No, it's not Cyrus. The New King James is right when it capitalizes the me. I follow Gil in saying it's the pre-incarnate Christ speaking. And we see the same thing in the gospel. When he gets baptized, what happens? The Spirit comes upon him, the Father speaks from heaven, and they commission Jesus to carry out his commission as the servant of the Lord. It's exactly the same thing. as in Isaiah. And yet the same divine being is said to be in the womb of a woman in Isaiah 49, 1, called by Yehoah in the womb to be fully human, to represent Israel as his body. That's why people get confused. It seems like Israel. Well, Israel is his body. And Isaiah 53 and other passages show a sinless and yet suffering substitute who bears the sins of his people. He's tortured, he's crucified, and yet totally victorious. And so the whole way of salvation that is explained in Isaiah is being fulfilled in Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. So it is good news indeed. And the next sub-point just indicates that he did this because he wants the Christians to imitate Jesus by having the same loyal servant heart and by facing suffering victoriously as he did. So the bold, confident way that Jesus faced death would be an inspiring example for the Roman Christians, I think, who would soon be facing death. And I probably should have started with the next point. This is out of order. the author, the date, the place of writing. From earliest times, there has been no doubt whatsoever about the author of this book. The unanimous testimony of the church has been that it was John Mark. Mark is mentioned 10 times by name in the New Testament. John was his Jewish name. Mark was his Roman name. And the evidence seems to suggest that he came from a pretty wealthy family. God is not against wealth. Wealth can be used to advance God's kingdom. And Mark certainly did that. Even his mother's house must have been quite the huge mansion to be able to house the church in Acts chapter 12. Though we cannot know for sure, most biographers infer from the data that we have that Christ's Last Supper was held in that same house in Mark chapter 14. In Mark 14, his dad was still alive. By the time you get to Acts 12, his dad had died, and now it's just said to be his mother's house. Most biographers say that Mark, a young man, in Mark 14, 51, followed Jesus out of that house where the last supper occurred and accompanied the disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane. So most assume that Mark 14 describes him when it says this. Now a certain young man followed him, having a linen cloth thrown around his naked body. And the young men laid hold of him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked." Now, enough on Mark. We'll deal with dating a bit. When I preached on Matthew, I mentioned that the order that we have of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is the order in which they were written. But if you've done much reading on the web, or videos and things like that, you're gonna see that the majority of evangelicals today, at least scholars today, I'll call myself not a scholar because I think this is wrong, but the majority of scholars today say, no, no, no, no, Mark is clearly the first one and the other gospels borrowed their information, copied their information from Mark, otherwise how could they get it word for word the same as Mark? Kind of a weird presupposition, but anyway, They claim Mark's first, Matthew and Luke were written next. Liberals go even further and they say that because they don't believe in predictive prophecy, that all gospels had to be written after 8070. What are we to think of this? Well, just from the statements of the Bible alone, I think we can ditch the liberal ideas of a late date My book on Canon demonstrates from internal evidences that a late date is absolutely impossible and why every book of the New Testament was finished by 8066. But which one came first? The church used to say it was Matthew. In the last four decades, a lot of evangelicals have followed the liberals in saying Mark was written first. And you might think, who cares? What difference does it make? It's scripture, right? We just enjoy reading it. But it is a big deal. It is a huge deal. A lot of people don't realize that you must embrace liberal presuppositions before Mark and priority can even make sense. Back in the 1980s most evangelicals would totally agree with me So it's not very many years ago that they would agree with me on that. I'll just give you one story to illustrate Why they considered this to be important back in the 1980s Robert Gundry was one of the first evangelicals to adopt mark and priority wrote the commentary of Matthew and on Matthew, and the Evangelical Theological Society was more conservative back then. They actually censured him and kicked him out of the society for holding to Mark and Priority. They considered it incompatible with Evangelicalism to hold to Mark and Priority. That's how important they considered it to be. And the reason is Mark and Priority, if you're going to be consistent and live it out, the presuppositions that drive people to that will undermine Christianity. So if you see organizations like Bible Project, commentaries, even sermons that claim Mark was written first, you need to realize it's a herd mentality following liberal establishment scholarship. And believe me, it is not an inconsistent issue, at least if you're consistently living out the presuppositions. Praise God, most of these evangelicals are not consistent. David Laird Duncan, Gary Derrickson, Etta Lineman, Robert Thomas, many others have shown how destructive the presuppositions of Mark and priority are to Christianity as a whole. I'm not gonna get into all the complex reasons why, but let me quote from Derrickson. He says, the anti-supernatural foundation and non-evangelical assumptions that form the basis of the denial of Matthew's priority and authorship must be recognized and avoided by evangelicals if they are to remain true to Scripture's inspiration and authority. to permit this theological drift within evangelical churches, colleges, and seminaries poses a threat to the vitality and future of evangelicalism as witnessed in the decline of mainline denominations. Etta Lineman is correct in her warnings that evangelical adoption of critical methods, such as redaction criticism, ultimately leads to the same liberal conclusions, since those methods were designed to prove the evolutionary theory of religious development and deny divine inspiration. The danger arises from accepting the presuppositions of modern scholars and their theories. And again, I'm not going to go into all of the reasons for why, but I believe that Matthew was written in 8040, possibly earlier, but in 8040. Mark was written in 8045, possibly earlier. There's one church father believed it was written five years earlier. but pretty convinced of 8045. Luke was written in 8057, and the Gospel of John was written in 8065. By the way, even liberals lately have been forced to agree that all of the books of the New Testament have been written prior to, there are more and more liberals that are accepting this. One of the first liberals to concede this was Robinson and his book, Redating of the New Testament. I disagree with a lot. He's still liberal, OK? You cannot take everything he says in that book for a fact. But I just mentioned that, that the evidence is so overwhelming that even liberals are conceding this point. I do want to point to the top two pictures in your outline. on the front side to clue you into another embarrassment to liberals. Top picture represents a stunning archaeological find. It is a papyrus fragment found in a Qumran cave that is a perfect match for Mark 6, 52 through 53. By the way, a lot of people don't realize this, but a number of other New Testament fragments have been found since that time. I'm not going to get into those. But the top two pictures in your outline represent that fragment. I've read boatloads of arguments against this identification and for this identification, but if you overlay the words on this fragment over the actual text of Mark, like that second picture does, they fit. And they do not fit any other document known to modern scholars. Since the Qumran community was expelled from the area in 8068, this would mean that the document that was left in that cave had to have been written prior to 8068. How much sooner? Well, before the fragment was even identified, Both conservative and liberal scholars unanimously dated the fragment to somewhere between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50. Could not have been written after A.D. 50, they say, because of the style of the script. They believed it had to be before them. Okay, so there was no controversy with the dating of that fragment. But later, when Hosea O'Callaghan, and even later Carsten Thiel, identified it as being a part of the Gospel of Mark, a firestorm erupted with many scholars who, by the way, were not familiar with papyrology at all, claiming that this is impossible because Mark was written later. Okay, this contradicts our presupposition, so it can't be right. But even Wikipedia states, as of this past Wednesday, States this the results of the 1991 symposium demonstrated that most papyrologists agree with them based on papyrologist Herbert hungers 22-point analysis and president of papyrological Association or Selena Montevichi statement that there can be no doubt that 7q5 is a copy of Mark's gospel And since then, there are more and more Jewish, atheist, agnostic, Roman Catholic, and Protestant persuasions that have shown that it's just overwhelming, the evidence that this is a fragment of the Gospel of Mark. Now, if that's true, It would mean that the parchment dates to A.D. 50 at the very latest. All by itself, this is an embarrassment to previous liberal claims. Since copies are always younger than what was copied, unless this is the original document that Mark wrote, which I've got plenty of evidence it could not be, on other grounds, this would mean that the Gospel of Mark had to have been written before A.D. 50, which lines up with what conservatives had earlier said, A.D. 45, at the latest. Why is this significant? Well, obviously, I love to see liberal unbelief embarrassed, so significant for those reasons. But beyond that, it means that Mark wrote his gospel at least one year, possibly more, at least one year before Paul and Barnabas went on their first missionary trip with him in Acts chapter 12, verse 25. Mark was already a prophet who had written scripture prior to the debate and had been powerfully used by God prior to that debate. It also means that Mark had experience in missions and in work with Gentiles prior to Acts 13. No wonder he was invited along with Paul and Barnabas on that first missionary journey. There is no evidence that Mark backslid as many people have guessed. No evidence that he was fearful, as others have guessed. There is no evidence that he was unfaithful, as others have guessed. If we just stick with the text, we simply know that Mark left. He left. And it's equally valid guess, and it's only a guess, but it's an equally valid guess to say that his constitution, his body in other words, was not able to keep up with Paul's aggressive missionary trips. And one very early church tradition says that he was a disabled person. Even his fingers were disabled. And so that could very well be the case. In any case, very few men could keep up with the astounding schedule that Paul kept. Barnabas valued both men, knew that neither man was a slouch, okay? In his debate with Paul, I assumed that both sides, Barnabas and Paul, had legitimate points. Paul realized that Mark couldn't keep up with him on his kinds of journeys that he was engaged in. He did not want to be slowed down. Barnabas realized that Mark had already proven himself to be an indispensable tool that God had raised up for missions. Their parting could very well have been a godly solution, not necessarily a sinful alienation. Barnabas and Paul both held their ground on valid points, and the Bible does not seem to censure either one. And as a result of that providential split, possibly even a godly split, there might have been some sin involved in it, who knows, the work actually multiplied rather than being diminished. And I think too many commentaries read their disagreement through the eyes of modern mushy Christianity that cannot tolerate heated disagreements. In any case, Mark became indispensable to Paul long before people think that he did. They appeal to 2 Timothy, where at the end of his life, he says, okay, yeah, Mark is useful to me. But already way back in AD 58, when he wrote Philemon, he was on Paul's team. He was working with Paul. Okay, so I think Mark has been given, not given a fair hearing in some circles. And since Mark was an associate of Jesus and an eyewitness of many of the events in the Gospels, and may even have been one of the 70 prophets, that were sent out by Jesus in Luke 10, I think there is no need to try to guess which gospel copied from which other gospel. All of them had the facts, and all of them were moved by the Holy Spirit to write an inspired account that was inerrant, that perfectly dovetails with the other accounts. There's no need to guess who copied who. Not that it would be bad for them, the scripture do copy earlier prophets, right? They quote from them by inspiration. But there's plenty of evidence that there is no dependence that one had upon the other. Now, before I end this message, I want to explain why I believe the last verses of Mark do indeed belong in the Bible. And I do admit that this is an issue that divides very good people, and even some Reconstructionist friends of mine, like Joe Moorcraft and Greg Bonson, are convinced that these last 12 verses are spurious. But these last 12 verses are part of the majority text, and I want to just give you some reasons why you should have zero, absolutely zero doubt about them being inspired infallible scripture. In my book on textual criticism, I demonstrate that the Bible gives us 11 infallible presuppositions by which we can evaluate how God has preserved His text. Modern textual criticism that we were trained in seminary, against our will, but we were trained in seminary, does not adopt any of those presuppositions. They have adopted secular presuppositions of modern textual criticism. But if you adopt those biblical presuppositions, it is absolutely impossible to reject the last verses of Mark. Impossible. So those who reject them have unwittingly accepted the secular presuppositions of textual critics. They're honest, good men, but they've probably never studied this subject presuppositionally. And so for me, this completely settles the issue. But I'm gonna give you just a couple of other reasons. Well, four more. Second reason is that everybody admits that if the last 12 verses of Mark are spurious, then the gospel ends with a whimper. that's totally inconsistent with the rest of the book. It ends with verse eight, which says, so they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. So, the end. Okay, they disobeyed the angels who told them to go spread the news, and they're afraid, they can't do it, and so they don't tell anybody. That's how it ends. Okay, so even those who believe the last 12 verses are spurious have to admit that either the true ending was lost, contrary to Christ's promises, of his word being preserved, or it ends abruptly and leaves one hanging. There is no smooth ending at all. Third, out of the 1,700 Greek manuscripts that are complete copies of Mark, only three known manuscripts leave those verses out. Only three. One is Vaticanus, another is Sinaiticus, and the third is a late 12th century manuscript labeled 304. Now in addition to those 1,700 Greek manuscripts, the last 12 verses are contained in all surviving 2,000 or so church manuscripts. We call these lectionaries because they're divided up into calendar readings. 100% of those manuscripts have these last 12 verses. That means 3,700 Greek manuscripts against three. That's not a solid basis on which to reject these. Now, of course, these scholars will appeal to church fathers And they'll appeal to other translations, but God has not promised to preserve the church fathers. He's not promised to preserve translations. He has promised to preserve the Bible itself, which in this case is written in Greek. Okay. Fourth, the evidence shows that the ancient Greek church all the way up through the modern Greek church considered the last 12 verses to be authentic. But so did virtually the rest of the church, with only a handful of exceptions. If you want to read this, there's a big fat book by John Bergen, Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel of Mark. He does a fabulous job of tracing all of the different translations, versions, all of that kind of stuff. And it's huge. There's like 1,000 manuscripts of the ancient Syriac Bible have it in, 8,000 manuscripts of the Latin translations. The statistical probability of these last for all verses being spurious, is nil if you accept or interpret the evidence through the presupposition, the biblical presuppositions in my book. Fifth, an examination of the only three Greek manuscripts to leave it out shows that there is something strange, weird, very strange going on. Vaticanus has an unusual gap between Mark and Luke, a gap large enough to fit the last 12 verses of Mark into that space. You do not see similar gaps anywhere else in that document of the New Testament. Why is there a gap there? The reason they don't put gaps between books is because vellum was very expensive, so scribes always used all of the spaces. So why this gap? Take a look at the second picture from the bottom. of the front page, it almost looks like something is erased from Vaticanus. You can see fuzzy writing in the background there, can't you? Anyway, James Snap, Jr. has done a reconstruction, this is the bottom picture, of what might have originally been there by using the scribe's own handwriting, using a clever cut and paste technique. the next, you know, several columns of Luke, he finds letters that will fit the last 12 verses, and using that scribe's own writing, he fits them in, and it fits perfectly. So, this shows that even Vaticanus is not an unambiguous testimony against the longer reading. Second manuscript, Sinaiticus, has the last lines of Mark written in a completely different handwriting, showing that it wasn't even the original scribe. It too has a gap, and you can see a picture of that in your outline. So if the scribe that finished Mark is not the scribe who did most of Sinaiticus, it doesn't say anything about what that original scribe had before him. And notice, again, the gap. Now, besides those two weird gaps, there are other odd things that make Vaticanus and Sinaiticus false witnesses. Everyone admits that those two manuscripts disagree with each other over 3,000 times in the Gospels alone. That does not make them best manuscripts. Using biblical legal procedures, you would say, they are both false witnesses on a grand scale. So why do those two manuscripts have such a strong voice amongst evangelicals in determining what the readings of Scripture are? By the way, it's not just the last verses of Mark. Many of readings you get in the NIV, NASB, ESV are based on just one of those manuscripts. Sometimes two. They give it an A reading of two of those. Even if every other manuscript is against it, they give it an A reading in the so-called oldest and best. In any case, this means that the evidence shows 3,700 Greek manuscripts against three, and those 3,700 Greek manuscripts represent every geographic region of the church. Now I feel like I have to give this evidence to you because there is so much attack against the scripture nowadays. We need to be aware of this. Wilbur Pickering summarizes the massive amount of other evidence saying this, as stated at the outset, with united voice down through the centuries in all parts of the world, including Egypt, the church universal has affirmed and insisted that Mark's gospel goes from chapter 1 verse 1 to chapter 16 verse 20. Now, my last reason is that if God has preserved his text, which he promised to do numerous times and which every Reformed confession says that he did, then you would expect it to exist in an actual manuscript, not a theoretical reconstructed text. What do I mean by that? Well, the U.S.B. and the Nestle-Allen Greek texts that the ESV, NIV, New American Standard are based on are purely theoretical texts where experts picked a word from this manuscript, another word from that manuscript, and they made a theoretical manuscript. By theoretical, I mean there's not a single manuscript in existence, none whatsoever, that match word for word the Gospel of Mark or any other book of the New Testament, word for word what you have in Nestle's or in the UBS. It's theoretical. There is no manuscript that corresponds to it. No manuscript that corresponds to the Gospel of Mark or any other gospel out there, any NIV, New American Standard, ESV. They're built on theoretical text. This is serious. It's theoretical text. This is not true for the majority text. The majority text for Mark, for example, is word for word identical with numerous manuscripts spread out over the entire geographic region of the church that could not have been copied from each other. God has preserved His word, every word. And to criticize these last verses through other means, such as their being unbiblical and weird and doctrinally unsound, is to criticize God Himself. Now it may be unwitting criticism, but I think it is scary criticism nonetheless. Does Acts, here's the question to ask, does Acts record each of these predictions in the last 12 verses as actually happening? The answer is yes, and if it is yes, then it's blasphemy to say that this is weird, this is doctrinally unsound or anything else. Now, Paul did not deliberately pick up a poisonous servant. That would be to tempt God. But he did accidentally pick up a serpent in Acts 28, got bitten, and had no harm come to him, as prophesied in these verses. He did speak in tongues. He did cast out demons. He did lay hands on the sick, and they recovered. These are all evidences that the kingdom of God has come. And that what Christ had begun to do in the Gospels, he continued to do through his church in the book of Acts. And so from the first verse to the last verse, Mark is a unified book that would have turned a Roman citizen's life upside down and continues to turn our lives upside down when by the Spirit it is internalized within us. So it's my prayer we would grow to appreciate the Gospel of Mark more and more. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And even when there are debates and disagreements, and strongly held disagreements, that there is enough presuppositions and information in Your Word that we can settle these doctrinal statements. And I pray, Father, that you would help the Church of Jesus Christ to stand in the old paths, to take seriously the universal testimony of the Reformed confessions on the preservation of every word of your text, every letter of your text, that we would have a confidence in your word and never shy away from that confidence. I pray that you would help us to have servant hearts that imitate the service of Christ that was seen in the Gospel of Mark. And we pray this in Christ's name.