We are once again in the Gospel of Mark this morning. I'm sad to say, for our final study of the Gospel of Mark, at least this time around. Who knows what the Lord has for us in the future? But it has been the case with every book that we have studied that when we come to the end of it, I'm sad to conclude it. It seems too soon, even though it's been two years that we've been in Mark. It seems like it shouldn't be over yet. I want to learn more. But the sweet consolation of it is, there's another book of the Bible that's just waiting for us to study it. And so we're going to move on next Sunday, Lord willing, and continue to study God's Word. But here is the end. of the Gospel of Mark. One of the difficult things about ending Mark is that there are some difficulties at the end of Mark. We ended last time Mark chapter 16 verse 8 which says, they went out and fled from the tomb for trembling and astonishment had gripped them and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid. Now as we concluded with that verse last Sunday, maybe some thought that seems kind of a strange place to stop a sermon. They ran away, they didn't know what to say, they were afraid. Then what? Okay, so how to go from there? Even stranger than ending a sermon there with verse eight, There are many Bible-believing Christians who believe that's where the gospel of Mark stops with verse 8. Now for some of you, depending on what translation you are reading from this morning, that seems like an awfully strange thing to say. Because as you look at your Bible, you have 11 more verses right there after verse 8, verses 9 through 20 that we haven't covered yet. Some of us, maybe some among us, may be wondering why in your Bible at the beginning of verse 9 and at the end of verse 20 there are brackets. It's like parentheses but with square corners. And you're wondering why is that there? Some of your Bibles have a little note before verse 9 that says something like The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16, 9 through 20. If your Bible doesn't say something like that in before verse 9, but you have marginal notes in your Bible, there's a good chance your Bible says something like that in the margin of your Bible. In my Bible, I use New American Standard 1995 version. It's also in the Legacy Standard Bible, but I couldn't find it in any others that I checked. At the end of verse 20, there are some more brackets with more words in italics to differentiate it even more. And it says, And they promptly reported all these instructions to Peter and his companions. And after that, Jesus himself sent out through them from east to west the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. Now your Bible may not have those words in it. You may not be able to find that if you have a different translation. But if you were to look hard enough, you can find some versions that have those words after verse 8, some of them have it after verse 20. If you have those words after verse 8 and nothing else after that, that's called the short ending of Mark. If your Bible has verses 9 through 20, that's known as the long ending of Mark. And I'm guessing probably all of our Bibles have it there. You have verses 9 through 20. But what's going on here? Why this difference in our translations? Why these markings and marginal notes about this passage? I've liked the Gospel of Mark so much, it's a little bit disappointing to end with confusion in some respects. But we're going to look at some things today. uh... different than what we do on a normal sunday because of what we have here at the end of mark about four years ago on some wednesday evenings we did a a series of studies on bible translations and as we studied different bible translations and things that we can learn about how we got the Bible in English, how it was passed on, how we arrived with these different translations. We looked at why some different translations have some different verses in some places. and why some who are really into King James only position make accusations that newer translations have taken verses out of the Bible. You may hear that being said sometimes. That part of that study that we did four years ago is known as textual criticism. That is basically answering the question, How do we know? How do we know what belongs in the Bible and what doesn't? How do we arrive at having these 66 books and not others? Because there are others that claim to be scripture. How do we know it's these? How do we know which verses should actually be there? How do we know that our Bibles are accurate and true and that we really have the word of God? There's an accusation that is sometimes made by skeptics that goes something along the lines of, well, at some council a long time ago, there was a group of rich old white men who decided which books should be in the Bible and which ones should not. And they chose the ones that they liked and that would serve their purposes and left out the others. And so the accusation is to try to make it out into being just some big conspiracy about what was in and what left out of our Bibles. Or there's an accusation made that you can't really trust what's in any Bible today because they're just copies of copies of copies of copies and it's probably not anywhere close today to what it was originally thousands of years ago. But I want to assure you this morning, those accusations are simply not true. I firmly believe, and I have reasons to believe, and so do you, that a good English translation of the Bible that we can hold in our hands today is the Word of God. And the more times I study about textual criticism, the more convinced of that I am. Now, I maybe should clarify, when I say a good English translation, I'm not saying that the Word of God doesn't exist in other languages. I'm just familiar with English, and I don't know about the others. So we could look into those sometime if you want to, but I only know kind of know English. So a good English translation, we have the Word of God. God has preserved his word. God has revealed the truth. And he wants us to know the truth. God has providentially preserved his word. So we do have the word of God today. So we're going to talk about that this morning. We will look at verses 9 through 20 at the end of Mark. But we're not going to look at them in the same way as we have the rest of Mark because I don't believe they're original. And we're going to talk about that and why. But I also want to say that doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. We'll talk about that too. In 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 24 and 25 we read this, is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which was preached to you. I believe we have the word of God today, and the scriptures we hold in our hands this morning are reliable and are true because God has said His Word will not go away. God has said His Word will not be lost because it endures forever. If you would turn your Bible to Nehemiah chapter 8. Nehemiah chapter 8, if you're flipping through the Old Testament before the Psalms, Nehemiah chapter 8 verses 2 through 6. Nehemiah 8 verse 2. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding. On the first day of the seventh month, He read from it before the square, which was in front of the water gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand. And all the people were attentive to the book of the law. Ezra, the scribe, stood at a wooden podium, which they had made for the purpose. Skip to verse 5. Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, while lifting up their hands. And they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground." This passage is why we stand when we do our scripture reading Sunday mornings. It's not commanded. It's not saying that you have to do this and every time I read a verse in the Bible we just read, Nehemiah doesn't say you have to stand up each time scripture is read. But this is the kind of reverence we should have toward the Word of God. It is God's Word. This is not the Word of man. This is God's Word in our Bibles. But consider that that Book of the Law that Ezra read, that they had so much reverence for, would have to have been a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. Because this was a long time after Moses originally recorded those words, and yet they treated it as though it was the Word of God. How would they know? How would they know they actually had the Word of God? What about in 2 Peter? chapter one, in verses 19 through 21, where Peter is talking about the experience he had when he was with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, what he saw with his own eyes. It was amazing. And yet he says that there is an absolute certainty of what is recorded in the scriptures, even more certain than what he observed with his own eyes. what is recorded in scripture, even more sure. In 2nd Timothy, chapter 3, verses 14 through 17, Paul says in verse 16, all scripture is inspired by God. And he says in that passage that those scriptures are effective for salvation. That's how Timothy got saved was through the scriptures. And those scriptures are effective for all of the sanctification that is needed in a believer's life. Now when Paul said that and Peter said that about the scriptures, that was hundreds of years after Ezra. The scriptures they were reading from or talking about at that time were primarily what we call the Old Testament, the same kinds of things that Ezra was reading from there in Nehemiah chapter eight. and then what New Testament writings they had access to at the time that Paul and Peter said this but what they referred to and quoted as scripture what Jesus quoted as scripture was a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy and even a translation from Hebrew into Greek Much of what they quoted came from the Septuagint, and is quoted as God's Word. How did they know? How could they be so confident that they had the Word of God? How can we know today? The first important thing to know, the copies of the Bible, when they were hand copied, and they were for a lot of years, They were made by people who highly valued it as God's Word. Some who even died to protect and make available God's Word. Now sometimes that may not have been the case, but there were many who wanted to accurately preserve the scriptures. So they were careful, very careful about how they copied God's word. They weren't just jotting down some random quote that they heard one time that kind of interested them. They were copying God's word and they treated it as God's word. They took this very seriously. By the second century, meaning during the 100s, that was a long time ago, but not very long after Jesus. There were Talmudic scholars who were Jewish teachers of the law and theology. They began forming academies with the specific purpose of caring for, copying, and checking other copies that came along of the scriptures. That was their job. That's what they did. From around the year 500, the Tiberian school of rabbis continued to do the same thing. They were known as Masoretes. They had a very high regard for God's Word, and they were very careful about preserving it. There are some stories of some of the different things that they did, about how careful they were. I've heard it told that even as they were copying the scriptures, when they came to the name of God, they'd lay down their pen, they'd go take a bath, they'd come back and take up their pen and write God's name, because They wanted to be sure they did it with clean hands. That's how much they reverenced God's word. That's how careful they were. Then came the printing press around the year 1440, and then making accurate copies got a lot easier. But even before that, during the time when they were hand copied, there are still today thousands of handwritten, Greek manuscripts. When I say thousands, I mean like 5,000. Either full books or even complete New Testament copies that still exist from ancient Greek manuscripts. And there are thousands more pieces of manuscripts that can be compared between, and some of these go back a long way. There is a piece of the Gospel of John that dates back to The year 117. Do you know when John was written? We're told it was somewhere around the year 90 to 95. So that's only about 30 years difference. And some bring that even closer, what they think that piece of the Gospel of John came from and when John was written, to say 20 to 25 years separate the original from this part of a copy that we have. Now that may have been copied from the original. And we don't know that for sure, but it may have been. It was that close. And we have all of those copies, some of them that go so far back, available to compare between. On top of that, there are copies of things that were written by those who are considered to be the early church fathers. that was pastors and teachers from the first couple hundred years of the church. They wrote things like commentaries of the scriptures and they quoted the scriptures in those commentaries and we still have so many copies of those commentaries that go way back in the first centuries that even if we didn't have any New Testament manuscripts Almost the whole New Testament could be pieced together from all of the quotes in all of those other writings. And we have all of that that can be compared. And even though when those are compared, there are some places that can be found where some mistakes were made in the copies, and where there are some variances like we have here at the end of the Gospel of Mark. There are so many copies available to compare that we know where the mistakes are and where the variances are. Someone has said that if you put everything that we're still not quite sure about together, it would cover about half of one page in your Bible. And there isn't any of it that would affect anything we believe. None of it would affect any doctrine. A lot of it would be about how a person's name should be spelled. And that's what a lot of the uncertainty is still today. If you notice, when I read through those verses in Nehemiah, we skipped a part of verse 4. And the part we skipped was a bunch of names that are really hard to pronounce. Would you know if they were spelled wrong? That is the majority of what we're not sure about, is how to spell a name. That is a very brief overview. of textual criticism. But we can be and should be very sure we have the Word of God. We spent a fair amount of time this morning talking about that because it's important that we know we have the Word of God. Whatever it is that's going on here at the end of Mark We know we have the word of God. This should not sway us. It's not a problem. But what about these verses? Why is there question? What is uncertain about this? The external evidence points to this not being original. Of all of those thousands of copies of ancient Greek manuscripts, there are many that do have verses nine through 20 in them. But some of those that have it have markings that separate it, kind of like it is in our Bibles. Have it differentiated in some way from the rest of the text, or have it indicated, this is here, but it's not original. Then there is that note that some of your Bibles have, either before verse 9 or in the margin, that says something like, the most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16, 9-20. Now when all of the comparisons are made, the copies of Mark that have proved to be the oldest and most reliable, they don't have verses 9-20 of Mark 16. Some of those church fathers who quoted scripture and taught the scriptures said that the Gospel of Mark ended at verse 8. Now to be fair, there were other church fathers who did quote from verses 9 through 20, so it goes back a long way. But the weight of the manuscript evidence seems to favor verses 9 through 20 not being original. Now, there's more of that external evidence we could get into and find, but the evidence seems to show this isn't from Mark, verses 19 through 20. There's also internal evidence that we can consider. If you read through the Gospel of Mark, When you get to chapter 16 and verse 9, there's some kind of different, strange things begin to happen. You look at verse 9, Mark 16, verse 9. It says, Now after he had risen early on the first day of the week, he first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. Now what's strange about that is that Mary Magdalene is introduced to us with this description of her relation to Jesus, that these demons had been cast out of her. Well, that's strange that we would be introduced to who Mary Magdalene is here in verse nine, because she has been in the context and mentioned already three times since chapter 15, verse 40. So why introduce her to us at chapter 16, verse nine? That doesn't seem right. Greek scholars have also noted that there are just some abrupt changes in the vocabulary and the way that it's written from verse 9 on compared to what came before. It just doesn't seem to fit the rest of Mark. It also seems kind of strange that this message from the angel in verse 7 that Jesus would be meeting the disciples in Galilee but then from verse 9 through 20 it never says anything about them getting to Galilee. It mentions some appearances of Jesus to the disciples, but they're all near Jerusalem. Now, those are a few internal evidence examples. There could be more. But it's pretty well accepted, the conclusion, among most New Testament scholars, Greek scholars, teachers of God's Word, most who have studied the evidences, internal and external, would tell you that it weighs pretty heavily on the side of these verses not being original. Could we be wrong about that? Yes, we could be. It's possible. And that's why they are here in our Bible, because there is a little bit of a question left that maybe it is original. But since it doesn't seem like it is, it is usually indicated in some way in our Bibles that it's probably not. So if that is the case, The question is, where did it come from? Now, as I said last Sunday, as we studied the first eight verses of chapter 16, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is what we looked at last week, is the biggest thing that has ever happened in all of creation for all time. The resurrection of Jesus being so big and so important It could seem a little abrupt to end this wonderful gospel with the announcement from the angel that Jesus was not in the tomb because he's alive. These ladies run out. They're trembling. They're astonished. The end. Close your Bible and go home. It seems kind of abrupt, doesn't it? Well, it really shouldn't surprise us, the abrupt ending, because Mark also begins the gospel abruptly. There is no mention of his birth or his pre-existence like there is in Matthew, Luke, and John. It's just, boom, he's there, he gets baptized, and he starts teaching. It's very abrupt. Also, if you consider the purpose of this gospel, stated in Mark 1, verse 1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He says this is the beginning. He's not going to tell the whole story. This is the beginning. But his purpose was to present the gospel, to show his readers that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. By chapter 16, verse 8, mission accomplished. He has done it. Those women were absolutely amazed as they ran speechless from that empty tomb. And that should be our response is by the time we get to chapter 16, Verse 8, our response ought to be, wow, Jesus is amazing. He truly is the Son of God. That gospel is certainly good news. Mission accomplished. Mark did what he set out to do by verse 8. But since it does seem kind of abrupt, at some point a long time ago, there was a scribe. Maybe his name was something like Paul Harvey us Paul Harvey s will say and He wanted his class to know the rest of the story So this scribe Maybe his name was Paul Harvey s he put together a summary From the other Gospels and acts a few other places in Scripture to fill in the rest of the story And that's generally what Acts 16 verses 9 through 20 seems to be. It seems to be a summary. It just has a different feel, a different cadence from the rest of Mark. It is some bits of information from other gospel Bible writers. And that's why I said earlier, the things said in these verses aren't necessarily wrong, even if it's not original from Mark. They're not necessarily wrong. Now look again. Mark 16 verses 9 through 10. It says, Now after he had risen early on the first day of the week, he first appeared to Mary Magdalene from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to those who had been with him while they were mourning and weeping. The Gospel of Luke chapter 8 verse 2 introduces Mary Magdalene as the one from whom seven demons had gone out. That's scripture. That is true. John chapter 20 verse 1 and verses 17 through 18 speak of Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene very early in the morning and then her being sent to report the news of Jesus's resurrection to the disciples. It's scripture. It's there. It's true. Mark 16 verse 11 says, when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it. And that's a very nice summary of Luke 24, verses 10 through 11. It says the same thing. Mark 16, verses 12 to 13, says this. After that, he appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country. They went away and reported it to the others, but they did not believe them either. Luke 24, verses 13 to 35 tells that exact same stories with Quite a few more details, but it's the same thing. It's true. Mark 16, 14 says, afterward, he appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at the table, and he reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen. The same basic information is found in Luke 24, verses 36 through 40. It's true. Mark 16, 15, and he said to them, go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. It's pretty easy to see what that parallels, Matthew 28, verses 19 through 20, the Great Commission. It's true. Mark 16, 16, he who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. A lot of things in there sounds very similar to John 3.18 and some other things from Acts kind of mixed in there. Now some will use Mark 16.16 to try to prove that baptism is necessary for salvation. But all you have to do to know that's not the case is just read the whole verse. The key issue that is the difference between saved and condemned is belief or unbelief. Not baptism or no baptism. He does not say those who are condemned are condemned because they weren't baptized. The key issue is belief or disbelief. That is consistent with the rest of scripture. Baptism is very closely linked to salvation because it's assumed that if you are saved you're going to be baptized. If you are saved you need to be baptized. But that is not the difference between saved and unsaved. It's belief or disbelief. In Mark 16 verses 17 and 18, these signs will accompany those who have believed. In my name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison it will not hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. Now several places in the book of Acts we read about things concerning sign of tongues casting out demons, other miracles. There's the account of Paul getting bit by the serpent and not being harmed by it. We don't find anything about the drinking poison part, but the rest of it, there's examples there. One thing that we don't see about it is that these signs will be done by all believers. They were done at the beginning, initially, by many believers. in 2nd Corinthians chapter 12 verse 12 Paul talks about the signs of a true Apostle the signs of a true Apostle signs to show people That these are ones approved by God to be proclaiming this message You should hear them believe them and trust them. We see that in Acts. We see it confirmed the rest of Scripture we see it confirmed in history that these signs were given by God and during the time of the apostles for a purpose to show that this is God's message through them that served its purpose during that time and they're no longer needed. So if you see what these verses here, Mark 16, say, you compare it to scripture, yeah, these things did happen. They were signs that accompanied believers at that time. Now today, If anyone wants to mess around with venomous snakes, that's up to you. But just don't assume too much from Mark 16, 18. You need to compare it to the rest of scripture and then keep them away from me. I hate snakes. So do it if you want. I don't recommend it, but keep them away from me. Finally, Mark 16, 19 and 20. So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the signs that followed." Now, that's true. Those are true things. Can be pieced together from Luke 24 verses 51 through 53 You see some similar things to Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3 in Hebrews chapter 2 verses 3 through 4 It's true these things are true Even if it's not original to mark now this ending of the gospel mark is The biggest question mark we have in the Bible if it should be there or not The evidence seems to tell us, no, it shouldn't be. But even then, it's not that much of a problem, because when it's compared to other scripture that we know is the Word of God, it matches up. It's true. So when the skeptics try to convince us that the Bible is full of contradictions, is full of errors and full of problems, you can't trust it, remember the end of the Gospel of Mark. That this is our biggest problem. And it's really not a very big problem. We have the Word of God. God has committed to preserving His Word. And He has. His Word endures forever. We have the Word of God. The Gospel of Mark, through verse 8 of chapter 16. Wonderful part of the Word of God. It should cause us to conclude. Wow, Jesus. Think about how much He suffered for your sin. He paid the price that you deserve on that cross. Though He was perfect, He suffered so much through that cross to pay for your sin. He was buried and that next morning, Sunday morning, the tomb was empty because He rose. He is the Son of God. He accomplished everything He came to do. It's amazing. That ought to be our conclusion for the Gospel of Mark. Wow, Jesus.