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Remain standing for the reading
of the Word of God. Open your Bibles in the Gospel
of Mark, chapter one, verses one through eight. Gospel of
Mark, chapter one, verses one through eight. Give heed now to the reading
of the holy and inerrant Word of God. The beginning of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, As it is written in the prophets,
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare
thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John did baptize in the wilderness
and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And
there went out unto him all the land of Judea and day of Jerusalem,
and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing
their sins. And John was clothed with camel's
hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins, and he did eat
locusts and wild honey, and preached, saying, There comes one mightier
than I after me, that leech of whose shoes I am not worthy to
step down and lose. I indeed have baptized you with
water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. Let us pray
together. Almighty God and our almighty
savior, our great king, the one that that lives above, that is
seated in your throne of glory, that is worshiped by caribbeans
and seraphins continually. We approach you now, great God
and our father, praying that you would bless us. That we bless
us now, Lord, when we come to to listen to you through your
word, father, remove the blindfold of our eyes so that we can see
the preciousness. Of your law, made a prisoner
of your word, father, bring sinners to repentance, may bring encouragement
to sinners heart made point us to Christ, our savior and our
redeemer. In His name, Father, we pray.
Amen. Please be seated. How good are you in keeping your
promises? I bet that as the semester began,
you have made up a schedule. and you set up specific hours
to study, and you made sure that every single day you were going
to read four chapters a day from your systematic theology, and
you're gonna read two chapters a day from your New Testament
introduction book, and you set up so perfectly your schedule,
are you keeping up with it? Maybe you're already behind. Sometimes we're really not good
on keeping our promises, are we? Or maybe you have just moved
into town and you said, you promised your wife, said, honey, I will
not get so involved with studies to the point that I'm gonna,
that I'm not gonna pay attention to you. On the contrary, every
Saturday, I will put my books aside and every morning we'll
go to a nice park, a different park in Michigan, in Grand Rapids. And this is probably your second,
third month here and your wife didn't see a single park yet. Or maybe you promised something
to your kid. You that are fathers, parents, maybe you have a little
child or a little girl, and you promise, no, no, look, honey,
I promise I'll take you for some ice cream by the end of the week.
And the end of the week came, and you were so full of things
to do, have papers to write, and have jobs to do, and here
comes your little kid, your little child says, Dad, come on, let's
have that ice cream. Oh, honey, I'm sorry, but I can't
do it. And then you listen. But you promised. Promises are really part of our
lives. But our experiences with promises
are not very positive sometimes. But when we come to the Gospel
of Mark, Mark introduces this great gospel, this great narrative
of the love of our Lord Jesus Christ, beginning with a promise
and beginning with one that fulfill and is always faithful to his
promises. In fact, as we approach this
text, this is what we learn from it. We learn that God is faithful
to his promises, no matter how long it takes to fulfill them. Christian, God is faithful to
his promises. He's faithful to his promises
in history, and he's faithful to his promises personally to
you, no matter how long he takes to fulfill them. We are going
to consider this text under three headings. The first one is remembering
an old promise. The second one is fulfilling
an old promise. The third one is expecting a
better future. Remembering an old promise, fulfilling
an old promise, expecting a better promise. As we began and we read
the first three verses of Mark, we see that He quickly sets out
what is his purpose with this text. He tells us clearly what
is his goal. And he says in verse 1, The beginning
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is why I'm
writing this text, says Mark. I'm writing this text to tell
you about the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is my purpose. The
good news is the purpose why I'm writing this. And look at
this, this is extremely important. As we refer to the gospel, we
frequently tend to narrow down the gospel to the cross, don't
we? We talk about the gospel and it says, well, the gospel
is the good news of Jesus Christ who died to save sinners. But
here, Mark is saying, well, this is the beginning of the gospel.
The gospel starts here. The gospel is not only restricted
to the death of our Lord Jesus Christ or to his resurrection.
It involves old promises. It involves the fulfillment of
promises. It involves the birth of the Messiah, the incarnation
of the Son of God. It involves as well his life,
his suffered life among sinners. It involves all the persecution
that he suffered, the opposition that he suffered. It involves
his miracles. It involves His love and compassion for sinners.
And then it does involve His passion, His death, His resurrection,
and His ever-abiding presence with His church. So the gospel
of Christ, Christian, is the whole gospel. It's the whole
gospel according to Mark. This is just the beginning. But
the whole book is the gospel. And where does it begin? It begins
at the Old Testament. It begins back in the Prophets.
That's what it says. As it is written, as you read
in verse 2, as it is written in the Prophets, the gospel begins
there. Hey, you want to know about the good news of salvation?
Go to the Old Testament. You want to know about this great
Messiah, this great Christ that is God incarnate, that is Yahweh
promised in the midst of His people, that is the great Emmanuel?
Look at the Prophets. Look at the Old Testament. What
do they say? And he starts pointing back to
the Old Testament, remembering first of the promise written
in the book of Malachi. Malachi 3.1 is the passage that
he first cites here in verse 2, when we read, And then he
quotes Isaiah. In verse 3, the voice of one
crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
his paths straight. You see, the promise of Malachi
tells about one that would come to prepare the way of the Lord.
And it's interesting when you read Malachi 3.1, this one that
is preparing is a messenger that is preparing the way of the Lord.
He's preparing the way of Yahweh, who is the covenantal Lord. And
when we go to Isaiah, the pathway that is being opened and is being
prepared is for Yahweh Himself. You see, when we look back, especially
in Isaiah, it is not a general Lord, a mighty ruler that is
coming. But it's the tetragram, it's
the Hebrew tetragram that is present in the prophecy of Isaiah.
It is the covenantal God that is coming, Himself is coming
to the midst of His people to deliver them from His enemies,
to abide with them completely and forever. This is who is coming. And then there is this messenger,
the prophecy says, that is preparing the way of Yahweh, removing all
obstacles, removing all hindrances, all barriers, everything that
would stand in the way of the one that would come, this messenger
is doing this work. And, Mr. Christian, as we look
at these three very first verses, and we realize that the beginning
of the gospel is in the Old Testament, Seminary students who are preparing
yourselves to be teachers and pastors of future congregations.
Oh may this text Elevate your love for the Old Testament scriptures
You see it's very common in our days to regard the Old Testament
as well. This is just for the Jews This
is just for Israel There is nothing relevant in the Old Testament
for us That's not Mark's position That's not what the Holy Spirit
is telling us here. On the contrary, it is telling
us you want to know about the good news, go back to the Old
Testament. And therefore, you Christians, you as those who
are preparing for the ministry, may you as well look for Christ
in the Old Testament. May you prepare sermons that
would point your congregations to Christ in the Old Testament,
that would elevate their love for the Old Testament scriptures.
But not only that, as you consider, this old promise that is being
remembered, may you be motivated to look at the great sovereignty
of God in controlling history, in governing all things according
to His will. You see, Mark says, you want
to know about the gospel, you want to know about the good news,
go back and look to the prophets. But what is the promise in the
prophets? That in some point in history, God will intervene. God will do something. God will
send a messenger according to His will, controlling history,
sovereign ruling over all things. He is the one who makes promises
and fulfill promises. He's the one that controls time,
that control histories, that set up governments and take them
down. He's the one that can make promises and fulfill them because
he sovereignly rule over all things. I remember as soon as
I moved here from South Carolina, we spent, me and my wife, we
spent just 12 or 14 days here. We organized our apartment and
then we flew back to Brazil. And the morning that we flew
back, we were supposed to drive two hours to Detroit. we're supposed
to wake up at 5 a.m. and we woke up at 6 p.m. 6 a.m. sorry no 6 p.m. that would be
that would be a lost cause but we woke up one hour late so we
were very busy we're very we're trying to speed up and and then
we caught our car and we drove and it was a rented car and as
we arrived there if you have been already to the Detroit Airport
are there are two terminals there's one that that Certain airlines
go there, and they work there, and there are other ones where
other airlines go there. And they're very far from each
other. You need to take a shuttle to go from one to the other.
And therefore, so we arrived and said, honey, are you sure
that this is the terminal? Yes, yes, yes, I'm absolutely
sure. Say, OK, great, great. So we
arrived there, and I parked the car. I removed the luggage. I
left her in the line. And then I took the rental car
back to the rental store. And I took the shuttle from the
rental store, went back. Everything very rushed. And as
I arrived there, I said, OK, now we're all settled. We're
great, huh? I said, no, we're not. I said,
what's going on? We're in the wrong terminal. I can't really remember. many
times that I have been unkind to my wife, but that was one
day. That was very unkind to her. I know Brazilians can be
really quick to point out, but this is your fault. And then, very upset, we have
to move the luggage, get the shuttle, go to the other thing,
go to the other place, terminal, and as we arrived there, we lost
our flight. And here I am, complaining again,
and just being unkind to my wife. No, this is your fault. We lost
the plane. We lost the flight. Now we're not going to Brazil.
Oh, it's going to cost tons of dollars to buy different tickets.
And just making a long story short, everything was sorted
out. We caught a different flight, and we arrived to New York in
time. We caught the flight from New York to Brazil, and everything
sorted out. And as my wife was patiently
bearing with my complaints, I just couldn't help to start sobbing
when everything was sorted out. I just remembered how little
Calvinistic I was being in my behavior. How little I was trusting
God's sovereignty. Even if you have lost a plane,
that's God's sovereignty. That's God's rule and control
over all things. And you see, Christian, as we
come to this passage and we see Mark remembering all the promises,
we are also glad to remember that God made all the promises
and fulfilled them because he's the one that sovereignly rules
over history. He sovereignly rules over your
life. Even when things go wrong, even when things do not go when
you have planned them to do, God is controlling all things
for his glory and for the good of those who love him and who
treasure him. As we go back here to the narrative,
verses four and five tells us about the fulfillment of the
old promise. We saw about the remembering of Old Promises in
verses 1-3, and in verses 4-5, we see the fulfillment of Old
Promises. There was this promise of the great messenger that would
come. In verse 4, Mark quickly goes
and says, John came. John did baptize in the wilderness
and preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Basically, what Mark is saying
is, the messenger came. The master that Malachi was prophesying,
the master that Isaiah was prophesying, he came. The promise that I just
remembered you about has been fulfilled. Mark identifies this
prophecy as being fulfilled with John the Baptist. Not only that,
remember, if there is no message, there is a message to be proclaimed.
And here again, we see in verse four that he came proclaiming
a message. John baptized in the wilderness
and preached, this is the Greek verb keruso, He was proclaiming
out loud the baptism of repentance for the remissions of sins. He's preaching a message of complete
transformation. He's preaching a message of radical
change. This is what the word repentance,
metanoia, means. It's a complete reversal of life.
But you see, as we see this discontinuity between the Old Testament and
the New Testament, there is a little bit of discontinuity as well. As
Mark is going out and preaching, he's calling all Jews. You see,
there's people from Judea in verse 5. You see, Judea and Jerusalem,
which is the bigger region and the smaller region, they're all
coming to be baptized. But you see, the message of repentance
into Jewish culture Everybody knew they had to repent. Everybody
was very acquainted with the sacrificial system. And right
after the Babylonian captivity, without the temple, Jews, rabbis
already started making different ways for you to be forgiven.
Not offering sacrifices, but giving alms and praying to God.
But that a Jew should be washed by water, that's new. That's
discontinuity. You see, actually, this is what
a Gentile needs to do to become a Jew. Yes, to become a Jew,
a Gentile, someone that is born outside of the tree of Israel,
that has no genetical relationship with Israel, they would come,
and they would confess their sins, and then they would be
washed in water. But see, John the Baptist is
calling everyone You Jew, you Gentile, all of you need repentance. All of you need to be baptized.
There is a disruption. There is a discontinuity. The
old covenant is gone. All of you need to be baptized
and repent of your sins. That's the message. All needs
to be watched. Both Jews and Gentiles. And as
we come to the end of verse 5, we see that the message is efficacious. You have your We have here an
unlikely preacher, preaching in an unlikely environment in
the desert, preaching to an unlikely crowd, the Jews who never believed
they should be baptized for remission of sins. They are all drooling. They're all listening. They're
all coming. And you see, all were coming to Him. Those who
dwell in Judea and Jerusalem, they were coming to Him, and
they were truly being baptized. And as we read, at the end of
verse 5, they were confessing their sins. The message of John,
the ministry of John the Baptist, was efficacious. The message
was proclaimed, and the message was efficacious. And you see,
brethren, as you study here, especially It's a blessing, isn't it? When
I was in Granville, I was to pass down eight different churches until
I get to my church. And they're all good churches, all faithful
churches, Baptist Reformed, different Presbyterians. And sometimes
we feel, well, I'm not sure if I want to go back to my country.
I feel sometimes this way. I know what I'm going to face
there. I know I'm going to go back there and I'll be ostracized.
I'll be ridiculized. I'll face opposition. I don't
want to go back there. But you see, this morning the
Holy Spirit reminds us through the holy and inerrant Word of
God that the message of the Gospel is efficacious to save sinners. We don't need to appeal to PowerPoint
presentations, to theaters, or to choirs. We don't need to appeal
to anything. The message of the Gospel is
powerful in itself. We don't need any other artifice.
We don't need any other tools except the power of the Gospel. As John the Baptist was preaching,
the more unlikely the crowd was. The gospel was like a hammer
in the hands of the Holy Spirit, and He was shattering all doubt
and all ostracism. Therefore be encouraged, be encouraged
to return to wherever you come from, to preach this gospel,
to be the John the Baptist among your people, among your country,
to preach precisely the gospel of Jesus Christ, to preach baptism
for the remission of sins. This message is powerful. This
message is efficacious. Just as it was for John the Baptist,
it is still efficacious today. But not only that. As we see in verses 4 and 5,
God fulfilling His promise. We can also be assured that He
continues to fulfill His promise. We can trust and rely on the
faithfulness of our great God. If He Himself kept a promise
alive for 400 years, the promise of the return of our Lord Jesus
Christ would certainly be fulfilled, no matter how long it takes.
God is faithful to keep His promises, no matter how long it takes to
fulfill them, but He will fulfill them. Amen. And therefore, we
can take courage in that. We can take great courage in
that as we face the problems of our day, as we face the difficult
situations in our soul, the sin that so darkly tries to destroy
us. We can trust in the promise of
God to sanctify us in His Holy Spirit. As we feel alone, and
really all alone amongst multitudes, we can trust in the promise of
Emmanuel, of the eternal presence of Christ among His people. as
we are saddened, and as we cry on different situations that
really oppress our soul, we can trust on the promise of redemption
that our Savior gives us. See, there are several promises
in the Scripture, but most of all, we can be assured that Christ
will fulfill the promise of His return. Judgment Day will come. The restoration of all things
will come. Because God fulfilled His promise in Christ, we can
be sure of His faithfulness, and that He will keep fulfilling
His promises for healthy nations. As we come to the end of the
passage, verses 6-8, we see that the original readers should be,
based on this promise, expecting a better promise. Mark remembered
them of an old promise, told them about the fulfillment of
an old promise, and now it tells him about the expectation of
a better promise. And as we read in verse six,
it's really interesting that Mark spends a whole verse with
a description of John the Baptist, isn't it? He describes him with
quite detail. And we read, and John was clothed
with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin above his loins. And
he did eat locusts and wild honey. As we look again back to Malachi,
initially Malachi chapter 3 verse 1 was this promise is cited here,
a recite, a remembering. But as we come to the end of
Malachi, Malachi 4 verse 5, Malachi ends with expectation of the
return of Elijah. Mark is saying here with this
description, John the Baptist, is that Elijah? He's trying to
make that bridge. That's why he spends so much
time, in verse 6, he dedicates a verse to describe John the
Baptist. Now, why can we be sure that this is Elijah? First one,
first thing, in 2 Kings 1, verse 8, we see that John the Baptist
is clothed in the same way as Elijah was. In 2 Kings 1-8, we
see that these are exactly the clothing of Elijah. He was clothing
with camel's hair and a girdle. Not only that, John the Baptist
also eats very similarly to Elijah. Not the same diet, but both of
them depend on God's provision. In 1 Kings 17, verse 4, we read
that Elijah should trust on God to provide for him. And he was
not supposed to go outside and go into the cities to buy groceries
and go to the local Walmart and do whatever groceries he needed
to. He was to trust in God's providence. God would feed him
through ravens and through his goodness to Elijah. And in the
same way, here, John the Baptist is not being fed by ravens, but
he is eating from the providence of God. He's eating from whatever
he finds. He's eating lotus and wild honey. John the Baptist is the New Testament
Elijah. He's the fulfillment of Malachi's
prophecy. But you see, no matter how Elijah
was regarded as a great prophet in the Old Testament, and no
matter how important is this bridge of Elijah now coming in
the New Testament context, we are to expect a higher one, a
one person that is even higher than Elijah. This is a powerful
illustration. As we come to the New Testament
context, you see, Mark just described, or John
the Baptist with his statement, just described the service of
a slave. Yes, a slave was the one in New
Testament historical context that would stoop down and untie
the sandals of his master. And if you do remember a little
bit of New Testament history and the New Testament context,
streets in those days were not very clean. They were very dirty. And as the master would arrive
in the house with his shoes and his sandals, all messed up with
dirt and mud and whatever you can imagine that was in the street,
it was the work of the servant, of the slave, to go there, to
untie those shoes, those sandals, and wash them and take care of
them. But Joseph the Baptist says, I can't be this one's slave. You know, this is the worst work
in all society right now in New Testament context, but even this
lower position, I, before this one, this mightier one that has
come, I cannot do this job. I am unworthy to do it. He, John
the Baptist, traces this antithesis between him and the one that
is supposed to be expected. This one has a most excellent
character, says John the Baptist, that I am not worthy. to come
even close to Him. Not only that, He has a most
excellent work. He has a most excellent character,
and He also has a most excellent work. And we read this in verse
8, I indeed have baptized you with water, but He shall baptize
you with the Holy Spirit. And you see, John the Baptist
here is not removing any honor or any authority from his ministry.
He is the New Testament Elijah. He's the one prophesied by God.
His ministry does have relevance, but it's just a shadow. The washing
of water is just a shadow of the washing of the spirit that
this mightier one was going to bring. Yes, I am the New Testament Elijah,
says John the Baptist, but you are to expect a better the higher one that is to come.
You see, Christian, as we come to the end of this pericope,
apparently to love and has this high regard for Christ, just
as John the Baptist did. Do you have a high regard for
Christ? Do you have a high view of Christ? Do you consider that
when you compare yourself to Him, when you look at Him, are
you constrained? taken by His holiness, by His
beauty, by His grace and mercy towards you? Is He the first
thing in your life? Is He the one that controls your
heart, your soul, your mind, your thoughts, your plans? Are
your life and all your plans dedicated to this great and mighty
Savior? Do you have this high view and
high regard of Christ? Well, Jonah Baptist did. But you see, not only that, as
this people that was listening to the preaching of John the
Baptist, as they were expecting, expecting this better promise
to come, we don't need to expect the better promise to come anymore,
do we? As we are confronted with this
text this morning, we are sure that this Christ has come, that
He has already been baptized. then the Holy Spirit already
came upon him in the presence of thousands of people. That
he lived a suffered life. He suffered and he died and he
resurrected on the third day and he's present in this church
even now. That's what he said at the end of the Gospel of Matthew.
And behold, I am with you always until the end of the ages. You
see, we are in a higher position. We have this ready in our hearts
and in our tongues and in our throats to cast this message
upon the masses, to cast this message upon our neighbors, upon
our unconverted parents and friends and relatives. This is the good
news of the Gospel, the whole Gospel, as Mark said. And it
has already been fulfilled. He encouraged that the promise
has already been fulfilled in the same way it made great effect
in the time when John the Baptist was preaching. It is the same
way powerful to convert and transform souls today. God is faithful
to his promise as a Christian, no matter how long it takes to
fulfill it. As we consider the fulfillment
of prophecy, There is probably no better place in the Bible
to go back than to Samson. Samson was not really a good
promise keeper, was he? As an Ezraite, he was not supposed
to touch dead bodies. Not very successful in keeping
that one. He was not supposed to drink strong drinks, drink
wine or alcoholic beverages. Not very successful in doing
that as well. promises that Samson was not
faithful to keep. Nevertheless, in his very last
day, in spite of all his unfaithfulness, God was faithful to him. In that
very last day, when he was tied up, when he was changed as two
great columns, as two great pillars, as Samson repented, as he cried
out to the Lord, Lord be faithful with me even in my unfaithfulness.
That's what He receives. He receives the faithfulness
of God. And He still does His work for
the glory of God. Because God is faithful to His
promises. No matter how long it takes to fulfill it. May you
be encouraged by it. May you desire to preach it every
day of your life. Trusting in the faithfulness
of this God to keep His promises. Always looking for the great
promise that awaits us. the return of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. The glory be to Him forever and
ever. Let us pray. Our great God, what a blessing
it is to be reminded today that You are the One who fulfilled
promises. That in spite of all our unfaithfulness,
Lord, You are the One who controls history. You are the sovereign
ruler. Not only that, Lord, You are the One that is faithful
to fulfill Your promises. And you have given us a better
and most excellent promise, our Lord Jesus Christ. O Lord, as
we go and continue our studies, may us be encouraged by this
reality, that you are faithful to His promises, that the power
of the gospel is eternal, and that the same way you impact
people in the past, you continue to impact and transform all generations,
all those who come to you in true repentance, confessing their
sins. Encourage Oswald to boldly preach
this message, trusting in its power, wherever we go, wherever
we are.
PRTS Weekly Chapel - September 2
Series PRTS Chapel Series
| Sermon ID | 99121111555390 |
| Duration | 34:17 |
| Date | |
| Category | Chapel Service |
| Bible Text | Mark 1:1-8 |
| Language | English |
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