Mark No.1 On your Marks

We're turning to Mark's Gospel, Chapter 1. We're working our way through the summer season. If you have not got this pink leaflet with the program, please pick one up at the welcome desk today. The series for the Sunday mornings is called Their Eyes Were Watching God, and it's from Mark, Chapters 1 through to 8. Today we're reading from Mark, Chapter 1, and the first 13 verses.

The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in Isaiah the prophet, I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way. A voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.

And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he had locusts and wild honey, and this was his message. After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, you are my son whom I love, with you I am well pleased.

At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert for 40 days being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals and angels attended him. This is the word of God.

Father, we pray that as we come to this holy act of the explanation of Scripture, that we might know the gracious operations of your Spirit, and that those who are not familiar with these pages, the context, or indeed with much of what is contained within your Word, that they will be given additional help to be able to comprehend, and that our study and the exposition may be meaningful, for those who've been on the Christian journey a long time, and for those who are just in the primary department, so to speak, in your name. Amen. South Africa has been very much in the news, very much on the hearts of Royner and myself, my wife having come from that beautiful land.

Nelson Mandela, a very remarkable man in the Africa National Congress, the ANC, for often the scourge of the Western press, had actually, historically, its interests in the Christian gospel. In the 1950s, they used to start their conventions with Bible study and prayer meetings. If they went extreme left-wing, then one of the problems was the pressure placed upon them by those who were apprehensive in granting reasonable human rights.

Well, all that is the thing of yesterday, and two outstanding men, Nelson Mandela and F.W. Leclerc, are hoping in the grace of God, and this is prayed for in so many areas of South Africa, that a new nation has been born. And it seems to me that it's the concept of a new people of God, the creation, if you like, of a new nation that is basic to these first 13 verses of the first chapter of Mark's gospel as we consider them. Let me put a question to you.

When was the nation of Israel born? Now, that just needs a little bit of thought, but here is a simple answer which I'll qualify, if necessary, in a moment. The nation of Israel was born when the Hebrews left Egypt and returned to the promised land. In fact, the first time that Israel is referred to as the son of God occurs at that particular point in her history.

Listen to Exodus in chapter 4. In the 22nd verse, Moses is asking that on behalf of God, he is to ask that Pharaoh releases the Hebrews. And this is the nature of the request. Then say to Pharaoh, this is what the Lord says, Israel is my firstborn son.

And I told you, let my son go that he may worship me. You see the point? Israel as the son of God. If it's not clear, I think it must be.

But if it's not, here is another example, Hosea chapter 11. Here is the prophet living many years after Moses and the enslavement of the Hebrews in Egypt. He's now again speaking on behalf of God and referring to the ancient Hebrews.

Hosea 11. When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son. Now ideally speaking, in a metaphorical sense, as those Hebrews were making their way through the wilderness of Sinai, they were reckoned to be the son of God.

A nation formed in the wilderness. Now what happened when they got to the promised land? Well, the answer is this, ultimately catastrophe, ultimately failure. They disgracefully let God down.

The years went, the centuries passed, the Lord sent the prophets and it was all to no avail. And when the beloved Christ of God, Jesus, walked the streets of Palestine, he found the people who had disgraced themselves. So what would God do? Well, he will cause the nation of Israel to have the option, for God always speaks in grace as well as in justice, to go back, so to speak, to the very place where they were made a nation.

If you like, in a sense, to leave the vicinity of Jerusalem and the towns and the cities and to go back to the desert. And there to vow before God that they would once again become his people, live for his honor, live for his glory. Now it's interesting, isn't it? That when you come to Mark's gospel and these opening verses, the word that stands out time and time again is the word desert or wilderness.

Verse three, desert. Verse four, desert. And so forth.

So the concept is behind what you find in these verses, the pleading of God for the people to return again to the place where they were formed as a nation and to make their apologies to the Lord and to know redemption, regeneration. Now, isn't it interesting that this gospel of Mark is the first record of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ? And when you move to his introductory sentence, you are taken back in your mind, those of you who know the Old Testament, to the first book of Genesis, to the first chapter, to the first verse which Ian read for us a little while ago, in the beginning, God. What did God do? Well, he created.

He created this world with all its beauty, with all its texture, with the flowers, with the animals, with no desert, with no potential famine whatsoever. When the world fell fresh from the hands of God, it was good. Man spoiled it.

Now, here in Mark's gospel, heralding the first record of the life of our beloved Savior, what do you find in the introductory verse, in the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God? Well, what happened at the beginning of the gospel? Well, God caused a man who was to be the forerunner of his own son, to prepare the way for his son to preach in anticipation of the coming of Jesus into this world. God had his man by the name of John. And John Baptist had the most strange pulpit that any preacher has ever been given.

The wilderness. I will send my messenger ahead of you. Here's a quotation from Isaiah from the Old Testament prophet, you see, to indicate that the ministry of John is not something newfangled.

It is anchored in the prophetic scriptures. I will send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way, a voice of one calling in the wilderness. Prepare the way for the Lord.

Where does John baptize? In the wilderness. Verse four. Where do all the people of Judea and particularly from Jerusalem go to? They were baptized by him in the Jordan River, the southern part being referred to as the wilderness.

You see, here is John anticipating the return, or rather anticipating in this world the arrival of God's final spokesman. And he preaches from the edge of that same wilderness, where the ancient Hebrews were invested with the title, or the Son of God. And they went out from Jerusalem, from the cities, from the towns, from the villages.

They left the settled area of the promised land, and they went back to the starting point. Why? Because God was going to do something spectacular. He was sending into the world, indeed had physically sent into the world, but his ministry had not at that point commenced.

The one who could redeem Israel, the one who could bring about a new kingdom. So ultimately, when you read of the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, you find in the 14th verse, it being recorded with him, Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. The time has come, he said.

The kingdom of God is near. South Africa rejoices, the possibility of a new start. When John Baptist, and even more significantly, Jesus of Nazareth, start their ministries as recorded in Mark's gospel, the potential is there for a new kingdom, a new society, men and women federated, brought together into the family circle of the Lord.

And that is good news. So, the beginning of the gospel. What does the word gospel mean? Well, in Roman terminology, it's a historical event which introduces a new situation into the world.

When Caesar had his birthday, it was good news. Though not every slave would have done a dance. In Hebrew connotation, however, the gospel means a living word of hope from the lips of an anointed person.

Now, you can take it both ways. The gospel indicates an event which introduces a new situation in the world. A new one is dawning.

Here is John, and he has such magnetism. He's drawing people to listen to what he has to say in the wilderness, and he is predicating an event which will revolutionize world history. And ere long, here comes the blessed Savior, the Son of God.

His mind, his lips anointed with the Holy Spirit. And he is extending not a message of final judgment, but the message of grace, a message of forgiveness. But in order to benefit from that message, you have to come out of Jerusalem.

You have to come out of your hamlet. You have to come out of the lifestyle that has been yours for many a long day, because that lifestyle has offended Almighty God. And you go back to the place where Israel, as far as the Jews was concerned, first became a nation, the wilderness.

Now, don't misunderstand this. That's not terribly important, the location. It was for the Jews, but it's not for you.

What is spiritually important is this, that if you are going to benefit from the gospel, you have to go out and leave the moorings of those things which have held you for so long. The lifestyle which you've embraced, the principles that have governed your life. All that is alien to, all that is again, the Ten Commandments that God gave to the people of Israel in the wilderness.

All that you have done that has been wrong, that has insulted God, you've got to come away from that. And the gospel message says this, there's a man, not just a man, the God man, ready to meet with you, ready to deal with you. In the beginning, the gospel, the gospel of good news, the new beginning for you, for me today, right now, embrace it.

For this is what God extends to you. In the person of his Son. So John preaches from the desert, and it is to the desert that the people go, and they go to be baptized.

For John preaches a message of preparation, and this message is dramatically symbolized in a unique fashion for none of the other prophets engaged in this practice. He baptizes people as they repent for the forgiveness of sins. It is a baptism for repentance.

Now listen, John is one of the greatest men that ever lived. He calls a spade a spade. He tells you what sin is.

He identifies sin. I mean, we need John today. We need John to come and tell us these things that are against God's Lord, and to cause us to repent.

But you see, the Bible says the least in the kingdom of heaven is in one sense greater than John. Did you ever wonder what that verse meant? Well, it means this. John can preach a message of repentance.

John can preach a message of repentance unto forgiveness. John can proclaim a baptism which speaks symbolically of the repentant heart. But what John cannot do is remit the sins that the sinner has committed.

He prepares the man, the woman, for someone who is greater than himself. For John, though he has ability, his ability is limited. John, though he has holiness, that holiness is not absolute.

So you see, John is like the preacher. For it seems to me that the task of the preacher is very much, let me give you a modern illustration and move away from John. It's very much like the operator who is trying to connect you to a difficult area where the phone situation is not as sophisticated as in the West.

And so you go through the operator. And to start with, you hear his voice or her voice. And they connect you and you still hear their voice.

And then gradually they fade away because the connection has been made. That's the preacher. That's John.

I baptize you in water, but there is one who is about to come, who is greater than I am. Look at verse 7. After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I'm not worthy to swoop down and untie. Mine is a mediocre baptism.

I baptize you with water unto repentance. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. The spirits of Lord and the life giver.

It is the spirit who can redeem men and women. It is the Holy Spirit who can make a man, make a woman into being once more a child of God. Says John, I don't have that ability.

But there is one coming. Now, it's interesting, isn't it? That in the first eight verses, little reference has been made to our Lord Jesus apart from that description, the one who is greater than I. Now, verse 9 stands out in utter contrast. At that time, Jesus came.

The one who is greater than I, who is he? At that time, Jesus comes. He comes from Nazareth. He comes from Nazareth in Galilee.

He comes from Nazareth in Galilee and is baptized. Jesus, who will have the ability to perform the greater, the far greater, the baptizer in the Holy Spirit, submits to the lesser. He's baptized with a baptism unto the forgiveness of sins.

Isn't it interesting, brothers and sisters, those of you who are well on your way in the Christian faith, has you ever thought this one through? That in the fifth verse, reference is made to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judea, them all coming to John and being baptized. Palestine is not just restricted to Judea. The Holy Land embraces more than that.

The northern part of the Holy Land is Galilee. And there's only one person who comes from Galilee and volunteers for John's baptism. I wonder if I'm pushing it too far to say that the people who came from Jerusalem and Judea, though they profess that they were making ready for the coming of the good news of the gospel, they all reneged upon it.

But from Galilee, that despised quarter comes Jesus, and he offers himself for baptism, the lesser baptism. Jesus, the perfect son of God, moves into the wilderness where the people of God centuries ago were made, the Hebrews were made, if you like, that the people of God. Jesus goes back into the wilderness as God's perfect son and submits himself to the baptism for sinners as though he was a sinner in anticipation that one day out, if you please, in the wilderness where the cross is, just outside Jerusalem, he will take upon himself the consequences of your sin and my sin.

Here is our Lord. And he submits to the baptism of John, verse 9. At that time, Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan. Have you ever thought how the references are made in the Old Testament to the Holy Spirit and his ministry in regard to the Old Testament Hebrews? For example, in the 63rd chapter of Isaiah's prophecy, we're told in the 14th verse that when the Hebrews were going through the wilderness, they were given rest by the Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit was the one who led them through Sinai. The Holy Spirit was with the ancient people of God. And when our beloved Lord is baptized in the Jordan, something remarkable happens.

As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove in the wilderness wanderings of the ancient Hebrews. The Holy Spirit had a ministry to play. Here is our Lord and he goes back to the wilderness where the Hebrews were made, so to speak, the Son of God.

And there, after his baptism, the heavens are not just opened, they are torn open. And listen to Isaiah in chapter 64 and verse 1, all that you would render the heavens and come down. The ancient Hebrews were allowed out of Egypt and moved safely through Sinai as a result of the hidden and quiet operations of the Holy Spirit.

Now, John's gospel predicts an even greater exodus. It's the exodus of all those, not just Jews, but ultimately Gentiles, who will leave the security of the lives that they have been living and move to the place where Jesus will minister to them. The benefits not only of his baptism, but the benefits of his death.

And as a result of doing that, our Savior has the right for the Spirit of God to descend upon such a person, to infill them with the Holy Ghost, which is exactly what happens when a person becomes a Christian. The Holy Spirit of God comes into their hearts and lives. And as the day of Pentecost indicates, there is an even grander, deeper, and more wonderful experience than that.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit, to which our Lord Jesus is given the credit of being the one who can perform. This is what John says. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

How do we know? Because when our Lord submits to the lesser baptism of John, the heavens are torn open. And down, fluttering, resting ultimately on the shoulder of our beloved Lord is the symbol of the Spirit, a dove. Incidentally, isn't it interesting that in the creation narrative in Genesis 1, you read in the second verse that the Spirit of God brooded upon the waters.

And that word brood has an interesting connection in its antecedents to the word dove. The Spirit of God ministering at the creation of the world. The Spirit of God released as our beloved Lord is baptized by John and heaven accords the ministry, that our Savior shall ultimately engage in.

And from heaven, the voice of the Lord is heard. You are my son, whom I love. With you, I am well pleased.

God was pleased with Israel. The centuries before when Moses was in control, I mean at Sinai, when the people were consecrated, when they were set apart, ideally to be the special people of God, generically expressed in terms of being the son of God. God was pleased with them, but the pleasure soon become displeasure.

The grace that he gave soon became disgraceful in the way that it had been used. But here in the wilderness is the one who will never abuse the grace of God. The heavens torn, the Spirit descends in symbolic fashion and the voice of God attests who the son is.

You are my son, whom I love. With you, I am well pleased. And don't you see, my friend, that one of the reasons behind the pleasure of the father towards the son is this, that not only has the son at that point fulfilled the father's will, but he will continue to do so.

As far as the earthly ministry of our Lord is concerned, it was not easy. Hardly was his life described as a bed of roses. He moves, driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.

For 40 days, he's tempted. Significant, isn't it, that in this third gospel, in this second gospel, no reference is made to the actual temptations. Why? Well, I suggest to you this reason.

John Mark is being very selective. He wants to show you that though our Lord is tested intensely in those 40 days, that is not the end of the tempting process. Our Lord comes to live in the wilderness of this world against not only the hostility of ordinary man, but the hostility of evil powers.

In other words, he fights the devil every moment of his life. And here he is in the garden of Gethsemane, right towards the end of his young career, with bloody beads of perspiration falling down his forehead as he's tempted to default on the father's will. You see, it's a struggle all the time.

The Satan coming along. The Satan endeavoring to inveigle himself into the very will of Jesus so that he does not perform what the father wants him to do. The Holy Spirit sends our Lord Jesus into the desert, and in the desert for 40 days, he is there being tempted by Satan with the wild and ferocious animals.

Used here, I think, not only literally, though it includes the literal, but also spiritually. You remember that fox heron? You remember the brood of vipers, those Pharisees who tried to place their venom into the very being of our Lord Jesus Christ? Always a struggle. Always a fight.

This man of the spirit. This man of the wilderness. This man who constantly goes back into the desert.

Why does John so often give you the picture of our beloved Lord in the desert scene? Have you no eyes? Do you not see? Have you no understanding for you to grasp? Our beloved Lord came into this world to do battle with Satan head on. He is the man of the spirit. He is a man who identifies himself with the weaknesses and the frailties of humanity.

He is the perfect son of God who goes into the wilderness as God's own perfect offspring. And all that Jesus was, Israel should have been in terms of bringing honor and glory to the Lord, but they reneged upon it until the time came when they might well have been blotted away out of the purpose. But in his mercy, the Lord begins again in the beginning, the gospel.

The Lord Jesus submits to the water baptism of John, moves into the desert, and there, having been baptized with the Holy Spirit, he takes on all the assaults of the enemy until right at the end, Satan trying to do his damnness, plagues our beloved Lord Jesus on the cross of Calvary. But on the third day, he's raised again in the power of an endless life, giving him the right to do what? To make sons and daughters of repentant people who will be baptized not only unto the forgiveness of sins, a recognition that they have sinned, but they will be baptized, so to speak, within the blood of Christ, which cleanses them from all sin. For the greater than John has the right to remit sins.

And when he remits your sin, you become in one sense as he is, a son of God, a daughter of God. I pray for Nelson Mandela and for South Africa, that she may not have a bloodbath, but in peace a new nation may have been born that can lead the whole of Africa from its rebellion and its conflict, its heartache and its injustice, but even more wonderful, is not what has happened in Southern Africa at this moment, even more wonderful, is this thought that the beloved God is still making a new nation of ordinary people. You can come to him.

You can confess your sins. You can move from the background which has kept you for so long and move into the wilderness where our beloved Lord is, so to speak. And go before his cross and ask that all that you have done that is alien to the will of God shall be forgiven.

And you know what? He'll forgive you. He'll fill you with his spirit. He'll baptize you with his spirit.

And he will make you part of that royal, holy nation. John will show us the picture of Jesus going back to Galilee in his first preaching tour. And what is he proclaiming? The kingdom of God is at hand.

A new nation is being formed through my obedience, the obedience of the man who went back to the wilderness and so inaugurated afresh the people of God, his own having failed years ago. He commences something new. In the beginning, God created.

In the beginning of the narrative of the life of Jesus, God declares through him the gospel of new creation. Are you a Christian? You say you didn't understand it all. Well, that doesn't matter.

Did you understand this? That out in the wilderness of this world on an old road of cross, Jesus Christ took your sin, leaving you the prospect of eternal life with him. Have you confessed? Have you entered into the blessings of Calvary? Are you a Christian? Are you a member of the most important nation on earth? The nation of those who are people, the kingdom. Father, we thank you that even in the early verses of that remarkable gospel at a level perhaps that some of us have never looked at before, there is all the basis of your corrective grace extended first to Israel and then extended to the world.

We thank you that back to the starting point, went the one man who could found a new nation, Christ himself, creating Christ's men, Christians. Help us to be among the number of those for whom he died as we confess him as our Lord, as our Savior, and all the fellow citizens of the kingdom said. Still, beloved God, we thank you for our dear Savior, the Lord Jesus.

We thank you that he came and humbly submitted to the right of water baptism, identifying himself with all of us. We thank you for the way that he went into the wilderness both physically and also spiritually, how he was hounded and tried and brutalized by those who were against him. We thank you for his magnificent death on the cross.

We praise you that when he was ascended high, he sent his Holy Spirit. He tore the heavens and made it possible for people like ourselves to know that dynamism, to live as the early church lived. We bless you for our Savior.

We're proud of him and we want to look to him throughout our lives to see him more clearly, to love him more dearly, to follow him more nearly. So Lord grant that this congregation may have a quickening and an awakening. Help us to move away from the lifestyles that sometimes prevent us from growing spiritual muscles and becoming men and women of faith.

Help us Lord to mean the hymns when we sing them, to respond from the depths of our being to the teaching of your word. Deliver us from a cosmetic evangelicalism which applauds certain doctrines but has a lifestyle which does not illustrate the doctrine. To the extent that you're doing this amongst us, we want to bless you and to praise you.

It amazes me that you take someone like me. We all think the same. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

But we bless you that you do. We thank you for the potential that's locked up within us. Release it Father and help us to bring in our lifestyle as well as in our worship songs the honor and glory that's due to your name.

Oh, hail the Lamb enthroned above. As water to the thirsty, as beauty to the eyes, as strength that follows weakness, as truth instead of lies, as sun time and spring time and summer time to be, so is my Lord, my living Lord, so is my Lord to me. Come in place of clamor like peace that follows pain, like meeting after parting, like sunshine after rain, like moonlight and starlight and sunlight on the sea, so is my Lord, my living Lord, so is my Lord to me.

As sleep that follows fever, as gold instead of gray, as freedom after bondage, as sunrise to the day, as home to the traveler and all we long to see, so is my Lord, my living Lord, so is my Lord to me. As water to the thirsty, as beauty to the eyes, as strength that follows weakness, as truth instead of lies, as sun time and spring time and summer time to be, so is my Lord, my living Lord, so is my Lord to me.