Signs God Is Getting You Ready For Something Greater | Rc Sproul On Prayer

When we went through the book of Matthew a couple of years ago, I mentioned that in my judgment, the scariest text in all of the New Testament is at the end of chapter 7 where Jesus is concluding the Sermon on the Mount.

Now, in our study of Luke, we see that Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount is not nearly as expansive as it was in Matthew's version. And so, Luke's conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount is much shorter, but he does include some of that scary stuff that Jesus said in Matthew.

But I am afraid a conspiracy has broken out in this church because the bulletin tells me that I'm supposed to begin chapter 7 this morning and skip over the scariest verse in all of the New Testament. No, no, no. We're not going to do that. We're not going to start chapter 7, God willing, until next week. And so the centurion and his servant are going to have to wait.

This morning we're going to be looking at chapter 6 beginning at verse 46 and reading to the end of the chapter. "But why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He's like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation against which the stream beat vehemently and immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great."

Now in this very brief parable, Jesus warns us of that calamity that will surely come if our lives are not built upon a proper foundation. These are his words, not mine. And they come to us now through the superintendence and inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, carrying the full weight and authority of God himself. Receive it as such.

Let us pray. And now, oh Lord, once again, we implore you to help us to hear what our Lord has spoken. Because by our fallen nature, our ears are plugged and our hearts are unwilling to hear his word. And so open our ears, our minds, and our hearts to this word this morning. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

In Luke's version of the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, he recalls that Jesus asked the question, "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do the things which I say?" And we are still focusing on this problem of making a profession of faith in Christ that is not a true one.

To refresh our memories of the full impact of these words, let me go back for a moment to the fuller version that we find in Matthew 7 where before Jesus introduces the parable of the foundation on the rock, he says in verse 21, "Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness."

Now, some of you may recall that when we looked at this text in Matthew years ago, I pointed out the unusual character by which Jesus is addressed. He says, "Many, many will come to him presumably on the day of judgment," and not only call him Lord but will repeat the title calling him Lord, Lord. And on that occasion that I expounded this text in Matthew, I went through about 15 references in all of scripture that included the literary form or the colloquial form of addressing a person by repeating their name. Abraham, Abraham; Moses, Moses; Absalom, Absalom; and Martha, Martha; Saul, Saul. And through all of those texts to illustrate for you that the phenomenon before us is one in which the person is claiming not only to be an acquaintance of the person whom he is addressing, but rather has an intimate personal relationship with that other person.

So when Jesus said they're going to come and call me Lord, Lord, they're not going to simply be claiming a passing acquaintance with Jesus, but they're going to be saying, "I have a deep personal affection for you. I know you, Jesus, intimately. I've taken you as my savior." And Jesus says to those on that occasion, "Excuse me, I I don't believe I know you." Oh, you say you went to church. You were a pastor. You were a missionary. You were a member of the session or the deacons. You were a tither. Oh, but I don't know you. Please leave. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness."

You see why I call this the scariest passage in the New Testament where Jesus says that there are all kinds of people. He's talking about church members here. He's talking about people who have made a public profession of faith in him. People who say, "I know Jesus." But as I said then, I'll say now, in the final analysis, it's not going to be, "Do you know Jesus?" The question is going to be, "Does he know you?" Are you known by him?

And Jesus says, "It's going to happen that this people will honor him with their lips while their hearts are far from him." And Jesus later said to his disciples, "If you love me, then keep my commandments." The test for the fruit is obedience. Anyone can say that they love Jesus, but the proof of the pudding is in obedience. "If you love me, keep my commandments." And if you don't keep my commandments, please leave. You're workers of lawlessness and of disobedience.

And so Luke puts it in question for me: "Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and you don't do the things which I tell you to do?" See, when you say, "Lord," you're saying, "You're my authority. I submit to your kingship. I acknowledge that you are sovereign over me. And that whatsoever you command me, I am under obligation to do." And so Jesus says, "Well, why do you say that I'm your Lord when you don't do what I tell you to do?"

He follows up that question with this brief parable about the building. He said, "Whoever comes to me, hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like." Before again, I mentioned the phenomenon in the Greek language of the distinction between the verb to hear (akouō) and the verb to obey (hypakoúō), which we would come into the English language and say it's hyper-hearing. The difference between hearing and obeying is hearing and really hearing. It's why Jesus would say, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Because if you can really hear me, you will obey me. And the person who comes to me, Jesus says, and really hears me, he will not only hear my sayings, but he will do them. And that person, he says, "I will show you whom he's like." He's like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock.

Now, if you're familiar with the topography of Israel, you will know that that land is substantially desert. And what you find throughout Palestine are an innumerable number of wadis (w-a-d-i). How many of you don't know what a wadi is? Let me see. Okay. So let's see who somebody didn't put their hand up. I'm going to call on them to give the definition. A wadi in Israel is a dry gulch. It's like what they call out in the American West an arroyo, where it is an empty creek bed that is only filled with water under extraordinary circumstances of rainfall. And in Israel, there are two rainy systems: the former rains and the latter rains. But for most of the year, there is little or no rainfall as the arid conditions of desert prevail. But when the rains come and when it rains hard, all the rain is drained into the wadis and gathered there. And so the streams become like mini tsunamis where the water comes rushing down the wadi as Jesus used the term vehemently. And the power of that water coming down the wadi is something you don't want to get caught in, either in Israel in the wadi, or in an arroyo in Phoenix, or in Los Angeles when the torrential rains come, because that moving water destroys everything in its path.

Now Jesus says, "I'm going to show you what it's like for the one who hears my words and who obeys them." He's like a man who builds a house, but he takes care before he builds this elegant structure to dig deeply, to go down to the level of rock. And there, when he hits the rock, he builds his foundation. And then on top of that solid foundation, the house is built. And if you build a house like that, all of the wadi, torrential, rushing water when it comes and vehemently beats against the house, the house is strong enough to withstand it and to remain intact and secure.

That Jesus goes on to say, "But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth or on the sand without a foundation against which the stream beat vehemently and immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great." You see the contrast? The second house may be palatial in its grandeur, but it's built on sand. It has no firm foundation, and it looks beautiful for a season until the floodwaters come. And now, when the stream beats vehemently against that house, it's not like the house begins to creak and to groan and to lean and to lose a few shingles. No. At the first flood, that house instantly topples. It collapses. It has no strength to withstand negative forces against it and it crumbles. And Jesus says, "The ruin of that house was great."

You know, the Bible says a lot about foundations. The building metaphor of foundation comes all the way through sacred scripture. Back in the Psalms, we read that if the foundations are shaken, how can the righteous live? If the foundations are shaken, how can the building stand?

Back in 1970 or '71, I can't remember which, in February, I was living in Cincinnati working in a church and every year we had what were called preaching missions during the week where we brought in guest speakers from different parts of the country to lead a series of evangelistic meetings in the church. And on this occasion, the speaker was the pastor from a church in Southern California, from a very large church situated in Glendale. The pastor stayed at our house. And the final night of the preaching mission, we had a very heavy snowfall and it was my job to get him safely to Cincinnati airport, which by the grace of God, I was able to do. Now, we put him on the plane to go back home. And while that plane was in the air, this terrible earthquake shook Los Angeles and the epicenter was located very near to Glendale. And so when he arrived back in Glendale, he saw the destruction and the havoc all over the area in which he was pastoring. But he was greatly relieved to see that his church was still standing and there wasn't any apparent damage. Not a window was broken. Everything was fine until they examined the foundation and saw that during the earthquake, the structure of the church had moved a few inches from the foundation. They were not allowed to continue services in that church, proving the adage that if the foundation is shaken, the building cannot stand.

Now, we hear frequently the idea that Jesus is the foundation of the church. "The church is one foundation we sing is Jesus Christ our Lord." Well, that's not exactly the way in which the scriptures describe the church building. Rather, we are told that there's no foundation that can be laid except that which is laid in Christ Jesus. But as we saw earlier in the service in the intro, I believe the general image of Jesus is not that he's the foundation, but that the foundation is laid in him and that he is the chief cornerstone. The stone that the builders rejected, we're told, has become the chief cornerstone of the church.

Well, what is the foundation of the church? Again, according to the scriptures, the foundation of the church are the prophets and the apostles. And let me show you how that works in sacred scripture. If I can turn just for a moment to the book of Acts, we read in chapter 2, verse 42, after 3,000 people had been added to the church and they continued steadfastly in what? They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers. This is a glimpse of life in the primitive Christian church after Pentecost in Jerusalem, that the people of God gathered together on Sunday and they steadfastly continued in the apostles' doctrine. What does that mean? That at the heart of the gathering of the early church on the Lord's Day was a devout attending to the preaching of the word of God. Because the study of apostolic doctrine, beloved, is the study of the word of God. Because where you find the apostolic doctrine is in sacred scripture.

Now, if the apostles and the prophets are the foundation of the church, we find that foundation in sacred scripture. Let me give you one more example of that. The end of the New Testament in the book of the Revelation, where we read of the New Jerusalem in chapter 21 that comes down from heaven, where John was shown the great city, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, her light like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. And she had a great and high wall with 12 gates and 12 angels at the gates and names written on them. And then in verse 14, "Now the wall of the city," this is the heavenly Jerusalem that comes down, "the wall of the city had 12 foundations, not just one, 12. And on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb." In the heavenly city, in the city of God, the foundation is built on the apostles. That's why the early church came together to devote themselves to the study of the doctrines of the apostles. And that's why we're here this morning, to be instructed by the apostolic word.

Because if we're going to live as faithful Christians, we have to be rooted and grounded in the apostolic word. To be grounded in the word of God is to dig the foundation of your life down to bedrock, where you take that word and you embrace that word and you are able to stand against anything the world and the flesh and the devil throws at you. But if you don't have that foundation, that foundation in the apostolic word, then you're building your house on sand. And when the storm comes, what you will experience, dear friends, is ruin.

Now, here is where it's rug-cutting time in the application of what Jesus is teaching here. It's when I ask you to finish the sermon for yourself by searching your own heart and searching your own soul and answer this question: What have I built my life on? What am I building right now my life upon? What's the bottom line of my life? What's the big idea of my life? What is the core of who I am and what I'm trying to accomplish? What am I building? But more importantly, what am I building on? Am I building a house of cards, or am I building a life rooted and grounded in Christ and in his word, submitting myself to his authority?

Now, I'm asking you to answer that question for yourself. Now, I know if you're a professing Christian, your bias and your temptation will be to say, "Well, of course I'm building my life on Christ. Of course, I have a strong foundation. Of course, I'm doing that." And here's how I know: from my fruit and from my obedience. You see how this follows after what Jesus was saying last week. We're known by our fruits, not by our verbal professions. And again, what we do will not get us into the kingdom of God. Only trust in Christ can get you there. But the test of whether your trust is real, the test of whether your faith is sincere, the test of whether your justification is authentic is in your fruit, in your obedience or your lack of it.

You know, we live in a country where still over 95% of people say they believe in God. And so I say we have a nation that embraces hypothetical theism, and yet practically speaking, we live as if there is no God. If you found out tonight that there is no God, how would your life change? Are you one of those people who hypothetically affirms the existence of God and the lordship of Jesus Christ, but for all practical purposes, you live as if there were no God? Well, that's how a person who is a lawless person lives. There's no fear of God in them. They don't care what comes out of their mouth. They don't care if they keep their promises because their house is built on sand. But if you build your house on the word of God and you build your house on Jesus Christ, the everlasting rock, even a tsunami cannot ruin your life.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for giving to us in your word a foundation so firm that it establishes your people now and forever. Amen.

Our scripture this morning is still from the first chapter of the gospel according to St. Luke. I will be reading verse 46 through verse 56. "And Mary said, 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He's filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.' And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her house."

This is Luke's record of this marvelous song of Mary, known as the Magnificat. Inspired by the Holy Ghost and given to us for our instruction and for our edification, for the moving of our souls to praise and adoration. And may you hear these words to that end.

Let's pray. Again, our Father, we look to you to help us in our weakness, that you may stoop to our fragile understanding, the frail of our faith. That by your word, our souls may be quickened to strength, that we may give you praise and adoration from the depth of our being. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

Of course, before I look at this text, I have to have a brief quiz of the congregation to see how many of you did your homework this past week. We're going to have a show of hands and I'm going to ask how many of you in fact memorized the Magnificat this week. Let me see your hands if you did that. I'm not seeing a lot. Let me see them. Get them up there. I see one. See two. I see an elder. And this is why we preach so earnestly, Burke. You know, now the Bible says that God's word will not return unto him void, but mine tends in that direction. Well, it's not too late. It's too late to make an A, but you can still pass the course if this week you attend to this passage and commit it to your memory.

One of the things that's clear from the reading of this text is that Mary, as a young Jewish girl, did something that most Jewish girls did in her day, and that is she memorized scripture. We see strains of similarity between this song that she sings with the song of praise and thanksgiving that was rendered by Hannah in the Old Testament when she was told of the impending birth of her son Samuel. Also, if you look closely at this song, you will see that there are several references in the song to elements found in the Psalms. And the more we ingest scripture and hide it in our hearts, memorize it, become familiar with it, we will find that when we are praying again and again, we will turn to the language of the word of God itself. And this is modeled for us in this marvelous hymn by Mary herself.

Again, she is singing this hymn under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and its content reveals much about Mary, but also much about the character and the nature of God. She begins by saying, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my Savior." One of the things that the scripture warns about more than once is the danger, dear friends, of rendering to God mere lip service, rote worship where we say the words and we confess with our mouths while our hearts remain far from him. But what is noteworthy about this hymn is that Mary is not simply giving lip service to God, but this song of praise and adoration is welling up out of the depths of her being. She says, "My soul magnifies the Lord." Not that God could become any greater or enlarged than he already is. But what she says here when she says my soul magnifies him is that she is saying that my soul has been saturated by a sense of the divine and by his presence and by his mercy. And so from the deepest part of my being, I want to exalt him. That's what it means to magnify, to lift God up in exaltation.

There's been much debate in recent years about the appropriate type of music that be used in worship. And we even have a new vocabulary where we talk about praise music. Well, indeed, music should be filled with praise for God. And if you want to see an example of pure praise music, an example not of the 7-11, the same seven verses sung 11 times, but praise music that is deep and rich in content, whose focus is on the majesty of God, then here we have an example of Holy Spirit-inspired praise music where this young lady says, "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior."

Now, she's not making a distinction between her soul and her spirit like some people would like to believe. But what we have here is a common Hebrew form of poetry, which is parallelism, and in this case, synonymous parallelism, where the first line and the second line mean essentially the same thing. She says it once, "My soul magnifies the Lord." She says it again, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior."

Theologians have paid attention to the last couple of words of the second line, the words, "my Savior." What does Mary mean by that? St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, believed that Mary could not have been sinless because here she confessed in this hymn her need of a savior. And that insight that St. Thomas had may be correct, but it's not a necessary inference from the text because the word to save and the word salvation in the Bible can mean something other than the ultimate salvation that we have from the consequences of our sins. But anytime God rescues his people and spares them from any calamity, expresses a kind of salvation. And so the salvation that Mary may have in view here is simply the rescue from the calamity of of being humiliated, being a forgotten person, being a person of insignificance, as she specifies in the next line, the sense in which God has been merciful to her. However, though it's not necessarily so that she's referring to divine deliverance from sin, that idea is probably contained in the words that she's using here. And if so, what is she saying? Just as the child that is conceived in her womb will be called David's greater son, and not only David's son, but also David's Lord. So the babe will not only be Mary's son, but he will be Mary's savior. No woman in the history of the world could sing that song either before then or after that time because only Mary was given the unspeakable privilege of being the mother of our savior.

And she speaks initially of her soul being overwhelmed by the tenderness of God. For she says, "For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant." In former Christmas seasons, I've preached on the Magnificat and I've pointed out that in that line, we have contained the original Cinderella story. The Cinderella story that was not a fairy tale. It was not a myth, but was sober reality and truth because God himself looked at this lady in her low estate.

Years ago, I told the story of an experience I had in Western Pennsylvania when I used to work with labor management relations from a Christian perspective and would speak at corporate headquarters in Fortune 500 companies, but also on the same day lecture at union halls from the steel workers, United Steel Workers International on the question of dignity in the workplace. And I remember interviewing a man who worked as a chipper in a steel foundry in the Monongahela Valley of Western Pennsylvania. And being a chipper in the foundries, one of the toughest, hardest jobs that you can have. And I was talking to this man and asking him about his labor. And he mentioned to me in passing that when what he called the suits or the executives came onto the foundry floor, he said they dropped their heads. I thought that was a rather vivid image. I thought of executives walking under the foundry floor carrying their heads in their arm like the horse headless horseman and then dropping it on the floor. But that's not what he meant, of course.

But shortly after, we were doing a seminar in a hospital and I was sitting on on the chair and watching what was going on in one of the wings of the hospital and there was the nurse who was the head nurse at the nurse's station and I noticed that when a doctor came through the doors, she brightened up immediately and smiled at him and said, "Good morning, Dr. So-and-so." Fortunately, he wasn't a doctor that used to work at St. Francis Hospital in Pittsburgh when I worked there in the Summersen Seminary. His last name was Cysteric. And they used to call him over the loudspeaker saying, "Dr. Cysteric." And I used to say, I said, "We're in trouble here if the doctor's hysteric." But in any case, this was not Dr. Cysteric. It was another doctor. And I watched the dynamic and then I watched the nurse leave the nurse's station and she started walking down the hall and coming up the hall was one of the laborers from the housekeeping department in the hospital and he was pushing his basket of soiled garments and he saw the nurse coming and he lifted up his head to acknowledge her and as he looked at her, she put her head down and walked past him. Didn't even acknowledge him. Acted like he didn't exist. And I watched his body language where he just his face sank. And you could see the hurt from the snub that he had just received from the nurse.

When Isaiah writes of the suffering servant in chapter 53 of the Old Testament and describes the pain of our Redeemer, he said, "We hid as it were our faces from him. He had no comeliness that we should desire him or to look at him." And so our Lord himself experienced this phenomenon of people too proud to look upon his countenance because they held him in such contempt. And obviously, as a peasant girl in Nazareth, Mary had perhaps often experienced the same kind of contempt from people who were in a higher station in life than she was. But now she says, "I can't believe this. My my soul wants to exalt him infinitely. My spirit is rejoicing because he has regarded me in my low estate. He looked at me."

I also mentioned on another occasion that unforgettable scene in the movie Ben-Hur when Ben-Hur was in chains and they brought him by the well. He was on his knees. No one would give him anything to drink. And all of a sudden, the shadow of a figure came across the screen. And you could see somebody stooping over and giving water to this slave in his shackles. If you remember, you never saw the man. All you saw was Ben-Hur looking up into the face of the man who gave him the cup of cold water. And you saw the instant radiance on the face of the slave. And everybody knew instantly that he had just been given a cup of cold water from Jesus. This is Mary's experience. He looked at me. He noticed me. He sees me.

"And behold, henceforth all the generations of human history will call me blessed because I am blessed, supremely blessed like no woman in human history has ever been blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation."

Here in the Magnificat, Mary mentions specifically three attributes of God: He is mighty. He is holy. And he is merciful. The one who has recognized her is the Almighty One. The one who possesses all power on heaven and earth. The one who can create a universe by the sound of his voice, by the power of his command. "Let there be," and there is. The power that the angel Gabriel mentioned to Mary when she was confounded by his announcement, "How can this be, since I know not a man?" Mary, it'll be because of the power of the Most High God, the Almighty will overshadow you. For with him all things are possible. He is the one who is mighty.

Now, notice this in passing that so often in our culture when people speak of God, they do so in really meaningless terms. People will speak about a power, a higher power, a force greater than yourself. There's hardly any difference between that kind of language and the language of an animist practitioner who bows down and worships an idol made out of wood. Higher power, force greater than yourself. What are you talking about? Gravity? Cosmic energy? Why do we do that? Because as long as we can depersonalize God, make him an impersonal force, a vague amorphous power, we have nothing to worry about because impersonal forces will never hold you accountable for your behavior. You will never have to face the judgment of cosmic dust. But the God who is is the God who has a name. He's not simply a power. Though he has all power, he is he.

"He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name." Again, how beautiful is this description of the character of God? God, Mary is saying, is so holy, so transcendentally majestic that his very name is holy. That's who he is. That's his identity. He's the Holy One of Israel. Not just mighty, not just raw force, brute power, but it's a holy power, a holy might, holy strength. And his mercy is on those who fear him.

Don't miss the impact of those words. The one from whom we receive mercy, beloved, is the Almighty One, the omnipotent One, the holy One. How else could we exist in the presence of the holy One except by mercy? But that mercy is not infinite. We hear the hymns that speak of God's infinite mercy and infinite grace. And I think that that's just our giving ourselves over to hyperbole. We're so amazed at the wideness and the extent of God's mercy and kindness and grace that we say it's so wonderful. It's so great. Why? It's infinite. Well, if it's infinite, it has no bounds. That God says, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." And he does not extend that mercy to everyone. Not everyone receives the mercy of a forgiving God. Some, in the final analysis, receive his justice without mercy.

Well, who is it who receives the mercy of God? Those who fear him. Now, here it's not in the sense of fear of being frightened like you would be by a burglar or by a ghost, but it's fear in the sense of reverence, in the sense of awe, in the sense of adoration. This is why we're here on Sunday morning, to come here to worship God. And that's what worship is: is to show him reverence, that we have this awe, this fear of the Lord. That is the beginning of wisdom. It's the beginning of faith. It's the beginning of everything. And without it, there is no mercy. And the godless are described in scripture as people who have no fear of God. The world is filled with people who have no sense of reverence for God at all. No respect, no awe, no adoration. They could care less. In fact, they show their irreverence by how they use his name. How could somebody have any fear of God, any reverence for God whatsoever, and use his name as a curse word? Can you answer that question? Maybe you're one who does it. And if you do, ask yourself, what does that say about me? How impious I must be that I have no reverence for the living God because I don't even respect his name.

But his mercy is on everyone who fears him from generation to generation. This is not something new. This is not something unique in the life of Mary. This is something that goes on and on, from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Jacob to Isaac to David to Jeremiah to Peter to Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, to you and to me. Generations come and go. They pass. But throughout all the ages, one thing is constant: that the Lord is merciful to those who revere him.

Isn't it interesting that she mentions this in the middle of a hymn that is filled with reverence and filled with adoration? "He has shown strength with his arm." Here we have an image of God in human form in which his arm is a symbol of his strength. I think the funniest chapter in the Bible is chapter 11 of the book of Numbers. You may remember that says some of you who didn't memorize the Magnificat decided instead to memorize the 11th chapter of Numbers. That's the occasion where Moses is very distraught because this multitude of people that he's led in the Exodus are now complaining and bellyaching day after day. They want to go back to Egypt because now they miss their leeks and their garlic and their onions and all they have to eat every day is this manna that God supernaturally provides for them from heaven. I've said this before. They got sick and tired of the manna. They had manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for dinner. If they wanted to have a midnight snack, they had manna midnight snack. They had roast manna, fried manna, manna sautéed, pot manna. Everything they could possibly do to alter the taste of this stuff, they tried and they couldn't take it anymore. They said, "Let's go back to Egypt. Give us Pharaoh. At least under Pharaoh, even while we were slaves, we had onions, garlic, leeks." And Moses wants to die. He said, "Did I give birth to these people? Did I have to listen to this? They're crying in my tent. Give us meat to eat." And God said, "I've heard the cries of the people, and they shall have meat to eat." Not for one day, not for a week, but for a whole month until it's coming out of their noses and becomes loathsome to them. Be careful what you ask for when you pray. And God says, "You want meat? I'll give you meat until it's coming out your nose till you don't want to look at it ever again." And now Moses is really upset and he said, "God, how are you going to do that? Are all our herds going to be killed to supply meat for a month to all these people? Are you going to dry up the sea with the fish so that we can feed them? This is even more than you can do it." And God answers a question with a question. He said, "Moses, has the arm of the Lord waxed short?" Moses, who do you think you're talking to? Do you think I'm a god with a withered arm? Do you think I'm a 97-pound weakling that bullies kick sand in my face? Has the arm of the Lord waxed short, Moses? You will see if what I say comes to pass. What a great, great image. It's the image that finds its way now into this song. "He has shown strength with his arm."

Then she goes on in this song to demonstrate how God has displayed the strength in his arm. And that's what we'll look at, God willing, next Sunday morning.

Let's pray. Father, give us hearts like Mary where we sing your praise and adoration with all of our soul, all of our spirit. May the words that pass over our lips come from the depths of our being. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

We're going to continue this morning with our study of the Gospel according to St. Luke. We're still in the third chapter and I will be reading from chapter 3 through 22. "Now, as the people were in expectation, and all reasoned in their hearts about John, whether he was the Christ or not, John answered, saying to all, 'I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out the threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.' And with many other exhortations, he preached to the people. But Herod the tetrarch, being rebuked by him concerning Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, and for all the evil which Herod had done, also added this above all, that he shut John up in prison. When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized. And while he prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven which said, 'You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.'"

This perhaps the briefest account of the baptism of Jesus that we have in the gospels. But nevertheless, the content of it is of extreme, extreme importance. And so we need to engage our minds in seeking to understand the full significance of it and to receive it into our hearts and soul as the word of God.

Let us pray. Again, our Father, as we seek a fresh understanding of this event in the life of our Lord, we need your help. And we ask that the same Spirit that descended upon him as a dove might come to our aid this morning to illumine this text for us and to bring it to our hearts and to our souls. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

In 1929, things were critical theologically in the Northern Presbyterian Church. The theology called liberalism that had spread through Europe in the 19th century, which was basically and foundationally a theology of unbelief, had infected the mainline denominations in our country. And sadly, even the seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, which historically had been the greatest seminary in American history. And so in 1929, several of the faculty members of that school left to start a new seminary in Philadelphia that would be committed to Orthodox Christianity. And the brain trust that came to establish Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia included such stalwart theologians as Oswald T. Allis and Richard G. Wilson and Cornelius Van Til and John Woolley, Paul Woolley, and a host of others, were led by J. Gresham Machen, who became the first president of Westminster Theological Seminary. I doubt if there was ever before or since a group of such profound scholars and faithful theologians gathered in one place as these men were in Philadelphia.

Well, in 1937, at the Christmas break, Dr. Machen became ill with an upper respiratory infection. And this, of course, was before the time of the widely used antibiotics such as penicillin were available. And he had been committed to go to North Dakota to give a series of lectures over the Christmas holidays. And his colleagues on the faculty came to him and pleaded with him not to go. They urged him to stay to recover his health because he was so desperately needed for the work there in Philadelphia. But Dr. Machen refused to heed their advice, saying, "I made this commitment to the people in North Dakota, so I'm going." And he made the arduous journey by train and bus and other means of transportation to the small town in North Dakota where he was going to give these lectures. But by the time he got there, his illness became much more serious and he became literally sick unto death. And as it was the case, he would not be able to return alive to Philadelphia. And so while he was dying there in North Dakota, he sent a telegram to his friends and colleagues on the faculty at Westminster Seminary. It was a brief telegram but pregnant in its meaning. He said in the telegram, "Grateful for the perfect active obedience of Christ." That was it. And summoned substance of his last words to his friends and colleagues: again, "Grateful for the perfect active obedience of Christ."

My guess would be this morning that there would be several, perhaps many, in this congregation today who've never heard of the idea of the perfect active obedience of Christ. And yet, it's an extremely important doctrine in Christian theology. The distinction is made historically between the active obedience of Jesus and the passive obedience of Jesus. The distinction is this: The passive obedience of Jesus refers to his willingness to accede to the Father's mandate that he offer himself as a sacrifice and as an atonement for the sins of his people on the cross. Jesus did not resist his executioners. He told them, "You have no power over me, but I lay down my life for my sheep." He was passive in his reception of the penalty for sin as our sin-bearer. And in contrast to that action or activity, which really was an action even though it was a passive action, we have what we call the active obedience of Jesus, which refers to his whole life of living under the law in total subjection to the Father, actively and willingly obeying everything that the Lord God commanded him to do. It was said of him that his meat and his drink was to do the will of the Father, and zeal for his Father's house consumed him.

And so this is directly related to the text we read this morning about the baptism of Jesus. As many people are perplexed with the question, why was Jesus baptized at all? Wasn't the baptism of John the Baptist a baptism for repentance of sin? Wasn't the very ritual itself a cleansing rite in which John the Baptist commanded people to come to be cleaned and to repent of their sins? And Jesus had no sins to repent of. He was the lamb without blemish. He, so far in his life, had already lived a life of perfect active obedience without sin.

Now, if we're perplexed by Jesus' submitting to baptism, we have to say that nobody on earth was more perplexed about it than John the Baptist. You know, the people were asking questions among themselves with reference to John. They said, "Is John the Christ? Is he the Messiah that was to come?" And he put those rumors to rest. He said, "No, no, no, no, no. He says, 'There's one coming after me who's mightier than I am. I baptize you with water, but he'll baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire, and he must increase, and I must decrease. I'm not even worthy to loosen the straps on his sandals.'" And so he pointed people towards Jesus. And then that day that Jesus came through the crowd and up to the river and presented himself to John to be baptized, John shaking his head. "What are you doing? I've been announcing to the people that you are the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I can't baptize you. You should be baptizing me." And so John begins to protest and tries to engage Jesus in theological argument about this procedure. And finally Jesus cuts him short, cuts the Gordian knot, and he says, "John, look, I don't have all day to engage you in a theological discussion. We can cover these matters later on if you'd like, but suffer it now, John. Just do it. It has to be done. It's necessary, John, to fulfill all righteousness."

Now, Jesus could have, and maybe even did since we don't get all the dialogue for us, but let me speculate for a second that Jesus could have said to John the Baptist, "John, look, this is just a covenant ritual that we're going on here and no harm, no foul. You just go ahead and baptize me and I'll explain it later." He could have said that, or he could have looked John in the eye.

And said, "John, you need to do this because this is a matter of life and death." Now, we have no record that Jesus ever said that to John. I just made that up. But the concept that I've just made up is completely sound because whatever else Jesus' baptism was, it was a matter of life and death.

Well, how? Why? Well, I think to understand that, we have to understand something about Jesus' role in his earthly ministry as the new Adam, or as Paul calls them sometimes, the second Adam, the one who comes after the first Adam, the father of the human race, who was, we are told, a type of the one who was to come, the greater Adam that would come to bring salvation to the human race.

Let me just briefly read a portion of Paul's teaching on this matter in the fifth chapter of the book of Romans. He also covers the same material in 1 Corinthians 15. But briefly, he writes to the Romans these words: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come. And now the contrast, but the free gift is not like the offense. For if by one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by that grace of the one man Jesus Christ abounded to many."

And he goes on to say, "If for by the one man's offense, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance and grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ."

It was a matter of life and death. Through Adam's offense, original Adam's transgression, the whole world was plunged into ruin and death came upon the entire human race. And in contrast, by one man's obedience comes life. Now, without the obedience of Jesus, without his perfect active obedience, he would not have done for us what Adam failed so miserably to accomplish.

Now, to understand this, we have to go back to the Old Testament and look at it in the context of covenant. There are covenants all through the Bible. But we have the covenant with Noah, the covenant with Abraham, the covenant with Moses, the new covenant that we have with Jesus in the New Testament. We have covenants all the way through the scriptures. But the first covenant made with human beings was made with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And we call that the covenant of creation. And the word "Adam," Adam, means man. He represented the entire human race. So that when God entered into a covenant with Adam, he was entering into a covenant with every human being that would ever live. And he promised the benefit and the blessing of this covenant of creation of eternal life if Adam obeys the provisions and the stipulations of that covenant. But the negative sanction was this: If you disobey the terms of this covenant, you will die. And not only will you die, but the day in which you eat of that fruit, you will surely die.

Well, you know the story. The serpent came into the garden and came first to Eve with a subtle, crafty, leading question. "Did God say that you're not allowed to eat of any of the trees in the garden?" Well, of course, God didn't say that. And Satan knew perfectly well that God had never said that. But he's subtle. He's crafty. Because what the implication is, he might as well had, because we put any restriction on you, you weren't really free. But initially, Eve fights for the angels and she said, "No, God didn't say that. He gave us this wonderful garden. He said, 'Of all these trees in the garden, we can freely eat, but there's this one tree over here, the knowledge of good and evil, and we're not allowed to touch that one or we'll die.'"

Now, the direct assault. The servant says, "Oh no, you won't die." And God knows you won't die. God doesn't want you to touch that tree because he knows that if you eat from that tree, you'll be like him, knowing good and evil. And seeing that the fruit appeared beautiful, Eve ate the fruit from the tree and then encouraged her husband to join her in this rebellion.

Now, you would expect that the moment they put that fruit in their mouth and tasted it that they would have dropped dead right there. Well, they did drop dead right there spiritually, but not physically. That was postponed. And God tempered his judgment with mercy and grace. Remember, the first experience that Adam and Eve had when they ate of the forbidden fruit was they suddenly became aware of their nakedness and they were ashamed and they went and hid themselves. So that when the Lord God came in the cool of the evening and he said, "Adam, where are you?" He discovered that they were hiding from him. "Why are you hiding?" "We're ashamed." "Well, why are you ashamed? Did you eat from the tree, Lord?" "We're naked." "I made you naked. And when I made you naked, you weren't ashamed. You didn't have any guilt. Why all of a sudden do you feel naked? Why do you feel exposed? Why do you want to hide from me?"

And so, in his first act of redemption, God condescended to fashion clothes for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness and their shame. And he made a promise to them. Even by the same time he's cursing the serpent, he's promising that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. And in that promise, what God was saying is that there will come another Adam, a new Adam who will do what you failed to do, who will bring life rather than death.

Now, in recent years, there's been a movement among professing evangelical Christians to reject the doctrine of the perfect act of obedience of Jesus. And I say, why would they want to do that? Well, the reason is they reject the idea of this first covenant that we call the covenant of works. We distinguish between the covenant that God makes with Adam and call that covenant the covenant of works, and then every covenant after that is the covenant of grace. And these enemies of the idea say, "Well, listen, any covenant that God gives to human beings is an act of grace." They don't deserve to be in a covenant relationship with God. Nobody argues that point. But when we distinguish historically between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, we know that God never was required to make any covenants with us at all. We won't argue that point. But those covenants that he did make differ on how the benefits would be received. And in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were on trial. They were on a period of probation. If they obey and keep the faith, they get life. If they disobey, they get death. In other words, if their works are righteous, they live. If their works are evil, they perish.

Well, if there's anyone in this world, I don't know who has labored more in our day in behalf of the reformed doctrine of justification by faith alone than I have. I speak as a fool. But as much as I believe in the doctrine of justification by faith alone, I tell people, "Remember, at the end of the day, there's only one way to be justified in the sight of God. And that's by works." Say, "Well, how can you say that you believe in justification by faith alone and then turn around and say, 'At the end of the day, what have you been drinking? At the end of the day, so that you say now justification is by works?'" And I'll say, "Because the covenant of works that God gave to Adam and Eve is still in effect. And the only way to satisfy the demands of God is through good works. Nothing less will do."

But the reason why the covenant of grace is called the covenant of grace is because now God is saying, "It's not by your good works that you'll be saved, but by somebody else's good works." You've perished because of the first Adam's bad works. You'll be saved by the perfect righteousness of the new Adam, whose works are without blemish, and which works are given to you if you put your trust in him.

Now, I know that there are people in this room today who still are believing that their good deeds and they're trying to live a good life is going to get them into heaven. If you walked into this church building this morning with that belief in your head, let me beg you this morning to leave it here and forget it because you have no chance. Only one person who's ever satisfied the law of God, and that's Jesus. And that's why his submission to the baptism of John the Baptist was a matter of life and death. God required it of everyone. And as the new Adam, entering into a corporate solidarity with his people, he submitted to that requirement of the law so that his acts of righteousness may be perfect. What I'm saying is, you're justified by works, but not your own works, but by the works of Jesus. He is our righteousness.

You know, a few weeks ago, I was in another church and performing a funeral memorial service. And before the service, the pastor was leading me back to his office where I could get ready for the service, and Vesta was with me up to the door. And just as I was ready to go in, she said to me, "I'll be here after a while, darling boy." And the minister did turn around. He said, "Darling boy, was that?" I said, "That's just one of those terms of endearment that Vesta uses for me. Don't we all have terms of endearment for our spouses? I hope so. That's just one of many. I like it, darling boy. I like it when she calls me Robbie Dearheart. I'll not hear the end of this, will I? Or Robin dearest, or sometimes just simply bunny. You know, bunny, bunny, how I love a bunny. But I think her favorite term of endearment, I'm not really sure it's a term of endearment for me that many of you have never heard or use. She calls me Spot. Not named after the dog and Dick and Jane and See Spot run and all of that stuff. Now, there are other better reasons for her calling me Spot. She calls me Spot because I use blood thinners, and every time I bump my arm against the wall or my dog scratches me on my arm, I bleed like a stuck pig and have spots all over my arms. And so, she calls me Spot for that. But that's not the only reason, or even the chief reason. When we go out to eat, she says, 'I know this is embarrassing, but would you please put your napkin under your collar like the godfather in an Italian restaurant?' And then she says lovingly, 'Spot, because if I don't put that thing there, I'll come home with spots all over my shirt, all over my tie, because I make a mess of myself and she has to clean these spots up.' So she sees those blemishes, but there's no napkin in the world that can hide the spots on my soul, the blemishes that are there and would be there indelibly unless the covenant of grace and the righteousness of Jesus, the lamb without blemish, could remove those spots from my soul and from yours.

And so Jesus went into the water and was baptized by John. And this marked the beginning of his earthly public ministry, the moment where he was anointed and became the Christos, Messiah, when the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove to empower him for his redemptive mission. And this one who had only known obedience, an act of obedience, a perfect act of obedience in his entire life, heard the voice from heaven: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." And it is because of the Father's pleasure that we ever escape from the consequences of the sin of Adam, who plunged us into ruin. The new Adam, the second Adam, is the only one who can help you if you have ever sinned. There's no other name under heaven through which men may be saved. The name of Jesus.

Now, I hope you understand what Jay Gresham Man was saying to his colleagues with his telegram. "Grateful for the perfect act of obedience of Christ. Grateful." He was restricted by space and obviously by vocabulary. "Are you kidding me? Grateful. Deliriously grateful for the perfect act of obedience of Christ. For without it, we perish."

Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for the perfect righteousness of Jesus, whose righteousness you have transferred to our account, imputed to us where we don't deserve it, where we cannot earn it. We know that he alone can fulfill the covenant of works for us. Our works are worthy only of being burned with unquenchable fire. The only merit we have of our own before you, O God, is demerit. But by your grace, you give to us the merit of Jesus now and forevermore. Amen.

We're going to continue now with our study of the Gospel according to St. Mark. And indeed, this is scheduled to be our last sermon on the Gospel according to St. Mark. And I'll be reading this morning from Mark 16:14-20 and then ask the congregation, please, to stand for the reading of the word of God.

"Later he appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table, and he rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.' So then, after the Lord 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, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen."

Week after week after week, I have declared to you when we read the scriptures that this is nothing less than the inspired, infallible, inherent word of God. And being the word of God, we are called to give obedience to it. Please be seated.

Let us pray now. Oh Lord, as we look at these final words of the Gospel of Mark, we pray that you would use them to quicken a deeper dimension of faith within our souls, that our devotion to you may be increased. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

For the last few years, up until this past January, we have had some distinguished visiting guests in our midst. And I'm thinking particularly of one of the greatest theologians of the 20th century, Dr. Roger Nicole, who's now in his 90s and is retired from teaching, but he and his wife have come and sat right here in the front of the church for a long time, up until his wife's serious illness in January, and it's been difficult for them to travel. So, we've missed them these past few months. But I remember that on one occasion, in the midst of a very important theological controversy, Dr. Nicole offered this question: If the building that houses the Bureau of Standards and Measurements in Washington D.C. were blown up, and that standard yardstick that is found there by which we measure precisely the 36 inches that make up a yard, would our understanding of the yardstick be destroyed with that explosion? If we lost the original normative standard of one yard, would we not, by the existing copies that we have in our possession, be able to reconstruct that original yard to within a zillionth of an inch of accuracy?

Now, the reason for that analogy that Dr. Nicole offered so many years ago was that the Bible as we have it today does not contain the original manuscripts that were written by the prophets and the apostles and those agents of revelation that God superintended in the original writing of sacred scripture. And through the centuries, when the church has confessed her confidence that the Bible is inspired, inherent, and infallible, that confession has always been qualified by the statement that what we are speaking of is simply the *autographa*, or the body of original manuscripts. That is, the church, at least Protestantism, has not carried any brief for the inspiration of translations or the inspiration of copists. The original scriptures have been copied thousands and thousands and thousands of times through the ages. And in many cases, those monks whose sole task was to spend their lives carefully and assiduously, precisely copying the existing manuscripts that they had word for word, line upon line, accent upon accent, that even from time to time you would see variations between the monks of one locale and the monks of another locale. And we therefore say, we don't believe in the infallible inspiration of copists.

And so the question is raised, "Well, if we don't have the original manuscripts and all we have are copies, and those copies include errors of transmission, why do we still speak of having an infallible Bible?" Do you feel the problem and the weight of the problem? Again, it goes back to Dr. Nicole's analogy of the standard for the yardstick. That the science of textual criticism, which is the science of the reconstructing of the original documents, is one of the most exact, impressive sciences that we have in the field of biblical studies. And so we have thousands of manuscripts that have been copied from the first century onward. And by examining all those carefully, and some of the families in which they exist, it has become a rather precise science to reconstruct the original documents.

Now, why am I telling you all of that? Well, the reason is, the most difficult text in all of the New Testament in terms of trying to reconstruct the original content of the New Testament happens to be the text that I just read a few moments ago, which in the nomenclature is called the long ending of Mark. Now, when these scientists look at all of the existing manuscripts and try to determine what was in the original, they look at external information, such as I say, the collection of manuscripts, also the quotations of the original text by first and second century church fathers. And then they also look internally, if there are any abrupt changes in syntax and style and so forth.

Now, I really believe that the reconstruction of the New Testament is as accurate as the reconstruction of the yardstick. That if we lost that building in Washington, except for this chapter here, in chapter 14, this long ending of Mark is problematic for this reason: all of the best manuscript evidence, as well as internal analysis, would lead us to conclude, and I'm convinced almost compellingly, that the last few verses that I just read here from the Gospel of Mark were not in the original version. So why do translators stick it in here? Well, because they believe that that longer ending is suitable, a suitable conclusion to the Gospel of Mark. Because without it, Mark would end in chapter 16, verse 8, where we read, "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." Well, Mark is brief and terse throughout his gospel, but that's a little bit too terse for most readers. They want the book to say a little bit more. And so it's believed that in the very earliest part of the second century, the Christian church wanted to give an appropriate conclusion to the abrupt ending of Mark. We oughtn't to be disturbed by that. But let's look at what is found in this long ending and see that the doctrines that are found therein are very consistent with what is taught everywhere else in the New Testament. There's one tiny section of it that raises some eyebrows, but we'll get to that in a moment.

Let's look then, beginning at verse 15, where we have this quotation from Jesus with respect to the Great Commission. And by the way, there's no question in church history and in biblical analysis that our Lord gave the Great Commission. Whether it should appear here in the last portion of Mark is the question. But there's no question that Jesus gave this commission where he said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." We examine that, of course, every year in our mission conference, but it's something that we need to examine every Sunday because this is so central to the life of the church that our Lord has given us a mission. He's enlisted us into this mission, and that mission is to preach the gospel. And the gospel has a definite content. He didn't give us the mandate to preach entertainment, to preach the latest psychological theories. This mandate is to preach a particular method, a particular message, I should say, which message can be gleaned by looking at the apostolic record itself. That the gospel has a definite content. It has to do with the announcement of the person and the ministry of Jesus, and of how the benefits of his life and death can be appropriated to us by faith. The gospel is not that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. The gospel is not that if you come to Christ, you will have purpose for your life. Those things may be true, and they may be interesting and inviting to certain people, but that's not the gospel. The gospel has to do with the life of Jesus, his work, his atonement, his resurrection, his ascension, and the salvation that is wrought by Jesus, which is appropriated by faith, and by faith alone. That's the gospel. The gospel is not my personal testimony. My personal testimony may relate to your circumstances or it may not. But the gospel relates to everybody's circumstances. And the extent of the preaching of the gospel is, according to our Lord's directive, every creature in all the world, every creature in all the world.

I've mentioned in previous mission conferences that yesterday set an all-time record for people in the world who died without ever hearing the gospel. That record was set yesterday, August 11th, on Saturday. More people died yesterday in this world who have never heard the gospel of Jesus than on any day in human history. And that record that was set yesterday broke the record that was set the day before. And today, we will break the record that was set yesterday. More people will die today in the world having never heard the gospel than died yesterday or the day before that. The population explosion of this world has made it very difficult for the church's missionary task to keep up with the numbers of those who are perishing without ever hearing of Jesus. This is his last mandate: into all the world, to every creature, that they would hear the gospel.

And then the text says, Jesus said, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved. But he who does not believe will be condemned." Now, this message here may be a little bit confusing. Some people look at it and find this as the biblical text that says that baptism is necessary for salvation because our Lord said, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved." And so, therefore, the inference is drawn that just as faith is a necessary condition for salvation, so is baptism. However, the rest of the New Testament makes it very clear that the only absolute necessary condition for our salvation, which condition is not only necessary but is also sufficient, is faith. Anyone who truly puts their trust in Christ will be justified at that very second. And we see examples in the scripture themselves of those who were saved who were not baptized, for example, the thief on the cross.

Now, let me state it this way for you, if I can make a fine distinction. And remember that if it's the woman's prerogative to change her mind, it is the theologian's prerogative to make fine distinctions. And the distinction is this: that baptism is not necessary to salvation, but it is necessary for sanctification. Why do I say that? Because we're commanded to be baptized. And if we do not obey that command, that is a failure in terms of our being conformed to the image of Christ and of our obedience in terms of our sanctification. So, even though we all have an obligation to be baptized, that baptism does not necessarily mean that if we have it, we'll be saved, or if we don't have it, we'll be lost.

Now, notice in the second clause of this statement Jesus makes: "He who does not believe will be condemned." Notice the absence there of the term baptism. Jesus does not say in the parallel fashion that "he who does not be baptized will be condemned." But faith is necessary for salvation, and the lack of it will result in condemnation. You remember John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that whosoever, he sent his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed on him should not perish but have everlasting life." That's quoted all the time. Now, what's John 3:17? Anyone? "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him may be saved." And he goes on to say, "This is the condemnation, that men prefer the darkness over the light because their deeds are evil." And Jesus says in that same context that "he who does not believe is condemned already."

I stress this for this reason: that Jesus doesn't come into a world of innocent people in order to bring them salvation. Our Lord came into a world that was already universally under the condemnation of God. People who have never heard of Jesus are not condemned because they rejected Jesus of whom they've never heard. And so we breathe a sigh of relief and we think, "Well, therefore, we don't have to worry about their condemnation." On the contrary, they're already in a state of condemnation because they have universally rejected the general revelation of God the Father, who has made himself known and clear to every creature. And every creature, down to the last one of us, has exchanged that knowledge for an idol, exchanged the truth for a lie, and serves and worships the creature rather than the Creator, which exposes the whole world to condemnation.

And then Jesus goes on to say, "And these signs will follow those who believe: In my name they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will take up serpents. And if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

Now, I think you've already detected the one statement in there that's problematic, but my guess is that you haven't. My guess is that you've responded to the wrong one. But let's look at these things again. Here are the signs that will follow those who believe. First of all, they'll be able to cast out demons. Did that happen with the apostles in the book of Acts? Yes, that was fulfilled. They will speak with new tongues. Did that happen in the book of Acts in the apostolic age? Yes. They will take up serpents. Did that happen? Was not Paul, when he reached his hand into the fire, bitten by an asp, it fixed itself to Paul's hand, and this poisonous snake, after Paul shook it loose, did no damage to the Apostle Paul? But I wonder how many of you zeroed in on that one as one that was not really fulfilled. Well, this, of course, is the proof text for snake-handling cults. And we've all heard about those cults of people who, at the heart of their Christian faith, is the testing of their faith by handling poisonous snakes, usually rattlesnakes, copperheads, or moccasins. And the idea is that if they handle these snakes and they have the proper amount of faith, they're not going to be fatally wounded by these snakes. Now, some of these people become very proficient at handling snakes without irritating the snakes and become able to play with the snakes without getting bitten. But every year, you read of reports of those in such cults who indeed are stricken by these serpents. This was not designed by the word of God to produce a ritual in the life of the church to prove our faith, as some suppose. But indeed, we do have the apostolic record of one, at least the Apostle Paul, who survived the encounter with the deadly snake. However, we have no biblical record of anybody drinking poison and surviving it. We do have an extra-biblical testimony from early church history about one Christian who, in persecution, was forced to drink something like hemlock and nevertheless survived the experience without even becoming ill. That, again, is extra-biblical, and even though it's extra-biblical, would certainly fulfill this particular prophecy. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. And that prophecy, as well, has been well-attested.

Then what follows in the text at the very end is: "So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God." Listen to that sentence. The last clause: "He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God." Two of the most important activities of our Lord are compressed into less than one sentence. This is the reference here to the ascension of Jesus, which is of extreme importance. If we look carefully at Luke's gospel and at the book of Acts, that Jesus, after the resurrection, did not go to Mexico or to the United States, but he ascended into heaven, fulfilling that office promised to the faithful Messiah, where he goes, goes into heaven for his coronation as the King of Kings and as the Lord of Lords. And then at the end of the confession of the ascension comes the confession of the session. In the Apostles' Creed, we say, "Ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God." In this church, we have a session, which is a group of elders. And they're called the session because these elders meet regularly in an ecclesiastical session where they are seated together, and they make judgments and decisions by which the church is governed. And there are many members of our session in heaven. There is only one session member, and that is Jesus, our supreme elder, who is seated at the right hand of the Father. And the Father has delegated to Christ all authority in heaven and on earth. That's why we say he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, and his authority governs every event, every molecule, every person's life in this world today. We don't have to wait for the second coming for Jesus to be Lord. He's Lord right now, and he is right this moment seated at God's right hand, which is the seat of heavenly authority.

And then we read that "they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs." No sooner has the ending of Mark's gospel affirmed that Jesus has left this world, that he has ascended into heaven, that he's no longer present with us, that in the same breath, it is expressed that as the apostles went about their ministry, that the Lord was working with them. Hence the confessional statement that says, "Touching his human nature, Jesus is no longer present with us. Touching his divine nature, he is never absent from us." For our Lord himself, when he announced his imminent departure to his disciples, said, "Yet a little while, you will see me no more, for I am going away. And where I'm going, you won't be able to come right now. Nevertheless, I am with you." And so, the task that is given to the church here is not a task that is to be accomplished by human effort alone. But that task that we are called to do, dear friends, is a task that is to be done with the help of the Lord who works with his people, who goes before his people. Even in his resurrection announcement that we read last week, that he told the women, "Go and tell the twelve that I am going before them into Galilee." That's his pattern. We go, and we find out he's already been there. He doesn't follow the ministry of the church. He leads the ministry of the church, as the scripture says.

And finally, it says, "And confirming the word through the accompanying signs." The Bible doesn't have a word for miracle. There's no word for miracle in the New Testament. There are three words for miracle: there are signs, powers, and wonders. And all three of those give us the substance by which we extrapolate the concept of miracle. That these signs that we call miracles are given to the church primarily and essentially to confirm the truth proclaimed by the apostolic testimony. In the Old Testament, agents of revelation were demonstrated to be messengers from God because of the miracles that they performed. Some people say, "If I'll see a miracle, I'll believe in God." You can't define a miracle as a miracle until you first know that there is a God. Because a miracle, by definition, is something that only God can do. And you remember Moses in the Old Testament, when God said, "You go to Pharaoh and you tell him, 'Let my people go.' And then you go to the people and say, 'Let's go.'" He had two herculean problems: to persuade Pharaoh and to persuade the people. And Moses said to God, "How are they going to know that you sent me?" How did God answer Moses' question? He said to Moses, "Take your staff and throw it on the ground." And when he did, it turned into a serpent. He said, "Okay, grab its tail." He did, and it turned back into a staff. Then he said, "Moses, put your hand in your garment." And he did. "Pull it out." It was leprous. He said, "Do it again. Put it in. Pull it out. It was clean." God said, "That's how they're going to know because I'm going to confirm my word through signs, and I'm going to confirm your authority." And the New Testament says that Jesus and the apostles are authenticated by the miracles that God wrought through them. Keep that in mind: that the word of God is confirmed by miracles, not miracles by the word of God.

Finally, the gospel in the longer ending ends with one word: "Amen." That word, which is based upon a Semitic word for truth, simply means, "This is the truth." And so, what you've been listening to today, and last Sunday, last month, last year, and all of our gatherings together here as we followed closely through this gospel, is that we've heard the truth of God. Amen.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word by which we can live and hope and be satisfied in our souls. Help us to embrace it, to love it, and to live it for Jesus' sake and for ours. Amen.