Mark 16, today is the final installment of this quarter's lessons. It's the final lesson in the book of Mark, and so I get to bring it to an end. Humorous story. Now this is absolutely true. I promise you, this happened exactly the way I'm telling it. Years ago, my friend, Brother Tom Byrd, somebody of mine, know Tom, good guy, he's a pastor down in Kentucky now, but he was pastor out here at Batesville, Indiana. And he had, he put on a revival meeting, and he had a different speaker for each service, and he had like, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday night. He scheduled me for the very last service on Sunday night. And as he got up, he introduced me that night. He said, well, we brought in Brother Steve Kittle to end the revival. You get it? I thought it wasn't funny at the time, actually, but it did seem funny later on. But anyway, so I hope I'm not ending the spirit of the lessons here in Mark, but we do want to get into this right away. All right. The Book of Mark, of course, it's a very Condensed, I shouldn't say condensed, it is a concise presentation of the life of Christ. Normally when we would teach on the Gospels, when you're in Bible college, they teach you the harmony of the Gospels. And that's equivalent to the life of Christ. And when you talk about a harmony, they try to harmonize the various passages in each gospel. And that will show when something is only in one gospel, when it might be covered in two or three. And some of the things, of course, are in all four gospels. But today we're at Lesson 13. you know, we have in a quarter. And the lesson today, and I don't know why that S had to drop down to the next line, but talk about the servant's victory. And Brother Galt spoke on the crucifixion last week, which is, of course, these two chapters are of utmost importance to the Christian faith. But In chapter 16 now, we get to the resurrection of all the proofs that Jesus gave us regarding that He is who He claimed to be. He claimed to be the Son of God, the Christ, the Anointed One, God in the flesh. Of all those proofs, that he gave us, his resurrection is the most prominent and the most powerful. We're seeking the context now. In Romans 1-4, he declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. So that sort of sealed the deal if you will. We know that he died, we know that he was buried, but the resurrection was the ultimate proof that Christ was who he claimed to be. Now the rumors were spread of course, the disciples had stolen Christ's body and so on, and that was promoted by those in leadership even. And yet Jesus provided overwhelming proof that he who was dead was now alive. He spent 40 days after his resurrection appearing to many different people, and all of those became witnesses of his resurrection. We'll read the verses here, Acts 1-3, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs. In other words, you couldn't argue with the proof, being seen of them 40 days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And then in 1 Corinthians 15, five through eight, this is Paul speaking now, and that he was seen of Cephas, that's Peter, then of the 12, after that he was seen of above 500 brethren at once, So this wasn't just selective appearances. He appeared to 500 people at one time. He says, the greater part of those are alive even today, though some are falling asleep. After that, he was seen of James, then of all the apostles, And last of all, he was seen of me also, that being Paul, as of one born out of due time. So it was not merely a case of, well, you know, somebody knows somebody who thinks they saw somebody that looked like Jesus. No, the evidence was irrefutable. To quote the Book of Acts, it was infallible. The resurrection is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. In Hebrews 7.25, He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him seeing He ever liveth. to make intercession for them. We don't have a dead Savior, we have a living Savior. And then in 1 Corinthians 15, again, 1 Corinthians 15 is the great resurrection chapter, and we'll refer to it several times. It says, if there be no resurrection of the dead. By the way, that is in the subjunctive mood there, if there be. no resurrection of the dead. And in this case, that is stating a statement contrary to fact, okay? He's not saying it's possible that there's no resurrection. He's stating a hypothetical or a statement contrary to fact. If there's no resurrection of the dead, then it's Christ. not risen. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain. So the resurrection of Christ is the cornerstone of the Christian faith. Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that after his crucifixion he would rise from the dead, but we see from their actions and their attitudes following his death, they did not completely grasp And then really didn't fully believe that promise. Even the women who came to the tomb, we'll get there in just a second, they did not expect Christ to be alive. They brought spices to embalm a dead body. And if we were to be perfectly honest with each other, I think you and I wouldn't have thought or behaved any differently. I think we'd have had the same doubts. Oh, no, listen, we look back on this. It's already done. We've got the reports. But if we were in the position of those women, those disciples, I think we might have had our doubts as well. But thankfully, anyway, I'm saved today, and it says in Romans 10 and 9, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. See, a belief in the resurrection is a necessary part of our faith, our faith in Christ. We believe, we preach the gospel. The gospel is the death, burial, resurrection of Christ. And there's scriptures to that effect. We'll not take the time to turn. So let's look into Mark's account of the resurrection. So as we're searching the text, and somehow I got the T left on there, but first of all, we notice the announcement in verses one through eight. In verses one through three, we see the committee of the women. Let's read. It says, when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome had brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came to the sepulcher at the rising of the sun, and they said among themselves, who shall roll us away? The stone from the door of the sepulcher. All right, so here are these women come to By today's standards, it was a very crude embalming, but they were actually embalming the body of Christ. And by the way, I think that's right and proper. I think that's how our deceased loved ones should be treated. I think the body should be cared for and embalmed and buried. If you differ with me on that, that's okay. fussy people when they have their loved ones cremated or something like that. But I believe the Bible example is that we treat our deceased loved ones with that respect. We respect their bodies and we entomb them. And the symbolism is we're planting them in the ground. expectation of the harvest, of the resurrection. I just threw that in for free. Now, the three ladies, you got Mary Magdalene, and we'll see more about her as we go through the lesson. And there was Mary, the mother of James. Now, this is not James and John. This is James, the son of Alphaeus, or what they call, who they call James the Less. And so that was that Mary. There were several Marys, of course, in the Bible. And then there was Salome. She was the mother of James and John. She was the wife of Zebedee. And they came to anoint the body. And they're wondering as they're coming who is going to roll back the stone to give them access. I've got a little visual here. This is the way that they entombed people in those days. If they were wealthy enough, had enough substantial means to afford this type of tomb, the stone was generally a round stone, thick but flat, flattened on the sides, and there was a trench, and you can see there in front of the opening, there would be a trench, and they would roll that stone sort of down into that trench, and it would secure the stone. And then it could be rolled back, but at great difficulty, and these women knew that they did not have the physical wherewithal to roll back the stone, and so they're asking themselves, who shall roll us away the stone? Second thing we see in this announcement is the comforting word. In verse 4, it says, and when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great. So they saw that the stone had been moved, and it no doubt caused some wondering, some astonishment, because it says it was very great. This would take a team of people to move that stone so that they thought. And we're told in one of the other accounts of the Resurrection, We don't have time to fill in all the blanks, but in another account, it says that the angel came and rolled the stone away. Not so Jesus could get out, but to show that he was already gone. Verse five, and entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted, ye seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified. He is risen, he is not here, behold the place where they laid him. So they come to the sepulcher, to the tomb, the stone is already moved and so that creates questions already. And then they go inside and they do not find the body of Christ. Instead, they see, it says, a young man clothed in a long white garb. Apparently, and we can't be dogmatic about it, apparently this was an angelic being. And he has this announcement You see Jesus. He is Risen, and then he said he's not here and what a comforting word this was now Whether they completely believed it or not It's hard to tell but we do know that Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples that They didn't believe it, but she went and told them that Jesus was risen. And we'll get to that in a minute. The third thing we see, and I've got to, I couldn't get all this into one. So, we had to go to two different points. All right. So, the third item here under the announcement is the command to witness. Verse 7 says, and fled from the sepulcher, for they trembled and were amazed. Neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid. they didn't know what else to do except to be scared at what was going on. If you met an angelic being and you knew it was an angelic being, you might be a little bit frightened either way. But he said, go your way and tell, notice what it says, tell his disciples and Peter that he goes before you into Galilee. Now, to go and tell, that's our command as well, by the way, but says go tell the disciples and Peter. Why did he single out Peter? Well, it's only speculation, of course, but I think that Jesus wanted to reassure Peter that he was still part of Christ's circle. Remember the last time that Peter was in the presence of Jesus, what happened? He denied him three times. We don't believe Peter was at the cross during the crucifixion. Only John seemed like was there. But Peter probably had thoughts that, I'm sure, even if Jesus does rise from the grave, he's not gonna want me around anymore. Peter had committed what he thought was the unpardonable sin. He said, Jesus would never forgive me for this. And yet, Jesus left instructions with the angel to tell the women, go tell the disciples and make sure you tell Peter. Make sure that Peter is in on this announcement. you the attention to detail that Jesus had, even as he's going through this process of being dead and buried and resurrecting from the grave and doing all that he has to do, and yet he found time to reassure Peter concerning his relationship with him. Well, that brings us up now to the appearances, verses 9 through 14. The first thing is the delivered demoniac. This is the first person that he appeared to. Verse 9, now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils. We have an account of that encounter in one of the other Gospels where Jesus appeared to Mary, she didn't recognize him and said, you know, where did you lay, where have you taken Christ? She thought he was the gardener and all that. So we have that account, but here it just says that he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. She had been healed, if you will. She'd had seven demons cast out of her. A legend, says also that she was a prostitute, but she became a devoted follower of Christ and perhaps a financial supporter of his ministry as well. And, no doubt, Christ probably took some criticism for associating with Mary Magdalene, given her past. Jesus gives us a future. And, thankfully, He can forgive our past. So we've got the delivered demoniac that He appeared to, and then there's the traveling two, in verses 12 and 13. Let's finish up, let's look at verses 10 and 11. It says, and she went, that's Mary Magdalene, she went and told them that had been with him as they mourned and wept. And when they had heard that he was alive and had been seen of her, believe not. They didn't believe. This is probably at least a group of the disciples of Christ. So Mary Magdalene was the very first one that Jesus appeared to after his resurrection. She went and told the disciples they didn't believe her. All right, now in verses 12 and 13, we've got this traveling too. After that, he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country, and they went and told him unto the residue, neither believed they them. So these two are on the road to Emmaus. We know that from the other accounts. And we have a rather lengthy account in Luke 24 that talks about how Jesus appeared to them and they didn't know him. They didn't recognize him. Well, it says here that he appeared in another form. You say, well, what does that mean? I got nothing, I don't know. We just know that when Jesus appeared to these two, and they were two of his disciples, that they didn't recognize him. So apparently he had changed his form somewhat. And we know Jesus could do anything that he wanted to. Now why did Jesus, He revealed himself later when they sat at supper. But why did Jesus hide his identity from them? Well, no doubt he had a good reason. And it says, and they went and told it unto the residue. That's an interesting word to use there. But these two men were of the disciples and they went and reported back to the rest. of the 11, and we refer to the 11 because, of course, by this time, Judas is dead. He had gone out and hanged himself. Well, the residue, the rest of the disciples, they believed not, just as they had not believed Mary Magdalene. So we've got the deliberate demoniac traveling too. Now we have the admonished apostles in verse 14. Afterward, he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat. It's interesting, he showed up a lot of times at supper time. That's a good time to show up somewhere, isn't it? And hopefully you get invited to the table. But he appeared unto the eleven, and it says he upbraided them. In other words, he criticized them or rebuked them. with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen so he sent Mary Magdalene to speak to them they didn't believe he appeared to the two revealed himself to them sent them back to report to the eleven and they didn't believe him and Jesus rebuked them telling them that they should have believed. So he finally appears to the assembled disciples and of course he's criticizing them. We know from John's account that Thomas was not present at that meeting. It says he appeared on the 11th. I think he meant as a group, but the first time he appeared to the disciples, Thomas was not there. And I preached a whole message one time on why Thomas missing the Sunday night church service. In fact, I made the statement in the sermon that we didn't know why Thomas wasn't there. And our pastor, I was traveling with him with Gordon at the time, and after the service he informed me we did know why Thomas wasn't there, and that's because he was somewhere else. So that's that's the kind of friends you make, you know, in the ministry. But anyway, Thomas, you know, sure enough, when the other disciples told him that they had seen Jesus, he didn't believe either. And of course, they were fascinated. Thomas, we saw him and everything. Well, they didn't believe when they were told twice. So it's easy to pick on Thomas, and probably rightfully so. But actually, all the disciples had the same reaction when they received news that Jesus had resurrected from the dead, that they didn't believe. Now, why would Jesus rebuke them because they didn't believe the testimony of others? I think this, I think it's because he had promised them Before his death, I'm going to rise from the dead. And combine the promise with the witnesses, they should have believed. And we should, of course, believe as well. All right, so that's the appearances of Jesus that we have recorded here, and I've already read about other appearances that he made. Moving on now to the assignment, verses 15 and 16, and he said unto them, Now, this may not have been at this setting. Mark moves along, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I mean, he doesn't waste time. He's giving a very abbreviated account of these occurrences. But he said under there, verse 15, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. All right, so first of all, we have the responsibility. This is what we call the Great Commission. Now, there's three things I see in this verse. First of all, there's the method, and that is go. We're supposed to go, we're supposed to go where the need is. We're not just supposed to sit and wait for them to come to us. You might notice there's not a ton of worldly people flocking to get into our services here at Addison Baptist Church. This is where we receive our instructions and our fortification and our encouragement to go and reach the world. And so you say, well, how do we go? There's a lot of different ways. To me, the most prominent way And the best way of reaching the lost is reaching those that you know, your friends, your neighbors, your acquaintances, your family members. Why? Because they can observe your life. and see that something has made a change in your life, and therefore they're perhaps more receptive to the presentation of the gospel. And that's the message, and it is preach the gospel. Go in the world, all the world, and preach the gospel. Not social reform, Not, you know, Jesus came to the earth to make sure that everybody gets along with each other. And I preached on that, I think it was the last Sunday night. But we're to preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. How do you preach to like Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses or Roman Catholics? Preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. It's the power of God. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God and the salvation to everyone that believe it. We don't have anything more to offer a lost person than the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And then the mission field is go and preach the gospel to every creature. Well, does that mean dogs and cats? No, no, no, no. All of God's creatures that were created in his image. And that means, of course, men and women or human beings. And I think that Jesus repeated the Great Commission several times in different words. We have these words here. We have In Mark 16, we have Matthew 28. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them, and so on. And then you have Acts chapter 1, verse 8, I believe it is. It says, ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria, and on the most part of the earth. Some people try to make that one occurrence. and make the words try to fit. No, I think he repeated this several times as he's getting ready to leave his apostles. Remember, he was with them for 40 days after his resurrection, and he's preparing them for him to be gone, and they're gonna carry out the work that he has sent them to do. And it's not hard to imagine that he would repeat this commission several times. Go you into all the world. Go and teach all nations. You shall be witnesses unto me." And he, you know, lined out Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, all those parts of the earth. And probably there were other occasions that we don't know about during that 40 days when Jesus committed the work of the gospel to them. that's the responsibility now the results in verse 16 it says he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned all right so the gospel will produce a results we're faithful to it, faithful to the preaching of it, then there will be those who will believe and there will be those who will follow in obedience by being baptized. Now of course, our Campbellite friends, Campbellism is generally boiled down to what we call baptismal regeneration. You believe on Christ, but you're not really regenerated until you go through the waters of baptism. And the Campbellites use this verse as a proof text for baptismal regeneration along with Acts 2.38. You've heard that one. Peter said, you know, repent and be baptized for remission of sins. And then you've got 1 Peter 3, 21, it says, the light figure wearing two baptisms doth also now save us. And they stop right there and say, baptism saves. Well, it goes on to say, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God. And then there's John 3, 5, except to be born of water and of the Spirit. Oh, that water, that's baptism. This is where rightly dividing the Word of Truth comes in. We study and interpret the Bible not with verses pulled out here and one pulled out there. We study and interpret the Bible as a whole. The body of Scripture collectively teaches that we are saved by grace through faith alone. And Galatians 3, 26, you're all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, by grace are you saved through faith that unto yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And there's a ton of other scriptures that I could reference. We don't have the time, and really that's not the focus of the message, or the lesson today. But don't allow a verse here, a reference there to make up your mind and say, well, let's see there. You know, you've got to be baptized to be saved. Well, notice what it says, but he that believeth not shall be damned. One question that comes to my mind is, well, what about those that believe but don't get baptized? Are they sort of left in limbo or what? Well, no, baptism does not save. And I don't have time to go into any deeper than that. But the body of scripture teaches us that salvation is by grace through faith. And should we be baptized? Yes. Is baptism important? Yes. Is it a part of our salvation? No, it's not. It's not. It has no saving efficacy, as we like to say, or saving power. It is the answer of a good conscience toward God. Well, we got to move on. Notice the authentication in verses 17 and 18. And these signs shall follow them that believe in my name. They shall cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up servants that they drink any deadly thing. It shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. All right, so here we have some miraculous signs. Let's notice, first of all, the promised signs. In verse 17, first part, these signs shall follow them that believe. Now, I want you to note the word follow. It's very important to understanding this concept of these sign gifts, we call them. These signs are not, it doesn't say we are to seek out these signs. What does it say? These signs shall follow. then that believe. In other words, they're going to come along of their own accord. Now, our charismatic friends anxiously seek for the sign of speaking in tongues. That's their biggie. And we do see that here listed in these signs. You say, well, Bible talks about speaking in tongues, then shouldn't we, you know, shouldn't we speak in tongues? And the Charismatics, of course, believed that, yes, we should speak in tongues. Well, I've got several things to say about that. In the first place, the modern-day Pentecostal charismata, they call it, the gift of tongues, bears no resemblance at all to what actually occurred on the day of Pentecost in the Book of Acts. The people were astounded when they heard these men speaking tongues, but not because they heard gibberish that they couldn't understand. They were amazed because this multinational gathering of Jews heard the preaching clearly in their own languages. dialect. Read Acts 2 if you don't believe me. It says they were amazed because they heard in their own languages, their own tongues. So the ecstatic utterances is what these so-called tongues are how they're designated, do not bear any resemblance to the spiritual gift of tongues in Acts 2 or in later references in Acts and in the book of 1 Corinthians and so on. Now, second place. I'm arguing against the ecstatic utterances. As I said, the signs were to follow believers. They were not to be sought. I talked to Pentecostal friends all the time. They said, well, you know, I got saved, but then I got that second blessing when I finally got to speak in tongues and sought it out. Well, these signs were to follow them that believed not to be sought out as a second blessing. And then thirdly, because that's the sign of times as proof that they are still with the holy spirit and guess what all teaches exact opposite of that in uh... first fourteen twenty-two which is an excellent all right first fourteen twenty-two notices is good where four times the gift of time are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not. Tongues were a sign to unbelievers. In other words, God used these gifts particularly the gift of tongues, there was others, the gift of healing and whatnot. He used these gifts to validate the preaching of the gospel. Now why did the gospel preaching need to be validated? Because the Bible was not yet complete. The written word of God that we have, where we get all of our information, it was not yet complete. So let's move on to the particular signs, and he names what they are. Casting out demons. This is in order speaking in tongues handle serpents remember Paul on the when we shipwrecked on the island and He went to collect some sticks It says that the snake came out of the sticks and sticks and fastened on his hand He didn't go around looking for a snake. He didn't have one in a box here. So I'm gonna handle this snake and Not at all. And by the way, of course, you know, there's still churches that do this snake handling. And we don't believe that is part of worship. This is something that followed. See, Paul went looking for the snake. The snake found him. And then it says that they'll drink deadly things. So drinking poison. We don't have a representative example in scripture. We assume that it did occur since Jesus said that it was going to happen. And then the healing of the sick. So, in addition to tongues, some have built a false religion on the handling of snakes and the drinking of poison, and a lot of people have died tragically and unnecessarily over the years as a result. Now, what was the purpose for these signs? As I've already hinted, they provided validation. They followed believers as they preached the gospel, and they provided validation for the message of the gospel. Now, we contend that these gifts are not in operation today. You say, well, why do we believe that? Number one, we don't see them following us. I've never tried to heal anybody, but I've never felt like I had the power to do that. When we went to Brazil as missionaries, we had to learn the language. And by the way, the charismatic Pentecostals that went as missionaries, they went to language school as well. Just keep that in mind. But anyway, that's, like I said, I just throw these things in for your free enjoyment. First Corinthians 13, charity never faileth, but whether it be prophecies, they'll fail. Tongue shall cease, knowledge vanish away. For we know in part, we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away with. And we believe that that refers to the completed scriptures. And then in 2 Peter chapter 1, We received from God the Father, honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him, from the excellent glory that is my beloved Son, in whom I am all pleased. This voice, which came from heaven, we heard. Peter said, we were there. We heard this voice speak from heaven. How much more definitive can you get than that? Well, that's pretty good. But the problem was, there was only a few of them there that actually heard that voice. So he goes on to say, we have also a more sure word of prophecy. We have something better than hearing God speak from heaven in an audible voice. The more sure word of prophecy, wherether you do well, it's to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. So that's the Bible, the completed scriptures is what the Holy Spirit now uses to convict sinners of sin and instruct believers in righteousness. Remember the rich man that went to hell, rich man Lazarus, that story? He said, send Lazarus back to witness to my five brothers And Abraham said, hey, they've got Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. Oh, no, they'll believe if somebody comes back from the dead. And Abraham said, no, if they won't believe Moses and the prophets, the writings, the Bible, then they will not believe if somebody comes back from the dead and speaks to them. So the scripture witness is superior to the supernatural. And Satan can mimic that anyway. We know with power, signs, and lying wonders. All right, we've got to move on. We're late. The Ascension, verse 19, says, so that after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. His rising, he rose again, and then his residence sat on the right hand of God, according to Hebrews chapter 1 and verse 3. You know the expression, so-and-so is my right-hand man? Well, this is where it came from. And then, notice the activity of the early church. And I've just got time to move through these the evangelizing in verse 20 they went forth and preached everywhere the empowering the Lord working with them and then the endorsement or the validation by the sign says and confirming the word with signs following notice again there's that word following so the resurrection is just as much a part of the gospel as the death of Christ and we should never ever downplay the resurrection we believe in a literal literal bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and that's as I said If you believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you've got to believe in a living, resurrected Savior. I've got an application to think about if in this now, that's the verse, what are some promises we have because Jesus rose from the grave? We have the promise of our resurrection. We have the fact that He arose to be our intercessor, our high priest. And then thirdly, he is our intercessor as we go through life. Let's bow for prayer. Father, thank you for these scriptures that we've looked at today. Thank you for being alive, for coming forth from the grave, and being our living high priest, our living savior. Blessed in the service now to follow, in Jesus' name, amen. th th So she said, well, I can come. I'll maybe bring the things that I need. So you may as well bring the things that you need. th th th th th