Mark 16. We're going to, Lord willing, finish through all the verses of the Gospel of Mark today. It's been a couple years, and we went through every single verse of some degree. Not that we exhausted it all, but we've read together every single verse in this Gospel. Pretty amazing. Before we go there, I want to say a word. As an elder of this church, and I'm speaking a little bit for Fred here, just because I know Fred, we have one desire, to be faithful to the Bible, to be faithful to this book right here. We don't wish to stray and give our opinions or anything like that. We know what the scripture says about the power of God and the gospel through the message preached. And that's our hope. So our aim as elders of this church is to exposit the word and let it do its work and try not to screw it up. You know my characteristics and who I am. I'm no intelligent guy or anything like that. I'm just a simple guy with an open book, trusting in the sovereignty of God to do its work. You shouldn't care about my opinion, and it doesn't matter what your opinion is. It matters what God has revealed in His Word to us. End of story. We just sang How Firm a Foundation. It starts, that song, by how firm a foundation you saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in His excellent word. And that's been the theme and the banner for all of true Christians since the inception of the church, after the resurrection of Jesus. our banner, our theme for this church, although we're definitely flawed in some areas and almost to the point of annoyance to some, because you guys, we can't even speak a word without at least four guys thinking, is that in the Bible? Right? Isn't that how the men's group goes, guys? And that's our aim as elders. That's what we want. We want you to be equipped, Ephesians 4, for the work of the ministry. It's not the pastor or the elder's job to go out and preach the gospel. That is part of his job, but not alone. It's to equip the saints through the preaching and teaching of the Word, so that the saints, that's the Christian, That's the followers of Jesus can go out and do the work of the ministry in their communities. Our aim is to conform not only ourselves, Fred and I, in this particular situation that we're in, but you into the image of Christ through the message preached and doing our best to stay true to the Word of God. When you look down in your Bible, you have, I don't know, in my Bible, I don't know if the electronic Bibles have it. At the start of verse 9, you have a little bracket and then a note. Do you guys have that in your Bibles? I know that Pew Bible has one. The electronic ones do too. I looked in the black one and it's very long. and can be confusing. Mine is simple in my Bible, it just says later MSS add verses 9-20, which means the later manuscripts, that's what they're trying to say, the publisher is telling us that the later manuscripts that they found of the Bible, and we'll look at what that all means, added verses 19-20. So some say that verse 8 is the end of the Gospel of Mark. And if you turn, well, I have to turn my page, but at the end, and I think the black Bible has it just in the note, but at the end of mine, after verse 20, there's another note in my Bible that says, it ends in a shorter way. Mine says, and they promptly reported all these instructions to Peter and his companions. And after that, Jesus himself sent out through them from the east to the west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation. That would have been verse 9. Some say, that's where it ends. There's three options. It ends at verse 8, it ends at verse 9, what I just read, or it ends at verse 20. My aim today is not to convince you which one is the right way. Although you're going to hear my opinion at some point as I'm talking, what I think, but in the end it doesn't really matter as my aim is to go through verse by verse the same as we always do and show you that everything here with the exception of a couple phrases and maybe one or two verses is found elsewhere in the Bible. So let's read it and then we will begin to go through it. Starting in, I'm just gonna read the whole of 16 here so it gives us context. When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, this is verse 1, the Mary, the mother of James and Salome bought spices so that they might come and anoint him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? Looking up, they saw the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right hand wearing a white robe, and they were amazed. And he said to them, Do not be amazed. You are looking for Jesus, the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen. He is not here. Behold, Here is the place where they laid Him. But go tell His disciples and Peter, He is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see Him, just as He told you.' They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." That would be where the end is. It would end like that. Verse 9, Now after he had risen early on the first day of the week, he first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to those who had been with him while they were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it. After that, he appeared in different forms to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country. They went away and reported it to others, but they did not believe them either. Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table, and he reproached them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen. And he said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. These signs will accompany those who have believed. In my name they will cast out demons. They will speak with new tongues. They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. All right, let's pray. Oh dear God, we have your revealed word open to us, before us. And oftentimes we don't give due diligence in reading it. We don't give due diligence in meditating upon it. And Lord, the wisdom that is recorded in here and the preservation of the true words in which you sovereignly decreed to give to men lies before us. Lord, please give us grace that we might not stray from sound doctrine. Father, please give us grace that we would not speak of our opinions that contradict the scriptures. Father, please give us a sound mind that we would not be distracted from all the entertainment that went through our brain this last week. But for a moment, for a time, we might sit and ponder and marvel and worship you for your amazing wisdom, for your amazing grace, and love for men. Father, please help us by the power of the Holy Spirit to come. Give us ears to hear and a heart to believe what we read. Father, we confess, we have faith, we believe this account that Jesus, the Son of God, was born of a virgin. lived the perfect sinless life, loved everybody perfectly, never strayed from the truth, and always obeyed you. And yet the men of this world crucified him and still do to this day. They plug their ears and turn their face away and don't want to hear it. They want their ears tickled. Father, we wish to know nothing more than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Lord, we know that it's more than just a formula found in some book, but it's the entirety of the scriptures given to us. Father, may you make Jesus known through whatever passage in this Bible that we're reading. And today out of Mark 16, may you make him known and may you conform us to his perfect image, for he did die. He was buried and he is risen and seated at your right hand right now. And we long and wait for the day in which he will return. In your good time, may we be busy doing the work of an evangelist and doing the work of the ministry. Father, please teach us the gospel in a fuller way today. And may your name be praised to your saints. Amen. All right. When you look down and see MSS at the bottom of your Bible, you should thank God that He preserves His Word. And the publishers of the translation don't try to hide it from you, but tell you. That's amazing. that they tell you, hey, we're just gonna be upfront and truthful about it. They could have easily just not put it in there and we would have never known. But they told us, hey, this is reality. Some of the manuscripts, MSS means manuscripts. A manuscript is a handwritten document. Okay, you know what was in the world before 1450? What happened in 1450? Does anybody know? The printing press. The printing press. Before that, everything was handwritten. That's all that means. It's a manuscript. It's written by a hand of a man. And we can thank God, weird as it is, for the zealous Jews that were exiled to Babylon. You know why? Their documents were wrecked. And they came back with a new zeal and copied everything. No longer will we lose our records. We're going to copy it all. And this is all by the hand of God. 486, right? From then on, they're zealous to record everything and copied everything for us. So we're finding all sorts of stuff. And we're still finding new manuscripts. We don't have the original Gospel of Mark. that was written by the hand of Mark, that said, Love, Mark, at the end of it. What we have is people took the Gospel of Mark, and they copied it, and copied it, and copied it. And we have... Mark was written in Greek. We have over 5,000, I think it's 5,600 something Greek in the original language. No translation. It wasn't like they were taking Mark's words and trying to fit it into their English vocabulary. No, it was straight up copied word for word. Greek translations, 5,600 of them in the Greek language. Later on, Latin became the predominant language. So then they did translate it, took it from Greek to Latin. We have over 10,000 of those ones. and in other languages 9,000. That's over 24,000 copies of this right here that we can go back and be like, this must be authentic. Most of which are from the year 200, the 200s, which gives it about 125, 150 years from when Mark actually wrote it. So those 5,600 Greek manuscripts are very early, within 125 to 300 years or so. In the 200s, we have 100% of all four Gospels, 10 of Paul's letters, and Acts 4-17, within the 125 years of its original writing. Now comparison, Aristotle's work, which now we have 1,000 manuscripts, because they keep finding new ones. As they search out, they get more, just by comparison. 1,000 manuscripts he wrote in 384 B.C. and they found the earliest one in 850 A.D. That's a 1,200 year gap. The New Testament we have a 125 gap. He caught that. 1,200 years for Aristotle. The same with Plato, 1,200 year gap from when Plato wrote his stuff to the time of the earliest copy that they found of it, 1,200 year span. Who knows? Who knows? Caesar's Gallic Wars, we now have 251 manuscripts, 900 year gap. Tacitus, the Greek historian, now we have 33, we used to have 20, 750 year gap. Not only do we have stuff like that that's really cool, we also have anti-Nicene church fathers, anti-Nicene, Nicaea 325 is when all the Roman Catholic Church stuff, that's when you read Constantine, all that sort of stuff, and the Bible gets canonized, that means just compiled into what we got. They chose which books. But before that, guess what we have? Writings from Christians. Writings from theologians that are writing about the New Testament. Guess what they're quoting? The original writings of Mark. So you take all of their writings, and you take the 32,000 to 34,000 quotations from the New Testament, and if you were to pick apart every single one of them, guess what you can do? Make the New Testament. So we have their witness to the authenticity of the New Testament, just out of the early church writers. This is God at work in the history of man, proving without a doubt that this is the Word revealed to men from God. Is there errors? Well, we would We don't like that word. So they dumb it down and just call it variants. There's some differences. So I'm going to give you an example of that. There's a lot of them. There's like 300,000 plus variants. And all of them, 20, whatever, 4,000 manuscripts we have, there's variants. 99% of them don't mean anything. It's just spelling or You know something small But there is some like in Mark chapter 16, there's also one in John 8 with the woman caught in adultery That's one of them. There's one in John 4 the Word and the water and that one if you're familiar with that, that's one that's big and What do we do with that? Well, like I said, they tell you where they are and you can make your judgment call. And that's my aim today is to go through this. What is not, this is a variant. This is an error, if you will. I don't like that word either, but we're going to see how it really doesn't matter. So I wrote John 14, six on the board and this is how the variant works. So you guys know. Okay. If I wrote this, and I was John the Apostle, and I wrote this in my gospel, John 14, 6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. And I give that to you and say, here, Brother Bob, I wrote a gospel about the life of Jesus. Hey, share it with your church. Somebody from there, or maybe you, writes ten copies of this. Now there's how many copies? Eleven. We've got eleven. One original, ten copies. Brother Bob made ten copies. Brother Bob hands it over to Elizabeth, and she makes three copies, but she writes it this, because she's busy. Her eggs are burning and stuff. She can't read Bob's handwriting. That's the problem. So she writes, Jesus said, John 14, six, Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me. It means the same thing, but it's not the same as the original. And that's what 99% of the variants are found in the manuscripts. Hope that makes sense to you. You might read of textual critics. All them guys are is trying to get back to the original. So amazingly, you take this, we got 11 copies of this. She made three of this. Let's just say that this ends up being a thousand copies of this way and a hundred copies of this way. So you take the thousand that are from the original that actually say what John wrote and you take the hundred that, oh, they messed it up. They put the wrong word there. You know, a thousand to one, which one is the right reading? We're going to go with the thousand, right? The one that's more, more closely and copied better. And maybe you had my original one. You can look back and say, no, it's except. not but okay that's how that works so textual critics that's what they're doing trying to get it back all right so with that being said let's start our journey through chapter 16 again i don't maybe i said this already my aim is to show you that it doesn't matter really there's a couple verses that are going to give us a little problem. We think they are. Verse 9, Now after he had risen early on the first day of the week, he first appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and reported to those of his first ten who had been with him while they were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they refused to believe it. Let's ask the question, is that somewhere else in the Bible? And the answer is, yeah, it's John 20. It's taken straight out of John 20. If you turn to John 20, you'll read that exact account, because John is basically using Mary Magdalene, maybe interviewing her and asking what had happened, and he recorded Mary Magdalene's viewpoint from the resurrection, when the grave was empty. And so that's exactly what we read in John 20. And this is how this works. This is what we're going to do every verse. Now on the first day of the week, this is John 20, verse 1, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, early to the tomb while it was still dark. And on and on, you can read that account on your own. Mark, if somebody didn't like the ending, because it's kind of weird, right? Out of verse 8, it just kind of ends with them. they're afraid and nothing more said. It's like a cliffhanger, right? Please, can you just finish the story already? Somebody may have, and you can determine that on your own, added all this to make it kind of end better, to flow better. But everything there is found in John's gospel. the whole verse 11, refused to believe it type thing. Well, that's what we see. That's still a truth. It doesn't say that like that other than here, but Thomas definitely refused to believe it. And in verse 10 of John, it says in one translation, they were wailing and weeping back in the upper room or wherever they were, the apostles when they they heard the news. And verse 11 says they refused to believe. So there was this unbelief, if you will, from the apostles, even on the testimony of Mary. But remember Mary, when she went and she told Peter and John and they ran to the tomb and all that stuff, and then I'm kind of going back to John 20 because I think it's necessary. watches them run to the tomb. They end up leaving. It says they went home. Mary stays there and is weeping. That's when she has a conversation with the gardener. She thought it was the gardener, and she saw the angel, but then she turns around, and Jesus is there, and he says, woman, why are you weeping? She turns around and says, Rabboni, and don't claim to me I haven't gone to the Father, and all that stuff. That's all there in John 20. So that's what's going on. So she tells them that. They refuse to believe it. Verse 12 says this, After that he appeared in a different form. Already, to me, that doesn't sound like Mark. The different form thing? I don't know where that came from. After that he appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking along on their way to the country. Anybody know that story? Does that sound familiar? Anywhere else in the New Testament, where do we find that story? Luke 24, the road to Emmaus, right? That's where the two guys are walking, and then Jesus appears to them, He talks to them, He eats with them, and then He keeps Himself hidden, and then He's speaking to them, and then He vanishes, and then they say, Was not our hearts burning within us while He was still speaking to us? It was Jesus. Okay, there it is. That's a reference. Verse 12 is talking about Luke 24. Verse 13, I should have read that along with that. This is not recorded in Luke 24. So it's talking about those two that he saw on the road. They did not report it to the others, but they did not believe them either. That's not there in that story. So you could say, well, that's something not found in the New Testament. But we know that they did not believe anyway, because that's next. Thomas is in there. I'm not going to believe until I see and put my hand in his side and all that stuff. And then Jesus tells him, blessed are those who do not see and yet believe. So it's still a true statement. So you could, I guess, in one sense say that it's there. Verse 14, we have the apostles doubting here. It says this, after he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at the table, and he reproached them for their unbelief. That's the statement. He reproached them. I don't see that really in other accounts, although he asked, why do doubts arise in your heart? If that's a reproach, then there you go. You still have that in the in the scriptures. I don't know if he was really yelling at them. He sure did before. He marveled at their unbelief at some points. But I think he was a little more gentle, if you will. Just, hey, look at the evidence. I'm standing before you now that I'm resurrected. So he reproaches them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he had risen. And then verse 15, you have what we call the Great Commission, basically taking word for word out of Matthew 28, right? It's the same exact thing. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Of course, Matthew gives, teaching them to observe or baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I've commanded you. Luke 24 also has a great commission to it. Repentance and remission of sin shall be preached to all nations in my name. So no problems there. Verse 15, now we're getting to the problem verses, right? I'm sure you've already picked up on verse 16. This is one that I would say these verses right here are cherry-picked more than a lot of other verses by a lot of people. And I'd say, in my short time as an elder of this church, there probably has not been more quoted to me than these verses right here that we're about to get in. The casting out of demons and the speaking in tongues, this has always been, for the last few years, been like a topic that keeps coming up over and over again. And this is the reference, Mark 16. In a debatable reference, is it here or is it not? And they take a verse like this and just apply it. And that's what I'm observing as an elder of this church, a problem. Because can it be supported by other scriptures? We can't just take one verse and run with it. But as we go through it, you'll see that that actually doesn't even matter either. Okay, so verse 16 says this, He who believed and has been baptized shall be saved. And boy, that just makes the Baptist in me just cringe right there. The word believed is the famous Greek word pistis or pistou, which is faith, translated faith. And the reason why it's belief, I'm just saying this because there's been this rub on this word a little bit recently. We don't speak like this, faithing. We don't say, and he was faithing. We just say he believed, right? It's the same exact thing. Whoever has faith and has been baptized shall be saved. And the Church of Christ guys love this verse. but finish the verse, right? Let's finish the verse. But he who has disbelieved, or does it say, but he who has not been baptized shall be condemned? Which one? It actually says, he who does not have faith will be condemned. It doesn't mention the baptism thing right here, does it? You know why? Because faith, justifying faith, true faith in Jesus, the central Maybe the central doctrine of being saved is exercising belief and trust in Jesus, that He was your atonement for your sins and He actually died for you and rose again and God therefore justifies you. That's the big theological word, justifies, means He declares you, Andrew and you middle guys, you're not listening. You got nunchucks and all sorts of stuff going on, bullets. Justified. You know what it means? Andrew? Huh? What? Legally declared to be not guilty. And that happens by putting your faith in Jesus. And when that happens, God begins to change you and gives you evidence of true saving faith called what? The fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit's work in a person's life demonstrated out in your life. And if you want to say good works, sure. You will have good works according to the commands of God. You'll be being conformed to the very image and likeness of Christ. That's the true saving faith. Faith is evidence. And will you be baptized? Yes, you will, because that's commanded in the scripture. So no problem for me. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, because you have the obedient faith. And the next part of the verse backs it up. If you don't have faith, if you don't have that justifying faith in Jesus, you will be damned. You don't need the baptism to try to sneak in. It's the faith that either justifies you or condemns you. My grandma, my Uncle Dady, died when he was five. She rushed him to, I don't know, rushed him to get baptized so that he could go to heaven. Out of this verse right here. Verse 17, now this is the one, really, that is spoken a lot about. "...these signs will accompany those who have believed." Okay, so that's great, because we just talked about there's evidence of your true saving faith, right? You have justifying faith. Well, now it just said, here's signs that prove. It doesn't mention the fruit of the Spirit here. It gives something else. "...those who have believed," and apparently are baptized, These signs will accompany them. In my name, they will cast out demons and they will speak with new tongues. And usually the conversation ends right there. You can look down and see what the other characteristics are, right? Isn't that amazing? How come we don't see demons being cast out? How come we don't see, how come you don't speak in tongues at your church? I just ask you please brother, just be consistent with the text and don't stop there. How come we don't see healings then? It says signs to all believers, right? Or am I reading this wrong? Those who have justified in faith will have these signs. Brother, can you please read for me verse 18? Can you pick up serpents and drink deadly poison too? Can we show that sign? How come we don't talk about that one? We just like the demon casting out and speaking in tongues. I don't see anybody drinking the cyanide. That can be done easy. You can put your faith to the test right now. I can walk over there and find something you can drink and show me how great your faith is. Pastor Jamie Kutz, 42, of Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus' Name Church in Middleborough, Kentucky, died February 15th of a snake bite at a church meeting. His death was the second snake bite death at his church, which was founded in 1978. Melinda Brown, 28-year-old mother of five, died in 1995, two days after she was bitten by a rattlesnake during a church service. One guy documented 91 snakebite deaths among the serpent handlers since 1919. The basis for this practice, a passage in the Gospel of Mark 16, 17, and 18, KJV, King James Version. How about the poison drinkers, Jim Jones and his 900 followers? Maybe they weren't believers or something, but all of them, you would think one out of the 900 and something would be able to show the signs that accompany those who believe, but no, they're all dead. Well, if they were true believers and were consistent and you want to interpret it this way, then they shouldn't have died. April 9, 1973, a preacher and other leader in the church that handled snakes as well, died early yesterday after drinking poison at a service at the county. The county official said it was a demonstration of faith. Williams, 34, assistant pastor of the Holiness Church of God in Jesus' Name in Carson Springs and Buford Pack, 30, in Marshall, North Carolina. At least they were brave enough to be consistent instead of a bunch of cowards that just want to take the casting out of demons, the healing of the sick, and speaking in tongues. I got to give them that. They actually downed it. What do we make of this? Is this what we see in the New Testament church? Did the signs accompany those who have believed? Yes, they did. Acts 3, you guys know this song? Peter and John went to pray. You know that song? They met a lame man on the way. Silver and gold have I none, but in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." And you know what he did? He rose up and walked. That sounded like a sign that a company of those believed it. It sounded like they healed the sick. Acts 5, the crowds brought the sick and they were healed. Acts 8, those who were paralyzed and lame were healed. Acts 19, 11 through 12, God did extraordinary miracles through the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that he had touched, that touched him were taken to the sick and the diseases and evil spirits left them. Acts 2, they began to speak with other tongues as the spirit enabled them. Acts 5, the apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. Acts 8, the crowds all paid a close attention to Philip's message and to the signs they saw him perform. Let me read that one again. The crowds all paid close attention to the message that Philip had preached to them and the signs they saw him perform. Why do I make a big deal of that? Guess what they had until... I don't know when they had it. They had a book written by Mark that was going around. They had a letter from Paul somewhere. And men, by the power of the Holy Spirit, got up and preached the gospel. And they weren't holding this thing right here yet. How do I know what you're saying is true, Paul or Philip? In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk. That's why. Because it confirmed, it authenticated, it gave proof to the message being accurate. Of course I'm going to believe you. Look at the miracle you just performed. Hebrews 2, 3 and 4, this would be, if you're into this stuff, it would be helpful to see it. Hebrews 2, 3 and 4. I'll take a drink while you're turning. Is that poison? I got wee little faith. Hebrews 2, 3, and 4 says this, how should we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation was first announced by the Lord. So the writer's saying, this announcement of salvation, this gospel of salvation was first preached to you by Jesus. Right, Canaan and Joelette? It was first preached by Jesus. And then it was confirmed to us It was confirmed. This message is confirmed to us. The message that Jesus preached was confirmed to us by those who had heard Jesus, because they preached to us. Those apostles that were Jesus' disciples heard the message, preached it to us, and then it was confirmed to us. Some might say, how was that confirmed? Writer of Hebrews, and was affirmed by God through signs, wonders, various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will." Why the signs? They confirm the Word and the Gospel that was preached. And you know what? It still does. You know why? We got it right here. It's as if it just happened. We got the historical records of all the miracles and the signs that confirm the Word. We don't need to go out there and do all this stuff. We got it right here. It still is confirmed for us, if we believe this book to be the written Word and revealed Word of God. You've got to have the Gospel right. You've got to have the message right. What do we see? All sorts of weird stuff going on. Slaying in the Spirit, talking in tongues. The guy's pulling the guy's leg and it looks like it's growing. We've got all sorts of stuff. Oh wow, that's great! with a shoddy gospel. Can you tell me how I can read my New Testament in the true gospel being preached by Jesus and his apostles, and the signs following them. We've got these charlatans out here doing all these miracles with a shoddy gospel. It's not a formula. Ask Jesus into your heart and say this prayer and you'll be saved. You know why? Turn to the first chapter of Mark, because he says this, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The beginning, do you hear the word, the gospel of Jesus Christ? And then he tells us for 16 chapters what the gospel is. You know why? It's the whole thing. It's the whole book. You gotta believe the whole book, and when you contradict the book, what do I think of you? What do you think of me if I'm up here saying something that's not found in the scriptures? I'm a liar! I can perform all these miracles, signs and wonders, and speak in tongues, and do all this stuff, and I'm contradicting the Bible? I'm a false prophet! Stony as fast as you can. It's what we got in our day and age. Right down in our own community, we got the NRA, the New Apostolic Reformation going on. It's right here in our back pocket. What is it? This is the belief that there is a restoration of modern day apostles who functioned in the same capacity and with the same authority as the first century apostles. Prophets play a crucial role, almost as important as the apostles, by receiving new revelations. You hear that? By receiving new revelations. Well, God told me this. How do you answer that? How can you talk back to that? God told me this. I'm sorry, okay. If God spoke to you, who am I? I can, well, you just contradicted this. You're wrong. That wasn't God. It was a different spirit. Somebody talked to you, yeah. Receiving new revelations that guide the church toward establishing dominion. These revelations are exclusive to prophets and apostles. That's nice. So now we have a hierarchy in the church. The ones that get the word from God, right? Not other church leaders like pastors or teachers. It's these prophets and apostles, so-called. God is still providing revelation that flows outside of what God has already revealed in his word. You know what that's called? Heresy. It's heresy. Peter Wagner, the founder, of course, would say that these revelations have to be in agreement with Scripture, but oftentimes, obviously, when compared to Scripture, Peter Wagner, Kim Clement, Chuck Pierce, Bob Jones, Paul Chain, Cindy Jacobs, Mike Bickel, Rick Joyner, Bill Johnson, Todd Bentley, this guy I met a couple years ago, right there in LA, Lou Engel, Becky Fisher. Sorry if that's offensive. Costi Hinn, Benny Hinn's nephew, writes this. Peter Wagner's prophetic invention of the return to the apostolic succession says this, it's wrecking havoc on the church. It's leading young people from sound doctrine and leading them astray and plunging them into experiential religion. Experiential, it makes me feel good. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. That is not true Christianity. Key facts, they have started training schools to raise up apostles. Charged tuition to wield the miraculous gifts of prophecy and healing. You can pay to be an apostle, $350 annually. International apostle, you can pay, $350. For a North American apostle, if you want to be a North American apostle, it's $450 annually. But don't worry, there's a couple's rate. You can get the couple's rate for $650 to sign up to be an apostle. You can be an apostle of all kinds. An apostle vertical, horizontal. I don't even know what that means. I don't even know what these are. They make it up. I'm a vertical apostle. I just pray to God. I don't know. I'm horizontal. I'm with you. But I'm an apostle. I'm guessing, ambassadorial, ambassador, apostle, congregational, mobilizing, territorial. We can be a marketplace apostle. Just pay your fees. I don't know. What is going on? What is going on? You know why? We don't know what the gospel is. Because if you knew what the gospel is, you'd be infatuated with the gospel and you'd just be studying the gospel all the time. We need something else. We need that fuzzy feeling that makes us feel good. We need that title of some kind of authority. He says they, this is Costi Hinn still, they even have their own Bible. Have you ever heard of it? It's a passion Bible. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's Brian Simmons. Change the words to say what he thinks it should be. Divorces themselves from the truth of the scriptures. You got a new apostolic reformation thing going on right here. And it's a little worse than all the others. You know why? Because they changed the Bible to fit their doctrine. And that's what Joseph Smith did. The Watchtower did. And you can research this on your own. You can go look up the Passion Bible and see the atrocities of the Word of God. You know what he says? It's from the Holy Spirit. I got a revelation from the Holy Spirit, and therefore I translated. Wait, I thought the Scriptures was already inspired by the Spirit. Why now you got authority over the already inspired? Wow. Bill Johnson, Bethel Church. Here's one quote from him. I'm giving you this as an example, and you can do the research on your own. Jesus did not say, my sheep, hear my Bible. but rather my sheep hear my voice. Boy, chew on that for a second. This is Bill Johnson's doctrine. One of the biggest churches in America for the most influential in music and all that sort of stuff. He just said, what's God saying to you? It doesn't really matter what God's Word says. You want to know what God is speaking? You want to hear God's voice? Have somebody read the Bible out loud to you. And that's what he says. Why am I down this road, guys? Like I said in the beginning, Fred and I have one goal, to preach the Word. because we know that it's transforming power through the work of the Spirit. I might be too rough. I might be boring. The guy might be monotone and terrible teaching. But is he true to the Scriptures? You find yourself a treasure if that be the case. Be consistent with the text. Verse 19, Mark chapter 16. So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. Exactly what we find in Acts chapter 1. Verse 20, I should have said this with the signs that follow, because here it is again. And they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the signs that followed, exactly what I was just trying to say. I could have just saved all that error and just read verse 20. Go do your miracles, but you better have the gospel, right? Now, Mark's, if you've been here this whole time, which not a lot have, Mark had this thing. He did these, what is called like a sandwich teaching. He's on his way to heal Jairus' daughter. Okay, this is Mark 5. I'm just giving an example. He gets interrupted by a woman with a flow of blood. and then back to Jarvis' daughter. That's called a sandwich text. You got teaching right here, something interrupts it, but he's back to the teaching. He does it all the time. But Peter, who do men say that I am? That's Mark chapter eight. The Pharisees are there, all that stuff. It's sandwich teaching. Mark's gospel is brilliant. If you turn back to chapter one, There's no warm-up. There's no beginning of Jesus' life was this. Here's the genealogy. And there was this guy named Joseph. And he married this woman named Mary. And she's a virgin and all that stuff. That's how we see, right? I think Mark's like me. Just get to the point already. Here it is, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Whoa! You're like, Whoa! The Son of God, right? First verse? That's what he's trying to prove, you guys. The centurion got it, remember that at the cross? Truly this man was the Son of God. He ends as if it ends in verse 8. He ends in the same way. It ends the whole thing. The whole gospel of Jesus ends this way. They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. The end. Maybe. It's up to you. That would fit Mark's style. Here's the truth about Jesus. What are you going to do with him? repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus who is the Son of God. And we know what that means. We know that it means that when the Pharisees heard him say that, they picked up stones to stone him because he said he was the Son of God making himself equal with God. This is our Lord, fully man, fully God. He can do whatever he wants in the courts of heaven and in the heavens of the earth are accounted as nothing before you. We're but just a nose full of breath and a vapor of a life. And you are the king. You are the sovereign one that sits upon the circle of the earth. And you do whatever you wish. Thank you for blessing us, even if it's just a small tidbit of truth today that would make us love you more. We thank you for that. May your name be praised and please lead us in the path of righteousness for your great namesake. Amen. All right, any questions?