I'd like you to turn now, those of you that have your Bibles with you, to the first chapter of the book of Mark. Mark, chapter one. And the text I've selected is Mark, chapter one, verses twenty one through twenty eight. Mark one, twenty one through twenty eight. They went into Capernaum and immediately, on the Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and began to teach. They were amazed at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority, not as the scribes. There was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet and come out of him. And throwing him into convulsions, the unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him. They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying, What is this, a new teaching with authority? He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him. Immediately the news about him spread everywhere into the surrounding district of Galilee. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you again for your word. We thank you that we have the privilege of studying your word. We have the privilege of learning from it. And we have the privilege, Father, of meeting together and having you Apply your word to our hearts, to our growth and edification, that we might better serve you, the living God. And as we look this evening at this particular text concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God, and His activity in teaching particularly. We pray that we might learn from him and that we might, by your grace, preach simple truth that strikes hearts and changes lives, just as he did in this ordinary ministry of the Word. in which we see him engage in this particular text. So be pleased to bless us this evening as we take time to look into this your word. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Well, since I'm speaking to a group of ministers, largely, and also elders who are charged to encourage the ministry of the word, I guess I have to start out by confessing that I guess all preachers have a handle on preaching. Is that correct? At least all preachers are experts in preaching. I know this is the case because after I graduated from seminary, I knew I was an expert in preaching and those who are experts in preaching often need critics. And my mother was one of my critics. She deplored my sermons. It's very bad when your mother won't even listen to your sermons. But then a little bit later, after I came into the Reformed Presbyterian Church and was in Sterling, Kansas, the seminary, RPTS, invited Haddon Robinson for a preaching seminar. I see a couple of you nodding. This was in 1991, and I attended that preaching seminar and was glad to do so because I recognized that I need a little encouragement and a little help. And one of the things that I took away from that preaching seminar was Haddon Robinson talking about connecting with the congregation. And how important it is to connect the truth of God with the congregation. And after my mother's critique, I recognize that part of my problem was I was a scribe. I love to give the word of God and to give some of the technical things in the word of God. And I realized that my authority was the authority of my office, and my authority was the authority of the Word of God. And when I looked at the Bible, I realized that the scribes had the same authority. And I was more in their camp than I was in the camp of Jesus. And this caused me to do not a little wrestling, with regard to the Word of God, because when you look at our text this evening, in Mark chapter 1, verses 21 through 28, you realize that Jesus Christ was not like the scribes, but he preached simple truth that connected with the hearts of men and changed lives. And this is what you need to be about, and this is what I need to be about. This is what our church needs to be about. Preaching simple truth that captivates hearts and changes lives. And this is the point that I want you to get tonight from this text. Those of you who are preachers and those of you who are elders who encourage your pastor and your preacher. In your congregation, your pastor needs to preach simple truth that captivates minds and changes lives. Now, when we look at this particular text. It's undoubtedly a text about Jesus Christ, and in the very center of this text, you find out some information about this Jesus Christ. In verse 24, the demon cries out, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. And so, here is a text about the Holy One of God. The One who is set aside for the purposes of God. He is not only holy in conduct and holy in character, But in a very particular and peculiar way, he is set apart for the purposes of God. And one of those purposes, we learn, as we read the Gospels, is to preach the Gospel. And in his preaching, he encounters this demoniac who identifies him correctly. And you notice from the text, it's not only A holy one of God, it is the holy one of God. The one who is the Son of God. Reminding us of the confession of Peter. Who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And in Mark, this comes in the 8th chapter of Mark. And the 8th chapter of Mark is rather a demarcation point in the Gospel. Prior to Mark chapter 8, all that's going on basically has to do with who Jesus is. Mark is presenting us the Christ, who is the Son of God. And the disciples need to learn who He is. And then in chapter 8, we have this confession. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And then Jesus begins to articulate very clearly the mission for which he comes. And he tells plainly the disciples that he came to be betrayed in Jerusalem and to be killed and to rise again. And with some wonder and amazement, They received this message at first. And so this confession of the devil fits right in with the theme of the beginning of the book of Mark. A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of being at the A.R.P. Synod. And it was a very enjoyable time, and the Synod began with a message by Sinclair Ferguson. and a communion service. And Dr. Ferguson gave a very pointed and poignant gospel appeal to the A.R.P. Synod. After that service and perhaps the next day, I heard one of the delegates say that that was a bold move. And my response to that was, maybe that wasn't such a bold move. Even in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Synod. And maybe it's not such a bold move in the Reformed Presbyterian Church Synod. For you to hear the gospel. For you to hear that Jesus Christ is the very Son of God. that He came to die on Calvary's cross to pay the penalty for the likes of you and me for our sins. The devils believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? Do you trust Jesus Christ? Are you one who concesses with his mouth Jesus as Lord, but lives differently? I say this to you because even in my own presbytery recently, one of our own pastors left of the Reformed Presbyterian Church for Eastern Orthodoxy and for doctrines that smack of justification by works. And so it's quite possible for us to sit here in this synod and not have a proper relationship with Christ. And so I call you as Jesus preaches in the synagogue. And you hear the confession of the demon. I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Is this your confession? And is this what you are bound before God to preach? Now, as you look at Jesus here, one of the astounding things is that the Holy One of God begins to participate in the ordinary means of grace. Look at verse 21. They went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue. Here is the Holy One of God who on the Sabbath immediately enters the synagogue. And of course, we understand that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance and that the Sabbath is also an ordinance coming to us through Moses, the fourth commandment. Remember, the Sabbath day to keep it holy. And so the Sabbath is a very ancient institution of which Jesus partakes. And he also goes to the synagogue, which is a very ancient institution. Yes, I know the modern scholars tell us that the synagogue was first organized or came into existence during the exile. But you ought to realize that the more traditional position, the more traditional position actually that was held by the ancient rabbis and held by the Christian church prior to the mid 17th century, is that the synagogue goes back to Moses. It goes back to Leviticus 23, where Moses, speaks to the people and calls holy convocations for the first day of the week or the seventh day, I should say, for the Sabbath day. And the traditional position is that the synagogue goes back to Leviticus 23. Talk with Professor Williams about this and his encounters with the Jewish rabbis with whom he's been studying. And so Jesus comes into the synagogue on the Sabbath to participate in these very ordinary means of grace. And the ritual in the synagogue was very simple. There were certain prayers, there were certain blessings, and there were readings from the law, and then there were readings from the prophets, and then there was an exhortation. It was a very simple service. And we do something similar, do we not? We have prayers and we sing psalms. And if psalms were sung in the synagogue, they mirrored that which took place in the temple. And then we have an Old Testament reading and a New Testament reading. And the procedure in the synagogue was for the exhortation to look at Moses through the eyes of the prophet. And what we do today, generally, is look at the Old Testament through the eyes of the New Testament. And so we basically, you basically, follow the same procedure, which is a very ancient procedure, we might add. And so we stand in a very good tradition, in a very good sense here. You'll also notice verse 21, "...immediately he called them..." Oops! Verse 21, "...they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath he entered the synagogue and began to teach." Jesus not only went into the synagogue to participate in the ordinary means of grace, but he participated in the ordinary means of grace in this matter of teaching. And I think you need to realize this, and I need to realize this. You see, Jesus followed exactly the same procedure that was always followed in the synagogue. We have witness of this in Luke chapter 4, when Jesus was given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He turned to the appropriate place and read the prophet. Jesus, no doubt, had earlier read from the law. Luke doesn't tell us this, but it's very probable that Jesus did read from the law because this was the procedure in the synagogue. And then he reads from the prophet. Then he gives an exhortation. He preaches in the synagogue. And this is the whole idea of teaching. You see, part of our problem today, and I really think this is part of our problem today. That we think about teaching, the teaching that Jesus does here in Mark chapter one and the teaching that the Apostle Paul speaks about, we think of that teaching as teaching in the modern sense. which is just regurgitating information, giving out information. But I submit to you that that's not what the word teaching means. Because the scribes were charged and those who taught in the synagogue were charged to take the word of God and apply the word of God pointedly to the people in the synagogue. And so the teaching was actually a sermon. As some of you will remember this, that when we came to Synod a few years ago, we received name tags that had on them T.E. and R.E. I didn't like those name tags very, very much because I think They perhaps betray the whole idea that. Teaching is just giving out information. And my question was, where is the preaching? Where is that taking place? And so the teaching that we see in the synagogue here is of this character of the exhortation The book of Hebrews is a long sermon which is probably like a synagogue exhortation. But now, as you look at the text, Jesus is preaching and there's an eruption in the synagogue. Look at verses 23 and following. Just then, there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying, What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? This would be like preaching here tonight and someone jumps up and says, What business do we have to have with you? Who are you? And challenges. And this is exactly what was taking place in the synagogue service. There was this challenge. What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? You see, the demons understood who Jesus was. They were in fear and trembling. Have you come to destroy the likes of us? We know that you have the power to send us into the pits of hell. You are able, fully able to do that immediately. And of course, Jesus Christ has the authority to take any one of us out of this life in an instant. And without faith in Jesus Christ, whoever of us is taken out of this life is consigned to eternal punishment. And so this miracle occurs. Verse 25 says, And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet and come out of him. And throwing him into convulsions, the unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him. Throwing him on the ground and convulsing, the unclean spirit came out. The Westminster annotations give us a little comment on this incident. The annotations indicate Jesus preached a doctrine the devils could not withstand. Jesus preached a doctrine the devils could not withstand. And then He performed this miracle to validate the doctrine. That this miracle came along to display the truth of the doctrine. Hear this and think about Think about the preaching of the Word of God that you do and the expectations that you may have for God to act miraculously in the congregation. Now, I'm not suggesting that you're going to see demoniacs delivered But I would suggest to you that the greatest miracle is the miracle of the new birth, the miracle of God changing hearts. Think about Paul at Philippi by the riverside preaching, and the text tells us there that the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to respond to the things spoken by Paul. She was born again. to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ anticipated. And the miracle confirmed the preaching of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, when the Apostle begins his recitation of spiritual things. And this is what he says in the very first verse, that he wants to talk about spiritual things. He indicates Not that he's interested in speaking about spiritual gifts so much, as the English version puts it, but it's just spiritual things. And the first spiritual thing that Jesus desires to speak about is the confession that comes by way of the power of the Holy Spirit. And he says no one can confess Jesus as Lord. And I would add, and really mean it, And really know that this is the case, except by the Holy Spirit. Here's the miraculous work that accompanies the preaching of the word. And then as you look at the text again, in verse 22, it says they were amazed at his teaching. For he was teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes. He was teaching them as one having authority and not as the scribes. I suggest to you that the authority that Mark mentions here is not the authority of office. Because the scribes had the teaching office. That was an office that was designated for them. And the authority spoken of here is not simply the authority of Scripture. Because the scribes would say that they would rest their case on Scripture. The problem, as we know, is how they handled Scripture. It seems to me this is where it comes home to you and me, how we handle Scripture, how you handle Scripture. Because the scribe, you see, liked also to rest his case on the authority of the church doctors and, quote, the rabbis. Ring any bells? How often you and how often I have liked to go back to Calvin, to go back to Turretin, to go back to Burkoff, to go back to Young, to go back to any number of the commentators and to gain authority from the commentator. That's what the scribes did. And it's not only that they rested their case on the commentators, but they loved to engage in circuitous arguments. And they loved the complex. And they loved to throw out the big words and the theological terms. Haddon Robinson has a very interesting little statement in his biblical preaching where he says. It takes a man three years to go through seminary, but it takes seven or eight years to get over seminary. It's the language that he's talking about, you see. And so, I'm calling you, as I'm calling myself, to look. Is our ministry, is your ministry, is my ministry, more like the scribes? Or is it more like the ministry of Jesus who did preach with authority? And as you observe the preaching and the teaching of Jesus, one of the things that you preemptively see is that it is simple. He presents simple truth. He presents truth with simplicity. And you know as well as I do that when you study the Scriptures and you have a text, and when you derive the truth out of that text, that truth begins to burn in your soul as it should. And I can't help but think that when Jesus participated in the ordinary ministry of the teaching of the Word, and he knew the truth of the Scriptures, that that truth would burn in his heart. And we know that the Lord Jesus had a zeal for the house of God. He had a zeal for the truth of God. And then that zeal born of the truth was fueled and it was fired by an anointing from the Holy Spirit. And as we mentioned earlier, Jesus went into the synagogue and we have that story of His reading from Isaiah chapter 61, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. And for what purpose? To preach the gospel to the poor. Martin Lloyd-Jones observes on this text, even Jesus Christ as a man, as a preacher, needed this anointing of the Holy Spirit. This put him in his office. not only as a priest, but as a teacher of the Word of God. And with simple truth, Jesus went for the hearts of the people in the synagogue. And the reaction, they were amazed. The word here really means they were struck out of themselves. When the Word of God came to them in the preaching, that truth went out and touched their hearts. And they were startled by the truth. Like an individual is startled when someone comes up from the rear and unexpectedly speaks or reaches out and touches you and you start. They were amazed at his teaching. And their minds were pricked. And their consciences were pricked. So that action had to be taken on their part. And in some cases, it was like a javelin thrown and piercing their heart. They got the point of Scripture. They got the point of the teaching. It's very interesting, isn't it, that Paul uses the analogy of the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit. And a sword has one point. Okay, maybe I'm pushing the analogy a little bit. But listen, men, the sword has one point. It's not a pitchfork that has five or six tines on it. It's not a gig, a frog gig, that has three or four or five times on it. Christ preached simple truth that penetrated the heart. And they got it. And that's why they were amazed, why they staggered at that truth when they got it. So what is our reaction? When the truth is preached, again referring to Dr. Lloyd-Jones, he said often when the truth goes out, it's palpable. When he was asked the question, how do you know that the Holy Spirit is working in the congregation? He said, I look out. And I know that I'm not in control. That God's in control of this situation. And he's using his truth. to penetrate hearts and to change lives. That there is the miraculous that's taking place in confirmation of the word. Years ago, I had the privilege of being at a installation service for a young man as a home missionary in Hutchinson, Kansas. And the ruling elder who was there gave the charge to the minister. And he said to the young minister, just remember, You're a shepherd, not a cowboy. And this fellow knew what using a cattle prod to get cattle out of a truck was like, pushing and shoving the cattle. And he was reminding the young minister, you're not a cowboy. You're a shepherd. How often I've been the cowboy in the congregation rather than the shepherd. Because the shepherd says to the sheep, come on, come on, hear the simple truth. the simple truth of God that penetrates the heart and changes your life. Come on, hear the truth and walk in this truth as you hear it. I think often the old scribes were more like the cowboy. Because they were interested in taking the 2x4 and smacking it up the side of the head of some of the people. Do I have your attention yet? No. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. And you pastors and you elders are the under shepherds of Jesus. And your job and my job is to present the simple truth that penetrates hearts and changes lives. That's how Jesus ministered. And I challenge you and I challenge myself in this regard as we go through this week of Synod and as you go back to your congregations to think about the ministry of Jesus, to think about the scribes, To think about the difference between the scribe and the ministry of Christ. How he presented the simple truth with a zeal to change hearts and to change lives. With an anointing of the Spirit. And so, that's the point. Preach simple truth to strike hearts and change lives. Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word. you are far better able to apply it to our hearts than certainly I am or any other human being is. Work your word into our hearts. And cause each one of us to examine our own ministries, not to be complacent with where we are. And grandfather, that by your grace, your pastors, your elders, will present the truth simply to congregations so that hearts are struck and that lives are changed. Be pleased to do that work in our small corner of the ecclesiastical world, we pray. We ask these things in the good name of Jesus Christ, who is the Lord. Amen.