Mark 1:1  The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
2  As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
3  The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
4  John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.

I spoke in passing with a man this week who was rather discouraged with life. He was troubled with what he called the news coming out of the U.S. The situation did not lend itself to discussion. There are many people who have formed opinions on what is happening in Canada as a result of the recent elections in the U.S. Most of those opinions are developed due to left-leaning media bias and also due to most people not being saved and having no way of seeing things as they really are. It is obvious that our current P.M. is not concerned with what is happening between the U.S. and Canada. Since being crowned as P.M. he has chosen to waste tax payer dollars by travelling to Europe. It was not that long ago that we were told we should be proud of being Canadian and of our Canadian identity. Yet there he is, travelling to Europe and telling the world that we are the most European non Europeans there are. He is continuing the push to a one world system. The preparations are being made for the coming of the Antichrist.
God is working through all that is happening in the world right now. He always has been at work. The world is in a very unstable situation due to the rejection of God. When He is not ruling in the hearts of men, there can be no peace.
Five times we find the phrase “there is no peace” in the Bible. In each of those verses, it states that there is no peace when God is not in charge of the heart. God is working, but He will only bring peace to the heart that is right with Him.
I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. I enjoy discussing world events. It is interesting to me to see how God is working. It all reminds me to keep an eye on the skies. Soon the Lord will appear in the clouds and there will be the trumpet sound that will summon all the New Testament saints out of this world. In the meantime, there are thousands just like the man I met in passing. They are anxious and confused and missing that which is most important. Thus we are going to get back into the study of another book of the Bible. The hope of man is to know the true God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We will make application to world events as the Lord leads, but I need to be careful not to run off on my own. We need God’s leading in all we think and do.
In Mark’s gospel account of the Lord Jesus Christ, he was directed to remind us that this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is not just any gospel. This is the only gospel worth repeating and worth focusing our attention on. The world is fixated on a false gospel. The multitude of false teachers is astounding. I am currently dealing with a man who has mentioned some names of people I have never heard of. He has been listening to them and he is getting his theology from them. It is a strange theology and I have looked up some of the names and they are certainly way off. Yet they claim to know and love Jesus. Their Jesus is certainly not the Jesus of the Bible. They are rockers and pierced up and out to lunch. Many people will be shocked as they find themselves in hell because they have rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. We must know that. He is not just a good teacher as the United Church has said for years. He is not just one of the prophets as the Jews thought in Jesus’ day and the Muslims believe. He is not the brother of Lucifer as the Mormons teach. He is not a weak man who needed His mother to assist Him in saving us as the Catholics teach. He is the Son of God. He is the only Son of God.
In verse 2, we are reminded that the prophets were directed by God to write of God’s messenger who would come before Jesus Christ. Mark was directed to give a few words about John the Baptist in his opening statement. John had an important work to do. He preached a simple message of repentance. He pointed the people to the Messiah — the Lord Jesus Christ. John was a messenger. He was not the Messiah. He knew his place. He was content to be that messenger.
Today God is calling upon those who are saved to be messengers to proclaim the fact that Jesus Christ has come and that He is the Saviour of mankind. There is no other Saviour. False religion abounds today. It was also quite prominent in John’s day. The Pharisees wanted to be seen as being good people and they wanted John to baptize them. He was baptizing those who came to him in repentance, believing the message he was preaching. The Pharisees did not believe that message. They wanted to be seen as good while still being deceivers.
John was a man of God. He knew the Pharisees were frauds. We have far more Scripture today than he had then. However, It is not how much Scripture we have, it is what we do with the Scripture we have. We can be thankful that we have all of God’s Word. Yet if a person refuses to believe what God has given us, it will be used against that person, not for their benefit.
The Pharisees were false teachers and John exposed them for their corruption. Those who are saved today need to be careful that we do not act as enablers to false teachers. We have the truth. We need to believe the truth and reject those who want to get rich off of their lies.
In verse 3 we are told that John was a voice crying in the wilderness. He was not in the city, trying to compete with the noise of the city. His was a voice in the wilderness. There was no competition for his voice. He had the wilderness all to himself. The people came to him and heard the truth. Wherever God calls us to, we need to be sure that our message is not just noise. We need to be sure we speak with clarity so that people can distinguish our voice as different from the noise of the false teachers. We are not in competition with them. We are not looking for common ground with them. We have a unique message that must stand apart from all the rest. If it is true, it will stand apart.
John’s message was one of preparation. The people needed to be in the right frame of mind to receive the Lord Jesus Christ. The twists and the turns of the Pharisees needed to be bulldozed into a straight path to Christ. The Old Testament did not bring confusion. The message was one of believing the true prophets. It was one of believing in the coming Prince of Peace. The Pharisees had a message of law keeping that was impossible to keep. It was burdensome and left the participants empty.
John’s message was unique in that it was to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the Saviour in His first coming. Our message is to help people to trust in the Saviour Who has come and is coming again. Hearts need to be stopped and people need to be thinking about their souls and their destiny. They need to be reminded that most are not ready to meet the Lord. The saved need to be encouraged to be strong in the Lord.
In verse 4 we see that John’s message required a response from the people. He baptized those who repented toward God. Repentance is not trying to clean up our lives on our own. Repentance is not penance. Repentance involves an acknowledgment of the need to turn to someone who can forgive our sins. Repentance is a personal matter in that I cannot save you and you cannot save me. Each person must come to God personally, in humility and seeking His forgiveness.
We see here that if there is no repentance, there can be no remission of sins. Repentance involves turning to God and thus turning away from a life of sin. It is not a turning from sin to God. No man can do that. It is a turning to God and He enables us to turn away from sin. In turning from sin, the repentant sinner is not continuing in sin. He wants to be free from the bondage of sin. Only God has the power to forgive sin and to make the sinner a saint. He changes the heart of the repentant sinner and enables that person to walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Don’t accept the lies of the false teachers. Accept the truth and know the true and lasting peace of God in your heart today!
Pastor Bartel