Reading the scriptures from Mark chapter 16, verses
14 through 20, Afterward he appeared unto the
eleven as they sat eating, and upbraided them
with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because
they believed not those who had seen him
after he had risen.
And he said unto them, 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
condemned.
And these signs shall follow those who believe.
In my name shall they cast out demons,
they shall speak with new tongues, they shall
take up serpents, and if they drink anything
deadly, it shall not hurt them.
They shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover.
So then after the Lord had spoken unto
them, he was received up into heaven, and
sat on the right hand of God.
And they went forth and preached everywhere, the
Lord working with them, and confirming the word
with signs following.
Amen.
And the Lord is still willing to work
with those who will go.
Our Lord Jesus Christ never promised that the
church would win the whole world.
When he comes, he's going to have to
separate sheep from goats and wheat from tares.
Nor did our Lord promise that the church
would change the world.
God is in the business of changing people,
and through those people he can change this
world, but God never promised that we'd change
the world.
In fact, Paul said evil men and seducers
are going to wax worse and worse.
Now if we're not going to win the
whole world, and if we're not going to
change the whole world, that could give us
a very pessimistic outlook on life, and some
saints have that outlook.
There are some saints of God who are
happy, and they rest content, knowing that the
scriptures say we will not win the whole
world.
And this is a wrong attitude to have.
Because even though the Word of God says
we aren't going to win the whole world,
and even though the Word of God says
we aren't going to change the whole world,
it does say we have the responsibility and
the privilege to reach the whole world.
There's a difference between winning the whole world
and evangelizing the whole world, and that's the
task that has not yet been completed.
It's really kind of an embarrassing thing.
If the Lord were to call a meeting
of the board the way corporations do, and
if the Lord were to hang on the
wall a progress chart the way corporations do,
and if he were to explain that chart
to us and show us how the graph
keeps going down the way corporations do, he'd
have every right to fire us the way
corporations do.
If the average corporation measured its success as
the church measures success, they'd be out of
business.
A very well-known Christian educator in this
country, who shall be nameless, said to me
one day, you know the church has to
be a divine institution.
The way it's running, only God could keep
it alive.
You see, we have the money.
This is one of the most affluent generations
in history.
We have the money.
Now that money is not being given to
the right causes, but the money is there.
And the manpower is there.
There are people, we have more Christian schools
today than in history.
And yet week after week I get letters
from churches and phone calls from pulpit committees
saying, can you recommend a pastor?
We can't find a pastor.
We are graduating thousands of Christians from our
schools.
We can't find missionaries, can't find pastors.
I wonder where they are.
We have the manpower.
We have the money.
We surely have the methods.
Why, you can go to conventions and seminars
and learn enough methods to keep you going
for the millennium.
Used to be that a missionary, if he
had a flannel graph board and some pictures,
that's all he was available.
Now we have everything you want.
We have movies, we have videotape, we can
bounce things off of satellites.
We can get to a mission field today
by jet plane faster than William Carey was
able to pack.
So we have the money's there.
We have an affluent generation.
Christians have got two and three cars, nothing
wrong with that.
A couple of TV sets and a stereo,
nothing wrong with these things.
God gives us richly all things to enjoy.
The money is there.
The manpower is there.
The methodology is there.
You know what's not there?
The motivation.
That's what's lacking.
The motivation.
Wherever he leads, I won't go.
The motivation's not there.
And only the Holy Spirit of God can
generate motivation in the heart of the believer.
We are a local church.
Jesus Christ has said to us, Go ye
into all the world and preach the gospel
to every creature.
This passage in Mark chapter 16 has been
a battleground for Bible students, and we'll not
get into that.
I was chatting with two of my friends
this past week who are very adept in
the Greek and the textual criticism, all of
which is beyond me.
And I said to them, What do you
do with a passage like this, where some
of the study Bibles say now these verses
are not in this text, they're not in
that text?
Well, they said there's nothing in there that's
unscriptural.
And it is found in some of the
manuscripts.
And I think we have every right to
look at Mark chapter 16, verses 14 through
20, and find the kind of motivation we
need to get the job done.
In fact, as I read these verses, the
Lord says to me that there are three
incentives that our Lord gives us.
To get the job done.
What is the job?
Get the gospel out to every creature.
Three incentives that ought to motivate us to
get this job done.
Incentive number one, the Lord commands it.
Incentive number two, the world needs it.
Incentive number three, the church can do it.
And I trust that the Spirit of God
will take these three incentives and wake us
up and stir us up and dress us
up and send us out.
Incentive number one, the Lord commands it.
And he said unto them, Go ye into
all the world and preach the gospel to
every creature.
Who said this?
Verse 19, So then after the Lord had
spoken unto them.
The gospel of Mark is the gospel of
the servant.
You know that each of the gospels has
its own emphasis.
Matthew's the gospel of the king.
That's why his commission reads, All authority in
heaven and in earth is given unto me.
That's the king speaking.
Mark's the gospel of the servant.
The key thought in the gospel of Mark
is service.
In fact, the key verse in the gospel
of Mark, chapter 10, verse 45, For even
the Son of Man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister and to give
his life a ransom for many.
This is the gospel of the servant.
The one word that is repeated over and
over again, some 45 times, immediately, immediately, authorized
version says straightway, straightway.
Here's the busy Jesus, the busy servant.
When you open Matthew, you find a genealogy.
You've got to be sure where a king
came from.
When you open Mark, you don't find a
genealogy.
Who cares where a servant came from?
But this servant came to serve.
He was born as a servant.
And he lived as a servant.
And he died as a servant.
The gospel of Mark is closely related to
those chapters back in Isaiah where the prophet
talks about the servant.
Isaiah 53 is in that passage.
Mark is the gospel of the servant.
Here we have the Lord Jesus working.
The Son of Man came not to be
served, and he could have done that.
He could have said, I am the sovereign
God of Heaven.
You serve me.
Instead, he came as the humble servant, and
he served man.
Prostitutes came off the street, and he stopped,
and he helped them.
Unclean lepers cried out to him, ten of
them at a time, and he stopped, and
he helped them.
Would you like to be at the beck
and call of everyone who has a problem
in the city of Chicago?
Jesus was in Jerusalem, or Nazareth, or Capernaum,
the servant.
And when he died, he died as a
servant.
And when he arose again, the servant declared
himself to be the Lord.
That's why the gospel of Mark ends with
the emphasis twice upon the Lord.
Verse 19, after the Lord had spoken unto
them.
Verse 20, they went everywhere, the Lord working
with them.
This one who was the lowly servant is
today the highest sovereign Lord of all.
And he commands, go.
Now, if that isn't incentive enough for us
to go, there's something wrong with us.
One of our problems in the church today
is that we do not recognize the Lordship
of Jesus Christ.
God is to us a celestial errand boy
who solves our problems for us.
If we have a headache, we pray about
it.
Nothing wrong with that.
If we need money to pay the rent,
we pray about it.
Nothing wrong with that.
But when God has a problem, and he
looks to us, and he commands us, we're
not as available.
We want God to be available to us.
It's very hard for us to be available
to God.
I've always admired in the Old Testament this
man Samuel.
What a godly man.
And Samuel prayed one day, and his prayer
accomplished more for the people than all of
Saul's fighting.
With one simple prayer, he took care of
the enemy.
Samuel was able to come to God.
He would say, Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth.
And God was able to say to him,
Speak, servant, for thy Lord heareth.
If I am not available with an ear
to listen to his voice, why should he
listen to my voice?
If my hands are not available to do
his work, why should his hands be available
to do my work?
If my mind is not available to think
his thoughts, to accomplish his will in this
world, why should his mind be available to
me, to give me wisdom in the problems
of life?
That's not fair.
The Lord has commanded it.
And these are the orders from headquarters.
Now, the Lord Jesus did not drop a
hint.
There are some people you have to hint
to get things done.
Sometimes you can't go to your children and
say, I think you ought to mow the
lawn, I think you ought to wash the
windows, you ought to clean out your room.
You start to drop a hint.
God doesn't do that.
He doesn't make a suggestion.
He gives an order.
The first incentive for the church, and that
means us, the first incentive for the church
to get the gospel out to every creature
is simply the Lord commanded it.
Now, what did he command?
Go, go.
See, the word missionary comes from the old
Latin word mitto, which means to send.
A missionary is one who is sent.
The word apostle comes from a Greek word,
apostello, that means one who is sent with
a commission.
This is our commission.
Go, we're sent.
That applies to all of us.
Regardless of where we are.
Now, Matthew said to us in his commission
that he quoted from our Lord, while you
are going, make disciples.
And all of us are going.
And so he's saying to us, now wherever
you go, share the gospel.
This word that he uses in verse 15,
go into all the world, that word all
is one of the strongest words for all
in the Greek language.
It isn't just the everyday word for all,
it's kind of a special word for all.
He's emphasizing that our sphere of ministry is
not just Chicago or the near north side
or where North Avenue and LaSalle Street and
Clark Street all meet.
That's not just your sphere of ministry.
Our sphere of ministry is all the world,
every creature.
That means that I have an obligation where
I am and where I am not.
Now, it's not possible for us to be
two places at one time, obviously.
It's possible for us to help other people
to be where we can't go.
And so he commands us to go.
He commands us to go into all the
world.
And the word that is used for preach
is the word for a herald.
Back in Bible days, they didn't have television,
radio, newspapers.
When the king or the governor had a
message to convey to his citizens, he sent
out a herald.
And the herald would come riding into town
and blow the trumpet and say, I have
a message.
All the people would gather in the town
square and the herald would give the message
and people would listen to the message because
the herald was sent by the king.
Now, that's the word that's used here.
Go you into all the world and herald
the gospel.
This word means loud public declaration.
Now, there are times when it's not good
to be loud in public.
But what he's saying is don't hide it.
Don't whisper it.
Don't pass it along as though it's contraband.
Let's not be ashamed of it.
Let's declare it.
Let's let people know Christ died for our
sins and he was buried.
He arose again the third day.
He's alive today.
And the bad news is all men are
sinners and the good news is Christ died
for sinners.
Herald the gospel.
The way some of us do it, you'd
think we belong to God's secret service.
The evangelical CIA.
Preach the gospel to every creature going into
all the world.
The beautiful thing about the gospel is it's
not limited by time.
It's not limited by space.
It's not limited by government.
People say, oh, we have governments today that
were against the gospel.
Should have tried Paul's day.
The gospel was illegal by the time Paul
got to Rome.
The Lord commands it.
Now, what are we going to do with
the orders?
We either obey or we disobey.
There's no neutrality.
There's no saying I intend to.
We either in the way we pray, in
the way we live, in the way we
give, we are either obeying or disobey.
Incentive number one, the Lord commands that should
settle it right there.
At this point, each of us could just
simply go to the altar and say, dear
God, I've been disobedient.
I've been concerned about my little world.
I've not been concerned about your great world.
I've been concerned about my own comfort, dear
God, I confess it.
I'm sorry.
Here's my bank book.
Here's my checkbook.
Here's all my life.
Now, what do you want me to do
about this great need?
And it would do some of us good
to do that.
But he goes on to give us a
second incentive.
That's in verse 16.
Not only does the Lord command it, but
the world needs it.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be
saved.
Now, he's not saying that baptism saves anybody.
Charles Spurgeon was quite a fighter.
He's known primarily as a great preacher of
the gospel.
But you can't preach the gospel without fighting
some battles.
And one day he preached a sermon on
this text against baptismal regeneration, that you have
to be baptized to be saved.
And he stirred up a hornet's nest in
England.
A friend stopped him one day and said,
Mr. Spurgeon, I hear you're in hot water.
He said, I'm not in hot water.
They're the ones that are in hot water.
If baptism is necessary for salvation, nobody in
the Old Testament was saved because nobody in
the Old Testament ever got baptized.
If baptism is necessary to salvation, then Peter
made an awful mistake in the household of
Cornelius.
He was preaching and he got to that
portion where he said that whosoever believes in
him has remission of sin.
And they believed and the Holy Spirit came
down.
And they were saved.
And Peter said, who can forbid water that
these should not be baptized who have received
the Holy Spirit?
It's odd that they'd already received the Holy
Spirit if you've got to have baptism to
be saved.
You see, in the early church, believing and
baptism went together.
That's not true today.
Back in those days, it cost something to
be baptized.
It doesn't cost much today.
Back in those days, when you went for
baptism, you were being buried to the old
life and your friends would spit on you
and your family would bury you as far
as their affections were concerned.
It cost something.
You don't find any case in the New
Testament of believers in the church resisting baptism.
He that believeth, that's what saves you, and
is baptized, that's what lets people know you
are saved, shall be saved.
It doesn't say he that's baptized not shall
be condemned.
He that believeth not shall be condemned.
And how shall they believe on him whom
they've not heard?
And how shall they hear without a preacher?
How shall they preach except they be sent?
What he's saying here is this, that people
are lost apart from the gospel.
Why must we carry the gospel to the
whole world?
Because the Lord commands it and because the
world needs it.
Our Lord is not talking about universalism here.
We have a brand of theology today that
it's not new, it's been around for centuries,
but it has a new dress to it,
that everybody is saved.
The whole world is saved and all that
missionaries have to do is go tell people
they are already saved.
That's like my going up to the hospital
and saying all you people are already healed.
No.
The world that I look at and the
world that you look at and the world
that Jesus looked at, that world doesn't look
saved.
The world that I see is in darkness.
Salvation is light.
The world that I see is a graveyard
of dead sinners.
The gospel means light.
Light.
The world that I see is in bondage
and the gospel means liberty.
The world that I see is enthralled by
sin and the gospel means feeding on holiness
and righteousness.
Now the gospel is for all.
All the world needs it and the gospel
suits everybody.
One of my favorite preachers when I was
a young Christian was Dr. Walter Wilson.
Now it's unfortunate that this present generation did
not know Walter Wilson and I don't know
of anybody who quite replaces him, but Dr.
Walter Wilson had a unique way of taking
Bible truth and making it so sane and
sensible in a practical way in our lives
and I benefited from his ministry.
He had a great sermon on John 3
.16 and his topic was this.
Can you think of any gift that is
suitable for the whole world?
Now I don't know about you, but when
birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas come along, one
of the problems you have is what are
you going to get them?
What do you get for that brother-in
-law of yours who has everything?
Can you think of any one gift that
is suitable for everybody?
Everybody needs it and everybody wants it.
Now I enjoy books, but there are people
in this world who can't read.
Someone says, well food, oh but they might
be allergic to it.
Money?
What good is it if you haven't got
stores to spend it in?
Music?
What if there's no instrument to play it
on?
You start naming the things that we give
for gifts and you'll find that not a
one of them is suitable for the whole
world.
There are vast reaches of people who would
say I don't want that and I don't
need that.
When it comes to the gospel, said Walter
Wilson, that's the one gift that everybody needs
and everybody wants.
Now they don't know they want it.
That fellow who's carousing around in lust, his
real craving is for satisfaction.
The trouble is he's trying to find it
in the pigsty.
That person who's amassing money, his real concern
is for security.
He doesn't realize you don't trust in uncertain
riches, you trust in the living God.
Everything men are craving for, really God is
the answer.
The gospel is the answer.
So here we have a message, a gift
that's suitable for everybody.
Suppose you had a chance to speak to
the whole world.
Suppose someone put a microphone in front of
you and said we're going to bounce this
off of a dozen satellites and the whole
world is going to hear you.
Now tell them something they all need to
hear.
What would you tell them?
The Sox won?
What would you tell them?
The stock market went down?
What message would you ever give to the
whole world that they need and that they
want?
I only know of one message.
Christ died for our sins.
He was buried.
He arose again.
He's alive today.
He was seen by witnesses.
He can change your life.
You see we have the one commodity that
the whole world needs and we refuse to
invest it.
We refuse to spread it.
We had better get the gospel out to
the whole world because the Lord commands it
and because the world needs it.
That word condemned, condemned, condemned.
I wonder what would happen to our local
churches if on a Saturday night every one
of us dreamed that we were in hell.
There wouldn't be people sleeping in on Sunday
mornings.
There wouldn't be Bibles collecting dust.
There wouldn't be missionary offering envelopes thrown in
the wastebasket.
Condemned, condemned.
That word in the middle of John 3
.16 that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish.
Perish.
You can almost hear the hiss of hell
in that word.
Perish.
Jesus looked out on the multitudes and he
didn't see pious Jews.
He looked in the multitudes and saw sheep,
wandering sheep having no shepherd.
He saw people who were harassed and burdened
and broken and living on substitutes and he
wept over it.
And we look out upon a lost world
and we see people who are harassed and
burdened and broken and we pull our pious
skirts around ourselves and say I thank you
God, I'm not like other people.
There's a third incentive to world evangelism in
this passage.
The Lord commands it, that's verse 15, and
the world needs it, the church can do
it.
Alexander McLaren is one of my favorite preachers.
If you ever want to just sit and
read some good preaching, just pull down a
volume of Alexander McLaren, a great Baptist expositor
of the word.
He calls this passage the divine audacity
of Christianity.
What's he mean by that?
Jesus looked out and he looks at this
motley group of people, a half a dozen
fishermen, a few other people, the phrase the
eleven doesn't just mean the eleven apostles who
were left after Judas' suicide, it means the
gathering of believers.
He looks at them and says you can
reach the world.
He didn't say you can change the world.
He didn't say you can win the world,
he said you can reach the world.
They didn't have any Hondas, didn't have a
bank account, no visas, no passports, no atlases,
no slides.
They didn't have any of the modern accoutrement
of missions.
And they were just audacious enough to believe
that Jesus said they could do it and
they went out and did it.
Did you ever notice that whenever a Christian
wants to do something the devil sends somebody
to a meeting in Great Britain.
He said I believe God would have us
form an association to take the gospel to
the heathen and some theologian stood up.
One of God's sanctified obstructionists.
A man with a long beard and a
short mind.
And he said young man when God wants
to convert the heathen he'll do it without
your help.
I'm glad William Carey didn't listen to him.
I'm glad D.L. Moody when Moody went
to preach at Cambridge they laughed and said
well here comes this man with his nasal
twang his Yankee twang the only man in
the world who says Jerusalem in one syllable.
Fifth grade education he's going to go turn
Cambridge upside down.
They quit laughing.
Out of that came great and mighty missionary
outreach.
Somebody said that it should be done.
You know the church today is pictured in
verse 14.
Instead of giving they were eating.
Nothing wrong with eating.
Jesus established the Lord's Supper that's eating.
During his resurrection sojourn on earth he ate
with his disciples.
It says of Moses and the Jewish elders
they saw God and they sat down and
ate and drank.
Nothing wrong with eating.
Providing your eating is preparation for giving.
You can't have a meeting in a church
without eating.
You announce a Bible conference or a missionary
conference a few come out.
You announce a banquet and people come crawling
out of the woodwork.
The church today is so busy taking in
we don't give up.
We are overfed and under exercised.
They were behind locked doors.
Here they were confined instead of going out
isolated and insulated and unbelieving.
Oh it can't be done.
It can't be done.
Hardness of heart.
Now I realize verse 14 describes people in
the pre-resurrection appearance they had not yet
seen the Lord but they should have believed
the message.
Their unbelief made them selfish and afraid.
Afraid to step out and do something.
We might make a mistake.
We've never done it that way before.
And Jesus says it can be done.
The church can do it.
Now how can the church do it?
Well the answer is down in verse 20.
The Lord working with them.
Even though he is the sovereign Lord seated
on the throne of heaven Jesus is still
the servant who is working with us.
Now it doesn't say he's working instead of
us.
If God wants to save the heathen he'll
do it without your help.
Oh no he won't.
Oh no.
Because he has the same God who has
ordained the end ordains the means to the
end.
And the church is the means to the
end.
The same God who says people shall be
saved in Africa is going to get someone
there to give them the message because no
one is saved apart from the message.
And some of these ultra-elect people who
sit in their chairs and fold their theological
arms and complacently say well God will get
it done in his own time.
I'd better read what it says here.
It doesn't say the Lord working instead of
them.
It says the Lord working with them.
Nor does it say the Lord working in
spite of them.
God's going to get his work accomplished if
he has to smash us to get it
done.
He was going to deliver Israel from Egypt
if it meant sending Moses out to the
wilderness for 40 years to get ready.
He was going to get the message to
Nineveh if it meant a great fish swallowing
Jonah to get it done.
God's going to get it done.
But not in spite of us and not
instead of us.
With us.
Which says to me the bottleneck isn't in
heaven.
The bottleneck is on earth.
How can he work with us if we
are not with him.
If we're not walking with him.
If we're not talking with him.
If we're not sharing with him.
The Lord worked with him and he confirmed
the word.
Now these things that are mentioned in Mark
16 are apostolic signs.
You'll read them in the book of Acts.
Wherever they went to preach God confirmed the
word.
How did people know that this word was
from God?
He confirmed it.
Now we have a complete Bible.
We don't have to have these things.
Any saint or sinner who takes Mark 16,
picks up a poisonous snake is a fool.
He is not saying to me today these
are signs that I perform.
These were the apostolic signs that confirmed the
word of God during the book of Acts.
But the principle still applies.
God is saying don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid.
If you go out there and there's danger
I can take care of you.
If there's a price to pay don't worry
about it.
The Lord working with them because the power
is available to us today if we'll just
drop on it.
But instead of praying, instead of going, instead
of paying, instead of heralding, we're living in
verse 14 enjoying fellowship with one another, eating
and drinking and all the while the world
goes to hell.
And so the last thing our Lord says
to us in the gospel of Mark, the
gospel of the servant is my work is
not done.
Oh my work of salvation is done.
But my work of witness is not done.
And your work is just getting started.
My finished work on earth initiates your unfinished
work on earth.
And I'm going back to heaven and I
have an unfinished work up there to intercede
for you and to work with you and
through you to get the job done.
The battle is the Lord's and let's not
say that he's speaking here to some ethereal,
idealistic, abstract church.
He's talking to men and women and young
people and boys and girls in the city
of Chicago right now.
And he is saying there is a gospel
that's been placed in your hands, in your
hearts.
We have this treasure in this earthen vessel.
Now what shall we do with it?
Bury it?
No.
Waste it?
No.
Share it?
Why?
The Lord commands it.
The world needs it.
The church can do it.
The Lord working with them.
Let's pray.
Gracious Father, we know these things in our
minds.
We respond to them with our hearts.
But the thing you're looking for is the
will.
You're waiting for us to say, Lord, I
will.
I will.
Forgive us for being disobedient when you have
commanded us to go.
Forgive us for being uncaring when the world
is crying for the one message, the only
message that can save.
Forgive us for limiting the very church for
which you died.
O gracious God, we will not argue.
We will submit.
We will not rationalize.
We will obey.
We will lay before you, Father, our bodies,
our substance, our loved ones.
We will hold nothing back, for truly your
Son held nothing back.
He who gave his all for us has
every right to command us.
But, oh, may our obedience not just be
the command from above.
May there be that constraint from within.
May the love of Christ constrain us.
Help us as a church family and help
us as individuals to do the part we
have to reach the world.
And I pray for that one here in
this meeting who needs to be reached, who
has never trusted Christ, who is already condemned.
Oh, may that one trust him.
For Jesus' sake, amen.