General Introduction to the Gospels, Part 3

Introduction: The Final Question for Gospel Study

0:04 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, June 26, 1983, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. We sang together, Glorious Lord, Thyself impart, Light of light from God proceeding, Open thou our ears and heart.

0:36 I don't know how intelligently you sang those words, but if you sang them with any measure of spiritual comprehension, then surely God could give us no greater gift in this hour than to answer that prayer, that He Himself would come in the ministry of the Word, that God Himself would give us a divine ability to see and hear what otherwise we could never see and never hear. Let us again ask Him to do that as we pray together. Glorious Lord, Thyself impart, Surely we can ask no greater gift than to pray that by the Spirit You would come to our needy and our waiting hearts. O God, we do ask that we may see and hear things in the ministry of the Word which could never be imparted by unaided human intellect and thought. O Lord, open our eyes to behold wondrous things out of Your law, and particularly do we pray as we complete our introductory studies in the Gospels.

2:04 O Father, give us that disposition of mind and heart that will put us in the way of receiving continuous supplies of light and understanding in the weeks and months to come. O Lord, speak to us with clarity and with power. For the sake of Your dear Son, we are bold to ask these mercies from You. Amen.

2:32 Our meditation in the Word of God this morning will be comprised, or will comprise, the third and final segment of a general introduction to that portion of the Word of God that we commonly designate as the Gospels, that is, Matthew, Mark. Mark, Luke, and John. Having determined that we would study together the Gospel according to Mark, I deemed it necessary to give some introductory perspectives on the Gospels as a whole before actually focusing on the Gospel of Mark in particular. Thus far, I've laid out these introductory materials with four questions as the organizing principle. Question number one. Question number one was, how did the Gospel records come to us?

3:34 Understanding the answer to that question will greatly assist us in studying all of the Gospels in general or any one of them in particular. And then we addressed ourselves to the second question, what is the precise nature of the Gospel records? And again, if we come to the Gospel records assuming them to be something they are not, assuming them to be something God never intended them to be, we'll be disappointed. In fact, we could very well have seeds of unbelief and doubt sown in our minds in the very process of studying one of the Gospel records.

4:15 And so we examined from the Scriptures what the precise nature of the Gospel records is. And then we took up the third question, why were they written? And we sought to answer that question, from the Scriptures. They were not written to fulfill a thousand diverse purposes, but some very specific purposes, all having to do with the matter of coming to faith or the nurturing of the faith of the people of God.

4:45 And then last week we took up the fourth question, what is their relationship to the remainder of the New Testament? What is the precise relationship of the Gospel records to the Book of Acts, to the Epistles, and again we sought to answer that question from the Scriptures themselves. Now today, as we complete our broad, general, introductory materials on the Gospels, we take up this fifth and final question. The question is this, how should we approach our study of the Gospels in general and the Gospel of Mark in particular?

Approach with Reverence: The Spirit-Inspired Word

5:25 And when I say how should we approach, I am speaking not so much of the intellectual perspective, but the disposition and attitude of heart before God. With what disposition, with what spirit, with what internal attitude should we approach the study of the Gospels in general and the Gospel of Mark in particular? And my answer to that question will focus upon three words, and I hope you'll be able to understand them. Be able to memorize the three words and use them as a constant prod and we might even say a checklist so that as you prepare your heart for our ongoing studies in the Gospel of Mark, you can ask yourself if you are bringing to the study of this Gospel a disposition marked by these three things, reverence, dependence, and expectancy. Expectancy. And in our time allotted to the ministry of the Word this morning, I want to flush out from the Scriptures what I mean by the use of those terms, or flesh out from the Scriptures. First of all, then, we should approach our study of the Gospels in general

6:50 and the Gospel of Mark in particular with a disposition characterized by reverence. Now, what is reverence? If you were asked to give a synonym, that is, a word that says the same thing as reverence, what would you use for your synonym or synonyms, plural? Well, I would hope if you have these words in your working vocabulary, you would come up with such words as awe, solemn respect, or perhaps even the words dread.

7:27 Reverence draws to itself the idea of reverence. The ideas of awe, solemnity, respect, and at times an awe and a solemnity and a respect that border on dread. Now, reverence can be born either of superstition or of spiritual intelligence. For instance, those in the little village in some pagan tribe in West Irian or down in the bush of one of the jungles of Brazil have tremendous respect for reverence.

8:01 Reverence for the local witch doctor. They stand in awe of him. They have a solemn respect for him and his mixtures of herbs and his little talismans and all of the rest. But you see, it is an awe, a solemn respect, a reverence born of superstition.

8:24 Many people have this with regard to clergymen. It's interesting to be a clergyman and to see people treat you in a way that is not reverence. And at times with an awe and a solemn respect and almost a dread, not born of any intelligent understanding of what a minister of the gospel is, but born of superstition. That's the holy man who does his holy thing in the holy place and accomplishes holy things.

8:50 Why, some of them are told that they can even, by pronouncing certain words and making certain motions, actually turn a wafer into the very body of Christ. No wonder they're superstitious. Dread if you have that kind of power to turn bread into flesh and wine into blood. And so there is a reverence that is born of superstition.

9:13 Many people have it with doctors and many doctors love it. And they're insulted when they notice in your presence that you don't treat them with that kind of superstitious reverence as though they were magicians. Now that's not true of all physicians, but it's true of many. Well, I'm not speaking, you see, of a reverence that is born of superstition.

9:33 Born of some superstitious regard for the Bible. But I'm suggesting that the proper disposition and attitude with which to come to the gospel records in general and the gospel of Mark in particular as we shall come to it, God willing, week after week in our Lord's Day morning services is a reverence rooted in spiritual intelligence. A reverence born basically of a two-fold conviction. Number one.

10:04 A conviction that when we take up the gospels in general or the gospel of Mark in particular, we are confronting the Spirit-inspired, infallible Word of the living God. A reverence rooted in a conviction that when the text of Mark is read in our hearing and when it is unpacked and opened up in our presence, and when its truth is brought to bear upon our consciences by application, we are confronting nothing less than the Spirit-inspired, infallible Word of the living God. You all know 2 Timothy 3.16, or most of you, all Scripture, is breathed out of God and is profitable. And in the context, of course, Paul was referring primarily in writing to Timothy of the Old Testament Scriptures, but it's very interesting that in his first letter to Timothy, he takes an excerpt from the gospel record and includes it as Scripture.

11:23 In 1 Timothy chapter 5, we see this reference. 1 Timothy and chapter 5. He is speaking of how elders who labor in the world of God who are worthy of the Word and in doctrine are to be cared for. They are worthy of double honor.

11:41 And now he's going to support his assertion from Scripture. 1 Timothy 5.18 For the Scripture saith, and then he quotes from Deuteronomy 25.4, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treads out the corn, and this is still the voice of Scripture speaking, the laborer is worthy of his hire.

12:10 And that's a direct quote from what we now have in the gospel record of Matthew in chapter 10 and verse 10 or Luke's gospel chapter 10 and verse 7. And in the consciousness of the great apostle who could say to Timothy, all Scripture is breathed out of God, who had this high and reverent regard for the Scriptures of the Old Testament, he would never carelessly or lightly put any other composition into that realm of Scripture if it were not worthy of that designation. And here an excerpt from the gospel records, an account of one of the sayings of Jesus is put into that same category. Add to this the personal consciousness of Jesus, Jesus himself with respect to his own words. In Mark 13 and verse 31, our Lord, here speaking of his own personal consciousness of the abiding authority of his own word, says, Mark 13 and verse 31,

13:38 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my, notice, words shall not pass away. Our Lord was conscious not that he simply thought some lofty thoughts and gave some rather loose expression to those thoughts in verbal patterns, but he was conscious that his very words by which he expressed the mind of God were words stamped with abiding validity as nothing less than the very words of God. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my, notice, my words shall never pass away. And the very essence of saving religion or one of the dimensions of it is found in the language of John 17 and verse 8 in which Jesus describing his own people says, I have given unto them thy words and they have received them. So that our Lord Jesus is very conscious that his very words become the vehicle by which eternal life is conveyed to men. And the mark of his own people is that they receive those words. Now do you see the point that I'm driving at in our approach, our attitude, our disposition in the presence of the gospel records?

15:07 We ought to come to them with a holy reverence, a reverence that is rooted in this conviction that to read the gospel records of the doings and the sayings of Jesus as Luke calls them in Acts 1 in verse 1. We are encountering nothing less than the spirit-inspired infallible word of the living God. Now we do not minimize the fact that in these records that we have called the picture galleries of the king, that there is a God-ordained and divinely planned difference of perspective, of language, of emphasis. A divinely planned diversity of selectivity and collation of the materials. And I've emphasized that human element without, I trust, in any way casting aspersions upon the divine element. But here this morning the emphasis falls upon the latter. They are four picture galleries of the king.

16:11 Each one of them reflects the diversity of the perspective and we might even say the psychology of the painter. But when all of them reflect the perspective, the psychology of the painter, the psychology of the painter, when all is said and done, when we walk through those picture galleries of the king, when we come to those selected collections and collations and representations of the sayings of Jesus, what we are dealing with is nothing less than spirit-inspired infallible words of the living and the true God. Whenever we creatures, sinful creatures, stand in the presence of the word of God, we come as, as students and humble believers and never, never, never do we come as judges and critics of that word. We stand under the word as disciples, as learners, as believers. Never over the word as critics and as judges. And then this reverence should not only be born of a conviction that we are dealing with spirit inspired infallible words of God, but secondly, the conviction that when we take up the Gospels in general law or the Gospel of Mark in particular, we shall be held accountable for this unspeakable privilege.

Reverence: Accountability for Unspeakable Privilege

17:38 A reverence born of the conviction that we shall be held accountable for this unspeakable privilege. Turn to Matthew chapter 13 and verse 17. Here the Lord Jesus, Jesus is speaking to his disciples. He says to them in Matthew 13 and verse 17, For truly I say unto you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see and saw them not, the deeds of Jesus, and to hear the things which you hear, the words of Jesus, and heard them not.

18:22 Think of it. Many prophets and righteous men desired to see and to hear what the eyewitnesses of the life and ministry and words of Jesus saw and hear. For centuries, prophets and righteous men had their faith fed by promises, by type, by shadow, by prediction, by promise, but never once, never once, never once, never once, never once, never once, did they see the incarnate God and look upon Him of whom John could say the Word became flesh and tabernacled amongst.

19:09 Not a one of them could ever say with Thomas, My Lord and my God, while clinging to his feet. Many righteous men and many prophets desired to see, desired to hear. Oh yes, they heard Moses. They even heard Jehovah speak from the heavens.

19:31 They heard the great prophets. But they never heard Him who spoke as no man ever spoke. Our Lord says to those of His own day, Many have desired to see and did not, and hear and did not. And when we come to the gospel records, we share in their high privilege.

19:53 And we share in one sense and follow closely. In a degree of privilege and responsibility that even exceeds theirs.

20:05 For now we have the permanent embodiment of all that He did. We don't need to go back from one of those gatherings where a miracle was performed and if we happen to be on the short side or happen to be pushed out to the fringe of the crowd, perhaps only saw a part of the miracle. Perhaps it was the incident in which Jesus healed the blind man. And all we, we could see as a general commotion.

20:31 And we had to ask people, what happened? Were you closer? Well, I saw this. And someone else said, well, I saw that.

20:37 We can turn to the galleries of the King and stand before the inspired picture and all the details that it's necessary for us to have. We can stand and gaze and gaze and gaze and gaze again.

20:55 Some responsibility.

20:58 We can hear and hear and hear and hear again when the Lord Jesus, when Jesus originally spoke the words in Hebrew or Aramaic. And they fell upon Hebrew ears or ears that spoke a diluted Hebrew called Aramaic.

21:16 Then that had to be carried over into another language to be written. And with all the reflection and all the accuracy born of our biblical doctrine of the inspiration of the Spirit, we now have those words before us. We don't need to go home and say, you know, as I was concentrating, on the first part of that sermon on the mount, I missed the middle part. What did he say?

21:39 Well, I'm not quite sure because I was... Here we can sit and reflect and meditate and ponder and ruminate, as it were, in these pastures green and rich with the words of Jesus.

21:55 But I remind you now of Luke 12, 47 and 48. He that knew not his Lord's will and did it not shall be beaten with few strikes, but he who knew his Lord's will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes, for to whom much is given of him shall much be required. We need a reverence in approaching the Gospel records in general and the Gospel of Mark in particular. A reverence born of this conviction that if we are given a privilege denied prophets and righteous men,

22:33 with that privilege comes an awesome responsibility. Jesus was conscious of this in the days of His flesh. He said in John 12 in verses 47 and 48, I do not judge you, that is, I do not judge you now, but the word that I have spoken unto you, it shall judge you in the last day. Will it make a difference when we come to Mark 1, 1 and begin to expound it?

23:03 If you believe that what this preacher is expounding, will meet you again, and will meet you in the very presence of the Christ who speaks, and your eternal destiny will be formally and publicly announced before the entire moral universe by the very one who is set before us in the picture galleries of the King. Will it make a difference in the attitude of holy reverence? Of course it will,

23:35 because there are those in our day who still feel well, scriptures just ink on paper.

23:44 And if you would produce miracles, and if you would produce signs and wonders, then there would be reverence. I remind you, my friend, of Jesus' own words in Luke 16. A man in hell says to Abraham, send someone back, let me go back and warn my brothers that they come not to this place of torment. And what does Abraham say in Luke 16, 29?

24:09 They have Moses and the prophets. If they will not hear them, neither will they believe the one come back from the dead. Listen. If the Old Testament was sufficient to bring a man to repentance and faith so as to enable him to miss hell, and Jesus Christ affirms in this passage that if the Old Testament scriptures are not enough, no miracle will do the job, how much more?

24:40 When we have a man in hell, when we have the picture galleries of the king himself, when we have him who said, my words are spirit and they are life, what a solemn thing to live at this point in history, to have these records before us. And I say, dear people, the only disposition and attitude befitting us is one of reverence, reverence born out of the conviction on the one hand that what we are handling is God's will, is God-inspired, infallible literature, the word that shall never pass away. And we are handling literature for which we shall give an account in the last day. So I am not appealing for a reverence that is born of superstition or hung upon a skyhook, but one that is embedded in that two-fold conviction. But then I must hasten on and concentrate for a few minutes, not quite as long, on the second word, and that is the word dependence. Not only should our approach to the Gospels be marked by reverence, but marked by a spirit, an attitude, a disposition of dependence.

Approach with Dependence: The Necessity of the Holy Spirit

26:00 In particular, dependence upon God for the present and powerful assistance of the Holy Spirit as we study the Gospel records. One might be tempted to think, surely, a walk through the picture galleries of the King will automatically result in men beholding His beauty, becoming, as it were, swallowed up before the display of His grace and power, fascinated and captivated by that grace and power. Furthermore, one might be tempted to think that exposure to the words of Him who spoke as no man spoke, spoke so that people could marvel at the words of grace that proceeded from His mouth. Surely, just letting those words loose will automatically mean that men will be brought under their sway and their power. Would God it were so that it's not. May I remind you that the very picture galleries of the King present one of the most shocking manifestations of human depravity to be found anywhere in the Bible.

27:11 God incarnate is amongst men. Amen. May I say it? Reverend Lee, for the first time in history, men can touch God.

27:23 And what do they do when they can touch Him?

27:28 They put Him on a cross and they take the spit from the mouth and make it drip from His beard.

27:41 He can raise the dead so that they can't deny that He's done the miracle. But they turn around and say, oh yeah, we can't deny it, but you know how He did it? He said, His own flesh and blood, half brothers and sisters, thought He was the one who did it. He was ditched, crazy, few bricks less than a full load.

28:04 He's beside Himself.

28:07 They could look upon incarnate deity.

28:12 They could see Him,

28:15 behold His miracle,

28:19 and bring forth nothing in response but unbelief, cynicism, opposition, and for some of them, ultimately putting Him upon a cross.

28:36 Now you see when the Scripture tells us that no man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Spirit. It's not overstating the case. You will remember, I trust, in Matthew's Gospel, chapter 16, our Lord asked a question of Peter. Who do men say that I am?

28:56 Peter answers. Some say you're this. Some say you're that. But who do you say that I am, Peter?

29:03 And Peter answers and says, Matthew's Gospel, chapter 16,

29:11 in verse 16, And Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you, but my Father who is in heaven. Peter, you've come to the conviction as to the precise nature of my identity. You've been able to confess me to be Son of God, that is, the incarnate God, the second person of the Godhead.

29:47 You have come to the conviction as to my office as Messiah. I am Christ, the Anointed One, the true and final Prophet, Priest, and King. Simon, you didn't come to that because you watched my miracles very carefully and made a very logical analysis of all that was said, and under the power of unblessed, unaided reason, you've come to proper deductions. Flesh and blood.

30:12 Flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you. You did not come to this conviction by logic. You didn't come to this conviction by simply being willing to face the evidence for what it is. My Father, my Father has been at work inwardly and powerfully giving you the ability to perceive me to be who I am as to my person in my office.

30:38 Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you. Now, if that was necessary in the days, you could actually talk to someone who had died and been raised from the dead by the Lord Jesus. Someone who had been truly healed by the Lord Jesus. Who had had a withered hand for years and now had a whole functioning member.

31:02 Someone who had never seen the light of day and the beauty of the sun. Who had never beheld the breathtaking sight of the sunset. But who now could speak of it as the light of day. As one who was blind but could see.

31:16 If, when you had all of that influence, it was necessary to have this inward work of the Father before you could know who He really was. Is it any the less true now?

31:34 That's why Paul could say, no man can call Jesus Lord but by the Holy Spirit. That means that no amount of careful study on my part, and I trust to study carefully, no amount of careful preparation to make the passage live and let it speak in its native power and clarity and particularly in the Gospel of Mark with its tremendous energy and movement. No amount of labor on my part in preparation or preaching will give you any ability to know Christ for who He truly is. You and I stand in a posture of utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit.

32:20 That He would give us eyes to see and ears to hear. And so we must approach our study in a disposition and in a spirit of dependence. Dependence upon God. That He would grant us present and powerful assistance through the Holy Spirit.

Manifestations of Dependence: Prayer and Repudiation of Creature Confidence

32:41 And if that attitude of dependence is present, how will it manifest itself? Well, it will manifest itself by earnest, persistent prayer for the Lord. For the Lord. For the Lord.

32:51 For the Holy Spirit. Luke 11, 13. If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Spirit to those who ask Him? Let me ask you, when those of us who preach lead you in prayer before we preach and cry to God for the Spirit, do you sort of look upon that as a sort of an unnecessary preliminary, let's get down to the business of opening up the text?

33:19 Or do you really enter in with every five minutes the labor of your soul to that prayer, recognizing that there is no power in any preacher or teacher of the Word to give you a saving sight of Christ and a sanctifying encounter with His truth? Oh, if we have this spirit of dependence, it will be manifested in earnest, persistent prayer. It will also be manifested by a vigorous repudiation of all creature confidence. A vigorous repudiation of all creature confidence in ourselves or in the preacher.

33:57 Jeremiah 17, 5, a text that God brings back to me again and again and again. Cursed be he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord. Cursed be the man who trusts in man and whose heart departs from the Lord. What will he be like?

34:22 Look at the description. He shall be like the heath in the desert. She shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. That's the sad description of many people who attend regularly upon a faithful biblical ministry.

34:43 When they should be a well-watered garden, they're like a barren waste salt land.

34:52 And the very ministry that is used of God to make some a fruitful garden leaves them just like Jeremiah's description. And what's the difference? They are full of creature confidence.

35:08 They're too hurried and busy with their own affairs late into Saturday night that there's no planning of time to rise early enough on the Lord's Day to have time alone with God, to cry to God, O God, unto the ministry of the Word. Send the Spirit. Bring the Word beyond the outer vestibule of my physical ear. Lord, bring it to my heart with power.

35:37 No time to cry to God for the preaching. Your confidence, well, he's been preaching for over 30 years, does a fairly decent job of it. He'll produce again this morning.

35:48 I ask you, my friend, do you come to the Word with a spirit of dependence, not only manifested in earnest, persistent prayer, but by a vigorous, robust repudiation of all creature confidence? And thirdly, by a present confession and mortification of all that would grieve or quench the Spirit? You can't know the Spirit's gracious, powerful influence under the preaching of the Word if you are willfully grieving and quenching Him by refusing to confess and mortify sin that causes His grief? Ephesians 4.30 Do you grieve not the Holy Spirit of God? For a grieved spirit becomes a withdrawn spirit. God have mercy on us the day the Holy Ghost is not present powerfully and effectively to make Christ known to us in the preaching. But then finally, our attitude and disposition should be marked not only by this spirit of reverence, the spirit of dependence, but thirdly, by a spirit of expectancy.

Approach with Expectancy: The Unique Nature of Gospel Literature

37:01 Now the word expectancy, expectancy is a word that we all ought to know something about around here. We have so many expectant mothers. When are you expecting? And we know what we mean by that terminology.

37:17 And so expectancy means that we're looking forward for something to happen. And I say that a proper disposition in coming to the gospel records in general to study them on our own or when they are preached in the gospel of Mark in particular as we shall do in weeks and months to come, a proper disposition will be marked by this quality of expectancy.

37:44 Now, in what area should we be expectant? Well, let me try to open it up and then I'll use the help of the servant of God of another generation. You see, the gospels are utterly unique as literature. There is a uniqueness which cannot be claimed for any other form of literature and the uniqueness lies in the fact that the great subject of the gospels lives and by his spirit fills the narrative with himself and deigns to come in his livingness and power into the very situation in which the narrative is being expounded.

38:28 Now, I have never read anything that so perceptively and the inward now is insightfully. I don't even know if it's a proper word but it's used. Sets forth this truth then Hugh Martin, a Scotsman of another generation, in his book called The Abiding Presence, he lays out what has been to me a most helpful perspective. Turn to Matthew's gospel, chapter 1, as I try to set before you the framework for this expectancy.

The Problem of Biography Alone vs. Presence Alone (Hugh Martin)

39:00 Notice how Matthew begins his gospel.

39:06 We would think that what we are about to encounter is straight biography or the memoirs of the central personage. The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. So he gives what we would call his family tree, his genealogy. And we are informed at the very beginning that what we are going to read in Matthew's gospel is at least in part a biography or a graphical sketch.

39:38 Notice verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. He gives us his background, his genealogy. Now his birth, verse 1 of chapter 2.

39:49 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. And then we read the record. Then in chapter 3, verse 13, then comes Jesus from Galilee to the Jordan under John, verse 1 of chapter 4. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit, it's very evident that Matthew is giving us biographical snippets of biographical sketch, not in a balanced, comprehensive way as we've already seen in a previous study, but according to a predetermined perspective and plan and purpose.

40:25 But we have essentially then the memoirs, the remains of Jesus of Nazareth, son of David, son of Abraham. But now notice how Matthew closes his gospel. On the threshold he announces that there will be biography. But then there is a fascinating word with which the gospel closes.

40:50 And it is these words. Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world. I am with you always or literally all of the days even unto the consummation of the age. And what is that?

41:11 Well, it is a pledge and promise of his abiding presence with his people to the end of the age. A promise secured by the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. And we could establish that from John 14, 15, and 16 in particular. Now, the question Hugh Martin raises is this.

41:34 Put on your thinking cap and follow me now. I'm most anxious that God help us to grasp this perspective. Hugh Martin asked the question what would happen if all we had was the biography? If all we had was the record of Jesus of Nazareth?

41:53 Who he was? What he did? Snippets? Excerpts?

41:58 Of what he said? If all we had was biography? Even spirit-inspired biography? Accurate biography?

42:08 What would be the result in our own religious experience if all we had was biography? Well, let Hugh Martin speak in his own words because he speaks with a burning eloquence and accuracy that goes beyond anything I'm capable of and I want you to get the best. Give me his biography alone. It is full of marvels.

42:31 It is interesting beyond measure. I read and I re-read it. And if I render it the tribute of my belief, I feel that it is I feel as if I never could have enough of it. But if this is all, I feel also that I'm dealing merely with a history, a record of what is long past and gone, of events that are interesting in themselves, but in which I can assert or make out no direct, personal, present interest of my own.

43:02 I may envy those who actually listened to the gracious words or saw the glorious works of power and mercy here recorded, and very specially, I may envy those to whom testimonies or messages of personal love were delivered or on whom deeds of healing virtue and sanctifying grace were achieved. Oh, would that I had been there! Thou friend of grace, thou king of glory, will that I also may be clean. Command this evil spirit, this strong corruption, to come out of me and enter me no more.

43:39 This evil spirit, this all so I would that you should do unto me, even that I may receive my sight. Blessed Master, question me also, as with thy searching loving eye, thy piercing tender voice, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Enable me also to say unto thee, Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee.

44:05 Alas, it is but a fond imagination. It is but the confidence, the keen and quickened action of my fancy. At the best, I can only form a vivid conception of the scene which the record commemorates and delude myself with the pleasing dream that I was there. And as I awake from my dream, I feel painfully that I am alone with a dead history in my hands.

44:36 Give me the biography alone and the more my heart were adequately moved in reading it, so much the more mournfully would I regret that all these sayings and doings of Jesus are numbered among the things that were. You see his point? To read the biography, if that's all it were, is to be filled with a holy longing, a desperate frustration. Oh, that I could have been there.

45:04 Oh, that I could see him. Oh, that I could hear him. The biography alone cannot meet the deepest longing, the deepest sense of my own heart that needs the word of grace, that needs the attestation of his power, that needs the conveyance of his love. Then he asked the question, suppose on the other hand we had no biography, but just the promise of the presence.

45:28 We had a promise that said, I am with you, but no biography to tell us who it is that is with us. How can we conceive of him in his presence? So he takes up the question. Give me the promise, let me know his presence alone.

45:43 Let me know that a living but invisible person is present with me. And suppose that this is all I have the means of knowing. I'm made solemn. I'm filled with awe.

45:55 But how exactly to conceive of him who is thus with me? I'm at a loss. Assure me merely of his presence and all is vague and hazy, very solemnizing. And if I have confidence in his friendliness, very encouraging and considerate, consoling, but very indefinite also, a weighty, almost an oppressive sense of the unseen presence may be upon my heart.

46:22 But no clear, impressive view of it can be before my mind. I've leapt very much to my own discretion in trying to conceive of him who is all the time actually present with me. But then it is just from my own discretion I crave in so solemn a matter to be thoroughly set free. I cannot consent to invest this unseen one with the forms of my own thoughts which are not his thoughts.

46:49 My emotions, imaginations, and conceptions which are not as his. I know that I cannot but fall over into mere pietistic, sentimental conceptions of his presence and perhaps even into fanatical emotions begotten of the belief that he is present with me. The more, therefore, I have cause to adore and love him, the more I know I need intelligently to appreciate and trust him, so much the more must I shrink from clothing him to my own apprehension with any ideal character of my framing, an ideal that could be framed only from the elements of my own character and that could not possibly transcend the utmost of my own powers of conceiving the beautiful and the good. Oh, that I had some means of forming an exact and worthy conception of him who is ever with me, a true and authorized idea of him. Would that there were some mirror in which I might behold his glory well defined, where I might see the exact features of his character, where especially I might read the outgoings in precise and definite action of his disposition and desire toward sinners, some radiant mirror where I might see the glory of the God in the face of Jesus Christ, some living oracle where I might hear his voice in articulate discourse and conversation with me.

48:19 You see his point? If I picked up and read, Lo, I am with you, but that's all I have, and I try to conceive he is with me, yes, but with me in what capacity, with what disposition, with what reaction to human need, with what attitude and perspective upon pride upon pride, and unbelief, upon suffering and grief and pain. And Hugh Martin makes the point, I would be left at the mercy of my own imagination. That's the essence of idolatry.

The Coalescence of Biography and Presence: The Living Christ

48:52 So you see the frustration if we had only the biography. On the one hand there would be wistful longings, here is the accurate picture, but it is all a part of the things that were once upon a time, but that time is past. If I had only the promise of the presence, there could be a haunting, at times comforting sense of the nearness of a divine personage by the Spirit, but I could not clothe that in anything distinct and precise. But thank God in the Gospels the two are brought together.

49:30 We have the biography and we have the presence. And when we do, what is the result? I let Hugh Martin speak again on this point. With his sure and spiritual presence then, let it be my privilege to possess his clear and definite biography.

49:50 Give me the presence of the Lord, not vague, indistinct and ghostly, silent, oppressive and almost appalling, but as uttering the very sayings and achieving the very works of grace and love that the biography records. Let me hear this Savior present with me, saying, as in this history to Peter, James, and John, what I say to you, I say to all. So I am entitled to hear it as said to me. Let the ever-present Christ make his presence with me definite, intelligible, and most distinct, and proffering to me, as still full of life and spirit, of grace and glory, the very words he uttered and the works he did in the days of his flesh. Let him enshrine his promised presence with the very lines and limits of the biography, and I no more complain that this presence is indefinite, intangible, vague, difficult of apprehension, destitute of use, incapable of being practically improved, or rationally conceived of, or validly defended. No, he is present with me now, in all revealed distinctness and precision. His own blessed voice speaks with me in the lively oracles, his own blessed face looks forth upon me, from the now living picture of his biography.

51:18 The Lord himself is with me, not to my fancy, not to my pious sentiment, but with me truly and in truth, present with me, as he is portrayed in the record of the Gospels. Thus the presence gives reality, present reality and life to the biography, and the biography supplies me, to the otherwise indefinite presence, distinct manifestation, action and utterance. The biography is enlivened by the presence, and the presence is defined by the biography. The biography is very lifelike, but without the presence it is not living.

52:00 The presence, on the other hand, is living, but without the biography it is far from lifelike. Yet what Christ by his promise has joined, let not unbelief put asunder. Let the biography and the presence be joined and coalesce. The biography then is not dead.

52:18 The living one lives in it. The presence is not mysterious and vague, for he is present as in the mirror of the biography, and according to the well-deflined reflected glory there. The biography is more than a biography now. It is the very life of Jesus.

52:39 I hope you've grasped that. I did not pray that God will give you eyes to get hold of that principle. As we come to our study in the Gospel of Mark, we should come with the spirit of expectancy, and expectancy born of this conviction that our Lord Jesus Christ, whose life, whose deeds, whose death, whose resurrection is recorded in the Gospel of Mark, is not merely to be beheld as he was then, in terms of what he said then and did then, but he is present now by his spirit to take that biography and to make it the very framework within which we conceive of our blessed Lord according to truth and reality, and to have heart dealings with him, so that we will not merely admire the grace that says to the paralytic let down by the four sun, thy sins be forgiven thee, but we shall hear him speaking to us, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee, that that word will become the word of life to our hearts, and Christ in all of his livingness desires to meet with us. And you see, my unsaved friend, this is what it means to preach the Gospel. What we proclaim to you

The Gospel Call: Embracing the Living Person of Christ

54:06 is not rituals and rites and forms and ceremonies or mere dogmas. Nor do we call upon you to submit to rituals, rites, forms or empty dogmas. What we proclaim to you are the facts about a living person. We proclaim to you the facts of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the incarnate Son of God, who lived the perfect life we did not live, who died the sinner's death, who was buried, who was raised from the dead.

54:37 But we do not call you simply to embrace those things, to embrace those tenets. We call upon you, having announced those facts, to embrace him. He calls you to himself, as surely as he stood on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and said, Peter, James, Andrew, John, follow me. So he comes in his own word and by his spirit and says, Follow me.

55:05 Come into living, trustful attachment to my person. And in that attachment all the virtue of my work will be yours. My death, your death. My resurrection, your resurrection.

55:21 But that is only known in the bond of faith, the personal bond between the sinner and the Savior. And that's why I personally look forward to this preaching through the Gospel of Mark, so that if nothing else is made plain to us, that truth will become part and parcel of the spiritual consciousness of this congregation. As we stand on the threshold of new dimensions of responsibility and outreach and ministry in this community, what is it that we're calling people to? Is it that we have a unique slant on a few doctrines of the Bible?

55:57 No, a thousand times no. God may in grace have given us some understanding of certain aspects of biblical truth not understood or loved, loved by others, but that is not the heart of what it's all about. The heart of what it's all about is that we believe Christ lives. And by the Spirit, Christ in His livingness is the Christ whose heart is moved with compassion even upon upper middle class affluent Americans, whose heart is broken by the tragedy of fractured lives and meaningless existence, whose heart is grieved and moved and pained when He sees sheep without a shepherd. And what we proclaim to men is that Christ in all His loveliness, in all His livingness, in all His grace and compassion, in all His holy hatred for hypocrisy, in all of His holy violence at anything that would profane the sanctuary of His Father's dwelling, the Christ of holy anger, the Christ of tender compassion, the Christ of infinite wisdom. This is what we proclaim. And to us, the people of God, what is the bottom line that determines when all is said and done

57:23 whether or not we're really growing in grace? Is it not in your own experience the degree to which you maintain true, living, vital communion with the person of Jesus Christ? Is it not true in your experience when He is near and precious, everything else seems to fall into place, but when He becomes distant and anything or any other person rivals His affection, everything gets clouded. Isn't it true?

58:01 Isn't it true in your experience? It's true in mine. Oh, may we come with expectancy that beholding our Lord we shall love Him as we've never loved Him before. And loving Him intelligently and trustfully, we shall obey Him and serve Him with a vigor that we have never known before.

Conclusion: A Call to Reverence, Dependence, and Expectancy

58:22 May we come then by God's grace to these gospel records with a disposition and a spirit marked by these three simple but also necessary things, reverence, dependence, and expectancy. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank You that Your dear Son lives. And that He is present with us by His own Holy Spirit.

58:56 And we ask that You will, by Your grace and power, give us again and again, if it pleases You, to spare us and bring us together for these studies in the Gospel of Mark, the very felt presence of Your dear Son, that He may stand amongst us, as it were, by the Spirit, doing His own may, doing His own mighty works, of subduing the powers of evil that work within our own hearts, breaking the chains that have bound some, drawing us all into deeper and more precious communion with Himself. Seal Your Word to our hearts and be with us as we further sanctify this day to Your praise and to our profit, we plead through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.