The Last Old Testament Prophet

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Mark? Mark chapter 1.

I'm excited. This session gave me permission to preach a gospel. So it's fun to preach through the pastoral epistles. It's fun to preach through the Old Testament, but there's something special about specifically looking at Jesus. And so as we come into this wonderful book of Mark, it's a short gospel. It's a powerful gospel. We're going to look Just the beginning part, the first eight verses this morning. Mark chapter 1, verses 1 through 8. Hear now God's Word. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight.

John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Then all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, There comes one after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal straps I am not worthy to stoop down and loose.

Prayer for Illumination

I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for Your Word and most for Your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray that as we read Your Word this morning, that You would inscribe it on our hearts with an iron pin. Father, I pray that You would give me words to speak this morning, that Your people might behold Your glory. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Sermon

Mark is a short book I have lots of nerdy things to tell you about the book of Mark, but I'm going to save those for Chalk and Talk. By the way, that's not this week, that's next week. But we're going to, at Chalk and Talk, I'm going to tell you who Mark is and where he came from and what he's doing, but let me just summarize real quick. Mark has two things that he wants to push on us as we go through his gospel.

First is that Jesus Christ is the Christ. He is the Messiah. And secondly, what does it mean to follow Jesus? First, Jesus is the Christ. And secondly, what does it mean to be a follower or a disciple of Jesus? And so it's apropos, it's very fitting that the very first verse is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

You might not know it, but between these words and the book of Malachi, there's been 400 years of prophetic silence. 400 years in which there has not been a prophet to say, thus saith the Lord. 400 years in which it seems that the heavens were shut up and God allowed His people to exist. but not necessarily flourish. A time in which the prophets had left them, if you read through the minor prophets again and again and again, saying, the day of the Lord is coming, the day of the Lord is coming, the day of the Lord is coming, someday His anointing is going to come, someday He's going to make things right. But for 400 years, it's been this hope. And now, the good news, that's what gospel means. The good news is that Jesus has come.

Now Jesus is just kind of like if you named someone John today. Right? If you go to the phone book, I know those don't really exist much anymore, but if you go to the phone book, pick your finger in a page, you're going to find a John somewhere on that page. Same thing with the book Jesus at that time. It just means Joshua.

So who is this guy? Well, he is Jesus. Not just any Jesus. He is the Christ. It's not his last name. That's his title. That's his position. That is his messianic, anointed role. See, in the Old Testament, if you were the Christ, this is the translation for the word Messiah. It's the anointed one. And if we went to the Old Testament, you would find people being anointed. Do you remember when Samuel went to King David when he was just a boy? And he went through all the older brothers going down the line.

No, not this one. No, not this one. No, not this one. No, not this one. And finally he said, don't you have any other boys? And they said, yeah, we got a little runt of a brother out in the field. And he says, go get him. They bring David in. And what does the prophet Samuel do? He takes oil and he anoints him as the king. It's that same king, David, in 2 Samuel chapter 7, that God makes him a promise. God himself makes David a promise that someday, someday he was going to have a son. And that son would be king forever. And then David had Solomon.

But he died. And then there was Jeroboam. But he died. There's king after king after kings. The kids and I in family worship right now are working through 1st and 2nd Kings, and we just get to the end of every story of the Kings, and guess what happens at the end of every story? And he died. And the rest of his acts, are they not written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? And so every time a king dies, it's like, oh, that wasn't the guy. Oh, that wasn't the guy. Oh, that wasn't him. He wasn't the true anointed one. He wasn't the one who's going to finally establish a righteous kingdom.

But now Mark starts his gospel and he says, there's some good news. Jesus, the anointed one, has come. Jesus, the Messiah, has come. But see, it's better than David. Notice his title here. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I'm going to let you know, I'm going to try to avoid harmonizing the gospels as much as I can. I'm going to try to keep Mark intact. It's just what Mark says. It's just these short stories, but we know from the other gospels. that Jesus Christ was not born of ordinary means, ordinary generation.

He was born of a virgin. He is a son of God himself to fulfill the messianic prophecies said of him in the words you just sang in Psalm 2. He is the king who is the son. He is the one who is greater than David. In Psalm 110, my Lord said to my Lord, sit here at my right hand. Yahweh is speaking to Jesus Christ there. It is Jesus who is the anointed one. It is Jesus who is the very Son of God. So this good news, This good news isn't something that came out of the blue, but just as it is written in the prophets.

Look with me at verses two and three. Behold, I am sending my messenger before your face. This is a quotation of Malachi 3.1. In order to prepare your way before you. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make his path straight. Isaiah chapter 40, verse 3.

This is where I want you to go ahead and take your bulletin and put it here in the book of Mark. I'm serious, put your bulletin in the book of Mark, not the one you're taking notes with, but the rest of your bulletin. You got like six pieces of paper, put one of them there in Mark, and let's go over to the book of Isaiah. This is just too good to pass up.

Isaiah chapter 40. He quotes verse 3, but often when an author in the New Testament is quoting one thing the prophet said, he's typically taking a whole chunk, and it's like just a little earmark, and saying, remember that whole chapter back there? Remember that whole prophecy? I think it's helpful for us to remember in the context of here, and thinking about the people who are longing for a Messiah.

Comfort! Yes, comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, for she has received from the Lord's hand double all her sins." Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing? If you have been in warfare for years, and someone is able to come to you and say, No more war, no more fighting, no more bloodshed, no more death.

God says, I'm going to send a prophet, and he's going to make that declaration. The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Right? Do you hear it? All the crooked things in life are going to be made straight. All the things that are high and lifted up, exalted, guess what they're going to happen? They're going to be brought low. And all the low and humble, guess what's going to happen to those places? They're going to be raised up. And the Lord is going to display His glory. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed together, and all flesh shall see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken. This is the desire of the saints. from all the way in the Old Testament to now.

Let me ask, if God came to you today and he said, hey, you wanna see my face? You'd be like, whoa, what do you mean? You wanna see my face? This is what Moses desired? Lord, let me see your face. He said, you can't see my face, you'll die. You can't behold my glory, you'll die. But here's saying someday that's going to happen. Mark is telling us we behold God's glory by seeing Jesus Christ. We behold God's glory by looking upon his son. The voice said, cry out. And he said, what shall I cry?

All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass." Isn't that true? Right? We're all going to die. We're all going to go away, so what hope is there? The grass withers, verse 8, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

O Zion, who can bring glad tidings? Do you know what that word is there, glad tidings? Do you know what that word is when they translate it from Hebrew into Greek? Who can bring the gospel? Glad tidings is translated gospel. Who can bring glad tidings? Get up into the mountain, O Jerusalem, you who bring the Gospel. Lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up. Be not afraid. Say to the cities of Judah, Behold your God."

Do you get what he's saying? Somebody's going to show them who God is. What God is like. what His love looks like, what His righteousness looks like, what His anger for sin looks like. Behold, the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him. Behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young."

We're going to read in a second in Mark where John is going to say, John the baptizer is going to say, I'm not even worthy to untie his shoes because he's greater than I am. This is what John has in mind when he's thinking as he's preaching this. As he is the voice crying out in the wilderness, behold your God. It's Jesus he wants them to see. It's Jesus that Mark wants you to see. It's Jesus that the Holy Spirit is pressing on you this morning to see that He is the Great Shepherd. He is the mighty one of Israel.

He is the one that in verse 10 says he comes with a strong hand, he rules with a mighty right arm, but yet for you his people, how does he treat you? Like lambs, he picks up in his arms and carries in his bosom, shelters you from the blast of the cold, protects you from the wolves who would come, watches over your soul, as a shepherd cares for the smallest of you lambs. I don't want you to walk away from here this morning having a small view of Jesus. If you walk away from the book of Mark and you have a small view of who Jesus is, you will have missed the entire point of the book of Mark. The entire message of this is that we would know the good news that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come. And so God sends His last prophet. R.C. Sproul used to love to trick his seminary students. Sproul was a jokester, if you've ever heard.

He always had these funny things. I remember this story. He was sitting right there in a chair one time, and there was an elder there, and somebody was playing bagpipes in church or something. And he looked over at the guy, and he said, isn't it nice that they call them pipers? I mean, they could have called them bags. He always had this sense of humor about him, you know?

And so one time, he would trick his seminary students. He would say, who was the last Old Testament prophet? People would say, well, it was Malachi. And they would fight about it, like trying to put the books in chronological order and stuff, and he says, y'all are wrong. It's John. Because John is the last prophet of the Old Testament. He's the last prophet of the Old Covenant. He was the one who was saying, the old order has come. Prepare now the way of the Lord, make straight His path. He was the last one to say, the old way is done, guys.

Turn from your sins. Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Now is the day to turn your eyes towards the One who is greater than I." And this is where it begins in verse 4. And John came in the wilderness and cried out, baptizing for the remission of sins. For repentance and for the forgiveness of sins.

This is John. doing something that people would not have normally done. To baptize someone who is a Jewish person, by the way, notice it's all the people from all around Judea and Jerusalem who are coming out to the wilderness to see this guy. This was a ceremony that was done by converts. If you were an Edomite, and you wanted to say that Jehovah was your God and you're going to only worship at the temple, and you wanted to come into Judaism, you would go and be immersed in the water. Even still today, Jewish people do this. If you were to go and convert to Judaism, you would have to, around here, you'd have to go up to the Quad Cities, and there's a synagogue that has a mikvot in it, a cleansing pool in it, and you would have to go down into the pool and get cleansed and come up as a Jewish person. And yet, Jewish people are going out to John.

God is doing something in our hearts. They're recognizing that something isn't right in their lives. And they need to confess their sins. They need to repent. This idea of repentance is, I was walking this way. I was walking towards death, and now I need to do a 180 degree turn. I need to walk towards God. Right? I was going one way that was against the Lord, and now I'm turning and walking in God's ways. The pathway was crooked and I need to turn and get back on the right path. John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Then all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

Now this is a powerful thing. They're confessing their sins to other people. to both God and other people. When we come to Jesus's ministry, we're going to see sinners doing this in an amazing way. People like Matthew, who would line his pockets with people's tax money. Not just confessing his sins, right? That's part of it. But what does repentance look like? Matthew restores everything he had taken wrongly. These people are confessing their sins.

They didn't go out there to find some dude. You know, if I was a little bit more bold, then maybe I would have gone to Joanne Fabrics or something yesterday and gotten a different outfit. They didn't go out to see someone in a shiny tie or a suit. But they find someone with camel's hair, a leather belt.

And the dude's a man of the wilderness. He's eating locusts. I'm sure we have some crickets. I hear one right now. How would you like that for your diet? Put a little bit of wild honey on the top. Probably give you some decent fiber. I don't know. I don't want to try it. You let me know.

That was his diet. They're not going out there to see one of the normal prophets. This dude is something else. And he's out in the wilderness, and he's preaching this radical doctrine of you've got to confess your sins, you need to repent and turn towards God, and you've got to be baptized.

I know that you're a Jewish person by birth, but you've got to be a Jewish person by faith. Indeed, he's fulfilling the role of Elijah. If you turned into the book of 1 Kings, you would find Elijah there, or 2 Kings, sorry, 2 Kings chapter 1. You would find Elijah, there's this interesting story going back and forth between one of the kings of the northern kingdom, and he wants to get a word from the prophets of Baal.

So he sends out a messenger, and Elijah is told by the Lord, the king's sending a messenger, go play an interception. And so he goes there, and he intercepts the king's messengers, and he tells them, is there not a God in Jerusalem? He tells them that these things are going to fail. They go back up to the king, and the messengers tell the king what's going on, and they say, who told you this?

He said, I don't know, the dude had camel's hair and a leather belt. He said, it was Elijah the Tishbite. Here we find the last Elijah, preparing the way for Christ. John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

But he preached saying, this was the content of his message that, again, the Holy Spirit this morning wrote these words on these pages that you might walk away from here knowing. There comes one after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I indeed baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." The content of John's message was self-deprecating. It was not about him. It was about one who is greater than him.

He says that there is one crying, or there is one who is mightier than I. And I wish there was an English way to put this, but it's a double negative. In English, when we have a double negative, it means that it's actually positive. I think there's a math teacher in the room that can explain that to me some other time. But in grammar, that might be true in English and in math. But in Greek, you have two negatives.

It's just enforcing it. It's like, no, you will certainly never get out of that room until it's clean. I think that makes sense in English. You can correct me later. But that's the way it's being used here. John's thoughts of Christ is that I can't ever, there's no way I would even stack up close enough that if he had all these servants, you know, someone to help him robe and someone to help him close and someone to help him do all these things, I'm not even worthy to get down on my hands and feet and untie his sandals.

That's how mighty of a king he is. That's how strong his right arm is. That's how wonderful of a prince of peace he is. He's so mighty. He's so excellent. He's so great. I can't even untie his shoes, guys. So John wants to point us to this Christ. He wants to point us to a Jesus who's greater than himself. He says, and when he comes, verse 8, he's going to do something amazing.

See, because you all are coming out here into the wilderness, and you're seeing John baptized, right? You're coming out and seeing some guy dressed in camel's hair and a leather belt, and he's eating wild locusts and honey. That's all great and dandy, but guess what? There's going to come someone who's going to baptize you with something better than this Jordan River.

The promise that God made in Ezekiel 36, that he's going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit, that he's going to circumcise your heart, that he's going to take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, it's that Jesus. He's the one who's greater than I am. I need to ask you, who's Jesus to you? I need to ask you this, this morning, as we start wrestling through the book of Mark, are you prepared to meet a Jesus who is a strong king?

We're going to move through these stories, and I mean we're talking about fast. We're going to move through these stories, and you're going to see again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, Jesus does miraculous things. Jesus heals amazing people. Jesus does incredible things with nature. And I need you to question your heart. Are you ready to meet the King of the universe who stretched out the stars? Who measured the earth? Who spoke and all things come into existence?

This is the Jesus that Mark is going to present to us. And if you come into church and you're ready to just interact with a Jesus who's all lovey-dovey, and not come into the fact that He is the King of Kings, you're going to miss who Jesus is. Jesus isn't our homeboy. He's our older brother. He is the husband of the church, the head of the church, but he is the king of kings.

And this is what Mark wants to push. This is what the Holy Spirit is going to impress on our hearts as we work through this passage. Who is Jesus as the promised Messiah, as the Son of God? And what does it mean to follow a king like that? Let me warn you, it's costly. but it's glorious.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for sending us the Christ, for sending us your only begotten Son. And Father, we pray that as we work through the book of Mark, that we would behold your glory. Father, we pray that you would be more marvelous in our eyes more grand in our sight than we have ever known before. Father, we pray that we might taste and see that the Lord is good.

In Jesus' name. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.