Posted on 02/17/2021 6:58:17 PM PST by Charles Henrickson
“Repent and Believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:1-20)
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first of the forty days of Lent. And while we’re not able to meet in person today, due to adverse travel conditions, we still are able to meet here, online, to meditate on God’s Word. And we’re thankful for that.
One thing we’re encouraging our people to do this year for our Lenten devotion is to “Read Mark.” That is, we have recommended a schedule for reading through the Gospel of Mark over the forty days of Lent. The readings average only about seventeen verses a day, so that’s very manageable. We’ve included the reading plan as a bulletin insert the last couple of Sundays, I’ve posted the schedule on my Facebook page, and I’ve sent it out to our members for whom I have email addresses. If you would like a copy of the “Read Mark” devotional plan, let me know, with your email address, and I can email it to you.
The first reading today, to begin our readthrough of this gospel, is from Mark chapter 1, the first twenty verses. And not only does it get us started in Mark, it also works to get us going in Lent. For Lent is a penitential season, a season of repentance, as we hear now in the words of our Savior, “Repent and Believe in the Gospel.”
We’ll focus on verses 14 and 15, where it says, “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” This is our text.
Jesus’ proclamation of the gospel begins with an announcement: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” What does Jesus mean by this?
First, “The time is fulfilled.” That is to say, everything that has been leading up to this moment and preparing for this time has now come to pass. All of Israel’s history, all of human history, has reached the point God had in mind. The prophecies foretelling what the Lord would do--those prophecies have now reached the point of fulfillment. This is the moment the world has been waiting for. Indeed, this is the moment the Lord has been waiting for and working toward. It is now here in the coming of Christ. All that is packed into Jesus’ words, “The time is fulfilled.” Think of what St. Paul says in Galatians, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son.” And this was that fullness of time. This was just the right moment for Jesus to come on the scene.
The time is fulfilled, “and the kingdom of God is at hand.” The kingdom of God: This is God’s gracious rule and reign among men. It is God’s end-time kingdom of grace and blessing. And Jesus is the king who ushers it in. That’s why Jesus can say that the kingdom is “at hand.” It’s right here among you. The kingdom arrives with the presence of Jesus. That’s how it comes near.
The Lord had promised this end-time kingdom in the prophecies of the Old Testament. The arrival of this kingdom would mark a time of marvelous abundance and blessing, of a sea-change in the affairs of men, and of a seismic shift in the ages. God would visit his people to bless them and redeem them. The Lord would come to act both in salvation and in judgment. All of that is wrapped up in Jesus’ announcement, “The kingdom of God is at hand.”
If the time was fulfilled and the kingdom of God was at hand back then, it is certainly fulfilled and at hand now. So now what? What does this mean for our lives? What is Jesus’ message to us in view of these things? Here it is: “Repent and believe in the gospel.”
Repent and believe: The two go together like hand in glove. You don’t have one without the other. When Jesus calls you to repent, he also calls you to believe. Jesus calls you to believe in the gospel, so that your repentance would not leave you desolate and in despair.
“Repent and believe in the gospel.” What is Jesus saying to us with “Repent”? He’s saying: Turn from your sins. Turn away from them in sorrow and contrition. Mourn how you have messed things up. Change your mind, change your whole way of thinking. Turn from the world’s way of thinking and from the selfish desires of your flesh. Recognize how you have broken God’s commandments: that you have not loved God with your whole heart, that you have not loved your neighbor as yourself. For that’s what sin is. That’s what being a sinner is. Own it. Confess it. Don’t rationalize your sins or excuse them away. Don’t get by with just comparing yourself to other people, focusing on how bad they are. No, look in the mirror. See how you yourself have sinned--in thought, word, and deed, in what you have done wrong and in what you have failed to do right. Admit that you’re a sinner, lost without God’s mercy and forgiveness, with no righteousness of your own that would avail before God. Recognize your emptyhandedness before God’s throne of judgment. All of that is what’s packed into this one word, “Repent.” Do you hear this call to repentance? Jesus is speaking to you today.
But thank God, Jesus has another word to speak to us today. And it is this: “Believe in the gospel.” The gospel is the good news of God’s undeserved grace and favor toward sinners like you and me. This is something to rejoice over, that God speaks words of salvation and grace to us, words of comfort and consolation.
Now this gospel is not just some vague, fuzzy fluff, like “Everything’s OK. God’s a nice old softy. He doesn’t take sin that seriously.” No, it goes much deeper than that. And it has very specific content. The gospel is very specifically focused on and centered on God’s own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the only gospel there is. For Jesus Christ is the heart and soul of the gospel. His person, his work--the person and work of Christ is the specific content of this good news. Who Jesus is and what he has done--this is what makes the gospel good news.
You see, this man Jesus who is going about Galilee--he is the very Son of God come in the flesh, come down to earth to bring salvation to lost sinners. True God and true man, he is our brother and our Savior. As our brother, he fulfills the law on our behalf, always doing the right thing, the way man was meant to do it. And Jesus then is our substitute in taking the punishment that the law requires for sinners. Even though he had no sins of his own, Christ bore our sins in his body on the cross. He shed his holy precious blood for our forgiveness. And because he is the holy Son of God doing these things, his sacrifice is sufficient for all of us, for all men everywhere. Christ’s righteousness is enough to cover the entire world. God pronounces us righteous for his sake. It’s a free gift.
This gift, then, is received through faith. That’s why Jesus says, “Believe in the gospel.” To believe, biblically speaking, is not just to know about something in your head, with no connection to your life. No, rather, to believe is to trust, to entrust yourself to this gospel of Christ, to know in your heart that this is your only hope of righteousness before God. “Believe in the gospel,” that is to say, Trust in Christ. Take refuge in him. He is your Savior. He will save you from your sins. He will save you from death and damnation. He will save you by the power of his resurrection to eternal life, so that you will share in his resurrection on the last day. This is the content of our faith.
And this faith is worked in you by the Holy Spirit, creating faith and nurturing your faith through the means of grace, Word and Sacrament. The fact that you trust in Christ--this is itself a gift from God. The Holy Spirit gave you this gift of faith in Holy Baptism, and he continues to strengthen your faith as you receive Christ’s body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. God’s mighty Word creates and awakens the very faith it calls for. And this is why it is so vitally important that you continue steadfast in the Word and the Sacraments, in the life of the church gathered together.
“Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” Dear friends, Jesus comes to us today, to our Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God. It’s time for us, on this Ash Wednesday and throughout this season of Lent, to hear his call to repent and believe the gospel. And as you read Mark over these forty days, you will grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and unto the ages of ages. Amen.
LOL, your noise is so predictable I don’t even waste time reading your false interpretations. But of course you post these lengthy effluent in hopes of doing your father’s business, confuse and divert from The Word of God Truth. That’s your cue to spittle out a diatribe against Darby and the pre-trib Rapture, preterist. Run along and feed yourself a full dose of The City of God, Augustine wants you to endorse kingdom now deceit in his absence.
MHG - your pre-tribulation rapture interpretation is from the 19th century.
Quite clearly your interpretation is a false one that the majority of Christians rejected and reject today.
Let’s simplify it for you — the pre-trib rapture denies Christ’s very words and twists Paul’s writings.
when Christ returns to the earth’s atmosphere, He will have returned to earth, not up in the air.
Atta boy, stay consistently wrong, as has been shown to you from as far back as Jesus in John 14.
All Christian’s before Darby rejected any concept of a pre tribulation rapture.
The pre tribulation rapture is a 19th century fantasy.
John 14:19 “Because I live, you also will live” shows how wrong your rapture theory that Jesus is trapped in heaven is.
John 15:18 also explicitly rejects a pre tribulation rapture.
John 16:2” They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God” shows that this is still in the 1st century when Christianity remained just a Jewish sect.
John 16:16:”Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.””
Makes it abundantly clear that he didn’t mean 2000 years later
THAT is a lie and it only takes one of more than thirty references to prove you're lying. The sermon known as the Pseudo-Ephrain, daterd to between 400 and 600 AD, speaks of the pre-tribulation departure of the Body of Christ. You are an exposed liar now. You are showing yourself to be a son of perdition, preterist.
Dude, I’ve read those arguments given by Darbyist and they don’t even look up the points. Have you?
Here, let me repeat the arguments of the Darbyists
Firstly, it’s called pseudo as we’re pretty sure it wasn’t written by Ephraim. The word “Pseudo” (Greek for false) is a prefix attached by scholars to the name of a famous historical person or book of the Bible when one writes using that name. Pseudo-Ephraem claims that his sermon was written by Ephraem of Nisibis (306-73), Rather it dates to the 8th century. However that is irrelevant to the point we are discussing.
Secondly, what does it say?
For all the saints and the elect of God are gathered and joined to the Lord before the tribulation that is to come, lest at any time they experience the confusion that will overwhelm the whole world because of our sins. It would be easy to read into these texts a pre-tribulation rapture, if that is what someone wants them to say. However, to do so is to succumb to confirmation bias (a term that is used for the inclination of people to favor data that meets their bias regardless whether it is even true). This is made apparent when the rest of the text is examined, which is usually ignored or neglected by most pre-tribulation rapture proponents. Because of this tendency toward confirmation bias, it is crucial to now clarify further what the passages do and do not say.
The most important thing to notice in these passages is that the focus of deliverance is not on the tribulation itself. Christians are instead being rescued from the “confusion” that comes with that tribulation. Also, though an additional aspect of these passages is that those delivered from that confusion are being gathered to the Lord in some sense, it does not say that this is a physical gathering that requires movement nor is that even implied. There is no mention of leaving anywhere or going to any specific place. It does not say we are being taken from the world or going to heaven. It simply emphasizes being gathered together to the Lord to be rescued from the confusion in a contrast to those who are being deceived and being gathered together to the Antichrist as explained below: Then that worthless and abominable dragon shall appear, he, whom Moses named in Deuteronomy, saying: Dan is a young lion, reclining and leaping from Basan. ... “Basan” certainly is interpreted “confusion.” He shall rise up from the confusion of his iniquity. The one who gathers together to himself a partridge the children of confusion, also shall call them, whom he has not brought forth, just as Jeremiah the prophet says. Also in the last day they shall relinquish him just as confused. (Section 5)
I would strongly urge you to read the whole of Pseudo ephraim that you tossed about.
The actual meaning of this passage is that the elect will not be deceived by the confusion and the great tribulation coming upon unbelievers.
You will, upon reading, notice it does not say anything about being raptured or going to heaven, and does not mention a physical place, but simply says “gathered together.” Also, notice that the word “confusion” is the main emphasis on what they are being rescued from
AND there is nothing in the original Greek that can be translated as “taken.”
When read in its context, the real teaching of this document is quite apparent. Even if we accept the translations of the Latin by Rhoades, there is no support for a pre-tribulation rapture without forcefully trying to stuff it into the text.
The writer of the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Ephraem is insisting that those who do not place their trust in Jesus Christ before the coming of the Antichrist will be deceived along with the rest of the world. The writer explains further, when he says: When therefore the end of the world comes ... neither is anyone able to be recovered in that time, who has not been made completely aware of the coming danger, but all people, who have been constricted by fear, are consumed because of the overhanging evils. (Section 3, Rhoades) The writer insists that all who have not been made completely aware of the coming danger will be lost forever with no possibility of coming to Christ. And if Christians will be gone, what does he mean by “who have not been made completely aware of the coming danger”? The implication is that those who have been made aware will escape it because of that awareness.
The teaching in this medieval document is that we need to be following Christ if we want to be delivered from the confusion and deception coming upon the world during the great tribulation.
There is no promise of a rapture or being taken up to heaven.
There is no mention of two advents.
The history of the term 'apostasia' in the Geek was used prior to the Ministry of Jesus as interpreted 'depart'. In the letter from Paul (2 Thess 2:3) the term is changed by the PC scholars to mean a departure from the faith.
Then after the time of Paul the term is again used to mean simply depart. In Paul's letter he puts a definite article in front of 'apostasia', making it a specific 'departure'.
There are exactly two places where 'apostasia' is used in the New Testament: 2 Thess 2:3 and Acts 21:21. BUT there are fifteen places where the verb form (aphistomei) is used and in twelve of those uses the verb refers to a physical departure. A careful study of the context in 2nd Thess 2 informs us that 'The Apostasia' is referring to a departure which allows the man of sin to be revealed. The removal from obstructing the man of sin is the departure of the Abidinig Holy Spirit IN the born again spirits of the Body of Christ Believers. During the Church Age the Holy Spirit is omnipresent and specifically also abiding IN the born again spirit of the Body of Believers.
The theme Paul introduces for 2 Thess 2 is Jesus gathering us to Himself. This is a physical event ONLY God can do. If the apostasia referred to a departure from the faith, that is a thing believers do, not in keeping with the physical event to which Paul addresses 2 Thess 2 and to which Paul refers in the passages following 2 thess 2 with his reference to the restrainer taken out of the way (a physical event) so the man of sin can be revealed. The theme of 2 Thess 2 is a physical event which Paul taught the Thessalonians with his presence and the first letter, specifically 1`Thess 4L13-18.
The origin of 'apostasia' is a compounding of 'apos' apart from and 'histemi' to stand, yielding to stand apart from/ when we are transformed int he twinking of an eye, we shall be standing apart from the 4D coordinate system we now sense ... we will be just as invisible to the earthdwellers as Jesus was invisible to the Upper Room prior to entering it from that 'other' coordinate system.
The thing is - this is shortsighted — look at the Christians in Pakistan, in northern Nigeria etc. - burnt, raped, tortured etc. for Christ. They are already living through horrific tribulations.
Your church, the CATHOLIC CHURCH, burnt, raped, tortured, and murdered millions upon millions of people over a 1260 year reign of terror. So, give us all a break.
Excellent, MHG! I just sent you an email on “apostasia,” but I see by this post that you beat me to it by a mile. Very, very enlightening.
Billions upon billions?
Your alohahaha.net tinfoil hat is too tight for you.
Ellen g white your proohetess who preached the Seventh day Adventist beliefs that
1. Some races are descendents of humans mating with animals.
2. Jesus is the angel Michael.
3. Satan takes the sins of the world
4. There us no hell.
Really played a number on you guys. As you said, you got diarrhoea when you came out of the closet, right?
Have you even read the sermon of Pseudo Ephraim? Yes or no ?
Go argue with Phuilswolrd some more to get your ego needs. But fair warning, he will not be duped by your selective postings aimed at manipulating and deception.
Cronos is one of the most disgusting people I have ever had the displeasure of conversing with. He is a born liar and whenever he’s pushed into a corner and critically challenged he just starts to lie and mock. That’s all he has. His arguments are hollow and he knows it. When he’s confronted with truth he very simply lies and deflects criticism and distain. What a horrible Christian. Actually, I wouldn’t even call him a Christian. Possibly in name only. He is a natural born Jesuit liar.
You are correct that I will not be duped by that human trash. I no longer have any respect for him. He is simply not able to tell the truth and have an honest conversation. I realize I was wrong in assuming he had some redeeming qualities. I won’t make that mistake again.
No demand. A simple question.
You push Pseudo ephraim as supporting your view.
If you actually read the text you would see that it does not.
So, I asked you a simple question: have you read Pseudo ephraim yourself?
Yes or no?
You wrote
“The sermon known as the Pseudo-Ephrain, daterd to between 400 and 600 AD, speaks of the pre-tribulation departure of the Body of Christ.”
Whereas if you had actually read tye test you would see that the teaching in this medieval document is that we need to be following Christ if we want to be delivered from the confusion and deception coming upon the world during the great tribulation.
There is no promise of a rapture or being taken up to heaven.
There is no mention of two advents.
Have you even read the document? Yes or no?
2 these 2 emphatically does NOT say people will be removed BEFORE tribulation.
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