Hi,
This is a review of the book entitled
What should we strive to believe and preach?
Sermons on the Gospel of Mark
By Rev Paul C.Jong
This wonderful book establishes the fact that Jesus is the true God. And it`s because Jesus is the true God and not just a humble person or a great sage that He was able to come to this world in the flesh of a Man, be baptized by John the Baptist to bear all our sins, and give up His life on the Cross, shedding His blood for our atonement. As it is written in 1 John 5:6,
"This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth."
And it`s due to the fact that Jesus is the living God, that He rose from the dead the third day and has granted everlasting life to us hell-bound sinners who have now believed in His righteousness.
No one but God Himself could do such mighty works to save every human being in the whole world from sin and destruction.
Therefore, having put our faith in His work of redemption fulfilled through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the next question is, what should we strive to preach?
Should we preach the gospel of the Cross alone, as so many Christians do? Should we tell people to trust in their repentance prayers to strive to be saved through incremental sanctification? Absolutely not!
We should strive to believe and preach the gospel truth that was revealed to us by God Himself—the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Just as the Apostle Paul writes in
1 Thessalonians 2:13,
"For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe."
To be redeemed, we must first know the ministry of John the Baptist.
This is the topic of sermon 1.
The gospel of Christ begins with the ministry of John the Baptist. All four Gospel writers address the importance of John`s ministry first, as its purpose is to prepare the way for the ministry of Christ as it is written in Isaiah 40:3,
"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God."
John the Baptist was the messenger sent by God to prepare the hearts of all who sought redemption. This is why He came preaching a baptism of repentance in the wilderness (Mark 1:4-5).
John was sent to act as the representative of all human beings. He was a descendant of the high priest Aaron, who performed the `laying on of hands` on Jesus at His baptism to transfer all our sins upon the Lamb of God. The next day, seeing Jesus coming toward him, he [John] testified,
“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29)
John was the servant of God who performed the role of the last earthly high priest, preached repentance, and directed all who were poor in spirit directly to Christ in order for them to be saved by hearing the truth of redemption from God Himself, as it`s recorded in Luke 7:20,
"When the men had come to Him [Jesus], they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, ‘Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?’ ”
John`s life was set apart from ordinary people as he was given a most important heavenly duty.
Chapter 2 continues the discussion of those who, like John the Baptist, lead a different life from ordinary people.
John the Baptist lived a life consecrated from the world, preaching to people who wanted to listen about their sins, God`s judgement for sin, and His perfect redemption. He lived a life like a Nazirite, which means `a person consecrated to God.`
He dwelt in the wilderness and did not mix with the religious leaders of his time. He was set apart by God to fulfil the will of God in preparing people to receive Jesus when He was revealed to the world. Therefore, his words could not have penetrated the hardened hearts of sinners if his life mirrored that of their own.
And for us, the born again, God is telling us, through the example of John the Baptist, that if we live only for our own desires and fail to point out people`s sins and God`s judgement, then we will not be able to witness the truth successfully.
If this happens, then we will end up looking like hypocritical Christians who preach one thing but do the opposite. We can only serve the gospel if God helps us and if our hearts and lives reflect the truth of the gospel. To put it simply, we must practice what we preach.
The example of John the Baptist`s life is not to teach us to try to be holy in our actions but to live the kind of life that makes others stop and consider what makes us so happy when we may have nothing of physical value but only the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit, and it is this truth that God wants to shine forth as it is written in Daniel 12:3,
"Those who are wise shall shine
Like the brightness of the firmament,
And those who turn many to righteousness
Like the stars forever and ever."
Some may ask, is it even possible for weak, insufficient human beings to live a life that brings glory to God? It is more than possible if we throw away our carnal thoughts by believing in the Word of God as He leads us. This is the subject matter of Chapter 3.
Jesus said that the two greatest commandments are
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ and ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ (Mark 12:29-31)
All of the commandments, in essence, are fulfilled in loving God first and loving our fellow man. Yet whenever Jesus performed a miracle or preached the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees always tried to catch Him out and condemn Him rather than understanding that what Jesus was doing and saying all bore witness to the fact that He loved God the Father and He loved us, His own creation.
We must learn from the misguided faith of the Pharisees, cast aside our fleshy thoughts, and instead love God and other human beings by preaching to them the righteousness of God, which Jesus fulfilled at His baptism when He washed away the sins of the world. He said to John the Baptist, "“Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” At this word, John the Baptist obeyed Jesus, laid his hands on Jesus` head, and transferred the sin of the world onto the Lamb of God, just as it was performed in the Old Testament sacrificial system on the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:21, Matthew 3:15).
This is the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit that was prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfilled by Jesus Himself, and we must have the faith to believe in this. Otherwise we will be like the religious leaders of Jesus` time and many nowadays who disregard the authority of God, claiming that Jesus saved us only by the blood of the cross and who insist on offering daily repentance prayers rather than placing their faith in the baptism of Jesus by which He washed away all sin once and for all.
We must throw away our carnal thoughts in every area of our spiritual lives and believe that even though we are only human and sin every day out of weakness, Jesus has still washed away all our past, present, and future sins by receiving His baptism from John the Baptist, thus making us into God`s born-again, sinless children.
Our lives must be filled with confession about our true sinful nature whenever we recognise that we have sinned against God or man, as this returns the glory back to God. And we must preach of the gospel of the water and the Spirit to all who are poor in spirit and who recognise that they are destined to hell without the mercy of God, which was fulfilled through our Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what we should strive to believe and preach!
All praise be to God!
