Go and preach

Mk 16: 14 – 20

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 06 Jan, 2008

One of the famous old–time preachers — I can’t remember who — told his listeners: “As Christians, you must preach the Gospel. Use words, if necessary!’

Today we are going out to preach the gospel. It is our job to use words if necessary.

I have taught, for years, what the gospel is about. You should know the outline of the gospel You should knoiw that God sent his only son as a sacrifice for sin. You should know how both Jews and Gentiles conspired to execute him for no crime. You should know that he rose again on the third day. You should know that he ascended into heaven and will return to judge the living and the dead. You should know that, through repentance and faith we are assured of eternal life and baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Those are all very basic facts of the gospel. We all should know them. We all should grasp how to articulate them. We should know that we are called to self–sacrifice like what Jesus did for us, so that all can find life in him.

Today we have read a command of Jesus:

“Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. ¹⁶ Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷ And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

There is a message here for each of us. It tells us what to do. It tells us what to look for. It tells us what resources we can call on.

WHAT TO DO

It is very simple. Jesus tells us to go, and Jesus tells us to preach.

If I told you, “Go!” What would you do? We had a fire drill at work last week. There may have been someone going around with instructions, but I was moving from one section to another, and no one told me. I didn’t know what was happening. People thought I should know what to do, but, without a purpose and without instructions, I was totally bewildered. In the chaos, no one would tell me. So then I got angry when I did work it out, because it would have been dangerous in real life.

Jesus tells us where to go: into all the world.

That means different things to different people. I spoke to a nursing home group once. Their idea of the whole world was the next room along the corridor. At the other end of the scale is a Catholic Priest from Paris who was too outspoken so they made him Bishop of some town in North Africa which has been empty desert for 1000 years. He can’t re–open the church in a hostile countryside where the Muslim Government wouldn’t welcome him. So he went to the whole world by Internet, and has one of the world’s largest congregations how.

The fact is that Jesus isn’t so much telling you or me to buy a round–the–world ticket as soon as church is over. He is telling us, “All the world is your territory. So get moving.” He doesn’t want us stuck in Jerusalem or in Marrickville or anywhere else without a wider vision. All the world is our missionfield, but each of us will go in a different way and to a different extent.

The second part is to preach good news to all creatures.

Someone once said to me, “The biggest problem most Christians have is that they make the good news sound like bad news.”

It is good news. God loves sinners. Christ died for the ungodly. Jesus will draw all people to himself. The kingdom of God is in reach. There is release for prisoners, sight for the blind, and end to oppression, good news for the poor. Now is the time of God’s favour! And we can be part of that, or we can reject it.

The gospel is full of good news. There’s the Holy Spirit. There’s guidance and inspiration. There’s a good shepherd. Sometimes there is even a miracle or a healing or a special enduement of power.

What do we have but good news, good news, good news?

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

The big thing we should look for is belief.

When people hear good news, they will either believe or they will refuse to believe. We can’t make them believe, but we can tell them the gospel, and they will either respond to the prompting of the Holy Spirit or they will not.

But, when they believe, there will be evidence.

This is practical advice, not a theoretical treatise. It does not cover all the details. It just tells us,

¹⁶ Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Some people build an elaborate case for baptism as being essential for salvation. But that’s not the point here. Just as it is not telling us all to go everywhere in the world, so it is not saying that an unbaptised person won’t be saved. It does say — and very clearly — that someone who does not believe will be condemned.

So where does baptism come in?

If you think of this in terms of what you have to look for in a missionary situation, it’s pretty clear that someone who isn’t prepared to put his life on the line for Jesus by being baptised is not really a believer yet. I can’t see belief; I can see baptism. For a practical missionary, there might be situations where you can say, “This person, though never baptised, was clearly saved through faith in Jesus.” But, in general, belief issues in action, and we should encourage people who claim to believe to demonstrate that belief by submitting to baptism.

Preach to them, encourage them to believe; urge them to be baptised to express that belief.

When you see that they declare that they believe, and when you see them putting that belief into clear action, you see that your preaching is not in vain!

WHAT RESOURCES WE HAVE

The final piece of instruction here is about our resources in ministry.

As Jesus says,

¹⁷ And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

Although the entire final section of Mark 16 from verse 10 is not found in the earliest manuscripts, it is clearly so close to the other gospels and to hints in other parts of the New Testament, that you can only say that it might not be Mark, but it is certainly gospel.

And there are very strong parallels here to Luke 10, where Jesus sends out the 72 in mission. It is almost like the charge Jesus must have given to those 72 preachers as they went into the villages ahead of Jesus.

What Jesus says here is not a promise that everyone of us will equally have all these resources. What Jesus is promising is to resource us. Some will drive out demons, some will heal, some will speak in tongues. Others will be poisoned or will be completely at a loss to deal with a demon. These are typical of our resources. The Lord is saying, “The kinds of thing I will give are...“ and he gives this list.

The first resource is power over demons. Some of us have had small experiences with this power, and I have certainly seen Satan’s power limited and broken by the word of a Christian believer. We do have authority over demons.

The second resource is speaking in new tongues. This can refer to the phenomenon of glossolalia, of speaking in what sounds like a language. It happened in the early church and it happens from time to time these days, too. On the other hand, it could refer to the ability to speak some other known language, like an Australian speaking Japanese or something.

From what I can see in the Bible, I don't think that Jesus or the apostles really cared which one was meant. In either case, whether a person spoke in tongues, or whether a person studied hard and learnt a language so as to preach in it, it was evidence of the Holy Spirit at work, and that was the main thing.

And, whether it was speaking in tongues, which builds up the person who does it, but no one else; or whether it is speaking in another language so that another person is built up, both have a role in equipping you and me to preach the gospel.

The third resource is protection. Fortunately I have not encountered any deadly snakes while I have been in Marrickville, so I don't know whether I have protection against these or not, and I don’t plan to find out. But St Paul got bitten by an adder, and shook it off into the fire, and had no ill effects.

A pastor I studied under for a short while visited an elderly man in his congregation who lived alone and didn't encourage visitors. So pastor Bob was pleased to get a welcome. The old man made Bob black tea and jam and bread because he didn't keep milk or biscuits.

The green mould on the bread was showing through the jam, but Bob just thought of this promise, prayed, and ate what he was given.

He survived.

Sometimes we are given poison in love.

In our church we have met the occasional spectacular healing. I told a chap I work with about Carolyn’s sister with the cancer who was healed, and he said, “Only two more, and you get to be a saint!” I told him we all prayed, so we should get a bulk beatification. I should write to the Pope immediately!

All of these are the kinds of thing that follow believers as they go about fulfilling Jesus’ commission, as they go into all the world and preach the gospel.

What this passage is saying, is, “Go confidently! I will resource you!”

CONCLUSION

So today we are going out to preach the gospel, and it is our job to use words if necessary.

We may see no responses, we may see some responses. We don't know until it happens. Our job is to go, not to guess what the results would have been if we had gone.

Our job is to go and to make the gospel clear. We know the facts: our job is to tell the facts, and, above all, to tell how those facts have changed our lives.

If all you or I can say is, “Through Christ, I have discovered that God is good to me, and I want to give you this gift as a reminder that he can be good to you, too,” then you have done your bit,

You know what to do.

You know what to look for

You know the indwelling Spirit of Jesus will equip and prepare you.

So, let’s go!

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2008. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)