Mark Sermon Special: John the Baptist

David: Hey, everybody, I'm David Bowden, and I just wanted to thank you all for the great responses that we've gotten to uploading some of my sermons that I preach at my local church onto our podcast here. And so to thank you for that, and to hopefully continue to give you things that you enjoy, we wanted to do four more sermons on the Spoken Gospel podcast here from, um, our Mark series at our local church that I preached. And we're gonna start today way back at the first sermon I preached, uh, when we started this series on Mark, looking at the life of John the Baptist and the ministry of John the Baptist.

And because I think it really sets up a lot of the core themes that you need to understand to see how Mark is presenting Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and the fulfiller of all Scripture. And so I think it'll be really interesting for you to take a unique look, maybe for some of you, at the ministry and the role that John the Baptist plays, not only in redemptive history, but also in the narrative of Mark's Gospel, particularly with how he fulfills the role of Elijah and the people's expectations of who Elijah was, who he would be in Israel's future, and what that meant for preparing the way for the Messiah.

So I hope you enjoy this four-part series, um, on my sermons on the Book of Mark, and especially that you enjoy today's episode, looking at the ministry of John the Baptist, preparing the way for Jesus.

We are starting a new series through the Book of Mark, and that series is called "Who is Jesus?" And we're doing that for a few reasons, and we've titled it that for a few reasons. Uh, one reason is this deep desire that, uh, those of us on the teaching team have kind of felt of just like, "Can we just put Jesus in the pulpit week after week after week?

[chuckles] Can, can we just behold Him and see Him and fall more in love with Him?" Uh, I know I need that so desperately in this season, and I'm sure your hearts do, too. So that's a big heart for us. A- and then the second reason why we're calling it "Who is Jesus?" is because that is the big question that Mark is seeking to answer in his gospel.

Mark, uh, most scholars believe, was the first gospel to be written, um, and he's writing to prove who Jesus is, because it was really hard to believe. And I think for a lot of us, it's still very hard to believe, uh, that this man from a backwater town called Nazareth, that He is the Son of God in the flesh, the promised King of Israel, who died and rose on the third day and is bringing a final kingdom to the Earth, where He'll, He'll make all things right. And Mark has written a gospel to, to take all those claims and try to prove to us that Jesus actually is who He claimed to be.

And that is specifically what's happening in the passage that was just read for us. Um, Hayden talked about last week that Mark is full of... I, I love the word he used, sandwiches?

Do you guys remember that, when he was talking about sandwiches? We have a, a much fancier word for it in the schools I went to, but I like sandwiches way better. Uh, and, uh, it makes you sound less pretentious, which is helpful.

And so you have these sandwiches, and what happens throughout Mark is he'll say one thing, uh, for the top slice of the sandwich bread, and then he'll repeat that on the bottom slice. And what you're meant to do is take all the stuff in the middle, the meat and the cheese and the lettuce and whatever else you put on your sandwich, and take it in one bite, right? And just taste that.

And be like, "Okay, what is the meaning here?" Instead of necessarily trying to break down each one and pull it out of its context and understand it, Mark's inviting us to take some bites of a sandwich, which I, I think that's pretty cool. I'm getting hungry already. And so what I would invite all of us to do today is try to take a bite of this sandwich.

So we're gonna look at the top slice of bread and the bottom slice of bread and see what is this whole package that Mark's inviting us to ingest, and then we'll look at the middle of the sandwich and how it proves or, or supports those thesis. And so the question that I want us to wrestle with today is: What does this passage demand us to do? What does it command of us?

What does it require of us? Now, I'll, I'll be the first to say that this isn't necessarily the best first question to ask of every biblical text. I think sometimes we can do that.

We can come to a, a passage of the Bible and be like, "What is this saying to me? What does it command of me?" And not every passage is doing that work, but this one definitely is, because the top slice of the bread and the bottom slice of bread, they are both commands, and they're both asking us to do the same thing, and that is to repent and believe. To repent, to turn toward this Jesus that Mark is proclaiming and setting forth before us, and to believe that He is who He says He is.

And so we're gonna look at those two slices first, and then we're gonna get into the middle. Sound good? Good.

I got one yeah. One person is with me. Let's go, party on.

And so, um, the first top slice of bread is this: John the Baptist comes, and he's this messenger preparing the way, and he quotes Isaiah the prophet, and he says in verse three, "Prepare the way of the Lord. Make His paths straight." So something very significant is happening here. He's saying, "Prepare the way for the Lord." He's saying something kind of crazy.

He's saying, "Hey, guys, God is coming. God is coming to Earth, and we need to get ready. We need to prepare the way." This language of preparing the way i- i- is, is something that would often happen.

You would have devout followers of God, the Jews, they would mark off these paths through the wilderness, through the desert, so that people could sojourn into Jerusalem for core festivals and events. And they would also mark off these paths- for a returning king to follow whenever he was coming home from a big military victory or something. He would follow this path to get into Jerusalem, and everybody would be really excited.

So you can think about this preparation as the parade route that's marked off, or the marathon course for my runners out there, or, or like the red carpet that gets rolled out. And so he's like, "The King, God, is coming to Earth, coming to specifically Jerusalem, and we need to get ready." But what does it look like to get ready? 'Cause John wasn't out there in the wilderness putting, like, stanchions and course markers out there. He was doing something else.

To get the people ready for God to come to Earth, he was baptizing them. So John's in the wilderness at the Jordan River, and he's baptizing people, and it's a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. What is going on here?

Why are people getting baptized? Because for us, whenever we hear the word baptism as Christians, we often fill it in with a Christian baptism. Like, that's the one we're familiar with, that in baptism, we're buried with Christ in his death, and then we're raised to new life just as he was raised to new life.

And it's this public profession of faith and this, this, um, union with Jesus that we're experiencing in the waters of baptism. But that, that, that hasn't happened yet in this moment in Mark's story. Jesus hasn't gone to the cross, to the tomb, and he hasn't been raised yet.

So what is this baptism that they're experiencing by the hands of John the Baptist in the Jordan River? Well, this washing, this ceremonial washing with water that they're doing, they were very familiar with as the people of God. Because this ceremonial washing was, uh, enshrined and commanded in the Torah, in the law of God, especially in the Book of Leviticus.

Because, um, in the Book of Leviticus, they're trying to answer this big question that they've now built this tabernacle, in the wilderness, by the way, and we'll get back to that. They've built this tabernacle, and God's actual presence has come to Earth, and now they're asking the question, "Okay, so how do we, like, get in there with God? 'Cause we're out here in the wilderness, and God has formed this new kind of Garden of Eden, where his presence is, and we wanna be in there with him.

So how do we get in there?" Well, Leviticus outlines, you know, sacrifices and different things like that, and one of the things it commands is a ceremonial washing with water. Because through the normal course of just being a human, you would become ceremonially unclean, and that doesn't necessarily mean you're sinning. It just means, like, there's this separation that God was trying to create.

And so what you would do is, you would go through a ritualistic washing with water as a symbol that you are preparing yourself for one specific thing, and this is the key to understanding why the baptism was happening. You would wash so that you could get ready to go into God's presence. You would get-- You would wash to get ready to go into God's presence.

And so when John the Baptist is out here baptizing people, proclaiming that a king is coming, God is coming to Earth, what he's saying is, "Instead of us going somewhere where God is, and we need to clean up and get ready for that, instead, guys, God is coming to us, so let's have faith in that, let's believe in that, and let's get ready. Let's wash up a- as a way to, like, expect the King to come." And so John is out there baptizing people because he is proclaiming that God is coming to Earth. So that's the top of the, the sandwich, and then the bottom is the same kind of thing.

It's on the lips of Jesus this time at the beginning of his public ministry, and in verse fifteen, Jesus says this: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, so repent and believe in the gospel." So Jesus is saying that the time that all the prophets and all the Bible had been looking for so far is here for one specific reason. The kingdom of God is at hand, and the only way a kingdom can come is if the king comes first. 'Cause wherever the king goes, the kingdom follows with him, and the Kingdom of God in this moment i- is, is the rule and reign of God.

It's where God comes into our messed-up world, our wilderness, where everything's broken, and he makes it like the Garden of Eden. He puts it back under his control, and he rules it, and he sets things to right, and he, he forms the world in his image. And so he's saying, "The Kingdom of God is here specifically because the King is here, so repent and believe." But he says, "Believe in what?" "Believe in the gospel." Now, here's another word.

We did the baptism word, which is another word that kind of sets off triggers for us of what we k- "Oh, yeah, I know what that means." Same kind of thing with the word gospel here. Because again, I think when we hear the word gospel, and rightly so, we hear death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, which is absolutely the good news! That Jesus has died on the cross, doing everything necessary to reconcile us to God, that he died and defeated death in his resurrection so that we might live with God forever.

That's the good news. But that hadn't happened yet either in this moment in Mark. And so what is Jesus asking people to believe specifically that they would have had in their minds when he says, "Repent and believe the gospel?" Well, it just so happens, I think he's actually quoting Isaiah, just like John the Baptist was at the beginning of the passage.

I think the sandwich breads are both quoting Isaiah. And so Isaiah forty, nine to eleven, talks about the gospel, and I'm gonna have it put up here on the screen for us 'cause it's a big passage. And so, um, Israel is being told to herald the good news.

So: "Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news." So that's the same word, the gospel. "Lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news," the gospel. So proclaim the gospel, lift it up, fear not, and say to the citizens of Judah, what?

Here's the content of the gospel. Here is the good news.... Behold your God.

Behold, the Lord God comes. Like that, when we hear gospel, I just want us to have a category in our head for this message. When we hear the word gospel, I want us to hear that God is coming.

Like, the good news is that we get to be with God. The good news is that we get to live with the best thing in the universe, [chuckles] the greatest good. We get to actually have union and community, and He gets to move into our neighborhood, and we get to hang out with God.

[chuckles] That's the best news that there is. And, and not only that, why is the news so good? Well, it's because He comes with might.

He comes in strength, and behold, His reward is before Him. He's coming to reward. He's coming to bring recompense.

He's gonna right all wrongs. Everything that's broken in our world, He's gonna fix, and He will tend His flock like a shepherd. Like, He's gonna be this kind leader who takes care of His sheep, and He's gonna gather lambs into His arms and carry them in His bosom and gently lead them that are with young.

So there's this picture, the gospel of God coming as a powerful king, but to, like, take care of us and put wrongs to right and to gently lead us. And so Jesus is saying, "Repent and believe that gospel, that God is and has come to make all of that come true." And the reason He can say that is because He's the King. He's, He's making a very provocative claim here.

He's saying, "I am the King. I am bringing the kingdom, and I'm gonna be your shepherd that gently leads. I'm gonna be the one that rewards you.

I'm gonna be the one that gives you life and puts wrongs to right," and Jesus is making this claim. And this is an extremely tall order for us and for Mark's original readers to believe because you've got this guy named Jesus, very common name back in the day, uh, Yeshua, Joshua, very common name. And, uh, and so whenever He comes on the scene, uh, in, in our passage that we read, it just says, "Jesus came to get baptized, too." And it almost just sounds like, oh, you know, another guy came to get baptized, and it even says that He's from Nazareth of Galilee, which is, like, a backwater nowhere.

So it's like saying, "John Smith from Timbuktu came to get baptized," and you're like, "Cool, next part of the story, please." But then we realize that things happen that are not so normal with this Jesus. And so what Mark is going to do in order to show us that Jesus is worth believing in and worth turning away from everything else to follow, is he's gonna show us four proofs in the middle of the sandwich to prove that Jesus is who He claimed to be, and that's what we're gonna look at right now. Four proofs that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

This is what Mark's doing in our passage. So the first is you have John the Baptist. You have the announcer coming to the people of God, and this is Mark's first proof.

Um, Mark opens up his letter, his, his correspondence, and it says that, that this was what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. But then he actually introduces Isaiah's prophecy, which we've actually looked at, which is the, you know, uh, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight your paths." He introduces that with a different prophet, the prophet Malachi, and Malachi is a very significant prophet because he's the last prophet of Israel. He ends our Old Testaments, uh, his book does, and then for the Israelite people, they order their c- their canon differently.

Nevertheless, they do treat Malachi as the final prophet, and many Israelites believed that after Malachi, um, the prophetic word, God speaking to His people, would stop until Malachi's prophecies were fulfilled. And what was that prophecy? It was this, Malachi 3:1.

This is what John quotes: "Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me." So there's gonna be this messenger who's going to prepare the way for someone. But what's astonishing in Malachi 3 is the speaker is God Himself, and He's saying that, "There's gonna be this messenger who's going to prepare the way for me," that God is gonna come to Earth, and it's going to be predicated by this messenger. And so, like, if you're an Israelite in this time waiting for Malachi's words to be fulfilled, you are on the edge of your seat because you believe that God is coming to Earth, and there's gonna be this messenger before Him.

And so, like, throughout this 400-year period between Malachi and Matthew, like, people have been waiting for a messenger, and they have followed a lot of bad messengers in the way. And, um, and so what we need to realize, though, is Malachi didn't leave it open to interpretation of who this messenger would be. It wasn't, like, any messenger.

He actually defines who the messenger will be at the end of his book. Malachi 4:5 says this: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before you." So an Elijah-type messenger would be the one who would prepare the way for God to come to Earth again. A- and, and so this is what people are waiting for.

It was ringing in their ears that they were waiting for this m- this Elijah-like prophet to come and prepare the way for God. And then here comes John on the scene. I, I think it's hilarious how Mark actually says, "And John appeared." It was like, poof, he, like, came out of nowhere, which is not true, but it's just really funny.

Uh, as John appears, and what's, what, what's he doing? You might, you might have read, uh, these descriptions of John, like, and he's got camel's hair, and he's wearing a belt of leather, and you're like, "Why on earth would you include this information?" Well, it's a hyperlink back to the Books of Kings when they're describing what Elijah looked like, and so there's a, there's this hilarious kind of interchange, uh, in, uh, 2 Kings 1:8.

Uh, someone is talking about this person they saw, and they're like, "Yeah, so I saw this dude, and he wore a garment of hair and a belt of, of leather around his waist." And the guy he's talking to, he's like, "Oh, yeah, that's Elijah, the Tishbite."... He's like, "Yeah," it's his calling card, it's his normal wardrobe. And so people were used to seeing Elijah in their mind's eye as wearing, like, camel's hair and having a belt of leather.

And so when, when John comes on the scene wearing those same things, he's like, "Hello, I'm the one Malachi talked about. I'm the Elijah figure who's gonna prepare the way for God to come to Earth." But there's actually more going on here than just, like, a written prophetic word, and then John fulfilling it. Um, there's something deeper happening.

There's a narrative repetition happening, too. So there's a story that happened in Elijah's life that's getting repeated in John the Baptist's ministry. So let's refresh ourselves about Elijah's story very quickly.

So Elijah is this, like, quintessential prophet in Israel, and at the end of his ministry, he was really burning out. He was super tired [chuckles] and defeated, and so God said, "You're gonna prepare the way for another." And just so we- he could confuse people for the rest of time, uh, Elijah prepared the way for Elisha. And so if you get confused in the middle of this, it's not my fault, okay?

[audience laughing] Elijah prepares the way for Elisha, and so they go to the Jordan River, which is exactly where John the Baptist is right now, super significant. Go to the Jordan River, and Elijah performs this miracle where the, the Jordan River is torn in two, and he, he crosses on dry ground. Water goes back to normal behind them, and Elijah and Elisha are talking, and Elijah's like: "Hey, before I leave, is there anything I can do for you?" And Elisha asks, he says, "Elijah, give me a double portion of your spirit." And Elijah, I don't know how he did that, but he, he did that, and [chuckles] and then after that happens, he...

The heavens rip open, which is very significant for this passage. The heavens rip open, and Elijah ascends into heaven, and then you have Elisha left with a double portion of the spirit of Elijah, meaning his ministry was going to far outstrip that of his predecessor. See, Elijah was preparing the way for someone who would have a greater ministry than him.

And so then Elisha turns around, and he, uh, tears Elijah's garment in two, more tear- more tearing, and then parts the Jordan River again and crosses out and has a ministry that overshadows that of Elijah. This story is what's getting repeated here in Mark, because you have an Elijah-like figure in John the Baptist, right, coming to the same river, the Jordan River, and baptizing people. He's interacting with the water, and so this Jesus comes, the one that he's been preparing the way for, and when he baptizes him, the heavens split open again.

But instead of Elijah or, or Elisha, or John, or Jesus going up, instead someone comes down. The Holy Spirit, God himself, the Spirit, comes down and rests on this new Elisha, Jesus, and says, "This is my Son, whom I love. With him I'm well pleased." And there's this moment where people realize that the new and better Elijah has prepared the way for a new and better Elisha, and this is the King that we were promised.

And so this is what Mark is doing. He's trying to prove to his first readers that Jesus is who he claimed to be, and having John, the announcer, fit all these categories was the first way. The second way is the place where it all happened.

It's kind of the stage. It's the wilderness where it all happened. Uh, because based on the setting of a story, uh, you have certain expectations and things you anticipate to occur based on the setting.

So if I said, like, "All right, we're gonna smash cut in to the Death Star," and then you, you would immediately have, like, some ideas of what was gonna happen. Like, the Imperial March is gonna start playing, Darth Vader is gonna, like, air choke someone out, and, like, you have all these ideas. A- and the same thing is gonna happen with the wilderness.

If you're the original reader of Mark, you're like, "Oh, man, I've got so many expectations and categories for what's about to happen." Uh, and that... A- and so we have to ask the question, like, why is there such an emphasis on the wilderness for Mark here? Because the prophetic word from Malachi came from the wilderness, John the Baptist is baptizing in the wilderness, Jesus went out to the wilderness, and then the Spirit leads him deeper into the wilderness to be tested.

So there's a huge emphasis on the wilderness. Why? Well, it's because, to put it bluntly, that's where everyone expected the Messiah to come from.

That was where the expectation was, and it's because the wilderness was the stage upon which God had done all his mightiest saving acts. That's where he founded the people of Israel, right? After they crossed through the Red Sea, another Jordan-like moment with a parting, they go into the wilderness, and it's there that they, they get fed miraculously by manna and quail.

It's there where they hear God's voice on Mount Sinai. It's there where they receive the Law. It's there where they receive the covenant promises.

It's there where they get the blueprint for the temple, the tabernacle, where God would set up a little, tiny version of Eden in the middle of their wilderness and dwell with them. And so, like, this is where God's people started, and it's where they expected their new start to begin as well. And so the wilderness had all this heightened expectation around it.

You couple that with the fact that throughout the prophets, we get all these promises that it would be from the wilderness that the Messiah, the King, would come, and when he comes, it's described that he would come like a gushing spring or a fountain that, like, pops up in the middle of a desert and an arid land. And, and that's a picture, not only that the King would come and start his ministry in the wilderness, but also it's the picture of God turning the wilderness back into a Garden of Eden, where we can live with him again, 'cause that's what the kingdom is. It's a garden where we live with God forever.

And so the Messiah is gonna come in the wilderness, spring up life out of water, and start-... a new place where we can live together. And so that's why in verse five of our passage, uh, Mark can easily say that all the country of Judea and all of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him. Now, obviously, that's, that's hyperbole.

Not every single citizen was doing that, but it was this huge mass sojourn that was going out to the wilderness. Why? It's because that- there was so much heightened expectation that this is where the Messiah would be.

So you had this Elijah figure, who was proclaiming that the king was coming, and it was out in the wilderness. Like, all the things were set up for the expectations of the people to go out there and try to meet this God who was coming to them. So you have the announcer, is the first proof.

You have the setting of the wilderness, is the second proof. Third, you have the Holy Spirit, like the power that's happening here, the Holy Spirit. So after verse 15 in Mark's Gospel, the Holy Spirit is only mentioned three other times in the, the remaining, like, 15 and a half chapters.

Yet here in these 14 verses, the Holy Spirit is also mentioned three times in this condensed package, and Mark is trying to show us, like telescope, like this, this intense focus on the work of the Holy Spirit. He's trying to show us that Jesus's ministry was marked by an outpouring of God, the Spirit, upon him. Let's look at the references real quick.

Mark 1:8: "I have baptized you with water," that's John talking, "but he, the one I'm preparing for, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." That's the first mention. Next, 1:10, "And when Jesus came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove." And then 1:12, "The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness." So the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus, the, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus, and Jesus is even able to anoint other people with the Holy Spirit.

There's this heightened focus on the Holy Spirit in these 14 verses, and that's because Mark is trying to prove something to us, and that's because throughout the prophets, it had been promised that the one that the Spirit of God is poured out on, unlike any other, that would be the Messiah, that would be the King. I just wanna, I wanna overview a few of those verses real quick, and we'll keep our context to Isaiah, where we've been, uh, so far.

And so Isaiah, the just three verses real quick, Isaiah 11 to 2, you can look these up later if you want. 11:2, "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge." So the, the Messiah is gonna be marked by the Spirit. Again, Isaiah 42:1, "Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights." I think this is what God was evoking when he said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with you I'm well pleased." Here's my Messiah, whom I love and whom my soul delights. I've put my Spirit on him.

And then Isaiah 61:1, Jesus actually quotes this to validate his own ministry, uh, in, in the Gospel of Luke. He says, "The Spirit of God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor." So the one that God anoints with his Spirit is the promised Messiah that his people have been waiting for. So this is a huge proof that Mark is using here, and that's exactly what's happening.

The people of Israel would have had this kind of anointing ceremony as a category in their minds because they had seen it so many times in their lived history, but also in, in, in, in the writings of the Old Testament. Whenever there would be a new king of Israel, they went through an anointing ceremony. Uh, this happened to King David, and what would happen is, uh, the, the, the would-be king would kind of kneel in front of a prophet of God, and the prophet would pour oil on their head.

That's the anointing, and then they would proclaim, "Israel, behold your king." And this was like an anointing ceremony for a new king of Israel. Well, Mark just ratchets all that up to infinity with Jesus in his crazy anointing ceremony because he comes to the water, and he comes out, and instead of oil being poured on his head, the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit, comes on Jesus's head and, and fills him and covers him.

And then instead of a prophet saying, "Behold, your earthly king," you have God's voice itself saying, not only that this is by, you know, context, a king, but, "Behold, my beloved Son," like, "with him I'm well pleased." So everything is ratcheted up, and, and Mark is doing this to try to show us that Jesus is the King of the world, who's bringing the good news, right? That God will live with his people again, that he will turn our wilderness into a garden, and we can live with him forever. So three proofs so far that we've looked at.

You have John the Baptist, the announcer. You've got the wilderness, the setting, and you've got the, the Holy Spirit. And the fourth and final proof that Mark gives us is this test in the wilderness, this test in the wilderness.

So, uh, Jesus is driven out deeper into the wilderness, so, like, he was at the Jordan. He goes even farther out into the arid land, and he does so for forty days in order to be tested. Uh, we have the word 'tempt' in a lot of our versions, but the word is also just simply test.

He's tested, and, and Mark is trying to draw a parallel between what's happening in Jesus's life in the wilderness to what happened in the life of Israel when they were in the wilderness, not for forty days, but for forty years. So Israel was driven out into the wilderness after their escape from Egypt, um, in the Exodus story, and they go out there, and they went out into the wilderness, we're told in the Bible, to be tested. Let's look at that verse real quick.

De- Deuteronomy 8:2. So this is after the forty years. Moses is reflecting on everything that's happened in their sojourning throughout the wilderness, and he says this:...

"Hey guys, remember!" I mean, he says, "You shall remember," but, "Hey guys," I like that. "You shall remember the whole way, the whole journey, that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years," there's our timeframe, "in the wilderness," there's our setting, and then here's our purpose: "So that he might humble you, testing you, to know what is in your heart, whether or not you will obey his commandments." So he sent the people into Israel to offer them a test. "What's really in your heart, Israel?

Do you really trust and love me? Have you repented and believed in me? Let me test that." So he puts them in the wilderness, and the first generation that goes into the wilderness, even though they saw all the plagues in Egypt, and even though they saw the Red Sea part, and even though they were fed with manna and quail, they fail the test.

Again, and again, and again, they fail the test in the wilderness, and they show what's really in their heart is not love, and trust, and belief in God, but just, like, fear, and selfishness, and self-reliance. And so they die in the wilderness, uh, as those 40 years drag on. They failed the test.

Then the second generation is permitted to go into the land, and I want us to think about this. They're going from the wilderness into the Promised Land, and that's like the new, like, emerging, nascent Garden of Eden. Like, they're gonna form the Garden of Eden in this land and have a, have a place where they can dwell with God again.

And yet they fail the test, too. Generation, after generation, after generation fails the test until finally they are kicked back out of the land, just like Adam and Eve were, and out into the wilderness again, and they're separated from God. And so when Jesus comes on the scene, this is still the state that Israel is in.

They are in this kind of spiritual and political wilderness, cut off from God, and, and wondering, "How is God gonna make a road back into the Garden of Eden, back into the real Promised Land for us? How can we dwell with God again?" And so this is why Mark shows us Jesus going into the wilderness for 40 days to go through the same test that Israel did, because they needed a king who could pass the test and bring them back into the garden with God. And so when Jesus is, is tested, he's tested by, uh, Satan, or the Satan, ha-Satan.

Th- this is a title given to this spiritual being, and he has a job to do, and that job is in his name. His name means, like, the adversary or the accuser, and his job is to accuse, and lie, and test. This is exactly what he did, not in the wilderness, but in the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 3, at the beginning of our story.

The Satan comes to Eve and tests her, "What is in your heart?" And we see what's in her heart is not total belief, and reliance, and trust on God, but self-reliance, and self-preservation, and self-salvation. And so her and Adam fail the test, and just like Israel, are kicked out of the garden into the wilderness. And so, like, this is where we all are.

We're all in the wilderness. We're all cut off from God's presence, and we, like, are dying for the good news [chuckles] that we can, like, be with him and, and, and live in a rightly made, just, perfect world. And so you have Jesus coming, and he goes through this same test with the Satan, and he passes the test.

And, and we know that because after he comes out of the wilderness, that's when he proclaims, "The time is fulfilled. The Kingdom of God is at hand." And the only way he can say that the Kingdom of God is at hand is if he has been proved as the one who can take us there. But there's another test that happens in the wilderness, before we leave that, and this one's a little stranger.

You might have noticed when we were reading that Jesus was with the wild animals in the wilderness, but this is actually pretty significant. This is not just some random fact. Um, it says that he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.

So two things are happening here that I want to point out. One is that it's re-emphasizing this picture of the Garden of Eden and the wilderness that we've been talking about. Because in the Garden of Eden, our relationship with wild animals was very different than it is today.

Like, in the Garden of Eden, man was given dominion over the animals, and we could actually be at peace with them, and there's this harmony and unbrokenness in the world. And so, like, we could just, like, chill with lions, which sounds super cool to me. Uh, although bears are my favorite animals.

So, like, think of your favorite animal, like hanging out with them, but with no fear. That sounds super cool. But then you come out of the Garden of Eden, and I'm not gonna hang out with a bear now because he would rip my face off.

And so there's this, this enmity is, is the word that's used in Genesis 3, between, like, the world and the Satan, or between the world, uh, or between, uh, God's people and the Satan, between God's people and the world. And so now, wild animals, they bite us, and sting us, and can kill us, and so, like, it's very dangerous. But Jesus is showing that even out in the wilderness, he's able to bring Eden.

He's able to, like, just live with wild animals and be okay. Like, there's this little pocket of Eden popping up out there in the middle of the wilderness, and so he's proving that, like, "Hey, I'm the king who can bring Eden. Follow me." But something else is really hap- uh, else really interesting is happening, and you might be more familiar with this story.

Uh, Jesus is actually repeating another story in the Bible, and it's Daniel and the lions' den, right? We know this story, I, I, I think, a lot of us, uh, because this is another test by wild animals. So let's refresh our, our story real quick.

You have Daniel, and he breaks the king's edict in Babylon to pray to God instead of the king. But, like, if you're praying behind closed doors, like, how do you really know who you're praying to? Like, did they lip read?

Like, how did they know who he prayed to? So what they would do is-... They, they came up with this ingenious, totally not rigged test, where they would throw you into a den of lions, and if you got eaten by the lions, well, you were guilty.

You must have been praying to the wrong god. And if you somehow survived, then, oh, you're innocent, and, uh, you, you passed the test. Good job.

Uh, it, uh, just always reminds me of the scene, uh, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where they're testing the witch, you know? Okay, so if you've seen that, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, I, I'm so sorry.

Um, a- and so Daniel gets thrown into the lions' den, and something significant happens. He, he goes in, and it says, "Angels came to these wild animals and shut their mouths." A- Daniel was ministered to by angels with wild animals, and then the sun comes up, and he's risen out of the, the lions' den without a scratch on him, and i- i- his accusers end up going into the lions' den and getting eaten, and so I guess they were, you know, guilty. So, uh, this is the story that's getting repeated here.

Jesus is going through a test by wild animals. He goes, and He hangs out with wild animals, and what happens? Angels minister to Him, too, keeping Him safe from the wild animals, vindicating Him and the claims that He's making about who He is.

So this is, like, that same proof getting repeated again, and all of this is in the sandwich [chuckles] that we've been talking about here, and the sandwich, the bite that we're supposed to ingest is repent and believe that God is actually coming to live with us. Repent and believe that God came in the flesh in Jesus, died on the cross to fix all the brokenness in our world, and that He rose from the dead in order to free us from the grip of death.

And then for us, repent and believe, too, that Jesus is coming back, like, the King is coming back to the world to remake it and to do everything that we read in Isaiah 40, that He's gonna be this kind and gentle shepherd that comes and, and brings reward and, and recompense, and, and that Jesus is gonna do this work. And so the message to us is to repent and believe because He's coming back. But there's one more proof that I think I would be in big trouble, even for my own conscience, if I didn't talk about here.

We gotta skip ahead to the end of Mark's gospel and talk about the fifth and final proof that Jesus is who He claimed to be, and that is that Jesus didn't just go into a lions' den, right? He went into the grave itself. Like, Jesus died on a Roman cross, and that fact has been historically verified by non-Christian, non-believing historians from Jewish antiquity, that this Jesus died on a cross and that He was buried, and then also, from, like, third-party sources outside the Bible, people say...

And His followers claim that He's risen, and as much as we try to kill them and shut them up, they just keep dying for this fact, that they, they say that he saw Him. And no archaeo- archaeologist, no sociologist, uh, and no, no academic has ever been able to substantially disprove this final proof that Jesus was actually raised from the dead. And so if He was, and I believe He was, that means that everything He said about Himself is true.

And, like, why wouldn't we want it to be true? Like, He comes to bring good news, like, really stinking good news. The good news that, like, our world is so broken and so hurting, and our hearts are so broken, our bodies are broken, our relationships are broken, and Jesus says, "Look, I'm gonna come, and I'm gonna heal that.

I'm gonna lead you into a better way of life. I'm gonna come into the wilderness. I'm gonna make a Garden of Eden, and we're gonna heal, [scoffs] and I'm gonna be with you, and you can behold Me.

I'm gonna move into your neighborhood, and we're gonna hang out," [chuckles] with some lions, apparently. [laughing] [audience laughing] Like, such good news. And so the call for us is to repent and believe.

Believe the good news. Turn from anything that's not this story. Turn from any savior or worldview or philosophy that's not this story, and believe that Jesus actually is who He said He was, and that He's coming back.

Like, what would it look like, brothers and sisters, if we lived like the King's coming back? Like, every day, we were like, "Oh, prepare the way for the Lord. Make straight your paths because the King is coming.

The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Like, I wanna prepare the way, and I love that we don't have to wash up and clean up, you know, to do that. Instead, as the heavens were ripped open at Jesus' baptism, after Jesus' death, the, the veil in the, in the temple was ripped open, the veil that kept people separated from the presence of God. It ripped open, and once again, instead of the Holy Spirit coming out of the heavens, it comes out of the temple and now comes and fills us, and, like, we get to be filled with the Spirit of God. [upbeat music]

Outro: Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit spokengospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next time. [upbeat music]