THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL

Dr. W. A. Criswell

Mark 1:1

8-26-90    10:50 a.m.

And bless you, the uncounted multitudes of you who share this hour on radio and on television.  You are now part of our dear First Baptist Church in Dallas.  This is the pastor bringing the message entitled, The Beginning of the Gospel.

I have no idea why I have just started preaching through the Gospel of Mark.  I hadn’t planned it, hadn’t sat down and volitionally decided to do it.  But I have just, for the last several Sundays, started preaching in Mark.  I’ve never preached through the book before, as such.  So I thought I would just do it.  And the title of the sermon is in the text.  Mark 1:1.  “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  The beginning of the gospel.  When?  Where?  What?  How?  The beginning of the gospel.

Was it in Paul?  In 1 Corinthians 15:1, Paul writes, “My brethren, I declare unto you, I make known unto you, the gospel of Jesus Christ.  How that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, the third day He was raised again according to the Scriptures . . .  The gospel of Jesus Christ, wherein ye stand and wherein ye are saved” [1 Corinthians 15:1-4].  Is that the beginning?

I go back, I go back to Simon Peter at Pentecost.  He said, “Let all the house of Israel know assuredly. . .that this Jesus, whom you crucified, God hath made Christ and Lord [Acts 2:36], And there is none other name under heaven whereby we can be saved”  [Acts 4:12].  Is that the beginning of the gospel?  I go back to the day of the cross and our Lord, saying with His disciples, “This is My blood. . .shed for the remission of sins” [Matthew 26:28].  Is that the beginning of the gospel?  I go back to John the Baptist as he introduced the messianic ministry of our Lord: “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world” [John 1:29].  Is that the beginning of the gospel?  I go back to the beautiful passage that you just read.  “The Word was made flesh, incarnate . . . and we beheld His glory, as of the glory of the [only] begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” [John 1:14].  Is that the beginning of the gospel?

I go back to Isaiah 53: “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace is upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed” [Isaiah 53:5].  Is that the beginning of the gospel?  I go back to David, in his twenty-second penitential Psalm.  “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? [Psalm 22:1].  They have bruised, they have pierced my hands and my feet, and they cast lots upon my vesture” [Psalm 22:16, 18].  Is that the beginning of the gospel?

I go back to Moses and the night of the Passover when the lamb was slain and the blood was sprinkled in the form of a cross on the lintel and on either side of the doorposts [Exodus 12:3-7].  And God says, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” [Exodus 12:13].  Is that the beginning of the gospel?  I go back to Abraham on Mount Moriah, offering up his son Isaac [Genesis 22:2-12].  And the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John says, “When he did that, Abraham rejoiced to see His day: and he saw it, and was glad” [John 8:56].  Was that the beginning of the gospel?  I go back, and I hear it whispered to Enoch, “who was not; for God took him” [Genesis 5:24].  Is that the beginning of the gospel?  I go back to the Protevangelium, in the garden of Eden, in Genesis 3:15, when God said to Satan, “You will bruise His heel, but He will crush your head.”  Is that the beginning of the gospel?

I go back to the creation, to one of the most dramatic of all the scenes described in Holy Scripture: “He is the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world” [Revelation 13:8].  And in heaven was an assembly and the second [Person] of the Trinity volunteered to be the Savior and Redeemer of the lost world [Hebrews 10:5-14].  He said, “Lo, I come (In the roll of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God” [Hebrews 10:7].

I go back before the creation of the universe, and there in the heart of God is the purpose of loving redemption and the grace that brought to us our salvation [John 3:16].  It is found in the very existence of divinity [1 John 4:8].  And my soul is lost in wonder.  And my wonder is lost in speechlessness.  How could such a thing be?  Through all of the eons of the eternity, God hath purposed in His heart this great, marvelous, incomparable story of redemption and salvation; the beginning of the gospel in heaven [Mark 1:1].

I speak now of the beginning of the gospel in earth.  “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the Prophets; as it is written in the Prophets” [Mark 1:1-2].  I, therefore, turn to these Old Testament chapters and repeated and repeated throughout the Revelation, the glorious promise: “There is Someone coming.”  He is coming, as it is written in the Prophets.

Genesis 49:10: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah”—He will come of the tribe of Judah—”nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be.”  He is coming.

In Deuteronomy 18:15, Moses speaks, “The Lord thy God shall raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; and unto Him ye shall hearken.”  Someone is coming.

I turn to 2 Samuel 7:12.  God says to David, the king, “When thy days shall be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, and I will establish His kingdom.  He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom for ever” [2 Samuel 7:13].  Someone is coming.

I turn to Isaiah 9:6: “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”  Someone is coming.

I turn to Jeremiah 23:5.  “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch.  A King shall reign and prosper, shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.  In His days Judah shall be saved.  Israel shall dwell safely.  This is the name whereby He shall be called: The Lord our Righteousness” [Jeremiah 23:5-6].  Someone is coming.

In Daniel, chapter 7:

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, One like unto the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.

There was given unto Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people and nations and languages should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall never ever be destroyed.

[Daniel 7:13-14]

Someone is coming.

Zechariah, chapter 9: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee, just, having salvation, lowly, and riding upon the foal of an ass” [Zechariah 9:9].  Malachi, chapter 3: “Behold, I send My messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom ye delight: behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of hosts” [Malachi 3:1].  Someone is coming.

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is prophesied in the Old Covenant.  Think of it.  All of those dispensations in the Bible, all of them are progressive.  They are looking forward.  They are never corrective or reflective.  They are always dynamically and purposefully moving onward, upward, outward [John 16:8].  In preaching the gospel, we are convicted.  And our conviction is followed by repentance [Acts 17:30].  Our repentance is followed by faith [Hebrews 11:6].  Our faith is followed by salvation [Acts 16:31].  Our salvation is followed by justification [Romans 8:30].  Our justification is followed by glorification [Acts 8:30].  Always, there is that upwardness and onwardness.  A great day is coming.  Like the tree that grows out of the roots, like the fruit that comes from the seed, always, there is an upwardness and an onwardness and a glory awaiting in the revelations and dispensations in the Word of God.

In the days of the Passover, they were to take it.  They were to eat it.  They were to share it, fully clothed, with their feet shod, and with a staff in their hands, ready for the great deliverance of the Lord God [Exodus 12:11].  The new dispensation in which we live is no different: “This is My blood of the new covenant, shed for the remission of sins [Matthew 26:28].  And as oft as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show, you dramatize, you declare the Lord’s death, achri hou an elthe, until He come” [1 Corinthians 11:25- 26], always that upwardness and outwardness and onwardness; the progressive, dynamic revelations of God; the gospel of hope and ultimate victory.

I think of the purpose of that old dispensation.  God had to teach us a language in which He could speak to us.  What is an altar?  What is a sacrifice?  What is atonement?  What is propitiation?  God taught us the language of heaven in the old dispensation.  And after I have looked at the temple, and I’ve looked at the altar, and I have beheld the sacrifices, and I have looked at the procession of priests, then what?  Then I am timorous to turn the page.  What is next?  What is next?  The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written by the prophets in the old dispensation [Matthew 1:1-2].  He has come!  He is here! [Matthew 12:41].  And He is coming back! [Acts 1:11]. What a glory!  What a triumph!  What a victory!

And that is the Gospel of Mark.  There is no introduction of nativity.  There is no description of His birth.  There is nothing except, there He stands, in the midst of His great Galilean ministry [Luke 4:14-8:56], in the week of His Passion and suffering [Mark 15:16-37], and, finally, in His glorious and triumphant resurrection [Mark 16:1-7].  That is the Gospel of Mark.  Not only is He described as the gospel message in heaven [John 3:16], and not only is He the gospel message in earth [Mark 1:1], but I speak now of the beginning of the gospel in heaven, in earth, and in my heart; the beginning of the gospel in human life, in human experience.

One of the strangest things you will ever read in literature, not only in the Bible, but in human speech and record, is this strange thing found in Mark 14:51-52.  In the midst, in the very heart of that dramatic trial and execution of our Lord, in the middle of it, this author turns aside and writes this: “And there followed Him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and they laid hold on him: and he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.”  Now what in the earth?  In the midst of that dramatic outline and presentation of the trial and crucifixion of our Lord, right in the midst of it is that peculiar little turning aside.

Well, what happened is very obvious if you think about it.  There is no such thing, psychologically, there is no such thing psychologically; no such thing of anyone describing an incident, a dramatic providence as an eyewitness but that he will unconsciously say something, describe something, in vividness, that betrays his doing it.  Now you can have a historian write about an incident and you can have somebody else describing what is going on, but if you’re describing it, and you’re looking at it, and you’re saying what happened, the vividness of what you write will betray itself in something you will put into it, something you will say as a vivid onlooker.  And that’s exactly what happened here.  This thing that Mark is describing is something that he saw.  And the vividness of Mark’s Gospel is altogether different from any other of the three Gospels.  Mark is describing something he saw.

And what happened was very apparent.  Some people say—do you remember last Sunday I spoke of Mark being the scion of an affluent family?  There are some who think that his family owned the Garden of Gethsemane.  Whether that is true or not, we could never know until we see him and talk to him.  But what did happen—he was lying asleep that night and heard the sound of that mob outside his window, and he arose from his bed, put on that linen cloth sheet on which he was lying, put it around him, and went outside to see what was happening.  And then that thing that occurred—they seized the young fellow, Mark, and he fled, and left that linen sheet with them, running away naked.

That brings to my mind how many of us are introduced to the Lord.  It would be in a providence of life that somehow you never thought for.  Let’s take the one in which we are now involved.  By the uncounted multitudes are there those who come before God in a time of great military crisis.

I can remember well World War I.  I remember it well.  And I remember some of the members of my family who were over there in France—World War I, and the praying of our people, a providence that brings us before God.  In the Second World War, at 2:00 o’clock in the morning, we had made announcement, when our forces come to Normandy, when they cross the Channel, we’re coming to the church to pray.  And by the time I got there, having heard the announcement on the radio, that church was full to overflowing.  You couldn’t even get in.  And this providence in which our nation is now involved—there are some who are praying for their families who are hostages.  There are some who are praying for their boys as they are getting ready to be called up.  That is one of the ways by which we are introduced to the Lord, in the providences of life.

I have spoken of that businessman who never thought about God, and his one little boy died.  And every night thereafter, before he went to bed, he read God’s Holy Word, and marked it.  And when he was at his business, his wife took the Bible to see what her husband was reading, and wherever in God’s Book there was something about heaven, he had underlined it.

The providences of life that bring us to the Lord and we all share them, all of us.  There is no one of us but that in the providences of our pilgrim journey, we come to a place where we are bowed before God.  That’s one way that the gospel begins in us.  Another way it begins in us, the beginning of the gospel in our lives, is in the sweet testimony of someone who’s spoken a word to us.

I sometimes think of that marvelous story of the healing of Naaman the leper.  Where did it begin, that healing?  When he dipped himself seven times in Jordan, and the seventh time he came up, and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean? [2 Kings 5:14].  Is that where it began?  Or did it begin when, in anger and in a rage, he turned away from the prophet who didn’t even come out to greet him? [2 Kings 5:9-11].  And that charioteer put his hand on the arm of Naaman and said, “If the prophet had bid thee to do a great and mighty thing, would  you not have done it?  How much better then, when he says, ‘Wash and be clean!’”  [2 Kings 5:13].  And he turned his chariot around and went down into the Jordan [2 Kings 5:2].  Was that when the healing began?

Or did it begin when the king of Syria, Ben-Hadad said, “You have permission to go into Israel.”  And when Naaman loaded his chariots with gifts and made his trek down to Samaria [2 Kings 5:5]—is that when it began?  I’ll tell you when it began.  There was a little maiden girl captured in one of the excursions of the Syrians into Samaria.  And she waited on Naaman’s wife [2 Kings 5:2].  And the little girl said to Naaman’s wife, “Would God my master were in Israel, there is a prophet there who would heal him of his leprosy” [2 Kings 5:3].  That’s where it began, in the testimony of a precious little slave girl.

How many times is that true in our lives, in the testimony of a friend, or a neighbor, or someone we love or respect?  And we come to know Jesus as our Savior.  And of course, with many of us, the gospel of salvation began in our hearts and in our lives in a sweet precious word from mother or dad, or a Sunday school teacher.  Thus it was in my life.  In a revival meeting in that little white crackerbox of a church house where I attended as a lad, we were having a revival meeting.  And on a night before, being called of God in my heart, feeling the appeal of Jesus in my soul as a little ten year old boy, I walked to the edge of the pew, to the end of the seat, and lost my courage.  I look back upon that now as being so strange—walked to the end of the pew to go down to the front to give my hand to the preacher and to announce to him my heart given to God.  I came to the end of the pew and didn’t have the courage to step out and go forward.

But the next morning, at the ten o’clock service, I just happened to be seated back of my sainted mother, and when the invitation was given she turned with many tears.  She was crying.  And she said to me, “Son, today will you accept Jesus as your Savior?”  And in tears I replied, “Yes, Mother, yes.”  And I walked out and down to the front and publicly confessed my faith in the blessed Lord Jesus.

You are like that.  Every one of you, in divine presence, is like that.  There was someone who spoke to you, who loves you, who was praying for you.  And out of that testimony came the beginning of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ; precious day, precious word; precious testimony.

And to you who have listened to this service on television, could it be that today because of this witness to the Word of God and this testimony to the saving grace of the Lord Jesus, you also would come into the family of our Lord?  No greater decision could you ever make in your life than the one of opening your heart to the love and the mercy of the blessed Lord Jesus.  If you do not know how to accept Christ as your Savior [Romans 10:9-13], on the screen you will find a telephone number.  Call that number.  There will be a dedicated, consecrated man or woman to answer that phone and lead you into the kingdom of God.  And if you will accept the Lord as your Savior, someday I will meet you in heaven, and we will rejoice in the goodness and grace of our precious Savior forever and ever, amen.

And to the great throng of people in the sanctuary; in the balcony round, down one of these stairways; in the press of people on this lower floor, down one of these aisles, “Pastor, today, today, I have decided for God and here I come” [Ephesians 2:8-9].  To accept the Lord in His grace as He died for us on the cross [1 Corinthians 15:3]; to accept the Lord in His great and mighty favor in His resurrection [Matthew 28:5-7] and in His coming again [Acts 1:11; Revelation 19:11-16], “Pastor, God has spoken to my heart and here I stand.”  On the first note of the first stanza, come and may angels attend you in the way as you respond with your life [Romans 10:9-13], while we stand and while we sing.