Sermons on the Gospel of Mark (II) - FROM THIS CORRUPTED WORLD TO HEAVEN ABOVE

Dear fellow believers, we must read the Word of God every day and think what kind of person we are. What kind of person are we really? We were originally born as the descendants of Adam who commit sins because we have inherited all the sins from our parents. In other words, we are originally “a brood of evildoers” (Isaiah 1:4) that cannot but commit sins; we all are people who cannot do any righteous deeds even if we really want to do such deeds. However, in order to save all of us we who cannot but commit sins like this, our God came and saved us from all the sins of the world once and for all by the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We must know this gospel of the water and the Spirit. We really come to give thanks and praise to our Lord when we think of this gospel of truth of salvation which God has given to us.

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I want to speak about the ‘human sin’ that the Lord spoke of here in today’s Scripture reading. What is the sin of human beings? The Gospel of Mark chapter 7 records our sins in detail.
People have their own standards about sin. Some people define a sin as a flaw. And some people think sin is a wrong behavior of a person. In Korea, when parents pass away, their sons and daughters dig a large grave and lower them into the grave carefully and then build a mound over the grave with earth, and cover it with grass. Then the surviving children regularly go to this gravesite and take care of the grass that covers the grave. And they say this is the faithful duty of children. So, if someone does not do this, he would be reproached as a grave sinner.

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Warm greetings to all of you! I have been mostly ministering in a country church, and so I feel a bit out of place to meet and preach to you in such a huge metropolitan city as Seoul. But I am nevertheless still very glad to meet you all. I actually get quite nervous when I stand before a large crowd, and it takes me a while before I get used to it. So let me ask you for your understanding beforehand.

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As we just read in today’s Scripture reading, a certain Gentile woman had a daughter possessed by an unclean spirit. So this Gentile woman came looking for Jesus and asked Him to drive out the demon which possessed her daughter. But what Jesus said to her was utterly shocking. He spoke so harshly to her that when we look at it based on our own standard, we may even wonder how Jesus could ever say such things, but if we think about it again more carefully, we can see that what Jesus said was actually more than appropriate. Although it seems impossible to understand what Jesus said to the woman when we think about it from the human point of view, there is an important lesson that Jesus is trying to teach us here in today’s Scripture reading.

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At this hour I want to share with you about God’s work and blessing through the Word of the Gospel of Mark. When Jesus was in this world, many people followed Him because He healed many and gave them food to eat. At that time there was not much to eat in Israel. They were really poor.

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In many parts in both the New and Old Testaments, God explains to us what it means to be truly born again. The passage from Mark 8:22-26 which I will share with you today can also be described as one of such passages. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). This means that those who believe only with their lips cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who truly know the will of God and act according to this will of God.

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While Jesus was on this earth, it seemed as though He was also conscious of what people thought of Him. Perhaps for this reason Jesus asked His disciples while traveling to various towns to preach, “Who do men say that I am?” So the disciples answered, “Some say Elijah, others says John the Baptist, and still others think you are one of the prophets.” Jesus then asked them again, “Then who do you say that I am?” Peter then responded and said, “You are the Christ.” The word Christ here means that Jesus is the King of kings, our Savior and our God, but at the same time, He is also the Son of God Almighty.

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Long time no see! The Lord’s Day has passed and it is now Wednesday. It seems like such a long time has passed since I last saw you all, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday feels like such a long time.
There is a work that we still don’t get through with although it seemed like it would get done soon, and it is the work of publishing the third book of our Christian literature series. Our editors inform us that they are preparing the press today. Someone must inspect the temporary binding after this. We would have to proofread the temporary binding from the beginning again in order to finish the publishing work perfectly, but it will take too long if we tried to make it too perfect and it could actually turn out worse in some aspects. And so we are thinking of finishing it even though it is completed to a certain degree.

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Today we have read the Word from the Gospel of Mark chapter 8 verses 33 to 35. As we know well when Jesus spoke about suffering death on the Cross after being cast away and suffering hardship at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes of Israelites and being resurrected from the dead in three days; Peter, a disciple of Jesus, then tried to stop Jesus from proceeding and told Him that He must not do this. But Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” (Mark 8:33). Jesus rebuked Peter and called him Satan. And He gathered His disciples and the crowd around Him and said, “Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

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Prior to today’s Scripture passage, in Mark chapter 8, the Lord told His disciples that He would return to God after completing His ministry here on this earth, and that He would die and rise up in three days. Peter then tried to dissuade Him, upon which the Lord rebuked him. After this account we see chapter 8 ending with the Lord saying, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

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