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Now, Mark chapter number 16, we have the story about Jesus Christ rising from the dead, and it says in verse number 1 there, and when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome had brought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher at the rising of the sun, and they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulcher? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great. And entering into the sepulcher, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted, ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified. He is risen, he is not here, behold the place where they laid him. But go your way, tell his disciples and Peter that he goeth before you into Galilee, and there shall ye see him as he said unto you. And they went out quickly and fled from the sepulcher, for they trembled and were amazed. Neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid. So in these first eight verses, we have the ladies showing up at the tomb and finding it empty. The stone's already rolled away, and the angel is there inside the sepulcher. The Bible says a young man is sitting there, but often when the Bible talks about angels, it just calls them a young man or something, because that's what they resemble. They just look like a normal human being. For example, when God sent his two angels into Sodom in Genesis chapter 19, they were just seen as two young men walking into the city. And remember, the Sodomites wanted to bring them out and know them and so forth. So this young man that's inside the sepulcher is the angel of the Lord. And he tells them that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, and that if they go into Galilee, they're going to see him and go tell the disciples, go tell Peter, et cetera. And it says in verse 8, they went out quickly and fled from the sepulcher, for they trembled and were amazed, neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid. Now, if you're reading one of these modern Bible versions, you know, the New American Standard, the NIV, the ESV, they'll put a note in all of these modern perversions of the Bible that basically says that that's where the book of Mark should end right there. Have you seen this in these wrong Bibles? If you open up the NIV, it'll tell you, hey, most ancient manuscripts and the best authority tells us that verses 9 through 20 are not actually in the original. But in reality, if you take away verses 9 through 20, you really don't get a strong teaching on the resurrection from this chapter. Because if you look at verses 9 through 20, that's where the Bible actually tells us that Jesus appears unto them and shows himself alive, and they actually see him bodily, physically risen from the dead. Whereas in verses 1 through 8, they're basically getting a second hand from the angel, and then it ends in verse 9 with them going away, trembling and afraid. You know, it kind of ends not on a high note there. It ends with fear and trembling and confusion and perplexity. Whereas if you read the way it's supposed to end, it actually gives all these strong teachings on Jesus' bodily resurrection, how we need to go out and preach the gospel to every creature, and just how God did all these mighty works amongst the disciples, amongst the apostles and followers of Christ. So to take out these verses is wrong. Now let me tell you something. The book of Mark is under attack more than any of the other four gospels, it seems, in these new versions. And I think the reason for that is that they say that Mark is the oldest gospel. Now I'm not saying that that's true, but that's what the theologians and scholars would tell us, that the book of Mark was the oldest one. And so what these liars will tell you in these institutions of higher learning is that the book of Mark, because it's one of the earlier gospels, you know, it doesn't really give a lot of strong proofs of the deity of Christ, and it doesn't really, you know, give a real strong proof of his resurrection and things like that. For example, in Mark chapter 1, verse 1, the very beginning of the book, it says in your King James Bible, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But in the Greek manuscripts that underlie the modern versions, the Westcott and Hort Greek manuscripts, it just says the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, period. And the Son of God's removed. And they want to take away from that. Now the modern versions will often print the Son of God, but they're getting that from the Texas Receptus. You know, that's just, they didn't decide to take that out. Now when you look at the book of Mark, it has in your King James Bible 678 verses. So if you were to just count up quickly, you could just go to the end of chapter 1 and see, okay, chapter 1 has 45 verses, chapter 2 has 28 verses, chapter 3 has 35, et cetera. And if you put those into a calculator, your 16 chapters, you would end up with 678 verses in the book of Mark. And what's funny is that if you were to take out these verses that they're telling you, hey, these aren't original, you know, verses 9 through 20 in chapter 16, right, that's 12 verses. So if you were to take out these 12 verses that they're saying are not original, instead of having 678 verses, you'd have 666 verses in a book that's called Mark. And what does the Bible say is the mark of the beast? 666. Okay, and people will say, oh, Pastor Anderson, you fool, don't you know that in the original there were no verse divisions? Yeah, except we're not talking about the original because the original didn't take out this section anyway. We're talking about the NIV tonight. And the NIV, last time I checked, is an English translation that has verse numbers, and it's called Mark, and it wants to remove 12 verses from the end of the book of Mark, leaving a book of Mark that has 666 verses in it. That should just show you the demonic influence behind these new versions. But you know, you already knew that anyway, when they're constantly taking away the deity of Christ, they're constantly attacking important biblical doctrines and changing salvation to works, et cetera, et cetera. You know, somebody just showed me that in the New Living Translation, where Jesus Christ in Mark chapter 1 says, you know, repent and believe the gospel, it changes it in the New Living to repent of your sins and believe the gospel. They just add that in there. That's not what it says. The repentance was that they need to start believing in Jesus, turn away from what they believed that was false, and turn unto the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, but they just add that phrase that changes everything, of your sins. And that's what they're doing to the book of Mark. They're corrupting it, they're perverting it. So what do you lose when you cut out verses 9 through 20 as these modern versions tell us, hey, you know, these aren't really in the original? Well, you lose these key proofs of Christ's resurrection, and you lose one of the most famous verses in the whole Bible, verse 15, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That's a pretty important verse. And you say, well, it doesn't really matter, you know, these new versions pretty much say the same thing. They make all these key changes, and even though they print verses 9 through 20, anybody who's reading one of the modern versions, doubt is placed in their mind. Hey, this probably wasn't in the original. So then what are they going to do? When they read verses 9 through 20, they're going to kind of take it with a grain of salt. Well, you know, maybe this is original, maybe it isn't. It's not going to have the same authority to them as it would without that note. You know, for example, I have a real life story about this. When I was a teenager, I was in a church that taught the NIV, and the youth leader made a statement. He said, you know, nowhere in the Bible does it tell us to, you know, to preach the gospel to every creature, as you often hear people say, like preach it to everybody. He said, what the Bible says is make disciples. It doesn't say to just preach the gospel to everybody. It doesn't tell us just go around preaching the gospel to people. It actually says make disciples. And I was a teenager at this time, and I didn't really know the Bible that well, I'd never read it cover to cover at this point. But I knew that the Bible told us that we needed to preach it to everybody. And so I thought, you know, I know it's at the end of the gospels. I didn't know which one, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. So I start flipping in my Bible, I'm like, what's this guy saying, you know, this guy's lying. I need to find this. So I'm searching, so I go to the end of Matthew, and it says, you know, go ye therefore and teach all nations. Baptize them. And I said, well, teach all nations. I showed him that. And he said, nope, nope, it's supposed to say make disciples. And in the new versions, they changed it from teach all nations to make disciples of all nations. And he tried to say, like, make disciples, you know, that's talking about taking somebody and guiding them and teaching them everything. Like they wouldn't like what we do for soul winning. Because we just go out and just give the gospel to hundreds of people and just give the gospel, give the gospel, give the gospel. They say, no, no, no, you just take one person and just deal with that one person for years, you know. So basically in your whole life, you know, you give the gospel to a couple people or whatever on these people's program. Well, that's not what I see in the Bible. I see them in the Bible giving the gospel to multitudes. Multitudes are being saved. Thousands of people are being saved, baptized. They're going from village to village. They preach in a village, and then boom, next village, preach in that village, next village. Taking the gospel out to everybody. That's our job to evangelize. So I showed him that in Matthew. And he said, no, let's make disciples, it's totally different. So I'm like, okay, you know, let's try Mark. So I go to Mark and I'm like, yeah, there it is. Preach the gospel to every creature. He said, oh, that's not in the original. See it says right here that the earliest manuscripts don't even have that. You know, and I'm like, well, Luke, you know, and John, you know, trying to find it. So it does influence people's thinking because that was a youth leader in a Baptist church who said, well, that verse, he told me that verse doesn't have any authority because it wasn't really in the original. It was added later. That's what he told me when I tried to use it to prove doctrine unto him. He didn't believe in it. So you lose a lot when you tamper with this passage at the end of the book of Mark. Now the resurrection of Christ is pretty much the most important doctrine that there is because if you think about it, the Bible defines the gospel as the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He said in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that that is the gospel, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. I mean, it's critical. It's important. And this doctrine is something that we need to make sure that we understand and are clear on and look, you have to believe in it to be saved. This is why none of the Jehovah's Witnesses are saved because the Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead. You say, well, but they believe in their own kind of resurrection. Here's how the Jehovah's Witnesses will define the resurrection. I've talked to hundreds of them. This is what they say. Well, he resurrected in the sense his spirit left his body, they said. But wait a minute. The Bible says as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. So according to the Bible, your spirit leaving your body is called death, giving, remember he gave up the ghost? That's what happens when people die. That's not a resurrection. That's death. The resurrection is when Jesus physically got up out of the grave and physically walked out of that grave and showed himself alive with many infallible proofs, the Bible says. Of course, the new versions will change that to convincing evidence. I mean, what's stronger? Full proof or just, well, it's convincing. Convincing is a used car salesman. You know, infallible is the word of God. And so he showed himself alive with all these infallible. He said, come feel the holes in my hands, thrust your hand into my side and be not faithless but believing. And Thomas said to him, my Lord and my God, he showed them the holes in his hands for a reason because he wanted to prove to them that he had really, literally, physically, bodily risen again from the dead, not just as a spirit, not just spiritually alive. And the false religions of our day, of course if they claim the name of Christ, are going to give lip service to the resurrection but they don't really believe in it. If you talk to a United Methodist or one of these people who doesn't believe the Bible at all, you know, and they think it's all figurative, they don't believe in the miracles, they don't believe in any of it, it's all symbolic. And you ask them, you know, is Jesus Christ alive today? They'll say, oh yeah, he's alive today, you know, through his followers. You know, because his teachings are being kept alive and he, well, he lives in the hearts of his followers but they don't mean it like we mean it, literally, that he's alive, he's personally living today and that, you know, he basically resides in us through his Holy Spirit. They think, well, oh yeah, the Bible's inspired just like Shakespeare is inspired and just like, you know, they basically use the same words but they don't mean the same thing that we mean. They, and I mean, I was looking at a children's Bible the other day and you gotta be, don't just hand your kids some children's Bible. Here's a children's Bible, King James, okay? This is what children need but, you know, you hand your kids these, oh here, read this children's Bible. You better check out anything that you give your kids to read that's religious in nature especially. Because I looked at a children's Bible and the children's Bible said, it didn't mention the bodily resurrection at all on the part about Jesus rising today, it just said, you know what? Jesus is alive today in the sense that people all over the world believe in him and follow his teachings so therefore he's alive basically in their imaginations, he's alive. You know, his teachings live, his spirit lives but that's different than bodily rising. I mean the Buddhists, you know, they think Buddha, Siddhartha or whatever his name was, they think that he still exists, that he was reincarnated in some other manifestation, right? But did Buddha bodily rise again? No. So see there's a big difference there, isn't it? Than just spiritually being alive and actually bodily rising. Now you say, well, you know, prove that you have to believe in the bodily resurrection to be saved, Pastor Anderson, because Jesus said that you have to believe in the death, burial and resurrection. Do you bury a spirit? What do you bury? So when you talk about the death, burial and resurrection, you're talking about his body physically died, his body was buried and his body rose again. It's not a body that died, a body that was buried and then just a spirit rose. Wrong. So you have to believe in the death, burial and resurrection and that's what the Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in and other false religions, other really liberal interpretations, they just believe in a spiritual whatever. They don't believe in a bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. How do we know it was bodily? Because it's the burial and resurrection. How do we know it was a bodily resurrection? Because they put their hands into the holes in his hands and they put their fingers into his side and they actually handled the Lord Jesus Christ. And he even said to them, and look, this is something the Bible emphasizes. If you read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, he's asking them for food and he's eating with them. Why? Just because he just happens to show up hungry. He's one of those people that just shows up hungry, you know, so what do we have? He always showed up hungry when he showed up with the disciples and I'll tell you why. Because he wanted to prove to them that he was not a spirit. He said, a spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me to have. Come handle me. Here, give me some food to eat. Here, look, I'm eating food. What more could he have done to prove that he had literally bodily risen again? Let's look at the scripture here. It says in verse number 9, now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene out of whom he had cast seven devils and she went and told them that had been with him as they mourned and wept. And they, when they had heard that he was alive and had seen of her, believed not. After that he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country and they went and told it unto the residue, neither believed they them. Now that story is found in more detail in the book of Luke, of course, the disciples that are on the road to Emmaus and so forth. Now a lot of people have made a big deal about this term, he appeared in another form. This scripture in verse number 12 there, after that he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country. And the reason people will make a big deal out of that is because if you read the story in Luke about these two guys that are on the road to Emmaus, Jesus appears unto them and they do not recognize him, they do not know him, okay? And he begins to talk to them and expound the scriptures to them and then when he sits down to meet with them their eyes are open and they suddenly recognize him as Jesus and then he disappears and he's gone. And then they say, you know, did not our hearts burn within us when he reasoned unto us from the scriptures? And so a lot of people will create kind of strange doctrine about this. Now that's one that the Jehovah's false witnesses will point to and say, see, he must have not been bodily risen because they didn't recognize him. So he must have come in a borrowed body. He was in a loner, you know. So he borrowed a body and they said Jehovah loaned him a body. Well that's funny that he happened to have a loner body in stock that had holes in the hands and feet. And think about what a deceiver their painting Jesus says, that he would borrow somebody else's body. I mean, I know this is weird even saying this, but, you know, he'd borrow somebody else's body that was, it's like you buy those pants that already have holes in them. He borrowed a body that already had the holes in it, you know, just ready to go. I mean, that is such weird doctrine. Who believes in this stuff? But they pack out stadiums full of people with their Jehovah's false witness doctrine. I don't know who believes in it, but somebody does apparently. But that's what they'll try to say. They'll say, well, they didn't recognize him. But here's what you have to understand. First of all, the two, the two disciples that he runs into on the road to Emmaus, they were not of the 11, okay. They were not of the disciples that we would think of, you know, Matthew, or I'm not Matthew, good night. You know, James, John, Peter, Andrew, Bartholomew, they were just more of a fringe disciples. So first of all, it's questionable of how much time they'd even spent and been around Jesus, number one. But number two, I think the biggest point to make is the fact that Jesus, I think, had just withheld them from understanding his identity. Because when he breaks bread with them, their eyes are open, and then boom, they see him, they know him, they recognize him. So there are a few different theories. You know, some people say that, you know, maybe when he broke bread, you know, they saw his hands at that point, and they saw the holes in his hands or something like that. Or other people have just said that, you know, well, he's been, he had them kind of blinded, and then he allows them to perceive and understand who he is, and then he's gone. Another theory is that maybe these guys just had never been that close to him to really recognize him up close, and that they'd been those who had followed afar off, because there were so many multitudes of people that were following Christ, and so on and so forth. But here it says, he appeared in another form unto the two of them. You could interpret that a couple different ways, because you could say, well, he appeared in another form, that just means he appeared to them in another way. He just did it differently. It doesn't necessarily mean he was in a different bodily form, as people are trying to lead you to believe. I don't think that that's what that's saying, personally. But either way, none of that changes the fact that Jesus bodily rose again and was not borrowing someone else's body. He doesn't just borrow somebody's body for a while and then, you know, put on the old one. No. And by the way, this is another foolish thing about the Jehovah's Witnesses, is that when they went to the grave, his body was gone. So if the spirit just left the body and went and started borrowing bodies, why is the body gone? And they say, well, it just disappeared. What in the world? So the original body disappeared and he goes and borrows another one? It doesn't make any sense, folks. And they say, well, but flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But here's the thing. When Jesus appeared unto the disciples, he said, a spirit hath not flesh and bone as you see me to have. He didn't say flesh and blood. He said he was flesh and bone. Because the life of our flesh, of our physical body today, is in the blood. The Bible says the blood is the life thereof. And so our blood is what gives us life today, physically. But in the resurrection, it's not going to be flesh and blood, it's going to be flesh and bone because of the fact that the spirit is what gives us life in our new resurrected body. Not the blood, but rather the spirit. And so it says that he appeared unto them in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country. And they went and told it unto the residue, neither believed they them. Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. Now, isn't it interesting that it repeatedly says here that they didn't believe it when they first heard it, right? At the end of verse 11, it says, you know, and they, when they had heard that he was alive and had been seen of her, believed not. It says in verse 13, they went and told it unto the residue, neither believed they them. And then it says Jesus in verse 14, upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. Now flip back to Matthew chapter 28. Keep your finger there in Mark 16 where we are and go back to Matthew 28 because it says in Matthew 28 something similar. It says in verse number 17, and when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. Some doubted. So even when they see Jesus risen from the dead and they're with them on the Mount of Olives, it says some of them doubted even then because it was just so hard for them to believe. It was just so hard for them to comprehend. Now what this tells me is that it's possible for a person to be saved and still have doubts. And it's possible for a person to believe on Jesus Christ and be saved and then later on they see something or hear something and they doubt the truth. And they don't always have the faith that we should, that they should have as Christians. See to get saved, it doesn't take a lot of faith. You know, you just have to put your faith in Jesus. It doesn't matter how much you have, it's just where did you put it. You have to believe with all your heart, put all your faith on Jesus. But like the guy told Jesus, Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief. He was even acknowledging the fact that he had doubts and Jesus still healed his son. He said, if thou canst believe, all things are possible and I can heal him. But he said, Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief. These people, even the eleven disciples had doubts and some of them believed not when they first saw. Remember doubting Thomas. He said, except I put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. And then once he saw it, he believed and he said, Jesus said unto him, you know, you believe because you've seen but blessed are they that have not seen and have yet believed. So it is very possible for Christians to have doubts. And the Bible teaches that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So if you want to be a great person of faith, not only the faith to get saved comes through hearing but the more we listen to God's word and the more we read God's word, that's going to build our faith and increase our faith. See there are Christians that have more faith than others. Does it say everyone doubted? In Matthew 28? No, it says some doubted. That means some of them didn't doubt. And that tells me that amongst Christians, even though we're all saved by believing on Jesus Christ, amongst Christians, there are different amounts of faith that those of us have more than others or less than others. And that's why the disciples said, you know, Lord, increase our faith. And Jesus said to them, O ye of little faith. And we should work as Christians to increase our faith and build our faith. And part of that is through reading and hearing God's word. We can increase our faith. What does that tell you? That if you're out of church and not hearing God's word preached and you're not reading your Bible like you should, you're going to be weak in faith. The Bible says him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputation. There are people that are weak in the faith and there are people who doubt and there are people who have just a very little faith. But the more that we're in God's word, the greater the faith we're going to have. And also the Bible says that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long stuff. But one of the things on the list is faith. So if we're filled with the spirit, that's going to increase our faith versus walking in the flesh. We're going to have doubts. We're going to have less faith. Now a lot of people will say this. Well, if you're doubting your salvation, it just means you're not saved. But I don't agree with that for one second. I think probably everybody has doubted their salvation at one point or another. That would be my guess. I know that there have been times when I doubted my salvation, especially when I was a young child, and I doubted. And you wonder if you're saved and so forth. It's very possible for believers to doubt. And especially when you see people who get out of church and they get away from the Lord, that's when they start doubting the most. Because being in church, reading your Bible, hearing God's word builds your faith. And why is it important to have great faith? Because the decisions that we make in our life are going to be different based on how much faith we have. I mean, if we're really trusting in the Lord, that's going to change everything about the way that we live our lives. Because if we're trusting, and I'm not talking about salvation, I'm talking about trusting in the other promises of God on a daily basis, that's going to determine what we do with our time. It's going to determine how we handle situations that we're in. You see, if we have faith in the Lord, that at the end of the day, if we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all the earthly things will be added unto us, that's going to change our attitude toward work. Because if we don't have any faith in the Lord, we're going to say, you know what, I might have to work instead of going to church. And I need to work instead of going soul winning. And I need to work instead of, you know, now look, obviously work is important. And obviously, you know, sometimes there are times when, you know, people miss a soul winning for work, but you know, you can just go soul winning some other time, and so on and so forth. But, you know, being in church is something that God commands us to do. And there are some people who say, you know, I can't go to church at all because I just work. Well, you know, that person is obviously not believing the promise of God that says, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. They're not seeking first the kingdom of God. They're putting God's kingdom last and saying, well, you know, I got to take this into my own hands and go work and make money and so forth. Okay. Now, I'm not saying that you have to be at all three services a week. But I'll tell you something, I decided a long time ago to be at all three services a week. And I made that decision. And I haven't gone back on it. And I've stayed with it. And God has blessed me financially, to the point not where I was rich or drove fancy cars or anything, but to the point where I've always been able to provide and pay my bills, even though I made it a priority to come to church three times a week and to just seek first the kingdom of God and make that the most important thing. And God will bless you when you do that, when you put Him first and when you make sure to read the Bible and pray and go soul winning and do church and everything like that, and to make those things important and to make them a priority in your life. But if you didn't have any faith in God, you'd say, well, you know, it's more important for me to go work and make money and everything like that because otherwise I'm not going to be able to make ends meet. But if you believe the Lord, you believe, okay, if I put Him first and serve Him, He's going to step in and meet my needs. Now again, obviously, you can't just sit back and say, okay, God's going to provide. Sit back and watch God do it. Wait on the Lord. No, you got to go out there and actually work hard. You know, there's 168 hours in the week. There's a, you know, about four and a half hours of that is church, right? 168 hours in the week, four and a half hours of that is church. And that's what I would always tell my boss when my boss would be like, you need to work on Wednesday night. You know, I'd say, look, there are 168 hours. I want you to just leave me alone for four and a half hours a week. You know, I'll work for you the other 164. Give me these four hours of church, you know, let me be off just so I can go to church. And it was a, you know, it was a battle, you know, trying to get employers to understand that I wanted to be at all three services, that I wanted to be in church when the doors are open. But you know, you got to go out and work hard the rest of the time if you're going to do that. You know, you can't just sit there and tell your boss, oh, I need Sunday mornings off and Sunday nights and Wednesday nights, but I also, I can't work Saturday either. And I can't work any evening. And I can't work any holidays. You know, and anytime I get the sniffles, I'm not going to be in work, you know. So you can't just sit there and do all that. The key to getting Wednesday nights and Sundays off is working super hard the rest of the time. And then your job can appreciate you and work with you a little more because they respect you and they appreciate what you do. But you see how faith affects your daily life. You know, you're not going to spend a lot of time praying if you don't think it's really even doing anything, right? But if you believe that God has the power to step in and change things and fix things about your life, then you're going to spend the time in prayer because you believe that. So and we can go down the list of every possible example of how our faith is going to change the way that we live our lives on a day-to-day basis. So it's important to make sure that we strengthen our faith through being filled with the Spirit, through singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, through reading our Bibles, and through going to a church where we hear the Bible preached faithfully. Okay, let's keep reading. It says in verse 15, and he said unto them, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now, these people are having their own doubts, and he's telling them go out and preach the gospel to every creature. You know, that's another thing that can increase your faith. Go out and do some soul-willing. You know, there's not a more spirit-filled activity than when you're out soul-willing because if you look at Acts chapter 4, it says, And when they prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. You know, one of the evidences of being filled with the Holy Ghost is speaking the word of God with boldness. You know, so when you go out and you're filled with the Spirit, preaching the gospel from door to door, that's going to build your faith as well. But he says, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Just preach it to everybody. You know, it's funny, sometimes people will make statements like, God told me this or God told me that. I hate it when people say that unless they're quoting the Bible. They say, God told me that. God doesn't talk to you audibly. You know, God told me to do this or God told me that, chapter and verse. But here's what I hear people often say, God told me, go give the gospel to that guy. And I see what they're saying, but you know what would be more accurate? God told me to give the gospel to everybody. So I went and gave the gospel to that guy. And God reminded me of that verse. So I went and gave the gospel to that guy, instead of like, well, God specifically told me, go talk to that guy. No, he already told you to talk to everybody. Okay, now, obviously, it's not always the time or the place. But that's the great thing about going door to door is you find, you know, everybody lives somewhere. You find everybody in their natural habitat and get them the gospel. And you say, well, what about homeless people? Well, you know, you can get them as you're walking down the street, as you're walking down the sidewalk, you can catch them in the highways and hedges. But he says, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. Now verse 16 is a verse that throws some people for a loop because it says, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And so people who believe that you have to be baptized to be saved will point to this verse as evidence. But here's what this verse does not say, that you have to be baptized to be saved. Now it might on the surface, if you looked at it, say, well, yeah, I mean, that's what it says, you know, you got to be baptized. But where does this verse say that you must be baptized to be saved? It doesn't. Because if it were saying, look at the verse carefully, if it said at the end, he that is not baptized shall be damned, then you'd have a point, wouldn't you? If the latter half of the verse said, but he that believeth not or a person that does not get baptized will be damned. But does this verse say that a person who does not get baptized will be damned? No. And here's what's interesting. In the whole New Testament, not one time will you find any verse that says, if you don't get baptized, you won't be saved. You'll never find it. And all these people will try to find their proof texts and verses to show you to prove that you have to be baptized to be saved. But isn't it interesting that they can never produce one verse that says, hey, if you don't get baptized, you won't be saved. They can't do it. Because they'll point to this. But here's the thing. This verse says, he that believeth and then is baptized shall be saved, according to what we believe. Is that true? Yes. Of course. Because I believe and I've been baptized, therefore I shall be saved. Okay. Now let me just, I want to illustrate this to you and make it as simple as possible. So let me bring a few guys up here as an illustration. So I want to bring a few guys up here. Brother Garrett, why don't you come up here and let's just line them up right here. Okay. Go ahead and stand up here and then Brother Matt, come on up here. All right. Charlie, come on up here. So let's just go ahead and just do a little illustration here to illustrate logic. Now I remember when I was taking a math class one time, I thought to myself, I wish every person would take this math class and then apply what they learned in this math class to the Bible. Because math teaches you logic. And a lot of people, they read the Bible and they interpret verses in a very illogical way. And if they understood math, it would actually fix the problem. Okay. Because let me just explain this to you mathematically here. Okay. Here's a guy right here who believes in Jesus, right? Okay. But he's not baptized. All right. Everybody got that? He believes in Jesus, but he's not baptized. All right. Here's a guy who believes in Jesus and he's baptized. Right. Here's a guy who's baptized, but he doesn't believe in Jesus. All right. Everybody got it? Okay. He's saved but not, or I'm sorry, believed but not baptized. Believed and baptized, right? Okay. And here's a guy who's baptized but he doesn't really believe in Christ. Now, according to John 3.16, the most famous verse in the Bible, let's just test it with John 3.16, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. According to that verse, is this guy saved? According to that verse, is this guy saved? Okay. According to that verse, is this guy saved? No. Okay. And we could go through a hundred, literally a hundred verses that pretty much say the same thing as John 3.16, but even verses that would give us the opposite too, like he that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already. All right. Or, you know, that they all might be damned to believe not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness. Okay. There are all kinds of verses that are going to say that same thing, hundreds, literally. Okay. Now, let's test these three guys out with Mark chapter 16, verse 15. Okay. It says in verse 16, it says, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. Now, look, this verse condemns Charlie again, right? Because it says, he that believeth not shall be damned. Right? Now, this verse says, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. So is this guy saved according to this verse? And this guy is not saved, right? But here's what you have to understand. This verse does not condemn this guy over here at all. Because the verse says, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Is it true that this guy will be saved? That's true. Is it true that this guy will be damned? Guess what? This guy is not mentioned in this verse. This guy is not mentioned. Because it does not mention a person who believes but is not baptized. So how can you use this verse to authoritatively say, that guy is not saved because he hasn't been baptized. But isn't that what? The Church of Christ or other false denominations that believe in baptismal regeneration, they'll use it. Go ahead and sit down, guys. Does that help you understand? I mean, it's simple. See, it's logic, my friend. If you interpreted this, if you were to put this verse into a computer, it would get it right. It would be like, woot, woot, woot. Is this guy saved? No. Is this guy saved? Yes. Is this guy saved? Not enough data. Woot, woot. Need more data. Okay, let's go to John 3.16 and get you some more data. Let's go to John 3.18. Let's go to John 3.36. Let's go to John 5.42. Let's go to John 6.40. Let's go to John 6.47. Let's go to, you know, we can go to a lot of places, you know, and then smoke starts coming out of the computer. It's going to freeze up. You know, it's going to overload the CPU, you know, with just too many verses, okay? It's going to crash the computer. There's so many verses. They're telling you it's believable only to be saved. Now look, let me explain it to you in another way. What if the verse said this? He that believeth and standeth on his head shall be saved. Think about that. He that believeth and standeth on his head shall be saved. Okay, let's test it right now. I'm going to stand on my head right now, all right, whoops, all right, so there. I just stood on my head. So according to that, I shall be saved because I believed, hold on, I believed, right? And I stood on my head. So I said, does that mean if somebody doesn't stand on their head, they shall not be saved? It's not what I'm saying. See, I believe that if a person believes and stands on their head, they literally shall be saved. Who believes that? Otherwise, I'm in trouble because I just did it. The bottom line is if you believe and do anything, you'll be saved. He that believes and goes to church will be saved. He that believes and reads his Bible will be saved. He that believes and prays will be saved. Why? Because he that believes will be saved. It's that simple. But you say, well, why in the world would he say it that way, though, Pastor Harrison? You're being silly. Why would he say, he that believeth and standeth on his head shall be saved? It's inviting confusion. Not really when you have a hundred verses telling you it's believe only. Only a person who wants to believe that baptism is necessary for salvation is going to let this one verse teach them that and give them that. And God, I think, purposely puts a lot of verses in the Bible that are curve balls and stumbling blocks to the unbelievers because it has to be spiritually discerned. But I think that the reason it's worded this way in this context is that it's talking about a third party. He's not saying if you believe and are baptized, you shall be saved. Because when he's talking directly to you, he says, hey, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, crystal clear. This is talking about someone else. This is a third party. He's saying to his disciples, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. I think it's because baptism is the outward show of our salvation. Because when we do get baptized, it's an outward testimony that we believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So here's the thing. A person could be saved and nobody knows it because of the fact that there were a lot of people who believed on Christ in the book of John, but they wouldn't confess him openly for fear of the Jews. They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. So people didn't know that they were saved. But here's the thing. When a person gets baptized, they're publicly showing that they're saved. So to these disciples that are going out and teaching all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, they're looking for a confirmation that these people are believing. And so when they see somebody get baptized, that's more of a testament of the fact that they're already saved. It's a testament of the fact that they believe. See here's the thing. If a person gets baptized, then outwardly we look at that person and it gives us more confidence that they really got saved. Even though we know that salvation is only by believing, it's only by faith, it's still good to see somebody get baptized. It's good to see somebody come to church. It's good to see their life change. Now I'm not going to sit there and say, hey, if they don't get baptized, they're not saved. Hey, if their life doesn't change, that's false doctrine. But don't you like it when people get baptized and do change? Because then it gives you more confidence. Like for example, you know, I remember I won a guy to the Lord and this guy had a real rough background and, you know, I won this guy to the Lord and everybody was saying like that guy's not, he didn't really get saved. Now I knew he got saved. I was the one who talked to him and I had given him the God, prayed for him, given the gospel and everybody's doubting it. He didn't really get saved. I don't think he got saved. But then a couple weeks later he got baptized. I brought him to church and he got baptized and then all of a sudden people started kind of singing a different tune. Like, oh, well, he got baptized. Why? It's because if a person gets baptized, it shows that they're a little bit more serious about, you know, what they believed in. Now it doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of people who believe, but then that's it. You know, they don't get baptized. But when somebody gets baptized, since it is the first step of obedience, it shows a seriousness. It shows, because you know, sometimes when you're out soul-willing, let's face it, some of the people you talk to could just pray with you just to kind of get you off their back and that's going to happen sometimes. And we understand that. I don't believe that it's a huge number of people, but every once in a while there are going to be people who do that. So it's great when you see somebody of their own volition show up and do all that. So you know, I hope that that helps you understand here where this verse I think is coming from, that baptism is an outward testimony to the soul winner. You know, not to themself or to God, because salvation is just by faith alone. And you know, we could point to a lot of scripture to prove that baptism is not necessary for salvation. Go to 1 Corinthians 1 is a good place I like to go. But first of all, we could go to a hundred verses that say that salvation is only by believing. Okay? Now, here's the thing. Come on back up here, guys. I need my three guys up here again, I'm sorry. You guys need to all stand on your head now to be saved. No, I'm just kidding. But come on up here. Go ahead and line up in the same order that you were, so we don't confuse anybody here. Okay, so we got our three guys lined up here, okay? Now, we tested these guys with John 3.16, and then we also tested them with Mark 16.16, right? And we figured out what was going on with that. But here's the thing. According to the people that are saying that this guy is not saved, because he believes but he hasn't been baptized, they're saying, hey, he's not saved. Well, here's the thing. John 3.16, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Okay, according to John 3.16, he'd be saved, right? That means if this guy's not saved, then John 3.16 is a lie. Do you understand that? John 3.18 is a lie. John 3.36 would be a lie. John 5.42 would be a lie. Ephesians 2.8 and 9 would be a lie. Because these are all verses that say that if you believe, you'll be saved. It's that simple. Here's the thing. If this guy is saved, does this make Mark 16.16 a lie? No. So it's easy to see which one is the truth. Because if we believe that the whole Bible is God's word, then all of it has to be true. The only way that both John 3.16 and Mark 16.16 can both be true, there's only one way. And that's if this guy's saved, this guy's saved, and this guy's not. And that's the only way that the Bible is accurate and true in every scripture. Go ahead and sit down, guys. I just wanted to reinforce that and emphasize that. It's important to understand that when we have two verses that seem to contradict each other, we need to realize that it's our understanding that's wrong, and we need to synthesize those two thoughts and get a teaching that is correct across the board for all examples. Now we could go to hundreds of verses that show, hey, believe only and you'll be saved, you know, and on and on. But look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, because a lot of people will try to make baptism part of the Gospel and say you've got to be baptized to be saved. But look what the Bible says here in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. It says in verse 13, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say I had baptized in my own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas, besides I know not whether I baptized any. Verse 17, for Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel, not with the wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. So Paul is saying here, Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. And I'm glad I didn't baptize a bunch of people, because people were elevating him and basically trying to make him into like a cult leader, like he's baptizing people in his own name or something, instead of in the name of Jesus, okay. So he says, well I thank God I baptized none of you. And Christ didn't send me to preach, or I mean Christ didn't send me to baptize, he sent me to preach the Gospel. Now why did Christ not send the Apostle Paul to baptize? Well you know I believe that part of the reason why is because if you study the Bible, the people who are doing the baptizing in the Bible are the bishops and deacons. Those are the ones that do the baptizing. You know it's the people that are actually the officers of the church. It's not just random people that just baptize others. It's not just any Christian, and you know there are a lot of people who think that just any Christian can baptize anybody, but the Bible does talk about that you're baptized into the body of Christ, which is the body of Christ is the local church. So how can you be baptized in the local church if you're being baptized by somebody who's not even part of a church, and not even associated with a church, etc. So if you think about it, the Apostle Paul was neither bishop nor deacon of a local church. You know the Apostle Paul was an apostle, but he was not married, he didn't have children. Why else would he be saying Christ sent me not to baptize? Because all the other apostles that were all married, James, John, Peter, Andrew, they all baptized a lot of people. And the Bible says that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples. So it seems that in the New Testament, and we're talking about the New Testament, it seems that Christ has ordained the church to be the place where people are baptized, and that people would be baptized through the bishops and the deacons of the church. Because if you look at a story like with the Apostle, what was I going to say, Philip, not the apostle, Philip baptized the people, what am I thinking, the Ethiopian eunuch. Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch, but Philip was a deacon in the church. Even though he didn't do it at the building, he was an officer of the church and he went and baptized that guy. I baptize people in random places and I baptize people in a river and in a lake and in places, but that's because I'm the pastor of the church. I personally don't think that anybody should just baptize. There's not really a clear scripture on it, but I would just tend to believe because the scripture's not really clear on it, it's better to just kind of err on the side of caution and just get people baptized by the pastor or the deacon. To me, that just makes more sense to err on the side of caution. People disagree, that's fine. That's my understanding of it. Now, are there exceptions to this? Well, the Apostle Paul did baptize some people. I mean, right here, he's saying, yeah, I baptized the household of Stephanus. I baptized Crispus and Gaius. So he baptized some people, so I don't think it was bad or wrong for him to baptize those people, but it's just that that wasn't really his main ministry because I think he was more leaving that to the church to do that and the bishops and deacons to do that. It wasn't his ministry. He flat out said, Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel. Now let me ask you this. If baptism is part of the gospel, how could you be sent not to baptize, but to preach the gospel? I mean, what are you going to do, all right, you need to be saved by believing and getting baptized, but I'm not going to baptize you. So it wouldn't really make sense, would it? But we know the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. You just have to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, also the thief on the cross was not baptized, and Jesus said, today, shout that be with me in paradise. And again, there's no scripture that says that if you're not baptized, you won't be saved. And it's the like figure where unto baptism doth also now save us. It's not that baptism saves us, it's the figure of baptism that saves us, because what is the figure? The figure, it's a figure of the death, burial, and resurrection, and it's the resurrection that saves us. God will be saved by his life, the Bible says. So let's quickly finish up the chapter here in Mark 16. But it says, verse 17, and these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils, and they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Now let me point out some things about this verse. First of all, a lot of people will interpret these verses as, hey, every single saved person is going to perform these signs. That's not what he's saying. He's just saying these are signs that are going to follow those that believe in the future. He doesn't say every single believer. Now all of the things in there happened in the book of Acts. Remember when Paul was bit by a deadly serpent and it didn't harm him so much? But there are people who take this as a mandate to every Christian, and instead of just waiting for a serpent to just randomly bite them, they'll actually take up the serpents on purpose. This is in the deep south in the United States in these really weird backwoods places. Who's ever seen this before, the videos of this? There are these weird churches in these really weird parts of Kentucky, right? Kentucky? Is that where, am I right, Brother Baker, right? So Kentucky or West Virginia or a place like, I'm just trying to offend as many people as I can, you know, but, you know, Arkansas, anyway, these weird backwoods secluded places where they had these churches where they read this scripture and then they take up serpents and they handle snakes and there was this pastor, I remember seeing it on the news when I was a kid, this pastor had been bit like 15 times and stuff, and some of these pastors had died because they got bit by the serpent and it did harm them and they die of this. No, I've been bit 15 times and, you know, and they had these services where they speak in tongues and handle serpents and they're passing around rattlesnakes and cobras and stuff. You've seen it. Who's seen it? Yeah, I've seen it. But it's, you know, this isn't saying everybody's going to do it. This is just talking about God has miraculously healed people who have been bit by a poisonous serpent, like happened with the Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 27. Or is it 28? I believe 28. So it also says they shall speak with new tongues. Now, when the Bible says they shall speak with new tongues, it's not saying they're going to speak with a language that's never been invented before. They're going to come up with their own Esperanto language, their own new language. No, when it says they'll speak with new tongues, it means a tongue that they did not previously know. It's not saying a tongue that no, when the Bible talks about an unknown tongue, it's talking about a tongue that you don't know. It's not saying a tongue that nobody knows. Like who here knows Chinese? No one. So if somebody came in here speaking Chinese, they're speaking in what? An unknown tongue. And if you were to start speaking Chinese, what would you be speaking? A new tongue, a new language, right? Tongue means language. And so the Bible does record where people miraculously spake a language that they had never learned, like in Acts chapter 2 when all these foreigners are there and they're all speaking in foreign languages unto them and it's a miracle where they spoke in a new tongue. This isn't some new gibberish, you know. It's basically a real bona fide language, it's just new to them. It was unknown unto them. And that's a whole sermon in and of itself. And then it says, you know, they'll lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. Now we all don't have the power to just everybody we lay hands on shall recover. The apostles did that and the Bible called it special miracles. Look if every Christian did it, it wouldn't have been called special miracles. And they were, the apostles were given special power to heal where they laid hands and everybody they laid hands on recovered. Everybody that Jesus healed, you know, laid hands on recovered. Whereas where we're at basically is more of a James 5 situation where, you know, you can, if you're sick, you can call for the elders of the church to pray over you and be healed in the name of the Lord. The Bible says the prayer of faith shall save the sick. So we do pray for people, we do lay hands on people and pray for them to be healed. But we don't have the ability to just heal every single person or cast out every single devil. But through prayer we can see these things happen, you know, if it be the Lord's will. And again, a whole another sermon in and of itself. It says in verse 19, so then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following, amen. Isn't that a much better ending than to end with the word afraid? These modern versions want to leave you with, neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid. And you know what? That should be the motto of every NIV preaching church. That should be the verse that they put up on the wall behind them. They didn't say anything to any man because they're all afraid. They're all scared. He wouldn't preach the Bible because he was too scared. They wouldn't give the gospel to any man because they were all scared. They went away trembling and scared and afraid. Isn't that interesting? That's how they want to end the gospel. The real ending is they preached everywhere. They were told to preach to every creature and they went and did it. They preached everywhere. And God did a mighty work, amen. Much better ending. You know, which one is the Holy Spirit telling you is the end of the book? Trembling and afraid or they went everywhere preaching? That inspired them to have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. And we thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit. And we thank you for the church that we have, Lord, that we can get together with your people. And we really want to thank you for an amazing year in 2014. You blessed us so much and we've had so many victories, Lord. And we pray that 2015 would be another great year for our church, Lord. Strengthen us as individuals, strengthen us as a church, and help us to do great exploits for you in the coming year. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.