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Man, the title of my sermon tonight is The Long Ending of Mark. I'm preaching about the so-called long ending of the Gospel of Mark, which is really the only ending or the right ending, the actual ending of the Book of Mark. But I want you to know that the modern versions have attacked this ending of the Book of Mark, and all of the so-called scholars and experts and theologians who are behind the NIV, the ESV, the New Living Translation, all these other Bibles beside the King James Version. They don't believe that anything from verse 9 on is part of scripture. They actually believe that this should end in verse 8. I'm going to show you why that's so ridiculous, and I'm going to preach these things to you tonight. But first let me show you what the modern versions are doing, so I'm going to pull out my collection of wrong Bibles here and go through this. So this is like just a hall of horrors here of just garbage Bible versions. So let's start with the NIV, one of the best-selling Bibles in America. If we go to Mark 16, not only do they throw shade on verses 9 through 20, they don't even do it like in a footnote at the bottom of the page or something or a little star or an asterisk, right in the middle of the text so that you cannot miss it. Like here you are, Joe Church member, you're reading your Bible. As soon as you finish verse 8, there's just this giant line. They just draw like a big horizontal line, and then it says, the earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16, 9 through 20, to where you just – you have to read that. So the readers basically told, hey, guess what, what you're about to read probably isn't even legit in the first place, okay. Now here's the thing about that. The earliest manuscripts, two, there are only two. When they say ancient Greek manuscripts, the most reliable manuscripts don't have it, we're talking about the infamous Sinai Atticus and Vaticanus, and that's it. All the other Greek manuscripts contain this. It's just these infamous ones that they're talking about when they say that the oldest, the most reliable. These two pieces of junk, Sinai Atticus and Vaticanus, they want to throw out all the thousands of manuscripts, all the thousands of printed editions of the Bible, all the Bibles that have been translated into all these languages in the 16th century, 17th century, the King James, Spanish, Italian, German, throw all that out for these two pieces of junk that these archaeologists have told us are, you know, the oldest and most reliable. Here's how close they are to the original. They're from the 4th century AD. That's still several hundred years after the fact, okay. So you see how they're pretty much telling the reader not to give any authority to verses 9 through 20 here, right. Now over here we've got the Jehovah's Witness Bible, the New World Translation. Now here's their old one that they had until a couple years ago and what they do here is like a choose your own adventure. So when you get to verse 8, it gives you a short ending or a long ending or no ending. So you can either choose to kill it at verse 8 or you can choose a short ending or you can choose a long ending, okay. But in the current silver edition, this is what the Jehovah's false witnesses are handing out now. If you turn to Mark 16 in this one, it just ends at verse 8 and they don't give you any other option. It's just you get to verse 8 and you turn the page and it's Luke 1.1. Now you say, well Pastor Anderson, why doesn't the NIV do the same thing? Why didn't the NIV just leave it out? You know why? Because it would freak people out if you took out this giant section including go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That's kind of a famous verse, Mark 16, 15. But let me tell you something, the people behind the NIV, the people behind the ESV, the people behind the New Living, make no mistake, they reject Mark 16, 9 through 20. They are only printing it in the Bible because they know that if they don't, it will freak people out. By the way, same thing with the story of the woman who's taken in adultery. John 7, verse 53 to John 8, verse 11, all of the people behind these modern versions believe that that's not scripture. So why don't they omit it? Why don't they just be like the New World Translation and just take it out? Because the New World Translation can get their followers to believe anything because they're a cult. Whereas if the NIV just started printing the book of John without that story, people would freak out because it's such a well-known, well-beloved story. And by the way, it's inspired by God, it's part of the Bible. Let's see what the ESV does here. If we look it up in the ESV, it's a choose your own adventure. So it says right in the middle of the text, some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16, 9 through 20. And then it gives you the ending there as an option. Okay. And then let's see here, New Living Translation. The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8. Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, which are not reliable at all, and that's all they're talking about. Okay. Here's the Living Bible. Verses 9 through 20 are not found in the most ancient manuscripts, but may be considered an appendix giving additional facts. Well, that really seems like a little appendix there at the end, doesn't it? No, actually, it's obviously part of the story, and I'm gonna show you in a moment because that's an essential part of the story. New American Standard, what do they say here? Here they give a choose your own adventure. They give you a short version and a long version. They put it in brackets, and they let you pick which one you want. So you get the idea, but you see that this is something that if you have one of these modern versions, it's like impossible to ignore because they put a giant note right in the middle of the text in your face. Why? Because the people who are publishing it don't believe in it. So let me ask you a very important question. If the editors of these modern versions and the people who are behind putting together these modern editions of the Greek text and so forth, if they reject Mark 16, 9 through 20, and they reject the John 8, 1 through 11, do you trust their judgment? Okay, so why are you trusting them with the rest of the New Testament? What else are they doing? What other little sentences are they removing? Words are they removing? Verses? Because let me tell you something. If they can get by with it without you noticing, they'll do it. The only reason they can't take out these giant chunks is because it's too dramatic. Folks in the early 20th century, when a Bible version came out that in Isaiah 7, 14 said, instead of, behold, a virgin shall conceive, it said, behold, a young woman shall conceive, folks, people freaked out, and they wouldn't accept it. So then after that, the modern versions figured out, we've got to put virgin in Isaiah 7, 14, or we can't sell this thing. Make no mistake, the people behind these modern versions, you think that they believe in the virgin birth of Christ? Do you think that they believe that Isaiah 7, 14 is supposed to say virgin and that the Hebrew Bible was prophesying the virgin birth of Christ? They don't believe that, friend. Many of these people are openly atheists or agnostic that put together the underlying Greek text. Now maybe the people on the NIV committee and ESV committee, New American Standard Committee are all claiming to believe on Jesus Christ, but what about the Greek text that they're translating from? It's literally in many cases being put together by atheists and agnostics. That's who we're going to trust to tell us which Greek manuscripts we should go with and which verses we should omit. Wrong. That's why we go with the received text, the traditional text, as it is translated in the King James Bible, which is the word of God preserved unto us today in our English language. So with that out of the way, let's talk about the reasons why we know that this is God's word and let's talk about the important teachings that are found therein. The first point I want to make is that ending this chapter at verse 8 is bizarre. It's the first thing I want to say right away. Ending verse 8 is bizarre. It is a weak ending that makes no sense. Okay, let's start reading in verse 1 of the chapter. And when the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome had bought 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 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's 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. There shall you see him as he said unto you. And they went out quickly and fled from the sepulcher. Boy, listen to this powerhouse ending. For they trembled and were amazed, neither said they anything to any man, for they were afraid. Great ending, huh? Everybody's scared. Nobody wants to say anything. Nobody wants to tell anybody. Let's just all cower in fear we don't know what to do. The end. Great. Okay. Do other books in the New Testament end that way? Folks, every ending, a book in the New Testament has this powerhouse ending. You know, Matthew's like, lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world, right? In Luke, they're all praising God and in the temple and preaching the word, right? The Book of John, man, if you wrote all the things that Jesus did, the world itself couldn't contain all the books that should be written and all these wonderful endings. The Book of Acts, you know, the Apostle Paul for two years, he keeps on preaching. No man forbidding him. Just every single book you go through and read these powerful endings, even so come Lord Jesus, the grace of our Lord, it's just like, they're scared. They don't tell anybody. They trembled. We don't know what to do. Now, so number one is without verses 19 through 20, it's a bizarre, strange, weak ending unlike other books in the New Testament. But not only that, there are certain common elements in all four Gospels that just have to be there, okay? You know, when you're reading the four Gospels, they're all going to cover certain things like obviously the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, right? They all give a detailed account of the crucifixion and Jesus Christ dying on the cross and him being buried and him rising again. But you know what? They also all contain. They also all contain not just, oh, he rose again, but rather people witnessing his resurrection. Here you have no resurrection witnesses. All you have is some dude at the tomb saying, well, he's risen. And they're like, I'm scared. I'm not going to tell anybody. I don't know what to do. The end. Where are the witnesses of the resurrection, right? Because in Matthew, you have his resurrection being witnessed. In Luke, it's witnessed. In John, and guess what? In Mark, it's witnessed too. They're chopping that off, aren't they? But not only are the witnesses of the resurrection an essential part of this format of the four Gospels, but what about the Great Commission? They all have the Great Commission. Go if you would to Luke chapter 24. I'm not even going to have you turn to Matthew because obviously you're familiar with go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. So the Gospel of Matthew has witnesses of the resurrection and a Great Commission. The book of Mark should have witnesses of the resurrection and the Great Commission, which it does have in the part that they are chopping out in modern versions. What about Luke? Luke, of course, has probably the most powerful witnesses of his resurrection where I mean they're handling him and, hey, give me something to eat. I'm not a spirit. I have flesh and bone. I mean it's powerful. But look at the Great Commission, Luke 24, 46, and said unto them, thus it is written and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. So you see the mandate to start at Jerusalem and to preach repentance and remission of sins in all nations and ye are witnesses of these things and behold, verse 49, I send the promise of my Father upon you but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. And obviously this is setting up the book of Acts because Luke and Acts are one basically narrative. Acts picks up from Luke, same author, and so it's setting up the book of Acts. But even in the book of Luke, we see he's saying, look, you're going to be preaching in the whole world. So we start in Jerusalem, wait in Jerusalem until the promise of the Holy Spirit is given, but we see witnesses of the resurrection and we see the Great Commission. Do we have the Great Commission in the book of John? Go to John chapter number 20. John chapter number 20 also contains the Great Commission. But you know what? In this book of Mark that these so-called experts want to give us where they want to chop up the Bible and remove things, you know what? It becomes the Great O-mission. Instead of the Great Commission is the Great O-mission from the book of Mark, it's gone. And you say, well, I don't know if it really matters because we have it in three other places. You know what? That's nonsense. Every word that God has given us, he gave it to us and we need it and we need to live by every word of God and not just say, well, we're missing something. Well, sorry, we need the whole thing. And by the way, when I was a teenager, I sat in Sunday school and literally had a Sunday school teacher get up at a North American Baptist convention, Baptist church. It was like an NIV type church, rock and roll type church. And my Sunday school teacher said that basically, you know, the Bible doesn't tell us anywhere to just preach the gospel to everyone. It actually just only tells us to disciple people. But there's nowhere in the Bible telling us to just preach the gospel to everyone. I'm like, what? That's crazy. So then I'm like, you know, I didn't know the Bible very well. I was a teenager and I hadn't read it cover to cover. And you know, so I'm like, I'm like, I'm going to find, I can find this, you know. So I, you know, I turned to Matthew and I said, well, right here, you know, go ye and teach all nations. Well, no, no, no. He says make disciples because in the King James says teach all nations. But in the NIV, it says make disciples, you know, that's just talking about discipling people. That's not saying praise. So then I'm like, go to Mark. You know? Okay. So because I just knew it was going to be at the end of every gospel. I didn't know the references, but I just knew go to the end of every gospel and look for the red letters. So I went to the end of Mark and I'm like, oh, go ye into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. Bam! Right? Just mic drop. And this is what he said. And this is what he said. No, no, that's not in. Look at the note. That's not in the original manuscripts. You know, and he had an answer. And then I go to Luke. I go to John. It's like he had a way around all of it. So folks, when you have a King James, there's no way around it, folks. We need to go preach the gospel to every creature. It matters. Look at John chapter 20. It says in John 20, 20, and when he had so said, he showed them his hands and his side. That's powerful witness of the resurrection. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. Verse 21, then said Jesus to them, peace be unto you as my father had sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and sayeth unto them, receive you the Holy Ghost, whose soever sins you remit, they're remitted unto them and whose soever sins you retain, they're retained. Not to mention the fact that in chapter 21, he's telling Peter, follow me, feed my sheep, feed my lambs. Hey, the gospel message should give us something to do. It should be giving us a mission. It should be sending, not just here's what happened. You know, Jesus died on the cross, was buried, rose again. Isn't that great? We're all scared. No, folks, it says what to do. Go teach all nations, Matthew. Go preach the gospel to every creature in Mark. You know, preach repentance and remission of sins in all nations, Luke, right? As the father sent me, so send I you in the book of John, right? All of these places are giving you instructions for what to do because the Christian life is about service, right? It's not just we learn facts and sit around and say, but we're actually sent with a message to the world. So you can see how this chopping off of the long ending of Mark is removing key elements from the gospel of Mark, leaving it unfinished, where there's no resurrection witnesses and there's no great commission, okay? So let's go ahead and dig into these verses that they're leaving out, okay? So let's jump into these scriptures. Mark 16, 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 heard that he was alive and had been 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. Underward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meet and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen. And of course, these things are corroborated in the other gospels where you have the two that are on the road to Emmaus and you've got the eleven at meet and you've got Mary and so forth. So this is all corroborated, but Mark here is recording the fact that Jesus was seen after he resurrected. They're not just relying on some guy at the tomb telling them that it happened, but rather, they actually are seeing Jesus. They handled him. They witnessed the resurrection. I mean, that's what it meant to be an apostle. You know, they are the witnesses of his resurrection, okay? And after he upbraids them because of their hardness of heart, it says in verse 15, he said to them, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, which is one of the most famous verses in the New Testament, powerful verse, important verse, something that's been preached all the time by people who actually believe the Bible and actually care about winning souls to Christ, okay? But one of the other reasons that these scholars will give, they'll say, well, you know, some of the things in this long ending are a little bit problematic doctrinally. So that's why it needs to be omitted. Even though it's in, you know, thousands of Bibles, millions of Bibles, and it's just missing from these oldest, most reliable manuscripts, one of which is Sinaiticus and the other is Vaticanus, Vaticanus, everybody get that, okay? Which are both, which by the way, even those two disagree with each other constantly. Vaticanus is not even complete. I think it ends somewhere in the book of Hebrews or something, okay? And it's just this old manuscript that's corrupt is what it is because there have always been people corrupting God's word. Just like today we've got the New World Translation, which is just a ridiculous corruption of God's word that the Jehovah's false witnesses are peddling. So let's look at the part that they claim is problematic doctrinally. It says in verse 16, he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. And basically some would look at this and say, well, this is teaching baptism for salvation. No it isn't. And let me tell you why. Because it doesn't say that if you're not baptized, you're going to be damned. Is that what it says? See it says if you're, if you believe and are baptized, you'll be saved. But if you're, if you don't believe, you'll be damned. Now here's what you'll never find. You will find some verses in the New Testament that seem to be connecting baptism to salvation, but you know what you'll never find? You'll never find a verse in the New Testament that says if you don't get baptized, you're damned. If you don't get baptized, you're not saved. That would be the proof that you have to be baptized to be saved. And it isn't there. Like for example, I'll just give you some examples so that you don't have to turn to these, but John 3.18 says he that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. So the Bible is clear over and over again, not believing is what damns you. If you don't believe, you're damned, right? John 3.36, he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. Right? So it's the believeth not that causes God's wrath to be on you. John 8.24, I said therefore unto you that ye shall die in your sins for if you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. And then in Thessalonians 2.12, that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but add pleasure and unrighteousness. So what we don't see are verses saying, hey, if you don't get baptized, you're going to hell. If you don't get baptized, you're not saved. But we find verse after verse after verse saying if you don't believe. And then obviously we just have this huge number of verses telling us that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have eternal life. I mean, you have plenty of verses hammering that 90 times in the Gospel of John alone. It says believe. And then at the end of the book, it says this book is written so that you could have eternal life, okay? So what we see is that the lion's share of scripture is telling us believe, believe, believe, believe, believe. And then we have all these verses saying if you don't believe, you'll be damned. And this verse itself does not say if you're not baptized, you won't be saved. It just says whosoever believeth in his baptized shall be saved. Now let me ask you this. We believe that salvation is by faith alone, right? If you believe, you're saved. Okay. So is this a true statement? Whosoever believeth in his baptized shall be saved? Is that true? If somebody believes in Christ and gets baptized, are they saved? Is that any problem for us doctrinally? Is that any kind of a doctrinal issue for us at all? No, of course. Okay. How about the next part? But if you don't believe, you're damned. Is that true? So what's the issue, right? What's the problem? What's the problem with that? Because here you say, well, but it makes this sound like. But here's the thing. Often in the Bible, people are getting, they're believing and they're getting baptized right away. It could be happening in rapid succession, but it's not the baptism that saves you. And if you don't do the baptism, it doesn't affect your salvation at all. Because what about, let's say, because you have two choices here. You can either believe that baptism is necessary to get you to heaven or baptism is not necessary. Those are the two options, right? Okay, so if you take our option, baptism is not necessary, we don't have a problem with this verse and we don't have a problem with John 3.16 because baptism is just an add-on, but it's not absolutely essential here, is it? No. Okay. But what about the people who believe baptism is essential? What are they going to do with John 3.16? Whosoever believeth in him. Well, and gets baptized. They're going to have to do that to like 100 verses that just say, believe and you'll be saved. Well, you know, and get baptized. They're going to have to do it. Whereas we just look at this one verse and say, okay, whosoever believeth in his baptism shall be saved. I don't have an issue with that. Now, what's the context? He's giving them instructions. They're going to go out and preach the gospel, okay? And so obviously when we preach the gospel and someone believes in Christ and then they get baptized, a lot of times that gives us more confidence that they actually got saved, doesn't it? Because that's what we can see. We can't see in their heart, can we? So we can't, all we can go by is what they tell us. You know, if they believe in Christ, they call upon the name of the Lord, then we say, okay, you're saved, right? Take your word for it. But look, a lot of times we're out on some missions trip in South Africa, Botswana, Malawi, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, right? We're out on these missions trips and we're winning people to the Lord. A lot of these people, we don't ever see them again or we're out in some Indian reservation somewhere. Okay, but what about when you actually win someone to Christ that's a loved one? Let's say, you know, when we've won relatives to the Lord, let's say when we won coworkers to the Lord, when they get baptized, don't we kind of feel like a little more confident that they really got it? Not because baptism has anything to do with salvation, but just because we like to see that, don't we? We like to see them take that next step and the more steps they take, then we feel good about it because obviously there are some people that say they got saved and it turns out they didn't really get saved, right? It's definitely out there. So therefore, when we see people believe and get baptized, it's like, great, right? This is something that we rejoice about, but this verse is not saying, hey, if you want to be saved, here's how you do it. You got to believe and get baptized. That's not what this verse is saying. This verse is giving instructions to the apostles, hey, go out, preach the gospel to every creature. If someone believes and gets baptized, they're saved, but if they don't believe, they're damned, okay? So just don't add to what it's saying. Just go with what it actually says and you have no issue and take it within the context of the rest of the New Testament and you end up with no issue, okay? Look at the next verse. This is another thing that they'll say is problematic. These signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils, 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 here's the thing about that. Out of these five things that are mentioned of signs that will follow them that believe, four of these things are recorded in the Book of Acts. Four of these happen in the Book of Acts. The only one that we don't see in the Book of Acts is someone drinking a deadly thing and being unharmed. But hold on a second. If we see people in the Book of Acts being bit by a poisonous serpent and having no harm, Acts 28, if we see people in the Book of Acts laying hands on the sick and they recover, right? Apostle Paul, Peter, Jesus did that, his apostles did that, even into the Book of Acts his apostles did that. And if we see them doing these other things like speaking in new languages, speaking in foreign tongues, we see that happening of course, starting in Acts 2 and elsewhere. Do we see them casting out devils in the Book of Acts? Yeah, we see the Apostle Paul casting out devils and remember the sons of Sceva, they try it and they get their rear ends handed to them and run out of there. So the bottom line is that if we see these things happening in the Book of Acts of people speaking with the other languages, people casting out devils, laying hands on the sick, if we see them, you know, being bit by a serpent and being unharmed like Paul in Acts 28, is it really that hard to believe that also at some point there were some person or persons who drank something deadly and it didn't harm them? Because guess what? The Acts of the Apostles, once you get around Chapter 13, it kind of becomes the Acts of the Apostles most of the time because, you know, once you get to a certain point, it pretty much just focuses on Paul. So what are the rest of them doing? We don't, you know, we don't have all that information. You know, what about, what did Thomas do? What did Andrew do? What did John do? And of course, history books tell us what Bartholomew did and different things, but we don't know how accurate that is. When it comes to actually reading the New Testament, we only have just this very limited view here of mainly just what Paul did, the highlights from the life of Paul. What about the other ten apostles? Obviously, one of them died pretty quick there, James, but, you know, what about ten other guys that did a whole bunch of ministry and all kinds of things? What about all the other apostles who did these things? So this is not an issue. Now here's where this scripture becomes an issue is when people misinterpret and twist this to say every single person who gets saved is going to do all these things. Is that what it says? No. These signs shall follow them that believe. It's not saying every single person who believes they're going to be drinking poison, they're going to be taking up serpents, they're going to be speaking with new tongues. That's ridiculous. And in fact, the Apostle Paul, when he's preaching the Corinthians and trying to defend his apostleship to them, he explains to them and says, you know what, the signs of an apostle were done among you. The signs of an apostle were done among you. Why? Because your average Joe Christian isn't all able to do all these things. We don't just walk down the street doing miracles, okay? Now, you know, the Pentecostal church down the street would maybe have you believe that they can do all these miracles and all these things, but, you know, when you read the Bible, if you actually read the whole Bible, you'll read of periods of centuries where no miracles are going on. And look, I don't believe God's done doing miracles. I believe God could still do miracles today and sometimes does miracles today, but the difference is that we're not living in the era of the apostles. What did the Bible say about Paul in the book of Acts? Special miracles were done by Paul. Well, let me ask you this. Are they special if everyone's doing them? Special means this is something special where, you know, they brought the handkerchiefs to them and they're being healed and stuff, and people, just the shadow of Peter is healing people. Those are called special miracles. And you know, when you read the Old Testament, are there miracles in the Old Testament? Yeah, you see Moses doing miracles. You see guys like Elijah and Elisha doing miracles, but, you know, you also read for just centuries of history of Israel with no miracles being listed. You see just, so you might get the feeling that God's just constantly doing miracles. That's because you're reading a history of thousands of years and it's giving you the highlights. The miracles are the highlights. And obviously Jesus did a lot of miracles and the apostles did a lot of miracles, but you know what? That is not something that just continues on forever. Now look, in the future, there are going to be more miracles. You know, when you read the book of Revelation, you got the two witnesses. They're doing miracles. You know, they're calling down fire from heaven and they're going to be stopping the rain and everything just like Elijah did. They're going to be miracles. But the point is that John the Baptist, for example, did no miracle. John the Baptist, some kind of a subpar man of God. Well, the Bible says that John the Baptist, the greatest man who ever lived that was born of woman. But you know what it also says? It says, John did no miracle. Yet all the things that he said concerning this man are true. John the Baptist had multitudes of people saved, multitudes of people baptized, powerful preaching that turned the whole nation upside down all without doing a single miracle. So God doesn't just only operate through miracles. There are times in history where he operates through miracles and other times he doesn't, because that's just the way God is. So the bottom line is that the way that you would get a bad doctrine from this is by misreading it that every single person who believes is going to do these things. When in reality, if you get the context, jump down to verse number 20 and get the context. And they went forth, after they get the instruction, what do they do? They went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following. So Christianity gets a jump start in the first generation by having Jesus show up, do all these miracles, his fame goes all over the world, and then the apostles continue and they go into all the world and they go into the four corners of the earth preaching the word of God and confirming the word, doing miracles like the people in Israel got to see miracles. They get everything jump started with miracles to just kind of evangelize the whole thing in their time and so forth. But you know what? There are no apostles today because the definition of an apostle was one who had witnessed Christ. Remember when they're picking a replacement apostle in Acts chapter one and they say, you know, beginning from the baptism of John until that day in which Jesus was taken up from us, must one be ordained with us to be a witness of his resurrection, okay? Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. We're going to be back in Mark 16, but go to 1 Corinthians 15. These things are known as apostolic signs, right? The signs of an apostle were done among you, Paul said. Special miracles by guys like Peter and Paul. Not everyday miracles, special miracles, okay? Why? Because miracles don't happen every day. What is the definition of a miracle? A miracle is a suspension of the laws of nature, okay, where something happens that is not, that is supernatural, right? Look at 1 Corinthians 15. The Bible says, verse four, that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to scriptures, and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are falling asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles. So notice, all of the apostles witnessed the resurrected Christ. Does everybody see that? And last of all, he was seen of me as of one born out of due time. He said, I'm a latecomer. You know, all the apostles saw Christ, and last of all, he was seen of me as one born out of due time, and watch what he says, for I'm the least of the apostles. Now does it sound like new apostles are being created after the apostle Paul? Other people are seeing the resurrected Christ, and other apostles are being created? No. And there's nothing to teach that in scripture. The apostles were people from that first generation of Christianity who saw the resurrected Christ. And here's the thing, they saw the resurrected Christ before he ascended up to heaven, the only exception to that is Paul. That's why he's the apostle born out of due time. He's the late one. Because the rest of them saw it during that forty days, where he was seen of them forty days. Then he ascended up to heaven. Paul is a special exception. Last of all, he was seen of me. And the next time anybody sees him, it's going to be when every eye sees him. When he comes in the clouds, and every eye shall see him. So an apostle, we can see whether we're looking at 1 Corinthians 15 or Acts chapter 1, it has to do with witnessing the resurrected Christ, seeing Jesus bodily after he rose from the dead in those forty days, and then the late comer, Paul, who saw him on the road to Damascus. So go back to Mark 16, I'll wrap up here. The other misunderstanding that you could get from this, the first misunderstanding is to say, well, everybody's going to do these things. No, it's just that people that believe are going to do these things. Well, guess what? Four out of five of them are recorded in Acts. I easily have the faith to believe that the fifth one happened somewhere in Thomas's ministry or Bartholomew's ministry or Peter's ministry or John's ministry, right? Somebody tried to poison them and they made it out, or they just got a bad batch of whatever and, you know, God took care of it. Pretty easy to believe if you ask me. Now the other way that you could get a false doctrine here is to say, well, if the Bible says if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them, let's go drink a deadly thing just to prove that it won't hurt us. Now let me tell you what this is exactly like. This is exactly like the devil telling Jesus, throw yourself off the temple because it is written, he hath given his angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. So if the Bible says that the angels are going to bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone, you should be able to throw yourself off the temple and be fine. Isn't that the exact same thing? So what was Jesus' response to that? Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. We are not to tempt God by saying, oh, God, you promised to protect me? Here, let me go run in traffic. God's going to protect me. Okay, I'm going to go jump off a building because God's going to protect me. It's stupid, right? But here's the thing. Let's say you chop out the ending of the Book of Mark like these wicked editors of these versions want to do. Well guess what? You still will have tons of other verses promising you all kinds of protections and you'll still have the example of Jesus saying, I'm not going to throw myself off a cliff just because God promised to protect me. So this is not a unique doctrine to Mark 16. It's not like Mark 16 is just introducing this novel idea of God protecting people supernaturally because you know, we have other verses that say things like, you know, no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. So does that mean I'm just going to bare my chest to the machine gun fire and just be like, fire away. No weapon that is formed against me shall prosper, you know, it's not going to work. So atheists will pull this out and I think one of these atheists was debating one of these modern version guys and he brought a bunch of antifreeze and he said in the middle of the debate, hey, I want you to drink this right now because you know, in Mark 16 it says they'll drink a deadly thing and it won't harm them. So then this guy's answer was like, oh, well that's not even really in the Bible. That's not even a real verse. That was his, you know, cause he's one of these false version guys. You know what his, you know what his real answer should have been? Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. If Jesus was promised divine protection, that doesn't give him the right to throw himself off a building just to prove that. If God promised to protect me, and look, I do believe that if I got in a situation where I was poisoned, God could protect me from that. God could perform, and I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't just be completely shocked to see God perform a miracle in 2020. Although I believe that God performs miracles rarely, I do believe that miracles exist. And so I would not be shocked if God supernaturally spared me or someone else in a situation. But you know what, the stupidity of drinking antifreeze or like these hillbillies in the south where they take up the serpents as a test of their faith where they handle rattlesnakes and everything. You know what, that's the same stupidity of, oh, cast thyself down for it is written as an exact parallel right there with the temptation of Christ. So if you compare scripture with scripture, you compare Mark 16 with the book of Acts and see these things happening when it was God's will to protect people, and then we could also look at the temptation of Christ and get that principle, then it all fits like a glove with the rest of scripture. There's nothing exotic or unique in this passage. There's nothing in Mark 16, 9 through 20 that's foreign to scripture. It's like, whoa, what's that? Mark 16, 16 is not the only verse that seems to tie in baptism with salvation. It isn't. There are other verses that do the same thing, but when you get them in their proper context and understand them, they're not teaching baptismal regeneration because the only thing that saves us is faith. Look, there's a verse that seems to teach work salvation in James 2, but does that mean that the Bible is teaching work salvation? No, because when you get it in context, when you study that passage, you realize James 2 is not teaching work salvation. Mark 16 is not teaching baptismal regeneration. Are some things in the Bible harder to understand than others? Of course, but there is nothing unique or exotic in Mark 16, 9 through 20 because all these miracles, that's not foreign to scripture. That's the book of Acts. You know, Mark 16, 16 is not an off-the-wall verse at all. It's not contrary to what the rest of the New Testament's teaching at all. And then one last point I want to make is that verse 19 is a powerful verse in regard to the discussion of the Trinity, debunking the false oneness doctrine or modalism or oneness Pentecostalism. It says in Mark 16, 19, so then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God. So there goes your little one-throne argument. It's only one, you know. That's what these heretics amongst they even that were in our church infiltrating our church with this heresy and they're trying to say, well, when you get up to heaven, there's going to be one throne and there's going to be one person on that throne. Well, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that Jesus was received up and he sat down on the right hand of God. You got God and then you got Jesus sitting at his right hand. It is not the same thing that Stephen saw when he looked up into heaven. In Acts chapter seven, when Stephen gets stoned, he looks up and he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Well, this is a great verse for that, okay, that Jesus is at the right hand of God the Father. Now, of course, we believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Obviously, we believe that Jesus is God, but Jesus is not the Father. God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are God. But there's God the Father, there's Jesus Christ, and there's the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is not God the Father. God the Father is not Jesus Christ. God the Father is not the Holy Spirit, but they're all one God. Three persons, one God. One God eternally consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That's what the Bible teaches. And so this is a great verse on that, because it's basically spelling out that when Jesus gets to heaven, because what the modalists are trying to say is that you've got God the Father up in heaven, and then he basically becomes Jesus. And then he goes back up in heaven, and now, boom, he's the Father again. You know, it's basically like a thing of, and they say, well, he can be all three at the same time because he's God. So they say, you know, he's one person just wearing different hats, okay? It's like the old gag where you have the real small town, and the guy puts on the hat, and he's the judge, and then he takes off the hat, and now he's the sheriff, and then he takes off the hat, and now he's the fire chief, right? One guy is fulfilling all these roles. And that's how these heretics described their oneness doctrine. They said that basically it's like a one-man band. The guitarist is the drummer, is the bass player, is the keyboard player, you know, because it's just one guy, sometimes he's acting as the father, sometimes he's acting like the son. So, folks, that's garbage. Jesus said, not my will but thine be done. Jesus said, I came not to do my own will but the will of him that sent me. Jesus said, if I bear record of myself, my record is not true, there's another that bears record of me, even the Father which sent me. And he said, it's expedient for you that I go away because if I go away, then the Father is going to send you another comforter. He's not saying, hey, it's expedient that I go away because if I go away, then I'm going to send myself to you. I need to leave so that I can send myself back. I got to get out of here so I can send myself. Is that what it says? No, he says, I got to go away so that the Father can send another comforter. That's three people. Okay. And he said, well, that's three gods. Nope. It's one God. Folks, there's only one God. But that one God consists of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That's what the Bible teaches. And you say, well, I don't get it. Well, okay. I'm sorry that you're struggling to learn. But that's not going to change the fact that it's what the Bible teaches. Because look, these are the facts, friend. Here are the facts. This is what we know to be true from the Bible. We know that there's only one God. Amen? Okay. What else do we know? We know that Jesus is God. But you know what else we know? We know that Jesus and God the Father are not the same person. Because we have just verse after verse after verse of him saying, hey, it's not me, but the Father. It's not the Father. It's me. Hey, and separating the two, distinguishing the two, that they are not the same person. Saying, I didn't send myself, I'm not glorifying myself, not my will, thy will be done. So many verses. We could go through literally 20 of them without even having any notes. We could just easily just flip to 20 verses that just completely distinguish. Or like after the millennial reign of Christ where Jesus delivers up the kingdom to the Father and Jesus submits himself to the Father. That's not him submitting to himself, folks. That makes no sense. So if we know these three facts, this is where we derive the Trinity. One God, we know Jesus is God, but we know that Jesus is not God the Father. Ergo, the only way that these three facts that we know to be true can make any sense is to realize that God eternally exists as three persons. And folks, this should not be a surprise when we started out in Genesis chapter 1 with let us make man in our image after our likeness. So God created man in his image. You notice how it just switches from plural to singular? Let us make man in our image after our likeness. So God made man in his image after his likeness. Why? Because it's three and one. It's three persons, one God. That's why the Bible can either speak about God in a plural term, Father, Son, Holy Ghost, they, our, or it can speak about him in a singular term, God, because it's only one God. Anyway, verse 19 is a powerful verse debunking one of the foolish arguments of the modalist crowd. So this is a packed passage with great truth, isn't it? What are the truths that we're missing out on? Just in summary, if you go with these modern Bible versions that chop up the Bible and remove things, then you'd be losing the witnesses to the resurrection. You're losing the Great Commission. You're losing this powerful verse about the Trinity, and you're losing these scriptures about the miracles and preaching all over and going everywhere, which is like a powerful ending to the book, which makes it fit the rest of the New Testament by every book has a solid ending. So it's really nonsense to cut it out. And so again, the question that I have is, will you trust the people who reject Mark 16, 9 through 20, are you going to trust them to basically take things out everywhere else? Because listen, the only reason they didn't take out 9 through 20 is because they can't get away with it. It's too big of a portion. But you know what? They take out 16 verses in the New Testament. So 24 verses between John 8 and Mark 16? That's 24 verses they want to take out, but they know they can't get away with it. But what about the 16 that they did take out, where they think you're not going to notice in Acts chapter 8 when it goes 35, 36, 38, 37 is gone. They did that 16 times. But what about the hundreds of times where they removed words, phrases, whole sentences, but it's just not a whole verse so you don't notice because it's just like a half a verse that they take out. And by the way, here's a little fun fact that you can fact check me on later, okay? You know how many verses are in the Gospel of Mark? 678. There's 678 verses in the Gospel of Mark. If you go to the end of chapter 1 and see how many verses chapter 1 has, see how many verses chapter 2 has, add that number up, you will see there are 678 verses in the Book of Mark. What happens if we remove 12 verses from the Book of Mark? What happens when we cut out 9 through 20? How many verses are we left with in the Book of Mark? In the Book of what? The Book of Mark. How, you want to, and look, friend, I'm not superstitious, but I don't want to have a Book of Mark with 666 verses in it. Do the math. Get out your calculator and add up, look at the end, look what chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, there are 678, just Google it, how many verses are in the Gospel of Mark? 678. Take out these 12, what do you got left? Mark. I'm not trying to scare you here, you know. But I'm telling you, the devil's got his fingerprints all over these modern versions because they're wicked and they're of the devil, and you know what, don't let anybody get down on you for being King James only, people that aren't King James only ought to be ashamed of themselves that they've been sucked into this Bible of the month club, and let me tell you something, these things are only, these Bibles are only getting worse, now they just rolled out all the gender neutral stuff, and let me tell you something, just like the New World translation, do you remember how I showed you how the old edition had the choose your own adventure, but now the silver one that just came out in 2014, it only just has verse 1 through 8 and verse 9 through 20 aren't even an option, they're just gone, so do you see the trend, see right now they're getting you used to it, like with that big fat footnote, hey 9 through 20 probably aren't in scripture, you know what, how do we know that the NIV a few years from now isn't probably just gonna stick the whole 9 through 20 down in tiny print at the bottom in a footnote, and then pretty soon it'll just be totally gone, it'll just be completely gone, okay, so you know, the point is the NIV is already garbage today, I'm sure the next one's gonna be even worse, because they keep changing it, the King James Bible has been the same for the last 409 years, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, let's have a word of prayer, Father we thank you so much Lord for our church and for people that come out to hear your word preached Lord, and Lord I pray that you would help us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, I pray that every single person would have that verse memorized, that every single person would would believe that and be motivated by that Lord, and Lord I know there's a curse on those who have chopped out sections of your word, they want to hide the Great Commission, they want to obscure important doctrines, but Lord help us