Introduction
My wife Willow can confirm that I watch very few channels on TV, primarily because the two women in my house dominate our television. I digress. The two I watch the most are The History Channel and ESPN. Usually, I watch ESPN before they wake up and History after they go to bed. One night, on History channel there was a special on about weird war tactics throughout history. This particular episode they were detailing about all the weird ways animals were used in war.
Dolphins have been used to patrol the sea and alert their handlers of suspicious devices, vessels and plant trackers on divers. The Soviets’ used anti-tank dogs during world war two to plant bombs under German tanks. Unfortunately, since the dogs trained on Soviet tanks they kept dropping the bombs under their own tanks. During the cold war the US used cats to spy and gain intelligence through imbedded audio recording equipment. Which just confirms what we all already knew, you can’t trust cats.
My favorite would have to be the War Messenger Pigeon. These birds were trained and commissioned to fly in and out of the most dangerous of places during radio silence to deliver messages to those who needed them! In one battle, it is documented that one such bird saved nearly 200 lives of the 77th Infantry division who were pent down. She flew 25 miles with a bullet in the chest and an eye missing to deliver the message that in their time of need, the 77th Infantry Division, needed help!
Like the disciples in our scripture passage, we too have been trained and are being sent out to those frontlines to deliver the message that help has already come! We are being sent out to (1) preach the Gospel, (2) perform miracles and (3) confirm the word of God!
Transition
It’s important to note that Jesus did not say, “Go out into all the world and keep the Gospel to yourself”, he didn’t suggest that we share. We are given the clear command to go out and preach the Gospel!
Point 1: To Preach the Gospel – vv. 15-16
Jesus gave the disciples the straight forward command to go out in different ways. You see up until Jesus the word of God had been shared among the lost sheep of Israel, but now we see the commission being made broader. Jesus is not only commanding this, but in his deity, giving the disciples the authority to go into the world and Preach the Gospel to all people. Jesus drew crowds of thousands, but in this moment he demands that we not have an, “If we build it they will come.” attitude. Instead he says go out.
Illustration
I read a story of a pastor who never prepared during the week, and on Sunday morning he'd sit on the platform while the church was singing the hymns desperately praying, "Lord, give me a word, Lord give me a word." One Sunday, while desperately praying for God's word, he received it. That word was lazy.
We cannot be lazy with the word of God! It was not given to us to store up for only ourselves, instead, it was given to us take in and prepare only to give it back to those who also need to hear it. Verse 16 goes on to say, “16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Giving us every reason to Preach the Gospel. People’s lives, lives that God cares about, are at stake. We are given the opportunity to “inform them concerning Christ, the history of his life, and death, and resurrection; instruct them in the meaning and intention of these, and of the advantages which the children of men…may have…and invite them, without exception (or exploitation), to come and share in them. This is gospel. Let this be preached in all places, to all persons.”
Oswald Smith said, “The world does not need sermons; it needs a message. You can go to seminary and learn how to preach sermons, but you will have to go to God to get messages.” We’ve been given the message! Before men, women and children are two options good and evil, life and death and that we are confronted with slavery to sin and living as captures to the enemy. If it were not true, there would be no cause spread this message or reason for its existence. But, rejoice! Because of the Christ they can put off the chains that would see them enslaved and sin will no longer rule them, no longer ruin them because Christ has redeemed them!
Illustration
One of my heroes is my baby brother Timothy. Willow used to call him Hands because he’s very expressive and won’t back down if he believes he is right. Tim turned 13 this past September. I can remember a few years ago, he must have been about 9 or 10. We were driving down McCarter Highway in Newark through the Central Ward. At every light there were homeless people asking for money or food. So every time someone approached our van, which had a huge Salvation Army sticker on it, he would look at me with a faced that said, “Well, help them.” So buy the 5th or 6th light I was out of toll money and explained to him that I wouldn’t be giving out any more money on this road. He inquired why. I said to him, “Tim I can’t help everybody.” He turned and looked out the window and responded, “I know, but you can help the people on this road.”
We may not be able to preach the Gospel to everyone ourselves, but we can to everyone we meet. Going out and preaching the Gospel to the world may seem like a daunting task, because it is. In a world that has moved away from Christ and His church as central in society, we have the audacity to stand up and say we speak for God. A God that wants His people to know He loves them. As daunting as it is, good soldiers follow orders.
Transition
Daunting? Yes. Necessary? Even more now than ever before! But do not be discouraged because we don’t deliver this message in our own power but in the power of him who sent us. And the same power that will gives us authority to preach the Gospel, will give us the power to perform miracles.
Point 2: To Perform Miracles – vv.17-18
I read a few polls that have been done in recent years on the topic of miracles. It would seem that the amount of people who believe in them is ever shifting. One poll said that 78% of adults believe in miracles. Another reported that 36% believed in real miracles and that most others could be explained away by advances in medicine and technology. Those that would not and do not believe don’t stop miracles from happening every day. Jesus said in verse seventeen:
“17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
Jesus is saying here in this passage that those who go out and preach the Gospel will produce evidence to support the boldness of their claims. He says in His name they will drive out demons. In Acts 8 starting at verse 4 we read:
4 Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. 5 Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. 6 When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7 For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of man…”
We have an opportunity to bring people into the presence of God because of what they will see us doing on his behalf!
Illustration
A cancer surgeon told of a story of a patient he had some years earlier. She had a malignant tumor and it was spreading fast. It didn’t take long for the doctors to agree that the only option was to amputate her leg to stop the spreading of the cancer that was. The woman thought about her life without a limb and painfully agreed to have the surgery. However, the surgery was canceled three times for reasons unrelated to her health. The woman was a believer and decided that perhaps this was a sign from God not to have the procedure. Instead she went home to pray. She prayed every day for the pain in her foot to subside and that the mass that formed around her ankle to go away. 5 months later, she had her follow up visit with doctors who surely believed she had very little time left. When the test, x rays, and biopsies came back, the mass had disappeared and the cancer in her body was gone. The surgeon went on record to state, “I’m a practical man. I’m a cancer surgeon. I don’t search for solutions from the heavens, but the only thing we did for her was to wait. She in fact wasn’t treated...It’s a gift from God,”
This man who was not a believer found himself unable to deny God, not only because of the woman’s prayer, but also because of the results that came from her prayers!
The passage goes on to tell us that they shall speak in tongues they never spoke before which we see in the day of Pentecost. They will handle vipers: Paul in Acts 28:5-6. They will drink poison from their enemies and it will not hurt them, they will lay hands on the sick and they will be healed! So not only will no harm come to you, but you will be able to do good for others. Jesus said to us in John 14:12 that, “12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these” Did you catch the condition there? Whoever believes in me. Part of our problem is that we are sure that we can do these greater things because well we convince ourselves that God just doesn’t act in the world today as he did in scripture. I mean, in today’s world an act of God is an insurance term; a tree falls through your garage during a storm. We say how can we do these greater things if we aren’t seeing them anymore?! I can’t part a sea! You can part an alcoholic from his vice so that they might cross over into sobriety on dry land. I can’t restore someone back to life! You can restore someone back to their family helping to rebuild bridges so that people who were once dead to each other can embrace again! I can’t feed 5,000! You can feed one! That one would have been enough for Jesus to come and give His life for. For that one, you have made a meal where there was no meal. For that one you are a miracle!
Transition
The signs and wonders were done and confirmed the words that Jesus had spoken to them.
Point 3: Confirm the Word of Jesus – vv.19-20
In verse 19 we read, “19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it”
Here we see Jesus making sure His plan is us proof. Making positive that its successful by doing the work himself. It’s a consistent character trait of God throughout scripture. Ok, time for some participation. Don’t raise your hand or shout out (just in case you’re wrong)! I’ll give you a few moments to think about this. Ready? Here’s the question: How many plagues did Moses perform? If you answered 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 or 1, take comfort, you were not wrong alone. The answer is zero! In Exodus Chapter 7 v.2-5 we read:
2 You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. 5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.
And in verse 6 we read what Moses role was, “Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded them. In the Mark passage, Jesus is working with and through them. Their role and our role, is to do as the Lord commands us and He will confirm His word!
Not only will He confirm his word in the physical world with signs and wonders but also in the changing lives of His people. Hebrews 2:4 says, “4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” These gifts His people employ bring about confirmation in His word through “reformation of the world, destruction of idolatry in the lives of people, conversion of sinners and comfort to the people of God.”
Transition
These are what we are being sent out to do. Not merely doing programs, but to do God’s work.
Conclusion
We are being sent out to preach the Gospel, perform miracles and confirm the word of God. So preach the Gospel in SWONEKY, NEOSA and EMPIRE. Perform miracles in Puerto Rico, PenDel and Jersey. Confirm the word of the Lord in Mass, NNE, SNE and GNY. This is why we are being sent out. This commission we see Jesus giving to the disciples to go out and preach the Gospel that reconciliation is made available through him is our commission today. It’s the very cause for us being sent out.
It didn’t start in Mark 16 with Jesus and the disciples. It started in the heart of the Father. “16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Today friends, understand this, for God so loved the world, still, that He is sending His Joyful Intercessors, Messengers of Light and officers to His people so that they can tell of Jesus and whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
Will you go for the Lord? Perhaps you have some reservations that are hindering you from fully committing to what the Lord wants to do. Will you leave them here? Jesus wants to hand you the power to preach His word, to perform miracles and confirm what he has said, but we are holding on to doubt, insecurity and fear. Will you put them down and take hold of what He has for you? The mercy seat is open.
