The introduction of the Divine Servant in Mark's Gospel

… ...for together, trying to bring them into some chronological order, and so we only have to read one story. But this is of course quite foolish to do, because if God had wanted to give us one Gospel, He would have done so. And He gave us four, because He wanted to show us different features of these four Gospels. And I'm sure the more you study the Gospels, the more you will value the differences, because you see, in the differences, the special features God is showing us in these Gospels. And if you have the light of the New Testament and let this light shed on other pages of Scripture, you will find hidden hints to these four Gospels over and over again in the Old and New Testaments. Let me just mention one or two to show what I mean. There is a verse in Scripture in the Old Testament, which we could call the Finger of God, where God says, Behold, pointing to His Son. And this verse, you find four such verses, which really go together with the four Gospels in the New Testament. I would like to read these verses, and we start with the Prophet Zechariah in chapter 9. In the Prophet Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, it says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation. Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. Undoubtedly, that is Matthew's Gospel, where we find the Lord Jesus as the King of Israel, the Messiah. Behold, thy King cometh unto thee. The second verse, in the Prophet Isaiah chapter 42. Maybe you put a bookmark in the Zechariah. We need it a minute later. Again, Isaiah 42, verse 1. Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom I am so delighted. God says, Behold, my servant. This is Mark's Gospel, where we find the Lord Jesus as the divine servant. Then we go back to Zechariah in chapter 6 of that Prophet, Zechariah 6, verse 12. And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the branch. Behold the man, pointing to Luke's Gospel, where we find the Lord Jesus as the perfect man. And if we go back then to Isaiah again, Isaiah 40, verse 9. O Zion, that bringeth good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain. O Jerusalem, that bringeth good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid, say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God. Behold your God, that's John's Gospel, where we find the Lord Jesus as the Son of God, the eternal Word. If we think about another thing in the Old Testament, a single word that is used in connection with the Lord Jesus, it is the word the branch. The Nazarene, he will be called a Nazarene, a word which is from the root meaning the branch. And we find also four times mentioned that he is the branch, also in a very interesting relation to the Gospel. The first passage you will find in Jeremiah 23. Jeremiah 23, verse 5. Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch and a king shall reign and prosper. A righteous branch and a king, which is Matthew's Gospel again. And Zechariah, who is quite helpful in this connection, in Zechariah 3, he speaks about the branch in verse 8, where it says, Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that stood before thee, for they are men one to death. For behold, I will bring forth my servants the branch, my servants the branch, my Gospel undoubtedly. And in the same prophet, Zechariah, in chapter 6, we read the verse already, because it has both things in it, the behold and the branch. It was chapter 6, verse 12, where we read already, Behold the man whose name is the branch, which is Luke's Gospel. And the last passage concerning the branch is Isaiah, in chapter 4, who mentions this, Isaiah 4, verse 2. In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent. The branch of the Lord, the Lord himself, God himself, which is what John's Gospel is going to show us. These are some of the little features you could find more, I'm sure, in the Old Testament, where we find the four Gospels mentioned. A very well-known relation is between the offering in Leviticus and the Gospel. The burnt offering, which gives us the Lord Jesus in his free devotion to God. Everything was well-pleasing to God his whole life. That's what John shows us in his Gospel, when he says, Therefore the Father loveth me, because I give my life out of myself, the burnt offering. The peace offering, which speaks of fellowship and communion. That's what you find in Luke's Gospel, where he says at the cross to this one of the dying seed, that he was going to be with him in paradise. Because of his sacrifice, there was fellowship with the Lord Jesus. And the trespass and sin offering in Matthew and Mark. And if you, for example, only to give you one more feature to study, as an appetizer for you to go into these things, just study the seven sayings of the Lord on the cross. They are not all mentioned in one Gospel, but when we realize that the trespass and sin offering is Matthew and Mark's Gospel, it's no wonder that these two Gospels contain only one sentence on the cross, and it's the same one. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? That is what these offerings speak about. And if we want to have another thing like that from the New Testament, we could perhaps turn to what we had this afternoon, when the four living creatures were before us. They had special features. One was looking like a lion, the king of the animals, in Matthew's Gospel. One was the calf, in Mark's Gospel. One had the face of a man, Luke's Gospel. And one was like an eagle, the bird from heaven, in John's Gospel. And we could go on like this and find other features that point to the four Gospels. God always, in his words, has the idea to show us these four sides of the glory of the person of his Son. And we have now started reading from Mark's Gospel, the Gospel that shows us the Lord Jesus as the divine servant and prophet. The key verse may be concerning his servant character, a verse in Mark chapter 10, verse 45, where he says, Mark 10, verse 45, For even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for men. He came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, that is the first part of the Gospel, and to give his life a ransom to many. That is the end of the Gospel, where the Lord Jesus died on the cross. And if we see him in this Gospel as well, as has been pointed out, as the prophet of God, the key verse would be chapter 1, verse 38, where the Lord said, Let us go into the next town, that I may preach there also, for therefore came I forth. That was his task, why God had sent him, to preach the word of God, when here on earth. And before we go into some of the details of the verses we've read, maybe there's one interesting feature, I once read it in one of the books, they were talking about a missionary society, and this missionary society had a picture which should symbolize these missionaries that were going forth from this missionary society, and you could see on this picture an ox, and on the one side there was a flower, and on the other side there was an altar, and the inscription said, Ready for either. And that is exactly what the Lord Jesus is in Mark. To serve it, and to give his life. He was ready to serve, to minister, and he was ready to give his life, as the ransom for many. This gospel of Mark has several features which are more or less unique to this gospel, and they give us an impression of the servant character of our Lord. There's one Greek word which is used more often in this gospel than in any other gospel, the Greek word oikos, which is translated into English in different ways. It's translated with straightway, immediately, aenon, I think these are the three translations of these words, which you find very often, which shows that the Lord, when he was serving, was doing his service immediately, straightforward, he did it, straightway, immediately, he went on to do this and that. After having done one thing, it says immediately he did the next one, and then he went on straightway to do this or that. This is the feature of a servant. He has a task to do, and he comes to do it, and there's nothing that hinders him, and he's not kept keeping back, he's just straightway doing his service. Another feature is that nearly every chapter of Mark's gospel, and a lot of the sentences and verses, start with the word end, which shows the continuity of his service. If you were writing an essay at school and starting every sentence with end, the teacher would say, well that's not a good style of writing a text, you're always starting with end. But God wants to show us the continuity of his service. There's no interruption. He did this, and he did that, and he did that, going on to serve, nothing could hinder him in his service. And because we see him here as a servant, I think it's no surprise for us that in Mark's gospel, we find three times more miracles than parables. It's not so much what he was talking, like in Matthew's or John's or Luke's gospel, but what he was doing. And another interesting feature is that in Mark's gospel, more than in all the other gospels, you find Satan, or the demon, in activity. When the divine servant comes to serve, the divine prophet preaching the word, Satan is there to oppose him. But the Lord Jesus always is the stronger one. He is the one with the victory over Satan, who drives out demons, and he even rejects the testimony of the demons. Sometimes they say the right things about him, but he never accepts the testimony of witness from them. And in Mark's gospel, as well as in John's gospel, there is no genealogy. In Matthew's gospel, where you have the king, you find the genealogy, going back to David, the first king of Israel, and going back to Abraham, the father of the people of Israel. And in Luke's gospel, where we have the perfect manhood of the Lord Jesus, the genealogy goes back to Adam, unheeding to God. But in a servant, it's not important who his father, grandfather, and all his ancestors were, but the important thing is, his service. What could be said about his service? The Apostle Paul says that the Lord Jesus humbled himself, Philippians chapter 2, that he became man, and that he took on him the form of a bond servant. That's what we find in Mark's gospel particularly. And now, when we go into this chapter, we find the interesting feature that the gospel of Mark, just at the beginning, in the first thirteen verses we've read, the Spirit of God makes sure that we know who this person really is. In these first thirteen verses, we will find seven witnesses that testify to the fact that the person of the servant who was going to come was nobody else but the Son of God, God himself. Until this gospel starts with the verse, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So the first witness is Mark, the writer of the gospel, or if you want, the Holy Spirit, who gave him this word. He just starts to say in the very first sentence, I'm going to write about a man who came down, who humbled himself, who was a servant, taking a lowly place as a servant, as a slave, a bond servant, but he is the Son of God. Beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So God makes it very clear in this gospel, just at the beginning, that this divine servant was the Son of God. That he humbled himself so much, not only that he became man, but also when as man here on earth, he took the form of a servant. Mark, driven by the Holy Spirit, says he was the Son of God. And then, the second witness to the glory of the divine servant that is mentioned are the prophets from the Old Testament that are quoted. Normally, Mark's gospel does not quote many prophecies and verses from the Old Testament, as Matthew does, for obvious reasons. But just at the beginning of this gospel, there is a quotation from the prophet to show who he was. As it is written in the prophet, said verse 2, as it is written in the prophet, Behold, I sent my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before him. This is a quotation from Malachi, and it might be good to have a look at what Malachi really has written in Malachi chapter 3. The last of the minor prophets, Malachi chapter 3. The Lord says in verse 1, Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom he seeks shall suddenly come to his temple. It says, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. That is God, that is the Lord. But here, in the quotation, it says, Behold, I sent my messenger before thy face. Before thy face, that is the Lord Jesus. So, this quotation makes it clear that the Lord Jesus is nobody else than the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who was renowned in Malachi. The messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. These verses are applied to the Lord Jesus. And speaking about John the Baptist, it says, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight. A quotation from Isaiah chapter 40. The voice in the wilderness, John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord. And he was preparing the way before the Lord Jesus, who was nobody else than the Lord in the Old Testament, who came to serve down here. And then we find with verse 4 onwards, the testimony, the witness of John the Baptist. John the Baptist was one who came to give a witness to this person. In nearly all the gospels, John is very eager to show who this person he was announcing really is. In John's gospel, for example, he says, I am only a voice. The gospel that starts with the word, he says, I'm only a voice. The voice has no meaning in itself. The meaning, the words carry the meaning, not the voice. If you were learning a foreign language, one thing you have to learn is phonetics, which just tells you, to put it simple, what to do with your mouth to pronounce all these difficult sounds of a foreign language. And if you could read the phonetic alphabet, which is a language in itself, you could speak a foreign language without understanding the words. Because it only tells you how to speak something, what to do with your voice. But you also have to learn, of course, what they call semantics, what the words mean, actually. So the real meaning is the word. And in John's gospel, where the Lord Jesus is the word, John says, well, I'm only a voice. I'm of no importance. I'm pointing to this person who really is the man who carries all the important weight. I'm only pointing to him. And the voice speaks. And when I sit down, in a minute, my voice comes to a close. And that's all. If the words go with you a little bit longer, I don't know. But the voice comes to a close. It's only there as an instrument to produce the words. So in John's gospel, John steps closely, completely behind and leads the Lord to the first place. And here in Mark's gospel, where he comes, it says he's baptized in the wilderness. He preached the repentance for the remission of sins. And all the people from the cities of Jerusalem and Judea and so on, they all came to him into the wilderness to be baptized, confessing their sins. He was the forerunner of this perfect servant, and he was going to prepare the way for him, prepare a remnant of the people for him to accept him. And it speaks about this Baptist, John the Baptist, that he was clothed like the Old Testament prophet, in camels hair, girl with skin about his loins, he'd eat locusts and wild honey, living in the wilderness. He was separated from all the religious society in Jerusalem. He was calling the people to repentance. And he, when he now speaks of the Lord Jesus, in Mark's gospel, he says, there comes one mightier than I after me. When John the Baptist came, a lot of people were thinking, who is he? Is he the Christ? These ideas were in the thoughts of the people, but John says, there comes one after me that is mightier than I. He is really the person to watch at and to listen to. And then, when John says this, which is quoted in three gospels at least, he goes on in different ways. In Matthew's gospel, John the Baptist says, I am not worthy to carry his sandals. In Matthew's gospel, where the Lord is seen as the King, the Messiah, John says, I am not worthy to take his sandals and to carry them after him. But in John's gospel, John says, I'm not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes. I'm not worthy to do this great person, this humble service of unloosing the latchet of his shoes. But in Matthew's gospel, where the Lord Jesus outwardly takes the lowest place, humbling himself to the position of a servant, John says nearly the same as in John's gospel, but he adds a word. He says in verse 7, the latchet of his shoes, I'm not worthy to stoop down and unloose, to stoop down to kneel at his feet and do this service. This service was actually the service of a slave to unloose the latchet of the shoes of the guest, to stoop down, taking himself the lowest place before the Lord Jesus. He, John, is not worthy, because the Lord Jesus, the perfect servant, was such a worthy person that nobody else, even not a man like John the Baptist, could be compared with him. And he would never dare to compare himself with the Lord. He said, I indeed baptized him with water, but he of Galilee and was baptized of John in the Jordan. Very simple in Mark's gospel. In other gospels we know that first John didn't want to baptize him, and the Lord had to tell him, let us fulfill all our righteousness, but here the Lord comes to him, taking his place among the remnants of the people that came to be baptized by John, and he baptizes him, and then it says, straightway coming up out of heaven, out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dust descending upon him. He saw the heavens opened, or rent, which is a different word than the other gospels. It seems as if heaven has to be rent open to give a proclamation of this man down here, this person that has come down here to serve. And the Spirit like a dust descending upon him. Here we find that much gospel mentions too, baptism, so to say, of the Lord, the baptism in water, when he took his position among the remnant and was baptized by John, and the baptism of the Spirit, when the Spirit came down to rest upon him in a very special way. And Mark is the only writer of the gospels who, further on in his gospels, also mentions the third baptism of the Lord. We have to turn to chapter 10 for that. Chapter 10, Mark 10, verse 38. It says, But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye are. Can ye drink the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? Here he speaks about a baptism he had to be baptized with, which was still future. And he was talking about the baptism of his death on the cross. And he asked his disciples, Could you drink the cup, and could you be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, this death of the Lord on the cross? Of course, they should have said no, they can't. But they say, We can. They said unto him, We can. And Jesus said unto them, He shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of, and with the baptism that I am baptized with, shall ye be baptized. Now the Lord, in answering this question, he changes the meaning of what he said. Before he was speaking about the death of his baptism. And nobody could be baptized with his baptism or drink of that cup. But after the Lord had fulfilled his work on the cross of Calvary, there would be those that would follow him into death. The martyrs, we heard about some of them this afternoon in a future dissemination. But there were always those after the cross, Stephen I and others, that were willing and had to take this baptism to go into death. It was not that unique baptism which only the Lord could take. But in a special way, some were able to follow him and also baptized with his baptism. The twelve disciples, obviously, according to the Lord's word, all ended their life as martyrs for the cross. But here, in Mark chapter 1, the Lord starts with his service here on earth. And the heaven was rent, and the spirit coming down, and then the voice from heaven said, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Now we have the next witness, the fourth witness of the Father. God the Father himself gives witness to the glory of his Son. He makes it clear that the person down here serving as a servant was nobody else but his beloved Son. There was a time, about thirty years, in which the Lord Jesus had lived, more or less, hidden before the eyes of men. But now here at his baptism, he starts his public ministry. He steps into the open, and now, just at the beginning of his service, the Father, who had seen him all these thirty years in secret, gives the testimony about him. Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And you know that, more or less, at the end of his public ministry on the Mount of Configuration, the Father once again gave the same testimony to the, about three years of his open ministry when he said, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Here, in Mark's Gospel, and in this verse, the Father speaks to the Son. Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. In other Gospels, in other verses, he says the same thing to the disciple. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him. He points it to him, that this is my Son, I am well pleased in him, and you should carefully listen to what he says. His word is worthy of your acceptance. The beloved Son, the Father, in whom the Father is well pleased. The Divine Servant, the service was opposed by men, and was not accepted by everybody. But the Father, he was pleased in his service. And so there is one thing, just at this point, we can learn from him. Because when we study the life of the Lord Jesus in the way we are doing now, the question still is the same question we have this afternoon, that we ask ourselves, what does that mean for us? Does it have an influence on our life? It is not my idea to give you some interesting details of the Gospels, which you might take home with you, but that our hearts and souls might be impressed by this servant. And we might ask the Lord, Lord, what do you want me to teach by this? Seeing him as the perfect servant, the one thing is that when studying these things, his person should become greater into our souls. But the other thing is that we say, Lord, because you have been down here, you have lived here as a perfect servant, minister to God, and given your life as a ransom for many, this demands an answer in your life and mine. And this answer could only be to say, Lord, we would like to devote our life to thee. We want to serve thee. And then we have this perfect example of the Lord Jesus. Study him, study his life. If the one or the other tonight would say, well I go home now, and I would start studying the Gospel of Mark once again, looking at this perfect servant and asking myself, what can I learn from him and from his service? Then you will get a lot of things to learn, and it would be worthwhile to do so. And one thing, which just in this verse we've studied, a servant, and God can say in him, I'm well pleased with him. If you take up your service for the Lord, and he has a service for each and every one of us, different service, small or great, public or hidden, the Lord knows about that, but you all, every one of us has something to do on the service for him. And if you take up your service he wants you to do, you will experience the same thing that the Lord experienced. You will experience opposition, you will experience frustration, disappointment, not being accepted. And then you, let's go back to this verse and say, the important thing is only, is God, the Father, is the Lord Jesus pleased with what I'm doing? The question is not if people are pleased with what I'm doing, but if the Lord has called you and given you a special service, if he is pleased with it. The Lord Jesus himself had this business, and the Father said, this is my beloved son, I'm well pleased with him. Now this gospel unfolds his service and there will be a lot of things brought before us in this gospel. But just at the beginning God said, well I'm well pleased about this man, my beloved son. And immediately the Spirit drives them into the wilderness. Here we have again two of these features. And immediately God has said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. He could have said, well that was a wonderful sentence God has said. He could have sat down and wondered about this sentence, thought about it and enjoyed it. But it says immediately, at once, he went on to the next thing. And immediately the Spirit drives him into the wilderness. This peculiar expression also you only find in Mark's gospel. The Spirit drives him into the wilderness. The Lord Jesus as the perfect servant. He was always under the guidance of the Spirit and it was the Holy Spirit that drove him to do this or that. And of course he is the perfect servant. In our life as weak men there will always be failures. But in principle it is the same thing with us. That we should be guided by the Spirit of God. And that the Spirit of God should drive us to do things He wants us to do. As it is seen in the life of the Lord Jesus. He drives him into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan. Now in this thirteenth verse we find another thing peculiar to Mark's gospel. That he takes one verse or one or two verses and very compactly summarizes things. Which are dwelt upon more largely in other gospels. The temptation in the wilderness is only mentioned with this one verse here, verse thirteen. He was there in the wilderness tempted of Satan. This is now another witness to the glory of his person. The temptation where it became quite clear that he was the Son of God. That he was the sinless man down here. He was tempted by Satan in all different ways. But he victoriously came out of this temptation. Man, the first couple, Adam and Eve. They were tempted by Satan in the best possible surroundings in which ever man had been in paradise. And they fell. The Lord Jesus was tempted by Satan in the worst possible circumstances. He was in the wilderness. He had hungered for forty days on our Satan kitchen. But Lord Jesus was perfect. And every temptation that Satan brought before him. The answer of the Lord was, it is written. He came back to the Bible and said to the Lord, it is written. He did not argue with him on anything. He simply said, it is written. That's what the Bible says. That's what the word of God says. So it might be when we follow the Lord. Try to minister him. There will be temptation. Satan will come and try to tempt us in one way or another. And how good it is to learn from him to say, it is written. That's what the word of God says and we, in faith, we believe it, we take it. And that's what the scripture says. So he was in the wilderness tempted by Satan. And was with the wild beast. So we have as the sixth witness to the Lord's glory, the witness of creation. He was in the wilderness among the wild beast, with the wild beast. Wild beast could mean two things. It could mean beasts that are a danger for men. Like when David had to fight the lion or the bear. But it could also mean animals that are not domesticated. They run away from men. But whatever it be, the creator was there amidst his creation among the wild beast. And we can be sure they were no danger for him and they were not running away from him. He was just in the midst of these creatures as the creator. The humble servant, the Lord Jesus Christ. There was nobody else than the creator who had come into his creation. He was among the wild beast. And the angels ministered unto him. So the last and seventh witness is the witness of the angels. Who in the life of the Lord Jesus, at special points in his life, they played a special role in concerning with his death, his birth, his resurrection, and here the temptation in the wilderness. The angels came and they ministered unto him. Because he was their Lord and God, they ministered unto him. What a wonderful introduction to this Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of the lowly servant. Where we find that the Holy Spirit makes it clear and without a doubt that this servant was nobody else but the Son of God, God himself. And if I now come back for the closing remarks to verse one, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. We said already that in the beginning of the Gospel the Holy Spirit makes it clear that he is the Son of God. And then in the whole Gospel of Mark, you will not find this mentioned once again till the end. There are, I said before, there are witnesses of demons who say you are the Son of the Most High or things like that. But the Lord Jesus never accepted this testimony. An acceptable testimony to him as the Son of God was at the beginning, verse one, the Son of God, and at the end of the Gospel, chapter 15, you find it mentioned another time. 15, Mark 15, verse 37 I'm going to read. The Lord Jesus on the cross, and Jesus cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. And when the centurion which stood over against him saw that he so cried out and gave up the ghost, he said, truly this man was the Son of God. The Gospel starts with the Spirit saying he is the Son of God, but then, as we had it in our introductory hymn, his glory was veiled, so to say, when he was here on earth. But at the end he had finished his work on the cross and he died after having finished it. And there was one man, this Roman centurion, he said, truly this man was the Son of God. God had at the beginning said, this is the Son of God, and then the Lord himself had proved in his life, but above all in his death on the cross of Calvary, that he truly, really was the Son of God. In this Gospel he is called with other names. He is called the Son of Man about 14 times. He is called the Son of Mary, the Son of David, and the Son, or my Son. But the Son of God only four times. Twice, I said it already, the demons, I leave that aside. So it is just these two witnesses God gives at the beginning and at the end of this Gospel. The Lord Jesus, his humble servant, nobody else than the Son of God. He is the one whom we serve, in whom we believe. He is our Saviour, he is our Lord and Master, the Son of God. And we are allowed to serve him, to follow him, and to serve him, the Son of God who died for us. And he has given us an example. He tells us, so to say, if you want to know what it means to serve in a way that is pleasing to God, have a look at the perfect servant. And to finish that up, we come back to the man who wrote this Gospel. The four writers of the Gospel, very different men. And Mark, two Gospels were written by disciples of the Lord Jesus, and two Gospels were written by other men, and Mark is one of them. He was a servant, he went with the Apostle Paul on his missionary journey. But he had been an unfaithful servant. He'd given up, he'd gone back later in his life, he'd come, he was restored. And Paul says, bring him, bring Mark with you, with you, he's useful for me. So here was a man who in his own service had been unfaithful, had been restored to service, and the Spirit of God says, I will take you to write about my son, the Lord Jesus, as the perfect servant. And so if we do service for him, we will all know that it is weak, that there is failure, but we have a perfect example. The life of our Lord Jesus as a servant, given us in Mark and other passages of Scripture. Let us study his life to be more like him, and that our hearts might be more devoted to him. That when we have spoken this afternoon about judgment to come, and how we should live sober and in the right mind, may we use the short time that is left till he comes, that we may do service for him, so that he might say when he comes and takes us to himself, well done thou faithful servant. Could we sing in closing the hymn 360? …