Got a regular schedule. Look forward to seeing you. That'll be the first Sunday in June and we're still going to unlearn it. And it's going to be a little bit related to last week where we talked about the rewards. We're going to talk about the bema seat. That is the seat of judgment. We will all stand before Christ and give an account for every word we have ever spoken. Come with fear on Sunday. We're going to look at that and try to figure out how that goes with grace and put that together Sunday. And that's at 1045. At 945. Leaving town for that one, aren't you? Okay. Got a whole row. We're losing them fast here. We did Kumaran last week. We're going to do I think we'll do the Dead Sea and Masada this week for our virtual tour of Israel. You're going to miss it, but you are joining us in November when we're going to Masada in real time. Sorry you'll miss the virtual tour since you're going to be in Ohio rather than but anyway, that's all good. We also have a one month intern, all color, coming this weekend and looking forward to a young lady from Katie, Texas who just finished the 9th grade. I think Alison Willingham will be here and she's going to babysit Madison and help get ready for Bible school. So she'll be here starting this Sunday. We'll look forward to that. She's been here before. You might recognize her when you see her. But we're glad she's going to spend the month of June with us. Okay, we are coming to Mark, rightly divided verse by verse. And last week we got started and made it all the way up to verse four. Tonight we're going to do four more verses on our journey through Mark. Let's start with the word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for the word of God as it has been preserved for us and kept for us. And we're blessed by it and pray that tonight we might even gain some insight into this gospel that we've read so many times and yet perhaps haven't stopped and taken a real close look at. And so we do that this evening and pray it's a blessing. In Jesus name, amen. And in Mark's gospel, we come to the first chapter. I'm just going to go ahead and put it up here for you. As we work our way along. I'll remind you a little bit of verses one through four. And I will try to refrain refrain from telling you everything I told last week because that would not get us done right. But the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God he makes his testimony right up front on who Jesus Christ is, the Son of God. And then he jumps into prophecy as it is written in the prophets behold, I send my messenger before thy face who shall prepare thy way before thee the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight. We talked about that a little bit. That's from Malachi and Isaiah prophecies, I believe, of John the Baptist. And we work through that. And I guess it would be kind of silly to say I believe this is about John the Baptist, because Mark presents it. This is about John the Baptist. So it's got to be about John the Baptist. That's one nice thing about having what we call the New Testament to interpret the Old Testament, because you remember last week the first verse, here my messenger to prepare thy thy way. He was named then as Elijah. But we talked last week about John the Baptist. We're told here that John the Baptist is this messenger that was promised, and here he is. And then last week we finished in verse three, verse four, john did baptize in the wilderness and preach a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So there he is out on the wilderness, probably near Kumaran, where we talked about on Sunday, and he is preaching a baptism of repentance. And then there's where we left off, right, last week for the remission of sins. And we talked about, this is why we need to have Mark rightly divided rather than just take it all for us. We say, well, for the Jews, that certainly made perfect sense because they were being offered, about to be offered their kingdom, their king was going to come. And the way to respond to his demands I'll use that word the way to respond to his demands was to repent and be baptized for the remission, the washing away of sins. And so that's what the Jewish people were doing. Now we pick up in verse five and we look at the success that he had in verse five. As it says, There went out unto him all the land of Judea and they of Jerusalem and were all baptized of him in the River Jordan confessing their sins. Now, that's quite a statement, isn't it? All the land of Judea and they of Jerusalem. By the way, if you want to be able to pass the advanced quiz, you need to know the difference between Judah and Judea. Do you know the difference between Judah and Judea? One's a tribe and one's a geographical you're sort of right, except that Riaboham was the king of Judah and the name of the southern kingdom was Judah. In the Old Testament, you only read of Judah. And we have some failures, ladies and gentlemen. We'll grade on the curve. In the Old Testament, it was always Judah. Never in the Old Testament would you find Judea. And Judah was a tribe, but it was also a place, a region, a kingdom. And the Kingdom of Judah. In the New Testament, you have Judea. It is not just a thing of transferring from Hebrew to greek. Sometimes you get a slight little difference of pronunciation, but it actually has to do with the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire, Romanized it, I guess you would say, and so the Romans called it Judea, and if they were speaking Hebrew, they probably still would perhaps call it Judah. But anyway, that was just all free in the advanced class there. So all the land of Judea, that is the Roman province that Rome named Judea. There it is. It's Judea. When Herod was king of the Jews, he was the king of Judea. Judea used to be bigger under the days of Herod, the king. After he died, Judea was divided up a little bit and there was galilee was separate. For example, Galilee was not in the kingdom of Judea. So you went from one jurisdiction to another, from the Romans. When you went from Galilee down to Judea, samaria, the same way, was a different region. But here is the land of Judea and they of Jerusalem. Judea was the southern kingdom. Judea, really. Here is the southern part of Israel, down there where he is, around Jerusalem, Bethlehem, all of that southern area of Kumaran, the Dead Sea, they were all coming out hebron, the old town of Hebron. They were all coming out from Judea and they of Jerusalem, which was the largest city then today, and were all baptized of him in the River Jordan confessing their sins. I don't think you can separate this baptism, by the way, from the confession of sins. This was part of it. You came and you confessed your sins and you were baptized in order because you were expecting the king to come. This was very much kingdom driven. Our king is coming, the prophecies are about to be fulfilled. We got to get ourselves cleaned, dressed and ready to go for this kingdom that is about to come. Now, what I want to point out here is that again, this is a very successful ministry. You've got all the land of Judea and they of Jerusalem and we're all baptized of him. Two alls, and a big place there. Now, it's hard to imagine here that it's literally talking about every single Judean and every single Jerusalemite, and a Jerusalemite was a Judean, but every single one of them, we even have examples of John the Baptist when the Pharisees come out and he says to them, who told you to flee the wrath to come? And it looks like if we were to surmise how that story ended, he probably did not baptize those particular Pharisees that day. But this certainly can be taken if it's not every single one, it certainly can be taken to say, wow, this is a hugely successful ministry. Keep on doing that and you're going to have to add some new chairs down at the riverside in what is going on. And I don't want us to miss how successful John the Baptist ministry was. I think that John the Baptist was maybe even and I say this about Paul later, and so maybe you just think I like to say this, and maybe I just like to say this, but maybe John the Baptist was the most famous Jew of the day. Nobody had a bigger following than John the Baptist. If John the Baptist stood up and said, hey, you all come this way, the nation was going to come that way. And that makes sense because the nation politically really was looking for their kingdom politically. They wanted it. And prophetically, they could see that now is the time they could do the math from Daniel and whatnot and count the 483 weeks and see where they were. And so they wanted it politically. They knew it was coming prophetically, and here comes John, just like Malachi said, and Isaiah said. So this all began to make perfect sense. And so they're all coming out there. It was a hugely messianic time. That helps us later to understand when John the Baptist is in prison and they put him to death. I think this is one of those guys that the Roman government, the Judean government, which was the puppet of Rome, they were uncomfortable with the guy John the Baptist, because John the Baptist could bring about an insurrection if he wanted to bring about an insurrection. And so famous was he that I have here some of the words of Josephus, which I have in a 10.5 font without my glasses here, but let's attempt it. Okay? Josephus says John that was called the Baptist. Can I stop there? Do you remember who Josephus is? He is the Roman. Well, he was a Jew and a Roman historian. Is that what you said? Yes. Okay. After the collapse of Jerusalem, he was a Jew that lived through that time. And for the Romans, he wrote a history and it's preserved for the day. And it's very interesting reading. If you like history, get a copy of Josephus antiquities of the Jews, or wars of Jews. And it's very interesting. This one happens to be Antiquities. So he says, John, that was called the Baptist, for Herod slew him who was a good man. Can I stop there? Josephus is writing later than this point at the death of John the Baptist, herod slew him, who was a good man and commanded okay, this is john was a good man and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue. Both as to righteousness towards one another and piety with God and so to come to baptism for that the washing with the water would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it. Not in order to the putting away of or the remission of some sins only, but for the purification of the body. Supposedly. Still, the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now, when many other came in the crowds about him, they were greatly moved or pleased by hearing his words. Herod, who feared lest the great influence of John had over that John had over the people, might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion. For they seemed ready to do anything that he should advise. Herod thought it best to put him to death to prevent any mischief that might come and to bring himself into difficulties by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly, he sent a prisoner out of Herod's suspicious temper to Macarius, which was the prison the castle before mentioned, and there was put to death. So that's Josephus mentioning now Josephus then actually says more about John the Baptist than he does about Jesus. Jesus gets a little passing comment in Josephus's history. John the Baptist gets that much. And it's a pretty complimentary record of John the Baptist and Herod putting him to death because he was afraid of John the Baptist power. So that I think we ought to as we just have this quick little verse here that we say, yeah, okay. So everybody was going to get baptized by him. What we need to say is that John the Baptist, in doing his work, became a rock star in terms of his preaching repentance what was happening down at the Jordan River. So they all went out to him. And verse six. John was clothed with camel's hair and with a girdle of skin about his loins and he did eat locusts and wild honey. Doesn't this sound good? Aren't you glad we had supper first? Thanks, Trent, for the lasagna. They would like us to eat locusts and wild honey again, I understand. I read that on the news. But anyway, camel's hair, as you can imagine, if you've yeah, you probably don't even have to have ever ridden a camel or been close to a camel. You can just kind of picture camel's hair is rough, it's stiff, it's kind of wiry. It's not a fluffy little puppy camel's hair. And it wasn't really used much for clothing. It would have been used for clothing maybe by a bedouin, maybe probably more, and I think in this case by someone who wants to put on sackcloth. It's a repentance kind of thing. It very much conveys Elijah the Prophet and conveys repentance and sorrow rather than opulence. Like I've got here tonight, I decided to wear my tie to show Opulence prestige. Is that exactly what it says, opulence? This is my polka dotted Opulence tie. Well, I sort of threatened last week that I was going to come in camel's hair, which is probably why we have a good crowd tonight, but instead I came in a tie. Now, wouldn't you agree that a tie communicates something different than camel's hair? And in John's day, whatever the equivalent was, had John worn a tie that would have communicated something different than wearing camel's hair with a girdle of skin about his loins loins is this part here. And girdle, I happen to look that word up because it's not a word that I wouldn't typically say to my wife, honey, have you seen my girdle? So we don't use that word for men anymore, girdle. So I had to do a little work because, you know, I like language and etymology and all of that kind of stuff. And I was like, Why is it called a girdle when all the modern translations call it a belt? So I looked it up and the Greek word means belt. It's a belt. He had a camel skin, I don't know, tunic, robe, whatever. And he put a leather belt to hold it together, I guess. And that's how he was dressed, with this belt of skin about his loins. Now, why then did not the King James use the word belt, which would have been much better than Godel, except that they wrote in 1611 in which Godel was much better than belt? So in my research, I discovered, you'll be happy to know this, that girdle comes from the German girdle. And the German word girdle means belt. Exactly. It means a belt. And until the 1920s, in English, a girdle was a man's belt. Only about the 1920s, blame the flappers. Only about the 1920s did a girdle become a piece of woman's clothing. And the rest is history. And now we would only use girdle in that sense and probably wouldn't really I don't even hear ladies talking about girdles very much. I think that maybe is something that let's just move on. So if you're wondering why in the world would John wear a girdle, it's a belt, ladies and gentlemen. He wore a belt. And now you know the history of the word girdle and a girdle of skin about his loins. He did eat locusts and wild honey. This it fits with that which took place at Kumaran. It fits with somewhat of an aesthetic aesthetic lifestyle. A rebellious. I don't mean that term that in the way it sounds, but somewhat of a rebellious. He was rebelling from the status quo of society and in everything he did, he wanted to communicate. This is a new day, we got to change. We can't go on with business as usual. And they were coming out to see him. I am sure that some people just came for the show. Does sound interesting, doesn't it? Here's a guy yelling, repentance, getting everyone to baptize. He will call down the pharisees, cut them off at the knees and look at how he dresses and look at how he eats. It had to be a pretty spectacular show. Although I don't think at all that John the Baptist did it for showmanship. Probably if he did it, and surely somewhere along the way he decided, this is what I'm going to do. Because you remember his mom and dad were Zachariah and Elizabeth and they served in the temple and were descendants of Aaron and looked to me like Zechariah and Elizabeth were probably fine, upstanding citizens who had nice clothing when they went down to the temple to worship and serve. So he's making a conscious decision somewhere that that's not going to be me. I am going to rebel against this. I would say it does go back to the prophetic sackcloth and ashes kind of thing that in the prophecies, when there was repentance, there was a display of repentance. There was a show of repentance. You kind of knew that they were repentant. You can see that from the Book of Jonah in Nineveh and so many other places. And furthermore, the passage is there. First King something elijah is described as the same way. He wore a camel's hair and a girdle of skin around his loins. So whether God tells him to or he decides to, I don't know. But somewhere along the way he comes as the picture of Elijah for the society today and is fulfilling that scripture. It's important enough in this description of John the Baptist that all three of the Synoptic Gospels have it. I don't remember if John does or not. I didn't look. But all three of the Synoptic Gospels have it. And so it comes. And you have here hey, here's this thing. Now, I think the status quo of society in that day of first century Jewish society was that clothes make the man. Clothes are a status symbol. Remember in the Book of James, it talks about, hey, a man comes into your synagogue and he's got fine robes on and rings and what. And it describes that man's status by his clothing. And there are several other places too, like the story of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had purple robes. Usually in the scripture, when you hear rich and powerful, it describes them in their clothing. So John the Baptist somehow is communicating that's not me. I have nothing to do with that at all. And I don't mind calling that out either, as we saw when he came to Herod and Herod's little love affair that he was having many years later. So here is John the Baptist and verse seven he preached, saying, there cometh one mightier than I, after me the latches of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. It's kind of interesting to me that we don't live in a society that is all that well versed about the Bible, but we do live. Our Western society is certainly influenced by the Bible in more ways than we could count, really, and in more ways than some people want to admit the influence that the Bible and even the King James had on Western civilization. Now, I think that you could go to someplace tonight here in Taos. I don't know. The alley cantina. I've heard that's a hangout. You could go to the Alley Cantina later on tonight and you could look around and say, hey, I didn't see you in church earlier this evening. Say, no, you certainly didn't, and that's not the end of the story. But then you could ask them who said, there comes one mightier than me and I'm not worthy to stoop down and unlatch his sandals? And they would say, John the Baptist. I think that's what they would say, that they would know that. So here we live in this society that for a large measure has rejected church, has rejected the scripture, and yet there's a lot of this base knowledge that is still out there, even for people who have never been to church. Yet you could ask them who said, I'm not worthy to unlash your sandals, John the Baptist. And it is a curious thing to me anyway that John the Baptist is one of the most well known figures of all the scripture and yet there's very little we really know about him. After tonight, you're going to know almost all there is about John the Baptist other than his death that we'll get to later in Mark. And yet again, he's this very imposing figure upon society. So this guy comes with tremendous success back in his day and I would say tremendous success back in our day. I think that if you were to pick a few basics about, I don't know, let's say John the Baptist, the apostle John and the apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter. Let's put those four in a quiz and you were to have three, four, five things about them that described them, pretty plainly described them, and you took that out to unchurch society. Of those four, John the Baptist is the only one that they would know. They've heard of the others, but they wouldn't be able in a list of characteristics to match those up and put them like they would John the Baptist. So again, let me nail home john the Baptist is not just any old redneck. Got a lot of rednecks here. He ain't just any old redneck. He is unbelievably, well known, successful. I'll use that word in a very, very different kind of way than the strength and power of that day. And so he's a rebel with a cause and again chosen from the beginning and select for his job and a Nazarite from the beginning. And all the things that with the announcement of his birth with Zachariah and Elizabeth, so he was raised up in this kind of thing. It would be fascinating to go back and I guess we'll have to wait till we get it to heaven to go back to say, I would like to sit down with Zechariah and Elizabeth and learn about John's childhood, to say, Zechariah and Elizabeth, did you teach him to be like that? Did you say, now eat your locust. What's up with that? Or was it just in his DNA to always be like that? And if so were pristine and righteous. Zechariah and Elizabeth like, Honey, you can't do that. Put some clothes on. Quit eating those things. Stop it. What was the dynamic in the home? I don't know. It's just I'm curious. I would like to know, and I guess we'll never figure it out. Now, a couple of things I want to dig in here. There cometh one. There's a few parts I want to break apart in this passage. There cometh one. I think there's a lot packed into that word, that little phrase there. You know that sometimes if you speak I bet Enrique and Liliana could tell us about this. If you're speaking one language to a group of people in another language and there are things that absolutely say what you said, but that's not the way you say what you say. Does that make sense? Yeah, that's the right vocabulary. But no, don't say that. You don't use that here. It's a different kind of thing. I think we miss some of what's packed in the language because we are not in that culture. We don't know that language. And I think in this, there cometh one that just sounds like an introductory part of the sentence to us. But I think that's packed in that as soon as that said, they know he's talking about the Messiah. We could look at a number of places. I gave you a passage in Psalm on the outline in the Book of Psalms. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. If you take that little phrase, he who comes, the coming one, one who comes. There's a number of different ways to put it, but the idea of Here he comes, that I think is it just announces, this is messianic. So I think from the third word of his sermon here, as he preached, saying, There cometh one. And everybody said Messianic sermon today, that's what we got. He's talking about the Messiah. That was packed into those words. In fact, I think and this is it would be very hard to prove, but I think that those words were reserved for the Messiah. I don't think you would say, there cometh a baker, we got the butcher coming. I think they would use different words to talk about that. This particular phraseology was reserved for the Messiah. And there's several passages in the notes that you can look at here on one who comes in addition to Psalm 118, verse 26, Matthew eleven three, John 614. And there's more than that. So here is Messiah. Then he comes and he says, There cometh one. Mightier than I, after me now. I want to think about that mightier than I. I spent a little time already talking about John the Baptist influence. I kind of think there's some amazement in that little phrase mightier than. And I think that in the evaluation of John the Baptist in fact, what did Jesus say? Nobody better has ever been born of a woman than John the Baptist. Remember that little phrase, it'll come later. So even Jesus says you don't get better than John the Baptist. But then he says even the least in the kingdom of God is on a different scale. So nobody better than John the Baptist. So imagine that the strongest guy in the room comes and says, there's coming somebody stronger than me. It is a phenomenal statement, not just in a kind of casual way, oh, isn't he humble, but in a very strong way. So I don't think there was anyone with more spiritual power and influence in that day than John the Baptist. You got the priests, you got the Pharisees, you got the scribes, you got the lawyers, all that kind of stuff. Religiously, you got Caiaphas, and yet nobody's more powerful than John the Baptist. Spiritually. Nobody is, I would say, more powerful than John the Baptist, even politically. I think Josephus speaks to that a little bit, that you may be the king, Herod may be the king, but John the Baptist is the king maker. And this is why Herod wanted him put to death. So to say one mightier than I. And it's hard to once again prove this, but I doubt there were too many mightier than him physically. You're living out in the desert wearing your camel's hair, you've got to be kind of a stout guy. So again, I think you got right here so much packed into that there cometh one Messiah mightier than I. Mightier than you. Nobody gets mightier than you. You're the mightiest thing there is. And yet here he comes with that there cometh one mightier than I. And I think immediately just after that part of the statement right there that the people would say he is not talking about anyone other than the Messiah. That's who he's going to announce here, there cometh one mightier than I. And then he gives, of course that famous saying there the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. Now this is obviously he's creating an illustration in which he's trying to find the most humble thing that a person could do. And I suspect that in first century household of any measure, not a popper's household, but a household of any measure that had maybe some servants. And whatnot that? When the man of the house came home, the servants rushed to the door and they would unlatch the shoes of his sandals and have say, sit down here, sir. Let's get your feet cleaned up. You've been walking on that hot dusty road. And so that very much was the picture of servanthood. And I think that's a phrase that even comes today as a picture of servanthood, though we don't unlatch anybody's shoes for the most part here. But I am not worthy even to stoop down and unloose. That is abject humility before the Father speaking of his. Home and his home life. Remember when Mary came to visit Elizabeth in Luke chapter one? And Mary, excuse me, Elizabeth said about the paraphrase here, how is it that the mother of my Lord came to visit me? From the moment I heard the sound of your voice, the child within me leaped for joy. So that humility kind of even shown by Elizabeth, the obviously older relative of Mary. And just immediately how in the world could the mother of my Lord come to visit me? And so this is a part of the household that she's living in that John the Baptist is living in as he is growing up. And then we come to our last verse of the day. I indeed have baptized you with water. Now we talked about that last week and clearly a water baptism and nothing symbolic. Well there's some symbolic stuff about it, but it's definitely a real get in the water kind of baptism that takes place. So I have baptized you with water. But here's the part we want to focus on right here. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. This is another one that Matthew, Mark, Luke in a different way, john. But John has it as well. All talk about this. There's coming a different thing when the one mightier than I is going to baptize you. They would have understood that as immerse you and wash you in the Holy Ghost. And it is again given by all three of those gospels. Now I think that he obviously is talking about something future. He shall I have he shall this is what's going to happen in the future. Something is going to happen. He's going to baptize you with the Holy Ghost. I don't think let me say do just one language thing right here. I was talking about this somebody today, was that you rich or Bruce or who is I talking about the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit with was Bruce. Okay. Was that today? Oh, it was you and yesterday. Okay, I got it. Here. So in the King James you've got Holy Spirit and you've got Holy Ghost here. It's Holy Ghost. Underlying Greek is the same thing. By the way. I think the reason sometimes they went Holy Ghost and sometimes they went Holy Spirit. We'll work harder to verify this someday. Is that when they absolutely knew for sure? We're talking about the third person of the Trinity then Holy Ghost. That's the terminology that they would use when there is the possibility it could have been a Holy Spirit. Like we have a Holy Spirit here among us, a spirit with a lowercase S. Then they didn't make it Holy Ghost. So the ghost is a personage, if you will. I think that was their dividing point. Someday I'm going to find that out for sure. But that's what we're going with now. Are you okay with that. So here it is. He shall baptize you with the third person of the Trinity. He will baptize you with the Holy Ghost. He's speaking of a prophecy. I don't think he is giving this by revelation. I think he's giving this by knowing what the prophet said. I think he's giving this because he had read his Torah. I guess I should say his Hebrew Scriptures, which includes the prophets and the law and the prophets and the law and even the Torah. Talk about a day when Israel is going to be immersed by and washed in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. And so he is reiterating that. Let me show you a couple of examples from the Old Testament. We could go to Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 25, and it says, the Lord is speaking to Israel, says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and ye shall be clean. From all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you a new heart. Will I give you a new spirit. Will I put within you and take away the stony heart. Out of your flesh. I'll give you a heart of flesh. Okay, this is a promise for Israel someday. This is what I'm going to do. Now that doesn't necessarily talk about a baptism in the Holy Ghost, but sure is awfully close, isn't it? I'm going to come, I'm going to clean you with water, and you're going to be be new. Ezekiel 36 25 and 26. And then let's look at Joel, chapter two, verse 28, which ties in even more strongly, which says, it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids of those days I will pour out my spirit. I'll just stop right there. In 28 and 29, now that we are told by the apostle Peter, is what happened on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost came upon them, tongues as a fire landed upon them, they began to have the manifestations of the Holy Ghost. You got the indwelling of the Holy Ghost on those 120 that day, and then 3000, and then of course, it expands from there, and that is fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. We know it's fulfilled because Peter says it was fulfilled. Peter says, this is that which the prophet Joel spoke of. And he then begins to quote those words. So John the Baptist is coming along saying, I baptized you with water, the one who is coming, who is mightier than I, I'm not worthy to stoop down and unlatch his sandals. He is the one that is going to fulfill the Ezekiel prophecy, fulfill the Joel prophecy. He is the promised one you've been looking for, who will give you this ability to come and prophesy and dream dreams and see visions and have this indwelling, if you will, of the Holy Ghost. So he comes and brings us. Now, all of that, if you were to look into Joel and you were to look further into Ezekiel, if we did, we would never finish, would we? But if you were to dig into all that, you would find that those prophecies concerning the giving of the Holy Ghost were kingdom related. Now remember, kingdom for me is the earthly kingdom. When Messiah comes and reigns on the earth with his people, it's not a heart spiritual thing, it's a thing that happens here on this earth. So what John the Baptist is saying, he says very explicitly in other places when he says repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand here. Well, if I were in the Mark passage, in Mark one, verse eight, he's saying the same thing, repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. He's saying, I baptize you with water. That was a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. You are confessing your sins. Good work. Now he is going to come and baptize you with the Spirit, just like Joel said, just like Ezekiel said, that day is coming and that is going to be the establishment of the Kingdom. Now, if you were to look like in Acts chapter one and Acts chapter two and Acts chapter three, I think you would even tie in more strongly that the coming of the Holy Ghost is very much associated with the restoration of all things that is coming with the Kingdom. And that's what they were looking for, planning for and expecting. So I think that when you look at it, we would have to come along and say that things like this in Joel chapter two, or coming back to Mark One, verse eight, that he will baptize you with the Holy Ghost. We would have to say that's a prophetic thing and as a right divider like we are, prophecy is not for us. We're mystery things. Prophesied are for Israel. So we'll have to look at the giving of the Holy Ghost in a different way. What does he do for us? And there's some things that the scripture talks about that we should I think that's what got the conversation going, wasn't it? We talked about that on our astro theologian program. But there's the role of the Holy Spirit within us today. One of the things we know is we are sealed in the Spirit, and that's for us. But this thing on the day of Pentecost, that was for Israel and given for Israel. And so as people who are rightly dividing, we would say one of our principles would be that the Church, the body of Christ, saved by grace through faith, not of works, was not foreseen here at all, that this was foreseeing the Kingdom of Israel, that was going to be established. And so we would separate these things out from us. Now, there is in, for example, one Corinthians, chapter twelve, verse 13. It talks about we, and I think it's talking about the church. We are all baptized into one body. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. There is a spiritual baptism that you and I go through that puts us in this one body, this one body of Christ. But you have to look at this as two different things. There's the baptism that's coming down on Israel and there's the one baptism that you and I have that brings us into the body of Christ. And when you understand that and begin to separate that, it helps, you know, whether to be a Charismatic or not. It helps you to put a lot of your theology together and say, oh, okay, this is why some of these Holy Ghost things, we don't take, and yet they're right there in the scripture, because we know, okay, we rightly divide those and put those into the right place. And next week we will come. Where will we come in the Gospel of Mark? And we are going to look at the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, which is kind of an interesting thing too, isn't it, as you look at that. In fact, I'll probably say something next week about the fact that you've got the last priest of Israel baptizing. Let me say that different. The last of the priestly line. Baptizing. The last of the kingly line. Neither one of them had any children. And so it stops right there. But you won't know about it if you don't come next week. I'm so glad you're online. We'll see you all online. Okay, let me lead us in prayer. Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the fellowship, grateful that even though we come and look at it in a little bit different light, it inspires and intrigues us and causes us to want to learn more and study more. We pray that we've gotten it right. Dear Heavenly Father, we're more interested in understanding the Scripture and having it right than in winning any popularity contests. And we pray that our seeking to understand the Lord and what he's doing today would be enlightened as we see what happened in this earthly ministry through Mark. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you, everyone. See you Sunday morning, if not sooner. God bless.