Hosea 4:1-19 - God’s Case Against Israel

From the introduction to this sermon:

[We begin this morning at the beginning of Part 2 of Hosea. Part 1 might be called “The Saga of Hosea, Gomer, and Their Children.” It takes place in chapters 1-3. Part 2 covers the rest of the book. Not only does it expand on Part 1, it fills us in with more detail—not detail about Hosea’s family, for they are not mentioned again, but the themes developed in those first three chapters are clearly built upon in what follows throughout the rest of the book. Hosea chapters 1-3 lay a foundation and the rest of the book builds upon it.

This second part of the book begins with something that sounds eerily like a lawyer making his case in a court of law. In fact, the language employed is exactly that. It is the language of covenant lawsuit.]

Throughout this chapter God lays out his case against Israel who is guilty of violating the covenant. Another excerpt:

[It’s a three-fold charge. No faithfulness to God. No steadfast love for God. No knowledge of God. The whole of the breaking of the covenant is focused upon God. The knowledge spoken of in the third accusation is more than just a knowing of facts. It is a knowledge that cannot be gained from a newspaper, or an encyclopedia, or an exposè done on your favorite news channel. It is an intimate knowledge that can only come from relationship. We are to know God in an intimate, personal sense. This is what the law demands. 

They don’t know me, God says—and that is the most damning indictment of them all. And so I ask you this morning to ask yourselves. Do you know God? How well? The God who made heavens and earth and revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ can only be known to us through special revelation, that is the Scripture of Old and New Testaments. How well do you know him? In two weeks we will come across these words from chapter six:

Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;—Hosea 6:3a

How willing are you right now to press on to know him? Is there a longing inside you to know all that you can? It is this for which we were made. It is from this that we are fallen.]

To listen to all of this sermon just click the link below. God bless.

Click here: Mark 4:1-19 - God’s Case Against Israel


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Hosea 3:1-5 - The Latter Days

The late James Montgomery Boice called Hosea 3 the greatest chapter in the Bible. And while that may be a bit of an exaggeration, there’s a good reason why he said that. This little chapter is amazing.  Here’s an excerpt from the sermon I preached from this chapter:

“Now what has transpired thus far in Hosea? Well, God commanded Hosea to go take a wife from among the temple prostitutes, and to do so as an object lesson. Hosea’s marriage is to mirror God’s covenant relationship with Israel. God had called Abraham out of idolatry and promised to make him a people and to bless the world through his progeny.

And God has done that. God has kept his promises to Abraham’s offspring. Through Moses he redeemed them out of Egypt, made a covenant with them that had both conditional and unconditional aspects. He gave them a law to keep, and worship ordinances, and brought them into the land of promise. But they have been unfaithful to God and to the covenant. Institutionally they have abandoned God for the gods of the Canaanites around them, specifically Baal. They have broken the covenant of Moses and God has declared that the land into which he brought them will now spew them out.

And Gomer, the wife of harlotry that Hosea took to be his own, has been unfaithful to Hosea just like Israel has been unfaithful to God. Though Hosea had taken her out of a sinful life and called her to himself in faithfulness, though he had been perfectly faithful to her, she could not stop herself from falling back into her former lifestyle.

Gomer mirrors Israel in every way. Called out of idolatry she still finds herself constantly straying from God and going after other gods instead. Since she has been unfaithful, and broken covenant, God puts her away. The northern kingdom will go into captivity. God is done with them. We read this in chapters one and two.

But . . . although God is finished with this generation there is still a future hope of glory, a day of grace, for Israel. And that is what we are seeing promised once again in this amazing chapter. And once again we are going to see that this future hope, this day of grace, is pointing to the coming of Christ and his kingdom—the Church. That coming of Christ is the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, to Moses, and to David. And it is the hope of both Israel and the world.”

Below I’ve linked the audio recording of this sermon and I hope you’ll take the time to listen to it, because it’s a wonderful gospel passage. If the message fails to live up to that the fault would be mine, not the passage I tried to expound. So click below and take a listen and marvel at the grace of God.


Click here: Hosea 3:1-5 - The Latter Days


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Hosea 2:2-23 - Judgment, Mercy, and Grace

The book of Hosea is shocking. We open it up and right off the bat we are confronted with all sorts of things that we don’t really like to talk about in polite company. But there it is, right in front of us, and it’s in the Bible. What do we do with it? Well, we look at it honestly as what it is—the mirror of God’s word, and we see if we see ourselves in it. But more importantly we see if we see Christ in it. And that’s exactly what I attempt to do in this series through Hosea. What follows is the introduction I gave to my sermon from Hosea chapter 2.

“The question of whether or not we are presented with a true-to-life enacted parable in chapter one, or whether the whole thing is a metaphor is something that good people have and will disagree on. The humility that Christ commands us to have compels us to admit that what we have is a very ancient text and there are a lot of questions about it which may never be answered on this side of eternity. 

But what is certain is this. The northern kingdom of Israel has gone astray from its covenant with God. And God has sent his prophet Hosea to announce to them that he is a God of his word, that he will keep his covenant promises, that he will bring judgment upon the nation for its unfaithfulness and covenant breaking—just as he spoke through Moses.

So in the narrative of chapter one Hosea represents God and Gomer, his wife, represents the nation of Israel—specifically its political and religious institutions who are supposed to be completely and faithfully devoted to Yahweh God of Israel. The children represent the people of Israel, both individually and in community. 

Chapter one was a stunning chapter which began with a description of appalling sin, continued with promises of horrific judgment, but concluded with a vision of future grace. When we get to chapter two, specifically verse two, we are confronted with what looks eerily similar to a courtroom scene and God is using the language of divorce. The plaintiff, in this case God, begins his plea with the children—the individuals, the people or citizens of Israel.”

From this point I cover the entire chapter verse by verse and show how it points to Christ. To listen to it all just click the link below. God bless.


Click here: Hosea 2:2-23 - Judgment, Mercy, and Grace


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Hosea 1:2-2:1 - The People of God

From the introduction to this sermon:

“The last book in the old Hebrew Bible was known as the ‘Book of the Twelve.’ It contained within it the twelve minor prophets. It was probably separated and categorized this way because the writings of these twelve prophets (combined) fit onto one scroll. And that is the way they came down to us.

They are received and accepted as sacred writings, and of divine origin, because Jesus and the apostles accepted them as such. Jesus himself quoted from the book of Hosea, as did the gospel writers, as did the apostles in the epistles. And they quoted them authoritatively. In fact, both this week and next we will pay special attention to how the apostle Paul used the text in front of us.

Last week we introduced the genre of Old Testament prophecy. We looked at its place in redemptive history. We saw that its theme is Christ. And we briefly introduced Hosea. We said that his role was to speak the words of God, in calling God’s people back to covenant faithfulness—calling them back to God because they had gone astray. We introduced the political and cultural situation into which God spoke through Hosea, and now we open the book. We start this morning with chapter one and verse two.”

In this first chapter of Hosea, the prophet is commanded to do an odd thing, a surprising thing. He is told to go take to himself a “wife of whoredoms.” Why? What is the point? Will Hosea obey? And what does it all mean? And where do we find ourselves in this story. Listen to this sermon and find out. The answers might surprise you. To give it a listen, just click the link below.


Click here: Hosea 1:2-2:1 - The People of God


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Hosea 1:1–Introduction to Hosea

After finishing my 71 sermons verse by verse through the Gospel of Mark I took on a different project, this time from the Old Testament. Switching literary genres completely was a challenge, especially since I had never really preached from the prophets before. By the time I am finished I will have preached 19 sermons to cover 14 chapters in the book of Hosea. I called the series ‘Christ In Hosea’ and if you listen to this introductory sermon you will see why. Just click the link below this image.

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Click here: Hosea 1:1-Introduction to Hosea


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Mark 16:9-20 - The Rest of Mark

This is how I introduced the sermon I preached from this disputed portion of Scripture:

[One of the neat things about the Bible that you might have noticed is its repetitiveness. Something told in one place will likely be repeated elsewhere. Important words and phrases, concepts and themes manage to travel from one book to the next, between historical eras, even showing up in different genres. Something from the historical books will show up in the prophets sometimes. Or something from the gospels will be alluded to in the epistles. New Testament writers quote the Old Testament or make reference to events from redemptive history—things we’ve read about if we’ve read the Old Testament. We get two tellings of the history of the kings of Israel—one in the books of the Kings, the other in the Chronicles.

And we get four gospels. How blessed are we to have four different witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ? Of the four, the first three are called the synoptic gospels, because they follow roughly the same outline. They cover a lot of the same events and they do so in more or less the same order. But there always has to be a maverick, doesn’t there? And in the case of the gospels that maverick is John. He has a slightly different theme and fills in a lot of holes left by the first three. But when we’re done, what do we have? Four witnesses who in different ways tell the same story. The witness agrees. 

Oh, there may be slight differences in detail. If you’ll remember, Mark says the robe they put on Jesus to mock him was purple. John agrees with that. Luke simply says it was splendid or gorgeous or elegant. But Matthew says it was scarlet. These minor discrepancies serve not to undermine the biblical witness, but rather to lend it authenticity. 

Was there one blind man healed at Jericho or two? To get caught up in such questions about details is, first of all, very western and modern. But more importantly than that, it is to miss the point. The point is that Jesus heals! The point is that Messiah came and his ministry was attested to by signs and wonders recorded by many independent witnesses. If they all said exactly the same thing in every detail, skeptics would simply change tactics and claim there must have been corroboration. Skeptics are going to doubt. No matter what. It’s what they do. But if you’re looking for reasons to believe, the Bible gives you plenty. Faith is not a blind leap. Faith is a healthy and responsible reaction to reasonable evidence.

So when we come to a passage like ours in the Bible this morning, we have good reason to wonder about its authenticity, but no reason whatsoever to get worked up about that if we’re Bible believers. The biblical witness is not at stake. Let me explain.]

To listen to the entire sermon just click the link below.


Click here: Mark 16:9-20 - The Rest of Mark


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Mark 16:1-8 - The Resurrection of Christ

We come to the most essential claim of the Christian faith—the resurrection of Christ. Mark’s record of it is concise and to the point. This was my introduction to this sermon:

[None of the gospel writers actually describes the resurrection. They don’t take us to the scene and give us detail. They can’t, for no one was there to witness it—not the actual event. What the writers do is record for us what others witnessed after the fact—the empty tomb, angels, post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. They don’t offer proof, they offer a witness. But it is a very powerful witness.

One could make the case that if Jesus had not risen from the dead we would not have any gospels at all. At Jesus’s death his disciples have been scattered, his family is in a state of unbelief, one of his closest confidants has betrayed him, another has denied him. He has no one left except for a few women who have neither the means nor the social status to carry on his teachings.

Had Jesus not risen from the dead there would be no Christianity. This is true not only from a theological standpoint (the resurrection vindicated Jesus’s teaching) but also from a historical standpoint. If Jesus had remained in the tomb his ministry would have been over, his disciples forever disillusioned, and his legacy would have been one line penned by Josephus—barely a footnote in history.

“But in fact Jesus has been raised from the dead.” Those are the words of Paul writing some ten to fifteen years before Mark. That is the adamant belief of the apostles and the early church. And that they believed this is the only adequate explanation for the bursting forth of Christianity on the world in the first century. The best evidence for the truth of the resurrection is the existence of the New Testament and the existence of Christianity itself, for without a resurrection we would have neither.

But we are here this morning somehow, aren’t we? And we’re holding in our hands a record, a witness, of something astounding which must have taken place two thousand years ago or what we’re holding in our hands probably wouldn’t even exist. If Jesus was laid in that tomb never to rise again then he is just another in a long line of would-be Messiahs and prophets and teachers. But if he indeed rose again from the dead then the world is forever changed.”]

To listen to the sermon in its entirety just click the link below. The audio is found at SoundCloud along with the rest of the sermons from the gospel of Mark. God bless you.

Click here: Mark 16:1-8 - The Resurrection of Christ


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Mark 15:40-47 - The Burial of Jesus

The crucifixion account is finished but there is still one more part to this story before we reach the end of chapter 15, one more sermon to preach, and it is on the burial of Christ. This is how I introduced it.

“When we study the Scripture as a whole we begin to notice patterns. One of the patterns we run across from the Old Testament, for example, is that of sin, judgment, and deliverance. The people turn away from God, fall into calamity, call out to God in repentance, and God sends a deliverer. You’ve noticed that, I’m sure, if you’ve ever read the Old Testament.

Another pattern or theme we see is that of God choosing his people. Seth begins a godly line. Noah finds grace in the eyes of God. Abraham is called out of idolatry to go out into a land. Prophets are chosen and commissioned. Kings are chosen and appointed. Priests likewise. God chooses a people and makes promises to bless them in spite of their sin. This is the case in the Old as well as the New Testaments. This ties in to the next theme we notice, that of covenant.

Perhaps the two most prominent themes in the Bible are those of covenant and redemption. God makes covenant promises to Adam, then to Noah, then to Abraham. God makes covenant with his people through Moses at Mt. Sinai. In fact, the history of God’s people in the Old Testament is that of covenant breaking and covenant renewal (which takes us back to and ties into that earlier theme we noted about sin, judgment, repentance, and renewal.) It is the covenant that the people are being called back to—covenant faithfulness.

But redemption, now that’s the big one. If the Bible has one overriding theme it would have to be that of redemption—and that redemption is focused on God’s Son, God’s unique Son, His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. That is why when we look back at the Old Testament through New Testament eyes we are looking for Jesus in types and shadows and prophecies, for that is what Jesus himself has taught us to do. He is the theme of the Old Testament because redemption is the theme of the Old Testament. In fact, we might say that redemption is the theme, while covenant is the framework. Our failure is what necessitates this (the cycle) and God’s choosing his people is part and parcel of covenant. All of the Bible is important. To disagree with that last bit is to disagree with Jesus about the theme and purpose and importance of the Old Testament. 

Last week we finished with the pronouncement made by the Roman centurion who had been in charge of the crucifixion: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” It was the climactic moment of Mark. It was a Gentile, a Roman, stating boldly and clearly the premise that Mark had boldly and clearly set forward in the first line of his book. Everything between that first line and this climax had been building toward it. And it happened at the foot of the cross.

Now as we approach the end of this gospel there is still a little bit more story to tell. Jesus has given up his life in fulfillment of the Scriptures—specifically the suffering servant passages of Isaiah and those Psalms written with a similar theme. What was to become of him? What was to become of his message? What was to become of his body? Did they leave him on the cross?

You might think that last was a silly question, but history says otherwise. It was Roman practice to leave people on crosses for days and days, sometimes until their bodies decomposed. Burial for someone crucified was rare in the Roman world, though perhaps less rare in Palestine. In fact, it was forbidden except by magisterial decree. Usually the most one could hope for was being dumped into a mass grave. But the story of Jesus’s burial is a bit different, a bit unusual—worth telling, evidently, or Mark wouldn’t have spent so much time on it.

In fact, the burial of Jesus becomes a part of first century gospel witness. When Paul gives his famous statement on what the gospel is in his letter to the church at Corinth, he includes Jesus’s burial in his proclamation of the good news.

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,—1 Corinthians 15:1-4

“That he was buried.” Mark spends seven verses on it, more or less, and deems it that important to his story. Jesus died, that was last week. Jesus was buried, well, that happens today. Was the burial of Jesus pointed to in any way in the Old Testament? Jesus seems to think so. He claims that Jonah in the fish was something that pointed forward to his burial.

For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.—Matthew 12:40

Three days and three nights was an idiomatic expression, not a literal 72 hour measurement, but the point is still clear. Jesus really, really, really died. He was in the ground for three days. No mistake about it. Mark, too, wants us to know that.

Mark begins this story of the burial in an odd way. He begins it with women.…”

To listen to this sermon, just click the link below. God bless.


Click here: Mark 15:40-47 - The Burial of Jesus


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Mark 15:33-39 - The Son of God

What made Jesus’s crucifixion special? That’s a question I tackle in the introduction to this sermon, the third sermon covering Mark’s account of the crucifixion story. Here’s that introduction:

“Historical estimates of the number of people, both men and women, crucified by the Romans ranges from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands. In 71 BC, for example, some 6000 slaves were crucified on the same day along the Appian way outside Rome. In the province of Judea alone, during the first century, thousands of Jews were crucified—many of them during the siege of Jerusalem that Jesus warned his disciples about back in chapter 13. So the mere fact of being crucified, or even of a Jew being crucified by Romans, was not unique.

While much is made in modern times about the pain and physical agony endured by Jesus at his crucifixion, the truth is that millions have suffered similarly. The Romans were not the only ancient people to crucify. Crucifixion has also been practiced by Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, Scythians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Seleucids. There were also the Indians, Britons, Taurians, Thracians, Celts, Germans, Japanese, Wallachians, Ottoman Turks, Spaniards, Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes, Soviets, Tibetans, Chinese, North Koreans, and very recently, Islamic jihadists.

So what makes Jesus’s crucifixion special? What makes it different? Why is his remembered while so many others are forgotten? Part of the answer to that will come at the beginning of the next chapter. But much of it is answered by Mark right here in the verses laid before us this morning. This was not just any death. This was not just any crucifixion. And this was no ordinary man hanging on that Roman cross.

We pick up where we left off last week, in the middle of Mark’s crucifixion narrative. Up until now Jesus has been the passive recipient of mistreatment at the hands of many different actors. Now the narrative focuses in on Jesus. Verses 29-32 recorded the mockery of the scribes as Jesus hung on the cross. But in verse 33 there is the first of several things Mark records which makes the crucifixion unique.”

To listen to the sermon just click the link below. God bless.


Click here: Mark 15:33-39 - The Son of God


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Mark 15:22-32 - He Saved Others

This is part 2 of the crucifixion narrative. Here’s how I introduced this sermon:

“If we were to approach the gospel of Mark as a skeptic, we might smirk at how hard Mark tries to paint his crucifixion story in a way as to make us believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of what was written in the Psalms and Isaiah and Zechariah. We might say that he isn’t giving a true account, he is purposefully molding the details to be in conformity with what was written in those places in order to spin this tragic misstep of Jesus (getting himself crucified) into something that was planned all along. 

And in this age of spin, where news is opinion, and where information is so hidden within the mounds and mounds of misinformation that it becomes hard to separate truth from propaganda, we might be tempted to dismiss what Mark writes on this basis. After all, it does look as if Mark is on purpose telling his story in such a way as to lead us to conclude that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that he is the fulfillment of all that the prophets had spoken. Is Mark just spinning? Or is he accurately reporting? And the answer is ‘both.’ Mark obviously has an agenda. He announced it in the very first line of his gospel. But what if his agenda is true? What if what he is telling is both true to the historical accounts and at the same time the fulfillment of what was written in the prophets?

Something that lends credibility to Mark is the fact that the idea of a suffering Messiah was so foreign to the Jewish conception of the time. It was nowhere to be found, either in the popular thinking of the day or in the rabbinical tradition. So this twist, then, this idea of a suffering Messiah is something that blindsides them. It comes out of nowhere.

But not exactly nowhere, because it is to be found in the Psalms and Isaiah and Zechariah. It was there all along, it was just ignored or missed by the students of those Scriptures in that day. But Mark feels justified to point it out, and if it were there all along, as it was, and if it were being ignored, as it so clearly was, then who can blame Mark for recording those events of the crucifixion in such a way as to highlight their correlation with what had been written in the prophets? Wouldn’t you and I have done the same? While bias is always grounds for suspicion, bias by itself is never sufficient grounds for the rejection of a truth claim.

And here is the Christian truth claim. Here is the gospel as defined by Paul some ten to fifteen years before Mark wrote. 

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,—1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (emphasis mine)

This is the Christian gospel—that the death of Christ was the plan all along and that it happened exactly according to the eternal decree of God as revealed by the prophets. Jesus was not the victim of circumstances beyond his control. Jesus is the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.”

To listen to this sermon just click the link below. It will take you to the page on SoundCloud where the audio recording is located. You can stream it there or download it for later. God bless.


Click here: Mark 15:22-32 - He Saved Others


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Mark 15:15-21 - “King of the Jews”

We come now to the first of three sermons from Mark’s crucifixion account. Here’s my introduction to it:

[“Death by crucifixion was one of the cruelest and most degrading forms of execution ever devised by human perversity, even in the eyes of the pagan world.” Thus wrote William Lane, professor of New Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in his commentary on the gospel of Mark. And because I couldn’t figure out how to say it better, or even as well, in my own words, I decided just to quote him. 

A personage no less notable than the Roman poet and politician Cicero wrote this about crucifixion: “Even the mere word, cross, must remain far, not only from the lips of the citizens of Rome, but also from their thoughts, their eyes, their ears.”

Crucifixion was not a polite subject, nor was it brought up in polite conversation. It was unequaled in both suffering and shame. In the Roman world crucifixion was an unspoken vulgarity reserved for the provinces, for slaves, and for the worst forms of criminals. And if it were this way among the Romans, one can only imagine the attitude toward it, or rather against it, among the Jewish population.

The people of Israel had never executed in this manner. Their method, prescribed in the law of Moses, was stoning. In some cases, after a criminal had been executed by stoning, the body would be lifted up and hung on a gibbet as a public display. The message was this—this is what happens to those who commit heinous offenses. Add to that the words of Deuteronomy 21:

“And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.—Deuteronomy 21:22-23

Understand that not everyone stoned was then taken and hung on a gibbet, but some were. And the people understood the implications of that. This person has violated the law of God and for that he is cursed of God. It was an inviolable truth of Jewish thinking that anyone hung on a cross was cursed of God. And now Jesus is about to go to one of those crosses to be cursed of God.]

You will find the audio for the sermon in its entirety in the link below. Just click and listen. God bless you.


Click here: Mark 15:15-21 - “King of the Jews”


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Mark 15:1-15 - Jesus Before Pilate

With the turning of the page to Mark chapter 15 we start into this, the 65th sermon I preached from the Gospel of Mark. Here’s a quotation from early in the sermon.

“The Roman workday began at daybreak. It lasted until noon. Romans of the upper class spent their afternoons in leisurely pursuits. So it is vital, if they want to get this done, that they have Jesus before Pilate first thing in the morning. After having worked all night, the Sanhedrin meets one final time to make sure their ducks are in a row before they send him over to Pilate to be condemned.

Pilate served as the governor of Judea for about ten years, between 27 and 36 AD. His official title was “Prefect” and he was of a class of Romans just below senator. His job was to maintain peace and order in this province. Pilate did not live in Jerusalem, nor did any other Roman prefect who governed Judea in the first century. Pilate’s house was in Caesaria Maritima on the Mediterranean coast. But during the feasts, when so many pilgrims were crowding into the city, the governor would come stay in Jerusalem to help ensure order was maintained. The usual place of his temporary abode would have been Herod’s palace. 

So Jesus is bound and marched under guard through the streets to Herod’s palace where he arrives just in time for the beginning of Pilate’s day. Mark gets straight to the point and begins immediately describing Jesus’s trial before Pilate.”

And so the sermon covers the first fifteen verses of this chapter and takes us all the way to the flogging of Jesus. I hope you will take the time to listen to it. The sermon contains both information that you’ve probably never heard and application and meaning which you may have never thought of. So I hope you’ll listen. Just click the link below. God bless.


Click here: Mark 15:1-15 - Jesus Before Pilate


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Mark 14:54,66-72 - Peter Denies Jesus

From the introduction to this sermon:

“Peter, to me, is the most interesting of the twelve apostles, perhaps because we are given more insight into his character than we are of any of the others. Peter is among the first called in every gospel. He is often the mouthpiece for the rest. He is the first to speak up, the first to take action, the boldest, the sincerest, the most passionate. And when he falls he falls the hardest. And that’s what we are looking at here in this last pericope of Mark 14–the fall (though temporary) of Peter.

Mark has tied this story together with that of Jesus’s trial because they both happen at the same time and in relatively the same location. While Jesus is in an upper room facing his accusers, Peter is down in the courtyard warming his hands by the fire with Jesus’s enemies. The contrast could not be more clear, and no doubt Mark intended for us to see it. And not just us, but primarily his immediate audience of persecuted followers of the Way in Rome.

For good reason this has been called the trial of Peter. The parallels to what is going on upstairs is obvious. While Jesus is being interrogated, Peter faces interrogation. Both lives are in danger. Answering truthfully comes at a price. Jesus answers truthfully and boldly and accepts that price willingly. Peter lies, and denies, and tries his best to avoid the shame and the cost of knowing Jesus. While both are on “trial” in the sense of facing tough questions from antagonistic accusers, both are also facing this trial because of the loving providence of God. 

Jesus was sent to earth for this by the love of the Father. It is his own love which compels him forward. And it is the Spirit of love within him which strengthens him for what is ahead. And Jesus, though condemned by the Sanhedrin, will ultimately be vindicated by the Father. Meanwhile, Peter will avoid being found guilty in the courtyard, only to be overwhelmed by his guilt before God. It is only a word in the resurrection scene of chapter 16 which will give us hope of his restoration. 

So in this trial, Jesus anchors his trust upon the will of the Father and passes the test. Meanwhile Peter trusts to conniving and manipulation—to self—and fails.”

To listen to the audio recording of this sermon just click the link below. A new window will open in your browser and you will have the opportunity to with stream the audio right away or download it for later listening. God bless.


Click here: Mark 14:54,66-72 - Peter Denies Jesus


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Mark 14:53-65 - Jesus Before the Sanhedrin

We are reaching the climax of the gospel of Mark and every pericope seems to grow in intensity and drama compared to the last. In the sermon prior to this one Jesus was betrayed and arrested. In this sermon he appears before the Sanhedrin. In the next he is denied by Peter. That will close chapter fourteen but the narrative still proceeds rapidly. In chapter fifteen we will witness Jesus as he witnesses a good profession before Pontus Pilate. That will be followed by three sermons covering Mark’s telling of the crucifixion story. Only four sermons will remain after that to finish this gospel up.




But right now the circumstances seem to be spiraling rapidly out of control for Jesus—at least we would think so if it weren’t for Mark who, time after time goes out of his way to make it clear that Jesus remains in complete control of these events which are leading to his death. Remember, this is the purpose for which he has come and we know this because he has told us over and over again. So in this sermon I describe the trial scene as Jesus goes before the Sanhedrin and show the irony of an innocent Messiah declared guilty for making false claims of being Messiah, claims which would have been true had he made them, but he didn’t, at least not publicly. In this sermon I show you the audacity of a man in chains claiming to be the king of the people who’ve chained him, a man dying at the hand s of a people he came to save, and doing so on purpose. And I explain what it all means. I hope you’ll listen.

Just click the link below. God bless.


Click here: Mark 14:53-65 - Jesus Before the Sanhedrin


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Mark 14:43-52 - Jesus Betrayed and Arrested

This is how I began this sermon on Jesus’s betrayal and arrest from Mark 14. From the introduction:

“We have been with Jesus and the disciples now for nearly fourteen chapters. They have been his constant companions since he called the first of them back in chapter one. Every story we’ve looked at has involved them. They understand. They don’t understand. They confess. They believe. They forget to bring bread. They fail to act in faith. They marvel. They are afraid. They rebuke Jesus. They ask him questions. They forsake all to follow him. 

They are there, on the inside with Jesus, every step of the way. The crowd gets a parable. The disciples get an explanation of the parable. The crowd gets fed. The disciples get a lesson and a challenge. Many of the miracles Jesus does he does for their sakes alone. He is teaching them, preparing them, strengthening them, being patient with them, promising them, warning them. For them he calms the storm. For them he walks on water. For them he takes a child into his arms and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.” “The first shall be last, the last shall be first,” all of this has been for the disciples. They have been with him in every story, every step of the way, from the Sea of Galilee where he found them in chapter one, to right here in an olive grove just outside the city gates of Jerusalem. Jesus and the disciples. Jesus and the disciples.

And now all of that is about to change.

Now the disciples will fade into the background. Now Jesus will face the end alone. But he has prepared them for this, or tried to. He’s been telling them since chapter eight what is going to happen to him. And now the time has come. Jesus has resigned himself to the will of the Father completely. The chessboard has been set, the pieces are all in place. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him.”

To listen to the audio recording of this sermon just click the link below. A new page will open up in your browser and you can follow the instructions to either stream it on your device or download it for later. I hope you’ll take the time to listen. God bless you.


Click here: Mark 14:43-52 - Jesus Betrayed and Arrested


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Mark 14:31-42 - Jesus At Gethsemane

We come now to the garden with Jesus. Three times in the gospel of Mark we are told of Jesus praying alone. We may safely assume that Jesus prayed more than three times, but three of those occasions were special enough that Mark thought them worthy of recording for us. 

Once it was at the very beginning of his ministry. Jesus left the disciples in the middle of the night and went out into a deserted place to pray. This happened right after the first mention of the crowds. And we conjectured at the time that perhaps Jesus felt the weight of his mission and ministry upon him, for when the disciples found him he said, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”

The next time Mark mentions Jesus in prayer is in chapter six, right after the feeding of the five thousand. It was there that the people had come out to take him by force and make him king. Expectations of a political Messiah were running high and perhaps Jesus felt the weight of this upon his shoulders as well. He had a mission to accomplish and he must stay on task. He needed the Father desperately.

Now here we are in chapter 14, in the midst of one of the darkest chapters in all the Bible. One disciple is about to betray him. The others will soon abandon him. The most outspoken will deny him. All of this Jesus has foretold. He is about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners, rejected by his people, and handed over to the Gentiles for execution. The weight of the world is upon his shoulders. So he once again seeks a solitary place to pray. And he finds it in Gethsemane.

That was my introduction to this, the 61st sermon in my journey through Mark. I’ve linked the audio recording of the original delivery of this sermon just below. I hope you’ll take the time to listen and be blessed.

Click here: Mark 14:31-42 - Jesus At Gethsemane


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Mark 14:27-31 - The Faithfulness of Jesus

I had originally intended to preach one sermon covering verses 22-31, but there was just too much there. I finally divided it into two, and this is the second. The following excerpt is from the conclusion of this sermon and when you read it you will see why I chose the title that I did.

“All of us fail. That is the reason why Christ has come. Even Jesus’ closest followers abandon and deny him. Yet Jesus stands faithful. He is the stalwart who remains faithful when all around him fail. That is the gospel in a nutshell. Jesus succeeded where we failed.

Salvation is not a tag team effort. It is not Jesus and the apostles who save. It is not Jesus and me working together. It is Jesus alone. It is true that he will work in me and through me and that he will produce works in me and through me, but those works are his, not mine. They are his grace at work. Without his grace I could do nothing. The same is true for all of us.

This night the eleven will have their chance to die for Jesus. They will all fail. But before 24 hours are up he will have died for them. And in this final failure, this final denial, we are reminded of the truth that none of us is worthy, that Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners. That Christ came into the world to save sinners. 

Peter and Mark include this story of the failure of the disciples in order to drive that truth home to us. We need Jesus. Without him we are nothing. And he died for us, not because of our strength, but because of our lack. When we were sinners Christ died for us. When we were weak, and at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Are you weak? Come find rest in Christ.”

To listen to the whole sermon just click the link below. God bless you. I hope you will.

Click here: Mark 14:27-31 - The Faithfulness of Jesus


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The Faithfulness of God - Mark 14:22-26

This is the fifty-ninth sermon in the series I preached through the Gospel of Mark. It is a description of Mark’s account of the Last Supper. If you have never heard much detail about what is going on here then you’ll want to listen. Not only do I give you a play by play between-the-lines reading of what’s going on, but I also show it’s significance in redemptive history and for our salvation. This is an amazing passage of Scripture!

Here’s an excerpt:

“The first cup symbolized God’s bringing his people out of Egypt. The second cup their deliverance from bondage. The third cup symbolized the “I will redeem you,” part and this is the cup that Jesus has held up and blessed and said, “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.” It is the cup of redemption. The fourth cup is the cup of consummation: “I will take you to be my people and I will be your God.” This is the cup that Jesus refuses until the consummation of the kingdom. He will not drink this cup until he drinks it new in the kingdom of God.”

Give this sermon a listen and perhaps you will see in greater detail the ramifications of the Last Supper for our salvation both in the immediate and the eternal. Enjoy!


Click here: Mark 14:22-26 - The Faithfulness of God


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Mark 14:12-21 - Jesus Celebrates Passover

This is how I introduced this sermon:

“We began this chapter last week with the anointing of Jesus at Bethany. The faith, love, and devotion displayed by the unnamed woman there, Jesus called beautiful. She had done this, he had said, for his burial. And we were reminded again that Jesus is on a mission.

He first said they were going to Jerusalem. Then he had said that he was going to die there—that he would be rejected by Israel, handed over to the Gentiles, and executed. He repeated this twice more in chapters nine and ten.

Mark has informed us of this for the express purpose of making sure we understood that what happened to Jesus was according to plan. The son of man must go to Jerusalem, Jesus had said. He must be rejected. He must be handed over. He must die. 

Mark has told us this so that we would not make the mistake of thinking that perhaps Jesus had miscalculated, or that things had spiraled out of control. Jesus has entered the heart of enemy territory, is offering himself up, and now he will be crucified. Peter will say in just a few weeks that all of this happened according to the ‘definite plan and foreknowledge of God.’ It was foretold by the prophets who spoke as they were ‘moved along by the Holy Spirit.’ It must happen this way.

So after the story of his being anointed for burial at Bethany we were told how Judas went to the chief priests and offered them the information they needed in exchange for money. That’s where we ended last week.

What we’re about to see is that just as Jesus sent disciples ahead to make preparations for his entrance to Jerusalem back in chapter eleven, so he does again, this time for the celebration of the Passover meal. The stories and details are remarkably similar and serve to emphasize that Jesus is in complete control of events as we edge closer and closer to crucifixion. Everything is according to purpose—his as well as the Father’s.”

To listen to the sermon just click the link below.


Click here: Mark 14:12-21 - Jesus Celebrates Passover


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