I wish everyone a magnificent Sabbath rest today. This is a short study today. It is geared to encourage you to think, what is the Gospel? How do I act upon it? Where do we go with Jesus’ message? I will give the study from the New Testament perspective, and hope that as you read and think that you are able to adapt it to modern times.

Mark 1:14-15 The Message. The constant reminder in this study is context! John had been taken into custody. His preaching was effectively stopped. Jesus preached a simple sermon. It’s easy to look at these two verses and put into them the “gospel” that you preach. Context gives us the Gospel that Yeshua was preaching. Let’s look back a few verses to Mark 1:1-8. John preached repentance, turning from sin to following Torah. Repentance involves turning. Stern makes a good argument on this in his commentary on Matthew 3:2:

Turn from your sins to God. The English language has a perfectly good word for this, “repent,” used in the King James and most other versions; but those who image an overwrought, undereducated charlatan yelling it at a frightened and equally illiterate crowd can no longer hear the message in the word. For this reason I have gone back to the original languages to educe the original sense. The Greek word “metanoiete,” related to “nous” (“mind”), means “change your mind, have a complete change of heart.” The underlying Hebrew concept is expressed in the word “t’shuvah” (“turning, returning”), which in the context of religious behavior means “turning” from one’s sins and “returning” to God. Note that there is not only a “from” but a “to,” for turning from one’s sins is impossible unless at the same time one turns to God—otherwise one only turns from one set of sins to another! The Jewish understanding of repentance, correct on this point, is that each individual must do it, yet it requires God’s grace to be able to do it—“Turn us to you, O Adonai, and we will be turned” (Lamentations 5:21). ^[1]

John preached “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3:2 NASB).  In Mark we see him preaching the same message but with more action involved. Be immersed and put an action into place of repentance or turning away from sin (Mark 1:4 embellished).  Along with his preaching to turn from sin to God’s instruction, John embellishes his statement. One is following who is mightier. He will immerse you in the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8). This is the announcement of the New Covenant that was promised:

Jeremiah 31:31–34 (NET)

³¹ “Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.³² It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” says the Lord.³³ “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land,” says the Lord. “I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people. ³⁴ “People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” says the Lord. “For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

With that review, let’s look at the message that Yeshua was preaching. When Jesus said “the time is fulfilled”, it may be better translated as: The time has come to full completion, the schedule has been met, what was scheduled will now take place. The idea is that what was prophesied to happen will now take place. Jesus preached that the Kingdom of heaven is very near (Matt 3:2). Jesus preached that since the time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is very near. John’s preaching moved people toward heaven (righteousness) or turning away from sin to God’s instruction. Jesus preached turning away from sin to God. John’s promise that Jesus would fill people with the Holy Spirit moved the message of Jesus from preaching simple repentance to imparting the New Covenant from Jeremiah 31 (quoted above).

Jesus preached simply to repent (take a different direction) and believe that this good news is taking place. “Believe” is the same word that is translated as “faith”. It comes from the Greek word “pisteuo”. Faith is a verb, not a noun, just as believe is a verb. The idea is to take what you know and act upon it as if it is fact. Let’s look to the NET Bible:

Hebrews 11:1 (NET)

¹ Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see.

Faith (Greek pistis), is an action word. Yeshua was not teaching that the people make a mental assent to consider that what He preached was true. He was preaching that they take action and aggressively move forward knowing that the time was fulfilled. The New Covenant that was hoped for is now a fact. This is the good news that we see John the Baptist preaching. Jesus picked up the same message and embellished it. Remember, John the Baptist was the forerunner of the Messiah. He came to prepare the people for the message of the Messiah.

How do we go forward with this? In modern times we have changed the simple meaning of the Gospel to include the finished work and resurrection of the Messiah. This is all part of the New Covenant. The message is the same. Turning from sin to turn to God in our lives. We turn to God not be turning to a higher moral authority. This is foolishness. Turning to a higher moral authority in our society could be extremely spiritually dangerous. The ones who claim to have higher authority are so warped that they are on the fast track to hell. The only higher authority that we can turn to is the authority of God’s word. Turning to God means turning to His instruction so that we can follow Him in our lives. Albeit, this includes allowing the Holy Spirit to live in our lives and teach us His truth through revelation and through reading the scriptures. We need to return strictly to the scriptures and turn from all the other garbage that our society is pumping out.

Recently a law was passed in our country that allows babies to be left to die after they are born. They are cast off as garbage and allowed to die of starvation, naked and suffering. In our same country, if we were to take baby animals and do the same thing to them, we would be sent to prison for inhumane actions. If we mistreat an animal we recieve a greater punishment than if we allow a child to die. We absolutely must turn from the wickedness of our society to God’s higher authority. It is time that we dust off our Bibles, grease the hinges on the covers, and put them back to work. How many are with me in this?

^[1] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary : A Companion Volume to the Jewish New Testament, electronic ed. (Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1996), Mt 3:2.