The Nearness of the Kingdom, Mark 1:14-20
The Nearness of the Kingdom
Mark 1:14–20
Introduction
Last week we introduced Mark. We saw Mark’s main point, which is that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God who comes to judge and save his people. His way was prepared by the Elijah who was to come, promised in Isaiah and Malachi, who would prepare the way of the Lord by proclaiming repentance to Israel. Then we saw the king come to his people—albeit in a quiet and almost unnoticed way. He is baptized to identify with his people and lead them as the Spirit-anointed Messiah into the promised land. And he identifies with them in their wilderness wanderings, promising to bring them out of the wilderness.
If Jesus is a king—specifically, a king in the line of David—then that means he has a kingdom over which he rules. And in the word today, we see Jesus announcing that kingdom: “The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).
The kingdom of God, according to many able theologians today, is the main theme of the entire Scripture. The Bible is the story of God establishing his kingdom on earth through the agency of man. In an ultimate sense, God is the ultimate and only king. Psalm 47:2, “For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared, a great king over all the earth.” Psalm 95:3, “For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.” Malachi 1:14, “For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.” In fact, the capital city of this king is always said to be Jerusalem, constantly called “the city of the great king.” Even Jesus calls it this in Matthew 5:35. In fact, this is part of the significance of Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:18, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Jesus is the great king. He is Yahweh himself.
But God’s never desired his kingdom to be one that is merely ethereal, spiritual, intangible, or heavenly. He has always sought to establish what theologians call his mediatorial kingdom. That means that God wants to mediate his rule over the earth through human beings. It begins in primordial form in the Garden of Eden, when Adam is told to “rule and subdue.” Adam is a king who rules over a kingdom on God’s behalf.
When Adam fell, he made the human mediation of God’s kingdom impossible. Rather than stewards, we became rebels. Since then, God has sought to reestablish his kingdom on earth through overcoming sin. He has done this through his promises, which we call unconditional covenants. First, there was the covenant with Noah, which provided stability in nature and the existence of human government. Second, there was the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which guaranteed an offspring which would come out of the nation that would come from them who would restore blessing to the world. Third, there was the covenant with David which narrowed these promises to a coming king over Israel. And fourth, there is the new covenant in which the Son of David provides the decisive spiritual transformation needed to restore the kingdom of God on earth.
When Israel was formally became a nation at the exodus, it was an initial sign that God was reestablishing his kingdom on earth. While Israel was established as a nation by the Abrahamic covenant, it’s existence before Christ was administrated by the covenant God made with them through Moses—sometimes called the Mosaic Covenant, or the Sainiatic Covenant. But the fatal, purposeful flaw in the Mosaic Covenant was that it was conditional, unlike the others. Israel had to live up to its end of the bargain for them to be established as the people of God—to be blessed and to bless the world. But, as we know, they failed to do so and experienced the curses of that covenant, not the blessings. While in exile, the yearning of Israel was that the kingdom would be restored, that the king would come to his people, and that blessing would come to the whole earth. E.g., Psalm 89. GO THERE.
But these promises could not be realized apart from the forgiveness of sin. What created the whole problem in the first place was sin in the heart of man. Which means that if the kingdom of God is to be reestablished on the earth, then the problem of sin must be finally dealt with. It is therefore highly significant that Jesus comes proclaiming and accomplishing the gospel, which is “the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1), “the gospel of God” (1:14). It is the promise that those who repent of their sin and trust wholly and only in Christ will receive pardon for their sins, will be transformed, and become citizens of the kingdom of God. And in our text, we see Jesus, the king of that kingdom, proclaiming that the kingdom of God is at hand.
I. The Message of the Kingdom (1:14-15)
Mark portrays Jesus ministry as beginning (somewhat ominously) with the “handing over” of John the Baptist, which foreshadows where this story is heading. And it pictures him coming from Galilee—the northern region of Israel. This is also significant because it was the warpath of invading kings, and the region from which light was promised to dawn on Israel in Isaiah 9:1. And in Isaiah 9, he goes on to describe the dawning of that light as the coming of a king who will rule on David’s throne and over his kingdom.
But immediately we must notice something crucial—Jesus’ kingdom comes by his word. Jesus did not come with a sword. He did not come with policy proposals. Nor did he come with a government handout. He came with a message. The opening salvo in Jesus’ kingdom is a sermon. He comes proclaiming the gospel of God.
Jesus word is central in his kingdom. In fact, Jesus’ word is the foundation of his kingdom. Whatever the nature of this kingdom, we know for a fact that it is founded upon the gospel of God. There is no kingdom apart from the message of the gospel, and any kingdom founded on anything except that is not the kingdom of God. At its most basic definition, the Kingdom of God is his sovereign rule over all things, which then finds expression in different ways. God is king over all things, so in one sense he is king over all. Jesus will be king over all the earth in a thousand year reign yet coming in the future. He will be king over Israel in a unique way during that time. But he is also king in a spiritual sense—ruling over the hearts of men by the message of the gospel.
The gospel of God is not merely that your sins may be forgiven, your conscience cleansed, your life transformed, and your future secured. It includes all those things. But it is most fundamentally that Jesus is the Messiah. He is Lord. And he is Lord of a kingdom governed by his word—his gospel, his message of salvation and his promises of forgiveness for all who repent and trust him.
It is through this message that Jesus Christ administers his reign over his people now. While he will one day externally enforce his kingdom through an administrative government, at present, he only internally enforces his kingdom through the transformed hearts of those who trust him. His kingdom in the present age is a spiritual kingdom—a kingdom that is not seen, felt, touched, or accessible by human senses. It is an internal kingdom, a kingdom that consists in the submission of the heart to Jesus the Messiah. And, moreover, it is a kingdom which does not come about by any human cause. All human institutions and enterprises rise and fall. The once mighty Assyrians were overcome by the mighty Babylonians, who were overcome by the Greeks, who were overcome by the Romans, who fell at the hands of the Barbarians. I do not expect the United States will suffer and different fate eventually.
God’s kingdom is God’s work. As one man said, “The new age does not come from human activity of any kind, positive or negative, nor does it evolve from this present age.” He establishes his rule. Man does not establish it on his behalf. In fact, Mark’s vision of the kingdom of God is not that it evolves out of historical processes but that it dramatically invades the present from the future—as though the future were spilling over into the present. In other words, man does not establish God’s kingdom—God establishes man’s kingdom.
God’s kingdom comes in God’s time. “The time is fulfilled.” This doesn’t mean that we’ve wasted too much time, so get your act together. Rather, it means that God’s timetable has come. “Only God truly knows what time it is.” And God throughout history has set times for certain events. Galatians 4:4 says, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman.” No sooner. No later. Only when the time was fulfilled. Jesus himself tells the disciples in Acts 1:7, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons fixed by my father in heaven.” Ephesians 1:10 speaks of God’s plan of redemption as, “a plan for the fullness of the times.” In fact, Luke 21:24 calls the time we are staying in “the times of the Gentiles” which will last until the “fullness of the Gentiles has come in” (Romans 11:25). Everything is happening exactly on schedule. God is the ultimate admin.
In fact, Daniel 9:24-27 speaks of a precisely detailed chronology that lasted from the decree of Artaxerxes to rebuild Jerusalem to the establishing of God’s kingdom on earth—490 years total. There were 483 years before the arrival of Messiah, then an additional 7 years. If you do the math, 483 years from that decree lands you right in the ballpark of Jesus’ life. Ther was even heightened expectation for the Messiah during Jesus’ time. The seven are yet to come and detailed in Revelation. Everything is exactly on schedule.
But since the king was near, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” It is near. At the door. About to come. Imminent. When I worked at Eden Baptist, I would work in the office. My kids would know that I would get home at 5:10 every day. At 10am, my return was not imminent. At 5:09pm, my return is “at hand.” Immediately to be anticipated. I’m almost home. And that is the sense that Jesus gives here. God’s kingdom is approaching, drawing near, at the door. It is about to be.
You can imagine the urgency that would have created in Christ’s hearers, and how urgently this called for a response. If the king was there, then the time to respond in repentance and faith was now. Not later. Now. To wait is to be too late. So also you must respond to his reign now, not later. His kingdom is at hand. He tells us to watch for his coming, to wait for his coming, to be ready for his coming, for he could be coming at any moment! He says later in this gospel, “Be on guard, keep awake, for you do not know when the time will come….Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning—lest he come suddenly and find you asleep” (Mark 13:32ff). You do not know when he will come! The kingdom of God even now is at hand—at the door, ready to enter, knocking at the door.
And if this is the case, Jesus points us to only one response—turn to him for salvation. “Repent and believe in the gospel.”
Repentance. How rare is true repentance! A satirical rewrite of a prayer of confession from the Book of Common Prayer went like this:
“Benevolent and easy-going Father: we have occasionally been guilty of errors of judgment. We have lived under the deprivations of heredity and the disadvantages of environment. We have sometimes failed to act in accordance with common sense. We have done the best we could in the circumstances; and have been careful not to ignore the common standards of decency; and we are glad to think that we are fairly normal. Do thou, O Lord, deal lightly with our infrequent lapses. Be thy own sweet Self with those who admit they are not perfect; according to the unlimited tolerances which we have a right to expect from thee. And grant us as indulgent Parent that we may hereafter continue to live a harmless and happy life and keep our self-respect.”
How much does this reflect your confession? Your view of God and yourself? Do you have the view that all is good, nothing to worry about, no sin left to confess and forsake? You may not say these words, yet how closely does this reflect your attitude toward your own sin? There is a way of living, even a way of using the language of repentance and confession that still, in effect, says, “I don’t have sin.” Or does it sound more like David:
“I’m in the wrong. I need mercy. I need you to erase my sins and wash me. I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me. I have sinned against you. I have done what is evil in your sight. You are justified in your words and blameless in your judgments. I was a sinner from birth. My bones are broken and need to be healed. I am blood-red and need to be washed whiter than snow. My heart is dirty and needs to be cleansed. My spirit is wrong and needs to be made right. Don’t cast me away. Don’t leave me be. I’m hopeless and joyless without you.” Do you ever feel wretched because of what you’ve done?
No one can be saved without repentance. That doesn’t mean that repentance saves you, as though it were a work we performed. Nor does it mean we must genuflect and whip ourselves until we feel inordinate guilt, as though we were masochists of the conscience. It is to say you can’t be saved from sin unless you see it for what it is! And you can’t see it for what it is without being ashamed that you would do it! And you can’t be ashamed of it without forsaking it. I don’t care how strong your conversion experience was, if there is no ensuing life of everyday repentance, there is no salvation. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” (1 Cor 6:9)
Why do people not repent?
1. We have an improper view of sin. Sin is just mistakes. Booboos. Oopsies. Accidents. We are victims of circumstance or genetics, brain wiring or chemistry, family history or marriage dynamics. Anything we can do to say “It’s not my fault.” But it is your fault. You are a perpetrator, a criminal, a rebel. The reality is you are a terrible person, much worse than you think.
2. We have a low view of God. God is a congenial father, an understanding friend, a Rogerian psychologist. He does not take sin seriously, nor does he care what we think, or even really what we do. So long as we carry on in a nice, congenial, socially acceptable way, we are good. But this is not the Holy God who is.
3. We are blinded by constant distractions. Netflix. YouTube. Amazon. TikTok, Instagram, podcasts, the news, books, home improvement projects, financial goals, family life, volunteering at church. We distract ourselves from dealing with sin. Notice what you do when you feel convicted. Do you take out your phone? Perhaps doom scrolling is nothing more than procrastination over repentance.
4. We are bound by self-righteousness. Many people are comfortable sitting under general calls to repentance. They will say “amen” in their hearts when the preacher gives a strong word that we must repent. But take that same message from the pulpit to the living room, and look out! “How dare you insinuate that of me! You don’t know my circumstances, my family, my marriage, my financial situation. You don’t understand me.” Such responses to brotherly rebuke are self-righteousness and they keep us from the kingdom of God.
Faith. But it is not just repentance over sin, but trust in the promises of God. Faith historically has been described as having three parts. The first is knowledge. You need to know about what you are called to believe in. You can’t trust a gospel you don’t know the facts about. The second is assent. You don’t just need to know about them, you need to agree with them. You cannot trust in something you think is false. But there is one more, which history calls fiduciary faith—the casting of one’s self upon what one knows and assents to be true.
For example, I can know that parachutes slow a fall so that we can survive it. And I can agree that parachutes do in fact do this. But it is not until I have jumped out of the plain with the parachute on my back that I have truly trusted in the parachute.
That is the sense here. Jesus calls us not only to learn about his promises so that we are aware of them. He does not only call us to agree with his promises that they are in fact true. He further calls us to venture out onto those promises, to lean upon them with our whole soul, to place no support or steadiness upon anything else except him and his promises. That is true, saving faith.
And what are we to believe in? Jesus says, “The gospel.” The good news. And what is that? It is that even though you are a sinner, God offers you free and full and forever pardon and eternal blessing, if you turn away from your sin and trust him to save you from it. He forgives us on the basis of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, and on the basis of his substitutionary death, and offers himself to us as a gift so that if we trust him, we will be forgiven, counted righteous, and transformed to walk in his ways and obey his commandments.
Transition: Now, let’s say you have received that message. You see the kingdom at hand. You repent of your sins. You trust in Christ. What happens to you? And the answer is, you become a subject of the kingdom and are given to responsibility to go fishing.
II. The Messengers of the Kingdom (1:16-20)
Briefly—Jesus calls his disciples. When we respond to the gospel call, we become followers of Jesus with the responsibility to hold out the same gospel message to others, with the same promises of judgement and salvation. This does not mean that every Christian is called to be a powerful soul-winner for Christ. But it does mean that to follow Jesus is to go fishing.
Yet, this is not so positive as we might initially think. In fact, in the OT, fishing is regularly used as a metaphor for judgement.
Jeremiah 16:16f – “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the Lord, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.
Ezekiel 29:3-5 – “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of the streams, that says, ‘My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.’ I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales; and I will draw you up out of the midst of your streams, with all the fish of your streams that stick to your scales. And I will cast you out into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your streams; you shall fall on the open field, and not be brought together or gathered. To the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens I give you as food.
Amos 4:1-3 – “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’ The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. And you shall go out through the breaches, each one straight ahead; and you shall be cast out into Harmon,’ declares the Lord.”
Habakkuk 1:13-15 – “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong, why do you idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have not ruler. He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad.”
You can understand that in fishing, it usually doesn’t work out too well for the fish. For Jesus to call fishermen for his first disciples is highly symbolic. It is a way of saying, “Israel, I’ve come to hook you. To catch you. To drag you out with a net. I’ve come to bring judgment. Yet the promise of salvation is still at hand—repent and believe.”
And that is precisely what we do when we preach the gospel. We hold out the promises, both of judgment and salvation. When we go fishing—when we evangelize—we are not only reeling people in for salvation. We are also reeling people in for judgment. We are not judging people. But we are warning them that God will judge them if they refuse to listen.
And notice how quickly and completely the disciples followed Jesus. We know from comparing the other gospels that these men had known Jesus for around a year by this point. But nevertheless, when Jesus had identified them as those who would be his followers, they immediately left their jobs, their families, their livelihoods, and followed Jesus. They became his disciples; those covered in his dust from following him. And so they would learn to do what he did, to go on his mission, to be about his business.
Conclusion
Therefore, hear with ears to hear. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent. Believe. Come and follow Christ.
And, for those who do, follow him immediately, fully, without reservation or greater attachment. Leave your money, your job, your family, your gain. Count all things as lost in comparison to gaining Christ. And go fishing.