Are You Ready for Some Good News?, Part 1

Bill Maier: When was the last time you heard something that was unshakably good? Good no matter what the headlines say, good no matter what you're walking through. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll opens the Gospel of Mark and lingers over a single sentence. Just 12 words, but packed inside them is an announcement so good it reaches all the way back before the world began and all the way into whatever you're facing right now. It's news that can give you a song even on your darkest night. So are you ready for some good news?
Chuck Swindoll: Turn if you will to Mark chapter 1 chapter 1 verse 1. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet. Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea was going out to him. And all the people of Jerusalem, and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River confessing their sins. John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist. And his diet was locusts and wild honey. And he was preaching and saying, after me one is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opening and the spirit like a dove descending upon him. And a voice came out of the heavens, you are my beloved son. In you I am well pleased. Immediately the spirit impelled him to go out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild beasts. And the angels were ministering to him.
Bill Maier: You're listening to Insight for Living. To dig deeper into the Gospel according to Mark, be sure to purchase a copy of our Searching the Scriptures Bible Study Workbooks by going to insight.org/offer. Chuck titled today's message, Are you ready for some good news?
Chuck Swindoll: Opening words are designed to command attention. Every once in a while I have a chance to work with young preachers and I always talk to them about the importance of introductions. People's time is important. Don't waste it. Get right into it. I can still hear the words of my mother. I could wrap up all of her counsel in four words. Get it said, son. I remember the story of a pastor who was talking on the phone the previous week with a fellow pastor and this other pastor on the other end of the line was so discouraged and he said to him, the one listening, he said I I've got to tell you I've decided that next Sunday I'm going to resign. Said really? He said, how are you going to tell the people? First thing out of my mouth I'm going to tell them, I've decided I am going to resign. Well, the pastor hearing that thought, what a great way for me to begin my sermon. So he's going to tell them about his pastor friend. So he began his sermon. I've decided I'm going to resign. And before he could tell the story, somebody said it's about time. So you got to choose those opening words carefully. People are listening from the very start. Paul O'Neal knew that and he came up with what was called O'Neal's law, which says, by the way, he's a former writer for Life magazine. He said, always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tagline. Don't you love that? Sink your wind your thumbs into the windpipe. Dare them not to listen. As I read writers like Charles Dickens, I think he never heard of O'Neal's law, but he knew it. When he wrote the Tale of Two Cities, he began it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. You read that opening line and you've got to read on. Ernest Hemingway was another in The Old Man and the Sea. He begins, he was an old man who fished alone. I've got to read more about this old man and the sea. And you do as you read that. The if there is ever an opening sentence that commands attention, it's the first sentence of the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You cannot stop with that sentence. In the Hebrew it's even less words, but in English it's enough to grab the attention and to hold us to the tagline. I wonder if Mark might have had the original words of Genesis in mind when he begins his Gospel. He had short and to the point. 12 words, really only five in the Greek. 12 simple words, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark gets at it. He doesn't waste our time. Now if you compare it to Matthew's Gospel, you immediately see the difference. Matthew starts with a lengthy genealogy of names you can hardly pronounce that all of this genealogy is leading to the person of Jesus, who is the son of Mary. When you go to Luke, you read a sentence that has 80 words in it before there is a period. 80 words that get you to the story, not so much of Jesus, but to the story of Elizabeth and of Zacharias and all that went into her pregnancy. And then you come to Mary and finally you come to Jesus. With John, 17 mystical words. Some would call them baffling words that deal with the theological implications of the Son of God. But with Mark, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, he puts it all together. I don't even know if you remember the last time you flew, but all of us who have flown realize there's something exhilarating about the takeoff. You finally get there, you get through security, you sit down in your seat, you snap the safety belt, and you wait. And before you know it, the engines begin to roar. And the roaring of the engine tells you something great is coming. I love to watch little children who have never flown before. They're always asking, what's next, mom? What's next, mom? They hear this loud noise and then before you know it that pilot releases that brake and you're on your way down the runway and you're moving faster and faster and you're gaining momentum. And before you know it, you're airborne and those wheels leave the runway. It's just terrific. It's just wonderful. Every time I fly I think is this great or what? I you know think of people that have never flown before. I don't know if you remember the story about Cassius Clay, but when he well that was back when he was called by his real name. He was sitting up in first class and the gal walked up to him and said to fasten your seat belt. He said, Superman don't need no seat belt. She said Superman don't need no airplane. Fasten your seat belt. You're on your way. You're flying. You're underway. You're airborne. And life seems to kind of get objective all of a sudden as you gain more and more altitude. Mark is on the runway only briefly and you're off and running, off and flying. He began. Let's sort of unpack this first sentence. I mean he would score high in the writing 101 class. Right at the beginning he starts with well beginning. In fact, allow me to be a little pedantic here. The little word the isn't even in the original text. Beginning. A beginning. Now why would I say that? Why would I tell you that it sounds like a detail you don't even need to know? Oh, you do need to know. I never give you a detail you don't need to know. Never. It starts with beginning by God's design. There is no temporal sequence of events with the beginning of the Gospel. It never had a beginning. It's like John's Gospel in the way it starts. In beginning was the word. In a begin the word the isn't there either. What's the big deal? Well, if the the were there you could go back in history like you could for Washington and you could say he had his birthday. He began the life of Washington in 1732. He had the beginning. You go to Lincoln, you go the beginning was in 1809, the beginning of Lincoln. But you go to the Gospel, there's no the. It's a beginning that never had a beginning. So you move back in time to creation. You move beyond creation back in time to eternity past when there was no world, there was no matter, there was no person, there was no living thing. You move into the misty flats of eternity past and you find yourself now in your imagination sitting with the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit putting together a plan for this world and for the galaxies that they would call into being in a matter of of of time. There's no time. In this setting, the Gospel is a part of a plan. And the plan for the Son of God to come as the Savior of the world is a part of that plan, neither of which has a beginning. Just as the Son of God is coequal, coeternal, and coexistent with the Father and the Spirit, so the Gospel. Coequal goes all the way back. You see our Father knew before there was ever world, planet, earth, humanity, depravity, that we would need a redeemer. So the Gospel plan finds its origin, which really never has an origin, all the way back into the mind of the Godhead, a beginning which really never had a historical beginning. Next is the word Gospel. Mark answers the question when with the word beginning. He now answers the question what with the word Gospel. You on is the Greek word it means good news. Good news. It's as if Mark is saying to us, are you ready for some good news? And who isn't? But this is good news that is eternal. This is news that will be good no matter how bad the times are. This is good when the economy falls to the bottom. This is good when you like the president or you don't like the president. This is good whether you agree with Congress or you don't agree with Congress. This is good whether you're healthy or ill. This is good whether you're young or older. This is good when you're young in life. This is good when you're on your deathbed. This is good news. And the result is when you come to this good news that has been with us even beyond the beginning of time, you realize it's able to transform your entire perspective. It'll give you a song. It'll give you a song in the night. Weeping may endure through the night, but joy comes in the morning. Why? Because you realize there's good news. Good news. For 33 consecutive years, my family and I went to a conference, really a family camp in Northern California named Mount Herman, Mount Herman Christian Conference Center. We began in '72 and we went all the way through for those 33 years. Didn't miss a year, sometime more than once, often with all our kids. And and they started there when they were real little and they grew up there. And the one who led the music during most of those camps is a man that I've loved for years. His name is Howie Stevenson. And we would end the camp the same way year after year. Still remember it thought about it as I was putting my thoughts together about this good news. We would always end it by singing a trio. Howie would sing and and his wife Marilyn would sing and I would sing with them. When you're at a summer camp, they'll put up with anything. So we had the trio standing up front down at the campfire. I'll never forget never forget it. Sing your way home at the close of the day. Sing your way home. Drive the shadows away. Smile every mile for wherever you roam, it will brighten your road. It will lighten your load if you sing your way home. We sang that for 33 almost 33 years to groups, some of which had gone through a divorce, loss of a child or more than one, some through a tragedy, some through a heartbreaking loss of a business. And almost without exception when we'd have them join in with us, they would sing with us. How can brokenhearted people sing a song like that because of the good news? Don't ever let your life get so dark that it eclipses the good news. Don't ever let your situation become so bleak that it drives up the good news. This is good news. Thank you, Mark, for remembering right away to tell us how good it is. He's answered the when, he's answered the what, now the who. And that's what makes it good news. The sentence ends, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And I ask after that, how good is that? The good news is that the Father sees us in our need and knowing we cannot resolve the mess we've made of our lives. He gives us the answer. And part of the good news is that it is given to us. One man writes it this way. The good news is the story of a person. It is not a convoluted mystery story where readers must piece together clues here and there, nor is it a boring pedestrian chronicle of dates and and events and places without purpose or significance, nor is it a philosophy, some system of thought like positive thinking or feel good self talk designed to lift your spirit. That's not what will help you sing your way home. The good news is a person. Never forget it. Other religions revolve around these other things, a chronicle of events, convoluted mystery, philosophy, system of thought. But Christianity singles attention on the person of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Every message preached in a evangelical church is to center attention on the person of Christ, never on the messenger, never on the building, never on a program, always the person of Jesus Christ. Now with all of that as a background in that first sentence, he introduces the main characters of the story. And he does it very simply. I'm always fascinated when I come to a verse like two and three. These two verses surprise me because Mark's writing to Gentiles. He's writing really to Romans. And they don't have a place in their life for Jewish prophets, especially ancient prophets. You couldn't care less about that. But Mark knows that you must go back to the prophets to realize it's there all of it began to be predicted. So he informs Gentile readers and that's most of us. We who have no Jewish roots find it interesting that an ancient prophet named Malachi in chapter 3 verse 1 would say what is written here in verse 2. An ancient prophet like Isaiah writing eight centuries before Jesus even came writes not only of Jesus, but of the forerunner who would announce the coming of Jesus, namely John. So look at those two verses. Here we find the first main character, a prophet from ancient times. Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you who will who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. If you love Handel's Messiah, you already recognize this as the tenor recitative right at the beginning of that magnificent masterwork. This lyrical tenor begins with words just like this out of Isaiah. This is a reference to the writing of two prophets, Malachi and Isaiah. And right on the heels of that, Mark goes spans the centuries and comes directly to the arrival of John. He's the second main character. He's what I'm calling here a preacher in the wilderness, John the Baptist. He's mentioned immediately at verse 4, John the Baptist. Now let me encourage you to train yourself to read the word Baptist, okay? Or you'll think he's a Southern Baptist. You'll think it could have been John the Methodist or John the Presbyterian. It's not a denomination that Mark's writing about. It's all the work of ministry that John did. He baptized. He did so much of it he came to be known as simply the Baptist. The Baptist. I want you to observe now how well unattractive John was. I just don't want that to be missed. I want you to put yourself in the first century. Think of yourself as a business person in the city of Jerusalem, a little sophisticated. And word begins to travel through people who come into your shop about this strange person in the wilderness. We read John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness. Now we're sitting here in this comfortable place and we think we know wilderness. You ain't seen wilderness till you've seen the Judean wilderness. When you go to the Holy Land, make sure they take you far enough south where you no longer see green. All you see is is a rough, dry plain. My sister years ago gave me a book I just pulled out this week. It's dated 1964 and it's titled God's Wilderness. My opening is it's an archaeological work on the digs that have been done in the wilderness. And along with the digs, there's some interesting photos of the wilderness. You can't believe it. Interestingly, there isn't a sprig of green, dry, parched, gravel plain, rough, uneven rocks in the distance. The beginning of mountains also barren. And to another direction a sea dead sea. You go further south into the old Sinai peninsula all the way down to Mount Horeb where God gave the the law to his people. And and it's as barren as you can imagine, not a not a acacia tree even 2 ft tall, not even a scrub brush of green. Barren. That's where John was. You're in Jerusalem doing business and you hear about a man in the wilderness. You die in wilderness like that. But these he's different. Look at the message is as strong as uncompromising as his was. He's preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin. Sin. Throw that word around the office one of these days and see the reaction. You sin. I like managers question that he titled his book whatever happened to sin. You won't hear it on the newscast. You won't see it in the media. Sin. Yeah. Well, what's he telling them? He's telling them they're sinners. He's telling them that they've fallen short of the standard of a holy creator who made them. Tell you something else interesting about John is it wasn't about John. Give me that kind of messenger. Lead me to that messenger. So when I'm through listening to the message, I forget the messenger, but I can't forget his message. He said, let me tell you about the one I I'm preaching he's mightier than I. I am not fit having stooped down to untie the thong of his sandals.
Bill Maier: Sin. It's a word that we've nearly erased from our vocabulary, isn't it? You won't hear it on the news or find it trending online. And yet John the Baptist stood in the wilderness and preached it plainly because he knew that facing the truth about ourselves is the first step toward real hope. This is Insight for Living. Chuck Swindoll titled today 's message with a question. Are you ready for some good news? It's message number two in a comprehensive study through the entire book of Mark. To purchase the Bible Study resources for Mark, including the Searching the Scriptures workbooks, go to insight.org/offer. Here's some exciting news. The release of Chuck Swindoll's personal memoir is right around the corner. And you're invited to be among the first to receive it by pre-ordering your personal copy. It's called Awakened by Grace. For more than 60 years, Chuck has opened God's word and opened his heart. Now in his new memoir, he opens the story of his own life, the trials, the joys, and the moments when grace found him when he least expected it. This is Chuck as you've never heard him before, honest, tender, and unforgettable. It's a once in a lifetime testimony to a lifetime of faithfulness. When you contact Insight for Living and pre-order the book, we'll make sure you receive your copy of Awakened by Grace in mid-October. Plus you'll immediately receive a free digital preview of the book. Call us at 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/memoir. Just to let you know these daily programs aren't sustained by book sales alone. Instead, Insight for Living is a nonprofit ministry supported solely by grateful friends who want to share the wisdom of the Bible with the world. And we are deeply grateful for our monthly companions and to all those who give voluntary donations. We couldn't possibly do it without you. To make a gift today, write to us at Insight for Living, Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas 75034 or go to insight.org/donate.
Bill Maier: I'm Bill Maier. Join us again when Chuck Swindoll continues his study in The Gospel according to Mark, Monday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Are you ready for some good news? was copyrighted in 2010 and 2026 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2026 by Charles R. Swindoll Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.