Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
From a sermon by Preacher Clark at Grandma’s house, 1970
“These signs shall follow those that believe: In my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
Jesus, in Mark 16:17-18
Preacher Clark said, “You have never seen anybody with all five of those signs. Jesus said these signs shall follow those who believe, not him who believes.” Not any one person is going to embody all that God has for His people; nobody, that is, except Jesus. Some have a calling to and a faith for one kind of manifestation of the Spirit, and some another. As Paul told the Corinthians, “God has put every member in the body as it has pleased Him.”
When each person occupies and functions in his own place in the body of Christ, it makes for peace among the saints and produces spiritual growth. Don’t envy someone else’s place or function in the body; you have your own worthy calling. If our entire body was an eye, how would we hear? Nobody else’s place is your place. Be content to be filled with the Spirit and to see how God uses you.
The five miraculous signs mentioned in Mark 16 are not the only signs that indicate who God’s real people are; those five signs were not intended by Jesus to be an exhaustive list of all that ever happens among the saints of God. That list of these miraculous works were intended by Jesus only to be an indication of what kind of people, in general, that God’s people are. They are people of faith and hope. They trust in the power of God. They are not in the least ceremonial religionists.
Preacher Clark was right. No one person will exhibit all the gifts and callings of God that belong to the body. We are designed by God to work together as a body, and Mark 16 is a generalized description of the kind of body that will exist when the individual members of the body of Christ, with their individual gifts and callings, function together in their individual places. At the present time, it is undeniable that the called-out people of God are far from the wonderful harmony and the healthy operation as a body that the Bible says should be, but we are not hopeless. Jesus can fix us and show forth his power again among his people. But we must be willing vessels, on our own preparing beforehand to be anointed and used by the Master.