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Chapter 18: The Laying On of Hands
In Mark 16:15-16, Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”
Is it God’s will for all to be saved? According to that verse, is everyone going to be saved? No.
What determines who is saved and who is not? We preach the Gospel to everyone because it’s
available to everyone, and it is God’s will for everyone to be saved, every creation. But will
everyone be saved? He told us that he that believes and acts on that faith, and is baptized, shall
be saved. What if you don’t believe it? What if you don’t receive it? Does it prove that it wasn’t
God’s will for you to be saved? No, it proves no such thing. It was still God’s will for you to be
saved, whether you believed it and received it or not.
Verse 17 says, “And these signs will follow…” Who will they follow? Not the ones who
doubted.
When I’ve had people tell me, concerning signs, “Well, that doesn’t happen in our church,” I ask
them, “Well, do you preach it?”
They’ve said, “No, we don’t believe in it.”
I said, “Well, now, that’s worth thinking about. You don’t preach it, you don’t believe it, and you
don’t have any of it. We preach it, we believe it, and we have catalogs full of testimonies. I
wonder if there’s any connection here.”
“Well, we don’t believe in it because we don’t see it.” No, you don’t see it because you don’t
believe it.
“Well, if we saw it, we’d believe it.” No, that would be too late to believe it.
“Well, seeing is believing.” No, it absolutely is not. You believe
before
you see. When you don’t
see, that’s when you believe. When you see it, you don’t have to believe it. There it is. Seeing is
not believing. You believe when you don’t see.
Remember what the Psalmist said? “I would have fainted unless I had believed to see the
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (Psalm 27:13) You don’t see it
then
you believe
it; you never will see it like that.
“And these signs shall follow…”
arguers, skeptics, intellectuals who think they know more than
the Bible
? No. “And these signs shall follow them that believe.” What kind of things are going to
follow them that believe? Verse 18 continues, “In my name shall they cast out devils; 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.”