Hey church family, it's Devo time and so if you've got your Bible, would you turn to Mark

Chapter 1? We're going to be there most of our time for today. I don't know about you, but I have just

felt over the last few months like there's this constant stream of bad news.

No matter what I tune into, no matter what I'm trying to ignore, it just seems like bad news

after bad news after bad news has come, whether that was COVID-19 or social injustice or the

fact that I was having to become a homeschool parent, which I've never wanted to be,

or whether it was like figuring out how to work from home. It was just bad news after bad news,

and I found myself constantly waiting to hear more bad news. And I just had this desire in me

over and over and over to hear some good news, just to hear

some hope. And every time it felt like we took one step forward, it went like two steps back.

And it got me thinking a lot about times in throughout history, in times in the Bible,

where it just seemed like there was a lot of

bad news. And so we pick up our story here in Mark chapter 1. And in Mark chapter 1, verse 14,

says this. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God

and saying, the time is fulfilled,

and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel.

So when we jump in here, it says, now after John was arrested, and that is a summation statement,

but what we have to realize is that as you go into your Bible, all of the Old Testament,

all of the Old Testament is pointing towards over and over and over that there's a coming Messiah.

From the beginning in Genesis, where in Genesis sin occurs and fractures all of the world.

And God comes and says, take heart, there will come one from me

...