Amen and amen and good morning a welcome you can be seated so glad you're here today

so glad you came those of you online we're glad that you're joining with us real quick before we

jump in though i do want to let you know particularly uh uh here locally that our all church prayer

meeting is coming up this tuesday 7.m. here in the sanctuary and

that is May 5th really hope you're able to come and join with us. So we're in as you know the gospel

of mark verse by verse we're making. We made it through chapter one.

Took us a while, but we weren't in a hurry. Were we? Okay. So we made it. Actually,

we're making progress in chapter two. We got all the way through to verse 17 last week. No, we should get a badge or a button or

something for that. So we're going to pick it up in verse 18 today and make it all the way through

to verse 22. Again, we're not in a hurry, right? Okay. So I want to read it. You can stand and follow

along if you want to, if not, no problem. Where you're seated is fine. But this is a,

remember now, a contiguous or continuing narrative written by Mark, inspired

by the Holy Spirit. So there weren't verse breaks or chapter breaks. And I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but Mark gets right to the point, unlike your pastor.

I mean, this thing is fast moving. And so, and we're going to see it today. This is a very interesting passage. So we'll pick it up in verse 18 mark

continues now John's disciples speaking of John the baptizer you know why I call

him that and the Pharisees were fasting some people came and asked Jesus, how is it that John's disciples and the

disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not? Jesus answered verse 19. And I love it when Jesus does this. He answers a question

with a question. How can the guests of the bread groom fast while he is with them? They cannot.

So long as they have him with them. But verse 20, the time will

come when the bridegroom will be taken from them and on that day they will fast. And

then he goes on to, in verse 21 and 22, illustrate with two analogies.

The first one in verse 21.

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