Children Of The Blesser God (Mark 10:13-31)

The article was titled, No Kidding: Children Not Welcome to Dine Here.

It listed a few restaurants around the country that have restrictions regarding children.  At La Fisheria in Houston, the following statement is posted on the restaurant’s door: “After 7:00pm, people over eight years old only.  We are a family friendly restaurant, and we also respect all of our customers so we introduce this new policy to the restaurant.  Thanks for your understanding.”

Houston seems to be ground-zero for these new policies.  Another restaurant there, Cuchara, issues cards with rules on them, explaining how they expect children to behave.

“Children at Cuchara don’t run or wander around the restaurant,” the cards say.  “They stay seated and ask their parents to take them to the restroom.  They don’t scream, throw tantrums or touch the walls, murals, windows or anything of the other patrons.”

The cards end with this final statement about children: “They are respectful!”

On Facebook, I find it alarming that over half a million people like the page “You Need to Discipline Your Kid Before I Punch them in the Face.”

In another article about what some have dubbed “The Brat Ban,” the author writes,

Malaysia Airlines banned babies from many of their first class cabins, prompting other major airlines to consider similar policies. Lately, complaints about screaming kids are being taken seriously, not only by airlines, but by hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, and even grocery stores.

You most likely have a strong opinion on these policies, one way or the other.  If you are on the side of kids being welcome everywhere, any time, you eventually play a card of your own – the Jesus card – and quote the Lord saying, “Let the little children come to Me, and don’t forbid them…”

Of course, Jesus wasn’t talking about whether or not all restaurants should be kid-friendly.  The entire quote is, “Let the little children come to Me, and don’t forbid them, for of such is the Kingdom of God.”

What do children have to do with the Kingdom of God?  Plenty.  I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 You Receive The Kingdom of God By Exercising Childlike Faith, and #2 You Refuse The Kingdom of God By Emphasizing Superficial Works.

#1    You Receive The Kingdom of God
    By Exercising Childlike Faith
    (v13-16)

If I say, “Magic Kingdom,” it might mean something different to you, depending upon your age.  “Magic Kingdom” was originally an unofficial nickname for Disneyland in Anaheim.  Then Walt Disney World in Orlando was built.  In 1994, to differentiate it from Disneyland, the newer park in Florida was officially renamed “Magic Kingdom Park,” and is popularly known as “Magic Kingdom.”

There is a lot of talk about the Kingdom of God among Christians lately, but I’m not always sure what they mean by the phrase.

When we read “the Kingdom of God” in the Bible, it can have one of at least three very different possible meanings:

The Kingdom of God is the eternal rule of Almighty God over the entire universe.  At all times, Psalm 103:19 is true, saying, “The LORD has established His throne in heaven, And His kingdom rules over all.”

The Kingdom of God is also the spiritual rule over the hearts and lives of those who willingly submit to God’s authority.  It is entered by being born-again.  Jesus said in John 3:5, “… Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”

There is another sense in which the Kingdom of God is used in Scripture: It is the future, literal rule of Jesus on the earth, also called the Millennium.  In Revelation 20:4 we read, “And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.”

Which of these three kingdoms did Jesus have in mind?  There are clues in verses twenty-nine through thirty-one.

Mar 10:29  So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s,
Mar 10:30  who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life.
Mar 10:31  But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Jesus always assumed the eternal rule of God over the entire universe.  He could not promise you that you would be rewarded in “the age to come” unless He was certain that God was the ruler of the universe, and that by His providence He would accomplish His eternal purposes.

God’s eternal rule is not, however, the Kingdom of God Jesus was specifically referring to in these verses.

It’s clear that He wasn’t referring to the Millennium, either, because you and I will not suffer any losses, nor be subject to “persecutions,” during His thousand-year reign.

The Kingdom of God, in these verses, must therefore refer to God’s spiritual rule over hearts and lives.

Jesus’ words are a simple but heartfelt and emotional explanation of how we receive, or refuse, the Gospel.

There are other kingdoms we should mention. One is Satan’s kingdom.  He is called the God of this age, and the ruler of the authorities of the air.

Jesus once said of Satan, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?” (Matthew 12:25,26).

There are (obviously) kingdoms of men in the Bible, e.g., Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.  Within His eternal reign over the universe, God is allowing these kingdoms of the devil and of men to exist as He accomplishes His purposes.

Those of us who have willingly submitted to God’s rule are in a  conflict with the devil and his kingdom, for the souls of men.  As we preach the Gospel, men are invited to receive the rule of God in their hearts, to come out of darkness into the light, into the Kingdom of God, and to do so requires childlike faith.

Mar 10:13  Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked those who brought them.

I think that the disciples meant well.  They were undoubtedly trying to keep Jesus from being distracted, or over-burdened.

The disciples, however, were not in charge of the order of service that day.   God the Holy Spirit was, and He intended these children be there, and that they be blessed.

Jesus was approachable, and children loved Him.  He wasn’t some kind of church curmudgeon, scaring off children.

We have a policy of discouraging kids from being in this main part of the Sanctuary.  Is it wrong, in light of this passage?  Is it curmudgeonly??

No.  When it says that they “brought little children to” Jesus, it means that they brought them specifically to be prayed for.  It was customary for Jewish parents to bring their kids to be prayed for by their rabbi, and to be blessed by him.  We see the procedure for it in verse sixteen:

Mar 10:16  And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.

Today we call this a baby dedication, which we perform as part of our regular services here.

Jesus wasn’t establishing that, any time, in any place, kids ought to be in attendance.  It’s up to us, therefore, to determine how to best minister to everyone – adults and children.  We can be inclusive, or we can be exclusive – as long as we do it in love in order to best minister the Gospel.

Mar 10:14  But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.
Mar 10:15  Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”

God the Holy Spirit was constantly orchestrating the events in the life of Jesus.  There were no random encounters, certainly not during the three-and-one-half years of Jesus’ public ministry.

The Holy Spirit meant for these children to be brought forth, partly so that Jesus could use them an an example.  The timing was perfect, because Jesus is next going to encounter the rich young ruler, and Jesus will be able to use him as the counter example to the childlike faith of the kids.  In other words, the two episodes are linked, spiritually, by the Holy Spirit.

If these children don’t come for dedication, an important teaching is going to lose a powerful illustration.

What is it, exactly, about children that Jesus was commending?  It cannot be the innocence of children for they have a sinful nature and are definitely not innocent.

The key is the word “receive.”  I think Jesus was commending their willingness to be dependent upon others for what they need.

Under average circumstances, children simply believe that their parents will take care of them.  They don’t worry about where their clothing or food will come from.

We are to be like that, are we not, as we grow in the Lord?  Jesus once pointed to the birds, and the flowers, as illustrations of how much we ought to trust our Heavenly Father to feed us, and to clothe us.

The word “receive” stresses that the Kingdom of God must be accepted as a gift.  It is not a human achievement, and it is never gained on the basis of human merit.

Just as a young child receives everything from his or her parents, so the Kingdom of God must be received as God’s gift in simple, trusting faith.

You might think this is too simple a lesson for Jesus to be teaching His disciples at this late date in their training, but it is not.  It was essential, especially for them, since they so expected the literal Kingdom of God on earth to be established.  It would be, and it will be – but not until Jesus comes a second time.

Meanwhile they were to go into the world with the Gospel, inviting men to receive salvation – inviting them to submit to the rule of God over their hearts and lives.

Salvation is God’s gift to receive.  It is made possible by Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection from the dead.  Lifted-up as He was on the Cross, Jesus draws all men to Himself.  He is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance, and be saved.  He is the Savior of all men – especially those who believe.

When the Gospel is presented, God’s grace operates on your heart to free your will to believe in Him, to receive Him.  Salvation by grace, through faith, is how you receive the Kingdom of God.

#2    You Refuse The Kingdom of God
    By Emphasizing Superficial Works
    (v17-31)

The Gospel of Matthew tells us that this was a young man; the Gospel of Luke mentions that he was a ruler; and, together with Mark, we see he is rich.  He is the rich young ruler.

Jesus was able to use him an example of someone who would not receive the Kingdom of God in childlike faith.
Instead, he was all about works, which we are calling superficial since they are outward, not affecting the heart.

Mar 10:17  Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?”

This seems so exciting!  He came “running,” and “knelt,” and asked about getting saved.  This is every ministers dream.

“Good teacher” was an unusual way to address a rabbi.  It was so unusual that Jesus started there in His interview of this zealous young man.

Mar 10:18  So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.

Jesus’ question can only mean that either (1)He is God, or that (2)He is not good.   Jesus was not denying He was “good.”  To the contrary – He was owning-up to it.

Since God alone can be called “good,” Jesus wanted to know if the rich young ruler believed that He was God.

Jesus evidently knew that the rich young ruler was trusting in works to make him good, so He went straight to the Ten Commandments.

Mar 10:19  You know the commandments: ‘DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY,’ ‘DO NOT MURDER,’ ‘DO NOT STEAL,’ ‘DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER.'”

Jesus summarized the six commandments found on one of the tablets given to Moses.  It was the tablet that dealt with our relationships with people.  The other tablet had on it the four commandments that deal with our relationship with God.

Mar 10:20  And he answered and said to Him, “Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.”

Notice he dropped the word “good” this time.  I don’t want to read too much into an omission, but it is interesting.

Did he really keep the commandments his whole life?  In one sense, maybe.  It’s possible that he had kept them superficially.

But therein is the problem.  Like all religious Jews, he thought he could be “good” by keeping certain external rules.  In more theological terms, we’d say he believed he could be declared righteous by his works.

Notice, however, that he had some sense that he was lacking.  He was unsatisfied, empty within.  He knew he had missed the mark.

Mar 10:21  Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”

The look of love was in His eyes.  What must that have been like?

If you’re saved, you’ll know one day – when you see Jesus face-to-face.

I suppose you’ll see it, too, if you remain lost.  The lost will all appear at the Great White Throne, prior to being consigned to Hell for eternity.  Although a Judge, I can’t help but think each lost person will see in Jesus’ look that He was not willing they perish.

Was Jesus teaching that philanthropy and voluntary poverty could earn you salvation?  Of course not.  That would contradict everything Jesus just taught about receiving the Kingdom of God in childlike faith.  It would contradict the Bible’s entire teaching on salvation.

So why this counsel?  For two reasons.  Firstly, when Jesus was asked to sum-up all God’s Law, He said it was to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength; and to love your neighbor as yourself.

The rich young ruler had nothing to show for loving his neighbor.  He’d done nothing to help others with his wealth.

Secondly, he didn’t love God.  How can I say that?  Because of his response to Jesus.

Mar 10:22  But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

He was given a simple choice: Treasure in Heaven after a sacrificial life on earth submitted to God, or abundant treasure on earth but without a relationship with God, now or in eternity.  He chose badly – choosing money over God – because the love of money was his god.

He had run to Jesus, claiming to have kept all the commandments, when in truth he was guilty of breaking all of them – at least breaking the spirit of all of them.

Mar 10:23  Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”
Mar 10:24  And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!

It’s pretty easy to demonstrate from Scripture that Jews equated material prosperity with spiritual blessing.  We still do it today, much as we hate to admit it.

Jesus isn’t against wealth, but He always warned about trusting in riches.  Because he trusted in his riches, the rich young ruler was, in fact, the poorest person on that road.

The story of Scrooge works because we all recognize the grip that wealth can exert.  Our problem is that we never think it pertains to us, because we refuse to see ourselves as wealthy.  Yet, according to Forbes, “the typical person in the bottom 5% of the American income distribution is still richer than 68% of the world’s inhabitants.”

I don’t say that to make any of us feel bad.  It’s just that we sometimes need to hear exhortations from the Bible rather than immediately determining that they don’t apply to us.

Mar 10:25  It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

The word for “needle” describes one that you can hold in your hand.  It would be a humorous illustration if it weren’t for the seriousness of the discussion.

Contrary to what the Jews thought, the rich man is at a disadvantage in spiritual things because the love of money is so powerful.

Mar 10:26  And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, “Who then can be saved?”

After nearly three-and-one-half years with Jesus, these guys still had no idea of how someone got saved.

They grew up thinking salvation was by works of righteousness, performed externally, and that, if God were pleased with you, He’d bless you materially.  It was a hard habit to break; and it is a hard habit for us to break, too, since we all think there is some “good” in us by which we can please God by our works.

Mar 10:27  But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible.”

Jesus had just given them the illustration of the child – of childlike faith.  They should put away thoughts of self-righteous works, and come to Jesus as little children, to receive eternal life as a gift.

BTW: Salvation is “impossible” for men to achieve.  Jesus is therefore not a way to God; He is the exclusive way to God.

Mar 10:28  Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.”

On the surface, Peter’s statement seems accurate.  They had done what Jesus recommended that the rich young ruler do.

Or had they?

For a time after Jesus’ death, Peter went back to fishing.  He hadn’t really “left all” if he could still return to it at any moment.  He had it to fall back on, and he did.

Something else to think about.  Like the other disciples, Peter was expecting the brick-and-mortar Kingdom of God to be established soon, with Jesus ruling and he and the boys co-ruling.  They had recently been disputing with one another over who would be the greatest in the earthly Kingdom of God.  You haven’t really “left all” if you think you’re trading fishing for a high-ranking political position.

In the Old Testament, Elisha “left all” to follow Elijah.  He burned his plow, and his oxen, and threw a farewell party, so that there’d be no possibility of turning back.

Peter’s thinking was flawed in another way.  He had missed the point.  The rich young ruler wasn’t being asked to give-up anything of value.  He was being offered the gain of everything of value.

Peter did not see how much he and the others had gained, so Jesus explained it to him.

Mar 10:29  So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s,
Mar 10:30  who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time -houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life.

Before you get saved, what good does it do you if you gain the whole world, only to lose your soul, and perish in eternal conscious torment forever and ever?  None.

When you get saved, you are rich in faith, and are promised treasure in Heaven, stored for you where nothing can corrupt it, and where no one can steal it.

You are rich in spiritual blessings right now as well.  Here’s an example: Maybe your family disowned you on account of your professing faith in Jesus.  Every other believer on planet earth is a  surrogate brother, or sister, or father, or mother.

What about “wife or children?”  Yes, you have surrogates in those, too, only (obviously) it is intended spiritually, not physically.

“Houses” and “lands” are yours in abundance to share and enjoy as Christians practice hospitality.

The point is – You gain far more than you think you lose, both now and forever.

There’s one other thing you gain – “persecutions.”  How is that a gain?  Your sufferings work for you, to refine you as gold in the furnace is refined.

After Jesus rose from the dead, and after He ascended into Heaven, the disciples would count it a great blessing and privilege to suffer persecution.  Identifying with Him in suffering is great riches now, and great reward later.

If I think that I’ve lost something by following Jesus, I’m following Him from too far a distance.

Mar 10:31  But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

One commentator said of this verse, “it is a wise warning against the self-seeking spirit which lurked behind Peter’s comment.  The twelve were warned that their priority in being called did not guarantee their preeminence in the future if they lacked the necessary spirit.”

They had been acting childishly:

Just recently they had been arguing about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom of God.

They took it upon themselves to rebuke parents who were bringing their children to Jesus to be blessed.

Peter had claimed, for all of them, that they’d sacrificed everything to follow Jesus.

They definitely needed a more childlike attitude.

Jesus is a blesser.  Not just little children, but big children, too.

It’s just that, sometimes, we have things in our lives that rebuke us from coming to Him to be blessed:

It could be condemnation that is rebuking us.  There is no condemnation for us, if we’re saved.  Run to Him.

If it’s conviction rebuking us – because we are in sin – repent, and run to Him.

Maybe, just maybe, you’re not saved.  Run to Him.

Breakin’ Up Is Hard-Hearted To Do (Mark 10:1-12)

All I really need to know… I learned in Kindergarten.

It’s the premise, and the title, of a book written by Robert Fulghum in 1988.  It was immensely popular, staying on the NY Times bestseller list for two years.

Here are just five of the main life-lessons we learn in Kindergarten:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
(My favorite) Flush.

I’m not 100% sure that all I really need to know about life I learned in Kindergarten… But I am certain that all I really need to know about marriage I learn from the Garden.

In an attempt to polarize Him in the eyes of the people, the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

Jesus answered by going back before the Law was given.  He went all the way back, to the sixth day of creation, to the Garden of Eden, and to how God defined marriage.

Jesus did more than answer them.  He took the topic out of the theoretical and made it personal – talking about the condition of their hearts.

I’ll organize my thoughts on these verses around two points: #1 If You Are Casual About Divorce, Check Yourself For A Diseased Heart, and #2 If You Are Casual About Divorce, Check Yourself For A Derelict Heart.

#1    If You Are Casual About Divorce,
    Check Yourself For A Diseased Heart
    (v1-9)

Marriage, divorce, and remarriage are volatile subjects – both in the world, and among believers in Jesus Christ.  They are emotionally charged.  All of us are affected in some way by marriages gone wrong.

Whatever state you find yourself in today, please hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to you, in the Word of God, and receive it as God’s grace to your hurting heart.

Many of my comments will be generic.  They will be true, but they may not address the subtleties and nuances of your particular situation with regards to marriage, divorce, and remarriage.  Bear that in mind.  We are not here to heap burdens upon you.

If you’re in sin, or contemplating it – you’ll want to repent.

If you’ve failed in the past, then receive God’s grace and mercy, and understand you are restored at the Cross.

Mar 10:1  Then He arose from there and came to the region of Judea by the other side of the Jordan. And multitudes gathered to Him again, and as He was accustomed, He taught them again.

We are understandably fascinated by the miracles, the signs, and the wonders that Jesus went about performing.  Jesus was first and foremost a teacher.  It was His custom to teach.

We believe in miracles, and in signs, and in wonders, even into our present day.  But we leave them to God to perform, in His will and timing, while we go on teaching, and sharing the Gospel.

The Gospel is not a lesser message if no miracles attend it.  It is not something greater if miracles do attend it.  All by itself, when preached, it is the power of God unto salvation.

Mar 10:2  The Pharisees came and asked Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” testing Him.

The intent of the Pharisees was to “test” Jesus.  It’s the same word used of the devil “tempting” Jesus in the wilderness.

Jesus is going to answer their question by first asking a question.  I like that, because it helps you to focus on what is really going on.  Try it the next time you’re asked a Bible question.

Mar 10:3  And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?”
Mar 10:4  They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her.”

Jesus started with Moses because this wasn’t a random question.  Among the Jews, especially the rabbis, there was a controversy over divorce, and the grounds for divorce.  The controversy was over the interpretation of a particular phrase in the Book of Deuteronomy.

Please listen while I read to you Deuteronomy 24:1-4.

Deu 24:1  “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house,
Deu 24:2  when she has departed from his house, and goes and becomes another man’s wife,
Deu 24:3  if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her as his wife,
Deu 24:4  then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance.

The rabbi’s argued over the interpretation of the phrase,“because he has found some uncleanness in her.”  It divided the two schools of Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai, popular first-century Jewish scholars.

The Hillel school took a very lax view and said that “uncleanness” meant that the husband could divorce his wife for almost any reason.

The Shammai school took a stricter view and said that “uncleanness” referred to sexual sins.

It’s not our purpose today to teach the passage from Deuteronomy, but I will say a few quick things.  Among the Jews, it was common for a wife to be “put away” by her husband.  It was an arbitrary action by the husband, not subject to the wife’s consent.  She need not be guilty of anything, and she certainly had not broken God’s Law.

The dismissed wife was in a kind of legal and spiritual limbo.  She was technically still a married woman.  As a wife who had been abandoned she would have a very difficult time even surviving if she did not have her original family to go back to.  Remarriage to another man was unlikely since the circumstances of her dismissal by her husband put a stigma upon her.

Moses addressed this terrible practice of putting away wives.  He demanded that the husband give the dismissed wife a certificate of divorce.  It was her evidence that she had done nothing unlawful, except that she was detested by her husband.  This would remove any stigma from her and enable her to legally remarry.

Moses wasn’t giving permission to divorce, or establishing grounds for divorce.  He was trying to regulate a practice that was foul and unfair.  It was a great mercy to the wives who were treated so unfairly.

OK, back to the Pharisees and Jesus.

Mar 10:5  And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.

Zing!  No one saw that coming.  They spent hours and hours arguing over what Moses might have meant by a certain phrase, when the greater reality was that Moses should never have had to regulate their despicable practice in the first place.

The real issue was sklerocardia.  It’s the Greek translation of the word for “hardness of… heart.”  Their hearts had grown hard toward God.  They were dishonoring Him by disrespecting marriage, and by looking for the loopholes by which to disregard God’s clear intention for, and description of, marriage.

Just to be absolutely clear about marriage, Jesus referred them to the Garden:

Mar 10:6  But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE.’
Mar 10:7  ‘FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE,
Mar 10:8  AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.
Mar 10:9  Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Yes, we take the Genesis account as history – not allegory or mythology.  One primary reason we must take it as history is that Jesus took the account as history.  He spoke of special creation, of the Garden, of Adam and Eve, all as if it were literal.   Jesus believed in special creation, over a period of six twenty-four hour days.

Unless you are suggesting that Jesus didn’t know any better, because Darwin had not yet come along, please remember this about Jesus: “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:16).

Jesus is the Creator.  He was there, in the Garden, with Adam and Eve.  I trust His testimony.

We can summarize God’s description of marriage by saying it is the monogamous, heterosexual union of one man, and one woman, to be maintained as long as they live, serving as the firm foundation for humans living in society.

This simple definition is the foil for all the imaginations of men and women and governments seeking to substitute their own definitions of marriage.

“Can I have multiple spouses?”  No.  “Ah,” you say, “but there were lots of polygamous relationships among God’s people in the Bible.”

As we look at Scripture, none of these arrangements matches the structure of marriage given by God from the beginning.

Just because the Bible records them, it doesn’t indicate God was pleased with them.  To the contrary, a direct command against polygamy is given to the kings that were to rule Israel, as they are told not to “multiply wives” to themselves (Deuteronomy 17:17).

“Can I marry someone of the same sex?”  No.  We certainly recognize that some people have same-sex attraction.  I don’t agree with those who claim they are wired that way from birth, but, even if it turns out that you are, it still doesn’t make it godly.

Nick Roen is a pastor at Sojourners Church in Albert Lea, Minnesota.  He has a burden to help the church think through issues regarding sexuality, singleness, and celibacy.  He’s burdened because he is a Christian who admits same sex attraction.  He wrote the following:

Same sex attraction is the result of a broken creation, and in that sense it is “sinful” or “dishonorable” [as we are told in Romans 1:26].  It is an effect of the fall.

However, experiencing same sex attraction is not the same as sinning.  Rather, same sex attractions should be treated like any temptation to sin.

They should be fought with blood-earnestness in a way that recognizes the deceitfulness of the heart and the finitude of the mind.

When I do this – when I fight temptation, turn to Jesus, trust his promises, and rely on His Spirit – God is pleased.  He is not mainly displeased because I need to fight, but pleased because I am fighting.

This is good news for all of us who experience all manner of temptations!  May this fact lead us, no matter our particular groaning, to rest in Jesus more deeply, fight temptation more fiercely, and look forward to the day when our fight of faith will result in “praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1Peter 1:7).
Roen suggests that sanctified singleness is the solution we must proclaim:

If we are going to ask those who struggle with same sex attraction to reject their longings for as long as the Lord wills, then we must have a strong theology of singleness that does not present it as simply a transitional stage on the way to marriage.  It seems that in many churches, marriage is assumed for everyone, and when it doesn’t happen for certain people, they are left wondering if the church is a place where they can truly belong.

“Can I engage in sexual activities with someone other than my spouse?”  Nope; and neither can I engage in sex before I’m married, or if I find myself unmarried.  It is within marriage that God says you are to enjoy sexual relations, and nowhere else.

Of course, people ‘can’ do all these, and more.  If, however, you are claimed by Jesus, then No, you can’t do them – not without it being sin.

When a person has any of these questions, a good question to ask them is, “Are you submitted to God?”  If they are, then these questions are already answered for them.

People proclaim, “God wants me to be happy,” as though that settles the matter.  God wants you to be holy – for your sake.  True happiness can only result from holiness, and holiness derives from pleasing God, not from pleasing your own sinful lusts.

Let me stop to explain that there are biblical grounds for a divorce and subsequent remarriage.  There are at least two.

In the telling of this incident in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus was recorded as saying,

Mat 19:9  And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.”

Sexual immorality is the more modern translation of the word fornication.  The word fornication includes premarital sex, incest, sodomy, harlotry, perversion, and bestiality.  It is really a catch-all term for all sexual sin, both before and after marriage.

“Adultery” is fornication committed by a married man or woman.

“Sexual immorality,” by a spouse, according to Jesus, is biblical grounds for a divorce.

He wasn’t commanding a divorce when there is sexual immorality; only permitting it.  Many marriages have survived the sexual immorality of one or both spouses who have repented and been granted forgiveness.  Nevertheless, the offended spouse may choose divorce, and is then free to remarry – as long as they marry a believer.

There is one other situation where the Bible establishes grounds for a divorce and subsequent remarriage.  It is the abandonment by your nonbelieving spouse.  The apostle Paul said,

1Co 7:15  But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace.

In Corinth, the believers had come to a false conclusion that, if you were married to a nonbeliever, you should get a divorce.  Paul corrected them, saying that if the nonbeliever was content to remain married to the believer, stay married.

If, however, the nonbeliever abandoned the believing spouse, they should not try to stop them from getting a divorce.  The believer is not “bound” to that marriage.  Afterwards the believer is free to remarry – as long as they married a believer.

It’s not always so simple as that.  For example,  let’s say your spouse is involved in pornography.  The word fornication is a translation of porneia, from where we get our word pornography.  Is it grounds for divorce?  If you say it is, how deeply must the offending spouse be involved in it?

It’s a serious question.  We are exposed to pornography almost constantly in our modern world.  If I don’t pluck-out my eyes when the Victoria’s Secret ad comes on, is that grounds for divorce?

What, exactly, constitutes abandonment?  What about physical abuse?  Or mental, or verbal abuse?  Are those abandonments?

And, again we must ask, How severe must they become?

Are you really going to tell a woman being abused to endure it because her dirtbag husband, who professes to know Jesus, won’t abandon her and isn’t committing adultery?

We can take a page out of Moses’ book.  God wants to protect the innocent – never to add to their misery.  He was concerned about the plight of the wife being unjustly put away, and He stepped in to regulate the hardness of men’s hearts so she was set free to remarry.  He is no less gracious today, under the new covenant.

One conservative but insightful commentator put it this way:

In summary, what are the biblical grounds for divorce?  The answer is sexual immorality and abandonment.  Are there additional grounds for divorce beyond these two?  Possibly.  Is divorce ever to be treated lightly or employed as the first recourse?  Absolutely not.

Within the framework of the biblical grounds revealed for divorce, we need to struggle with each situation and its unique details, holding to the sanctity of marriage as it was originally modeled, but extending grace to innocents who are the victims of the hard-heartedness of others.

No one ever comes in and says, “I’m going to divorce my spouse without any biblical grounds because I have a heart that is totally hardened against God.  I know that it’s wrong, but I either don’t care, or I’m so selfish that I don’t think God’s Word applies to me.”

When you’re casual about divorce, it’s a heart problem between you and God – not between you and your spouse.  Admit it; confess it; repent of it.

#2    If You Are Casual About Divorce,
    Check Yourself For A Derelict Heart
    (v10-12)

His disciples are going to ask Jesus to clarify His answer.  He does, and as He does, we get a further insight into the kind of heart that is casual about divorce.  It is a heart derelict of its duties and responsibilities to the spouse.

Most of the professing Christians I’ve had to confront over the years about their nonbiblical divorce have been extremely selfish.  It’s all about them:

They claim that their spouse doesn’t quite live up to their expectations.

They announce that they are in love with some other person, and since that makes them feel better, then it doesn’t really matter how their spouse feels.

Using hindsight, they think they should not have married their spouse, that it somehow wasn’t God’s will, so they argue that a divorce gets them back on track to doing God’s will.

No one seems to care that they exchanged vows, before God, that were based on willful decisions, and not on selfish desires.  “For better… Or for worse… In sickness… Or in health… For richer… Or for poorer…. As long as we both shall live.”

In fact, it turns out what they meant was, “For better until it’s worse… in health Because sickness is too demanding… for richer and richer… as long as I feel love for you.”

Jesus is not so much interested in feelings as He is fealty – which is a little-used word that means faithfulness to your Lord.

Marriage is a promise made to God.  Even if you did not make vows to God, marriage is not a human institution; it is His creation ordinance for the protection, the provision, and the preserving of the human race.  You have a responsibility to God to live within His definition of marriage.

Mar 10:10  In the house His disciples also asked Him again about the same matter.

No matter how long you’ve been a Christian, there are always questions, or things that need clarifying, in terms of exactly what we believe.

Mar 10:11  So He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.
Mar 10:12  And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

You might be wondering why, since Jewish women had no right to divorce under the Law of Moses, Jesus would mention them divorcing their husbands.

Israel was occupied by Rome, and under Roman law, women had more rights than under the Law of Moses.  Mark’s Gospel was written with a Roman audience in mind, so his mention of women divorcing their husbands makes sense.

Also, as the Gospel went forward, and out to the Gentiles, this issue would come up again and again among the non-Jews.

“Divorces” here must mean “divorces without biblical grounds.”  It must mean that, because, as we’ve seen, elsewhere Jesus and Paul establish that there are biblical grounds – namely sexual immorality and abandonment.

What Mark’s omission is telling us is that the Holy Spirit wants to emphasize a different aspect of divorce.  Namely, He wants to emphasize what it does to your spouse.

Jesus says you commit adultery “against” your spouse.  It indicates the adulterer injures his or her spouse.

Adultery causes injury; it harms your spouse.  I was going to talk about some of the pain, but I don’t want to cause any of you to relive the pain you’ve gone through, or are going through, on account of the infidelity of a spouse.  I think it’s obvious it hurts.

Is that the kind of person you want to be?  One who knowingly, unashamedly, injures the person you once promised to care for in any conditions, “til death do you part?”

I would hope you’d say, “No, I don’t want to be that person.”

Sexual sin, overall, causes severe injury.  While you are focusing on the temporary physical and emotional pleasure it seems to bring you, you’re ignoring the lifelong pain it inflicts savagely on others.

In a passage about maintaining sexual purity, the apostle Paul warns “that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified” (First Thessalonians 4:6).  The idea of “defraud” seems to be that you injure their walk with the Lord by taking advantage of them simply to satisfy your own lusts.

Not sure how the Lord will avenge the defrauded person but you shouldn’t want to find out.

In the midst of a long passage warning against adultery, the writer of the Proverbs says,

Pro 6:27  Can a man take fire to his bosom, And his clothes not be burned?
Pro 6:28  Can one walk on hot coals, And his feet not be seared?

Then he summarizes, saying, “Whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; He who does so destroys his own soul” (6:32).

If you think this sounds old fashioned, it might surprise you that adultery is still a crime in twenty-one of our United States.  Cases are still prosecuted.

Let me briefly address one concern some of you might have.  Let’s say you realize that you had no biblical grounds for your divorce and are now remarried.  Are you therefore guilty on habitual adultery?

No; you are not.  The apostle Paul, addressing some of these complicated issues, advises, “Let each one remain in the same calling in which he was called” (First Corinthians 7:20).  Today, if you are married, you are to stay in that marriage.  If you got there by committing sin, confess it to God, and repent, and thank Him for grace that is sufficient for all of our many sins and failings.

If you are casual about divorce, you are derelict in your marital duties, towards God and towards your spouse.  You’re likely thinking too highly of yourself, and not as a servant.

Don’t be a derelict.  Be a disciple.

It comes down to this: “Are you living to please the Lord, or not?”

Answer that question in the affirmative and your marriage will be transformed into a beautiful garden.

No Questions Asked (Mark 9:30-32)

Carl Sagan once said, “There are naive questions, tedious questions, [and] ill-phrased questions.  But… There is no such thing as a dumb question.”

He must not have seen the most recent list of the Thirty Dumbest Questions Ever Asked Online, as reported by yahoo.com.

Here is a sampling of five:

“Should I tell my parents I’m adopted?”
“How big is the specific ocean?”
“If the NFL is only for the United Sates, how does New England have a team?”
“Are chickens considered animals or birds?”
“Does it take 18 months for twins to be born?”

Lawyers have been known to ask dumb questions of witnesses.  Here are three of them from actual court transcripts:

“How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?”
“Now, doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, in most cases he just passes quietly away and doesn’t know anything about it until the next morning?”

Then there is this one: An accused man, acting as his own lawyer, asked, “Did you get a good look at my face when I took your purse?”

One way to not ask dumb questions is to not ask questions at all.  It’s a strategy we see in our text.

The twelve disciples of Jesus Christ were walking with Him on the outskirts of Galilee.  He said to them, “The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him.  And after He is killed, He will rise the third day.”

The disciples did not understand what Jesus meant about His death, burial, and resurrection from the dead.  Instead of asking Him to clarify, they are described in our text as being “afraid to ask” Jesus any questions.

What might they have asked?  Two things come to mind:

“Jesus, why do You have to die?”
And, “Jesus, when You’re gone, how are we supposed to live?”

Those are great questions to ask and to have answered on Easter 2016.  I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Jesus Why He Died For You, and #2 Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Jesus How To Live For Him.

#1    Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Jesus
    Why He Died For You
    (v30-31)

See if you can recognize the book or film being described in these one-sentence summaries:

A boy wizard begins training and must battle for his life with the Dark Lord who murdered his parents (Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone).

A young English woman from a peculiar family is pursued by an arrogant and wealthy young nobleman (Pride & Prejudice).

A Russian sub captain leads the Soviet navy on a merry chase while he tries to hand over the latest Soviet submarine to the Americans (The Hunt for Red October).

Jesus’ comment to His disciples is a one-sentence summary of the Gospel:

He spoke of His death.

His burial is alluded to in that He would be in the tomb three days.

Then He would rise from the dead.

Death… Burial… Resurrection.  The apostle Paul makes certain that we know that this trio of truths is the Gospel in his letter to the church at Corinth:

1Co 15:1  Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand,
1Co 15:3  For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
1Co 15:4  and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

You can say more – a lot more – but you can’t say anything less, or leave part of it out, and call it the Gospel.

Let’s see when and why Jesus gave His guys the Gospel.

Mar 9:30  Then they departed from there and passed through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know it.
Mar 9:31  For He taught His disciples and said to them, “The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him. And after He is killed, He will rise the third day.”

Jesus wanted to keep a low-profile in order to spend quality time with His disciples.

Do we still use the expression, “Blow your mind?”  Does it blow your mind that Jesus Christ, Who the Bible says is the Creator of all things, and God in human flesh, wants to spend quality time with His disciples?  It should.

Class was in session as they walked, and Jesus had a very concise lesson.  But before we get to His death, burial, and resurrection from the dead, however, we can’t overlook this title, “the Son of Man.”

It’s a very interesting title, chosen by Jesus very carefully.  When we see what it means, we will have a much greater understanding of the mindset, and the subsequent confusion, of the disciples.

It might help to recall that the Jewish Scriptures – what we routinely call the Old Testament – were not divided-up into chapters and verses.  That came much later in history.

Jews recognized sections of Scripture by key words and phrases.  A teacher, like Jesus, would start with a word or a phrase, alerting the students (in this case the twelve) where He was referring them to in Scripture.

If I got up and said, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” you’d recognize that as the very first verse of the Bible.

If I said, “My God, My God, Why have You forsaken Me?”, you’d probably recognize that as the opening words of Psalm Twenty-two.

“The Son of Man” doesn’t have quite the effect on us as it did the Jews in the first century.  You might not know where it’s from.

When the twelve heard the phrase, “the Son of Man,” they would have thought of what we call Daniel 7:13-14.

Dan 7:13  “I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him.
Dan 7:14  Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed.

“The Son of Man” was a name for the coming Messiah Who would reign as the King over the Kingdom of God on the earth.  It would have captivated and excited the disciples to hear Jesus use the title of Himself.

In fact, they would have heard little else.

If you are a parent or grandparent, and especially if you have boys, you’ve seen the Pixar movie, Cars, over 100 times.

By the way – If you don’t cry every time at the end when Lightning McQueen is pushing the King over the finish line, there’s something wrong with you.

There’s a scene at the beginning when the King is trying to give Lightning some sage advice.  As soon as the King mentions the word Dynaco, Lightning checks-out mentally, and can think of nothing besides being the next Dynaco spokes car.

That’s similar to what happened with the disciples. Once they heard “the Son of Man,” they checked-out mentally.  Their thoughts were all about the Kingdom.  It must be about to begin.

It is accurate to speak of the spiritual kingdom, in which God overrules history by His divine providence.  But there is also the promise of a real, brick-and-mortar Kingdom of God on the earth.

It will be ruled by a king who will be seated on David’s throne in Jerusalem, Israel.

The current earth will be restored, so that streams break out in the desert.

Weapons of war will be turned into farming implements.

Lions and lambs will frolic together.

Righteousness will be the rule of the entire world.

This coming kingdom was so ingrained in their national psyche that the Jews ignored other, more difficult, portions of their Scriptures – like the ones that spoke of their Messiah as a Suffering Servant.

Cut these guys some slack.  The idea that their Messiah would suffer and die was completely new to them.

Regarding Jesus’ comments on betrayal, the disciples would have wondered, “Who on earth could betray the Son of Man – and why would he?”

Regarding Jesus’ comments on being killed, the disciples would have wondered, “Who could kill someone Who was so glorious, and Whose dominion and kingdom are everlasting?”

They asked no questions.  Let me suggest the first question they ought to have asked: “Jesus, why must You die?”

How many answers do you think there are to that question?  It might surprise you, but one contemporary theologian has identified at least 50 reasons Jesus must die.

(It would be more accurate to say that Jesus’ death on the Cross accomplished at least fifty things according to the Bible).

C.S. Lewis narrows the main reasons in this quote:

We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself.  That is the formula.  That is Christianity.  That is what has to be believed.  Any theories we build up as to how Christ’s death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: [they are] mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself.

In other words, Jesus had to die because that’s the way God’s universe is structured, and works itself out, to the glory of God, and to the redeeming of creation.

The physical universe has certain laws that govern it – like gravity.  We could say that there are also laws that govern the spiritual universe.  A few of those laws are, “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23), and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and, “without shedding of blood there is no remission [of sins]” (Hebrews 9:22).

Man is a sinner.  The punishment for sin is death, followed by eternal conscious torment in Hell.

God’s solution for sin and death – and the only possible solution to remit sin – is for God Himself to become a man in order to take our sins upon Himself, and to take our place in death.  Because He was both God and man, His death could do both the things C.S. Lewis said – “wash out our sins” and “disable death itself.”

I want to talk, for a moment, to anyone here who is not a believer in Jesus Christ.

(If you are a believer, don’t check out; pray).

We’ve said that Jesus’ words are the Gospel.  In another place in the Bible, we read that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16).  One of the things that means is that when you are told about the death, burial, and resurrection from the dead of Jesus Christ, God empowers it to reveal to you that you are a sinner in need of salvation.

When the Gospel is presented, something spiritual occurs; something supernatural.  Your blind eyes are opened, and your bound will is freed in order that you might respond to the grace of God in offering you the forgiveness of your sins, and eternal life.

That’s why you are prompted, even commanded, to obey the Gospel.  It is a genuine offer, for you to receive, or to reject.

For me, it happened in early 1979 as I was watching a Christian film.  God used it to penetrate my heart, and to reveal to me that He was real, and alive, and involved in human history.

A day or so later, I experienced a terrifying moment in which I knew, for the first time, that I was indeed a sinner by nature, to my very core; and that nothing I could ever do would be sufficient to cover or overcome my sins.  I knew that if I were to die in that state, not only was Hell my final destination, but that I deserved Hell.

I knew I was a sinner in need of salvation, and when I was told that Jesus died for me, I readily accepted His offer to save me.

Don’t be afraid to ask Jesus why He died for you.  He died to save you from sin and death, and give you eternal life.
What must you do to receive the Lord?  Repent of your sin; believe in Him as your Savior.  He is drawing you, by grace; you can respond in faith.

#2    Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Jesus
    How To Live For Him
    (v32)

Did the Son of Man establish the Kingdom of God on earth in His first coming?  He did not.  Something happened to delay it.

In the first eight chapters of Mark, Jesus had been going about preaching repentance, saying that the Kingdom of God was at hand.  He had been performing miracles that were consistent with His claims to be the promised Messiah of the Jews.  He had been routinely defeating the devil, casting out demons – sometimes thousands at a time.

Unfortunately, the rulers of Israel rejected Jesus as their Messiah.   They sought ways to discredit Him in the eyes of the people, and, ultimately, they sought a way to kill Him.

Their response meant a change in plans.  The Lord would die; He’d rise from the dead after three days.  Then, after forty days, He’d ascend into Heaven, to await a Second Coming to the earth.

The Kingdom of God on earth that was promised to the nation of Israel would be postponed until Jesus’ Second Coming.

In the time between His two comings, Jesus would commission His followers to “go into the whole world, making disciples of all men.”

They would do it, and we do it still, by preaching the simple Gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection from the dead of Jesus.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves; or, rather, we’re getting ahead of the twelve disciples.  Their grasp of these things was still some days in the future.  For now, they were confused, and troubled.

Mar 9:32  But they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him.

This episode is found in both Matthew and Luke.  Luke is especially insightful.  He writes,

Luk 9:45  But they did not understand this saying, and it was hidden from them so that they did not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask Him about this saying.

“It was hidden from them,” but not by God.  That makes no sense.  Why say “they did not understand” if, in fact, they could not understand?

“It was hidden from them” on account of their own expectations and preconceptions.  Remember what we said about their understanding of “the Son of Man,” and the Kingdom of God.  They expected the Son of Man to do what they read in Daniel 7:13-14.

There was no room in their expectations for the Man of Sorrows that Isaiah described:

Isa 53:3. He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Isa 53:4  Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
Isa 53:5  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

Isa 53:10  Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.

Isaiah and Daniel were describing the same Person.  The Son of Man was the Man of Sorrows.

It was not in the thinking of the twelve – or any of the Jews – to see their Messiah as “the Son of Man of Sorrows.”

After Jesus rose from the dead, and especially after He ascended into Heaven, the disciples would “get it.”  The Kingdom of God is postponed while the Gospel goes out to the whole earth.

I addressed nonbelievers a moment ago; now it’s time to talk to believers.

Is the Gospel for us?  To put it another way, Is the Gospel merely the message we preach to see folks converted, or is it also a  message in our daily lives?

I’ll let the Bible answer that question.  The apostle Paul addressed believers and told us how the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus impacts our daily lives.

Rom 6:4  Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

The death, burial, and resurrection from the dead of Jesus doesn’t just convert sinners.  It empowers and enables saints.  We can, right now, “walk in newness of life.”

“Newness of life” – What does it mean?  It means this.  When we are born again, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we receive a life which we never before possessed.  We begin to feel, to think, and to act as we never did before.

We are born-again – born spiritually.  God the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us.  We are given a new nature.

Our old, sin nature, is not eradicated; it lingers on in what we call “the flesh.”  But we find within us the power to reckon ourselves to be dead to sin, and alive to God, and to therefore say “No” to sin and disobedience.

Charles Spurgeon has a powerful sermon on “newness of life.”  In it he describes our newness of life by cataloging our new hopes, our new motives, and our new possessions.

We have new hopes.  We wait for the glorious appearing of our Lord.  We look for new heavens and a new earth.  We have a  hope which defies death.

What difference does that make?  Well, if we are serious about our hope of the Lord’s imminent return, it affects every thought, and every decision, every day.

We have new motives.  You live now to please God.  Once you lived for what you could get for yourself; you lived for the passing pleasures of a fleeting life; but now you have launched upon eternal pursuits.  Eternity holds your treasures; eternity excites your efforts; eternity elevates your desires.

We have new possessions.  All spiritual blessings are ours in abundance, so much so that if all our material possessions were to fail us, we nevertheless praise Him.  Nothing can separate us from the love of God, so much so that we can endure with joy and victory even the greatest suffering.  We can draw from abundant grace, rich mercy, and peace that passes all human undestanding.

Christian, are you daily hearing the Gospel?  You are if you are walking in newness of life, rather than settling for the things of this world.

DirecTV launched a series of hilarious commercials in which a family of frontier settlers is living in a contemporary neighborhood but in a rustic one-room cabin without any modern conveniences.  The father is refusing to switch from cable tv.

The father says, “Now mother, we are settlers.  The boy has his stick and hoop, the girl has her faceless doll, you have your cabbages, and I have my foot stomping.”

Christians can be settlers.  The very fact there are, in the Bible, exhortations to not forsake our gathering together, and to not leave our first love, and to walk soberly, show that we can settle for a life in this world that is less spiritual than the one Jesus has mapped out for us.

I think especially in our great nation, with its opportunity for wealth and our precious, blood-bought freedoms, we can end up living our lives almost as we would have lived them without Jesus, other than acknowledging that He has saved us, and occasionally attending church.

We can become convinced that the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is a verse from the Sermon on the Mount, and settle into the American dream.

I’m not criticizing; I’m making a comparison.

Do you remember those pizza commercials that asked, “What do you want on your Tombstone?”  It was funny because we routinely put summaries of our loved ones lives on their tombstone, or headstone.  They’re called epitaphs.  You can usually choose from a list of the more common sayings, like “loving husband and father.”

Which of the following two sayings would you rather be your epitaph:

“He dedicated himself to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” or, “He desired to come after Jesus by denying himself, and taking up his cross, and following the Lord” (Mark 8:34).

Maybe you are exactly where God wants you to be.  Maybe your plans for your life are in absolute harmony with His plans for your life.

Even so, you certainly need to make minor course corrections from time to time.  Take this opportunity to adjust your course.

For some of you… Maybe just one of you… Today is the day you realize you’ve left God out of your plans.

How open are you, really, to Jesus giving you new direction?

Don’t be afraid to ask Jesus how to live for Him.  Instead, remember this: “But as it is written: “EYE HAS NOT SEEN, NOR EAR HEARD, NOR HAVE ENTERED INTO THE HEART OF MAN THE THINGS WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM” (First Corinthians 2:9).

Deaf And Dumber (Mark 9:14-29)

The Rocky movie franchise is, to borrow lyrics from the theme song, “getting strong now, flying high now.”

Do you realize that the first film was released all the way back in 1976?  Fast forward to 2015, and you’ve got Creed, the story of Apollo Creed’s illegitimate son convincing Rocky Balboa to train him.

Worldwide, the film has grossed $175mil.  A sequel is already being planned.

In the first film of the franchise, Apollo Creed knew for sure that he’d win his fight against Rocky Balboa.  What’s more, Rocky knew that Apollo would win.  He tells his girlfriend, Adrian, that he knows he can’t win.  Then he says, “all I wanna do is go the distance.  Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed.”

You know the story.  Rocky is outmatched, but manages to knock-down the over-confident champ.  A grueling, punishing fight ensues.  Rocky goes the distance, but as predicted, Apollo Creed gets the victory.

As Christians, one of the first words we learn to love is victory.  We are taught, correctly, that, on the Cross,  Jesus was and is victorious over sin, death, and the devil.  His victory means that we, too, are victorious.

Since that’s true, why do we get knocked-down so much, and hit the mat so hard when we do?

Victory is hard-won, that’s why.  It is ours, but it doesn’t come without a fight.

We know from reading the New Testament that the devil, although defeated, will go the distance:

He’ll be throwing punches right up until Jesus returns at His Second Coming, when the Lord orders him bound and incarcerated for one thousand years.

He’ll fight-on once released from his prison, only to be finally and utterly defeated when he and his followers are cast alive into the Lake of Fire that has been prepared for their everlasting conscious torment.

In our text, the nine disciples whom Jesus had not taken with Him up the Mount of Transfiguration have a bout with the devil.  Victorious over him in the past, this time they hit the mat hard when they are unable to cast out a particularly nasty demon from a young boy.

It gave Jesus an opportunity to teach a lesson about victory – that it is both hard-fought, and hard-sought.

I’ll organize my thoughts around those two points: #1 Your Spiritual Victory Is Hard-Fought As We Await The Return Of Jesus, and #2 Your Spiritual Victory Is Hard-Sought As We Await The Return Of Jesus.

#1    Your Spiritual Victory Is Hard-Fought
    As We Await The Return Of Jesus
    (v14-27)

Listen to this quote regarding the end of World War II in the Pacific:

Naval superiority for the Allies was assured by victory over the Japanese fleet at Leyte Gulf, while giant B-29 bombers started pounding targets in Japan itself.  [Nevertheless there was] bitter fighting from island to island and through the jungles of Burma… against an enemy that refused to surrender – until the horror of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We were victorious over a defeated foe, but the enemy fought on until the final blow was delivered.

Likewise, as Christians, we are victorious over a defeated foe, the devil; but our enemy will fight on until the final blow is delivered.

The events in our text give us a rare opportunity to explore and explain the fight we find ourselves in, against defeated enemies who refuse to yield until they must.

Mar 9:14  And when He came to the disciples, He saw a great multitude around them, and scribes disputing with them.
Mar 9:15  Immediately, when they saw Him, all the people were greatly amazed, and running to Him, greeted Him.

Jesus was returning, with Peter, James, and John, from the mountain upon which He had appeared to them transfigured, along with Elijah and Moses.  The nine disciples He had left in charge of the ministry were being harassed by a group of Scribes.

As soon as the “great multitude” saw Jesus, they “were greatly amazed.”  An alternate translation is that they “were surprised” to see Him.  They weren’t expecting Him to show up.  Now that He was back, they welcomed Him gladly.

I don’t want to drift into mysticism, but I think, sometimes, when we gather together, we’re not really expecting Jesus to show up.  We’re almost surprised if He does.

He promised He’d be among His gathered church.  He is here.

He is here… He is here
And He wants to work a wonder;
He is here… He is here
As we’ve gathered in His Name.

Mar 9:16  And He asked the scribes, “What are you discussing with them?”

I sense a hint of protection.  Whatever they might be discussing, Jesus knew that the Scribes were nonbelievers and insincere.  He knew that their only purpose in discussing anything with the disciples was to befuddle or belittle them.
We’ve all been there.  Someone, or maybe even several someone’s at once, are peppering you with questions, or complaints, about Jesus and the Gospel.  They’re not sincere questions; it’s just an effort to make you look dumb.

Jesus is just as jealous over you, and I suggest that, if you refuse to get stumbled by their criticism, and remain humble, He will use you in their lives.  Your example while being berated can be as powerful as your explanations.

It’s not always about how much we know.  The apostle Paul was a brilliant scholar with unassailable logic, as well as enjoying the anointing of God; but even he was ridiculed by the philosophers on Mars Hill.

Mar 9:17  Then one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit.
Mar 9:18  And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.”

So that was what they were disputing.  The disciples were unable to deal with this demon.  The Scribes seized upon their failure to undermine the Person and work of Jesus.

Even without the Scribes’ criticism, I’m sure it troubled the disciples.  Jesus had given them power to cast out demons.  What happened?

Look away from the disciples, for a moment, to the boy.  This is severe suffering.  In a moment, the father will further describe his son’s condition, and we’ll gasp at how awful it was.

In Jesus’ temporary absence, His disciples seemed helpless against the evil manifested in the world.

It’s the same today.  God seems absent, and His followers seem helpless in the face of mounting evil.

God is not absent; we are not helpless.  Still, the problem of evil stumbles nonbelievers.  It’s a great obstacle for them – especially when the evil, or the pain, strikes close to home.

Mar 9:19  He answered him and said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to Me.”

Who was Jesus calling “faithless?”  The Greek word is used elsewhere in the New Testament only of nonbelievers.  It doesn’t make sense, to me, that this would be the single use of the word to describe believers.

I think Jesus had the Scribes in mind.  He wouldn’t be with them much longer; He wouldn’t need to bear with them.  He was going to His death, then to Heaven.

On the other hand, He would be with His disciples always; and He bears with us through all of our many failures.

I’m not trying to ignore an important exhortation, but this one probably isn’t for us.

It might be for you – if you are not a believer.  How long do you have before it’s too late to make a decision to repent, and to turn to God from your sin?  You don’t know.

What you do know is that you have an appointment with death, and after that there is no further opportunity to be saved.

Mar 9:20  Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.

Put on your parent-hat for a moment.  What if this were your boy?  This is not a sterile, classroom discussion about evil in the world, or about why God allows suffering.  This is a pain that you live with, every minute of every day.

The boy seems to get worse and worse before he is healed, and has the demon cast out.  It becomes a picture, for us, of the age in which we live.  This demon is typical of the will of the devil and his highly organized forces to fight-on even though defeated.

I mean, the demon knew his time of possessing this boy was up.  He knew that Jesus would command him to come out of the boy.  But he gave it his all, in defeat.

That is what we can expect, until we are with Jesus.  The disciples were getting a glimpse of the church age, in which the devil would be going about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Mar 9:21  So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.

Jesus wasn’t questioning the dad for the purposes of making a diagnosis, or for suggesting a course of treatment.  No, His question, I think, is full of compassion.

It acknowledges the absolute horror of this boy’s condition, and the pain his father must have endured watching his son.

God is no idle by-stander to our pain and suffering.  He is touched by it, in all points as we are.

God the Father looked on as His only begotten Son was killed.  If you think that knowing He was going to raise Jesus from the dead made the Cross an easy thing, you are wrong.

“From childhood,” this young boy had been afflicted.  The suffering of children really gets to us.  It evokes more raw emotion than just about anything.  What parent hasn’t wanted to trade places with their child in their pain?

Mar 9:22  And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

Among those who portray themselves as experts on demons and demonic possession, there is a belief that demons, in general, have a strong desire to inhabit human bodies.  To put it in contemporary terms, they say that demons are Jonesin’ to take on flesh.

That’s just silly.  This demon kept trying to kill the boy he possessed.  He wanted to destroy him.

We’ve taken the position, the biblical position I might add, that the presence of Jesus on the earth was countered by the devil by a demonic invasion upon first century Israel, in a way we don’t see today, now that Jesus has ascended into Heaven.

Don’t get me wrong: Demonic possession is real; it’s just not rampant.

Something else demon-hunters say; I’ve told you about this before.  They believe that you must learn a demon’s name before you could cast it out.  In this case, since the demon made the boy mute, you could never learn his name.

We don’t deal with demons based on formulas or superstitions.  If we encounter them, we deal with them based on the delegated authority we have from Jesus.

The father of this boy sounds like he’d lost faith in Jesus’ ability to cast out demons.  It makes sense because His disciples had failed.  After all, Jesus had previously conferred upon the twelve the power to cast out demons, and everywhere they went, the demons obeyed them.

Since they failed, and their power was from Jesus, maybe it was because Jesus had lost His mojo.

Mar 9:23  Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

Need to be very, very careful here.  Some read this as if Jesus was saying, “If you have enough faith, you can receive any miracle you ask for.”

Faith is certainly required at all times, but Jesus didn’t say “anything is possible.”  He said “all things are possible.”

That’s a lot of things, for sure; but most of them are spiritual, not physical.  “All things,” I think, refers to all the things that God has promised you, or provided for you.  In Ephesians they are called “all spiritual blessings in Christ” (1:3).

So, in your suffering, you can (and should!) ask God to heal you.  But He may tell you that “all” you really need from Him is sufficient grace to go on enduring your suffering.

“All things” are better than anything we might ask for.  We would almost always settle for things that are merely physical, that are merely temporary, and miss those that are spiritual, and prepare us for eternity.

Mar 9:24  Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

I humbly suggest that this is always true of each of us.  We certainly believe, and on that basis, are justified by God’s grace.  But the very fact that we must grow seems to indicate we have a certain amount of unbelief that needs to be overcome as we walk with Jesus through our lives.

This father believed the Lord could heal his boy; that’s why he had come in the first place.  But his belief had been shaken by the failure of the disciples, and he admitted it.

If I’m being honest, throughout my entire Christian walk of some 37 years, I’ve had something that I was having a hard time believing God for.  I have some things right now.

Whatever you are going through, unbelief can creep in.  When it does, don’t hesitate to admit it, and to pray this prayer, in your own words.  The hard part is waiting for the Lord to work.

Mar 9:25  When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!”

Mark writes this as though the crowd interrupted Jesus.  Because they were approaching, He quickly cast out the demon.  But Jesus might not have been done talking to the father.

Be sensitive to the Lord wanting to minister to people, especially when we are gathered together.  It’s one reason why we try to minimize distractions.  A precious spiritual moment can be stolen away from someone by interruptions.

We learn that the boy was deaf as well as dumb.  This just keeps getting worse and worse.  It’s an extreme case, for sure.

Not for Jesus.  There is no extremity of suffering beyond His ability to deal with.

Mar 9:26  Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, “He is dead.”

This was quite a defiant demon.  He fought hard, to the end.

I’m belaboring it, but that’s one of the major points this episode is hammering home.  We live in-between the first and second comings of Jesus.  Our defeated foe is defiant, and fighting hard until the end.

Mar 9:27  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

Mark doesn’t need to tell you that the boy was completely healed, inside and out.  Do you doubt any of the following?

He could hear, perfectly.

He could talk, articulately.

His burns, from having been thrown into fires, were healed, and his skin was like that of a baby.

What about psychologically?  Do you think that he suffered from PTSD?  Do you think that he was afraid of water, on account of the many attempts the demon had made to drown him?

I’d say, “No,” to those and other questions like it.  Jesus heals to the uttermost.

I’m not saying that, for you, everything is miraculously healed when you come to the Lord.  I’m not here to heap burdens on you in your struggles.

I am saying that every healing you need comes from the Lord.  He is your Great Physician.

I hate to say it, for fear of being misunderstood, but Jesus is your Great Psychologist, too.  In Him is everything you need for life and for godliness.

There is evil in the world.  What’s more, it is organized, and powerful.  It exists because Adam and Eve, representing us, sinned in the Garden of Eden.

Why does it endure?  Because God’s plan to overcome it takes time – because He is dealing with cosmic issues of atonement and redemption, along with the human heart, and the free will of men.

Before you object to the “it takes time” argument, consider this.  God’s plan is essentially a rescue mission.  Some rescues take more time than others.

In 2010 the world was gripped by the Chilean mining accident, in which thirty-three men were trapped 2300 feet below the surface.  With all the best efforts and equipment, it took sixty-nine days to rescue them.

God’s rescue of the human race is like that.  Only there is a further twist.  Of the thirty-three Chilean miners, not one refused to be rescued.  Not one determined to stay trapped and in the dark.

Yet that is exactly the decision of multiplied millions of people everyday.  God has saved them, by the Cross of Jesus Christ.  But rather than be rescued, they prefer to stay in the darkness, trapped by sin.

God is longsuffering with them – not willing that any should perish, but that they would come to know Him.

Yes, it’s true, the devil and his demons refuse to surrender.  But the bigger problem is that nonbelievers refuse to surrender – to Jesus.

Our part is to draw from “all things” that are promised us, and provided for us, to further the Gospel message.

#2    Your Spiritual Victory Is Hard-Sought
    As We Await The Return Of Jesus
    (v28-29)

We have the same burning question that the disciples had.  It is asked, and answered, in the remaining two verses.

Mar 9:28  And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”
Mar 9:29  So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”

I think that what Jesus establishes here is so simple that we miss its impact.

First let’s talk about what He was not saying.  He was not saying that, if you encounter an especially bad demon, go off for a time of prayer and fasting, then return to the fight.

No, the example Jesus left us was that He was always ready to fight.

The Lord was talking about a lifestyle that included prayer and fasting regardless any specific trials or tragedies.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to call for a fast, with prayer, for certain things.  We see this, occasionally, in the Scriptures.

But by far the most important thing to take-away from Jesus’ comments are that we be spiritually disciplined – with prayer and fasting on that list.

Let’s be brutally honest.  If we were to take a survey and ask, “Do you pray and fast often?,” most of us would answer “No.”

The conclusion we draw from our lack of prayer and fasting is that we are not as ready as we need to be to fight.  It’s at least one of the reasons we get knocked down, and hit the mat so hard.

It’s the Apollo Creed syndrome of knowing we’re going to win, so we don’t train as hard anymore.

It would seem, from Jesus’ comments, that, even though He had conferred upon the twelve the ability to cast out demons, they needed to remain disciplined.

Think of it this way.  The ability to cast out demons wasn’t theirs; it was Jesus’.  Anything, and everything, they did, they did through Him.  It wasn’t theirs to do with as they wished.

Prayer and fasting communicates that we understand our dependance upon Jesus.  Whatever He has given us, or tasked us with, we remain totally dependent upon Him to empower us.

We can go through the motions of a Christian walk – especially here in the relative safety of our great nation – without having any anointing from the Lord.

We love grace so much that we think it is incompatible with spiritual disciplines.  It is not.

We need to get back to the basic disciplines of the Christian life: Prayer, reading the Word, especially devotionally; gathering together; sharing our faith; giving; and fasting.

Consider that a check-list, of six activities, and accept the challenge of exercising yourself spiritually in any and all in which you are deficient.

In baseball, they talk about a 5-tool player.  The ideal position player excels at hitting for average, hitting for power, baserunning skills and speed, throwing ability, and fielding abilities.

Think Willie Mays.

We’re to work on being 6-tool Christians, not settling for one or two or even four or five disciplines.

“This kind can come out,” Jesus said.  That’s a big statement and I think we can apply it beyond the casting out of demons.

What Jesus was saying, in general, is that “You can prevail, spiritually, against whatever you encounter.”

All you need to do is follow hard after Jesus.  Victory is assured, but it is to be hard-sought.

In the end, your closeness with Jesus – well, that is your victory at all times.

They’ll Be Questioning Down the Mountain When They Come (Mark 9:1-13)

There are any number of apps, or websites, where you can upload a photo of yourself and see how you will look as you age.

It’s mostly for fun, but it’s also being used by health professionals to inspire lifestyle behavioral changes.

One company advertises that they can add the effects of obesity, smoking, drinking excessively, drug use, and even sun exposure.  Their research suggests that if you see how wasted you’re going to look because of them, you’ll give up your bad habits.

It’s not all vanity to focus on what you are going to look like in the future.  If you are a Christian, it should be a daily practice.

We’re told, by the apostle John in his first letter, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (3:2).

John encourages us to think about what we will eventually look like.  We will look like Jesus.

Seeing ourselves as we will be in the future encourages us to a more spiritually healthy lifestyle in the present.  John puts it this way: “everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (3:3).

The answer to aging isn’t Botox, but being born-again, and being raised, or raptured, with a glorious new body that is outfitted for life in eternity with Jesus.

In our text, three of Jesus’ disciples accompany Him up a mountain, and they witness Him being transfigured before them.  They see Jesus as He will look in the future, and for eternity.

It gave them a glimpse at their own futures.

We, too, can see our future in the transfiguration of Jesus.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 Seeing Jesus Transfigured You Realize You Are Becoming More Like Him, and #2 Seeing Jesus Transfigured You Realize You Will Be Coming Back With Him.

#1    Seeing Jesus Transfigured
    You Realize You Are Becoming More Like Him
    (v1-8)

The apostle Paul tells us we “will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:3), and that awaiting us is “an eternal weight of glory” (Second Corinthians 4:16).

Jesus prayed to the Father about us, saying, “the glory that you have given me I have given to them” (John 17:22).

Theologians call this the Doctrine of Glorification.  Glorification is the future and final work of God upon Christians where He transforms our mortal physical bodies to the eternal physical bodies in which we will dwell forever.

We are guaranteed glorified bodies because Jesus rose from the dead in His glorified body.  He is called the “first fruits” of the resurrection.  First Corinthians 15:20 states it: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”

He is the first fruits, and we will follow.  His resurrection is the promise and guarantee of our future resurrection, in glorified bodies.

It’s one thing to say it, and quite another to see it.  Some of Jesus’ guys saw it, and we’re going to see what they saw.

Mar 9:1  And He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”

Chapter eight of Mark’s Gospel marked a turning point in the Lord’s ministry.  Knowing that the national leaders of Israel would reject Him and His offer of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, Jesus began predicting that He would suffer at their hands, be crucified, but rise from the dead.

The earthly kingdom promised the Jews in their Scriptures would be delayed.  It would come, but not in the lifetimes of Jesus’ first followers.

His words in verse one are a promise that a few of His first followers would get a sneak-peak, a preview, of the coming Kingdom.

We can liken it to movie trailers.  To me, the trailers are often the best part of going to the theater.  If there aren’t at least four, I’m disappointed.  I’ve mentioned this before, that some people buy a ticket to a movie they don’t necessarily want to watch simply because a particular trailer is going to precede it.

(The most recent example would be the latest Star Wars film.  Fans went to the theater in huge numbers to see the trailers).

Jesus may as well have said, “Coming to a mountain near you: A scene from the future, coming Kingdom.”

Mar 9:2  Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain apart by themselves; and He was transfigured before them.

There seem to have been groupings of threes within the twelve disciples of Jesus.  Peter, James, and John seem to have been privileged to be with Jesus on special occasions.

They were the three who witnessed the Lord raise a little girl from the dead.  Now here they were, with Him as He was transfigured.

Jesus did not play favorites; and it’s clear these three were not necessarily the most devout, or spiritual.  At least one commentator suggested that these three were the most likely to cause trouble, so Jesus had to keep close watch on them.

So what do we make of this grouping?  Only that we ought to focus on our own submission to, and service to, the Lord, and not concern ourselves with how He is using others.

The “high mountain” is believed to be Mount Hermon.  It’s over nine-thousand feet above sea level, and eleven-thousand feet above the valley floor, which is below sea level.

As an aside, it seems Jesus was quite the avid climber.  Several times, at key spiritual moments, He is up a mountain.  The devil, you might recall, took Jesus to a high mountain during the wilderness temptations.  We talk of the Sermon on the Mount; and the Olivet Discourse is so-called because it was delivered on the Mount of Olives.

The word “transfigured” is where we get our word metamorphosis.    I can’t help but think bullfrogs and butterflies.

Let me say something as clearly as I know how before we discuss the transfiguration.  Jesus was fully God, from eternity.  When He came to earth, He added to His deity His humanity, and was fully God and fully human.

When He rose from the dead, He did so in a glorified human body.  He will remain the God-man, in that body, for eternity.
What, then, did the disciples see when Jesus was transfigured?  They saw Jesus as He will appear in the future, after His resurrection, for eternity.  They saw Him as the first fruits of those who would be raised from the dead.

They saw what John would later see on the Island of Patmos – the risen Jesus Christ, described in great detail in chapter one of the Revelation.

Remember, too, that what they saw was the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that “some standing here… will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”  Jesus said they’d see something of the Kingdom revealed; a preview of what was coming.

They saw Jesus as He will appear when He returns to earth in power and glory to establish and rule the Kingdom, as the forever glorified God-man.

Mar 9:3  His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them.

The idea here is that, though clothed and in a real human body, the glory came from within.

In the Marvel film, AntMan, the hero has a suit that allows him to shrink in size, possess superhuman strength, and control an army of ants.

Jesus wasn’t an ordinary human with a super-human costume.  No, He was, and is, God in human flesh, and, in the future, we’ll see Him just as He is.

Mar 9:4  And Elijah appeared to them with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus.

This just gets better-and-better.  This is like being at a concert with surprise special guests that blow your socks off.

The disciples had never seen Elijah, or Moses; no pictures existed.  They knew, however, who these guys were.  It’s one of the reasons we can say, with confidence, that you will know your loved ones in Heaven, along with everyone else – even if you’ve never met them.

We could spend weeks talking about Elijah and Moses.  I’m going to give you a couple of details that make sense in the context of the episode at hand.

First, we know, from the Revelation of Jesus Christ, that two very powerful witnesses will be on the earth during the first three-and-one-half years of the Tribulation.  We think they are Elijah and Moses, partly because of the powers that they exhibit during that time.  The two witnesses are said to “have power [for three-and-one-half years] to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire” (11:6).

Who, in the Old Testament, stopped the rain for three-and-one-half years?  That would be Elijah.

Who, in the Old Testament, turned water into blood, and struck the earth with plagues?  That would be Moses.

It makes sense that Elijah and Moses would appear with Jesus, in light of what we know about the future.

Elijah is famous for being taken to Heaven in a chariot of fire, without dying.  Moses, on the other hand, died, but then something curious occurred.  Satan wanted his dead body, but God dispatched the archangel, Michael, to dispute with the devil, and to preserve Moses’ body.

Putting that together, you’ve got a person whose body was preserved, but is now raised to be with Jesus in this Kingdom preview; and you’ve got another person who was raptured to be with Jesus in this Kingdom preview.

That’s what is going to happen to us, to the church:

Some among us will die, but like Moses, our bodies will be preserved, in the sense that God will raise us from the dead.
Some will not die, but will be alive when Jesus returns to resurrect the church.  We will be raptured – like Elijah.

This resurrection and rapture precede the Tribulation.  At the Tribulation’s end, we will return with Jesus – He in His glorified body, we in ours – just like the disciples saw, represented by Jesus, Elijah, and Moses.

Mar 9:5  Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” –
Mar 9:6  because he did not know what to say, for they were greatly afraid.

What should you say when you don’t know what to say?  Nothing!

Why “three tabernacles?”  It was around the time of the Feast of Tabernacles – the time of year when Jews made structures to spend time outdoors commemorating the temporary structures the children of Israel had during their time in the wilderness.

There was a common belief that the Messiah would return to establish the Kingdom during the Feast of Tabernacles.  So it’s not so far-fetched to suggest the building of three tabernacles.

Peter must have thought this was it – the time Jesus revealed Himself, and set things up, with the help of these two heroes of old.  He wasn’t thinking preview, or coming attraction.  On with the show, this is it!

Mar 9:7  And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!”

O, man!  Now God the Father was in the house!!  Talk about special guest stars, or cameo appearances – this tops them all.

You could call it the Father of all cameos.

Surely the Kingdom had come.

Mar 9:8  Suddenly, when they had looked around, they saw no one anymore, but only Jesus with themselves.

Instead of Back to the Future, they were back in the present.  The Kingdom was on hold – like a movie whose release date was far in the future.

The day was April 7, 2000 and New Line Cinema released a 100 second trailer teasing The Lord of the Rings.  The first film would not be released until December 19 of 2001 – more than a year later.

The disciples must wait for the Kingdom; they are still waiting.

But they had seen the future glory of the Lord and, as John would point out – we quoted it already – “when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”  It changed them.

You can’t see Jesus as He is, in His glory, and not be changed.

Speaking of being changed… this word for transfiguration, used of Jesus, is only used two other times in the New Testament, and when it is, it is used of us.

Rom 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
Rom 12:2  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

2Co 3:18  But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The “mirror” in which we behold Jesus is the Bible.  As we behold Him as He is revealed on its pages, we are being changed, moment-by-moment and day-by-day, into His image.  He Who began this work in us will continue it until we are resurrected or raptured, and we are where He is, and like He is.

Your outward man is perishing.  All the healthy habits in the world won’t keep you from gray hair and wrinkles.

But your inward man – he is being renewed every day as you spend time with the Lord.

Instead of seeing your face in the future using some app, concentrate of seeing Jesus, in the Word.  Put your spiritual health and habits first.

#2    Seeing Jesus Transfigured
    You Realize You Will Be Coming Back With Him
    (v9-13)

I’m sure that the boys couldn’t wait to get down the mountain, to tell the nine what they had just experienced.  Alas, it was not to be – not yet, anyway.

Mar 9:9  Now as they came down from the mountain, He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Another gag order!?  Come on; really?

These guys – and the nine left behind – would not fully comprehend the significance of the transfiguration until after Jesus rose from the dead.

(Judas, of course, would by then have committed suicide, and the eleven would choose Mathias to bring their number back to twelve).

Any talk of the transfiguration would only further confuse them about Jesus first going to the Cross, and about the Kingdom being delayed.

The Kingdom of Heaven on earth was heavily ingrained in them.  Not just a spiritual kingdom that describes the overall rule of God.  No, they were looking for a brick-and-mortar kingdom, ruled from Jerusalem, from the throne of King David.

Mar 9:10  So they kept this word to themselves, questioning what the rising from the dead meant.

They obeyed.  Good for them.  This would have been a tough secret to keep.

Jews believed in an afterlife, and in a resurrection from the dead.  Most Jews, anyway, including the Pharisees.

At the death of Lazarus, when Jesus came to his tomb, He said to Martha, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

She was describing her hope – the Jewish hope – in a general resurrection of all the elect at the end of time.

We know a whole lot more about resurrection than the Jews did.

We know that there will not be one general resurrection, but there will be two resurrections – one for believers; and one for all nonbelievers throughout human history.

We know that the resurrection of nonbelievers is a single event in time.  It will occur at the end of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, when the dead from all human history are raised to stand before the judgment of the Great White Throne of God, to be found dead in their trespasses and sins, having rejected the Gospel.  They will be cast into eternal conscious torment in the Lake of Fire.

We know that the resurrection of believers has already started, and continues over a period of time.  It is not a single event, and this sometimes confuses us.

The resurrection of believers started when Jesus rose from the dead, as first fruits.  According to the Gospel of Matthew, a few saints were raised with Him.

The resurrection of believers will continue with the raising of church age believers, then the rapture of living believers.

Eventually the Old Testament saints will be raised, and Tribulation martyrs, and those who live through the Kingdom of Heaven on the earth – until all believers are safe in their glorified bodies, in Heaven.

But, again we note – the resurrection of believers takes place over time, in several stages.

Let’s cut Peter, James, and John a lot of slack.  They had an extremely limited understanding of the resurrection.

They did have one burning question:

Mar 9:11  And they asked Him, saying, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”
The Scribes said this, accurately, by the way, because of the last two verses of the Old Testament:

Mal 4:5  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
Mal 4:6  And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

Think, first, about what their question implied.  They were confused as to why Elijah had not already come, which implies that they absolutely believed Jesus was their Messiah.

Since Messiah was here, where was Elijah?  His brief appearance on Mount Hermon didn’t seem enough to fulfill the prophecy.

Mar 9:12  Then He answered and told them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and restores all things. And how is it written concerning the Son of Man, that He must suffer many things and be treated with contempt?

Let’s take this one phrase at a time.  “Elijah is coming first and restores all things.”  Jesus read, and understood, Bible prophecy literally.  Elijah – the same Elijah we read about in the Bible, and who was recently on the Mount of Transfiguration – is going to return to the earth, as a forerunner of the Messiah.

We know exactly what this means, because we read about the two witnesses in the Revelation.  One of them must be Elijah, who precedes the return of Jesus in His Second Coming.

The reason the disciples were confused was because they did not  expect the death and resurrection of Jesus, nor His ascension into Heaven, nor the church age – all preceding a Second Coming.

Next Jesus says, “How is it written concerning the Son of Man,” and that is a question.  In other words, He was asking them, “Have you read anything about the Messiah suffering?”

He was pointing out that there were prophecies they were overlooking.

They had the kingdom prophecies memorized.  But there were a whole category of prophecies they were ignoring.  The idea of a suffering Servant was not on their radar.  That which makes perfect sense to us, because we have the whole counsel of God, made no sense to them.

Mar 9:13  But I say to you that Elijah has also come, and they did to him whatever they wished, as it is written of him.”

The other Gospels spell out plainly that Jesus was referring to John the Baptist.  John had come in the spirit and the power of Elijah.  He was the forerunner of the Messiah – Jesus.  His ministry of preaching repentance had as its goal to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers.

John even dressed like Elijah, wearing a camel’s skin mantle.

If the national leaders of Israel had received Jesus, they would have received John, and he would have been the fulfillment of the prophecy in Malachi.

They did not.  They killed John.  They would likewise kill Jesus.

The transfiguration is packed with truth that the disciples would have to wait to discover, and to understand.

It would all come together for them after the Day of Pentecost, with the coming upon them of the Holy Spirit.

When we look at the transfiguration, we understand it was a preview of the Second Coming, and that when Jesus returns to the earth, we’re coming with Him.

We are becoming like Jesus; we will be coming back with Him.

If that’s not the most exciting preview you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is!

Applaudable Deniability (Mark 8:34-9:1)

Do you have a song?  One that, if it comes on the radio, you say, “That’s our song!”

Entertainers often have a song that was written just for them.  Frank Sinatra, for example, had My Way.  Originally a French pop tune, Paul Anka took the melody and wrote English words especially for Sinatra.

The lyrics celebrate the independent spirit of the man nicknamed “The Chairman of the Board.”  The song builds to this conclusion:

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who   kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way
In another stanza, the lyrics anticipate Sinatra’s defiant thoughts about his death:

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Think about that, in the clear light of what you know about eternity.  Is that the song you want to sing to Jesus on the other side of the “final curtain?”

No, you’ll want to be able to sing something like this:

I have decided to follow Jesus;
Though none go with me, I still will follow;
My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;
The world behind me, the cross before me;
No turning back, no turning back

Those lyrics are based on the last words of a man in north-east India, who along with his family was converted to Christianity in the middle of the 19th century through the efforts of a Welsh missionary.  Called to renounce his faith by the village chief, the convert declared, “I have decided to follow Jesus.”  In response to threats to his family, he continued, “Though no one joins me, still I will follow.”

His wife was killed, and he was executed while singing, “The cross before me, the world behind me.”

His display of faith is reported to have led to the conversion of the chief and others in the village.

I’m not sure if the anonymous martyr was thinking about the words of Jesus in our text, but both his words, and his witness, give perfect expression to everything the Lord intended when He said, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

Don’t think about martyrdom, and be put off from following the Lord.  Start by considering the invitation, “Whoever desires to come after Me.”

I do; so do you, if you are a believer.  Since we desire to come after Jesus, we’ll want to pay close attention as He discusses the price, but also the profit, of discipleship.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 Jesus Discloses The Price Of Following Him As His Disciple, and #2 Jesus Defends The Profits Of Following Him As His Disciple.

#1    Jesus Discloses The Price
    Of Following Him As His Disciple
    (v34)

We can liken Jesus’ words to the Terms and Conditions dialog box that pops-up on your computer or mobile device when you first load a program or an app.

You want to start enjoying the app, but you can’t do anything until you click “Agree.”

Have you ever actually read the Terms and Conditions?  Probably not; they’re fifty pages long, and, in one sense, it doesn’t matter what they say, because if you want to use the app, you must click Agree.

That discipleship pop-up dialog box  is verse thirty-four:

Mar 8:34  When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

This is the bedrock principle for discipleship as laid down by Jesus.  The remaining verses of chapter eight, and verse one of chapter nine, justify the high cost of discipleship.

A couple of preliminary observations:

Jesus’ “disciples” were the twelve.  They had been with Him quite some time, as His disciples, yet here Jesus was calling them – His disciples – to discipleship.

The call to discipleship was also made to other “people,” to “whoever” was in that crowd.  Most of them must have been nonbelievers whom Jesus was calling to salvation and, simultaneously, to discipleship.

What this tells me is that we should urge folks to count the cost when they first get saved.  It is also normal to urge those who are long-term believers to further discipleship.

Maybe, when you got saved, the preacher cautioned you to count the cost and you understood that you had to go all in for Jesus, and you’ve never wavered, not for a moment, from His lordship over your life.
More likely is that you committed your life to the Lord, but have had times in your walk where you recommitted.

I think the most common experience we have is summed up by the phrase, “Every disciple is a Christian, but not every Christian is a disciple.”

I think, in fact, that a lot of Christians are not growing with the Lord because, at some point, Terms and Conditions pop-up on the screen of their life, and they don’t click “Agree.”  It leaves them stuck, unable to move further, unable to move forward.

Do you feel stuck?  Today could be a turning point in your relationship with the Lord.

Bear in mind that Jesus had just told His guys, in verse thirty-one, that He “must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

That is where He was going – to the Cross, then to the tomb, then out from the tomb.

When He said, “Whoever desires to come after Me,” it wasn’t a generic invitation to walk with Him.  It was a specific invitation to walk a similar path – to the Cross, to the tomb, then out from the tomb.

The disciples, and the people, were expecting Jesus to walk into Jerusalem and proclaim Himself King, and establish the kingdom of Heaven on the earth.  The disciples, and the people, were excited to “come after” Jesus along that path.

But His destination had changed on account of the rejection of the national leaders of Israel.  There was a new path – the one that led to death and beyond.

To “follow” Jesus along that path meant they would need to “deny [themselves],” and that they would need to “take up [their crosses].”

We happen to be in the Lent season of the Roman Catholic Church.  Their doctrine encourages you to give-up something for the time period, denying yourself its pleasures, as a token of your devotion to Jesus Christ.

That is not what “deny yourself” means; not at all.  And it isn’t something that has a time limit; it’s continuous.

To “deny yourself” means you deny self.  You no longer consider yourself independent of God’s rule over your life, but as belonging to Him, to do with you as He pleases, not as you please.

It means you give total control of your life to Jesus.  Remember those bumper stickers that read, Jesus is my co-pilot?  Tear that off.  He’s not your co-pilot; He’s your pilot.  Get in the backseat, and don’t be a backseat driver.

Speaking of being in the back seat… What do you think of driverless cars?  Google’s self-driving car is piloted by software called Google Chauffeur.  Lettering on the side of each car identifies it as a “self-driving car.”

Google plans to make these cars available to the public in 2020.

The car isn’t driverless; it’s driven by something more intelligent than you, with far better reaction time.

Jesus is like that – only to infinity, with no possibility for failure or malfunction.  It’s just so hard for some of us to sing, Jesus, Take the Wheel.

Who is at the wheel in your life?  If it’s Jesus, is He only there to steer you successfully through some danger, or crisis – after which you plan on driving again?

Self is our default pilot.  Self-driven life could be tattooed on every human being.  We need a cover-up tattoo after we get saved.  Jesus-driven is what we’re going for.

We have the example of the twelve, so let’s use it.  They thought they were on their way to positions in the kingdom.  Instead, if they chose it, they would be on their way to persecutions, and martyrdom.

One of them said “No” to discipleship.  Judas betrayed the Lord, selling Him out for thirty pieces of silver.

The rest of the boys said “Yes,” and they denied themselves.  They were reviled, beaten, imprisoned, and eventually martyred – all but John, who was exiled to hard labor on Patmos in his old age.

Do we pity them?  Do any of us think they somehow wasted their lives?  Or are we grateful for their decision to deny self for Jesus, and for the Gospel?

“Take up [your] cross,” Jesus said next.  We have cheapened what He meant by talking about certain sufferings, or burdens, as “our cross to bear.”

I’ve known wives who say that their husband is their cross to bear.

That isn’t what these words mean.  In first century Israel, execution of heinous non-Roman criminals was by crucifixion.  The condemned man would be compelled to carry part of the cross upon which he was to be crucified.

Jesus was going to be crucified, after bearing part of His cross outside the city to the Place of the Skull.

The immediate meaning, to the disciples and to the people, was that they, too, were probably going to be killed, should they choose to follow Jesus.

For multiplied millions of believers throughout the church age, it has meant just that – martyrdom for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel.  There are many accounts, in Foxes Book of Martyrs, of people being converted as a saint was being martyred, who immediately joined that saint and were themselves martyred.

Short of actual martyrdom, bearing your cross means not just that you are willing to die for Jesus if if comes to it, but that you already consider yourself a dead man, or a dead woman.

There are some advantages to approaching life as a dead person.  Nothing can hurt you if you’re dead.  You don’t have any worries or anxieties about life if you’re dead.  You won’t be controlled by your fleshly appetites either.

Is this depressing you?  It shouldn’t.  Again, I appeal to the believers who have gone before us.  The apostle Paul, right after he was saved on the road to Damascus, was told how many things he must suffer for Jesus Christ, and for the Gospel.  There are lists of his sufferings that make you cringe.

Yet he said of all his sufferings, both physical and emotional, that they were light afflictions that lasted for a moment.  We are  grateful for Paul’s choosing to deny self, and to bear the cross.

You might be thinking, “If those are the terms and conditions, there’s no way I’m clicking on Agree.”

If that’s my choice, and your choice, then it’s why we will never grow any farther.  A suffering Savior requires suffering saints.

If you’re leaning towards disagreeing, don’t decide yet.  Jesus wants to explain a few things to you about why His terms and conditions are really quite extraordinary.

#2    Jesus Defends The Profits
    Of Following Him As His Disciple
    (v 35-9:1)

If you are at all inclined to maintain your status quo as a Christian who is not a disciple; or to remain a nonbeliever; please first give careful consideration to the five things Jesus points out in our remaining verses.
Here’s the first thing to ponder:

Mar 8:35  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.

Jesus was addressing both believers and nonbelievers.  His words must therefore have impact to all who hear them.

Let’s say you are not a believer; you are by no means a Christian.  After counting the cost of following Jesus, you don’t want to lose your life for Him, but would rather live the life you have to the fullest.  You’d rather pilot your own car, so to speak.

You can do that, but it is at the peril of losing eternal life, and perishing in a place of eternal conscious torment.

Save your self-life and you lose eternal life.  It’s a terrible decision.  Yes, the Lord is making certain serious demands upon your life; but, in the long run, it’s your best choice to follow Him.

How would this same verse apply to a believer?  Well, if you live for self, you’ll certainly be forfeiting rewards when you see the Lord.  You will, in fact, suffer loss at the Reward Seat of Jesus.

Don’t shrug that off lightly.  You’re talking about looking into the beautiful but probing eyes of the Lord Who bought you at the cost of His own death on the cross.  He’s the One who has a plan for your life, to complete the good work He has begun in you.

Do you really want to be flippant about discipleship, and disappoint the Lord?  Is that the account you want to give Him?

Jesus presents a second argument:

Mar 8:36  For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

The nonbeliever who rejects Jesus, or the believer who wants to refuse discipleship, is choosing earthly things over eternal things.  The Lord puts that choice into perspective.  He exaggerates for the sake of argument, and assumes you could “gain the whole world.”

Think about it: The “world” is temporary, and is one day going to be destroyed, and there will be a new earth, and new heavens. Thus the world you gain cannot be compared to the soul you lose in the process.

What does “loses his own soul” mean?  Does it mean forfeiting salvation?

Yes – to a nonbeliever.  Your pursuit of satisfaction with the earthly will overshadow the eternal, and you will be lost forever.

If you are a believer – can you “lose your soul?”  Yes, but in a different sense.  You lose it in that you will never be satisfied with the world.  It will eventually hit you that you are falling short of the high calling God has for your life.

We can confidently say that the world cannot satisfy the believer because we have the testimony of a guy who, in effect, gained the whole world.  His name was Solomon.  He was the son of David, and Israel’s third king.

He had it all, in every earthly pursuit you can imagine.  He drinks, becomes wealthy, acquires power, buys property, experiences sexual gratification, and views artistic entertainment.  None of these experiences satisfies him.

In the end he declared it all to be vanity and realized the only true satisfaction in life comes from your submission to God.

Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:11, “… He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.”

In today’s language, we would say that people are born hardwired to sense that there is eternal life.  You can never be satisfied with earthly living, because you were made for eternity.

C.S. Lewis put it like this: “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

The third argument for following Jesus is in verse thirty-seven:

Mar 8:37  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

MasterCard hit gold with their ad campaign about things that are priceless.  It resonates with us, because deep inside, we know that  intangible spiritual things always take priority over mere material things.

The saving and the satisfying of your soul are two profitable results of your decision to follow Jesus.  It may seem as though His demands upon your life are extreme; but, in the long run, you cannot put a price on submitting to Jesus.

The fourth thing Jesus wants us to consider is in verse thirty-eight:

Mar 8:38  For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Before we talk about the profit of discipleship from this verse, stop and realize Jesus just said something amazing.  He referenced His Second Coming, His return to the earth, to judge the world, and to establish the promised kingdom.

We know exactly what Jesus was describing.  He’d be crucified, but rise from the dead.  He’d ascend into Heaven, only to return, in His Second Coming.

That coming would be preceded by a time of great trouble on the earth.  It’s prophesied in the Old Testament, called the time of Jacob’s trouble, among other things.  We know it as the seven year Great Tribulation.

Then there is the delay between the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven and His Second Coming.  We live in that delay – in the church age.

As to discipleship, and the choice to deny self and bear the cross, when Jesus returns, there will be a reckoning.  Everyone will give an account to Him.

For church age saints, this account will be given at the Reward Seat of Jesus, after our death or rapture.
For the people who must endure the future Tribulation, this account will be on the earth, at the Second Coming.

The argument here is simple.  If you refuse discipleship, you will avoid any possibility of reviling or ridicule for being a follower of Jesus.  You’ll fit in with the rest of the world, and avoid any trouble or suffering for the sake of the Gospel.

But that means you are ashamed to be identified with Jesus, or with His saints.  Thus, when Jesus comes, He will be ashamed of you.

It’s one, or the other; we can’t have it both ways.

The fifth, and final, argument Jesus puts forth for choosing discipleship is the first verse of chapter nine:

Mar 9:1  And He said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the kingdom of God present with power.”

The literal fulfillment of this prediction is explained in the verses that follow in chapter nine.  Jesus takes three of the guys with Him up a mountain, where He is transfigured before their eyes.  The veil that hid His deity from them was temporarily lifted, and He shone like the sun.

Jesus said this, however, before He was transfigured, as part of His arguments that discipleship is the only profitable choice.

BTW – I’m sure you know that when the books of the Bible were originally written, they did not contain chapter or verse references. The Bible was divided into chapters and verses to help us find Scriptures more quickly and easily.

The chapter divisions commonly used today were developed by Stephen Langton, an Archbishop of Canterbury.  Langton put the modern chapter divisions into place in around 1227AD. The Wycliffe English Bible of 1382 was the first Bible to use this chapter pattern.  Since the Wycliffe Bible, nearly all Bible translations have followed Langton’s chapter divisions.

The Hebrew Scriptures we call the Old Testament was divided into verses by a Jewish rabbi by the name of Nathan in 1448AD. Robert Estienne, who was also known as Stephanus, was the first to divide the New Testament into standard numbered verses, in 1555.  Stephanus used Nathan’s verse divisions for the Old Testament.  Since that time, beginning with the Geneva Bible, the chapter and verse divisions employed by Stephanus have been accepted into nearly all the Bible versions.

Back to Jesus’ prediction.  What does it say about discipleship?  Walking with Jesus doesn’t just mean a life of death and crosses.  It means a life of power and victory.

He would bear His cross and be crucified; but He would rise from the dead, ascend into Heaven, and be seated at the right hand of God.  He would return, as He indicated.

It’s not revealed here, but we know from the other Gospels, and from the Book of Acts, that Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit upon His followers.

The power of His resurrection is available to any and to all of His followers.  We are described as seated, spiritually speaking, in Heaven, with Jesus.

In other words, we should look at the present in light of the certainties of these future events.

It’s a common plot-point in many sci-fi stories that the person from the future bets on sporting events that he already knows the outcome.  We wish we could know the future – not simply to become wealthy betting on it, but to change it for the better.

Well, we do know the future – at least in outline form.  We can change it for the better:

We can change it for the better of individuals with whom we share the Gospel, in that they will not perish, but have everlasting life.

We can change it for the better of nations, as we call upon their citizens to “Repent!,” and seek the righteousness that exalts nations.

We can change the future in that, in a way we don’t fully understand, our living as disciples can hasten, or speed up, the coming of the Lord (according to Peter in his second letter).

I’ll close with this.  Imagine every morning, as you wake up, your first order of business (after making coffee!) is to get into God’s Word.

As you open your Bible to read, every time, this dialog box  pops-up: “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.”

It’s up to you to click “Cancel,” or “Agree.”

He Can’t See Their Foreheads For The Trees (Mark 8:22-31)

Every year in June, the Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm in Eau Clair, Michigan, hosts the International Cherry Pit-Spitting Championship.  The current record is 95 feet 6½ inches.

Cricket-spitting is part of the annual Bug Bowl at Purdue University in Indiana.  The record is 32 feet 5 inches.

Francisco Tomas Gomez won the 4th International Date and Olive Pit Spitting Competition in Elche, Spain.  He spit the pit 118 inches.

The Spanish city hosts what they call the Golden Lungs competition next to the Basilica of Santa Maria, with the world’s best spitters in this peculiar sport taking part.

Yes, it’s considered a sport by enthusiasts.  There is even a  movement to bring olive pit spitting to the Olympics.   It is being led by The Association of the Friends of Olive Trees.

They were denied by both Beijing and London.

As far as I can determine, a guy in India holds the world record for spitting spit, at 86 inches.

Jesus was a spitter.  There are three spit-tacular miracle narratives in the Gospels:

In the Gospel of John, a blind man was healed when Jesus “spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes” (John 9:6).

In Mark chapter seven, a deaf man with a speech impediment was healed when “Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears.

Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue” (v33).

In our text today, Jesus will heal a blind man by “spit[ting] on his eyes, and laying His hands on him.”

The unusual method of healing, coupled with the fact that, here in our text, the healing takes place in stages, clues us that something more is going on than the miracle of a man receiving his sight.

The healing is a kind of parable, for Jesus’ followers, about spiritual sight in general.

I’ll organize my thoughts around the following two points: #1 Jesus Opens Blind Eyes & Gives You Progressive Vision, and #2 Satan Blinds Open Eyes & Causes You Vision Regression.

#1    Jesus Opens Blind Eyes
    & Gives You Progressive Vision
    (v22-30)

All through Scripture, physical blindness is a metaphor used to represent the spiritual inability to see God’s truth.

A man who is physically blind cannot see God’s visible revelation. He can’t see the trees, and the earth, and the sky.

A man who is spiritually blind cannot see God’s invisible revelation:  Love, truth, holiness, forgiveness, eternal life, grace, joy, peace, etc.

Once we are saved, we are no longer spiritually blind; we can see.  We forget, however, that we do not see perfectly – not this side of Heaven.  Thus the healing of the blind man in two stages encourages us to follow hard after the Lord to receive progressively better spiritual sight.

Mar 8:22  Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him.

“They” are never identified.  We can’t say if “they” were friends, or family, or both.  Maybe they were strangers who, upon seeing Jesus, knew that there was a blind beggar who could benefit from His healing touch.

(I say “beggar,” even though the text doesn’t mention it, because that was the only profession for those with handicaps).

The best thing, always and in every situation, that we can do for a person is to somehow bring them to Jesus.

They “begged Him to touch him.”  If the blind man was a beggar, these men now put themselves in his place, begging Jesus.  It’s a mark of compassion.

They had a preconceived idea of how Jesus ought to minister to the blind man.

So do we, and it can sometimes lead to disappointment.  We might bring someone to Jesus, say by getting them to a service; but seemingly nothing happens.  Do your part and leave the work in the Lord’s capable hands.

Mar 8:23  So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything.

It’s been suggested that Jesus led the blind man out of town because Bethsaida was one of three Jewish cities Jesus rebuked for their unbelief.  You find His words against them in the Gospel of Matthew.  He said, for example, “Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.  But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you” (Matthew 11).

Bethsaida was under judgment for their unbelief, but even in wrath, God remembers mercy, and this blind man could be healed.

Jesus “spit on his eyes.”  Under the Law of Moses, anyone who was spit upon had to wash themselves and their clothes and were considered unclean until the evening (Leviticus 15:8).

It is a great insult to spit on someone or to be spit upon.  Jesus was spit upon as a great insult before He was crucified. (Matthew 27:30).

I have no final solution to the “why” of Jesus spitting.  It certainly wasn’t medicinal, as some suggest.

It is fascinating to consider Jesus’ possible reaction.  He was fully God, but, during His time on the earth, He voluntarily set aside the independent use of His deity, and was fully dependent upon His Father.  Spitting on this blind man must have seemed weird even to the Lord – but He obeyed.

I will say this about Jesus and spitting: It would take something ugly, something shameful, for Jesus to be able to save us.  He would have to be ridiculed, beaten, spit upon, then nailed naked on the Cross, in order to save us.

The moment I think Jesus has done something ugly, in spitting on this man, I am reminded He came to do something far uglier, for me.

Christianity is bloody.  The Cross is offensive to nonbelievers, declaring them sinners deserving of eternal conscious torment.

Having spit on the blind man, and having laid His hands on him, you’re expecting him to be healed.

Mar 8:24  And he looked up and said, “I see men like trees, walking.”

His description immediately reminds you of the Ents in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.  Although in that case you’d have to say you saw “trees like men, walking.”

As as a side note, we infer from this that the blind man once had sight, since he knew what “trees” looked like, and could distinguish “men” from them.

The “men” were most likely the twelve.

The take-away here is that Jesus began to heal his blindness.

Mar 8:25  Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly.

Fully restored, probably better than 20-20 vision.  But in two stages.  We’ll suggest why momentarily.  First, let’s finish the story.

Mar 8:26  Then He sent him away to his house, saying, “Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town.”

The formerly blind man must not have been from Bethsaida.  Jesus didn’t want him going there, and giving them a testimony, not just because they had been judged, but so they would not judge the man.

The people in the towns Jesus rebuked were far gone.  They would have torn down this man, who must have been so excited to have been healed.

If you got saved later in life, did you get ridiculed by friends and family?  Maybe you handled it alright, or maybe it stumbled you.
Jesus wanted this man to get a little grounded before he went up against the scoffers.

Why the progressive healing?  I suggested it was a kind of parable, for Jesus’ followers, about spiritual sight in general.

Salvation can certainly be compared to having been blind, then receiving sight.  We are, in fact, rescued out from the kingdom of darkness, and put into the kingdom of light.

In Acts 26:8 we read, “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.”
In Ephesians 5:8 we read, “you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.”

Our final salvation is secure, by what Jesus has done; but it is not complete, and won’t be until we see Jesus face-to-face.

Theologians put it like this:

We are once-for-all justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Because of the Cross, God can accept me just-as-if-I’d never sinned.

We are being sanctified, which means set apart, day-by-day, as we walk with the Lord.  He who began this good work in us will be faithful to complete it.

We will one day be glorified, when we shed this body of flesh for our eternal bodies.

The apostle John put it this way:

1Jn 3:2  Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Since we are a work in progress, we do not have perfect spiritual sight.  The apostle Paul said,

1Co 13:12  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

Thus I believe it is accurate to say that Jesus gives us progressive spiritual vision, until such time as we see Him face-to-face.

As you age, you may need corrective lenses to see things accurately.  Jesus, as He is presented in the Bible, functions as our spiritual corrective lenses.

The apostle Paul also said,

2Co 3:18  But we all… beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The apostle James calls the Word of God our “mirror” (James 1:23-25).  As we look into God’s mirror, we will be changed into the same image of the Lord.

Interestingly, God’s mirror is not a mirror that shows us what we look like as much as it shows us what Jesus looks like.  We want to see Jesus – His attributes, His character – in order to understand the transformation God is trying to accomplish in us.

Mar 8:27  Now Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi; and on the road He asked His disciples, saying to them, “Who do men say that I am?”

This is an immediate application of the lesson from the healing.  Jesus may as well have asked, “Who do the spiritually blind say that I am?”  We see their blindness in their suggestions:

Mar 8:28  So they answered, “John the Baptist; but some say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”

John was dead; Elijah was a forerunner, not the Messiah; “one of the prophets” was good company to be in, unless you were God come in the flesh.

You get the same crazy answers from blind nonbelievers, and the cults, about who Jesus is.  The biblical evidence is clear.

Jesus had proven Himself to be the Messiah promised to the Jews, the greater Son of David, Who would establish the kingdom of Heaven on the earth.  Staring at overwhelming evidence, the people remained willfully blind to His identity.

Mar 8:29  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”

“Christ” means anointed one.  It is the technical term used of the promised Messiah.

In another Gospel Jesus explains to Peter that he received this information by revelation from God.  Peter received spiritual sight; he was no longer among those totally blind.

Mar 8:30  Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.

Why the gag order?  Probably for lots of reasons, but the one we will see here, in the next set of verses, is that the disciples did not understand this idea of progressive sight.  Although they had declared the great truth about Who Jesus was, with Peter as their spokesman, they had a lot to learn about His mission.  They did not yet “see” Jesus going to the Cross and dying for our sins.

Soon enough, Jesus would give them the Great Commission, to go into the entire world, preaching the Gospel.  But not yet.

Any message they declared about Jesus, at this point, would be wrong, since they did not yet see Him going to the Cross.

The thing I want to emphasize, today, regarding our progressive vision is this: Am I beholding Jesus in the mirror, and really becoming a little more like Him each day?

That’s God’s simple plan until I die or hear the trumpet signal the rapture.

#2    Satan Blinds Open Eyes
    & Causes You Vision Regression
    (v31-33)

We’ve come to a pivotal moment in the Gospel of Mark.  For the first eight chapters, Jesus has been all about ministering to the multitudes, telling them the kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  He’s preached, and taught, and performed a vast quantity of miracles.  Those miracles gave sufficient evidence that He was the Messiah promised in the Jewish Scriptures that we call the Old Testament.

In verse eleven, the Pharisees demanded from Him a “sign from Heaven,” to prove that He was the Messiah.  They were not sincere.  Their request represents the national rejection of Jesus as their Messiah, and of the kingdom He was offering to establish on the earth.

From this point forward in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus will concentrate on His disciples.  He will be getting them ready, not for their positions in the kingdom, but for their persecutions as they go about preaching the Gospel to establish His church on the earth as we await His Second Coming.

Instead of Jesus ruling the earth from King David’s throne in Jerusalem, He says this:

Mar 8:31  And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Talk about a spoiler alert.  Nobody was ready for that.

The death of Christ on the Cross, and His resurrection from the dead, must always be at the heart of our preaching and teaching.

Whatever else we might say about Jesus, we cannot overlook His victory, on the Cross, over Satan and sin and death.
We must not overlook the empty tomb, which guarantees us our own resurrection from the dead to a glorified body fit for eternity in Heaven.

I like that Jesus was so straightforward.  I know that may sound silly; of course He was straightforward.  But, so often, when we are presenting hard truths, we tend to sugarcoat them a little.

Jesus didn’t say, “Guys, things aren’t going to pan-out in Jerusalem, so I’m going to a better place.”  No, He used the words “rejected,” and “killed.”

We should use plain, straightforward words, laced with compassion, when presenting the Gospel.

This was lesson number one for this new direction in ministry.  It was a very short lesson; class was out early.  Peter decided to have a little talk with Jesus.

Mar 8:32  He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.

Peter’s eyes had been opened, and he had declared that Jesus was the Christ – the Messiah.  Ask yourself: Is this any way to talk to the Messiah?  If you really understood Who Jesus was, would you be trying to correct Him about God’s plan of salvation?

It is definitely a case of partial sight.  Peter’s eyes had been opened – but we would say that he couldn’t see the forrest for the trees, in that he could not perceive what Jesus was talking about.

While we are shaking our heads, and saying things about Peter like, “open mouth, insert foot,” let me say this.  We have a tendency to repeat his error, and we do, in fact, repeat it, some of us more than others.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying we don’t acknowledge the Person and Work of Jesus, especially on the Cross.  We do.

What I am saying is that we can ignore its implications for our lives.  Look at verses thirty-four and thirty-five:

Mar 8:34  When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
Mar 8:35  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.

These verses, and those that follow to the end of chapter eight, will be our text next time we meet (Lord willing).  For now we can say that anytime and every time we do not “deny” ourselves and “take up [our] cross and follow [Jesus],” we are rebuking Him.

Anytime, and every time, we “desire to save our lives,” we are rebuking Jesus.

Anytime, and every time, I sin, or disobey God, or disagree with Him, I am rebuking Jesus.

Let’s say I’m looking into the mirror of God’s Word, beholding the beauty of the Lord.  I come across information that I should not, for example, pursue a divorce from my spouse unless I have biblical grounds for it.  But I say, “Lord, you want me to be happy, don’t you?”, and I pursue the divorce.

You’ve just taken the Lord aside, to rebuke Him.

Maybe I understand from the Word I am not to be committing sexual sin – which is a broad topic, but includes sex before marriage, or sex with someone who is not my spouse after marriage, or pornography, or homosexuality, and the like.  But I say, “Lord, my situation is unique, and, after all, you made me this way,” and I go on committing sexual sin.

You are effectively taking the Lord aside and rebuking Him.

Those are extreme examples.  Anytime, and every time, we resist the Lord, or refuse to submit to Him, we are rebuking Him.

Jesus has one, standard response:

Mar 8:33  But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

Don’t think that this means Peter was somehow possessed by Satan.  He was not.

His words would have reminded Peter of the wilderness temptation, when Satan tried to get Jesus off-task.  Jesus finally said, “Away with you, Satan” (Matthew 4:10).

In other words, whenever we rebuke Jesus, we are acting like Satan – independently, by our own will, in opposition to the clearly stated will of God.  It’s not company we want to keep, or ever be associated with.

Peter was not being “mindful of the things of God, but of the things of men.”  In context, this meant that Peter was still expecting Jesus to establish the kingdom of Heaven on the earth.

Maybe Peter thought Jesus was depressed, and needed a pep talk to keep going.  Maybe he thought all this talk of dying was an exaggeration of Jesus’ discouragement.

For whatever reason, Peter promoted his own agenda, and his own preconceived ideas about Jesus.

Peter had a lot to learn.  But learn it he would, as his vision grew progressively more accurate throughout his lifetime – especially after he received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.

He saw through a glass dimly, but clearly enough that, at the end of his life, he requested his martyrdom be accomplished by being crucified upside down, because he did not think himself worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

If you are believer, your spiritual eyes have been opened, and God is working in you to bring you to the place of perfect vision when you see His face.

You can still, however, regress, rather than make progress, in your walk with the Lord.

Perhaps another illustration that the Lord used would be helpful.  The church in Laodicea had definitely regressed in their relationship with Jesus.  Part of Jesus’ letter to them reads,

Rev 3:17  … you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ – and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked…

Were the Laodiceans nonbelievers?  Maybe; undoubtedly some were.  Some of the language and description of them lends itself to their being spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins.

Other language in the letter from Jesus, however, points to their being saved.  For example, Jesus says He will discipline them the way you discipline your own children.

I have to conclude that at least some of them were saved, even though terribly backslidden; or, as described in our context today, blinded.

The fix for a believer’s blindness is for Jesus to apply an eye salve that only He can make.  He says to the Laodiceans,

Rev 3:18  I counsel you to… anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.

The One Who offers this spiritual eye salve is the One Who used His spit, twice, to open blind eyes.

His eye salve, His ointment, is applied as we repent and turn back to Him.  Having repented, we return to beholding His beauty, and allow Him to transform us into His image, and not some image of our own independent, and therefore selfish, thinking.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Let’s Spit This One Out (Mark 7:24-37)

Her real name is Tardar Sauce, but you know her as Grumpy Cat.

Her owner says that her permanently grumpy-looking face is due to the combination of an underbite and feline dwarfism.  Grumpy Cat’s popularity originated from a picture posted to the social news website Reddit in 2012.  It was made into an image with grumpy captions, like:

“What doesn’t kill you will hopefully try again.”
“Zombies eat brains.  Most of you have nothing to worry about,” and,
“If stupidity was an illness, you’d be dead by now.”

“The Official Grumpy Cat” page on Facebook has over 8 million likes.  Grumpy Cat has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, the CBS Evening News, Anderson Live, VH1’s Big Morning Buzz Live, The Soup, and American Idol.  She appeared in a television commercial for Honey Nut Cheerios.  She also appeared on a season finale of The Bachelorette, and was a special guest on an edition of WWE Monday Night Raw.

The word ‘grumpy’ came to mind as I read the verses we will be talking about today.  On the surface, Jesus seems a little grumpy:

In the first episode, a woman comes to Jesus to ask Him to deliver her daughter from a demon.  Jesus first ignores her, then calls her a “little dog.”
In the next episode, He heals a deaf mute by spitting, either on the ground or, maybe, onto His own fingers, then touching the man’s tongue.

Was it a case of Grumpy Savior?  After all, this chapter started with Jesus and His disciples trying to get some much needed rest.  We all know how exhaustion can alter our moods.

No; Jesus was not grumpy.  Tired, yes, but never did He act out of character.

Quite the opposite – we will see His words and actions communicate God’s great love for all those who are hurting.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 Never Think That You Are Beyond The Lord’s Help, and #2 Always Know That You Are On The Lord’s Heart.

#1    Never Think That You Are Beyond The Lord’s Help
(v24-30)

There’s something we need to remember if we are going to understand how Jesus treats the woman in this passage.

While the Gospel would eventually reach the whole world, it is evident from the Scriptures that the Jewish nation would be the initial recipient of that message.  In his account of Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman, Matthew recorded that Jesus said: “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (15:24).  When Jesus sent out the twelve apostles, He told them: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans.  But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5-6).

Just before Jesus ascended to Heaven after His resurrection, He informed the apostles: “… you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).  The sequence of places where the apostles would witness give the order in which the Gospel would be preached – to the Jews first, and then the Gentiles.

In addition, the apostle Paul, in his letter to the church at Rome, stated: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (1:16).

God’s intent was that the nation of Israel would accept their Messiah, receive the Spirit, and turn-around and evangelize the whole world.

With that in mind, let’s start, in verse twenty-four.
Mar 7:24  From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden.

Jesus was still seeking rest, for Himself and His disciples.  Tyre and Sidon were outside of the borders of Israel, definitely Gentile territory.  This is the only time, at least that is recorded for us, that Jesus was outside of Israel.  He had encountered Gentiles before, but never outside of the Promised Land.

It seemed a good place for a group of Jews to be left alone to lay low for a while.

Try as He might, however, to keep His presence a secret, “He could not be hidden.”

That’s one of those phrases you can take out of a verse and write a book about.  For example, we could look back on the many efforts, throughout human history, to thwart the Gospel in an attempt to keep Jesus hidden.  We could cite, in relatively recent history, Communist China.  Closed to the West for decades, no one knew what was going on with Christians.  When China was again opened-up to the West, we discovered a vibrant underground church movement, comprised of millions of born-again Chinese.

The diabolical Chinese communist party could not keep Jesus hidden.

Mar 7:25  For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet.

Jesus could not be hidden, and word of His presence spread, but only this one mother sought Him out.  I can’t help but wonder what Jesus might have done if more of the locals came to Him.

It’s the same today.  We’re not hiding Jesus; but the majority of the population in our town isn’t seeking Him out – and that includes too many believers.

Yes, God is omnipresent; you don’t have to be with other saints to experience Him.  But Jesus is depicted, in the Revelation, as walking in the midst of gathered believers.  He attends our meetings in a special way that we should no so easily dismissed.

Writing to the Corinthian church, the apostle Paul assumed they would meet often, saying things like, “whenever you come together” (First Corinthians 14:26).  It was in those meetings that God the Holy Spirit ministered through each saint as they exercised their gift or gifts for the building-up of the others.

Then there is the powerful, and direct, exhortation, from the writer to the Hebrews, which says,

Heb 10:25  not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

We are here; we believe, at least for today, that we ought to gather with other believers, to meet with Jesus, and to be used by Him to minister to one another.  It’s encouraging.

Mar 7:26  The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

“Greek” in this context means she was a Gentile, which is a word to describe all non-Jews.   More specifically, she was a Phoenecian, from the region of Syria.

She was not a convert to Judaism, but was a straight-up pagan.  She was definitely not the kind of person Jesus was sent to as Messiah.

“Kept asking” indicates Jesus was ignoring her request.  Here is where people start getting stumbled, suggesting Jesus was harsh in His dealings with her.  Let’s wait to have an opinion until we see this play out.

BTW: Whatever you are going through, or will go through, avoid any bad opinion of God and wait for it to play-out.  It may not finally play-out until after you go to be with the Lord.  God is not, after all, on our timetable.  It’s therefore always advisable to default to what you know about God – that He is merciful, forgiving, gracious, powerful but also patient.  It’s what faith does – believing what you know to be true despite what you are going through – because you do not see all the threads pulled together.

We’ve been pointing-out, every time we encounter a demon in the Gospel of Mark, that demonic possession was at a fever-pitch when Jesus was on the earth.  There was an invasion of demons, as a strategy of Satan’s to oppose the ministry of the Son of God.  Not so much before He came, if the Old Testament is any indication.

We’re also suggesting that we see far less demon possession today because Jesus is ascended, and Satan has so many other, more effective, strategies for robbing, killing, and destroying.

Mar 7:27  But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”

Taken at face value, this might sound harsh.  It’s not; in fact, it’s very tender.

A key word, overlooked on account of all the concern about the reference to “little dogs,” is the word, “first.”  It would have ignited hope in the woman’s heart.  “First” is not a word of refusal.  Jesus wasn’t saying “No,” but He was saying “Wait.”

I said earlier that Jesus was sent to the Jews “first.”  The Gospel was also for the Gentiles – for all non-Jews, but in God’s timing.

Jesus put the woman’s request in the context of a household.  The characters He introduced were “the children,” and “the little dogs.”

“The children” are the children of Israel, the Jews, the nation of Israel.
“The little dogs” are Gentiles – all non-Jews.

I’ve always read that Jews might sometimes derogatorily refer to Gentiles as “dogs.”  There is far less proof of that than is necessary to form a conclusion.  While it’s clear Jews kept separate from Gentiles, we should not accuse them of slandering them without sufficient evidence; that would be a form of anti-Semitism.

There is a word for “dogs” that describes the mongrel dogs, with no owners, that prowled the streets; mangy, vicious, rabid creatures that you’d throw stones at, or scare off with sticks.
Jesus used the word, “little dogs,” which means pets.  Far from the despicable creatures called dogs, these were beloved pets, so much so that they were in the house, romping with the children.

Mar 7:28  And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.”

Johnny Carson had quite a few mannerisms, and bits, that are now legendary in the world of comedy.  In his nightly monologue, he would frequently say, “It was so cold,” then pause.  It was a cue to the audience to shout out, “How cold was it?,” after which he would deliver the punch line.

Jesus’ words to this woman begged a response.  He gave her an opening to say what needed to be said, so He could then deliver the spiritual punch line.

She understood what Jesus was saying.  In this answer the woman was letting Jesus know that she understood His mission as Messiah to the Jews.  But she also understood His ultimate mission to both Jews and Gentiles as the Savior of the world.

She didn’t take offense, and say, “Who You callin’ a dog?”  No, she humbled herself, and threw herself upon the mercy of God.

Nonbelievers, especially, get too easily offended by the sayings of Jesus, and of the Bible in general.  The Bible declares every human being a sinner.  Jesus upheld that description by preaching repentance.  It offends people, who think they are more good than they are bad.

We ought rather to agree with God, because the person who understands they are a sinner will seek a Savior, and find there is only one – Jesus.

Mar 7:29  Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”

This could be translated, “go your way; for with the blessing of this word, the devil is gone out of your daughter.”  Using that translation, the words, “this saying,” refer to the word Jesus spoke, and not to her answer.

It’s clear she had faith, and that she answered profoundly.  But we don’t want to give the impression that there are any hoops to jump through in order to be saved.  Jesus’ encounter with this woman had far-reaching theological importance; it wasn’t typical.

Truth is, when a person first comes to Jesus Christ, they know very little.  But that’s OK, because you don’t need to be able to pass a spiritual test in order to throw yourself on the mercy of God.

The daughter was immediately delivered, exorcized from a distance.  Again, it’s important we point out that Jesus was not bound to any method of casting out demons.

Today, we need to not be bound to our own ideas of what must take place in order for God to act.  We tend to think this way more than we suppose.

In the end, the Syro-Phoenecian woman’s example to us is faith coupled with humility which trusts Jesus to act according to His Word.
Some of you are thinking, “Why isn’t Jesus answering my prayer?”  “If He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why am I stilling struggling?  Still suffering?”

I believe that set of concerns to be the biggest stumbling-block nonbelievers have when considering the claims of Jesus Christ.  And it is a huge problem for Christians.

The answer lies in understanding the times in which we live.  Jesus came to the Jews first – but He was rejected.  He did not stay on the earth to establish and rule His kingdom.  He ascended into Heaven, promising to come again.

In the mean time, in the in-between age in which we live, His power and glory are being revealed not through multitudes of healings and other such miracles.  No, instead He has told us that His power and glory are revealed in our weaknesses.

We still need faith coupled with humility which trusts Jesus to act according to His Word.  But, most of the time, what we receive from Him is grace sufficient for the predicament we are in.

C.S. Lewis once said, “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

You are never beyond the Lord’s help.  You just need to recognize the kind of help He is giving you.  Most often it is His strength to go through the trial; it is taking a walk with Him through the valley of the shadow of death.

#2    Always Know That You Are On The Lord’s Heart
(v31-37)

It was the spit that was watched around the country.

In the mini-series, Roots, Missy Anne’s carriage stops at the Moore plantation, and Missy Anne demands a cup of water from Kizzy.  An aged Missy Anne does not recognize Kizzy until Kizzy reveals her identity to her.  In the past, Missy Anne had not stopped Kizzy from being sold to a cruel, abusive plantation owner.  Missy Anne pretends not to know Kizzy, who turns her back and angrily spits in the cup of water she then gives to Missy Anne to drink.

Jesus is going to spit as part of His healing of a deaf mute.  Gross or grace?  Let’s see.

Mar 7:31  Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.

“Decapolis” was the name given to an area involving ten cities.  It’s similar to us using the phrase Tri-Cities or Tri-State to refer to three cities or states.

The Lord was back in Jewish territory.  How much rest He and His boys got remains an unanswered question.

Mar 7:32  Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.

It’s hard to formulate a complete diagnosis.  He was deaf, for sure; but just exactly what his “speech impediment” was, we don’t know.  Some suggest that, since he was deaf, it impeded his speaking.  After all, if you can’t hear yourself, it’s difficult to form words.

Others suggest he may have suffered from a physical condition, e.g., tongue-tie.

His friends did the talking, begging Jesus to “put His hand on Him.”

Obviously they wanted the man healed, but they asked in a way that suited their own understanding.  They didn’t ask Jesus to heal him, but to “put His hand on him.”

Do we ever ask Jesus for help, but sort of phrase it as if we want it a certain way?  Sure; it’s all too common.

Jesus had no specific method for performing healings – or any other miracles.  He might put His hand on a person; He might not.  Nobody puts Jesus in a box.

Well, we try to; but we shouldn’t.  “Have Thine own way, Lord,” ought to permeate our prayers.

Mar 7:33  And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue.
Mar 7:34  Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”

This guy’s friends had done the talking, but now Jesus takes him aside, away from everyone, to have a conversation with him.  It immediately validates him as a person, showing him that Jesus cares for him personally.

Jesus invented a spiritual sign language for the occasion:

Jesus “put His fingers in his ears,” signifying He was going to open his closed ears.
Skip the spitting for a moment, and next we see that Jesus “touched his tongue,” signifying He was also going to give him the ability to speak.
“Looking up to Heaven” signified the true source of the healing.
Skip the sighing for a moment, and next Jesus says, “Be opened,” which are the first words this man had ever heard – validating everything Jesus said He would do.

Jesus signed the healing, and I think that’s pretty cool.

We might say that Jesus met this guy right where he was at.  The Gospel is a universal message, adaptable to any culture, and any time in history.  God meets folks where they are at – without watering-down the message.

OK, so what about the spitting?  I don’t know, but let me suggest something for your consideration that I think both fits the context, and portrays Jesus in a tender, compassionate light.

What if the man’s speech impediment were tongue-tie?  According to the Mayo Clinic,

Tongue-tie (ankyloglossia) is a condition present at birth that restricts the tongue’s range of motion.  With tongue-tie, an unusually short, thick or tight band of tissue tethers the bottom of the tongue’s tip to the floor of the mouth.  A person who has tongue-tie might have difficulty sticking out his or her tongue. Tongue-tie can also affect the way a child eats, speaks and swallows, as well as interfere with breast-feeding.

Another website, dedicated to tongue-tie, mentioned the following:

Salivary profusion due to inadequate coordination of swallowing during speech becomes both visually and auditorily obvious.

That is a nice way of saying you will drool and spit.

Why would Jesus spit?  If this man suffered from tongue-tie, and had “salivary profusion,” at that moment, spitting was a way of saying, “I identify with you.”  It was a way of letting the man know that Jesus was touched by his infirmities.

Maybe you don’t think healing him from tongue-tie is a big miracle.  That’s OK; there are a slew of other, more serious, conditions that can cause increased saliva.

I’m trying to show how what seems a little gross to us is really grace.  Besides – He took the guy aside, privately, before He spit.

This line of reasoning fits with the other word we skipped, where it describes Jesus by saying, “He sighed.”  It’s a word that means a deep, unutterable groaning in Jesus’ spirit.  It’s a perfect word to let us know how deeply Jesus cared for this man.

Jesus had never met him before… But He had created him in his mother’s womb.  His life of spitting and suffering were not unknown, nor overlooked, by the Lord.  He carried this guy on His heart and, when they were one-on-one, Jesus sighed, signifying His own reaction to the sufferings of the human race.

The Lord knows you; He formed you.  He knows your tears; in fact, He has them saved, in a special bottle, in Heaven.

When Jesus sees your suffering, there’s a sigh within Him.  How can He not cry for you, even as He wept for Lazarus, and at the coming destruction of Jerusalem?

It’s not quite time for Him to return to the earth.  There is a time of trouble coming first, preceding His Second Coming, to reach out one last time to the lost.

But make no mistake: He is coming, and when He does, we will be coming with Him, having previously been resurrected from the dead or raptured while yet alive.

And then there will be no more tears for us, or Him.  All our sighs will be shouts of great joy.

Mar 7:35  Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.

One, two, three; just like that.  No therapy to learn speech patterns, or to recognize sounds.  Complete wholeness.

We ought to strive for excellence in serving the Lord.  His works are excellent, and He is our example.

That doesn’t mean we need the very best of everything – only that we make the best of everything we’ve got.  While God will use whatever we offer Him, we should strive for excellence.

One of the ways Christians are portrayed are as builders – as spiritual builders.  Most of us have some contact with builders – with contractors.  Do we want to hire one who just gets the job done?  Or one whose work is excellent?

How much more should we build for the Lord.

Mar 7:36  Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it.

I know it’s wrong to say this, but I can’t blame these guys.  Of course you’re going to tell people.

Jesus’ frequent instruction to folks He’d healed, to keep quiet, highlight that He believed His primary ministry to be preaching and teaching – not miracles.

Mar 7:37  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

These were among the specific signs that the Messiah would perform, to give evidence to His identity.  There could be no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was the One who was long ago promised in the Scriptures.

You’re never beyond the Lord’s help; you’re ever on the Lord’s heart. Stand, in His all-sufficient grace, and rejoice in Him always.

Inside Man (Mark 7:1-23)

Lunch with friends, after church, sounds fun, but should you be concerned about the folks who are preparing your food?

About 3,000 Americans die every year from food-borne diseases, and more than 120,000 are hospitalized.  Recognizing that restaurants and delis are the source of more than half of food-borne illness outbreaks, health specialists for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) went inside the kitchens of hundreds of restaurants across ten states, including California, to determine which practices could be making people sick.  Here are three of their findings:

Nearly two-thirds of restaurant workers who handle raw beef aren’t washing their hands afterward.

More than half said they had worked a shift while sick.

Twenty percent said they were vomiting or had diarrhea on at least one shift, and twelve percent indicated that they had those symptoms for at least two shifts.

That’s OK, you say, because you’ll go to the doctor if you get sick.  Another study, this one reported by WebMD, said upwards of one-half of doctors don’t wash their hands between visits with hospital patients.

In general, after using the bathroom, you’ll be happy to know that only one out of every ten people don’t wash their hands.

However, only five percent of those people wash their hands properly, using soap and washing for 15 to 20 seconds, about as long as it takes to sing “Happy Birthday.”

Lunch at home never sounded better.

I’ll tell you who you could trust to wash their hands, and that was the Pharisees and Scribes in the first century.  They followed elaborate, meticulous, hand washing rituals before every meal.

You might still get sick, however, because the kind of hand washing they practiced was not for hygiene.  It was ritual and ceremonial.

They washed their hands to show how spiritual they were.

One day the Pharisees and Scribes caught Jesus’ disciples eating without first practicing ritual hand washing.  They thought they finally had something actionable with which to accuse Him and undermine His popularity among the common people.

Boy, were they wrong.  Jesus took their accusation and turned it against them.  He labeled their rituals “the traditions of men,” and showed how they are a hypocrisy that leads to a false sense of spirituality, and to outright disobedience.

His great summary comment, a true life principle, is, “There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man” (v15).

We need to have ears to hear because, while we may scorn ritual hand washing, we tend towards our own “traditions of men,” and we need to be certain they are not a hypocrisy that leads to a false sense of spirituality, and to outright disobedience.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two questions: #1 How Much Do You Consecrate External Things?, and #2 How Much Do You  Concentrate On Internal Things?

#1    How Much Do You
    Consecrate External Things?
    (v1-13)

An old Pentecostal jingle warns you, “Don’t smoke; don’t chew; and don’t date the girls that do!”  Is that a true measure of spirituality?

We appreciate the biblical wisdom of Charles Spurgeon, called by some, the Prince of Preachers.  He was no fan of going to the theater.  He wrote,

As I look abroad, I am grieved and have great heaviness of spirit at what I see among professing Christians.  A very serious matter concerns the amusements engaged in by professing Christians.  I see it publicly stated, by some who call themselves Christians, that it is good for Christians to attend the theatre, so that the tone and character of the productions may be improved.  The suggestion is about as sensible as if we were bidden to pour a bottle of lavender water into the main sewer to improve its aroma.

Spurgeon’s critics pointed out that he probably said that while indulging in a habit of his own – smoking a fine cigar.  I’m not sure if it’s true, but the way I heard it, Spurgeon once said he would quit smoking if his habit became obsessive.  When asked to define ‘obsessive,’ he said, “Smoking more than one cigar at a time.”

Another story is told about Spurgeon meeting the great evangelist, D.L. Moody.  It goes like this:

Moody went to London to meet Spurgeon, whom he had admired from a distance and considered to be his professional mentor. However, when Spurgeon answered the door with a cigar in his mouth, Moody fell down the stairs in shock.  “How could you, a man of God, smoke that?” protested the great American evangelist.

Spurgeon took the stogie out of his mouth and walked down the steps to where Moody was still standing in bewilderment.  Putting his finger on Moody’s rather rotund stomach, he smiled and said, “The same way you, a man of God, could be that fat!”

Was Moody less spiritual for being overweight?  Was Spurgeon more spiritual because he had no prohibition about smoking?

The answers to those questions are intensely personal.  They could only be answered by Moody and Spurgeon letting God search their hearts for the true motivations behind their practices.

The thing we want to see today, from the words of Jesus, is that nothing external defiles you.  What that means, practically, is that we need to stop thinking that we, and others, are either more spiritual, or less spiritual, because of some outward practice.

Although this teaching can be applied to liberties like eating and drinking and smoking, it especially has to do with rites and rituals that people think make them more spiritual than others.

Drawing from my own experience, I’d cite the rites and rituals of Roman Catholicism.  I was infant-baptized.  I went to Catechism Classes.  I said my first Confession, then partook of Communion.  I participated in Confirmation.

None of those externals rites and rituals had any effect upon my heart – except, sadly, to make me think I was going to Heaven when I most certainly was not.

When I was born-again by trusting Jesus to save me and forgive my sin, my heart was transformed.  I then would experience water baptism, confession and communion in the ways the Bible sets forth – as a part of my relationship with Jesus, and not as a religious practice.

Mark 7:1  Then the Pharisees and some of the scribes came together to Him, having come from Jerusalem.

This was an official fact-finding mission.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to call it a fault-finding mission.
The religious leaders of Israel had voiced their displeasure with Jesus.  They were trying to find a reason, or reasons, to accuse Him.

Their cred was that they “came from Jerusalem.”  These were guys who had climbed the ladder and were deemed superior to their peers.

It might make a difference in the secular world where your degree was issued, but not with regard to the Gospel.  Having a larger group you minister to, or being in what seems to be a more influential position, doesn’t really mean you are more spiritual.

Alan Redpath used to tell pastors, “God spoke through a donkey in the Old Testament, and He has spoken through many a donkey since then.”

Mark 7:2  Now when they saw some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that is, with unwashed hands, they found fault.

They were watching their every move, to find fault.

Like it or not, if you profess to be a Christian, people watch you, and it is often to find fault.  On the one hand, it is reasonable for them to assume that knowing Jesus makes us different.  It really should.  As to how different, and what I do and do not do, that’s between you and the Lord.  But I’d add that my liberty to do or not do something should be subordinate to causing others harm.

On the other hand, we are all works in progress, and there is plenty of fault still to be found in each of us.

“Unwashed hands” has a special meaning, which Mark explains in verses three and four.

Mark 7:3  For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding the tradition of the elders.
Mark 7:4  When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other things which they have received and hold, like the washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.

Notice Mark says that “the Pharisees… do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way…”  He is describing a religious ritual way of rinsing your hands, a ceremony, that the Pharisees burdened the people with.  An early Jewish document reads,

Hands become unclean and are made clean as far as the wrist.  How so?  If [you pour] the water over the hands as far as the wrist and [pour] the second water over the hands beyond the wrist and the latter [water] flowed back to the hands, the hands…become clean.

It would be more accurate to call this a hand rinsing.  Your hands would not necessarily be hygienically clean, but they would be ritually clean.

It spilled-over to the ritual washing “of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches” – with everything associated with eating.  You couldn’t eat without first rinsing your hands and your utensils in a special, ritual way.

We frequently criticize the disciples for their lack of spiritual insight.  But notice that “some of [the] disciples [ate] bread with…unwashed hands.”  They were growing in fellowship with the Lord – leaving behind the burdens of religion for the blessings of relationship with Jesus.

The Pharisees, looking to accuse Jesus, wasted no time.

Mark 7:5  Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

They honored the Scriptures – what we would call the Old Testament – as the Word of God.  But there was also the oral law, which was the interpretation of influential rabbis, in addition to the Word of God.

In the matter of ritual hand washing, in the Scriptures, God commanded the priests to ritually wash before serving Him.

The rabbi’s came along and suggested that if it was good for the priests to wash, wouldn’t it be good for everyone?  Wouldn’t it be pleasing to God?

Apparently not, based on the answer Jesus is going to give them.

Mark 7:6  He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
Mark 7:7  And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
Mark 7:8  “For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men; the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”

Hypocrisy describes the stage actor wearing a mask to portray his or her character.  Traditions of men are a mask that do nothing to affect the person wearing it.  They are nothing more than an act.  You learn lines of dialog that mean nothing.

That was true of me with every religious ritual I performed growing-up.  I memorized ritual prayers, and responses, like an actor wearing a mask, and playing a role.

Outward practices cannot affect the inner person.  There must be a change in the heart first, then a change in behavior consistent with the precepts and principles taught in God’s Word.

Once you begin to establish rites and rituals that add to the Scriptures, the next step is to allow them to overrule the Scriptures.

Mark 7:9  He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.
Mark 7:10  “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’
Mark 7:11  “But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”; ‘ (that is, a gift to God),
Mark 7:12  “then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother,
Mark 7:13  “making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

The fifth commandment demands your continuing responsibility for the elderly, and especially your own parents.  But that requires sacrifice.

Instead of sacrificing to help their needy parents, the Jews had developed a tradition that you could dedicate your money to God – making it unavailable to anyone else – even your parents.  You didn’t, however, actually give your money to God; you kept it.

Thus you appeared spiritual by the keeping of the added, outward tradition, while you were disobeying a clear command from the Bible.

Christians have a reputation for spending a great deal of their time consecrating external things.  It may not be fair, but most nonbelievers know us for what we don’t do, for what we are against, rather than what we do, and what we are for.

Make it a goal to try to change that.

The point to make here is this: We can’t improve upon the Bible by adding our own, more restrictive, rules, rites and rituals.  It can only backfire, and make us actors on a stage.

#2    How Much Do You
    Concentrate On Internal Things?
    (v14-23)

Spurgeon wouldn’t have gone to see the Pixar film, Inside Out.  The film is set in the mind of a young girl named Riley Andersen, where five personified emotions – Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust – try to lead her through life.

Jesus is going to take us within the mind, or what we call the heart.  What He finds residing there, in each of us, is far from Pixar.

Mark 7:14  When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand:
Mark 7:15  “There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man.
Mark 7:16  “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Like all over-used expressions, I’m tired of ‘garbage-in, garbage-out.’  It’s a true assessment, however, so why does Jesus seem to contradict it?

Jesus wasn’t saying that there are not defiling things that we can take in to ourselves.  There are, and we all know that.  It’s why even nonbelieving parents care about what their kids watch and hear.

Jesus was pointing out that no matter how much ritual religion you practice, defilement is already present in your heart – resident in you heart.  You need help that a ritual, like hand washing, cannot provide.

Mark 7:17  When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable.

It was a “parable” in that Jesus was using eating and digestion as an illustration of a spiritual truth.

Mark 7:18  So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him,
Mark 7:19  “because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?”

Jesus mildly rebukes His boys.  They ought to be getting some of this, by now.

I mentioned earlier that a Christian is a work in progress.  A key word in that is ‘progress.’  I should be growing, maturing.  I should be getting more of what the Lord is teaching me.

The parable was perfect.  Our food goes right through us, having no effect on the heart.  Ritual washing makes no difference.

The further conclusion, and this was revolutionary to Jews, is that you can eat anything you want.  By saying “purifying all foods,” Jesus was declaring everything Kosher.

My Jewish friend, go get a bacon burger.  Just make sure the food server washed his or her hands – but for hygiene, not holiness.

Mark 7:20  And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man.
Mark 7:21  “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
Mark 7:22  “thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.
Mark 7:23  “All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

This is no Pixar movie; this is X-rated stuff.  While these words can describe outward actions, Jesus says they are things in our hearts – whether we ever perform them or not.

He started with “evil thoughts.”  William Barclay said, “every outward act of sin is preceded by an inward act of choice; therefore Jesus beings with the evil thought from which the evil action comes.”

“Adulteries [and] fornications” are the sinful sexual thoughts of both the married and the unmarried.

“Murders” is the anger we find in our hearts.

“Thefts” is the desire we have to steal.  Before you say you have no such desire, I should point out that this word describes things like laziness on the job, which robs your employer; and squandering your resources, which robs God.

“Covetousness” is the desire to possess someone else’s property, or even their spouse.

“Wickedness” is devising evil plans, whether you carry them out or not.

“Deceit” includes all kinds of lying.

“Lewdness” is ignoring moral restraints and imagining immoral actions.

“An evil eye” is jealousy and envy.

“Blasphemy” is defamation of character, railing, slander, scornful and insolent language directed against another person, whether it be addressed to him directly or spoken behind his back.

“Pride” is thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to.

“Foolishness” is disregarding the wisdom of God.

It should be obvious that no amount of ritual hand washing – or any observance of days or diets – can effect these pre-existing inward defilements.

That’s a good way to understand what Jesus was saying. Because we are the descendants of original parents who sinned in the Garden of Eden, we have a pre-existing condition, a sin nature, that expresses itself the way Jesus described it.

We need transforming from within.  We need not heart surgery, but a new heart, a new nature.

We get it when we trust Jesus to save us.  We become partakers of His divine nature; God the Holy Spirit comes to live within us.  We are empowered to say “No” to the things listed here, and elsewhere, that are left-over in our flesh, and to say “Yes” to God.

There is something intensely practical in Jesus’ description that we can miss because of translation.  It’s implied in the word “thoughts.”

“Thoughts” can be translated dialog, or debate.  Jesus was describing a self-dialog or, if you will, talking to yourself.

If you don’t like the idea of talking to yourself, I guess we could say it means thinking.

What do you think about?  All the things Jesus listed, and many other evil things, remain in your heart, in your mind, after you are saved, and you can easily default to them.  They were your original operating system, so it can feel comfortable to indulge them.

Outwardly you read your Bible, you pray, you attend church, you serve the Lord.  That’s great – but those can be mere outward rituals, no better than hand washing, if you’re thinking is evil.

Donald Grey Barnhouse wrote a book called The Invisible War.  In it he described, among other struggles, the battle for your mind, and that battle is vicious.  It is intense.  It is unrelenting.

Jay Adams wrote a book, calling our inner struggle The War Within.

There’s a battle, a war, within us, as believers.

But it is winnable.  In Second Corinthians 10:5 we’re commanded to, “take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

“Captive” means to control, to conquer, to bring into submission.

“Obey” means to bring into submission, to bring under control.

You are in a winnable war, but you’ve got to realize, once and for all, the real battleground isn’t in your outward behavior; it’s in your mind.

I’ll close with this quote from Adrian Rogers:

If we stay in love with the Lord Jesus Christ, there won’t be any room for those filthy, dirty, wicked, lascivious, lustful, prideful thoughts that bombard us all.  You see, God made us so that we can’t think two thoughts at one time. If we’re thinking what’s right, we can’t possibly be thinking what’s wrong.

I Go Out Walkin’ After Midnight (Mark 6:45-56)

Keep Calm & Carry On is the slogan that refuses to die.

In the year 2000 an old poster was discovered at Barter Books in England.  It was a Keep Calm and Carry On motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for the Second World War.  The poster was intended to raise the morale of the British public, threatened with widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities.

Although 2.45 million copies were printed, and although the air attacks did in fact take place, the poster was hardly ever publicly displayed.

Now it’s everywhere as a slogan, as folks substitute almost anything for Carry On.
There are so many variations I won’t give you examples, or we’d be here all day.  It’s likely someone near you is wearing a Keep Calm t-shirt.

I’m pretty sure Jesus wasn’t wearing a Keep Calm & Carry On t-shirt, but it would have been appropriate for His walk on water to come to the aid of His disciples struggling in the storm.

Mark’s account, undoubtedly given to him by eye-witness passenger Peter, stresses how absolutely freaked-out the disciples were.  He says of them, “they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled” (6:51).

This wasn’t a good kind of marveling, because you immediately read, in the very next verse, “for they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened” (6:52).

Am I sure that my heart isn’t hardened?  Do I understand about the loaves – and other spiritual things?  Those are great questions to ask and answer.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two other questions: #1 Has What You’ve Learned About Jesus Penetrated Your Heart?, and #2  Does What You’ve Learned About Jesus Preside Over Your Heart?

#1    Has What You’ve Learned About Jesus
    Penetrated Your Heart?
    (v45-52)

It should stun you to hear said of the disciples, “their heart was hardened.”
They had been with the Lord for quite some time, and had witnessed many miraculous things.  They had, themselves, been empowered to perform miracles.  Yet their hearts were somehow hardened.

Keep that in mind as we work through the verses, because, if their hearts were hardened, then so can ours be.

Mar 6:45  Immediately He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while He sent the multitude away.

The other Gospels that record the aftermath of the feeding of the five thousand tell us that the people wanted to make Jesus their king, right there and then.

Instead, Jesus “made His disciples” leave, by boat; and He dismissed the crowd.

Shouldn’t He ride this wave of popularity and establish Himself as a bonafide leader?

No.  There was too much work yet to be done – mostly in His disciples.  In just a few hours they would be screaming like little girls, thinking Jesus was a phantom.  They were nowhere near ready to co-reign the kingdom of Heaven on the earth.

Neither were the people ready to be His subjects.  They were there for physical and material prosperity – not to repent and receive spiritual wholeness from Jesus.

Besides that, the leaders of Israel would reject Jesus, leading to the postponement of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Mar 6:46  And when He had sent them away, He departed to the mountain to pray.

Jesus had an incredible spiritual work ethic, if we can call it that.  This chapter started with Him taking His disciples on a retreat to get some R&R.  They’d been working so hard that they could not even find time to eat.  But when they got to the retreat center, a deserted place, a huge crowd had gathered.  Jesus and the twelve apostles personally ministered to their needs, culminating with bringing each person a meal.

More exhausted than when this all began, Jesus thought the best refreshment would come from all-night spent awake talking to His Father in Heaven.

We can’t be sure exactly which “mountain” it was, but it involved some sort of ascent.  He had to climb, contributing even more to His exhaustion.

If Jesus’ work ethic seems extreme, we could take a look at the apostle Paul, and see the same fervor to serve.

If it’s rest you think you need, and time away from serving God’s people, you might consider spending it in prayer.

Mar 6:47  Now when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea; and He was alone on the land.

This reads like a movie script, giving the actors their cues just before the director calls, “Action!”  Besides Jesus on the mountain, and the disciples on the sea, we would say that the devil enters the scene, kicking up a violent windstorm to oppose the progress of the boat, and to threaten the lives of the twelve.

Commentators are almost unanimous in seeing this as a picture of the age in which we live:

Jesus has ascended, not to a mountain top to pray, but to Heaven, where He ever lives to intercede in prayer for us.

We are not in a ship, but we are in the church, sent out to minister to spiritually needy people everywhere.

The world is in turmoil, partly on account of the devil, who is called the God of this world.

Mar 6:48  Then He saw them straining at rowing, for the wind was against them. Now about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea, and would have passed them by.

I cannot emphasize enough how tired these guys must have been.  They started out exhausted, then put in a full day, with overtime.  Now we see that, at about 3am, they were rowing with all their might to try to get to the other side.

Ever feel like you’re just spinning your oars?  Worse than getting nowhere, you’re actually in danger, too?

You can be there, and be right where God wants you.  That is why it is so important to listen for, then follow, God’s leading.

Whatever else they might have wondered, the disciples on that boat, in that storm, could be certain they were exactly where the Lord had sent them.

Mark says, “He saw them.”  It would seem that Jesus watched them for some time, struggling against the wind and waves.  Moved as He always was with compassion, I’m sure Jesus wanted to give them immediate aid.

Don’t you think He prayed for them?  Don’t you think He asked His Father to calm the storm?  Of course He did; but still the Father waited.

Finally, “about the fourth watch,” 3am, the Father sent Jesus to them.  That is something in itself.  Jesus, you’ll remember, was also exhausted from the previous day’s activities.  He’d climbed a mountain.  He’d been up all night.

Now, instead of His Father letting Him calm the storm from a distance, or miraculously rapturing Him over to the boat, He sends Him on foot.

Down the mountain, to the shore, to the water… Then walking on the water, against the wind, up one wave and down the next, in the light of the Passover moon.

O, how He loved them.  O, how He loves you and me, that He would walk, not just on water, but into and upon the storm.

The words “would have passed them by” are a poor translation and need explaining.  D. Edmond Hiebert writes,

Would is more literally “wished” or “desired,” while have passed by is “to come alongside of.”  As Jesus approached the boat, He deliberately changed His course so that He would come alongside the boat, following a parallel course with it.  Obviously, His intention was that the disciples should recognize Him and ask Him to come into the boat with them.

Mar 6:49  And when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed it was a ghost, and cried out;

Jesus did not look at all like a ghost.  Yet when they saw Him, their first thought was that it couldn’t be Him; in fact, they reasoned it could not have been any living person.  It must therefore be a ghost – a phantom of some kind.

It was too much for them to think that Jesus could walk on water.

Mar 6:50  for they all saw Him and were troubled. But immediately He talked with them and said to them, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.”

Not one among them held a contrary opinion.  They all believed it was a ghost and “were troubled.”

Jesus spoke to them – words of comfort, to alleviate their terror.

Mar 6:51  Then He went up into the boat to them, and the wind ceased. And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled.

The indication is that, at once, the wind stopped, and the sea was like glass.  Another Gospel reports that they immediately found themselves on the shore, at their landing site.

Something to note is that Mark omits the part where Peter asks to go out and join Jesus on the water, only to sink after a few steps.  It’s interesting because Peter is the person who gave Mark the material for this Gospel.

There’s no use speculating as to why the story was omitted.  We can note that the Holy Spirit is a good editor.  He knows what He wants said, and what He does not want said.

It’s an encouragement for us to trust Him to edit our telling or teaching of the Gospel, keeping to the facts most essential, getting to the point.

As I said earlier, the words “amazed,” “beyond measure,” and “marveled,” add up to they were freaked-out.  The next verse is a commentary on why they were so freaked-out.

Mar 6:52  For they had not understood about the loaves, because their heart was hardened.

I got a kick out of the commentators I read this week discussing this verse.  They all were quick to criticize the disciples for their lack of understanding about the loaves.  But the commentators go on to say that they don’t know exactly what Mark meant, either.

The place to start would be with “because their heart was hardened.”  Whatever that means, it is the reason why they misunderstood about the loaves.

I think we can dismiss the usual culprits for hardening their hearts, which are sin and stubborn disobedience.  The disciples weren’t in sin; and they were not disobeying the Lord.

No, they were obeying His every command.  It’s what got them out at sea, in the storm.

Another way of describing something as being hard is to say it is difficult to penetrate.  I think that is the idea here.  Spiritual things were not penetrating the disciples hearts.

Why not?  One commentator described it as “a neglect to ponder and meditate on Jesus’ glorious works.”
Simply put, the disciples were not meditating upon, they were not pondering, what Jesus’ works meant beyond their immediate effect.

I don’t care for the word “mediate.”  It’s a perfectly good word, but it has taken on occult connotations.

Ponder is OK, but it doesn’t seem serious enough.  Reflecting might be a better word.  It indicates a thoughtful remembrance of things you’ve heard or experienced.  It is a purposeful pause to put what you’ve learned or experienced into perspective.

Had they reflected, they might have been brought to a spiritual understanding that, if Jesus could do such a miracle as multiplying the loaves, it would be nothing for Him to get them through the storm.  They may not have expected Him to come to them walking on water, but it would not have thrown them into terror.

Out in the middle of the sea, as the wind blew contrary and got ever stronger, and as the waves threatened to overwhelm them, it would not be too much to think that they could have remained calm, knowing that Jesus would do something to get them to their destination.

Let me give you an example of how reflecting upon the loaves might have penetrated their hearts.  Before Jesus fed the multitude, Mark mentioned that He looked upon them as “sheep not having a shepherd” (v34).  Clearly Mark intended for us to see Jesus as their shepherd.

BTW: Peter would later, in his letter, call Jesus the “Shepherd… of your souls” (First Peter 2:25).  Apparently he had reflected upon experiences like the feeding of the five thousand and had seen their spiritual significance.  When relating the story to Mark, he had him add this key insight.

Then Mark told us that Jesus had the people sit down “on the green grass” (v39).  Mark is the only Gospel writer who supplies this fact.

It means that it was near Passover on the Jewish calendar.  But, upon further reflection, something else emerges.  If you put the people being told to sit down on green grass together with the idea of a shepherd and his sheep, what might that remind you of?

It reminds me of the twenty-third psalm, where it says of the shepherd,

Psa 23:1  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Psa 23:2  He makes me to lie down in green pastures…

I’m not saying that this is the only thing the disciples could have understood, by reflecting.  It’s one example of how spiritual truth, upon reflection, could have penetrated their hearts.

To finish out this line of thought, that amazing, popular psalm – which all these Jewish boys would know by heart – goes on to say,

Psa 23:4  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me…

I’m not a surfer or a sailor, so I had to look this up on an oceanography site.  When describing waves, the wave crest is the highest part of the wave, and the wave trough is “the valley between wave crests.”

A little reflection and at least one of the guys on that boat might have made the application that Jesus – their Shepherd – would be with them, some way, somehow, in those “valleys of the shadow of death” at sea.

Hence the question for us, Has what you’ve learned about Jesus penetrated your heart?

Your heart, and my heart, can remain hardened, to a certain extent.  Not necessarily by sin, or by stubborn disobedience, but by a lack of reflecting – a lack of interacting with the Word of God in such a way that I ask what it means to me.

Geno made an insightful comment at our Men’s Fellowship this week.  We’re in the Book of Acts, in the chapter where the apostle Paul makes a Nazarite vow.  Commentators have a field day with it, mostly criticizing the great apostle for somehow compromising.

Here is the comment: “Rather than ask, Should Paul?, we should ask, Would I?”

The Book of Acts wasn’t written so we could criticize Paul, but so we could grow in the Lord, and we do that, at least in part, by reflecting.

#2    Does What You’ve Learned About Jesus
    Preside Over Your Heart?
    (v53-56)

These verses may seem an afterthought, but they wouldn’t if you were one of the people who were healed or delivered.

Mar 6:53  When they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret and anchored there.

I have to say it.  It’s something every Bible teacher is almost obligated to point out.  They “crossed over,” they didn’t cross under.  No matter how contrary the winds, or how violent the waves, there was no way they were going to go under.

I also feel an obligation to point out that you can’t always claim that promise.  Some ships sink.

The apostle Paul was in a violent storm at sea.  The Lord told him what was going to happen, and Paul related it to the crew and passengers.  He said, “we must run aground on a certain island” (Acts 27:26).

That shipped was broken-up by the wind and waves, and the people on board floated on wreckage to Malta.

You might find yourself in a storm God will stop, or you might find yourself in one that destroys your ship.  The Lord remains your Shepherd, and you need fear no evil.

Mar 6:54  And when they came out of the boat, immediately the people recognized Him,

The prophet Isaiah says that the Messiah would be an ordinary looking Jew.  There was nothing spectacular about Jesus.

The people “recognized Him” because He had been there before, working among them.

Go about the work of serving others, in obscurity, and they will come to recognize Jesus in you.  In their time of need, they will seek you out.

Mar 6:55  [the people] ran through that whole surrounding region, and began to carry about on beds those who were sick to wherever they heard He was.

Jesus was moving from place-to-place in the region.  “Which way did He go?” must have been repeated many times that day, as folks tried to ascertain His location and destination.

Those too ill or infirm to get to Jesus on their own were graciously carried to Him, at great discomfort for the care-givers.

Mar 6:56  Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched Him were made well.

Once before, a woman with a twelve-year bleeding problem had tried to sneak-up on Jesus, to touch the hem of His garment.  When she did, she was completely healed, but the Lord knew what she had done.

In this visit to Gennesarat, this method of healing was used.

The Gospels record something like thirty-to-forty individual healings Jesus performed.  He also did mass healings, like the ones recorded here.

There is no one method, or mechanism, for His healings.  There’s no divine formula.  Jesus healed in a variety of ways, by touch and from a distance, precisely so we wouldn’t be able to identify a pattern and think we could do the same.

Does God heal today?  Absolutely.  Does He always heal?  No.

When Jesus was on the earth, it was a unique time.  One of the evidences that He was the promised Messiah and Savior of the world was His ability to perform miracles of healing.  When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus if He was the Messiah, Jesus said, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Luke 7:22).

A funny thing happened on the way to establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.  Jesus was rejected by the leadership of Israel.  The kingdom was postponed, and it awaits Jesus’ Second Coming to the earth to establish it.

Mean time, in the church age, although the Lord can and does heal, He is glorified most often as people see His strength in our weakness.

His answer to our prayers for healing, for ourselves and others, is most often the answer He gave the apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (Second Corinthians 12:9).
The gifts of God have not ceased.  All of them – including healings – are for today.  But it should be clear we are living in a very different dispensation than when Jesus was physically present on the earth.

I’ve recently been using the example of demonic possession to make the point that there are different dispensations.  Indulge me if you’ve already heard this.  People wonder why, today, we see so few cases of demonic possession.  As if that’s a bad thing!  They conclude that we’re not looking with the eyes of faith – that there are demons all around us, just waiting to be exorcized – some even (they argue) from believers.

Are we really that spiritually dull that we cannot see demonic activity?  I don’t think so.

There doesn’t seem to be a single case of demonic possession in the entire Old Testament.  Then, Jesus comes, and it seems there was a veritable invasion of demons – legions of them oppressing and possessing folks.

Could it be that was the devil’s strategy to oppose the incarnation?

Today we see very little possession, and I say it’s because the devil has adopted new, better, more effective strategies.

It is not a denial of spiritual gifts to recognize the nature and character of the times in which we live.

Mark showed us Jesus, moved with compassion, feed a multitude.  He shows us Jesus, still moved with compassion, move among a multitude, healing them.

Does the compassion of Jesus preside over your heart?  Is it a constant motivation for you – the desire to help others, especially by exposing them to the Gospel?

I think it is, but that we can have hard hearts for lack of effort in  reflecting upon the Lord.

The Holy Spirit is here; we’ve got some time.  Let’s pause to reflect upon the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ.