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.

Compassionistas (Mark 6:30-44)

You may be among those who have chosen your ‘word’ for 2016.

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, in a twist on the classic New Year’s Resolution, it’s being suggested that you choose a single word as either a goal to achieve, or a guide for your life.

Is there is a single word that captures what you would like to manifest in your self, or in your life, in 2016?

If you can’t think of one, maybe ‘help’ should be your word.

Whether you’ve already chosen your word, or you think this is all what Chuck Smith would call “hooey,” I have a word to suggest, one that is applicable for all of us.

It is compassion.

It is a great word for a Christian because it was so characteristic of Jesus.  Charles Spurgeon said this:

“He was moved with compassion” is said of Jesus several times in the New Testament.  The original word is a very remarkable one.  It is not found in classic Greek.  It is not found in the Septuagint.  The fact is, it was a word coined by the evangelists themselves.  They did not find one in the whole Greek language that suited their purpose, and therefore they had to make one.  It is expressive of the deepest emotion; a striving of the bowels – a yearning of the innermost nature with pity.  I suppose that when our Savior looked upon certain sights, those who watched Him closely perceived that his internal agitation was very great, His emotions were very deep, and then His face betrayed it, His eyes gushed like founts with tears, and you saw that His big heart was ready to burst with pity for the sorrow upon which His eyes were gazing.  He was moved with compassion. His whole nature was agitated with commiseration for the sufferers before him.”

Now, although this word is not used many times even by the evangelists, yet it may be taken as a clue to the Savior’s whole life.  If you would sum up the whole character of Jesus in reference to ourselves, it might be gathered into this one sentence, “He was moved with compassion.”

Here is another way to stress this word.  In the game, Password, you give your partner a one-word clue to the word you’re trying to guess.  If you were playing Bible Password, the clue “compassion” should elicit the word “Jesus” on the very first try.

Since “Christian” means “Christ-like,” then compassion should characterize us too.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 When You Look At Jesus, You See Compassion, and #2 When People Look At You, They Should See Compassion.

#1    When You Look At Jesus
    You See Compassion
    (v30-34)

I initially thought the Spurgeon quote had gone too far.  There must be other words that better characterize Jesus.

But as I thought about it, I had to agree that compassion, if not the best word, is in the top three.

Jesus Christ has pitied mankind, and had compassion on us, from eternity past.  He was moved with compassion to come as a man, to resolve the issue of our sin by dying on the Cross.

In that sense, compassion includes, and is the motivation for, all of His work on our behalf.  It is a main heading under which we could put His incarnation, His perfect life, His substitutionary atonement, His resurrection, His ascension into Heaven, His Second Coming, and every other good word and work of His on our behalf.

Saving us was not some mechanical, theological assignment for Jesus.  It was motivated by, and sustained by, His compassion.

We pick up the story as the twelve disciples of Jesus return from having been sent out two-by-two preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, and delivering folks from demons.

Mar 6:30  Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught.

We would call this a debriefing.  We need to be more prone to, and more open to, analysis of our walk with the Lord, and of the ministry.  What worked; what didn’t work.  Where did we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, and where did our flesh get in the way.  What was the fruit.

We need to be less sensitive to critiquing and more serious about our commission.

I’m not talking about criticism, but critiquing.  Evaluating, with the Bible open, and hearts filled with the Holy Spirit.

This is the first use by Mark of the word “apostles.”  We sometimes say that there were apostles with a capital ‘A,’ and apostles with a lower-case ‘a.’

The first century, capital ‘A,’ Apostle met the requirements set out by Peter in the Book of Acts when he said they must be, “men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us…” (1:21-22).  Obviously, there are no men that meet that requirement outside of the early church period.

Apostle with a lower-case ‘a’ means a messenger or an ambassador.  We are all apostles, in that sense, but to avoid confusion, we should not use that as a title.

Mar 6:31  And He said to them, “Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.” For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.

I can’t blame the people for not leaving them alone.  I mean, if there was any chance for a miraculous healing or deliverance, they had to go for it.

Jesus invited them to an apostle’s retreat.  Imagine the flier: “Come to rest and eat, with your very special guest speaker, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Sign me up!  Except it would turn out to be a working retreat.

I know we need rest, but, as the saying goes, there will be plenty of time for resting when you’re dead.  Now is a time to work, and not get weary in your well-doing.

Let me be clear.  I’m not against R&R, but it can’t always be counted on.  Ministry happens on God’s time table, not ours.

Mar 6:32  So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.

This was the first recorded Christian Ministry Cruise.  You see those advertised all the time – cruises with your favorite Bible teachers.

Only this one that the apostles were on was in a smelly fishing boat, with no accommodations.  And they weren’t headed to the Mexican Riviera, but to “a deserted place.”

Mar 6:33  But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him.

Usually the shortest route is a straight line, but, in this case, the people were able to run along the shoreline, keeping the Good Ship Jesus in their sight, and thus beat Him to His landing.

Think about this crowd for a moment.  The people who were coming to Jesus, at least the majority of them, were ill, infirm, afflicted.  Many must have been advanced in age.

Jesus and His guys could see them from their boat.  That was the view from their stateroom, as it were, on this cruise.

It was a pathetic sight.  Lame men and women doing their best to run to Jesus, probably tripping over one another, pushing each other, and falling.  People carrying their friends and family, doing their best to run to Jesus.

Some of you, for reasons that escape me, watch the PBS hit series, Downton Abbey.  One of its main characters, John Bates, walks with a limp.  Comedian Jimmy Fallon parodies Downton Abbey, and in his version, Bates has an incredibly heavy iron prosthetic.  It takes him forever to drag himself across a room.

It’s hilarious as a parody, but not in real life.  Seeing a multitude of people dragging themselves, or being carried along, or limping, to see Jesus ought to evoke a response that is far from humor.
There’s really only one proper spiritual response, and here it comes.

Mar 6:34  And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.

Mark’s perspective is that Jesus is the One true Shepherd of mankind, and we are all like sheep who have gone astray.  Most commentators say that Peter provided Mark with the source material for his Gospel.  You can see that here, because Peter once said of Jesus, “for you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (First Peter 2:25).

Mark emphasized that Jesus “began to teach them many things.”  The greatest need the multitude had was the message Jesus went about proclaiming – repentance from sin, and faith in Him.

The greatest need a person has is always spiritual.  Keep that central as you determine if, when, and how to meet physical needs.

All of us have, from time-to-time, been especially moved by some awareness of the tragedy of the human condition.  Maybe you’re watching TV, and suddenly one of those ads airs, that show the terrible plight of third-world children.  You’re moved by it, deeply affected, and, maybe, you even act upon that compassion by sending support.

Jesus was moved like that, only in a much deeper way, all the time, from the beginning of time.  With His insight into the human race, and His hindsight and foresight, He saw the greatest need in each heart, and wanted to meet that need.

BTW – He sees your need right now.  He’s not done being moved with compassion for you.

#2    When People Look At You,
    They Should See Compassion
    (v35-44)

Jesus was taking His guys on a retreat for a little well-deserved, and much needed, R&R.  Compassion dictated a change of plans.

Meditate on that statement: Compassion dictates a change of plans.  It could be a change of plans for a day or for a season.

It could dictate a change of plans for your entire life and it’s work.

The apostles needed to learn more about compassion.  They had some – but not the Jesus kind.  So the Lord schooled them on it.

Mar 6:35  When the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late.
Mar 6:36  Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat.”

We are so used to criticizing the apostles that we overlook their efforts.  Give the guys some credit.  They were, in fact, thinking about the needs of the multitude.  The people needed to eat and, recognizing their need, they suggested a dinner break.

Unless you are some kind of high-functioning sociopath, you have compassion.  It’s part of what it means to be human.  It’s just that your compassion needs Jesus to perfect it.

Mar 6:37  But He answered and said to them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?”

Jesus suggested a much different scenario for showing compassion.  The first principle of compassion immediately emerged.  It is captured by one word – the first word Jesus spoke to them.  “You.”

Compassion is all about you getting involved, personally.  Now, that can mean a lot of things.  Take the example I used before of the needy third-world kids.  You can get involved by supporting one or more of them; or by adopting a third-world child; or by going to serve them on the mission field.

Or you might be moved, but nevertheless do nothing because you are led by the Holy Spirit to be showing compassion in other ways, to other people.

There is a lot of suffering in the human race, and we can’t all do everything, or the same thing.  Being a Christian isn’t like having a well-rounded spiritual portfolio that must include certain things, like a third-world kid.  Let God direct your compassion.

Having said that, there still needs to be “You” involved showing compassion to someone, somehow, somewhere.

Mar 6:38  But He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”

The second principle Jesus taught them is that God expects you to start meeting the needs you see by marshaling whatever resources you have.

This is important, because one of the things that kills compassion is the argument that the needs are so overwhelming we might as well do nothing.  Just the opposite is true: The needs are so overwhelming, we need to do something.

Think of Jesus, and His coming to save us, motivated by His compassion.  I hate to refer to it, because it is so unbiblical, but there’s a great lyric in Jesus Christ Superstar that says,

Every time I look at you
I don’t understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
You’d have managed better
If you’d had it planned
Now why’d you choose such a backward time
And such a strange land?
If you’d come today
You could have reached the whole nation
Israel in 4BC had no mass communication

Think of the massively overwhelming needs of billions of human beings born dead in trespasses and sins from the time of Adam forward.  Moved with compassion, Jesus came, but in the first century.  He talked, for example, with a woman at a well.  On paper, it would seem not even a drop in the bucket.

Jesus did what He could, for a short three-and-one-half years, and God multiplied it exponentially to the salvation of perhaps billions through the centuries.

What do you have?  It’s yours, by the way.  Most of the time, when discussing material things, we say that everything you have comes from, and therefore belongs to, the Lord.

However, the apostle Peter, when talking to Ananias and Sapphira about their donation to the Jerusalem church, said,

Act 5:4  While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control?

It gives us a different take on our possessions.  They are ours, to distribute as liberally, or as frugally, as we choose.

Make sure you are distributing the portion God puts on your heart, and don’t fall into the trap of thinking your portion is insignificant.

Mar 6:39  Then He commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass.
Mar 6:40  So they sat down in ranks, in hundreds and in fifties.

It seems as though they sat in semi-circles, on the grass, starting in rows of fifty, then expanding to rows of one hundred.  Think amphitheater, only without benches.

I guess the first thing I’d say about this is that Jesus fully expected God’s power to be on display, and He readied for it.

Expectation and readiness go hand-in-hand.  If you expect God to work, you will be ready, and if you’re ready, God can work.

An example of this is how we have restructured our end-of-service on Sunday morning.  We expect God to speak to us, therefore we leave time, at the end, to reflect on what He has said, or is saying.

We have men up front, ready to pray, expecting that God is going to prompt folks.

Life can become spiritually mundane – at home, at work, at school, even in church – to the point you lose a sense of expectation and, therefore, are no longer ready by preparing for God to do something.

Ask the Lord – today – what He wants you to do to be ready for Him to act.

Mar 6:41  And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all.

Jesus thanked His Father, then He kept breaking the loaves, and distributing the fish.  It just kept coming.

It was a miracle, but that doesn’t mean we need a miracle to see God do things like that by His power today.  A good example would be Operation Christmas Child.

You know, the ministry of Samaritan’s Purse, where you fill a shoebox and send it, with the Gospel, to a third-world child.

Do you know how it started?  Dave Cooke, a father of four from Wrexham, North Wales, saw the horror of abandoned children in Romanian orphanages on TV news, and was moved with compassion.  He asked friends to help fill a truck with toys and drive it to Romania.

Overwhelming response from local people raised $85,000.  On December 12, 1990, a convoy of vehicles, including trucks donated by local companies, left for Romania with seventeen local volunteers.  Among the aid on the convoy were the first gift-filled shoeboxes.  On their return the volunteers vowed to continue the work.

Fast forward:  Since then, Operation Christmas Child, has collected and delivered more than 124 million gift-filled shoeboxes to children in more than 150 countries and territories.

More than 500,000 volunteers worldwide, with more than 100,000 of those in the United States, are involved in collecting, shipping, and distributing shoebox gifts.

More than 4.7 million children have participated in The Greatest Journey, Operation Christmas Child’s follow-up program that is offered to many children who receive shoebox gifts.  The Greatest Journey is implemented through a global church network to help children learn how to know and follow Jesus.

Is that a miracle?  No; it’s the power of God operating through people of God who are moved with compassion.

Skip ahead to verse forty-four.

Mar 6:44  Now those who had eaten the loaves were about five thousand men.

Five thousand of them were men – meaning there were women and children who were not counted.  This multitude was minimum five thousand people, and maybe double or even quadruple that.

For the sake of easy math, let’s put the number at twelve thousand – one thousand for each of the twelve apostles of Jesus to personally serve.

Some of you have waited tables.  How long, and how hard, to wait on a thousand people during the dinner rush?

Compassion is hands-on.  You need to get personally involved.  It’s not just about the money, or the support.  It’s why, when someone comes with an idea, we immediately think that God might want them to implement it.

I wonder if the crowds furthest back thought the food would run-out before it got to them.  That happens today, does it not, at soup kitchens and rescue missions.

Does that mean God isn’t able to provide?  It can mean a lot of things, but never that God somehow lacks sufficiency, or can’t help.  There’s usually a lesson for us when there seems to be a lack, and we should seek the Lord to reveal it.

Sometimes the lesson is to learn to be content in want, to learn how to be abased.  Those are also mercies from God, even if they are severe mercies.

We like to say, “Where God guides, God provides.”  The lack of provision can be a tell that God is not in it – and that we should be seeking Him for what we should be pursuing.

Back to verse forty-two.

Mar 6:42  So they all ate and were filled.

They were glutted; they couldn’t eat any more.  It reminds us God desires to be generous, and that He is somewhat extravagant in His gifts.

Would you describe your compassion as generous and extravagant?  If not, why not?  Your salvation is both generous and extravagant.  Any ministry that flows from it should be, too.

Mar 6:43  And they took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish.

The “baskets” were packs carried by each apostle to hold provisions.  Think backpack or man-purse.

This episode started with the fact that they were so pressed upon by the people that they had no time even to eat.  They retreated for a meal, but the people followed them, and pressed upon them all the more.

Then Jesus fed five- to twenty-thousand people without the apostles getting so much as a mouthful.

It is the consummate principle, the pinnacle, of Jesus’ lesson on compassion: You are here to serve, not be served.

That’s what Jesus did – serve, not be served, and gave His life as a ransom for you.

God met their needs by giving each of them a basket of left-overs.

Are you OK with that?  Serving others first, and settling for what is left over?

I think you are, because that is what it means to be a Christian.  We just need to be reminded of it from time to time, because, unlike Jesus, our compassion can falter and fail.

In Lamentations 3:22-23, we are told, “the LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; Great is [His] faithfulness.”

The apostles had compassion – they just needed Jesus to guide and empower it.

You have compassion.  Ask Jesus to guide and empower it.

One final, but important, commentary.  We said that when Jesus was moved with compassion, He preached the Gospel to the multitude.

The most compassionate thing you can do is share the love of Jesus Christ with sinners.

You can do more, by meeting physical and material needs.

But nothing is more compassionate than a concern for the eternal souls of those you live with and among.

If you are sharing Christ, His Gospel, others ‘see’ His compassion – whether they realize it or not.

Dirty Dancing (Mark 6:14-29)

Growing up, one of my favorite shows was Get Smart.  It followed the madcap adventures of secret agent Maxwell Smart, also known as 86, who worked for the good guys, CONTROL, against the bad guys, KAOS.

In addition to introducing the world to the shoe phone, the show created quite a few catch-phrases that are still thrown around today:

After causing yet another disaster for the Chief, Max would offer this apology: “Sorry about that, Chief.”

When agents of KAOS would call his bluff, Max would offer another, more unbelievable one, by saying, “Would you believe…”

When he found himself in a dangerous situation, Max would exclaim, “And loving it.”

My favorite catchphrase was, “Missed it by that much,” used when one of his schemes miserably failed.

Reading our text today, we encounter King Herod, and the thing that strikes me the most are the squandered opportunities he had to receive salvation.  You could summarize it by saying he “Missed it by that much.”

Why did he miss it?  We will see forces from within him, and surrounding him, that exerted pressure against the Gospel, that eventually hardened Herod’s heart to God’s love and amazing grace.

Those same pressures exist today, exerting their destructive influence on the nonbelievers you know.

Those same pressures can still trip-up believers, if we are not cautious.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 Falsehoods Exert Pressure On You To Disobey God, and #2 The Flesh Exerts Pressure On You To Disobey God.

#1    Falsehoods Exert Pressure On You
    To Disobey God
    (v14-20)

How many Herods were there, anyway?!

The first of the Herods in the Bible is often known as “Herod the Great” and is the one who sought to kill Jesus by slaughtering all the infant boys.

The son of Herod the Great was Herod Antipas (or Antipater).  He is the Herod we will be talking about.

Herod Agrippa I was the grandson of Herod the Great. It was he who persecuted the church in Jerusalem and had the apostle James, the brother of John and son of Zebedee, put to death by the sword.

Agrippa’s son, Herod Agrippa II, had dealings with the apostle Paul.  He was instrumental in saving the apostle Paul from being tried and imprisoned in Jerusalem by the Jews who hated his testimony of Jesus as the Messiah.  Agrippa, out of consideration for Paul being a Roman citizen, allowed Paul to defend himself, thereby giving Paul the opportunity to preach the gospel to all who were assembled.

After Agrippa II, the family fell out of favor with Rome.

Herod Antipas – called King Herod by Mark – wasn’t a king at all; he was a tetrarch.  The word tetrarch signifies someone who governs a fourth part of a kingdom.  His father, Herod the Great, divided his large kingdom into four parts and bequeathed them to his sons, an action confirmed by the Roman senate.

Emperor Augustus denied the title “king” to Herod Antipas.  Goaded by his ambitious wife, Herodias, Herod pressed for the title again and again until he so offended the emperor that he was dismissed as a traitor.

He was a wanna-be king.  In that respect, Herod is a good example all nonbelievers.  We are born sinners, separated from God.  We wanna-be king, at least in our own lives, but we end up slaves to the god of this world, the devil.
When we last saw Jesus, He had sent out His twelve disciples, two-by-two, to teach and to perform miracles.  Word of their activity reached King Herod.

Mar 6:14  Now King Herod heard of Him, for His name had become well known. And he said, “John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.”

It’s important we don’t pass over the fact that “King Herod heard of” Jesus.  There are at least two important truths in that observation:

The first is that, even though the work was being done by His disciples, Herod heard of Jesus – not them.  In other words, they were ministering to people in a way that brought glory to the Lord, and not to themselves.
Second, the fact Herod had heard of Jesus establishes something we can overlook since he was such a bad character, and that is that Herod heard the Gospel and could have been saved.

In fact we will see multiple opportunities, precious opportunities, for Herod to repent and receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

God is all-about saving people.  The most wicked people are no exception.  Jesus died for them, too, and you’d be surprised if you knew the extent of God’s efforts to reach them.

You might recall Manuel Noriega, the military dictator of Panama from the 1950’s to about 1990.  At some point after he was removed from power, he became a Christian.

Evangelist Luis Palau reported that the only things in his prison cell were an exercise bike, a cot and a table with a Bible resting on it.  And all this once-evil man could talk about was what God had done in his life while in solitary confinement.

Mark decided to catch-up his readers on the plight of John the Baptist.  Herod proposes that Jesus is John risen from the dead.  We haven’t read about his death, but Mark’s original audience already knew that Herod had John imprisoned and executed.

Mar 6:15  Others said, “It is Elijah.” And others said, “It is the Prophet, or like one of the prophets.”
Mar 6:16  But when Herod heard, he said, “This is John, whom I beheaded; he has been raised from the dead!”

We tend to read this as if Herod and company are superstitious morons.  Truth is, people still suggest all manner of false identities for Jesus:

Jehovah’s Witnesses say that Jesus is actually Michael, the Archangel.  They say He was the first creation of God.  He came to Earth as a man, died on a stake, and rose from the grave invisibly as a spirit.  Jesus then returned invisibly to Brooklyn, NY, in 1914 to head-up the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.

Mormons (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) teach that Jesus is the spirit brother of Satan.  He was once a human being like you and I, but through good works he evolved spiritually to become a god.

Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy say that Jesus was only a man and that Christ is a Divine idea.   Furthermore, Jesus never did any supernatural miracles; he simply showed people their mental illusions of sin, evil, illness and disease.

All these, and many others, are doctrines of demons – falsehoods that have kept, and are keeping, billions from seriously searching the Scriptures to see that Jesus is God come in human flesh.

Falsehoods are a mighty weapon in the spiritual warfare for the souls of men and women.  You all probably know someone who dismisses the claims of the Gospel by referring to some false idea.

Herod executed John, and there’s quite a sordid backstory.

Mar 6:17  For Herod himself had sent and laid hold of John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife; for he had married her.
Mar 6:18  Because John had said to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”

God’s Law prohibits adultery and incest.  By marrying “his brother Philip’s wife [Herodias],” Herod was guilty of both sins.

John preached the repentance of sins.  The message of repentance is missing in many contemporary evangelical churches.  A recent scientific research survey came to the following conclusion about those born from the 1980’s til about the year 2000, called Millennials.

Millennials… do not feel guilt and shame the same way older generations do.  As such, they do not respond to what one person referred to as ‘fire and brimstone scare tactics.”  Telling them that they are sinners and need to repent does not work.  Millennials respond to evangelism that tells them the world is [broken], and it is only through Jesus that it can be fixed.
Was that the message of John the Baptist?  Was that the message of Jesus?  How about the apostles?

I’m not saying that our methods can’t or should not change. They can and should.  But we cannot tamper with the message.

Stick to the message – repentance and faith.  The Gospel is a universal message for the problem of sin.  It’s applicable in any culture, to any status, to all levels of intellect, to every generation, to everyone, everywhere.  It’s timeless and it is the power of God unto salvation.

Mar 6:19  Therefore Herodias held it against him and wanted to kill him, but she could not;
Mar 6:20  for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just and holy man, and he protected him. And when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.

You’ve heard the phrase, “Don’t kill the messenger.”  Trouble is, people DO want to kill the messenger.

All the time, in the news, there are stories about the efforts of nonbelievers to silence the Word of God.  There’s always some City Council, or public school district, that is being sued for having “in God we trust” on its property, or some such thing.  It’s all an effort to kill the messenger, in a legal sense.

We’re blessed to still live in a place where they are not able to literally kill the messenger.  I think some would, if they could.

John was imprisoned, and his cell was right there in Herod’s house.  The indication is that Herod and John dialogued, speaking often.

Not only that, Mark says Herod “did many things, and heard [John] gladly.”  The Gospel was stirring Herod’s heart.  It was “glad” news that motivated certain behavioral changes.

It’s going to turn out that the Gospel wasn’t falling on good soil, but don’t discount its effects so quickly.  God is not willing ANY should perish, and that included Herod; it even included Herodias.

Not everyone will be saved, but we need to remind ourselves that everyone is a candidate for salvation.

Herod’s and Herodias’ are all around us; often in positions of worldly power.  We see in this story that even though he was bound within a prison cell, God’s servant never wavered from the main message.

John was the person with real power – not the wanna-be King or his wicked wife.

#2    The Flesh Exerts Pressure On You
    To Disobey God
    (v21-29)

There’s a good description of sinners in First Corinthians.

1Co 6:9  Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?…

“Unrighteousness” is a word that describes the typical nonbeliever.  He or she has no right to stand before God.  We are all born separated, spiritually, from God, dead in our trespasses and sins.

The apostle Paul next describes how sinners behave:

1Co 6:9  Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
1Co 6:10  nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

That’s quite a list of sins.  It isn’t exhaustive; it is representative.  If I think about my life BC – Before Christ – a lot of those words characterized me.  Sadly, if we are honest, even after getting saved, we find those things lurking in our flesh, rising up when we let them, to our spiritual detriment.

Whether you are a nonbeliever given over to such things, or a believer who willingly gives yourself over to them, Herod and Herodias will show you how awful, and how evil, the flesh can be.

I guess we should pause and give a working definition of what the Bible means by “the flesh.”  Scripture uses the term in a morally evil sense to describe man’s unredeemed humanness.  It is that remnant of the old man which will remain with each believer until each receives his or her glorified body.  It is a predisposition to satisfy the cravings we find still operating within us in sinful ways.

We may struggle to properly define the flesh, but, if you are a believer, you immediately know what I’m talking about.  The apostle Paul put it this way:

Rom 7:18  For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it.
Rom 7:19  For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want!
Rom 7:20  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.
Rom 7:21  So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me.

It’s far worse than you think, your flesh.  It looks like this sordid party that Herod threw for his birthday.

I guess what I’m saying is this: I might think I’m only giving-in a little to my flesh, but it has the potential, once unleashed, to become a full-blown destruction.

Mar 6:21  Then an opportune day came when Herod on his birthday gave a feast for his nobles, the high officers, and the chief men of Galilee.

Herod had been given many amazing opportunities to be saved.  Imagine having a personal audience with John the Baptist.  Herod let those opportunities pass, and so the flesh found opportunity to destroy him.

It started off innocently enough as a birthday party, but it quickly got out of hand.

Mar 6:22  And when Herodias’ daughter herself came in and danced, and pleased Herod and those who sat with him, the king said to the girl, “Ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you.”

This was a men’s only event.  After they were good and drunk, Herod called for the dancing girls.  Think strip club.

To his surprise, Herodias sent out her own daughter, who commentators say was pretty young – certainly still in her teens.

Stop for just a minute.  Seriously, Herodias?  You sent your teen daughter to strip for a stag birthday party?

Don’t lose sight of the point we are making: your flesh, left unchecked, is capable of all manner of evil.

Herod could have put a stop to this before it got out of hand.  Instead, one compromise led to another, and another, until he blurted out, “Ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you.”

That’s a stupid thing to say.  Think of it in a spiritual sense, and it makes perfect sense.  Here’s what I mean.  When we start giving-in to our flesh, we may as well be saying to our flesh, “Ask me whatever you want, and I will give it to you.”

Don’t get to that point by giving in.  You can say No to your flesh, and Yes to God.

Mar 6:23  He also swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, up to half my kingdom.”

Drunk, overcome by lusts, Herod was completely ruled by his sinful passions.

People give their testimonies and it can almost sound as if there was something to be admired about how drunk they were, or how stoned they got, or the extent of their debauched activities.

Think of your flesh with Herod in mind.  Whenever you give-in to it, no matter how slightly, it’s on a par with Herod being drunk and lusting after his wife’s teen-aged daughter.  It’s ugly and perverted.

Mar 6:24  So she went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask?” And she said, “The head of John the Baptist!”

Had Herod simply obeyed God’s Law, he would never have found himself in this terrible plight.  Don’t commit adultery with Herodias and you never get to this.

Don’t host a kegger and you won’t be compromised by getting drunk.

God gives us rules as boundaries for our own good.  We break them at our own peril.  Grace will abound, if we will turn to the Lord; but we must never sin so that grace will abound.

Herodias wanted John dead right then.  She called for his execution as the big finale to the party – so that Herod would not be able to change his mind.

The flesh always wants to be satisfied right now.

Mar 6:25  Immediately she came in with haste to the king and asked, saying, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.”

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  I don’t think Herodias was sending her daughter to Sunday school.  She was teaching her to strip, and she was ready as a young teen to do so.

Mar 6:26  And the king was exceedingly sorry; yet, because of the oaths and because of those who sat with him, he did not want to refuse her.

John preached repentance.  Herod was “exceedingly sorry,” but that was not repentance.  Repentance leads to a turn-around in behavior.

Herod gave in to peer pressure.  It’s a powerful force the devil wields against us, for us to conform to this world.

Mar 6:27  Immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded his head to be brought. And he went and beheaded him in prison,
Mar 6:28  brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and the girl gave it to her mother.

The phrase, “I want his (or her) head on a platter” is a too-common idiom in the English language.  Let’s retire it, because it derives from this sordid episode.

I’d like to know how this ended.  Did the guests applaud?  Did they disperse quietly?  What did Herod say to Herodias after he sobered?  What did Herodias do with John’s head?

In the end, it doesn’t matter.  The aftermath could not have been positive.  Their flesh had brought a terrible destruction into their household.

However, don’t forget the opening verses of this story.  After the fact, Herod was hearing about Jesus.  After all this, he still had opportunity to be saved.

Mar 6:29  When his disciples heard of it, they came and took away his corpse and laid it in a tomb.

Bad news travels faster.  Good for these guys, risking themselves to give John a proper burial.

Who was really dead?  John was in Hades, in the Paradise compartment called Abraham’s Bosom, awaiting the death and resurrection of Jesus.  After that, he would accompany all the righteous saints to Heaven, to await the Lord’s Second Coming.

Herod was dead.  Herodias was dead.  They were dead in their trespasses and sins, separated from God.  Should they die in that condition – and we can be pretty certain they eventually did – they, too, would find themselves in Hades.

But their address in Hades was not Paradise.  It was punishment.  They are there still, awaiting the end of the Lord’s future thousand-year Kingdom of Heaven on the earth.  After it ends, they – along with the unrighteous dead from all time – will be raised to a judgment of their sin.  Having rejected the Gospel, their names will not be found in the Book of Life.  They will be cast alive to be in eternal conscious torment in the Lake of Fire.

When we started to discuss the flesh, I read a passage from First Corinthians.  Let me read it again but with it, what comes next.

1Co 6:9  Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
1Co 6:10  nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
1Co 6:11  And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

God finds you in verses nine and ten but puts you in verse eleven when you receive His Son, Jesus Christ.

Your sins were as scarlet, but because Jesus died for them on the Cross, you are white as snow.

You are sanctified, meaning set-apart, from the world, to serve the Lord.  A big part of being sanctified is having, within you, God the Holy Spirit, so that you can always overcome the flesh.

You are “justified” means that not only are you not guilty, but you’ve been declared righteous by God, Jesus having taken upon Himself your sins, and giving you, in exchange, His righteousness.

Falsehoods abound, and, if anything, will be multiplied in the last days in which we live.

The flesh is a constant enemy – the enemy within – tempted by the world, and the devil.

Neither falsehoods, nor the flesh, can overcome you as you yield yourself to God and follow His indwelling Holy Spirit.

In God We Dust (Mark 6:1-13)

Who would you cast to play the role of Jesus?

In the 2014 movie Son of God, Jesus is played by Portuguese actor Diogo Morgado, whose appearance has been compared to Brad Pitt and a young Marlon Brando.  He inspired a twitter hashtag of “Hot Jesus.”

Jim Caviezel is the most recognizable Jesus in acting history.  He played Jesus in The Passion Of The Christ, which is the most successful Christian movie of all time, and number twenty-seven all-time among all domestic films.

Did you know that Christian Bale, of Batman fame, played Jesus in the movie Mary, Mother Of Jesus?

I hesitate to mention it, but Will Ferrell portrayed Jesus in the movie Superstar, although he was on screen only briefly.

Who would I cast to play Jesus?  In his thirties, I would have cast Dustin Hoffman.  He’s Jewish, he’s plain-looking, and he’s about the right height at 5′ 5″ tall.

(Jewish men in the first century were short by our standards; so were the Romans.  We know this from skeletal remains, and other archaeology).

The people of Nazareth, among whom Jesus grew-up, thought He was miscast in the role of their Messiah.

Despite His extensive resume of works that gave solid evidence He was the promised deliverer, they rejected Jesus.  We’re told they were “offended” by Him, and we’ll see some of the reasons why.

I want us to see something else that is brought out in the text.  I want us to see Jesus in His relationship to God the Holy Spirit.

The people of Nazareth will ask, “Where did this Man get these things?”, referring to His wisdom and His works.  He got them from being filled with, and being led by, God the Holy Spirit.

R.A. Torrey said, “Jesus Christ is the one perfect manifestation in history of the complete work of the Holy Spirit in [a] man.”

We want to see the complete work of the Holy Spirit manifested in Jesus because that same Holy Spirit is given to each of us as His followers.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two questions: #1 Do You See What The Holy Spirit Can Do Through A Man?, and #2 Do You See What The Holy Spirit Can Do Through You?

#1    Do You See What The Holy Spirit
    Can Do Through A Man?
    (v1-6)

The headline read, Americans who foiled terrorist gunman on Paris-bound train get hero’s welcome with parade in their California hometown.

It’s the least we could do to honor them for what they did to save lives.

You’d think the Nazareth News would publish a story with the headline, Local man who foils legions of demons and heals multitudes gets hero’s welcome with parade in hometown.

It didn’t happen.  Instead of claiming Jesus as their favorite Son, Nazareth made several disclaimers and distanced themselves from Jesus.

Mar 6:1  Then He went out from there and came to His own country, and His disciples followed Him.

His “own country” is His hometown of Nazareth.

Most people familiar with the few details given in the Bible about the early life of Jesus are aware of the fact that following the visit from the wise men, Joseph and Mary took Jesus and fled to Egypt to hide Him from the murder of the children ordered by Herod (Matthew 2:13-14).

Later, after Herod’s death, Jesus’ family departed Egypt for Nazareth where they made their home (Matthew 2:19-23).

It’s hard to find solid facts about first century Nazareth, but one source said, “Nazareth was a relatively isolated village in the time of Jesus with a population less than two hundred.”

Mar 6:2  And when the Sabbath had come…

Stop there for a moment.  Jesus returned to Nazareth and, whatever day He arrived, nothing noteworthy happened until the Sabbath had come.

Everywhere Jesus went, He was thronged by people upon His arrival.  Huge crowds came out to Him.  Not so in Nazareth.

It’s mind-boggling.  How could this miracle-working, demon-defeating, wisdom-wielding local boy be so ignored?

You could ask that very same question today.  Not only do we have the historical record, the evidence, that Jesus did these things.  We can factually say that He rose from the dead.

Men still ignore Him.  They go about their business as if it didn’t matter that the sinless Son of God took their place on the Cross so that they could receive the forgiveness of their sins and live forever in Heaven.

Mar 6:2  And when the Sabbath had come, He began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands

At the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus went in to the synagogue in Nazareth and read a passage in Isaiah that described the works that the Messiah would perform.  Stopping in mid-sentence, Jesus said, of Himself, “today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

It didn’t go over very well.  We read in the Gospel of Luke,

Luk 4:28  So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
Luk 4:29  and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff.
Luk 4:30  Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.

Jesus returned to Nazareth having performed those many mighty works.  His neighbors don’t try to kill Him this time, but they reject Him just as resoundingly as they had before.

They had to acknowledge the works themselves, and that is, perhaps, why they were less inclined to try to kill Jesus.  He wasn’t claiming He’d perform them; He’d actually done it.

It sounds like they are going to receive Him, as they praise the works He’s undeniably performed.  So what was it that offended them?  Several things are listed.

Mar 6:3  Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.

They had watched Jesus grow up, from a boy, until He was around thirty years old.  During that time He did no mighty works, but instead worked as a “carpenter.”  The insinuation is that Jesus had no professional training for the things He was doing.

They were offended by the thought that their Messiah could be a lowly carpenter.  Jesus’ extraordinary works were overshadowed by His ordinary, even sub-ordinary, background.

It’s odd that they would think that, because the Old Testament is full of heroes that had no training, who came from ordinary circumstances.  King David, from whom the Messiah would come, was a shepherd boy when he was first anointed.

You know what this tells me?  No matter how many examples we have of God using ordinary people, we still look for, and prefer, formal education and training.

We’re not looking for God’s anointing as much as we are for man’s appointing.  It’s a hard habit to break, but break it we must.

Next they called Jesus “the Son of Mary.”  It was a rather mean insult.  Men were always known as sons of their father – unless the father was not known because the son was illegitimate.

The people of Nazareth did not believe in the virgin birth.  They were offended by the thought that their Messiah had a significant moral stain on His name.

We could point to the Scriptures and see folks who were morally compromised who were nevertheless used by God.
Rahab the harlot assisted the two Hebrew spies when they were being hunted in Jericho.  She found herself in the physical line of the Messiah.

It’s one thing to look back on Rahab with wonder; it’s another to be contemporary with her, and think highly of her.

Evangelists often take liberties with a Scripture from the Book of Hebrews and say that Jesus Christ saves “from the guttermost.”  No moral stain is too deep to be beyond the Lord’s forgiveness.

The citizens of Nazareth next listed Jesus’ brothers by name, and mentioned more than one sister.  (In Matthews Gospel, the word “all,” qualifying sisters, can mean three or more).

I don’t want to get off on a rabbit trail, but the plain reading of this is that after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary had other kids – at least six or seven.  These were not children from a previous marriage of Joseph’s, because that would make them all older than Jesus, and there’s no indication anywhere in the Gospels He was the least in His earthly family.

There is no biblical basis for the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that Mary remained a perpetual virgin.

I’m not sure exactly why the Messiah having a slew of siblings would be offensive.  Maybe one of them was like Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy, who was known for his embarrassing public behavior; and for Billy Beer.

Mark’s readers would remember that a few verses earlier Jesus’ family had come seeking Him, to try to bring Him home, because they thought He was crazy.

They would be offended by the thought that their Messiah was crazy.  No one wants to think that their commander-in-chief is mentally incompetent… Do we???

Lots of Bible characters had families that held them in contempt.  Joseph’s brothers wanted to kill him, and instead sold him into slavery.

Mar 6:4  But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.”

Your family and friends know the real you.  That’s why, when doing background checks, law enforcement will talk to anyone and everyone they can find who has any knowledge of you.

Now in Jesus’ case, there were no negatives, no faults to find.  But that didn’t stop the people from finding fault.

Let that be an encouragement to you.  People can find fault with your walk with the Lord even when there is no fault to find.

Mar 6:5  Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.

God wanted to do a “mighty work” through Jesus in Nazareth.  The people didn’t come out for it.  God showed up but the people were a no-show.

Do you know someone who needs God to do a “mighty work?”  Maybe they are struggling with some addiction… Or their marriage is failing… Or their finances are a disaster.

You and I know that God wants to do a mighty work for them.  We know it because He’s done it for us.  You were once addicted… Your marriage was a bust… Your finances were shot… And God intervened.

More-and-more people are coming by the church office during the week, looking for help.  We do our best to help those we can, but we try to tell all of them to come not just to the office, but to our services.  It is here, gathered with the people of God, under the authority of the Word of God, that they will find the greatest help – both physically and spiritually.  Instead, they are no-shows.

“Except” He did heal some.  That’s a pretty big “except,” if you were one of them.  Mark was emphasizing how much more the Lord could have done, to help people, if they had simply come to Him.

Mar 6:6  And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.

Fresno is a city that gets a bad rap, don’t you think?  So much so that there have been campaigns to change its image.  One of them was, “Fresno – Smile when you say that.”

Nazareth got a bad rap in the first century.  The common adage was, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

The answer was a resounding, “Yes!”  Nevertheless the people preferred their reputation to repenting and receiving the Lord.

“Where did this Man get these things?”  Jesus’ wisdom, and His works, were things beyond a carpenter with a questionable birth whose own family thought Him to be insane.

Jesus got them from His relationship to God the Holy Spirit.  He’d been born of the Spirit and baptized by the Spirit.  He was filled with the Spirit.  He was constantly led by the Spirit.

No one had ever seen a man like that before.  While the Holy Spirit certainly came upon believers in the Old Testament, not until Jesus was there ever a man under His complete control.

Jesus promised you that same Holy Spirit.

#2    Do You See What The Holy Spirit
    Can Do Through You?
    (v7-13)

Jesus commissions His closest disciples to go out and perform similar works to those He had been doing.

He was showing us what was to come, after He was ascended back into Heaven.  He would go on to tell us that we – His followers – would do “greater works” after He was gone, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Mar 6:7  And He called the twelve to Himself, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them power over unclean spirits.

Do you suppose that the disciples liked the pairings Jesus chose?  Just wondering, because it’s human nature to complain.

You’re bound to be paired-up at times with people, and in situations, you don’t really like.  Most often (not always) it is God’s choice to grow you into greater, deeper, spiritual maturity.

Don’t always be looking for a way out, or a different pairing.

“Two by two” was practical as much as it was spiritual.  They’d be traveling, and that was always dangerous.  It’s nice to have someone whose got your back in ministry.

Mark emphasizes they were given power over demons.  As we’ve pointed out before, there was no mention of demonic possession whatsoever in the Old Testament.  Unless my math is faulty, the Old Testament spans about four thousand years of human history, starting with creation week.  Then there are four hundred years between the end of the Old Testament and the New Testament era.

No demonic possessions for almost five thousand years, then, “Bam!”  At the coming of Jesus into the world, it seemed as though demons were everywhere, possessing people.

It must have been a calculated satanic strategy to try to counter the effect of having the Son of God, filled with the Spirit of God, on the earth.

Instead of Jesus going out alone against the demons, there were now twelve more.  As I said – it’s showing us things to come.

Mar 6:8  He commanded them to take nothing for the journey except a staff – no bag, no bread, no copper in their money belts –
Mar 6:9  but to wear sandals, and not to put on two tunics.

The instructions Jesus gave them about their clothing communicate traveling light because of the urgency of getting from place to place.

We ought to travel to Heaven through this world as lightly as possible.  That will mean something different to everyone, but it’s worth meditating upon.

Since the coming of Jesus for His church is imminent, I’d say there is an urgency in our ministering to folks.

They didn’t need money or food, but were to depend upon local hospitality.

Mar 6:10  Also He said to them, “In whatever place you enter a house, stay there till you depart from that place.

Travelers would be taken in by locals and shown hospitality.  The disciples were to be content with the first invitation – not holding out for, or later switching to, better accommodations.  That way the focus could remain on the ministry, and they could not be accused of taking advantage of folks for their own benefit.

Mar 6:11  And whoever will not receive you nor hear you, when you depart from there, shake off the dust under your feet as a testimony against them. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!”

Devout Jews would shake the dust off after they’d been in Gentile territory to symbolize that they had not picked-up any spiritual defilements from being there.  For a Jew to do this in a Jewish setting was saying that they were acting like Gentiles – like people outside of the chosen nation.

Sodom and Gomorrah were Gentile cities that had very little of the Word of God.  What they had was enough for God to judge them – which He did.

The first century Jews had the entire Old Testament, and their Messiah was physically on the scene, with plenty of proof it was really Him.  Thus they would be held more accountable than largely ignorant Gentiles.

Mar 6:12  So they went out and preached that people should repent.

Don’t lose sight of the mission – calling people to “repent.”

As far as theologians go, you can’t go too wrong with Charles Ryrie.  Regarding what it means to repent, he wrote:

Many understand the term repentance to mean “turning from sin.” This is not the biblical definition of repentance.  In the Bible, the word repent means “to change one’s mind.”  The Bible also tells us that true repentance will result in a change of actions.  Acts 26:20 declares, “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.”  The full biblical definition of repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of action.

To repent, with regard to salvation, means to change your mind about Jesus Christ.

No one can repent unless God grants repentance.  All of salvation, including repentance and faith, is a result of God  drawing us.

By grace, He does draw us.  All of us.  Jesus said that if He be lifted up on the Cross, He would draw all men to Himself.

John 3:16 is so famous, so often quoted, that we forget about its context.  Jesus referred us back to an episode in the Old Testament Book of Numbers.

Joh 3:14  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
Joh 3:15  that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites starting complaining against God.  The Lord sent fiery serpents among them, as a judgment.  The bite of the serpents was fatal.

There was a remedy.  Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a tall pole.  Whoever got bit by a serpent, if they simply looked at the bronze serpent, they would be saved.

Who could be saved?  Anyone and everyone who looked to that pole.

By the Cross of Jesus Christ, God draws all men to Himself.  Anyone and everyone can be saved.

But they must “believe in Him.”

So, while it is true that no one can come to salvation unless God draws them, God draws all men by the Cross.
We say that His grace, although resistible, frees the will of all men to either believe or reject the offer of salvation.

Cutting through all the doctrine – We preach repentance and faith.  If you are not a Christian, you need to repent of your sin, receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior – made possible by the Cross at Calvary on which Jesus died for the sins of the world.

Mar 6:13  And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick, and healed them.

This is something new.  This is the first mention of “oil” in Mark’s Gospel.  In Jesus’ day, olive oil was often used medicinally.  But it was also used symbolically to represent the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  Prophets and priests and kings were anointed with oil to symbolize their need to depend upon the Holy Spirit.

We still sometimes anoint with oil when we pray for folks – especially the sick – since that is something the Letter of James recommends.

Whether we use oil or not, we recognize that we are dependent upon, and therefore submitted to, the work of the Spirit.  Sometimes that work is to heal, but often times that work is to have us bring glory to God out of patiently enduring our suffering.

Jesus commissioned the twelve.  After He rose from the dead, in what we call the Great Commission, He commissioned every disciple to “Go!” preaching the Word, making disciples and baptizing them.

He promised to be with us on that mission, and He fulfills that promise by the Holy Spirit living in us, and coming upon us, and filling us, for the work of the ministry.

Do you see what the Holy Spirit can do through you?

Nonbelievers are a lot like the people in Nazareth.  They think of things that discredit you, so they don’t have to think about the Gospel you’re preaching.

You’re in good company:

1Co 1:26  For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
1Co 1:27  But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
1Co 1:28  and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are,
1Co 1:29  that no flesh should glory in His presence.

We’ve got it backwards.  We still tend to think that the more we know, and the more experience we have, the better we can serve the Lord.

God has cast you in the role of little-Christ – which is what the word “Christian” means.  Don’t think someone else would be better cast.

It’s the role of a lifetime.

Don’t Lose Sleep Over Death (Mark 5:21-43)

Several years ago, Christian author and apologist, Lee Strobel, commissioned a national survey and asked people what question they’d ask if they could only ask God one thing.

The number one response was: “Why is there suffering in the world?”

This week’s tragic mass shooting in my hometown of San Bernardino immediately sparked a mini-debate over calls for prayer in its aftermath.  Atheists and other angry people lashed out against the spiritual sentiment.

GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS was Thursday’s cover headline on the New York Daily News.

Another article declared that praying in the aftermath of mass shootings “seems to have been an ineffective strategy so far.”

The criticism even has a name.  It’s being called prayer-shaming.

The problem of suffering is central to our verses in Mark chapter five.  We encounter two people with incurable diseases, one of whom dies.

I should say, Jesus encounters them and, as He does, to borrow a popular phrase from Facebook, “you won’t believe what happens next.”

One is healed; the other is raised from the dead.

I’ll organize my thoughts around two points: #1 Jesus Will Do Something With Your Disease, and #2 Jesus Has Done Something About Your Death.

#1     Jesus Will Do Something
    With Your Disease
    (v21-34)

We love and universally respect first responders.  While others are running away from danger, they are heading into it, to save lives.

Have you ever realized that God was the very first, first responder?

When Adam and Eve threw the world into its current chaos by choosing to disobey God in the Garden of Eden, the Lord immediately came to them, seeking them.

More than that: He promised to eventually come as a man, through one of their offspring, to respond to the problem of sin and death they had created.

Jesus came, as promised, and responded to our greatest need by dying on the Cross to provide for all of Adam’s offspring the forgiveness of their sins and eternal life.

He rushed in and saved us all as we were perishing – especially those who believe in Him by grace through faith.

Any criticism of God’s response to disease and death are rendered moot when I see Jesus nailed to the Cross to save us.

In the remarkable passage before us, the Lord is up to His neck in disease and death.

Mar 5:21  Now when Jesus had crossed over again by boat to the other side, a great multitude gathered to Him; and He was by the sea.
Mar 5:22  And behold, one of the rulers of the synagogue came, Jairus by name. And when he saw Him, he fell at His feet
Mar 5:23  and begged Him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter lies at the point of death. Come and lay Your hands on her, that she may be healed, and she will live.”

Before the year 586BC, virtually all Jews lived within one hundred miles of the Temple at Jerusalem, so they all worshipped there.  In 586BC the Temple was destroyed and many Jews were carried away into Babylon and held captive for seventy years.  No longer able to worship in the Temple, they established synagogues in every neighborhood that had ten Jewish men or more.

The synagogue became the place of assembly, where they would worship and study the Scriptures.  Each synagogue had ten leaders who were called elders.

Of those ten, one was elected to be the ruler.  He wasn’t a priest, but he was a tremendously important man, not only in their ceremonies, but in all civic matters.

Jairus had a preteen daughter who was most definitely going to die.  There was no hope outside of a miracle.

Mar 5:24  So Jesus went with him, and a great multitude followed Him and thronged Him.

“Thronged” is a word used only by Mark, and only here.  It’s a strong word, indicating that the crowd was close to suffocating Jesus.

We’ve pointed out before how much danger Jesus was in from mobs of people.  He sometimes employed counter-measures, like preaching to the crowds from a boat in the water.  Nothing He could do here, if He wanted to go with Jairus.  He’d have to trust His Father to protect Him.

Mar 5:25  Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years,
Mar 5:26  and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse.

She was constantly bleeding from her womb, probably as a result of what we today would diagnose as fibroid tumors of the uterus.

I’m not a doctor; but I did stay at a Holiday Inn, so let me describe the condition.  Fibroid tumors are benign.  They can bulge into the uterus, causing bleeding.  By bleeding I mean hemorrhaging and passing of clots.  The larger the tumor or tumors grow, the heavier the bleeding.  They can be painful, and cause endometriosis – a condition my stay at the Holiday Inn did not cover.

Because there is loss of blood, she would suffer from anemia and weakness.

This was a pretty severe and chronic physical suffering.  But it involved much more than just the physical:

There was financial suffering.  You’re told she visited many physicians.  While I’m sure she visited many quacks, the indication is that she received the finest medical care money could buy, but that no procedure could help her.  She was beyond any human help.

There was emotional suffering.  Anyone with chronic pain will tell you it wears upon your emotions.  It’s all you think about, day and night; and it affects everything you do.

There was social suffering.  It’s not explained for you, but her flow of blood rendered the woman a social outcast from Jewish society.  She was considered unclean and could not be touched, or touch, others without rendering them contaminated.  Her theme song was Hey There Lonely Girl.

Finally, she was suffering spiritually.  Her unclean status prohibited her from attending synagogue services.  She was cut-off from corporate worship.

You don’t have to suffer from the same condition in order to understand someone else’s suffering.
Learn to think outside the physical pain, and consider how they are affected financially… emotionally… socially… and (especially) spiritually.

She pressed through the crowd to touch Jesus.  Perhaps there are crowds in your life that hinder you from reaching the Lord: The crowd of unbelief, or of busyness, or of entertainments, or of activities.  Press through the crowds of your life, through all the things that are blocking you from Him.

Mar 5:27  When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment.
Mar 5:28  For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.”

Jesus dressed as a rabbi, and that meant there were blue tassles along the hem of His outer garment.  Why it is she thought touching Jesus in secret would help her is unknown.

Commentators speculate she was superstitious.  I say, it’s really all she could do – given that she was not supposed to be in the crowd.  And it was the least thing she could do, but it still required faith to do it – her belief that Jesus could heal her.  And He did.

Mar 5:29  Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction.

Since this healing wasn’t witnessed, Mark let’s us know it happened by telling us she immediately knew she was made whole.  He words it in such a way that we can identify with her, feeling her joy.

Mar 5:30  And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?”
Mar 5:31  But His disciples said to Him, “You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’ ”

Everyone was touching the Lord, but they all denied it when He asked them.  They must have been afraid He was somehow upset.  How sad that we often jump to the wrong conclusion about Jesus’ attitude when He speaks.  We read things into His words and into God’s Word that are not there: anger, disgust, frustration, irritation, etc.

The disciples’ question is appropriate.  They wanted Jesus to explain Himself.  What kind of touch did He mean?
It seems that God the Father gave Jesus a Word of Knowledge that a healing had just taken place as someone in the crowd touched the Lord.  Remember, Jesus was fully God, but when He was on the earth, He voluntarily set aside the prerogatives of His deity and lived as a Spirit-filled man.

Mar 5:32  And He looked around to see her who had done this thing.

People with the Word of Knowledge are scary.  I never wanted to be around Chuck Smith.  He told lots of stories about the Lord giving him Words of Knowledge about people.  It was always about sin in their lives.  I always thought he knew something about me.

Mar 5:33  But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth.

To touch her, or be touched by her, would render Jesus ceremonially unclean.  Or would it?  When she touched Jesus, she was immediately healed… So Jesus was not violating any law.

However, any person in the crowd she had brushed against before her healing would have been rendered unclean.  Bummer!

Mar 5:34  And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”
“Be healed” is in the tense of having been healed.  It was important for Jesus to expose her, and declare her healed, for at least two reasons:

It would allow her to immediately rejoin society.  While it seems she may not have been local, since no one recognized her pressing through the crowd, she needed some validation her condition was healed.
It established that it was faith in Him that healed her – not superstition, or technique, or tassles, or anything else.

Jesus will do something with disease in general, and with your disease in particular.

He can heal you.  He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  We learn from the prayers in our Bible’s that it is good to seek the Lord for healing.

The apostle Paul had a serious infirmity.  More than one, actually; but this one he called “the messenger of Satan.”  He said that he sought the Lord three times to remove it from him.

The fact Paul prayed three times establishes that prayer should be persistent.  He prayed more than once, and kept praying until he received an answer.

It also establishes that God doesn’t always answer prayer immediately.

But most importantly, the fact Paul prayed three times is reminiscent of Jesus praying three times in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking His Father if the cup of His impending suffering on the Cross might be avoided.

To which the Father must say “No.”

And He also must say “No” to Paul, because, as Paul explained it, he needed the suffering to both keep him humble for the great revelations given to him, and to reveal God’s strength through his weakness as he depended upon grace.

Jesus will do something about your disease.  He can heal it, but more often than not, in the church age in which we live, He wants to bring His strength from your weakness.

A few weeks ago I quoted C.S. Lewis, who said that pain was God’s megaphone.  He meant it was God’s way of getting our attention.

You know what?  If someone isn’t paying attention to God, and is headed to eternal conscious suffering in Hell, I’m OK with God doing just about anything to get their attention.

I remember a time, I was maybe 11 years old, racing on bikes with my older brother, Richard.  I didn’t see that I was about to pull in front of an oncoming car.  Richard purposely crashed his bike into mine.  We both got hurt; our bikes were unrideable.  It was a serious crash.  But not as serious as being struck by the car.

Having said that, I think that pain is mostly meant as a megaphone God hands to us, to amplify His strength in our weakness, to give us a powerful testimony of Who He is, and what He can do.  We can all cite some believer we know, or knew, who was filled with grace during a terrible illness – who amplified the grace and greatness of God in their weakest moments.

Jesus will eradicate disease, soon enough, just after the seven-year Tribulation, when He comes again to establish His kingdom.  Then, in eternity, no more disease; not even tears.

Are you suffering today?  Jesus will do something about it.  Pray for healing, and if Jesus says nothing, go on praying.  Press forward; follow hard after Him; don’t be deterred by any crowd.

If He says “No,” you’re in great company.  And you’re set up with a mega megaphone to proclaim His amazing grace.

#2    Jesus Has Done Something
    About Your Death
    (v35-43)

I’ve sort of touched upon how God deals with your suffering, working it together for the good; but I haven’t answered Why? suffering exists in the first place.

The answer, in a word or two, is free-will.  God created mankind with free-will because love cannot be forced and remain love.

God could have created a universe in which disobedience was impossible.  But then love would be impossible, and we could not be made in the image of God.

Adam and Eve are responsible for the mess we’re in.  Satan is culpable as well.

God, for His part, responded immediately.  He announced His plan and has worked through history, providentially, to see that His plan was and is being accomplished.

Let me say this as well.  If you blame God for suffering, and thereby turn your back on Him, where does that leave you?  What hope do you have to alleviate suffering?

More importantly, what hope do you have beyond the grave?

Jesus takes us beyond the grave as He continues on to Jairus’ house.

Mar 5:35  While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?”

I don’t want to get off on a tangent, but this was a textbook death notification.  “Your daughter is dead.”  No room for misunderstanding.

Mar 5:36  As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid; only believe.”

Jesus offered immediate hope.  He does that, every time, if we will only listen for Him.

Mar 5:37  And He permitted no one to follow Him except Peter, James, and John the brother of James.

In this mission against death, the Lord handpicked an elite force to accompany Him.  Seriously, this was spiritual warfare, and this was, for whatever reason, a strategy.

We must remain sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  We must commit to doing God’s work, God’s way.

Mar 5:38  Then He came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and saw a tumult and those who wept and wailed loudly.

Funeral customs are weird.  In Israel, when someone died, you hired as many professional mourners as you could afford.  They came with instruments and were adept at wailing.

Being so important to the Jewish community, Jairus would have had a ton of mourners who were in full wailing-mode as Jesus approached.

Mar 5:39  When He came in, He said to them, “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”

Critics try to say that “sleeping” meant she was not really dead, but in a coma.

While there are cases of people being thought dead who were yet alive, for the most part it’s not that hard to determine death.

She was dead.  Although dead, she was only “sleeping,” as far as Jesus was concerned.

The writers of the New Testament would elaborate on this, showing us that by using the word “sleeping” for death, you are reminded that death has been conquered.  If you are a believer, you might die, but you are immediately absent from your body and present with the Lord.

Mar 5:40  And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying.

Nonbelievers still love to ridicule Jesus.  Whenever some tragedy strikes, they blame God, rather than seek Him.

I’ll tell you this: If any of the victims of the shooting in San Bernardino were believers, their families have hope, and the peace of God that passes all human understanding.

What can the ridiculers offer?

Jesus brought in the three disciples, probably because Jews required three witnesses to an event in order to believe it had happened.  Of course, mom and dad were there.

Mar 5:41  Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.”

His words were like those her parents might use to wake her up in the morning.  He didn’t need to shout, or to act excited.  Jesus didn’t get all worked-up, and get the others worked-up.

I think the Holy Spirit is more a whisperer than a shouter.  I’m not saying we can’t be excited or exuberant; we probably need more of that.

But wild, loud shouting, and ecstatic movements, are not the Jesus-style of doing things.

Mar 5:42  Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age. And they were overcome with great amazement.

Mark tells us she was twelve, and that gets us thinking, because we have encountered twelve years already in this story.

Jairus’ daughter was twelve years of age.  The woman with the issue of blood had been suffering exactly that same amount of time.

Jesus addressed the woman with the word daughter.  It’s the only time He ever called anyone daughter, and it’s the same word used to describe Jairus’ little girl.

Jairus, as a ruler of a synagogue, was personally involved in declaring women like her unclean and unfit for attendance and in putting them out of the synagogue.

Jairus was now risking his own place in the synagogue by coming to Jesus for help – against the wishes of the Pharisees and scribes who were against the Lord.  Now he might be put out.

It’s a metaphor within a miracle.  Jairus could not help but see the parallels, and meditate upon them.

He would realize that the whole time he was enjoying his little girl, hugging her and kissing her, God’s dear adult daughter was being shunned and denied all human contact.

Sure, it was all according to the Law.  But maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t have been all that bad to try to minister to her.  So what it made you ceremonially unclean?  Wasn’t it a greater exercise of the love of God to touch her?

There’s a lot here to reflect upon in terms of our own response to those in need.

Mar 5:43  But He commanded them strictly that no one should know it, and said that something should be given her to eat.

We might call this aftercare, or follow-up.  We can’t always follow-up with folks we minister to, but we ought to at least try, in order to see that they get the spiritual nourishment they need.

People who criticize God for allowing suffering for some reason nevertheless understand that we are all going to die.  They criticize God for some deaths, e.g., when children die.  But they accept that death is the way of all men.

Why?  Why accept death?

I’m serious.  If suffering bothers you, death ought to really set you off.

Jesus has done something about death, and about your death.  He’s conquered it.  You might still die, if the rapture of the church doesn’t happen first.

But death has no sting, because the grave cannot hold you.  You are immediately in Heaven (if you are a believer), and you will receive a brand spanking new resurrection body when the Lord’s trumpet is blown ending the church age.

When Jesus used the word “sleep,” He captured all of this victory over sin and death.

While we await either the rapture or our death, we are to think of ourselves as first responders in a world filled with suffering and death.

While critics ridicule Jesus, they have nothing to offer – no hope whatsoever.

We, on the other hand, have everything to offer in the Person and work of Jesus.

Let’s rush in and share His love.

Deviled Ham (Mark 5:1-20)

I dare you to Google “animals in warfare.”  It will blow your mind.

Disregard the search if you’re an animal lover.

We immediately think of horses and dogs; maybe carrier pigeons.  But a lot of other, more obscure, examples exist of animals used for war.

In the Bible we read about Samson employing animals in a unique way against the Philistines:

Jdg 15:4  … Samson went and caught three hundred foxes; and he took torches, turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.
Jdg 15:5  When he had set the torches on fire, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

Outside of the Bible, maybe you already knew that monkeys were set on fire, then released to ravage enemy encampments.

As recently as 2003, Morocco offered monkeys to the United States Military in Iraq.  Two-thousand monkeys gathered from the Atlas Mountains were specially trained to be used for detonating mines.

I’m not sure what kind of specialized training you need to step on a mine.  We turned them down, probably so that the American public didn’t have to see Curious George get blown to smithereens.

Don’t get me started on weaponized dolphins.  The Soviets were training them to carry explosives towards enemy warships and frogmen, to be remotely detonated.

The program reportedly ran out of funding and in 2000 the dolphins were sold to Iran.  You don’t want to swim with the dolphins in the Mediterranean Sea.  If you do, you might end up sleeping with the fishes.

By far, elephants were the most feared beasts of the ancient world’s battlegrounds.  They were huge, powerful and very imposing.  They were used as tanks, plowing down the enemy, while their riders were firing off arrows.

Elephants were used successfully against the Roman legions – that is, until the Romans developed a counter-measure.  Their ingenious anti-elephant weapon was incendiary pigs.

You heard me right.  Covered in pitch or tar, then set on fire, pigs would be released onto the battlefield.  Their high-pitched loud squeals, erratic movements, and the fire, would scatter the elephants.

Pigs figure prominently in our text in Mark chapter five.  They are likely the property of the Roman legion stationed in the ten-city area known as Decapolis.  It is unlikely they were dedicated war-pigs, although they certainly could be used in that way, as no special combat training was necessary to be set on fire.

They were most likely a food source for the soldiers stationed there.  Bacon, hard-tack biscuits, and sour wine were the staple foods of the Roman legions.

The main incident in the Bible story is the deliverance of a notoriously demon-possessed man.  But the fact that the demons are allowed to enter into the herd of swine – two thousand strong – and cause them to stampede, hurtling themselves to their death (the pigs, that is; not the demons) is pretty weird.

We’ll do our best to make some sense of what was going on.  I’ll organize my thoughts around two questions suggested by the verses: #1 When Have You Told Jesus To Go?, and #2 Where Has Jesus Told You To Go?

#1    When Have You Told Jesus To Go?
    (v1-17)

When last we saw the Lord, He was in a small boat, in a flotilla of other small boats, crossing the sea.

I want us to think in terms of an invasion – to see Jesus and His boats as an invasion force, landing on the beach, conquering enemy territory.

Mar 5:1  Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we’re told Jesus came “to the country of the Gergesenes.”  These were both ways of referring to the same geography.  This was a predominately Gentile territory known as Decapolis, so called because of the ten prominent cities in the vicinity.  It’s like us saying twin-cities, or tri-cities, to designate an area.

Mar 5:2  And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,

Matthew mentions two men.  Not a problem.  Pam might ask me later today if I saw a particular person at church.  If I say “Yes,” it doesn’t mean that I didn’t see a lot of others, too.

One man in particular was prominent.  We’ve said before that the phrase “unclean spirit” was another way of describing a demon.

He comes “out of the tombs.”  This was a region of hills and cliffs, so most likely the tombs were natural caves used for burial.

“There met Him” is too polite.  Don’t be fooled into thinking this man wasn’t all that dangerous.

Think of this as a potential assault.  In another Gospel we’re told he prevented people from passing that way.  He was violent.  This man, possessed by demons, came out to do mischief, to do harm.

Mar 5:3  who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains,

If you weren’t already creeped-out that he came out of the tombs, you’re told he lived there.  They had tried binding him, even with chains, but to no avail.

Mar 5:4  because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him.

The more they tried to subdue him, the stronger he got.  It was unnatural; it was supernatural.

They couldn’t “tame” him, so it appears they tried to contain him in the tombs – giving him a certain freedom to roam about in the surrounding wilderness area.

Mar 5:5  And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.

He never slept.  He wandered his territory, vigilant against trespassers.  To add to his terror, he would shriek, and cut himself.

I wonder if local kids dared each other to go out there and see the demoniac?  You know they did.

Mar 5:6  When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him.

He had undoubtedly witnessed the boats landing, and started out to overpower the intruders.  At some point he recognized Jesus.

I say “he,” meaning the multiple demons possessing him.  This guy had never seen the Lord before, but they knew who He was.

“Worship” here means he recognized Jesus’ authority.  He did not offer Jesus worship in the normal sense of that word, singing How Great Thou Art, or some such chorus.  It was an every-knee-shall-bow sort of thing.  The demons knew they were in the presence of God.

Mar 5:7  And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.”
Mar 5:8  For He said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!”

Demons have a very orthodox Christology.  They know Jesus to be the unique Son of God, the Second Person of the trinity.

I would add that they know Bible prophecy, and that they take it to be literal, not figurative or allegorical.  Let me explain what I mean.

The “torment” the demons were referring to is explained in the other Gospels as sending them to be incarcerated in the abyss “before the time.”  It is referring to future, prophetic events.

When Jesus returns, in His Second Coming, He will have Satan bound and cast into the abyss for one thousand years.  His demons will likewise be incarcerated.

At the end of the thousand year kingdom of Heaven on the earth, just before the creation of the new earth, the devil and his demons will once-for-all and forever be thrown alive into the Lake of Fire that was created for their eternal punishment.

Demons are aware of these prophecies, and they believe them, to the letter.  They don’t see them as figures, or allegories.  Neither should we.

Jesus had authority over the demons.  You and I, as believers in Jesus and His ambassadors on the earth, have His delegated authority.  His authority, not our ability, overcomes demons.

By ability, I mean that we don’t need a crucifix or holy water or special prayers and incantations.

There are some demons who are more difficult than others.  In those cases Jesus said we must be fasting and praying – not learning ancient Latin spells, or collecting relics.

Don’t be drawn to ritual exorcisms or special prayers or the identifying of territorial spirits or demanding their names.  It’s not biblical.

Mar 5:9  Then He asked him, “What is your name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.”

“Aha!,” you say; “Jesus did ask him for a name.”

Yes, He did; but it wasn’t a regular thing Jesus did with demons, and it’s clear from the rest of the story that He asked about it for our sake – not as an essential part of defeating them.

“Legion” would immediately cause you to think about the Roman legion stationed in Decapolis.  A Roman legion was at the least six thousand troops, both mounted and infantry.

Were six-thousand demons in this one man?  Maybe.  If not that many, there were a lot, because, in a moment, they are going to possess two-thousand pigs.

Jesus had defeated Satan in one-on-one, champion combat, in the wilderness temptations.  He had effectively bound the strong man and had been going around casting demons out of folks, recovering from Satan his stolen property.

Here on the beach Jesus confronted thousands of demons at once and resoundingly defeated them, suffering no casualties.

It was a powerful testimony to His disciples that Satan was a defeated foe.  Sure, he continued to battle; but the war was won.

Mar 5:10  Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.

They did not want to be sent prematurely to the abyss; neither did they want to be sent out of their immediate territory.

Pretty bossy for conquered demons, don’t you think?  It is reminiscent of Satan’s parley with God in the opening two chapters of the Book of Job, where God hears-out the devil, then grants him limited permission to mess with Job.

I can hear the objections.  Why would a God of love give the devil and his demons permission to do harm?  Why not simply crush the devil once-and-for-all?

The reason the devil goes on, temporarily, will become clear at the incredible reaction of the citizens.  After Jesus defeated Satan by delivering a man from thousands of demons, who had been viciously tormenting people in the region – they refused to believe in Him for salvation and instead asked Him to leave.

It isn’t that God is unable, or unwilling, to reign-in the devil.  Jesus had the devil bound, and He would have remained so, except that the majority of people were unwilling to submit to Jesus Christ.

Mar 5:11  Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains.
Mar 5:12  So all the demons begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.”

Yes, this is weird, and it’s OK to say so.  No one can answer the “Why’s?” of this:

No one can answer why Jesus give His permission.

No one can answer why Legion wanted to go into the herd of swine.

The text doesn’t tell us, so we can’t know.  Beware the wild speculation here – like the teaching that demons must seek out hosts in order to carry-out their nefarious plans.

We don’t see rampant demonic possession today.  I don’t think it’s because we are too skeptical; I think it’s because Satan has changed his strategy.

Demonic possession was not a big thing in the Old Testament.  One of the commentators goes so far as to claim that there are no recorded cases of demonic possession at all.

(King Saul doesn’t qualify.  An evil spirit was sent to torment him, but he was not possessed, and he was never exorcized for it).

When Jesus was on the earth, and shortly thereafter, there was a tremendous spike in demonic possession.  Apparently the presence of the unique God-man was met by a virtual invasion of demons into Israel.

While demon possession may be down, there is an absolute explosion all over the globe of occult and supernatural activities that are sourced by Satan.  He’s adapted, and his strategies are more sinister and dangerous than ever.

Mar 5:13  And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea.

Many commentators assume that it was Jews who were herding the swine in contradiction to the Law of Moses, and that their destruction was therefore a deserved judgment.

While that conveniently solves the moral dilemma of Jesus allowing demons to destroy someone’s property, it’s highly unlikely.  This was Gentile territory; Jews would not be swineherding in Decapolis.

BTW – When Jesus told the famous parable of the Prodigal Son, it’s likely that Decapolis was the far country His audience would think of as the place he was reduced to feeding the swine.

The size of the herd argues for it being provision for the Roman legion stationed in Decapolis.

The demons called themselves Legion; and there was a Roman legion there.  Is there a connection?

Maybe.  Here is one thought I had.  On the night He was crucified, Jesus commented that, if He asked, His Father in Heaven would supply Him with more than twelve legions of angels, to fight for Him against His enemies.

If we stay with the military, spiritual warfare, aspects of this story, then, at the very least, Jesus was establishing that no “legion” could affect Him – not a demonic one, not a human one.

Satan may have legions of demons, but Jesus has more in terms of angels.

Men may have their legions, but what are they against legions of angels?  In the Old Testament, a single angel killed 185,000 fierce Assyrian warriors.

Mar 5:14  So those who fed the swine fled, and they told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that had happened.
Mar 5:15  Then they came to Jesus, and saw the one who had been demon-possessed and had the legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

Mark must have been modest, because only now do you understand that, in addition to shrieking and cutting himself, this guy went around naked.  He was “clothed,” meaning he was not clothed before.

Mar 5:16  And those who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon-possessed, and about the swine.

You might think that an amazing work of God was ready to break-out.  Certainly masses of people would seek out the Lord.

Mar 5:17  Then they began to plead with Him to depart from their region.

What?  We ought to be stunned.  There must have been among them many who were suffering from diseases and infirmities.

Then, too, as far as they knew, two- to six-thousand demons were still in the area, on the loose, presumably looking for new human hosts.

Have you heard the expression, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?”  It means that it is often better to deal with someone you are familiar with and know, even if they are evil, rather than take a risk with an unknown person.

In this case, the people were saying, “Better the devil we know than the Lord we don’t want to know.”

Despite the legion of demons, and the legion of soldiers, the citizens of Decapolis were doing OK.  It seemed a reasonable trade-off, the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few – or, in this case, the two demoniacs.

Look around.  I think we each could give an example of how our society has learned to live with the devil to maintain physical prosperity.

They told Jesus to “Go.”  When have you told Jesus to “Go?”

If you are not a believer, you’re telling Him to “Go” right now. Sadly, if you keep telling Him to “Go,” one day it will be too late to receive Him.  He will have to tell you to depart from Him into outer darkness, to eternal conscious suffering.

Saying “Go” means – and brace yourself – you’d rather the world continue in its current messed-up state than have God really, truly intervene.  You might be the last person who gets saved in this church age.  After that person gets saved, the resurrection and rapture of the church happens; then, soon after, the seven-year Tribulation.

We’ve already said that, at the end of the Tribulation, at His Second Coming, Jesus will bind and incarcerate Satan, and his demons.  So, in that sense, it is people who are refusing salvation that are responsible for the devil’s continued freedom to do harm.

God has a plan to crush Satan once-and-for-all, and He has revealed it.  Men would rather continue in their sin than be saved, and by default, they would therefore rather that Satan remain the ruler of this earth.

No nonbeliever has the right to blame anything on God.  He is offering salvation, wholeness, forgiveness, healing, all freely by grace.  They prefer the status quo rather than to receive Him into their hearts.

I would suggest that we believers can also tell Jesus to “Go.”  There are probably a million ways we can do it; you’ll have to search your heart.

Anytime we choose sin, or to be selfish, we’re telling the Lord to “Go,” to leave us alone to live our lives our way, rather than His.

#2    Where Has Jesus Told You To Go?
    (v18-20)

Evangelists say it all the time: Jesus is a gentleman, and won’t force Himself on anyone.  He must be invited in.

Asked to leave Decapolis without preaching or teaching or performing any miracles besides this one – He departs.

One person wants to go with him.  I bet you can guess who.

Mar 5:18  And when He got into the boat, he who had been demon-possessed begged Him that he might be with Him.

He “begged” Jesus.  He had experienced the demons within him begging Jesus to not send them into the abyss; to not force them to leave the area; to let them enter the herd of swine.

Surprisingly, Jesus answered their request affirmatively.

Clothed and in his right mind, he had listened and watched as the citizens implored Jesus to depart.  Jesus answered them, too, in the affirmative.

How could Jesus refuse him?

Mar 5:19  However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.”

This is crazy.  The two entities you’d think Jesus would deny, He grants their requests.  The one guy whose request you’d think Jesus would grant, He denied.

It makes perfect sense.  Jesus commissioned the former demoniac as a missionary to Decapolis.

It makes perfect sense; that is, when we see it in someone else’s life.  When God says, “No” to me, I’m not always immediately on board.

Mar 5:20  And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled.

Imagine his testimony.  He could point out people he’d terrified, he’d chased, he’d scared half to death, maybe even he had assaulted.  Could this really be the same man?

It was, and it wasn’t, the same man.  It was him alright, but him transformed by his encounter with Jesus Christ.

If I, or someone else, were to ask you, “Where has Jesus told you to Go?”, would your answer be, “Right where I am today”?
If so, great.  I’m guessing most of you – most of us – are exactly where the Lord wants us.  We’re there to make a difference with the Gospel.

We are witnesses.  We are not the judge, or the jury, or the attorneys.  We give testimony to what Jesus has done for us.

If you can’t honestly say you are right where you need to be, spiritually, well, that’s something you need to address, with the Lord.

You might need to be stirred-up to have greater impact right where you are.

You might need to move-on from where you are.

You probably weren’t exorcized of thousands of demons when you got saved.  No, but in just as profound a way, you were delivered from your captivity to the devil, and set free from sin and death and Hell.

You may not have been demon possessed, but you were the devil’s possession.

Now you belong to Jesus Christ.  “Go” forward with His name on your lips, His love in your heart, His grace in your words, His compassion in your serving.

Others need deliverance, and you have the words of eternal life.