As we come to this passage before us in our ongoing study of Mark, we find that the Lord Jesus and His disciples are at the end of a very long, tiring day. Jesus has been teaching and healing all day long, and the crowds were pressing against Him, and thronging Him to the point that He could not teach, so He had entered into a boat by the shore and taught them in parables.

Now we spent the last couple of weeks talking about these parables that Mark records for us. And I don’t want to go back over them in detail. However, it’s noteworthy that these parables in this chapter are the only ones that Mark records for us. Yet we know from the other gospels that Jesus taught more parables than these. Mark, however, only includes these five, yet he indicates in verse 33 that there were many such parables that He taught.

And it’s important that we remember the purpose of parables. Why did Jesus use them as a means of teaching? Well, contrary to normal intuition, He used parables not so much to illustrate the truth, as to veil spiritual truth in a natural illustration. As we have pointed out repeatedly, there is a necessity for spiritual illumination in order to understand the spiritual truth of a parable. So that the principle is that to him who has, more shall be given. In other words, he who has spiritual illumination, spiritual life, receives more spiritual illumination. But to him who does not have, they hear, but they don’t understand.

So Jesus said to them in vs.24, ““Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides. For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.” Now that sounds as if Jesus is speaking in riddles. And perhaps He is to some degree. But here is what He is saying; By your hearing of the word, you come to believe. And when you believe what you have heard, then more truth will be given to you. But if you hear the word and do not believe in the truth, but reject the truth, then what you have will be taken away from you. What insight you have been given, will be taken away. God will take the spiritual illumination which was given to you away because you did not believe it.

So take care what you listen to. He isn’t necessarily saying, “be careful not to listen to false teaching.” Though that may definitely play a part in rejecting the truth. But be careful to listen carefully. That’s why twice Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” If you have spiritual ears to hear, be careful to listen to it. Take care of what you hear. Don’t let it go in one ear and out the other. But think on these things. Ponder the truth of God in your heart. And then of course, act upon that truth. That obedience to the truth is an essential part of believing.

Be careful what you listen to because as Romans10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Your faith is dependent upon what you hear, and how carefully you hear. Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ, ie, the truth of the gospel.

Now in that context we come now to the final section in this chapter, and though it seems rather biographical than doctrinal as the other sections were, yet it is tied to the previous passages by this principle of faith. Faith is really the lynchpin of our salvation, is it not? The word faith has only been used by Mark one other time up to this point in his gospel. And interestingly enough, it is found in reference to the forgiveness of sins. Back in chapter 2, we have the account of the four friends who brought in the paralytic and it says that Jesus, seeing their faith, said, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” There is a principle in Biblical interpretation, what is called hermeneutics, which is known as the principle of first mention. If you want to understand how to view a term that’s used in the Bible look at how it’s first used. And the word faith’s first mention in the gospel of Mark is in reference to the forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness of sins is called justification in theological terms. Faith is essential then to salvation. Hebrews 11:6 says, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Faith and belief then are synonymous. As in Romans 4:9, speaking of Abraham’s saving faith says, “FAITH WAS CREDITED TO ABRAHAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Faith produced Abraham’s justification.

So be careful what you listen to because faith comes by hearing, and salvation comes through faith. And through salvation comes spiritual life. And spiritual life is the way of life that Jesus promises to those who believe in Him. That spiritual life, where we are made spiritually alive and receive the Spirit of Truth in us, is the more that will be given to those who believe.

Now the disciples had by this time received spiritual illumination. And they were following Jesus as the source of life and truth. They were trying to understand the things which He was teaching them privately, that is the spiritual truth of the parables. But here in this last section, Jesus is going to give them a personal illustration, a physical experience to help them to understand this spiritual principle or doctrine of faith. Sometimes that is a great way to learn. We can learn things theoretically, but when we learn by experience then we really learn. However, experience can be a hard teacher. I will say to you young people especially, life isn’t long enough to learn everything by experience. If you are wise, you won’t learn things the hard way, you will learn through teaching. But in this case, Jesus is going to teach them by experience and though it’s a tough lesson, it is an essential one which I hope we can learn as well through their experience.

So as the day turns to evening and night falls, according to Matthews gospel in chapter 8:16, Jesus without even getting out of the boat tells the disciples to push off and take them to the other side of the lake. This is the Sea of Galilee. It’s really a lake and not a sea, but it was called both in those days. So it’s evening, it’s getting dark, and they set sail for the other side, and a few other boats, presumably filled with disciples as well, follow them.

The point must be made here that Jesus knows what’s going to happen before it happens. So Jesus knows that a storm is going to occur. And yet He deliberately sends them out into an impending storm. The storms and trials of a Christian are not meant to tempt us, but to teach us. As the hymn writer says in “How Firm A Foundation”, “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, My grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flames shall not hurt thee, I only design, thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.” The trials of the Christian are intentionally produced by God to refine us and teach us.

Many commentators have given testimony to the violent nature of the storms that can come suddenly down from the mountains upon this lake. And though it’s a lake and we don’t normally associate huge waves with lakes, yet in this particular lake the storms are well documented as being particularly vicious, especially due to the fact that it is over 600 feet below sea level encircled by mountains and hills. I am not going to try to explain it further, but I will just say that it is a verifiable phenomenon that happens even today.

So Mark says that Jesus and the disciples leave the crowds. Once again we see a pattern here of the crowds following in a sort of superficial manner, and thus not receiving the deeper spiritual truth that was given to His close disciples privately. The crowds were interested in seeing some sort of miracle, were interested in the entertainment aspects of Jesus’s ministry, but they are not interested in learning deeper spiritual truth. And so the light which they had, which was Jesus, was taken away from them. He leaves them on the seashore and puts out into the lake in the dark of the evening with the disciples, with whom He will teach a greater lesson.

Another important lesson in this event is that though we will certainly see the divinity of Christ displayed at the end of this event, we also see the humanity of Christ displayed at the beginning. Jesus is so tired, humanly speaking in His body, that He falls fast asleep in the bow of the boat and sleeps soundly through what must have seemed like hurricane force winds to the disciples. I don’t think He is faking sleep in order to make a point. I think He is completely exhausted. It’s important to remember that Jesus was fully God and fully man. He was not half God and half man. But fully human and fully divine. As Hebrews 4:15 tells us, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus got tired. I would suspect that Jesus got sick. Jesus knew grief. He had by this time lost His step father Joseph. Jesus grew hungry. He was thirsty. He got dirty and had to take a bath, just like all men. Yet though He suffered in the flesh as a man, He was without sin. He was righteous in all that He did. This composition of divinity and humanity is what theologians call the hypostatic union of Christ. He was fully God and fully man. And we see that illustrated here in this chapter. Thus He is able to save us completely, not only as our substitute who died in our place, but in His role as our Great High Priest who ever lives to make intercession for us at the right hand of the Father.

So sometime soon after the disciples set sail, a severe storm arose on the lake. It reminds me of that old hymn, “The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost.” Whoops, I think that’s the wrong song.

No, actually the fearless crew were not that courageous in the midst of this storm. These were seasoned commercial fishermen who were piloting this boat, and they are in fear of losing their lives. I suppose that this storm was worse than anything they had ever encountered before. There is some speculation among some commentators that this was a demonically induced storm. I don’t know if that’s true or not. The Bible doesn’t seem to say explicitly whether or not the devil can manipulate the weather. I am inclined to think that he can. I’ve endured far too many instances of adverse weather when I was trying to conduct a church service or a church outreach when the weather just got crazy. So I’m inclined to think that he can, but I cannot be dogmatic about it. But even if he can influence the weather, that doesn’t mean that every time we get bad weather it’s of the devil. However, I will say that the Bible says that the devil is the Prince of the power of the air. And you can infer from that whatever you may like.

And I will also say that considering where Jesus and the disciples were headed, the other shore being the country of the Gerasenes where the demoniac lived among the tombs, it is entirely plausible that Satan knew that his dominion was under siege by the Lord, and as a result threw everything he could at them in order to try to discourage Jesus and His disciples.

You know, there are a lot of times that we go through trials, and we don’t know if they are of God or they are of the devil. Consider Job. His trials were definitely through the agency of Satan, but they were ultimately under the authority of God. And so I think that is something we need to learn. Not necessarily trying to go about binding Satan so that we don’t have trials, but rather learning, as Shadrach, Meshak and Abednago did, that God may allow an evil prince to put you in the fiery furnace, but the Son of God will be with you in the flames.

Well, I don’t need to embellish the story. I think Mark makes it clear what happened. So we see Jesus awakened by His panicking disciples. And notice what they say to Him. “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” Notice they don’t cry out “Help us!” But rather accuse Him of indifference. I think that right there Satan accomplished his goal. That was the point of Satan’s temptation of Eve. That God didn’t really care about their needs or desires. That God was uncaring. And I can tell you from experience that is where my failures of faith often lie. When God doesn’t do what I want Him to do in the time frame that I want Him to act, then I find myself accusing Him of not caring. Of indifference. Not that He doesn’t know about my problems. But that He doesn’t care. In fact, knowing that He knows about my problems and doesn’t seem to act immediately to rectify them seems to me the height of indifference.

But of course, Jesus does care. He does sympathize with our weaknesses, with our trials, and with our heartaches. He not only is aware of our pain, but He shares our pain. The Bible says in Romans 8:26 “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” Some people think that is referring to speaking in tongues. No, far from it. It’s talking about the Spirit of Christ who is in us, groaning in us as He emphasizes with our heartaches. Jesus knows our hearts. He knows our thoughts. His thoughts toward us outnumber the sand on the sea shore. Nothing can separate us from His love towards us. He is faithful, even when we are faithless.

So Mark says that Jesus wakes up, and rebukes the wind. Notice how Mark says in in vs39, And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. He rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” The fact that Jesus rebuked the wind gives credence to the idea that it was a demonically produced wind. The words he used here are exactly the same words he used when he rebuked the demon that interrupted his discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum, as recorded in the first chapter of this book.

And it’s interesting to notice the order. First He rebuked the wind. Did you know that waves are caused by wind? Those of us that are surfers we know that we get waves from storms many hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of miles away. We can have great waves here in Delaware with beautiful weather from a storm a thousand miles away. The key component is what they call fetch. It’s the tract of water over which the wind blows. And if it blows in our direction long enough, over a broad enough fetch, then we will get waves that will travel many miles to reach our shores. It causes what’s called a groundswell. Well, this lake is only about 18 miles long, so it’s not got a lot of room for a prolonged fetch, but the waves are still caused by the wind.

The thing is that though the wind stops, the waves won’t immediately stop. The waves will continue to move because the wind imparts energy into the water. But Jesus rebukes the cause of the wind, and then He tells the waves to be still. And Mark says that the lake became perfectly calm. That’s not natural, but rather a supernatural occurrence which is not lost on the disciples.

So Jesus rebuked the wind, but He mildly chides the disciples. I don’t think that the text indicates He rebuked the disciples. I think He rebukes the devil. But He chides the disciples for their lack of faith. Notice what He says, ““Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” In Matthew’s gospel He says that they have little faith. I think the thought is the same. He is accusing them of an immature faith. They have had faith in what they can see. But they don’t yet have faith in what they can’t see, or they can’t explain.

And I think this is the whole point of the exercise. It is to get them to see by faith what they cannot see by sight. Faith is believing. And though they have believed what they could see, Jesus’s humanity, His power, His teaching, His ability to do miracles, to speak divine truth, they now need to be given a greater measure of belief. Belief in what they cannot see. What they cannot understand. Faith, according to Hebrews 11:1, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And by faith, the men of old gained approval from God.

Faith then is not what you can touch or see, or hold in your hand and examine. But faith is believing in what you cannot see, even what is hoped for, that which cannot be seen. Faith is the means of spiritual illumination. It is the means by which we see that which cannot be seen, that which is spiritual truth. And that faith is the essential component of our salvation. By faith, Abraham believed in God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. He was justified by faith. He was saved by faith in the Old Testament, and we are saved by faith in the New Testament. And that faith is comprehended in Jesus Christ. Believing in who He is, who He claimed to be, and what He did for us. That constitutes saving faith.

Now the disciples see the result of this miracle, and their response is to move from one fear to another fear. Notice, vs 41 “They became very much afraid and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?’” Well, Mark doesn’t answer their question, because the answer should be obvious. The wind and the sea obey Jesus because He is the Maker of the wind and the sea. John 1 says, He was the Word, and all things were made by Him and without Him nothing came into being that has come into being. And Hebrews 1 says “in these last days God has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”

So the disciples become fearful not because of the storm any longer, but because God was in their boat. And when that realization dawned on them, then their spiritual enlightenment, their spiritual walk took a quantum leap forward. They will still have doubts from time to time, they will still have weaknesses, but when you know the God of the Universe is with you, then there is a comfort and assurance and power that comes with that that supersedes the trivial trials of this world.

Listen, it’s natural to feel fear in certain times of trial. The Psalmists cry out to God in the fear and anxiety again and again. Psalm 10:1, “Why do You stand afar off, O Lord? Why do You hide Yourself in the midst of trouble?” Or Psalm 44, “Arouse Yourself, why do You sleep, O Lord, why do You hide Your face.” And lest we think that such despair is sinful, remember Jesus Himself quoted the Psalm when He cried out, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken Me?” Fear is a natural occurrence. And I don’t think that it is necessary sinful.

I remember hearing of a battle hardened soldier who said something to the effect, that everyone in battle feels fear. Courage is not a lack of fear. Courage is doing what is necessary even though you feel fear. When we find ourselves in a spiritual battle we may feel fear as we encounter things that seem beyond normal. They may even seem demonic. But though we may feel fear, we need not react in fear, but take courage that Jesus has promised to be with us in the trials and storms of life. And He will never leave us nor forsake us. We have been given life through His death, because of God’s immense love for us. So nothing can hurt us without going through the hand of God.

Romans 8:28 is a verse everyone here has probably memorized. But nevertheless it bears repeating. This verse comes right after the one we quoted earlier about the Spirit groaning in us through our weaknesses. Vs. 28 says, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

I trust that you have been called according to God’s purpose. I pray that you have not rejected the light that God has given you. But that you have believed in that light, and have followed in that light, so that you may continue to fulfill His calling upon your life. Be careful to consider all that God has taught us today concerning His Son. He was fully man and fully God, that He might become our Savior and our Substitute, that we might receive the righteousness of Christ by faith in Him. And having received Him, we love Him. And having loved Him, we obey Him. And as we walk in the light of His truth, He will one day glorify us so that we might be like Him and be with Him forever. Amen.

In this chapter, Mark has given us a small collection of parables which Jesus taught during His ministry. Last time, we looked at the first one, which is the parable of the soils. Today we will look at four more. Parables are physical illustrations of spiritual truth. Pastor’s and teachers today often make use of illustrations as an attempt to help people understand a biblical principle or doctrine. However, that is not really the purpose of a parable.

Notice in vs.11,12 that Jesus indicates a different purpose in using parables. He is not necessarily trying to illustrate truth more clearly, but rather to teach truth while at the same time keeping the unbelieving from understanding it. Listen to what He says to the disciples in vs.11, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, 12 so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.”

Now that sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? That Jesus in a sense would use a parable to camouflage the truth. But the fact is, that spiritual truth is disclosed as a matter of progressive revelation. It requires belief, and acceptance, but also it requires one to act upon it before God discloses more truth. There is a verse in Psalms 119:105 which speaks to this principle of progressive revelation; “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” In other words, as truth is disclosed to you, you must take the step of obedience in regards to that truth, and then God will shine the light on the next step, which again must be acted upon to proceed down the path to spiritual enlightenment. Notice how the psalmist compares truth to light, which only lights the next step along the path. You must walk in it to continue in the light.

So it is in a parable – spiritual illumination is necessary. Without the guidance of the Spirit, you cannot understand the teaching of the parable. It may seem to make sense on a physical level, because it is couched in a physical metaphor, but you cannot glean the spiritual sense without spiritual illumination from God, either in the person of Jesus Christ, or by the Holy Spirit. The disciples had Jesus to explain the spiritual meaning of the parables to them. The multitudes that were not interested in spiritual truth, but were only there for the entertainment value of the miracles did not have that benefit. Notice vs34, “and He did not speak to them without a parable; but He was explaining everything privately to His own disciples.” So there came a point in Jesus’s ministry when the crowds were massing around Him to see the miracles, in which He uses parables to teach them, while at the same time veiling the deeper spiritual meaning from those who would not believe in Him.

Now that is a principle of faith that we might have a hard time with because it seems unfair or discriminatory. Why are unbelievers blind to the truth of the gospel? And yet this is what the Bible teaches. The Bible says the just shall live by faith and not by sight. 2Cor. 4:3-4 says, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”

So before someone can believe, there must be a divine awakening by the Spirit of God whereby they are given spiritual eyes to see. And we are going to see this principle of spiritual illumination taught again and again in these parables we are looking at today. The necessity of spiritual illumination. And in that regard, we are going to see that only when that spiritual illumination is in place will there be the manifestation of spiritual life.

Let’s jump into the first one then and see how Jesus presents this. Vs. 21 And [Jesus] was saying to them, “A lamp is not brought to be put under a basket, is it, or under a bed? Is it not brought to be put on the lampstand? For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Now remember that our pattern for understanding this parable is found in the first parable of the soils. Jesus said in vs.13 if you don’t understand that first one, you won’t understand any of the parables. And the key to understanding the first one is that Jesus identifies the seed as the word of God. If He had not told us that key, we could easily go off in a hundred different directions in interpretation. We might think the first parable was about being a good steward of our resources and not being wasteful. But when we know that the seed planted is the word of God, then we can begin to understand the spiritual principle being taught.

In like manner, we have to look at this parable with the same kind of discernment. In fact, notice that Jesus uses the same closing statement in this parable as He did in the parable of the soils. He says in vs. 23, “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” That’s almost identical as the phrase in vs.9. In other words, listen carefully with spiritual discernment. If you have spiritual ears, listen carefully that you might understand fully.

So what then is the lamp which is depicted in this next parable? We have already seen in Psalms 119 that the lamp is the word of God just as the seed was the word of God in the first parable. Another important text that supports this is found in John 1:1-5, 9 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. … There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

So there you have it, the Word is the Light, which enlightens every man. I would suggest then that the lamp is the Incarnate Word of God which man accepts into His heart by believing in Jesus Christ as His Savior and Lord. This word then is given to us that we might live in that light and walk in that light, and reflect that light of God to the world. Jesus is saying that this light was not given to us that we might hide it, but that we would shine it out to the world.

Now that is not just talking about evangelism. I think we can consider it in light of the parable of the soils, in that the fruit which the seed produces is in the likeness of the same. In other words, Jesus who is the Word is planted in us and this seed brings forth fruit which looks like Jesus. So the fruit of the Spirit is to look like Jesus. Just as the seed of an apple produces an apple, so does the light of the Word produce the image of Jesus Christ in us. We exhibit His character and His nature as a result of receiving the word implanted. Psalm 36:9, “In thy light we see light.”

That same principle is taught here; that as Jesus is the Light, shining the truth of God to the world, the very reflection of God, so we are to reflect Jesus Christ to the world. The Spirit of God was given to us that we might look like and act like and speak like Jesus. Not that we might feign lip service to God on Sunday, but put Him under a bushel basket the rest of the week. Not simply that we might only hand out a couple of tracks and think that we have fulfilled our purpose, but that we might do the works of God and speak and act like Christ as the light of truth leads us to walk in the light. 1John 1:7 “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” That is the testimony that God desires from us. To be holy even as He is holy.

And then in vs 22, “For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed; nor has anything been secret, but that it would come to light.” That means then that if you have the Light of God in you, then He cannot stay hidden. He will produce light. There will be a corresponding reflection of Jesus Christ by your life. Your salvation will not, cannot stay hidden.

That segue’s into the next parable, or simile in vs24, And He was saying to them, “Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides. For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.” 

Here is the same principle further explained. If you do not believe the Light that has been revealed to you, then what light you have will be taken away from you. According to Romans 1 God will give you over to a reprobate mind. Romans 1:21 “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” The light is taken away. On the other hand, if you have believed the Light of the Word, then more light will be given. That light produces life. You will not only have life, but you will have it more abundantly. You will have eternal life.

So then, Jesus said, take care what you listen to. What does He mean by that? Well, it’s easy to understand if you remember He is talking about the word of God. If you receive the word of God, and act upon it, and follow it’s light, then you will be given more light, you will be given more life. But if you listen to the lies of the devil, to the lies of the world, then you will remain in darkness. That darkness leads to depravity and depravity to destruction.

Be careful then what you listen to. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Conversely, false teaching comes by hearing, and it produces apostasy.

So then, by your standard of measure it will be measured to you. How you receive the truth of God will determine to what degree you are given truth. A good way of understanding that is how you are obedient to the truth. As you are obedient, to that measure, more will be given to you in the same measure. The more you follow the truth, in the same measure God will reveal to you truth. There is a progressive nature to biblical revelation that is contingent upon your obedience. In other words, you cannot walk a yard in your faith and expect a mile in your sanctification. No, but as you walk a yard in your faith, God will grant you a yard’s worth of sanctification. The walk in the Spirit is a walk of progressive sanctification. But it is a walk, none the less. Our salvation was never intended to be stagnant. One leap of faith and then still for the rest of your life. The Bible says we are to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Far too many people claim to have received the truth of salvation, but they have never continued in that light. They haven’t grown an inch since supposedly they were converted. That is not what the Bible teaches constitutes spiritual life. As James 2 declares, we are to show our faith by our works.

Now we must move on to the next parable quickly. Vs26 And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows–how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

Here again, Jesus is teaching the same principle while at the same time elaborating on it even more. Once again we see the man sowing seed into the soil. And in this case, there is only one soil presented. It’s obviously the good soil, because it produces a crop. So we know already from the parable of the soils that the seed is the word of God, and the soil is the human soul or heart.

What Jesus is teaching here is that this spiritual illumination that comes through the word of God activated by the Spirit of God causes a spiritual growth which cannot be seen physically, or even understood from a natural point of view, but which is happening nonetheless because of divine germination in the heart of man. In this parable again, we see the kingdom of God is manifested. First, the word is planted. And in the process of maturity spiritual life is revealed. It is a mystery. It is something accomplished through the Spirit of God in the human soul. Without this divine insemination of spiritual life, there can be no growth. But because of the spiritual seed implanted, it bears forth spiritual things.

I want to make sure that you all understand what the kingdom of God is. It is a spiritual kingdom, whereby God rules in the hearts of man. Jesus came to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth, and He did so by planting the word of God in our hearts, by which they were transformed spiritually, so that we might be the family of God; spiritual sons and daughters of God. Thus nations and empires and races and nationalities have no means of restricting this spiritual kingdom. God reigns in the hearts of His people throughout the world.

We need to be careful then in interpreting this parable that we do not try to make it say more than what it is intended. It’s not talking about the rapture, it’s not talking about the second coming, it’s not talking about producing salvation in yourself. But what it is picturing is again a planting and a growth. The harvest simply represents the culmination of spiritual growth and maturity that will come if in fact there has been a true planting of the gospel in the heart of the believer. It’s talking about sanctification, as Hebrews 12:14 tells us, without which no one will see the Lord

Now let’s turn our attention to the last parable. And this particular one is the subject of much disagreement among commentators and Bible teachers. But I think the earlier statement by Christ in vs24 alludes to how we should approach this parable. Notice His statement back in vs.24, “Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides. For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.”

In that statement, I believe Christ alludes to both a positive and negative consequences of what you listen to. If you receive the truth of the gospel, there will be a positive growth and manifestation of the truth in your life. But if you listen to false teaching, there will be a subsequent aberrant growth that is not spiritual, but physical.

Now I think that is illustrated in this next parable, and you can almost sense that this one is different in the way Jesus introduces it. He says, “How shall we picture or literally, how shall we compare the kingdom of God, or by what parable shall we present it?” So Jesus is indicating there is a contrasting nature to this parable of the kingdom of God. And so I think that it illustrates what I call a duality of manifestation.

And what I mean by that is that there are two kinds of growth represented in this parable. Notice that the first one seems to follow the normal pattern established so far in the others. Once again, there is a seed which is sown. We have seen that in two others in this passage. The seed is the word of God. But in this case, Jesus describes the seed as a mustard seed which is smaller, He said, than the other seeds sown in the garden, yet when it is grown in is larger than all the other plants in the garden.

Now in a natural environment a mustard seed produces a mustard bush, usually just a few feet tall. But in Matthew and Luke’s parallel account in their gospels, the mustard seed becomes a tree. Mark just says it grows up larger than all the other plants and has large branches. So we can assume that what Jesus is saying is that this mustard seed produces an abnormally large plant, actually it becomes a tree which is large enough for the birds of the air to nest in it’s branches.

Now as I said, there is some controversy about this. A superficial reading might conclude that Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God starts out small and then grows very large which sounds desireable. But a more careful interpretation in keeping with the metaphors taught in the previous parables would indicate that in fact, Jesus is saying that there is an abnormality to the growth of the kingdom. It has become much larger than what would naturally occur. And furthermore, in the parable of the soils, which remember Jesus said we must learn in order to interpret the other parables, in that parable the birds of the air were identified as the devil and his angels who ate up the seed which fell beside the road.

Now if we were to keep our metaphors consistent, then in this case, would not the birds nesting in the branches be a picture of the devil and his angels finding refuge in the branches of the church universal? I would argue that it is in keeping with the principles set forth. Furthermore, though Jesus said that the gospel would be proclaimed throughout the earth, yet He also said in Matthew 7:14 that “the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” So from a spiritual perspective, large, abnormal growth is not the kind of growth that is consistent with the Biblical paradigm of the church.

So it would seem that Jesus is saying that the church will grow into an organization that exceeds the design of God, and in fact harbors and gives shelter to false doctrines and doctrines of devils. The kingdom of God, Jesus said, has vessels for honor and some for dishonor. Every knee will bow and every knee will confess that Jesus is Lord. But not all will be saved. Jesus said after My departure, many false prophets will arise in the church. Many antichrists, John said, are already at work in the world. And again in Matthew 7 Jesus says that in that day “many will say to Me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

So then, we can picture the church which is the kingdom of God, exhibiting abnormal growth, and certainly we have seen that in the 2000 years since this parable was spoken. Yes, the gospel has spread it’s branches throughout the world, but as the seven churches of Revelation illustrate, there are many that have lost their first love, that no longer do the works that they did at first. And to those apostate churches, or soon to be apostate churches, Jesus says “Repent” or He will remove their lamp stand from their place in the kingdom of God.

So then let us remember what Jesus said in vs24, ”Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides. For whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.”

If you have not believed in Jesus Christ unto salvation, if you do not have the Spirit of Truth residing in you, then you cannot walk in the light of truth, nor manifest the light of God. You will not produce the fruit of righteousness that God requires. There must first be a planting of the truth of God in your heart, and if that is truly there, then there will be appropriate fruit that follows. I implore you to examine your hearts today in the light of God’s word that you have heard. Jesus said in Matthew 7:16, “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.”

And if you are indeed made a good tree today by faith in Jesus’s righteousness by the grace of God, then I trust that you are producing good fruit through obedience to the light shown to you in the word of God. As God has shown you the truth through His word, act upon it. Be obedient to it. And to him who has shall more be given. God will add to you grace upon grace, that you might grow more and more, until we all are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. May it be so. Amen.

Today we come to what many commentators believe is the first of the parables that Jesus taught. And as we see in the story, the crowds have become so large, and there was such a desire for healing and to see miracles that people were being crushed, and so Jesus got into a boat just off shore so that He could teach the people. The point is, that He wanted to teach them the truth of the gospel of the kingdom. Healing had it’s place, and miracles had their place, but that was not the primary purpose of His ministry. It was to present the saving news of the gospel. And so we see that the large, pressing crowds actually interfered with that by their desire to see some miracle, or receive some miracle, yet they were really uninterested in learning the truth.

So Jesus employs a method of teaching called a parable. Parable’s teach a spiritual truth through a physical illustration. You must have spiritual insight to understand. You must have spiritual illumination. Without such divine illumination, we would be in darkness. He speaks in parables because the people that are in attendance are only interested in physical things; healing, miracles, being fed, being entertained. Jesus’s ministry must have sometimes seemed like a spectacle; it was entertaining, dynamic, exciting. Demons acting out. Paralytics being raised up and jumping for joy. The crowds were attracted to that. But that is not the kind of attraction that Jesus wants, so He uses parables to teach them, which are a method of teaching which present a deeper spiritual truth to those who are spiritually attuned, while at the same time obscuring the truth to those who are not ready to listen spiritually. Now we will say more about that in a moment. But let’s look at this parable, which Jesus says in vs.13 is important to understand if we are to understand all the parables.

The good news concerning this parable is that Jesus gives the disciples the explanation of it in the latter half of the passage. Not every parable is given with an explanation. But once we learn the principles involved in this one, it should be easier to understand the later ones.

In many other parables, Jesus starts off by saying something like “the kingdom of God is like…” and then the gives the analogy through a similitude. But in this case we see that Jesus does not say this is “Like the kingdom of God.” But He just starts off by saying, “The sower went out to sow.” However, in vs 11, Jesus says, “to you has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God.” So we know that this parable teaches what He calls the mystery of the kingdom of God. A mystery is a spiritual principle that is revealed through spiritual revelation. It is veiled to those who are not spiritual. Look at vs 11, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.” That was a partial quote of Isaiah 55.

In other words, those multitudes that were seeking a spectacle, that were seeking some excitement, who were there for the miracles but were not interested in spiritual truth, they were not spiritual, therefore they could not glean the spiritual truth of the parable. But for those like the disciples who had a heart for spiritual things, they were given the understanding of the mystery. Now that is an important principle which underlines the message of the parable as we shall see. You must have spiritual insight to understand. You must have spiritual illumination. Without such divine illumination, we would be in darkness.

So Jesus gives the parable. It’s a simple story of a sower who sowed seed, and some fell on the hard packed path alongside the field, and it was immediately eaten up by the birds. Other seed fell on rocky ground with a little soil on top. It sprang up immediately, but when the hot sun came out it withered and died. Other seed fell on soil and sprung up, but so did thorns and weeds and they choked out the life of the plant so that it was unfruitful. And then some seed fell on good soil, and produced a crop which yielded 30, 60, and hundred fold.

Now if that was all that Mark had recorded about that parable, then I think most of us would be in the dark about what was meant by it. We might surmise that Jesus was teaching that we needed to be more careful with our resources. If we don’t use our resources carefully, then we will waste much of it, and we will not get as big of a return for our investments, whatever they may be. That makes sense to me. And it makes sense in a natural world that is focused on physical things. I would bet that was the general consensus of the crowd as they heard this parable. How to increase your investments. How to be a good steward of your resources. How to live your best life now. Sounds like familiar sermon fodder, doesn’t it?

Well, Jesus concluded the parable with an important statement, which indicated that there was much more to the story. In vs.9 He says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” What He is saying is “He who has spiritually attuned to hear, hear! listen! Listen carefully, intently. There is more here than meets the eye.”

Well, thankfully, the disciples recognized that there had to be more to the story than what was on the surface. So while most of the crowd went away satisfied with the superficial aspects of the story and the supernatural events that they had witnessed, the disciples asked Jesus privately for the meaning of the parable. And that teaches the principle of spiritual illumination. Jesus who is the truth, or the Spirit of Truth, must illuminate our hearts if we are to understand spiritual things. The secret to being of the kingdom of God is that such life must be of the Spirit and not of the natural. And that is born out even in the method of the message of the gospel. So Jesus gives us the meaning of the parable in vs.14-20. Remember now, in His explanation starting in vs 11, Jesus has already said that this is a mystery of the kingdom of God. These are spiritual metaphors of the kingdom of God that are presented in this parable.

Lets look at the first one; the sower. Who is the sower? The sower could have been Jesus. In fact, Jesus was certainly sowing. But the sower can be anyone who is of the kingdom of God. Seeds produce fruit after their kind. So in the kingdom of God one must be a part of the kingdom to be a sower. So anyone can be a sower of the kingdom of God providing he himself is first a citizen of the kingdom of God. The sower could be a preacher of the gospel. Preaching would certainly constitute sowing. God has ordained the gospel to be preached. Romans 10:14 says, “How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?” Though we may not all be pastors, yet we can all proclaim the gospel if we are citizens of the kingdom of God.

But it’s important to note that the main thrust of the parable is not about the sower. From a natural interpretation of the parable, you might focus on the sower. If he learned how to sow better, more efficiently, then he might not have wasted so much seed. But Jesus doesn’t seem focused on the sower, nor on his methods, or on his expertise. Simply that he sows wherever he goes. Our job is to sow the seed. Just do it. If you seem ineffective, it doesn’t matter as much as that you just do it. Sow the seed. God has His purposes even when the seed lands on poor soil. Our purpose is to sow.

The second thing which we need to notice is the seed. What is it? Jesus said it is the word of God. We sow the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is a mystery to the world, but it is divinely powerful for the overthrowing of fortresses. Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” There is power in the word of God. The gospel is the power of God. As ambassadors of the kingdom of God we need to use the power of the gospel to achieve God’s purposes. The power or effectiveness of the gospel is not found in programs, or in methods, or in attracting crowds, but in preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, the word of God. The word of God has power inherent in it, even as a seed has in a tiny shell the germ of a mighty oak tree. Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God [is] living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

The next thing we need to see is the soils. Jesus gives four types of soil. In farming, soil is an important aspect of how successful your farm will be. Farmers spend a lot of time and money on the soil. My wife is an avid gardener. And she is always complaining because we have poor soil. She used to be really jealous of our neighbor’s garden, because he had all this money that he would spend enriching the soil. We don’t even have a tiller. A lot of times Susie would just chop the soil with a hoe and try to break it up. The only time I ever saw Susie act a little bit larcenous, was when our neighbor had a great big pile of manure delivered to his garden. She really wanted to go over there and “borrow” a couple of shovel full’s of manure. I told her that coveting your neighbors manure was a sin. A stinky sin at that.

Soil though in this parable is a picture of the human heart. The heart is a euphemism for the soul of man. It encompasses your emotions, your intellect and your will. So Jesus is talking about the heart. It is not a parable of the sower. It is a parable of the soils. The variety of conditions of the heart.

The first heart is that which can be described as a hard heart. 2Cor. 4:4 says “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” There is no spiritual illumination whatsoever. These people are just blind to the gospel. They turn a deaf ear. The word of God just bounces right off their hardened heart.

Jesus said these are the ones who are beside the road where the seed was sown. In other words, the soil has not been prepared there at all. It hasn’t been plowed, or watered, or fertilized. It is not broken up to receive the seed. It is still packed down hard. And so the seed lays there and the birds of the air come and eat it. Now this is another important principle for future parables. Birds of the air, Jesus says, are the devil and his angels. And they take away the word which was sown. Don’t discount the work of the devil in the presentation of the gospel. He is there to snatch away the word of God through distractions, through deceit, through every way possible, to keep you from hearing the word, lest it pierce your heart.

The second type of heart is the rocky heart. Notice vs.16, it says, “in a similar way…” I think that indicates that these two hearts are closely aligned. Now that makes sense doesn’t it? Because hard packed ground is similar to rocky ground. If you fall down on hard packed ground and it can feel like you fell on cement. And I suggest that they are similar in results. In either case, there is no real growth of the seed.

In this case, Jesus says that “the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, [are those] who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.”

When a plant has no depth of soil, it has to grow up rather than down. But because it has no root, when the sun comes up they wither and die. This speaks to those people who hear the word, and they have a superficial, emotional response to the word. It’s quick, but it’s temporary. Because as affliction comes, or persecution comes, they quickly die off. I don’t think Jesus is necessarily talking about religious persecution in an organized fashion. I think it just means affliction in a general way. Your girlfriend doesn’t want to go to church with you. Your job doesn’t want to give you Sundays off anymore. Your friends want you to go out with them on Saturday night and you will get back late. It’s sort of rainy on Sunday morning. And so these superficial “Christians” who have no real spiritual life, quickly fizzle out.

I think there is a danger in evangelicalism today when we emphasize emotional, impulsive responses to the gospel, and then we declare them saved for eternity. You’re good to go. I think that Jesus is teaching here that sort of emotional response does not always constitute true salvation. And so we do those folks a grave disseverance if we tell them that that is all there is to salvation. No, the Bible teaches that we must count the cost. There is a cost to following the Lord. And when you are faced with that cost, whether or not you continue or desert the faith is indicative of the measure of your commitment to the Lord.

The third characterization of the heart is that of the thorny heart. Vs 18 “And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”

Notice that this seems to be a plant that grows and survives, but it is unfruitful. Jesus gives three reasons for unfruitfulness in this person. First is the worries of the world. Man, which of us does not have to contend with the worries of the world? Notice, He doesn’t say the sins of the world. Just the worries of the world. Perhaps it’s your job. Maybe you’re facing a slowdown, a layoff, bankruptcy. Or perhaps it’s going the other way. It’s going great. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. You can’t get any good help. You’ve got more business than you can handle. Whatever it is, it has you so occupied, that you can’t spend any time on the business of the kingdom. 

Or perhaps it’s your children. You’re so busy with your kids, your grandkids, your wife’s got you going, your husband has all this stuff going on and so you have to take up the slack with your kids. Maybe your family concerns are those thorny weeds that are springing up faster than you can take care of them. It’s like the verse in Hebrews 12:1 which says, “let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” The point is that it may not be sin that is hindering you. It may not be something inherently bad. In fact, it may be something good. He who finds a wife finds a good thing, the Bible says. Children are a gift from the Lord. But good things can be hindrances to running the race. They can become thorny weeds that hinder fruitfulness.

God didn’t design a fig tree to be a shade tree. He made it to bear fruit. And God designed us to bear fruit. John 15:16 “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” We were designed to bear fruit.

Notice the other thorny thing, vs 19, the deceitfulness of riches. You don’t have to be a millionaire to have this one. It’s not money that is the source of all evil, but the love of money. And show me someone who doesn’t love money? Money is deceitful however, because it never satisfies. There is never enough. No matter how much you make, you always manage to have a lifestyle that is just beyond your budget. And so we are always looking for more, thinking that will be the answer to our problems.

Listen, I learned this lesson the hard way a number of years ago. Not that I am there yet, but I have learned something along the way so far. When I finally gave God control of my finances, He didn’t give me more, He gave me less. He showed me how to be satisfied with less. How little I really needed to be able to live. And I think that lesson is not just for me, it’s for all of us. If you think that you don’t have a problem with money, then you have fallen prey to the deceitfulness of riches. And in our culture today, we are rich beyond the wildest dreams of most of the other people in the world. God is not a respecter of persons. He doesn’t have different weights and measures for Christians in America but a different scale for those in North Korea. I doubt that the average Christian in N. Korea has much of a problem with the deceitfulness of riches holding back his fruitfulness.

And finally we come to the good soil; the good heart, the receptive, ready, obedient heart. “And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” Notice that all of the various hearts heard the word, according to the parable. But only this one does Jesus say accepted it. Now what does that mean? It means to apply it. To let it sink down into your soul and change your actions and attitudes. It’s like a seed that germinates and breaks open and starts to grow. It produces something. It isn’t just a passive hearing, but an active obedience to the word. The seed which is the word of God has to germinate, it has to grow, it has to grow roots, to be activated by the Spirit of God. That is what it means to walk in the Spirit. To obey the word, to act upon it. That’s how the seed is activated. You act upon it. Faith is not just hearing the word, but acting upon it.

And notice the results; it bears fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Now what is fruit? Well, Jesus doesn’t say. I have heard a lot of sermons about this parable. And practically none of them say what the fruit is. Perhaps because Jesus doesn’t say it, they don’t dare venture a guess. A couple of preachers, good preachers, by the way, say that parable is about winning souls. It’s a parable about evangelism and good hearted Christians will win souls, some 30, some 60 some 100. Well, I don’t think we can use those numbers to make that association. However, I will admit there are some elements of evangelism in the parable. Winning souls may certainly be a part of bearing fruit. But I think that is making a natural assumption. And as we said at the beginning, we can really go off track making natural assumptions as to the meaning of a parable. It’s the spiritual meaning that we need to be seeking and that comes from spiritual sources.

In the disciples case, their spiritual source for understanding was Jesus. He was able to tell them what the parable meant. If we wish to go beyond what Jesus said, then we have to use the only spiritual resource that we have; the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the author of the Holy Scriptures.

So what is the fruit? Is it souls saved? Is it the number of notches on your spiritual gun stock? Souls saved may be a part of it, but it can’t be just souls. I suggest that fruit is spiritual fruit; and spiritual fruit is by definition fruit of the Spirit. Now the Bible tells us what is the fruit of the Spirit, doesn’t it? Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

So, at least according to Galatians, souls saved are not mentioned as fruit. But rather it gives characteristics and attributes of the Christian. Are these attributes the fruit that we are to be exhibiting? Well, that would seem to be what it says in Romans 8:28-29 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” Notice that we are called according to His purpose, which is what? Paul tells us in the next verse, 29 “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”

So then, can we say that the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians is the same character and attributes of Jesus Christ? Did He exhibit love? Agape love, sacrificial love, even to the point of laying down His life? Did He exhibit joy? Did He exhibit peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control? Of course He did. So it would seem that being conformed to the image of Christ is to bear fruit. Some will manifest these fruits more so than others. But good hearts, receptive hearts, bear the image of Christ to some measure.

Now lest we make a case of one verse, let’s look at just a couple of more examples in scripture. In Eph 5:8 we read, “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.” Well, there we have Light used instead of Spirit. But if you remember my earlier application, this spiritual truth is derived from spiritual illumination. And the fruit of such spiritual light in our hearts produces the character and attributes of Christ; goodness, righteousness and truth.

Another is found in Phil. 1:10 “so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” What is this fruit of righteousness? I would say it is righteousness; sincere, blameless, approving that which is excellent. An apple seed produces an apple. So righteousness imputed produces righteous acts.

And that is born out in a final verse; Col 1:10 “so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” So good works, or works of righteousness is the fruit that we bear, which pleases the Lord. And increasing in the knowledge of God. I would suggest that is a fruit as well. If we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, who is the image of God, then we have to know about Him. And the more we learn of Him, the more we come to know Him, and the more we know Him the more we love Him. And the more we love Him, the more we want to please Him. And that fruit pleases God. That is the fruit of maturity. It is the fruit of sanctification. Where we cast off more and more of the world, and put on more and more of Jesus Christ. When we live out our faith in obedience, we will be a living testimony to the power of the gospel. And by that means we will be much more effective in our preaching.

I hope that today you will examine your hearts. Everyone of us here today is represented by one of those four soil scenarios. Which heart do you have? A hard heart? A stony heart? A thorny heart, or a good heart?

What if you say, pastor, I am afraid I have a thorny heart, or a rocky heart. What is the remedy? What must I do to make my heart good soil that produces fruit which is pleasing to God? Well, I can tell you where to start. It starts with a broken and contrite heart. It starts with repentance. Simply call out to God to give you a new heart.

The Psalmist David found himself in a place where His heart had grown cold and sin had found it’s way into his soul. He prayed in Psalm 51, and this is where we all need to start, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. … The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Call upon the Lord today, and He will take that broken heart and make it fruitful, being conformed to the image of Christ.

Today we are picking up where we left off in Mark’s gospel last time. As you will recall, Jesus called certain of the disciples away with Him to a mountain, and there He commissioned 12 of them to be His disciples. These were to be the men who would be closest to Him, to whom He would have intimate fellowship. He called them apart from the crowds, from the multitudes, from the world to Himself. They would become closer to Him than even His family. They would in fact be His family, even the foundation of His body, which is the church.

So keeping that in context, we come now to a couple of events in which this idea of the family of Christ is called into question. And Jesus responds to those questions with a principle, or the truth of His gospel, which has direct implications for all of those who would be Christ’s disciples, even to us here today. So to that end, I have entitled today’s message the priority of the gospel. And we will be examining three principles related to this priority. First the priority of the spiritual above the physical. Next the priority of the kingdom of God over the kingdom of darkness. And third, the priority of the church over the family.

Now let’s start with the priority of the spiritual over the physical and we will begin by looking at the description Mark gives in vs 20. Jesus and His disciples have come home, that is to Capernaum once again, from the mountain where Jesus had commissioned the twelve. And immediately, it seems, the crowds learn of His arrival and come to where He is. In fact, Mark tells us that the enthusiasm to see Jesus is so great on the part of the multitudes, that Jesus and the disciples don’t even have time to eat. And I believe the text indicates that Jesus willingly engaged with the multitudes, by addressing their needs, having compassion on the lost sheep of Israel. He was about the Father’s business, even to the exclusion of taking care of His normal daily needs.

You will recall a similar event, when Jesus visited with the woman of Samaria, when the disciples had gone into town to get food, and finding Jesus talking with the woman when they returned, they were trying to get Him to eat, and were surprised to hear His response; “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” And they said, “did someone give Him something to eat while we were gone?” And He replied, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.”

So in Jesus’s mind, to do the will of God was spiritual food which was more essential than physical food. And in this situation in Capernaum, it seems He is employing the same principle. There is no time even to eat for Jesus, because He is spiritually feeding and being fed in the business of establishing the Kingdom of God. 

Now I think you can understand the principle there, which applies to us as well. For we are to have the mind of Christ, to follow in His footsteps as He gave us an example. The business of the Kingdom of God takes priority over earthly desires and even bodily needs. And that principle was illustrated earlier in the discourse we looked at last week concerning fasting, which Jesus talked about in chapter 2, around vs20 or so. Fasting illustrates the priority of the spiritual over the needs of the physical. I won’t belabor that point, but I hope you will meditate on the truth of it for yourselves.

Vs.21 says though that when His own people heard of this, the fact of His unceasing work, not even eating a meal, they went out to take custody of Him, saying, “He has lost His senses.” Now I don’t know if they were using a colloquialism such as we might use today by saying, “you are out of your mind!” or if they were seriously thinking that He was going crazy. I’m leaning towards the latter, because Mark says they didn’t just say it, but they went to get Him and take custody of Him. In other words, they were going to do an intervention. And I’m sure that they were sincere in their concern for Him. But they were sincerely in error.

Furthermore, let’s elaborate on the phrase; “His own people.” This could have been friends from the past, perhaps relatives from the old neighborhood, that heard the things being reported about Jesus and thought this is crazy. We knew Him when He was a little boy. He always seemed a little different, but this has gone too far. He’s out of His mind!” So well intended, but misplaced concern on the part of somewhat condescending neighbors and friends.

But I think that the context of this chapter indicates that it was more than simply concerned friends from the old neighborhood. I think vs.31 indicates that it was probably His mother and His brothers. Now that raises some serious questions. First of all, it raises the question as to what the status of their spirituality was at that point. Mary, of course, is revered to the point of practically being worshipped in certain religions today. But Mary had to come to salvation, and she had to come to sanctification, just as everyone does. Mary was a person with weaknesses and sins just as every man and woman on the face of the earth. The Bible tells us that there is none righteous, no not even one. Not even Mary.

Furthermore, it means that she had other sons and daughters. In Matt. 13:55-56 we read the people of Caperanum asking, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” So not only do we that Jesus had brothers and sisters, but in John 7:5 we see that they did not believe that He was the Christ, the Son of God. John 7:5 “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” As Mark indicates here in our text, they thought He was delusional. They thought He was acting irrationally. And somehow or another, it seems that they prevailed upon HIs mother to join with them in rescuing Jesus from this self destructive illusion He was suffering under. Now we will see Jesus’s answer to that in a moment.

But in the interim, Mark shows us another scene, presumably going on at that time, in which the scribes sent down from Jerusalem to investigate Jesus and His claims, come to the conclusion and even start broadcasting their claim that Jesus is possessed by the devil himself. Mark 3:22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”

They see the marvelous things that He was doing, and moved to jealousy, they spew hateful lies, trying to undermine His ministry. In fact, their hatred moves them to do something blasphemous, to impugn the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and say that instead it is something demonic. In fact, they use a name for Satan which is Beelzebul, which is a variation of the “Lord of the Flies”, or “Lord of the dung heap.” They want to associate Christ with the lowest, vilest name for Satan that they know of, as if to vilify Christ even more.

Now this passage illustrates the second principle; that is the priority, or superiority, of the kingdom of God over the kingdom of darkness. Let’s start by considering Jesus’s response. First He asks the question, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” And He answers His own question with an illustration, or a simple parable. “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” So the parable is a house divided against itself, or a kingdom divided against itself. In both cases He is talking about the ruler of the house, or the ruler of the kingdom. We see that illustrated in the case of a husband and wife becoming divisive and argumentative, and then finally ending in divorce, don’t we? A house divided cannot stand. It is ruined.

So it is in the spiritual realm, or kingdom or house. If in Satan’s house is one who casts out Satan’s demons, then the ruin of that house is imminent. And so Jesus says in vs.26, “If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished!” So in other words, what you are accusing Me of is not reasonable.

Then He gives another illustration which shows the superiority of His gospel. They attributed a lie to His ministry, saying He had a demon. Now He shows them the truth of His ministry. And that is that He is vastly superior than Satan, and that is why He is able to cast out demons. Vs.27, “But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.”

What He is saying is that Satan is the prince of this world, the prince of darkness. He has held captive in his realm the souls of men. They are held captive by sin and the whole world is in darkness because of it. So Jesus says that He could not free people from Satan’s dominion unless He first binds the strong man, that is Satan. He cannot take away Satan’s property unless He is stronger and overpowers Satan. So He frees men from demonic possession not by the power of Satan, but because His own power is superior. As Col 1:13 says, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

And in the next chapter of Colossians this transfer is explained further. Col 2:15 “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” That’s speaking of His ascension and taking of His throne at the right hand of the Father. Christ broke Satan’s powerful hold on us by taking away our penalty of sin. At this point, Christ has not died for sins, but He is still able to free men from the dominion of Satan because of His sovereignty as the Son of God. And the lesser angels know that, and that is why they are submissive to Him.

But the Lord isn’t done with these scribes yet. He has refuted their accusation, He has explained His power, but now He will rebuke their blasphemy. He says in vs.28 “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”– because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Now this verse has given rise to a lot of questions concerning the unpardonable sin. And some have perhaps taught things which are not taught in this passage, with the result that it causes naive Christians undue concern. Note first of all the phrase, “all sins will be forgiven the sons of men and whatever blasphemes they utter.” Now that statement stands alone as truth. We see no evidence in scripture of a sin so vile that it cannot be forgiven. Peter denied Christ three times with cursing. David was guilty of adultery, lying and murder. Paul was guilty of persecuting Christians to death. And yet all were forgiven. Because the grace of God is greater than all our sins. If a man or woman repents, there is forgiveness. 1John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

So let no one convince you that there is a sin too great for God to forgive, because that would limit the righteousness of Jesus Christ as insufficient. And that cannot be true. How then can you never find forgiveness for your sins? If you never turn to Him in repentance who has the power of forgiveness. If you continually harden your heart against the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and you die in your sins, then you will die unforgiven. So when you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit it is to deny His sanctifying work, and to trample it under foot and consider it worthless. Though the Spirit’s job is to convict you of sin, you deny you have sin. Though He convicts you of the need for salvation, you tell yourself that you do not need saving. And as such you die in your sins, unforgiven. That is the unpardonable sin. You deny the Lord as your Savior of whom the Spirit bears witness.

Mark adds that Jesus said this because they were saying that He had an unclean spirit. In other words, they were casting aspersions upon His family ties. He was not the Son of God, they said, but the son of the devil. And as such they denied themselves the possibility of salvation, because as the son of the devil He could not ever save. But as the Son of God He ever lives to give salvation to those who believe. Hebrews 7:25 “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

Well, speaking of family, Mark turns our attention once again to His mother and brothers who have finally come to take Jesus home with them. And in this passage we see the final priority, that of the church over the family. As Jesus is in the home of presumably Simon Peter, His mother and His brothers arrive outside and send Him a message to come home with them. And as the crowd is sitting around Him, listening to His teaching, someone said, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.”

And Jesus’s answer is quite shocking. Answering them, He *said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?” Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He *said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

There is a natural assumption, is there not, that family comes first? I have seen very powerful men, whom you could not get an appointment with if you tried, drop everything, put an important business meeting on hold because they got a phone call from one of their children. This is natural. It is normal. But though it is a natural condition, it does not necessarily make it spiritual principle. In fact, in the case of the Jews we find that this family association worked against them in spiritual matters. You will remember that they relied upon their being descendants of their father Abraham for their salvation. They relied upon their material, physical inheritance as Israelites to supply their spiritual salvation. But as I argued at the beginning, the physical does not supply the spiritual, but the spiritual supplies the physical. It was the faith like that of Abraham that is able to save, not the physical relation to Abraham.

Jesus actually makes several references in His gospel to the physical relationship of family versus the spiritual relationship to God. For example, In Luke 14:26 Jesus said, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

Let me break that down for you very simply. This is not just some sort of hyperbole on the part of Jesus. This is a vital principle of the gospel. And this is it really simply; the family of God takes priority over the family of man. The church takes priority over the family. If you can explain Luke 14:26 any other way, then I would be glad to hear it. But I think it is clear what Jesus is saying. He says it another way in Matt. 10:37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” 

Listen folks, if we are not careful, we can make our family into an idol that comes before God. God demands that He be first. Jesus said in Matthew 22:37, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ That’s the priority. Jesus has to have preeminence above every family tie, above every earthly relation, above every human responsibility.

That goes against our grain, doesn’t it? It goes against our nature. Against our wisdom. But the Bible speaks of a heavenly wisdom that supercedes that of the natural wisdom of man. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”

I think we are all guilty of putting natural affections above spiritual affections. I could really dig into this, but I think we are all intelligent people here. I think we should be able to make the application where necessary.

But I would ask you to consider something important to this principle. Why do we go to church? Is it to just hear a preacher preach a message? You can do that online or on television. Is it just to fellowship with like minded people? You can do that in a bar or at a soccer game. Is it just to sing songs? You can do that by listening to the radio. I think that this question underscores one of the most misunderstood principles in the gospel. And that is the priority of church.

Let me try to explain it this way. Church is the submission of the physical to the spiritual. It is illustrated by the Sabbath rest, in which the physical acts of supplying your food, or work or physical needs ceased in order to establish the preeminence of your spiritual needs. So church is physically submitting your body to the spiritual body. It is an act of physical sacrifice and offering of yourself to God. And I think it is articulated in Romans 12:1,2 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

When we physically present our bodies to the Lord’s body, to His church, then we give Him our spiritual service of worship. We are confessing when we come to church our spiritual dependency upon Him to supply every need. We are establishing the spiritual priority over the needs or desires of the physical. We are putting action to our faith, in which the demands of this life are subjected to the priority of the life of God. And if we love God, then as we learned in 1 John, we will keep His commandments, to love His body, to love one another, and not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

Notice that is what Jesus concludes this principle about family with; a lesson on the necessity of obedience. It was not the physical relationships that constituted family, but the spiritual relationship to God. And if you are a member of His family, then you will obey Him. “For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

Listen, Jesus said there will be many people, let me repeat that, many people, that will say unto Him “Lord, Lord!” And yet He will say to them, “I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.” If we call Him Lord, then we must do the things which He says.

Though we are not saved on the basis of our works, we are known as belonging to His family by our works. We do as He did. We do the Father’s will. And so the sons of God look like, and act like the Father.

You will remember that when Jesus was a young boy, about 12, and His family went to Jerusalem, later on when they had started to return home they discovered that He was not with the caravan. And so His mother and father looked all over Jerusalem for Him and finally found Him in the temple. And His parents asked Him why did you do this to us? Why did you cause us this concern? And remember His answer? “Did you not know I had to be in My Father’s house?” Jesus showed by His actions the priority of HIs spiritual family through His attendance to the things of God.

And I’ll give you one more example of that as we draw this to a close. Jesus on the cross was attended to by His mother and the disciple John. And you will remember that Jesus before He died looked at His mother and said, “Woman, behold your son.” Then He *said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

Now we have already seen that Mary had other sons and daughters. What was the point of this exchange then? The point was to show the priority of the spiritual relationship over the physical relationship. Mary and John were related by faith, which was a greater relationship than what she had with her sons, who were as yet unbelieving. And so it is with our faith. Our faith has resulted in becoming a new creation; old things are passed away, and all things become new. And so there are no priorities in our lives. The priority of the spiritual above the physical. The priority of the kingdom of God over the kingdom of darkness. And the priority of the church over human familial relationships.

God wants all of you, and He wants to make all things subjected to Jesus Christ. There can be no idols competing with the Lord in your life. “You shall have no other gods before Me.” Let us examine our priorities today. And put the Lord in first place not only in word, but in deed.

When US presidents leave office, it is very common today to hear news commentators remark about what that president’s legacy will be. And the presidents themselves seem to be very concerned about it. So they go out of their way to enact certain legislation or reforms or do certain things in order to establish a legacy that will be viewed favorably by future generations. Before the engines have cooled on Air Force One, they usually have written a book or two, a biography and spent millions preparing their library.

In contrast to the self aggrandizing actions by the most powerful people in our country, it might seem strange to us today to consider that Jesus Christ, the greatest figure in human history, had nothing tangible to leave to the world as His monument. He wrote no books, He never built a church building, never founded a university nor did he build a hospital. What He left was simply a band of twelve ordinary men, called apostles, in whom He had invested the greater part of his time, and a few hundred followers called disciples. His legacy was His ministry to others and the transforming effect that He had upon their lives.

We live in an age when it seems, as Andy Warhol prophesied, that everyone has their 15 minutes of fame. Most people perceive being popular as the greatest achievement. And popular opinion pursues one new trend after another, discarding each fad or personality as easily as they are attracted to the next. People today become millionaires based on their popularity. But popularity is fickle and fleeting at best. Public opinion changes horses in the middle of the race as a matter of course. It’s a transitory thing to pursue popularity, whether in the realm of human endeavor, or in the realm of the church.

Though at times Jesus was immensely popular, yet He never sought popularity. In the three short years of Jesus’s ministry, we see Him rise out of obscurity to the very height of popularity, so that it was impossible for Him to be seen in public without creating a disturbance. But Jesus did not seek such popularity, nor did He exploit it or try to use it for His advantage. In fact, when the crowds got too large, too clamoring, Jesus often disappeared into the wilderness or to a mountain to be alone. Usually in those situations, He chose a few faithful followers to be with Him, and that is where He taught them more intimately of His truth.

That seems to be the case in this next section we are looking at. After the healing in the synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus withdrew to the seashore. And while at the seashore, word gets out that He is there, and so the crowds come from all the regions not only around Galilee, but also Judea, Idumea, even Tyre and Sidon. And remember, this was long before modern methods of news reporting, or social media. The fame of Christ had to be great for news to travel so far and so fast.

Of course, one of the main reasons for this popularity was that people were being healed of every kind of disease. In contrast to the so called faith healers of today, these healings were verified by so many witnesses that the news of them spread like wildfire to the thousands of people who were sick or suffering who were living in a time before modern medicine, when even most common illnesses could be deadly. It was obviously great news. And so thousands of people were flocking to where ever the last place they heard Jesus was.

Mark says that so many were coming to Him that they were in danger of crushing one another. They were like the mob scenes at perhaps some big venue, where people start pushing and struggling trying to touch someone, who in this case is Christ. They wanted to touch Him so that they might be healed. So Jesus asked for a boat to be ready, so that they could avoid being crushed, and perhaps help others not to get hurt by the thousands who were trying to reach Him.

It’s obvious that most of these people were attracted to Christ because of His miraculous works. Not necessarily because they appreciated His message. And there is a lesson in that for us today. The idea that we need to create a spectacle at church in order to attract a crowd is not consistent with the example Jesus and the Apostles gave us in ministry. Jesus never orchestrated events in order to get a huge crowd. In fact, we see that crowds often hindered the ministry. And we also see that those who came for the bread and fish, or to see some miracle, were not usually the ones to stay with Him in the long run.

Though Jesus preached to crowds, and though He worked miracles in some of those situations because of His compassion, yet the most effective method He employed in ministry was to make disciples by intimate, daily fellowship with a small band of followers.. And that was usually accomplished most efficiently when He drew them apart from the crowds and spent time with them.

There is one other aspect to His public ministry though that bears consideration. And that we see in vs. 11, 12. “Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was.” Now that bears some explanation. First of all, it seems that there were a lot more cases of unclean spirits, or demon possession or influence in Jesus’s day than there appears to be in ours. I would say though it may appear that way, that may not actually be the case. I think the difference is that spirits recognize spirits. You and I can not always recognize an unclean spirit. But Jesus could recognize it immediately. And of course, the unclean spirit could recognize Jesus immediately. So once they knew that He recognized them, they called out in some sort of defense, hoping that they would not be cast out of their human host. Jesus though always had more compassion on the person than upon the demon. In chapter 5 we will be looking at the demoniac who lived in the tombs. And you may remember that the demons in this man did not want to be cast out without a host body and so they asked to be cast into the pigs. And Jesus accommodated them, and the pigs ran into the sea and committed suicide. Demons don’t want to be recognized, and they don’t want to be without a host. They actually prefer to work in secret rather than in the open.

But Jesus recognized them, and they recognized Jesus. So Jesus told them not to announce who He was. Why? Because Jesus doesn’t want the testimony of demons. Jesus didn’t want demon testimony to be the proclamation of who He was. And neither did He need their testimony. Jesus wants His representatives to be the apostles and HIs disciples to bear witness of Him. it is our job, not the job of demons, to proclaim the truth of Christ.

But let me be quick to add that though we may not recognize them, there are still demons working in the world today. There number and activity is not diminished. In fact, the Bible tells us that at the end of the age, the devil knowing that he has but a little time left, will redouble his efforts and activities. And so we can expect more demonic activity as time goes on, not less. In fact, Ephesians 6:12 tells us [that] “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” It’s hard for us to comprehend, but our struggle is not with your wife, or your husband, or your mother in law or neighbor, but it’s demonic forces that are working in the sons and daughters of disobedience. Those that are still held in the dominion of darkness are unwitting pawns in the devil’s schemes. And we need to remember that it’s not the person that we see that is the enemy, but the demonic force working through that person. The problem is that we don’t recognize it as demonic. We just see someone in the flesh acting like a jerk, or being nasty towards us, and so we want to retaliate in the flesh. And that’s exactly what the devil wants us to do. So we need to be wise to his schemes and learn to recognize the enemy.

I’ll tell you something else. The greatest evidence of sin’s dominion in Jesus day was the number of people controlled by unclean spirits. When we read the gospels we can’t help but be struck by the vast number of people under the influence of unclean spirits. And I would say that the greatest evidence of sin’s dominion in our day is rampant sexual immorality and drug use. We don’t see the unclean spirits exposing themselves usually in those cases. But the Bible teaches us that such sins are evidence of demonic control. In the final days prophesied in Revelation 19, the scripture talks about people who worship demons and the sins which characterize them, and how though God uses plagues to try to get them to repent, they will not repent of their sins because they love them so much. Rev. 9:20-21 “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.” So two of the defining sins are sorceries and immoralities. The Greek word for sorceries is pharmakeia, which means the use or administering of drugs. Sex and drugs are two of the most endemic sins we have in our culture today. And yet the way the culture is trying to deal with them is to say that they aren’t sin. Legalize them. But from our perspective, we know that only the truth will set you free. We know the truth, but we need to tell it to them. And perhaps if we understand the true nature of their sin we might approach them a little differently.

Well, as I said, Jesus retired from the seaside to the mountains to get away from the crowds, and to spend time alone with His disciples. Jesus often did this. And Luke 6:12 tells us that He spent the night in prayer. Jesus often did that as well. You know, Jesus, probably more so than any other person that’s ever lived, didn’t need to spend time in prayer. I think He was in perpetual communication with the Father. But yet He spends the entire night in prayer on many occasions. In spite of how busy He was, how tired He was, in spite of the fact He only had 3 years to get the job done that He came to do, He spends much time alone in prayer to God. Makes you think doesn’t it? It should make you consider how many nights have you spent in prayer? Are we more spiritual than Jesus, that we don’t need to spend time in prayer?

I was reading Daniel the other night, and I was struck by Daniel saying that he spent 3 weeks fasting and in prayer. Three weeks fasting? I don’t think he was talking about not having ice cream for three weeks either. Daniel 10:2-3 “In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks. I did not eat any tasty food, nor did meat or wine enter my mouth, nor did I use any ointment at all until the entire three weeks were completed.” There you go, try that fast. Especially the ointment part. Try no deodorant for three weeks. That will get you noticed.

Look, I don’t want to make light of Daniel’s prayer. By the way, have you heard of the Daniel Plan? It’s a meal program popular in Christian bookstores today which is marketed for Christians who want to lose weight. I’m not so sure about it’s validity though. However, this is the real Daniel Plan. Fast for 21 days, pray in sackcloth and ashes for 3 weeks. It will do wonders for your spiritual fitness. And Daniel got results, didn’t he? He heard from God in a spectacular way.

Well, let’s get back to our text. Notice that first Jesus called those that He wanted. And then that they came to Him when He called. (vs.13) Listen, I believe in the election of God. I believe in the foreknowledge of God. But I confess I do not understand how they work to my satisfaction. Nevertheless I believe in them. I don’t have to understand it to believe it. I don’t understand how my cell phone can receive video and pictures through the airwaves either. But I don’t have to understand it to use it. But I do know that God calls people to Himself. Jesus said in John 6:44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” So there is an effectual call of God which is the origin of our salvation. Nevertheless, though we don’t understand how God calls, we know that we have been given the responsibility to come to Him when He calls. And so the disciples came to Him. Jesus issues the call to come away from the world unto Him. I pray that you come.

So Jesus called them away because He wanted them to be with Him, to walk with Him, to live with Him. It’s clear from this that communion with Christ was the primary reason for the call of the disciples. Communion means fellowship. Personal intimacy or spiritual communion with Christ is the best of teachers. And it’s by this fellowship that Christ leaves the stamp of His own image upon us. That is the goal of our fellowship; that we begin to take on the characteristics of our teacher.

Have you ever noticed how older married couples start to look alike the longer they are married? They certainly begin to think alike. They begin to take on one another’s characteristics. That’s the goal of our salvation, that we have fellowship with God, and start to take on His character and nature. That’s important to understand. Because if we are going to have an effective spiritual ministry, then it has to be patterned after the way God does ministry. And we see that in the way Jesus did ministry. When Jesus taught that we are to turn the other cheek when attacked, that is the characteristic of God. When He said if someone asks for you to go a mile with them, you should go two miles; that’s a characteristic of God. That’s the way we are supposed to treat those who are in opposition to the gospel. When Jesus told Peter to forgive someone 70 times 7 times, that’s the character of God, the way God forgives us. But we say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” But that’s not God’s way. He says the kindness of God brings you to repentance. He says God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust (rain being considered a blessing). So we need to have fellowship with God; talk with God, listen to God through His word, and walk with Him in obedience that we might have fellowship with Him and become like Him. Then we can have an effective ministry.

Secondly, He called them to preach the gospel. To preach means to proclaim His word. For three years He gave them His word, the truth, the gospel of God. And they in turn were to preach it to the world. I started off by saying that Jesus did not write a book. But what He did was write His word upon these men’s hearts. They became living testaments to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they in turn wrote down His words so that they are still preaching to us today through the scriptures. They did not follow cleverly devised tales, Peter said, but they were eyewitnesses of His majesty. Listen, not all of us are called to be pastors. But all of us are called to be proclaimers. Jesus said to go into all the world and preach the gospel, making disciples. That’s everyone’s commission. To proclaim God’s truth to the world.

Thirdly, He gave them authority to cast out demons. Once again we see the enemy of the faith identified and exposed by the ambassadors of the gospel. As Christ had authority over demons, so He gave them authority as well. 1John 3:8 says, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” And I think He must have given them the ability to identify such evil spirits, if they had the authority to cast them out.

I think today we need to approach the aspect of casting out demons very carefully and prayerfully. I don’t think it’s something we should approach cavalierly. Jude says in vs 8-10 “Yet in the same way these men(certain ungodly persons in the church), also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties. But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.” Though Jude’s warning may be difficult to understand, we can be sure he is emphasizing caution in the matter of reviling angelic, or demonic forces which are greater in might and power than we can comprehend.

But though I may not have the authority to cast out demons by my word, I do believe we can participate in destroying the works of the devil. And we do so by preaching the truth. The truth trumps a lie every time. Satan goes about deceiving the world and holds it captive through his lie. We preach the truth and the gospel of salvation sets men and women free from the trap of the devil. Greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world. When we free people from death through salvation, we defeat the works of the devil, by freeing them from the fear of death to which they were enslaved.

Well, let’s look finally and briefly at the men that Jesus called to be His apostles. First of all, they were men. Jesus had 12 chances to pick a woman to be an apostle. I’m sure there were a lot of good women that were His followers. In fact the scriptures tell us that many women supported His ministry. But Jesus chose all men.

The late S. Louis Johnson said, and I quote; “To say that He did so for cultural reasons, namely that women apostles would have had no acceptance by that culture, is a gratuitous assumption. Our Lord does not accommodate truth to human culture that rests under sin. God has committed the responsibility of the ministry of the word of God to Spirit appointed men.”

Now we find that principle enumerated in the gospel’s repeatedly. But I think one passage will suffice for today. 1Timothy 2:11-14 “A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”

So regardless of what the culture may say, regardless of what the law of the land might say, this is what God had to say. It’s not what Roy Harrell had to say. It’s what the Bible says. If you don’t like it, tear it out that page and throw it away. But don’t stop there. There is a lot of other offensive stuff in there as well. No, I think we obey God even when we don’t understand it. Don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger boy.

But I will try to explain something. The reason Paul inserts that bit about Eve being deceived is not just to further denigrate women. What he is alluding to, was Eve was deceived, but Adam fell with both eyes wide open. And the reason Adam fell was because He loved Eve more than God. So for the protection of the human race, God has not given authority to women in the church because man would more likely prefer to please them rather than God. So God gave the responsibility of authority in the church to man. It’s a matter of divine appointed roles, rather than a matter of equality or intellect.

You know, it’s God’s gospel, it’s God’s church. He has the right to choose HIs methods for building His church. We don’t get to vote on it. We don’t have to understand it, just believe He is good, and that He is just, and that He knows what He is doing.

Then as you look specifically at these 12 men, there are a lot of things that can be noted. John McArthur wrote an entire book about the 12. I have about five minutes left. There is much more that I could say than what I will say. But let me say first why there is 12. Twelve patriarchs were the founders of the 12 tribes of Israel. And in Christ’s new covenant there are twelve apostles as the foundation of the church, according to Ephesians 2:20.

Four of the apostles were fishermen that we know of. They were business partners in fishing; Peter, Andrew, James and John. Peter and Andrew were brothers, and James and John were brothers. James was the first martyr among the apostles, John was the only one of the 12 who did not die a martyr’s death.

All were Galileans except for Judas who was from Judea. That means all were uneducated, more like working class men except for Judas who was from a wealthier, more educated area. One was a former tax collector, one was a former Zealot who hated tax collectors. There were none of royal blood. None of them were priests or scribes or professional religionists of any sort. There were no rock stars, no former football players. They were just a diverse group of average sort of ordinary guys without any sort of professional experience in becoming world changers. Yet they would turn the world upside down. And one other side note; they were probably all in their 20’s. John might even have been a teenager. Jesus Himself was only 31 years old. It was a youth movement. And as I said, all of them would die a martyr’s death except for John.

I am reminded of 1Cor. 1:26-29 which says, “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”

I could say a lot more about the disciples, but perhaps we will hit on a few more things in upcoming messages. But what I would like to leave with you is that Christ took these ordinary, average young men, without any seminary training, without pedigree, without any special abilities, and He transformed them in three years into champions of the faith. Hero’s of the faith in every sense of the word. We talked last week about the need for heroes in the church today. God wants to make you into a champion of the gospel. In fact, I know that He wants to do just that. It starts with the call of God upon your life to come to Him and have fellowship with Him. To walk with Him in obedience on a daily basis. To leave behind the agenda of this world for the sake of knowing Him better. If you will do that, if you are willing to do that, then God will do the rest. As you spend time with Him, as you draw close to Him, He will draw close to you and teach you and lead you in the way that you should go. And in the process you will begin to take on the characteristics of Jesus Christ. So that as you are sent by Him to proclaim His gospel, you will bear testimony to Him. May He write His word upon your heart that you might bear the image of Jesus Christ to the world.