As we look at the passage before us today, we see three sets of people who ask questions of Jesus, but not so that they might gain understanding or knowledge, but so that they can trap Him in something that He said in order to use it against Him.  Their ultimate goal is to put Him to death, so they are looking for some sort of justification, hoping for something that they can label as blasphemous in order to have a reason to put him to death.  

What’s interesting is that Jesus has managed in three short years of teaching to invoke such hatred against Him, so that His enemies, who were also enemies of one another, have unified in their common desire to have Him killed, and so they set aside their differences in order to accomplish their common goal.

We see that particularly in the first incident in which the Pharisees team up with the Herodians to try to test Him, or trick Him into making a statement they can use against Him.  All of you are probably aware of who the Pharisees were; strict, sanctimonious religious teachers who prided themselves on keeping the law.  The Herodians though are less  known; they were supporters of King Herod, lovers of Greek culture, people who were about as worldly as you could be and still be a Jew.  These folks normally could not stand one another.  But they come together in their common hatred of Jesus and what His gospel.  There is an ancient saying which predates Christ by some 400 years which states “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  That was especially true in the case of the enemies of Christ.  In a minute we will look at another religious group which is the Sadducees, and they and the Pharisees were like Democrats and Republicans.  But they also come together in a bipartisan effort here to eliminate Jesus and the gospel He is teaching. 

So in true political form, they use lofty titles and flattery in order to try to disarm Jesus, in hope of tripping Him up. They start off by calling Him Teacher, but they themselves claimed to be the true teachers of the law.  Yet Jesus called the Pharisees the blind leaders of the blind. They fawningly say to Jesus “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth.”  

That’s pretty heavy hypocrisy isn’t it?  Especially when we know that they were plotting to kill Him at that very moment.  If they really believed what they were saying, then they would have recognized that He who isn’t partial to anyone, but tells the truth regardless, would not be fooled by crass flattery.  So all of that simply tells us that their question was not sincere.  As Mark said in vs 12, they were buttering Jesus up “in order to trap Him in a statement.”

So the test they proposed to Him was “is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not?” Now to understand the full significance of this question, you need to know a couple of things.  First, a poll tax was the annual per capita tax which was imposed by the Romans upon every adult Jew.  

Another important thing to consider is that the Jews were in a constant state of rebellion over this tax, because they hated the Roman oppression, and furthermore, the Jews considered it a sacrilege to give the Emperor honor, because he claimed to be deity. So the most conscientious Jews considered it an affront to God. 

So the question put to Jesus was very clever.  If He said that you should pay the tax, then He risked alienating many devout, patriotic Jews.  And if He said that you should not pay the tax, then He could be accused of sedition against Rome.  So they thought that they had Him, no matter which way He answered the question.

But notice the response of Jesus.  Remember, God sees the heart; vs 15, But He, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at.”  A denarius was the common coin of Rome.  It was equal to a laborer’s wage for a day’s work. And it was also the amount due for the poll tax.

So they give Jesus a denarius and He asks, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

I understand that on this denarius there is a bust of Tiberius on one side, and on the reverse he is shown sitting on a throne.  But the really interesting thing is the inscription, which reads; Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus, Highest Priest. 

Yet in spite of this blasphemous inscription, Jesus acknowledges that this was Roman currency, and as the governing authority, it was issued by them, and as the governing authority it was due certain taxes for the blessings such government provided.  Rome had achieved what is called the pax Romana, a measure of peace that the world had not seen before.  They had built roads and bridges and waterworks.  They provided protection and freedom so that the people were able to live their lives in relative peace and prosperity.  And for all that government provides, Jesus said you should render to Caesar that which is due to Caesar.  Jesus is saying government has a right to exert taxes for the services it renders to it’s citizens.

For us that translates that we are to pay your taxes.  Give what is due to the government for it’s services.  Paul makes this principle clear in Romans 13:1-2 saying, “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”  In other words, give the government it’s due, and if you do not, you will receive condemnation not only by the government, but also from God.

There is another principle though that Jesus makes which should be given equal attention.  And that is “render unto God the things which are God’s.”  What is due to God?  Well, as we will see in a few verses later, our duty to God is to love Him above all, with all our being. Jesus said elsewhere that if you love Me you will keep My commandments. So we owe God our obedience.  He is the Creator of our life.  So we are to render unto Him our very life.  Considering all that He has done for us, how can we not give Him our all? So God has priority over government, but government has authority over us, as an extension of God’s authority.

Now let’s look at the next test, the next question employed this time by the Sadducees to try to trap Him.  Now who were the Sadducees?  Mark tells us the defining characteristic of the Sadducees in vs18, they said there was no resurrection.  So how ironic and hypocritical then is their question which they asked about the resurrection.  But also, it should be noted that the Sadducees did not believe in angels. They only believed in the inspiration of the Pentateuch, that is the first 5 books of the OT written by Moses. And also they were the religious/political party of the high priest.  The high priests were selected from this party.  Considering that Jesus had just the day before entered the temple which was the high priest’s domain and cleaned out the merchants and disrupted the money making scheme they were running there, there is no doubt that these Sadducees were gunning for Jesus and hoping to catch Him in saying something that could be used against Him.

Well, we’ve read the fictitious scenario that these guys have concocted concerning a woman who had seven husbands.  It was obviously a fictional situation which was designed to make the doctrine of the resurrection sound absurd.  And here is an important point; the kingdom of God which Jesus was preaching was founded on the doctrine of the resurrection.  The religious leaders were looking for a temporal kingdom of God, a geopolitical kingdom in which they had the chief positions and which would greatly benefit them in this life.  Jesus was preaching about a spiritual kingdom which has it’s origin and culmination primarily in the spiritual realm, and so therefore it is dependent upon the resurrection for it’s fulfillment.  So in asking this absurd question they were trying to undermine the credibility of His gospel. 

We have the same thing happening today in attacks from liberals on the gospel.  They try to show the absurdity of the idea of hell and the judgment to come. “ Is God really going to burn in hell billions of people for eternity?”  They even try to show the absurdity of heaven.  “Who wants to spend eternity with a bunch of right wing hypocrites anyway?  What are you going to do, sing hymns for millions of years?”  They try to show the absurdity of faith in God as Creator in contrast to the pseudo-intellectualism of science.  

But the answer Jesus gives the Sadducees contains the answer to the naysayers down through the ages. vs24,  “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God?”  It’s amazing to me that those who would deny the supernatural in regards to God will accept so many other ludicrous ideas.  They would rather believe in space aliens than in a divine Creator.  They would rather believe in evolution which supposedly took billions and billions of years to make life as we know it rather than believe in a literal creation by an Almighty God.  They would rather believe in the improbability that out of chaos could come a universe so precise and ordered that it follows exact mathematical equations.

Jesus says there are two areas in which you are mistaken and therefore without understanding.  First is that you don’t understand the scriptures.  In the case of the Sadducees, they said they believed the Pentateuch, but they didn’t really know the scriptures in the Pentateuch which clearly taught that there was life after death.  The problem with the Sadducees is very similar to the problem with many critics today; they focus on scriptures that they like, that fit their agenda, but disregard those that they don’t like.  

Secondly Jesus says that they don’t understand the power of God.  If they truly understood the power of God, then the  doctrine of the resurrection should not have been that difficult to accept.  Certainly the God who made all life and everything in the universe by the word of His mouth could raise the dead.  The secret to understanding and knowledge is studying the scriptures.  It’s not through some vision, it’s not through some ecstatic experience, it’s through studying the scriptures.  That is how we come to know God and how we are able to worship God in spirit and in truth.  God is revealed in scripture.

Jesus then tells them the truth about the resurrection and marriage.  vs 25, “For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” First of all in heaven there will not be the need for marriage, because there will be no more procreation.  We will live forever.  Secondly, marriage on earth is a picture of our relationship with Jesus Christ as His bride, the church.  So in the resurrection, our fidelity is to Christ.  He is the bride groom and we are His bride.

I also want to point out that Jesus is unequivocally declaring that there will be a resurrection.  Many churches don’t really talk about the resurrection from the dead.  The common doctrine that a lot of people are being taught is that when you die you go to heaven.  The Bible however speaks of the dead being raised at the resurrection at the second coming of Christ.  And then after the resurrection the Lord will institute a new heaven and a new earth.  Jesus spoke of the dead in the story of Lazarus and the rich man as being in the bowels of the earth in Hades.  Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom, a Jewish way of speaking of Paradise, and the rich man was in torment, that is in the flames of hell.  And Jesus said between the two there was a great gulf which no one could cross. Now a lot of people want to dismiss all of that, because they don’t understand it, or it doesn’t fit their template.  But that is what Jesus told us in Luke 16.  

At the resurrection then those that are in Paradise will be resurrected with a new body. 1Thess. 4:16 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”  Some have construed that to mean that our old physical bodies will be lifted from the graves.  That may not be necessarily true.  Consider what Paul said concerning the resurrection and this heavenly body in 1Cor. 15:36-44, 50, “That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies;  and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.  All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another.  There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.  So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body;  it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;  it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. …  Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”  

Notice Paul said, it is sown, that is it dies and is put in the ground as a natural body, but it is raised a spiritual body.  So then what Paul says is that what is put in the ground is natural, but what comes out of the ground is spiritual.  What manner of beings are in Paradise?  They are spirits, and they will be raised with spiritual bodies.  And if you really want to start speculating what that looks like, then I can only tell you that a oak seed doesn’t look anything like an oak tree.  What will we look like?  Consider what John says in 1John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”  In our eternal bodies we will be like Christ. That’s good enough for me.

Then Jesus turns to the scriptures to refute the Sadducees, and He picks a scripture from the Pentateuch.  He quotes from Exodus 3 in the passage about the burning bush.  Vs26, “But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken.”

What Jesus is saying is that when God spoke of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He spoke of them as being alive.  They are alive in their spirit awaiting the resurrection.  In fact, going back to the story Jesus told in Luke 16, He said  Lazarus was in Paradise being comforted by Abraham.  Abraham had a conversation with the rich man.  So Abraham was obviously very much alive.  At the transfiguration, Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah, and they were talking about the things to come.  And they were alive and cognizant and able to have a conversation about what was going on in the world at that time.  Jesus said in John 11:26  “everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”  This is the hope of the Christian, ladies and gentlemen.  This is how we face the future without fear.  We will never die.  At death we will be alive in spirit with those who have gone on before us.  We will be with the Lord forever.  And furthermore, at the last trumpet we will be resurrected from the dead with a new body, a glorified, spiritual body that is far beyond what we can imagine, but it will be like the Lord’s body.  That’s a tremendous hope.

Well, there is one more test.  This time it’s a lawyer who comes to test Jesus.  The question asked by this lawyer is which of the commandments or laws was the foremost? Not the first, but the foremost in importance. Now there were many more than 10 commandments.  The scribes and lawyers had determined that there were no less than 613 commandments, 248 of them positive, and 365 negative.  One for every day, it would seem.  And the Pharisees seemed to focus on the negative.  Jesus, however, is going to give the positive.

Furthermore, in His answer, there is a sense in which the entire law is being boiled down to it’s essence, or summarized into one brief sentence.  I wonder if you could very easily condense the gospel into one sentence.  It’s not that easy.  But Jesus does so readily, once again quoting from scripture.  He quotes from Deut. 6:4, 5, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’

What Jesus is saying is that the whole law can be summed up with love for God. God’s wholehearted love for us must not be answered in half hearted love from us. But we love Him above all, and with all our being.  We love Him above all other love, even the love of family, even the love of ourselves.  We put Him first above all things.

Secondly, Jesus said that this love not only must be directed towards God foremost, but that the second most important commandment is that we must love our neighbor as ourselves.  Once again Jesus quotes scripture, this time from Lev. 19:18 which says  “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.”

The second commandment resembles the first in this respect; they both require love.  In the case of the second, it is love towards those who bear the image of God.  When Jesus held up the denarius and asked whose image was there, He said “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”  So by similar application, when we look at our fellow man, we need to see that he bears the likeness of God, man was made in the image of God. Gen 1:26 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”  Gen 1:27, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” 

How do you love mankind who was made in God’s image?  As you would love yourself.  That is the measure by which you measure to another.  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (Luke 6:31) And who is my neighbor?  According to Jesus’s parable in Luke 10:30, it is anyone who God places in your path.  Furthermore, in Matthew 5:43 Jesus even includes our enemies as those we should love.

Well, hearing this answer, the lawyer is so impressed by the wisdom of Christ that he cannot help but offer his praise, saying in vs32, ”Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO ONE ELSE BESIDES HIM;  AND TO LOVE HIM WITH ALL THE HEART AND WITH ALL THE UNDERSTANDING AND WITH ALL THE STRENGTH, AND TO LOVE ONE’S NEIGHBOR AS HIMSELF, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”  His enthusiasm indicates that Jesus has just made one of His enemies into a possible disciple. And Jesus recognizing that says in return, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”

Listen, what an answer to those today who would offer the sacrifices of praise and worship and not the sacrifice of obedience.   What an answer to those who would offer lip service, but will not surrender their lives in service to the Lord.  In our study of the life of David, we heard Samuel emphasize a similar point to Saul that this lawyer made to the Lord.  Samuel says in 1Samuel 15:22, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams.”  

Love towards God cannot truly exist without obedience towards the Lord.  There was just one more step needed by this lawyer to go from being not far from the kingdom of God to being in the kingdom of God.  And that was believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  Jesus said in John 6:40  “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”  

In John 11:25-26 Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,  and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

I would close today in asking you the same question.  Have you believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God who came into the world to offer the complete sacrifice for your sins?  And are you willing to obey Him and give your life to live for Him as your Lord and Savior?  If you will but believe in Him and surrender your life to Him, He will give you life, He will guarantee your resurrection and you will never die but live eternally with Him in glory.  I pray that you have surrendered to Jesus today and be given a new heart and a renewed spirit that you might love Him with all your heart and soul. 

In Hebrews 1:3 the scripture tells us that Jesus is “the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” And to that end, in the last couple of chapters we have seen Mark present different dimensions of Jesus’ divine nature, each displaying a different aspect of God’s character.  In chapter 10 we see Jesus presented as the Good God, as the Savior, as our Sacrifice, as the Suffering Servant, as the Son of Man, and as the Son of David.  In chapter 11, we see Jesus described as the Lord, as the coming King, and as the Righteous Judge. 

These passages show that it’s simply bad theology to emphasize the characteristics of God in only one dimension, such as in God is love, without also taking into consideration His Lordship, His sovereignty, His holiness and the supreme judge of the earth.  A lot of people are willing to accept the idea of a God, even perhaps Jesus as the Son of God, as long as He conforms to what they think God should be. God is ok as long as He is serving me and insuring that I have a good life.  But a God that judges me, that determines what is right or wrong for me, that may send me to either heaven or hell, that’s a God that most people do not want to accept nor believe in.  However, a god that you determine is not really God at all; it’s an idol formed according to your design.  God said to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I am who I am.” God is who He is, and as He has been from eternity past, and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth according to how He has revealed Himself through His Word.

So Jesus’ divinity is the issue that we see before the religious leaders of Israel in the passage we are studying today.  They cannot dispute His manifested power to heal or raise the dead or feed thousands of people from a few loaves of bread.  Nor can they dismiss  the truth of His teaching.  But they will not submit to Him as Lord.  They will not submit to His rule and authority over them.  Actually, in spite of the evidence that Jesus has given, they have determined that they will not have this man rule over them.  And yet I believe that they had overwhelming evidence to convince them that Jesus was the Messiah.  But they would reject Him and plot to kill Him because they would not have Him be Lord over them. And that really is the issue today as well.  People are willing to believe that Jesus existed, even believe that He is the Savior, yet for a lot of people their faith fails at the point of declaring Jesus as Lord.  They refuse to acknowledge His authority to rule their lives and consequently they will not let Him be the Lord of their life.

Now as we saw in the first part of the chapter, Jesus entered into the temple after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem and looked around discretely during the evening, assessing what was going on.  And then the next morning, Jesus came back to the temple with a vengeance, sweeping aside the money changers and the vendors of sacrificial animals, and basically putting a stop to all commerce in the temple.  He disrupted the daily sacrifices, He stopped them from making money off of the temple service, and He basically asserted His authority over the temple as His house and His domain.

Well, we pick it up the story the following morning as Jesus and His disciples come back into Jerusalem and Jesus is once again walking through the temple, vs 27, and the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to Him, and began saying to Him, “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?”

Now lest you miss it, these are the top brass of Israel.  These are the chief priests and the rulers of the Sanhedrin.  They control the temple worship and all practices in the temple and thus, they control Israel. They are very powerful and very wealthy men.  And at this point, they are very angry men.  Their income has been interrupted and called into question during what was the busiest week for sacrifices and offerings of the year.  It’s the equivalent of the week before Christmas in the Mall of America. Imagine if someone shut off the power and stopped everyone from doing business.  There would be an uproar.  And that’s what is happening here.

So they stop Jesus as He is walking in the temple, and they ask Him, “By what authority are you doing these things?”  What authority do you have to disrupt the temple service and determine what is appropriate?

Jesus’ authority is really is a key question that they keep coming back to.  They have previously accused Jesus of casting out demons by the Devil’s authority.  They have resolutely refused to recognize Jesus’ authority as the Messiah, although they have had plenty of evidence for it, and of all people they should have been the first to acknowledge Him as the Messiah.

Well, Jesus answers their two questions with a question of His own.  It’s interesting to note that 8 times in Mark’s gospel, the critics of Jesus ask Him a question in order to attack Him or try to trap Him, and each time Jesus answers with a question of His own. I think what that shows us is that often people are asking the wrong questions.  It’s possible to ask a question designed to elicit a certain answer.  I guess that is what the pollsters do.  That’s why their polls are usually skewed to show the results that they want to show.  But rather than play their game, Jesus asks His own question.  And in that very thing, He shows His authority.  God is not subject to our questions.  God will ask the questions of us.

Vs 29, And Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question, and you answer Me, and then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was the baptism of John from heaven, or from men? Answer Me.” That’s an important question we need to ask ourselves in our ministry and in our worship even today.  Is it from God or from men?  If we really consider our worship, our ministry, our church from that perspective, then I think there are a lot of sacred cows in the church that might fail the test.  A lot of what we take for granted in church should be subjected to that paradigm. Is it from God or from men?

Now according to Mark chapter 1 the baptism from John was the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  It was the conclusion to the message of “prepare the way, the kingdom of God is at hand.”  The Messiah is coming.  So in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, John urged the Jews to repent and be baptized, which symbolized the confession of their sins.  And when John eventually saw Jesus coming to him, he said in John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”  

The scribes and the chief priests knew all of that of course.  They had come out to see the baptism of John and He called them a “brood of vipers,” telling them to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.   So they weren’t fans of John the Baptist.  But Jesus had them cornered with this question. Vs 31 They [began] reasoning among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ 32 “But shall we say, ‘From men’?”–they were afraid of the people, for everyone considered John to have been a real prophet.”
So the religious leaders considered their options, and they didn’t like them. They wanted approval from the people, but they had rejected John’s ministry. So they answered “We don’t know.” They would have been more honest had they said, “We won’t say.”  And Jesus responds to that unsaid answer.  Jesus *said to them, “Nor will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

The question that comes to my mind is why didn’t Jesus tell them who He was? Why not state outright that He was the Son of God?  People are still debating today whether or not Jesus said He was the Son of God.  The Pharisees said to him on another occasion, in John 10:24, “how long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are the Christ, (that is the Messiah) tell us plainly.”  And when Jesus said in response, “I and the Father are one,”  they took up stones to kill Him.

Now they still want to kill Him.  And the reason they want Him to say that He is the Son of God is they want to accuse Him of blasphemy and put Him to death.  And at His trial in a few days, they will do exactly that, and make that same accusation.  But that time is not yet. Jesus has an appointed time to die, and that is on the Passover, when the Lamb of God will be slain for the sin of the world.  And that’s still three days away.  It is not yet the appointed time to die, so Jesus doesn’t give them the plain answer they want to hear. They want Him to answer that He is the Son of God, so that they will have a reason to convict Him of blasphemy and put Him to death. But the crux of faith is not that Jesus confesses that He is Lord, but that He wants man to confess that He is Lord.

So rather than give them an outright, plain answer, Jesus gives them a parable.  Remember why Jesus said He used parables?  Back in chapter 4 vs 11 Jesus told His disciples, “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.”

The parable then He gives is based on Isaiah 5:1-7.  This is one of the most clear parables that Jesus has given, because it is so obviously based on Isaiah 5 that they would have known exactly what He was referring to. Most parables Jesus gave He also needed to explain how to understand them.  But in this case, their knowledge of Isaiah should have provided them the key. Isaiah gives an allegory in chapter 5, “Let me sing now for my well-beloved A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.  He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine. And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones. “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, Judge between Me and My vineyard.  “What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?  “So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard: I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed; I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground.  “I will lay it waste; It will not be pruned or hoed, But briars and thorns will come up. I will also charge the clouds to rain no rain on it.”  For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.”

God said that Israel is His vineyard.  He planted the vineyard, and tilled it, and took care of it, and protected it, and yet it did not produce the fruit of righteousness.  So God pronounces judgment upon it.  

Now keeping that allegory in mind, let’s look at the parable which Jesus gives the religious leaders at the beginning of chapter 12. “A man PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT, AND DUG A VAT UNDER THE WINE PRESS AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey.  “At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. “They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed.  “Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully.  “And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others.  “He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’  “But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’  “They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. “What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others.  “Have you not even read this Scripture: ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?”

The correlation to Isaiah 5 is obvious.  But Jesus adds a new element.  He says the owner sent his servants to receive some of the produce from the vine growers.  The vine growers are those who have been given stewardship over the vineyard.  My father, when he was a young man, grew up during the Depression.  And like a lot of people back then, they did not have very much money.  They lived on a farm in eastern North Carolina, and they were sharecroppers.  Sharecroppers lived on someone else’s farm, they took care of the farm and tended it for the landowner.  Then at harvest time, they would reap the crops and pay the owner a percentage of the yield.  That was the way they made a living.  They didn’t own the land, they didn’t pay for the seed, etc, they simply were stewards of the owners farm and investment.  

So what Jesus is describing is that when the servants of the landowner come to receive his share, the sharecroppers attack the servant and send him back empty handed.  The amazing thing is that when the servant comes back to the owner, the owner doesn’t go and take retribution on the tenants, but instead he patiently sends another servant, and then another one, each time having his servants beaten and rejected by the sharecroppers.  That shows tremendous patience and long-suffering of the landowner.  

And of course, Jesus is portraying a picture of the patience of God and prophets that He sent to Israel,  His vineyard.  And again and again they persecuted and even killed His prophets.  But God was patient with Israel, sending HIs prophets one after another down through the centuries until at last God sends His only Beloved Son.  There is a poignancy in Jesus’s statement, “he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’”  But rather than show respect, Jesus says instead they conspire together and say, “‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard.”

Let’s be sure we don’t miss the courage of Jesus, who is looking into the angry, arrogant faces of the very ones who in just three days would arrest Him and try Him and crucify Him, thinking that they had kept the nation of Israel for their own selfish gain.  Jesus knows that they are plotting to kill Him.  And in a not very subtle way He is calling them out and exposing their evil hearts.  

So Jesus concludes the parable with a question, which Mark records for us the answer in vs9 “What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others.”  Because of the hardness of their hearts and their rejection and murder of God’s Son, the gospel of salvation, the kingdom of God, will be taken from Israel and be given to another people, or nations, who will render fruit in due season. There we see the justice and the wrath of God.  God is loving, God is long suffering and patient towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.  But there will come a day when God will come to the vineyard, fully expecting His due, and on that day every deed will be judged, whether good or evil.  The day of judgment had come upon Israel.  They thought they were judging Jesus.  But in effect they were condemning themselves.  In just three days, the curtain of the temple would be rent into from top to bottom. The Spirit of God would depart from the temple. And in one generation, just 40 years, the temple would lay in ruins and the religious leaders would be scattered and killed because they rejected the Holy Son of God during His visitation.

Now to the question of by what authority did Jesus do these things, the answer is obviously that Jesus is the Son of God who came to visit His vineyard.  And so to make that point unmistakably clear, Jesus says in vs 10, in which He quotes from Psalm 118:22, 23, “Have you not even read this Scripture: ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF CORNER stone; THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES’?”

Jesus is saying that He is the stone which they the builders had rejected, but God had made Him the cornerstone of His church.  They would reject Him and even crucify Him, but marvelously God would raise Him from the dead, and He would be the cornerstone of the church, a new temple which is the people, or vineyard of God.  

So in answer to the priests question, Jesus Himself is the authority.  After Jesus rose from the dead in a few more days He would say according to Matt. 28:18 “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Jesus is the Lord of the vineyard, He is the King of heaven and Creator of all the earth.  He has the authority over all  and we as His people must submit to Him as both Lord and Savior.  If we reject Him, we do so to our own eternal condemnation.  

Mark concludes this passage by telling us that the religious leaders knew that Jesus had spoken this parable about them.  He had pronounced judgment upon them, and they in turn pronounced judgment upon Christ.  Vs 12 “And they were seeking to seize Him, and yet they feared the people, for they understood that He spoke the parable against them. And so they left Him and went away.”  Within a few days time they would act to kill Him and in so doing they would seal their own fate.  The patience of God would soon come to an end for the nation of Israel and God would open the kingdom to the Gentiles as the Church of God.

But the principle that was in effect for Israel is also in effect for the church.  The church is God’s house.  He is the builder of it.  He is the Lord of the church.  We are His temple, and He is the cornerstone.  Christ has laid down His life for the church.  Christ has planted carefully His church by the word of God.  He has sown it with the seed of truth.  He has watered it, sent His prophets to tend to it.  And one day Christ will come again to receive the fruit of His church.

Phil. 2:8-11 says, “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,  so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

We need to understand that Jesus is the authority in the church.  We need to ask ourselves if what we are doing in response to that authority is of God or man.  And we need to bow to Him and submit to His authority over our lives. That is what it means to worship Him. Rom 12:1-2 says, “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.”

In connection with the events of the Passion Week we have seen two figures in which Jesus has presented the church as a fruit yielding plant; the fig tree, and the vineyard.  The symbolism is intended to teach us that our purpose is to bear fruit.  Jesus said in John 15:8, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” Jesus said we glorify God when we bear fruit.  And we bear fruit when we bear a resemblance to the image of Jesus Christ.  When we act like He acted, when we look like He looked, and when we work as He worked.  In short, when we are conformed to the image of Jesus Christ then we bear fruit and the Father is glorified.  And we are able to be like Christ because we have the Spirit of Christ working in us.  Let us therefore walk not according to the lusts of the flesh, but walk by the Spirit of God, that we might bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.  

Some of the events that are recorded before us today are probably very familiar to many of you.  If you’ve been at church on the major holidays during your life then you’ve probably heard a few messages on Palm Sunday, and may have been given little palm branches to take home.  Well, today is not Palm Sunday, but we are going to be looking at events that start on what is called Palm Sunday and continue to Tuesday in what is known as the Passion week.  

However, I would like to forego a lot of the traditional emphasis that is usually placed on these events and instead focus our attention on the spiritual aspects of what is recorded here for us.  Because as you are probably aware, the Jews were looking for the Messiah to resurrect the Davidic kingdom and the overthrow of Israel’s oppressors.  And as such they missed out completely on the significance of what was happening.  Jesus came the first time, some 2000 years ago, to establish a spiritual kingdom.  He will return again one day to usher in the physical consummation of all things at His second coming.  In the meanwhile, we are concerned about entering into the spiritual kingdom of God.  That spiritual kingdom is where Christ rules and reigns in the hearts of His people.  So that is the focus of this message and what I would like to try to show as we study this passage.  It’s a rather long passage, covering a lot of material and we could spend three or four Sundays exploring all the references and cross references that have to do with this passage.  But just as I believe Mark does in his gospel, I want to focus on the spiritual characteristics  of the kingdom of God, as Christ comes riding into Jerusalem in triumphant procession and enters into the temple of God.

As we finished up the previous chapter, we saw the Lord Jesus resolutely leading His followers towards Jerusalem.  Mark has really focused practically all of his gospel on the last few months of Jesus’s ministry, and now  we are at the last week before His crucifixion.  There are just 16 chapters in Mark’s gospel, and we are already on chapter 11, and in verse one it is Sunday morning, the first day of the passion week.  Mark is rushing us towards the climax of the gospel story, and in this first day of the week we see what I am calling the triumph of the gospel.  A triumph refers to the Roman victory procession when the victorious general would parade into the city with his captives in his train, and his soldiers following him, and he would be celebrated and praised by his people.  And that is essentially what we see here in spiritual terms as Christ enters Jerusalem.

As the chapter opens, we see Jesus instructing two of His disciples to go into the next village, Bethany or Bethpage which was practically a suburb of Jerusalem, and find there a colt of a donkey which was tied there near the entrance.  Mark says it was a colt that was unbroken, no one had ever ridden it.  And so the unnamed disciples go there and find the colt as Jesus had described it would be, and as they started to take it, those who were nearby said “why are you taking the colt?”  And they said, “The Lord has need of it.”  All of that discourse was exactly as Jesus had said it would be.  

Some commentators find it necessary to explain that Jesus must have prearranged this sometime in advance in order for this to work out in this way.  But I believe that Jesus knew that the donkey would be there.  And furthermore, Jesus knew who the donkey belonged to.  And this owner was undoubtedly a follower of Christ.  I believe that because Jesus tells them to say “the Lord has need of it.”  If they were not a believer, then it would have been necessary to say “Jesus of Nazareth has need of it.”  But since they were a believer, all that was necessary was to say “the Lord has need of it.”

And I think that this is an indication of the all encompassing nature of the kingdom of God.  Here was this secret disciple, or at the least, a not so obvious follower of Christ who was unknown to the rest of the disciples.  I’m reminded of the time Elijah was discouraged and said to God, “I alone am left.”  And the Lord said I have 7000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.  The spiritual kingdom of God would extend far beyond the immediate circle of the disciples, to the far reaches of Israel, and to include all the nations of the earth, as Mark records Jesus adds in vs 17, saying that the house of God would be a house of prayer for all the nations.  The disciples had a limited view of the kingdom.  They were picking out the chief seats for themselves around the throne.  But the Lord had a view to reach the nations with the gospel, which they were at this point unaware of.

And I think it also speaks to the necessity of our involvement in the establishment of the kingdom.  The Lord desires to work with us and through us to establish His kingdom.  We are to participate.  We see that in the praise and worship of the multitudes, the obedience of the two disciples who fulfilled their mission, and the sacrifice and faith of the person that gave his colt to be used by the Lord.  Some served in great acts, some in lessor acts, but God uses both great and small gifts in the furtherance of His kingdom. Everyone contributes according to his ability and his stewardship. So in the words of the Lord, let us not despise the day of small things.  One man gave a lowly donkey, and yet it was used to usher in the Lord of Hosts in the triumph of the gospel.  It was used in fulfillment of prophecy, particularly Zechariah 9:9 which says “  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.”

I would urge you here today, if you are a follower of Christ, to consider how you are contributing to the furtherance of the kingdom.  What resources has God given you that you might give back to God for His use?  God would like to use you, to bless you, if you are willing to use your stewardship for His glory.  “The Lord has need of it.”  What is your response? “No, I need it more?”  Or rather acknowledge that if He is Lord, then it is His to use as He sees fit.

So the disciples bring the donkey to Jesus and they laid their garments on it’s back as a saddle, and the Lord begins to ride into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.  There is a large crowd following Him now, and they lay their robes on the ground that He might ride upon them, and then they lay down palm branches in the road, all the while the enthusiasm and excitement is building and they cry out “Hosanna!” which means “save now”.  “Hosanna! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;  Hosanna in the highest!” Notice that there is an element of sacrifice in their worship, as they laid down their cloaks in His path.  Worship always involves sacrificial obeisance. 

However, though it’s true that they call out praise to the Lord because they believe He is the Messiah, yet it’s pretty obvious as the events roll out during the week that their praise was founded on wrong expectations concerning the Messiah.  That is indicated perhaps in the phrase, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David.”  They are looking for Christ to take the throne of David, not in a spiritual sense, but in a physical way, to sweep away the enemies of Israel and resume the throne in Jerusalem and reestablish Israels sovereignty. 

But lest we think too little of these poor peasant people who are following Jesus into the city from Galilee, let’s make sure that we are not suffering under the same delusion.  Do we also  put undue emphasis on the gospel of the kingdom in regards to fulfilling our physical expectations?  Do we expect God to fill our cupboards as He fed the multitudes?  Do we expect God to heal our diseases as He healed blind Bartimaeus?  Do we become disgruntled and dissatisfied with God when He doesn’t fulfill our expectations of physical deliverance from whatever difficulties we are encountering?  I know I have to restrain my discouragement when God doesn’t act on my perceived difficulties as I expect Him to.  And I am sure that many of you as well find yourselves at times disgruntled with God that He does not deliver you from whatever difficulty you are dealing with.  Sometimes I think we would rather have a physical or political Messiah than a spiritual one.

Now notice vs11, “Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.”  The temple was of course designed to be the center of spiritual, religious life in Israel.  And here we see Jesus going there late in the evening and looking around.  It would be easy to skim over that and not see the importance of this incident. 

Many years ago I used to work in a very large luxury hotel in Florida.  And the hotel general manager was notorious for going through the hotel at night after many of the department managers had left for the day and doing an inspection.  And it was a terrible thing to come in the next morning and find these write ups that he had done on your department the night before.  Things that he had found lacking.  

Perhaps to some extent that’s what is going on here.  Jesus has come back to Jerusalem after being gone for some time.  And He goes into the temple, what He has previously called “His Father’s house,”  and He makes an inspection.  If you read between the lines it would seem that He did this without any fanfare.  Perhaps He even disguised Himself.  I don’t know.  But He looks around at His house, and He is not happy with what He finds there.

I don’t know about you, but I tremble to consider what kind of invisible inspections the Lord must do in our houses.  We are the house of God, not this building, but you people are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  1Cor. 6:19  “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”  

I wonder if Christ secretly walked through your house last night and did an inspection.  I wonder what He saw that He may have been displeased about, or what He found that He was pleased with.  I wonder what HIs assessment of our temple would be? Paul said, We are not our own, we are bought with a price.  What are we doing with this temple to glorify God?  In the next few verses we will see that Jesus comes back the next morning in judgment against the temple. He accuses them that they have made what should have been a house of prayer a house of merchandise, a  place of thieves and robbers.  They had made the temple into a commercial enterprise.  I can’t help but wonder if we are not guilty of the same, of making what should be for holy use, to be used in profane and unholy things.  Are we so busy serving mammon that we do not serve the Lord?

But before we look at that incident later the next day, we see that first thing in the morning there is a symbolic illustration of the situation Jesus found in the temple the night before.  This is really like a living parable, it is an earthly illustration of a spiritual principle.  And we see that unfold as they are walking back to Jerusalem, Jesus is hungry and He sees a fig tree in the distance in full bloom.  I am told that fig trees produce figs as soon as they produce leaves.  And so seeing the leaves, it was to be expected that it would have figs that were ripened and ready to eat.  But when Jesus went to the tree, it had no figs.  And so Jesus does something that seems shocking, at least on the surface.  He curses the fig tree, saying, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!”  And His disciples took note of what He said.  

We will look at this again later, but suffice it for now to note that Israel is pictured in the fig tree.  They are the fig tree which the land owner planted and checked for three years to see if it had produced fruit, and finding none, cursed the tree and cut it down, according to the parable of the fig tree found in Luke 13:6-9.

So leaving there, Jesus goes back into Jerusalem and  enters straight away into the temple. This time He doesn’t come quietly or secretly.  This time Jesus comes with a vengeance.  This, by the way, is the second time that Jesus comes to the temple and cleanses it.  The first time was at the beginning of His ministry and the gospels tell us that He made a whip and used it to drive out the money changers and the merchants.  This time, no whip is mentioned, but I would like to think that He once again picked up a ox whip or something and began to lay it about on the tables and the backs of the brokers.

And I think that those two visits to the temple are an illustration of Christ’s first and second coming.  The first time He came was in His incarnation, to initiate His kingdom by making a way for man to be reconciled to God.  The second time He comes is in the consummation of His Kingdom, to take possession of His church, to gather the fruit and to bring judgment upon the tares.  And even in the first coming, Jesus caused division between the gospel and religion.  He said He came not to bring peace but a sword, to cause division between a man and his family.  

So this incident as Christ cleans out the temple is correlated to the incident when Christ cursed the fig tree. The temple is full of activity, it is conducting a lively business, but there is no spiritual fruit there.  It’s a picture of the church at large far too often today; full of activity, programs, people running here and there, but no real spiritual fruit.  Fruit being the evidence of Christ in the lives of His people.  Fruit being not just lip service, but a life lived in obedience to the seed which is the  word of God.

Now what was going on in the temple was a commercial enterprise that was organized and approved by the priests and Sanhedrin.  It was a scam really, in which the priests would examine the animal you brought in to have sacrificed, and tell you that it had some imperfection which rendered it unfit, and so you were forced to buy a pre approved animal from one of their vendors.  That one would of course be priced at an exorbitant amount, but you had really no choice if you wanted to offer an acceptable sacrifice.  The priests of course were getting a kick back from the vendors.  And the same thing happened with the temple tax.  The tax was required to be paid in Jewish coin.  So again for a fee, they had people there who would exchange your Roman coins for Jewish coins so you could pay the temple tax. And so Jesus turns over the tables of the merchants and drives them out of the temple and doesn’t allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple.  

Mark understates what this must have done to the proceedings of the temple that day.  It was the Passover week.  Thousands of pilgrims are coming to the temple to offer sacrifices.  It was like turning off the power in the mall the week before Christmas. No one could do business.  And so as a result of His actions the wrath of the priests and the Sanhedrin would reach a fever pitch, resulting in their plot to murder Jesus.

And unfortunately, that is one of the repercussions of preaching the truth of the gospel today.  People are content in the activity of religion however corrupt it may have become – however far from the truth it may be.  But if you call out that activity as hypocrisy, the kick back is that they hate you and try to destroy you.  No repentance, no contrition, just a resentment that their commerce or corruption or hypocrisy has been uncovered.  But nevertheless, I take my cue from Jesus Himself.  He didn’t mince words.  He didn’t try to coddle them.  He called it what it was and He told them to get out.  vs.17, “Is it not written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL THE NATIONS’? But you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.” They were robbing God in His own house.

Now at the possibility of raising the ire of some, let me make this application on a subject that if you are honest you have to admit I don’t often speak of, if at all.  But if you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, is there an application that you possibly rob God as well?  Malachi 3:8-11 says,  “Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the LORD of hosts.

Now let me hasten to say that I don’t say this, but God says it.  I would rather not say it.  I would rather the Lord deal with those who are disobedient in this, and not even mention it.  But for your sakes I mention it, because I think that to be disobedient in this is to bring upon yourself a curse, even as God said, “You are cursed with a curse.”  If you want to have that curse removed, then render to God to things that are God’s, and then God said He will pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.  Now let’s move on before someone throws stones.  

Well, vs 18 says, “The chief priests and the scribes heard this, and began seeking how to destroy Him; for they were afraid of Him, for the whole crowd was astonished at His teaching.”  That’s the effect of sound biblical preaching, some get mad and some are afraid and some are astonished.  But preaching should have some cleansing effect.  Preaching that makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy isn’t the preaching of the gospel, I’m afraid.  As Jesus said, “I came not to bring peace, but a sword.”

So in vs19, Jesus and His disciples leave the city that night again as was their custom.  I think they are sleeping out on the Mount of Olives each night.  That’s how Judas is able to betray Him to the high priests.  He knows that is where Jesus and the disciples spend the night. 

The next morning, Tuesday, as they come back to Jerusalem, Peter sees the fig tree, and it has withered from the roots up.  This is a symbolic reference to the prophecy Jesus made concerning Israel in Matt. 3:10  “The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  So Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered.”  I think that there is surprise among the disciples that the apparently  healthy tree they saw the day before had so quickly withered.  And that suddenness is a picture of how quickly Israel would wither as well, as in less than 40 years later the temple would be destroyed and the Jews dispersed. In one day the tree withered, and in one generation Israel would be destroyed.

And Jesus answered Peter, “Have faith in God.” Now doesn’t that seem like a strange way to answer him?  Isn’t this a strange transition to start talking about how to move mountains?  A lot of people take these next verses out of context, as some sort of formula whereby we can do miracles or get whatever we want. But Jesus is not telling us how to curse fig trees or work miracles, but how not to be cursed like the fig tree.   The nation of Israel was cursed because it did not seek the kingdom of God through faith but through dead works. They substituted ritual and ceremony for faith in Christ, and so they had become cursed.  They had an outward form of religion, but inwardly they were dead.

“Have faith in God,” means that faith is the way to life in Christ. This is the way to have life that is fruitful.  To trust that the Lord knows what is best for us, to believe what he says, to obey what he commands, to do what He asks.  Faith in Him makes us a fruitful person, or a fruitful church, as the case may be.  

Then Jesus went on to say something even more puzzling: “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.” Once again, this is not a formula for miracle working.  But the mountain Jesus speaks of is the Mount of Olives.  The sea is the Dead Sea.  They are standing there looking at this mountain and contemplating throwing it into the Dead Sea?   That is impossible.  The mountain is a figure of the impossible.

But Jesus is not giving us a formula here for throwing mountains into the sea. He is telling us that to have faith in God at times is difficult to do. He knows that. There are mountains which oppose our faith and make it difficult for us. There are obstacles to faith.  There are impossibles in our Christian life.  But in chapter 9:23 we read Jesus said, “All things are possible to him who believes.”  And in chapter 10 vs 27 Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

But remember what we said at the beginning. This is the spiritual kingdom of God that Jesus is establishing.  These impossible things are things which are spiritual.  The mountain, though literal and physical, is but a figure of the obstacles to the  spiritual. Faith is the means by which we overcome the world and we are saved spiritually.  Faith is the means by which we receive eternal life, even the abundant life in Christ.

And then he goes on to tell us how in vs24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you will receive it, and you will. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” 

What Jesus is saying is, that repentance is necessary for faith. ”The great hindrance to having faith in God is sin, and that’s illustrated by the sin which refuses to forgive. Sin is like a mountain which hinders your faith. Your prayers are hindered.  David prayed, “if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.”  Before we can have the proper expression of our faith which is effective prayer, we must repent of the sin in our lives. 

Maybe that means we need to forgive someone who has injured us, even as Christ has forgiven us for injury against God.  Maybe unforgiveness is the sin that is hindering your fruitfulness.  Jesus, when He taught us to pray said pray this way, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  

In conclusion then, faith is the means of gaining spiritual life.  Faith is expressed in prayer.  As the temple of God, we are to be a house of prayer.  Faith by the way, is not a fervent belief that whatever we ask for God will give us.  But faith is a fervent belief in what God has promised He is faithful to perform.  Then finally, if we are to  have effective prayer, it must be prayer from clean hands and a clean heart.  We must not harbor sin if we would have effective prayer.  May God help us, then, to forgive one another.  That is the fruit of faith, that we love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave up His life for her. 

I have titled this message this morning “War of the Worlds.” That title may sound familiar to some of you who may be aware of the Orson Welles science fiction radio program of that name that ran during World War 2. It was based on a book by H.G. Wells which was written around 1897. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, it was a book about the invasion of earth by Martian alien creatures. It was one of the first of it’s kind of that sort of science fiction.

One significant quote from that book says, “Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.” I found that scenario eerily similar to the conflict going on in our world which we are told about in Ephesians 6:11, [Eph 6:11 “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For 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.]”

1 Cor. 2:12 says that there is a spirit of the world that is in opposition to the Spirit who is from God. 1 John 5:19 says that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? To think that the whole world is held in captivity to the dominion of darkness. 2 Cor. 4:4 says that the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. And consequently, because of Satan’s dominion over this world, Ephesians 2:2 says that man walks according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

There is a battle for this world between God and Satan. Now we must understand that Satan is not equivalent to God in power or authority. He was actually created by God. But we must not underestimate him. He is undoubtedly the most powerful of all the angels created by God, and the fallen angels or demons under his dominion have supernatural power. We read in the Old Testament of a single angel that killed 185,000 men in one night.

But the scripture tells us that greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world. And so our only hope in doing battle against the forces of darkness is through Jesus Christ. He has complete authority over all things in heaven and in earth. Jesus spoke of the devil as the enemy, as a thief, saying in John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have [it] abundantly.” And so as Paul said in Eph 6:11-12 we must “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For 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 (or the spiritual realm.)” And the armor that he says we must put on to fight this battle is truth, faith, salvation, the gospel, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

But battles in the spiritual realm are rarely fought in our mountain top experience, they are most often fought in the valley of the shadow of death. The disciples have just had a tremendous mountain top experience. The three disciples, Peter, James and John, got a glimpse behind the veil so to speak of the spiritual realm. They saw Jesus transfigured with the glory of God, His face and garments shining like the sun. They saw Moses and Elijah miraculously appear and talk to Jesus. They heard the voice of God speak saying, “This is My beloved Son, listen to Him.” You just can’t imagine a greater mountain top spiritual experience than that.

But now they have come down the mountain. They have come back down to the realm of the god of this world. And the 9 disciples who had been left behind are surrounded by jeering critics. There are all sorts of things happening in this incident which are really expressions of the power of evil, the captivity by which Satan has blinded and held captive the world. We see an extreme example of demonic possession in the young boy by which Satan was trying to destroy his life. We see the failure of faith and discouragement of the disciples which rendered them fruitless and powerless. We see the pain and suffering of the father as he sees the hopeless situation of his son. We see the ridicule and criticism of the scribes.

The scribes are of the religious party about which Jesus said, “John 8:44 “You are of [your] father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature,] for he is a liar and the father of lies.” And so rather than these religious leaders showing compassion on this young boy who is held captive by demonic power, they see that as something to gloat over, to lampoon the disciples who are confused and discouraged by this demonic power that they are facing.

Let’s read Mark’s account of what happened. Mark 9:14, “When they (Jesus and the three disciples) came [back] to the disciples, they saw a large crowd around them, and [some] scribes arguing with them. Immediately, when the entire crowd saw Him, they were amazed and [began] running up to greet Him. And He asked them, “What are you discussing with them?” And one of the crowd answered Him, “Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute; and whenever it seizes him, it slams him [to the ground] and he foams [at the mouth,] and grinds his teeth and stiffens out. I told Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not [do it.]”

The disciples are under attack from the scribes, the teachers of the law, the representatives of established religion. And all around them is this crowd of people, who are taking sides in the argument and adding to the general confusion. The disciples have lost control of the situation. That’s always a strategy of the devil. Confusion, chaos, disorder, discord, anger. All of these things which undermine the authority of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And at the center of it all, the predicament that gives rise to this confused melee is the dejected father and his son who is desperately in need of deliverance.

But then there’s something like a ripple that runs through the crowd, as the people looked in amazement at Jesus who had just showed up. And there’s a great surge in the crowd as some run forward to meet him. And in verse 16, Jesus asks a simple question: “What are you arguing with them about?” And the answer that he receives is actually only an indirect answer. It suggests to us the root of the problem, but the answer comes from the lips of a man who’s in the crowd, and Mark describes him as “A man in the crowd answered”—somebody shouts out from the group—“‘Teacher, I brought you my son.’”

The nature of what Jesus is asked to deal with is actually demonic possession, as we discover in verse 17. The result of the demonic possession is such that the boy cannot speak. When the evil spirit takes him, “it throws him to the ground,” he “foams at the mouth,” he “gnashes his teeth,” and he “becomes rigid.” This is a terrible situation, one in which the demon is undoubtedly trying to destroy this boy. It’s somewhat like what we know as a form of epilepsy. But you will notice from the text that this is not described as a medical condition; it is described in terms of demonic possession. This demonic force violently throws this boy to the ground repeatedly, undoubtedly causing him to have head trauma which results in seizures. Perhaps by this time there had been permanent damage to this boy.

There are primarily two views of demonic possession that you find prevalent in the church today. One is that it is absolutely everywhere, so look out, it may be behind your closet door; or, that it absolutely doesn’t exist, therefore don’t worry about it at all, because there is no such thing. And of course, science doesn’t believe in it either. But both views of the church are wrong. And it takes discernment to navigate from a first-century description to our twenty-first-century reality. But we can know this for sure: that the reality of demonic possession to any degree is always purposefully to deceive and to destroy the image of God in a man or in a woman. It is to destroy any hope of salvation. It is never in order to enhance life, it is never in order to fulfill life, it is never in order to make life better; it is always to deceive and to destroy. And that is the condition, of this son and only child, Luke tells us, of this father. He’s his only boy—his only son, who has been in this condition for his entire childhood.

And so this man, having obviously heard of the miracles of Jesus, had sought Him out to deliver his son from demon possession. But Jesus wasn’t there when he arrived at the place he had heard about. Instead, he found 9 of Jesus’s disciples. But the disciples had been unable to cast out the demon. They had a great experience casting out demons earlier when Jesus had sent them out two by two. The demons had been subject to the name of Jesus. But for some reason, they were unable to be successful on this occasion, and it was embarrassing to say the least, not to mention it was tragic for the father who had such high hopes. And it was an opportunity for the critics, the scribes, to embarrass and condemn the apostles for their lack of ability. You know, the devil cannot really find fault with Jesus, but he can criticize His followers. He can demoralize his followers so that they add error to error, so that people don’t believe the truth of the gospel. So that people might even turn away from the faith.

So look at Jesus’s answer. Vs 19 And He answered them and said, “O unbelieving generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring him to Me!” They brought the boy to Him. When he saw Him, immediately the spirit threw him into a convulsion, and falling to the ground, he [began] rolling around and foaming [at the mouth.] And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. “It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” And Jesus said to him, ” ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

I want you to notice here that Jesus is not rebuking the father of the boy. He is rebuking the disciples. The lack of faith, the lack of belief is on the part of the disciples who thought that they were faced with a superior force that they could not overpower. It really comes down to them thinking that Jesus was somehow insufficient. Now in their defense, these particular disciples had not been witnesses to the transfiguration. They had not seen the glory of God manifested in Jesus on the mountain. But still, they had seen Him deliver hundreds of people from demonic possession. I can only assume that since He was not there physically with them, they lacked confidence that He could still deliver this boy through them. So Jesus in effect says to them in exasperation, “How much longer am I going to be with you? You’re going to have to learn how to carry on My ministry without Me.” That requires faith on their part, and that faith is shown to be lacking.

And so he says, “Bring the boy to me.” Verse 20: “So they brought him.” And immediately you have a collision between the dominion of darkness and the kingdom of light. What takes place in the immediate response of the forces of evil within the boy as they recognize the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ. As soon as the spirit in the boy saw Jesus—look at verse 20—“it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.”

What we see here is the compassion of Jesus towards the boy and towards the father. This is what Jesus came to do, to save the world from sin, from the curse of sin, the captivity of sin. He is the light that shines in the darkness of the world, and the world does not overpower it.

And He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!” The devil was trying to destroy this boy, and by extension, to destroy this father who had to witness this for the entire childhood of his son. The strategy of Satan is to destroy as many people as possible. You know, the alcoholism of a man not only destroys him, but it often destroys his family, his wife, his kids. That’s the way sin works. And that’s the way the devil works to destroy.

Vs23 And Jesus said to him, ” ‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” That sentence “All things are possible to him who believes,” has to be one of the best examples of a verse of scripture which is often used out of context. That’s the slogan of the charismatic faith healers. That’s the proof text of the prosperity gospel preachers. But make sure you keep it in the context of which Jesus said it.

Who or what is the person to believe in? Is it to believe that whatever I can think of, or desire, I can have it if I just believe it really really hard? Is that what Jesus is saying here? I think not. I think in Jesus’s response you see first of all His repetition of the statement “if You can.” This man was saying If you Jesus can deliver my son… If You have the power Jesus. If You have the authority. It’s almost as if the man is maligning who Jesus is by casting doubt upon His authority.

And so Jesus response is “All things are possible to him who believes.” The point is that this man must believe in who Jesus Christ is. Not believe in the power of positive thinking, or even the power of prayer, or even in the power of faith. But believing in who Jesus is. And if you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, the Son of God, you shall be saved. That is saving faith, to believe in who Jesus is, the Son of the living God.

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.” So there is saving faith, and there is working faith. This man needs to show saving faith. The disciples were guilty of failing in working faith. Or we might better say, walking faith. Because the Bible says we walk by faith and not by sight. They failed to walk by faith. Jesus wasn’t around. They couldn’t see Him and so they didn’t have faith in His ability to heal this boy. Faith is not just something by which we are saved, but it’s the means by which we live, by which we work the works of righteousness.

The father at least recognizes that his faith is something that needs improvement. He says, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” That’s the other element about faith that needs to be mentioned. And that is that faith grows, faith matures. Faith is strengthened. And faith is a gift of God. So the father gets that right by asking Jesus to improve his faith, to give him faith to believe.

Vs25 “When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and do not enter him again.” After crying out and throwing him into terrible convulsions, it came out; and [the boy] became so much like a corpse that most [of them] said, “He is dead!” But Jesus took him by the hand and raised him; and he got up.”

We shouldn’t interpret that as if Jesus wanted to have a crowd and so He waited until a crowd formed and then began to heal the boy. No, just the opposite. Jesus wanted to avoid the sensationalism as much as possible, so He wanted to avoid the crowd.

But as He commands the evil spirit to come out of him, the spirit throws the boy into one last convulsion which is so devastating that it seems that the boy must have perished. He looks like a corpse, deathly white and perhaps not even breathing. But Jesus takes him by the hand and raises him up.

This is what Jesus does. This is what Jesus does in our day and time. He takes people whose lives are decimated, who have been deceived and who are being destroyed, and he does what only He can do and what no one else can do, that is, he enters into that spiritual deadness, and he takes the person by the hand, and raises them up, and they enter into new life.

Jesus is the one who says, “I am the resurrection and the life, and he who believes in Me, even though he dies, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” He’s the only one who can deliver us from death and sin. He’s either truth or He’s a liar. He’s either the God in the flesh who has the authority to forgive sin, to give life, or he’s a liar.

Well, after the boy is healed, after all the drama is over, the disciples go back to the house with Jesus and they ask Him a question. Vs 28 When He came into [the] house, His disciples [began] questioning Him privately, “Why could we not drive it out?” And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.”

What Jesus is basically saying is, “You didn’t pray.” Or perhaps, “you didn’t pray enough.” When do you not pray? When you don’t think you need to. Or when you don’t want to. Or when you’re presumptuous. Or when you think you can do it by yourself. So, if you think you can preach by yourself, there’s no need to pray before you preach. If you think you can do everything, just go ahead and do it, and see how it goes. That’s what he’s saying: “And you tried it. You tried it without prayer; next time, be sure to pray.”

Prayer is expressing your dependence upon God. Prayer is calling upon the power of God. Prayer is saying it’s not by some power that I have, but by the power of Jesus Christ that this boy would be healed. Prayer is communication from us to God that the power might come from God through us.

You see, prayer is ultimately aligning our wills with the will of God. It is simply acknowledging that God must do these things, that we don’t possess these things in and of ourselves. It’s not that our will be done, but that His will be done. And I think these disciples were getting a little too self important, and therefore they needed a little reminder. Just a little bit further in this chapter we will see that they were discussing among themselves who was the greatest. So perhaps they needed a little public humiliation as a necessary part of their training, a reminder of where their power came from.

We need remind ourselves that the faith that is fundamental to this story is not a faith that reaches out into some vague void—a belief in belief, or a belief in something—but it is a faith that resolutely trusts in the Lord Jesus. And in a world that scoffs at our belief in Christ and is quick to criticize our failures, we’re able to turn to One who says, “Bring the boy to me. Bring the girl to me. Suffer the little children to come unto me.” You can’t educate them out of this present darkness. You won’t be able to therapy them out of this snare and trap of the world that Satan has set for them. Actually, it’s good that you know you can’t do this. Bring them to Jesus. And some of us, as parents and grandparents, might want to take that in a very personal way. And if we can’t physically bring our children and grandchildren face-to-face with Christ, we can go face-to-face with Christ in prayer and bring them into his presence and trust in His power to make that which seems impossible, possible.

Last week I said that we were entering a stage of Jesus’s ministry in which there was a transition. It was a transition from Him primarily preaching and ministering to the multitudes, to His ministry primarily being focused on the disciples. Jesus knew that it would be less than a year until He is taken away from them, and they must continue to carry out His ministry. And so He wants to prepare them for His departure.

But there is another transition in His ministry, and that is that He is slowly but inexorably heading for the cross. In this passage we see that He has gone far to the north, to Caesarea Philippi;, but from this point on He will be moving from north to south, on the way to Jerusalem to be crucified. That is His goal, His purpose, His mission. To present Himself as an offering for sin, by His death on the cross, so that He might save those that are lost.

It’s noteworthy that this event is preceded by the healing of the blind man, who was healed in two stages. You remember last week we looked at the healing of this man, who when Jesus first anointed His eyes, he said he saw men like trees walking around. Then Jesus touched his eyes again, and the man began to see clearly.

That incident illustrates what happens as Jesus ministers particularly to the disciples. They are given spiritual discernment so that they might recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And yet their spiritual vision is still not clear. They see Jesus in an unclear way, as pertaining to the interests of man, but not the mission of God. However, for three of the disciples, Peter, John, and James, they will receive even more insight when they see Jesus after this event, transfigured before them on the mount of transfiguration.

But today we’re going to look at the first stage of their spiritual discernment. Let’s read starting in verse 27, Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?” They told Him, saying, “John the Baptist; and others [say] Elijah; but others, one of the prophets.”

This has obviously been a source of great debate during the ministry of Jesus. We’ve seen this sort of question voiced time and again by the multitudes and by the Pharisees, and by everyone that heard Jesus teach and saw the great miracles which He was doing. Some have said, “never a man spoke like this man,” when they heard Him speak. Others, such as the Pharisees, said that He performed miracles by the power of Beelzebub. That is by the power of Satan. It seems everyone had an opinion about Him, but there seemed to be no consensus.

The disciples echo answer Him, saying some say You are John the Baptist, others Elijah, and others one of the prophets. It seemed evident to the people that John the Baptist was a prophet of God. And yet it’s odd that they would think Jesus was John the Baptist, because one, John had baptized Jesus, and two, John was now dead. But nevertheless, some such as Herod thought that John had risen from the dead and was now ministering as Jesus.

Malachi, the last Old Testament prophet, had prophesied that Elijah the prophet would arise before the coming of the Messiah. Many people failed to see that John the Baptist was that prophet, and instead thought that Jesus was actually Elijah. And the fact that Elijah never died, but was taken bodily up to heaven gave credence to the idea that he had returned.

But bottom line, the majority of the people thought that Jesus was a prophet, whether a prophet risen from the dead or not, they believed He was a no more than a prophet. Though it’s doubtful that the Pharisees even accepted that. But they knew the common people believed that.

Even today, most religions of the world believe that Jesus was a prophet of God. Islam, for instance, believes that Jesus was a prophet, and that Mohammed was a prophet. Jesus, in their view, is no greater than Mohammed. He is just a prophet. The Bahai Faith believes Jesus was a prophet, as well as Mohammed and others. Many religions accept that Jesus is a prophet. The Jews believed the greatest prophet was Moses. But Jesus is far greater than even Moses. Heb. 3:3 says, For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house.

So then Jesus asks another question to the disciples. Vs 29 And He [continued] by questioning them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.” Matthew’s account says that Peter added “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

Matthew’s account also says that Jesus responds to Peter in Mat 16:17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal [this] to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”

Now unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church has completely misinterpreted this passage and somehow deduced that Jesus was instituting Peter as the first pope and whatever the pope said ex cathedra was as the vicar of Christ and had as much authority as the words of Christ. And I don’t have time this morning to deal with all of that, except to say that is not the meaning of this statement, and that’s not what Jesus was saying.

But let’s consider what Jesus did say. First of all, Jesus said that His identity could only be discerned spiritually. You must be given spiritual eyes to see spiritual truth. Jesus is saying that the logic and reason of man cannot discern spiritual things. If one is saved by believing in Jesus Christ, then there must be a supernatural healing that takes place, whereby the blind are given sight, so that they might see and believe.

According to human reason, His own townspeople had become incensed at Him and said, Who does He think He is? We knew Him when He grew up here, with His brothers and sisters and His mother. And they tried to throw Him off a cliff. So there must be spiritual sight given in order to believe. And Peter and the disciples had been given that sight.

The negative thing about Peter’s confession is not seen that clearly on our part, but it becomes more clear from the text following. That is that Peter and the disciples had an incomplete view of the Messiah. All the Jews had been looking for and yearning for the Messiah for hundreds of years. Isaiah and other prophets seemed to promise that when the Messiah came, He would set all things right. He would be the royal Son of David, who would resume the throne, who would vanquish Israel’s enemies, who would rule the over the world from His throne in Jerusalem. He would usher in a time of peace and prosperity such as the world had never seen.

Peter and the disciples do not understand that the Messiah must die for the sins of the world in order to be our Savior. They could not comprehend that. And so in that respect his confession is lacking because his knowledge is incomplete.

So while Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God may be limited by their incorrect theology about the Messiah, it is nevertheless marvelous, it’s spiritually discerning, it recognizes not only that Jesus is the Messiah, which is the Hebrew word that is rendered here in the Greek as Christ, but Peter also recognizes that Jesus is the Son of the Living God. He recognizes the deity of Christ, that He is God incarnate.

And that confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God is the confession of our faith, by which men are saved. Jesus said in Matthew’s account, upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Now I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of sermons about Peter, which means stone, being a little rock and Jesus being the cornerstone upon which the church is built. And that is correct. But it’s also true that Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah the Son of the Living God is the bed rock that Jesus builds His church upon. Because that confession is the means by which a sinner is brought into the church. The church is not a building, but a body of believers. And to be a believer you must believe that Jesus is Lord.

Paul says in Romans 10:9-10 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

That confession is how you are saved, and being saved is how you are brought into the church of Christ. It’s not by walking an aisle and being voted in, or taking a membership class, or even being baptized. Being saved is confessing that Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, is your Lord and Savior.

It’s interesting that many years later, as Peter writes his epistle to the church, he uses that same metaphor of a stone, saying in 1Peter 2:4-5 And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Now back in our text, in keeping with this transition in Jesus’s ministry to teach the disciples, Mark says in vs 31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

Notice here that Jesus begins to teach them the real mission of the Messiah. They had a wrong view of the ministry of the Messiah as a King who would restore Israel to a place of prominence and prosperity. But Jesus tells them in very plain terms that He would suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. This must have gone in one ear and out the other. Because after His crucifixion, the disciples don’t seem to remember this. They weren’t looking for Jesus to rise from the dead. They were mourning after His death, wondering what it all meant and what they were to do now. But yet Mark says Jesus was stating the matter plainly.

And Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him. What does that mean? Matthew says that Peter said, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” Maybe he meant, I won’t let it happen to you. Remember Peter would be the one to take a sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest when they came to arrest Jesus before His crucifixion. But I think he is speaking that way because his theology didn’t include Jesus dying for the sins of the world. His theology was more like the prosperity gospel of today, that sees the blessings of God as primarily material and physical. The Messiah is supposed to be their political Savior who creates utopia, not the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

But Jesus turns around and rebukes Peter, and said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” I spoke of this incident a couple of weeks ago as an example of Satan’s influence on a person. Peter is a believer. He has just made the greatest confession of His faith. And yet literally moments later Jesus is calling him Satan. Now you can say that is hyperbole if you want. You can try to explain it any way you want. But the clear meaning of scripture cannot be altered. Jesus called Peter Satan, either addressing directly Satan who is behind Peter’s remarks, or addressing Peter who is perversely influenced by the power of Satan. That doesn’t mean that Peter was demon possessed. But it does mean that even a Christian can be demonically influenced or even controlled to the degree that they give in to him.

Why does Jesus speak this way to him? Why does Jesus speak to Peter as Satan? Because, according to Jesus, he is not setting his mind on God’s interests, but on man’s interests. Satan’s mission is to glorify man. To glorify the flesh. To say that man can be like God. That he can decide between good and evil. That he can decide what is best for himself. Satan’s mission is to glorify man, to make him a god, that can control his fate, that can enjoy his creation, that can reap the fruit of his labor.

You know, these so called Satanists of our day are fools. They think that Satan wants to receive their worship, that they would glorify him. No, Satan’s strategy since the beginning is to get man to glorify himself. His first lie to Eve was to say that you can be like God, to know good and evil. His goal is to get man to worship man. To make man think he is like god. And in so doing, Satan’s strategy is to cause man to rebel against the sovereignty of God and thus condemn himself to eternal hell. Satan’s strategy isn’t to get people to worship him per se, but to get people to worship themselves. He wants to destroy mankind. And getting them to reject God is the most sure way to bring destruction upon the world.

Peter thinks he is being smart. He may even think he is being theologically erudite. But behind his theology is a focus on what he thinks is good for man, not on God’s interests. God’s interest is what is good for man, which is his salvation from his sins that he may receive new life. But Peter’s interests are on what he thinks is good for man, what he thinks God must do in order to bless man.

So Jesus must explain God’s mission more clearly to the disciples which he does starting in vs 34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Jesus has just said that He must die and be raised from the dead. And now He explains what that death means, which is death on a cross. But not only is Jesus going to the cross, He says those that wish to come after Him must also take up their cross and follow Him. These disciples were following Jesus. If they didn’t want Him to go to the cross, then it stands to reason they didn’t want to go to the cross either.

But we know that the disciples weren’t crucified with Christ on Golgotha. So what did Jesus mean by that saying? Well, I think He means that if you follow Christ, you have to set your mind on God’s interests and not mans. You must deny the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, and even die to those desires, so that you might live for God’s desires. That speaks of true repentance, ladies and gentlemen. To die to sinful lifestyles, to die to envy, greed, and pride, so that you might live for God’s interests, you might live for righteousness.

Paul speaks of this necessity of death in Col.3:2-5 “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

Jesus explains it further saying in Mark, For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. I think He means there that the man who wishes to preserve his sinful way of life, who wishes to succeed in life irregardless of God’s interests, but focusing on his own worldly, materialistic success, will in fact lose that which he is trying to save.

I was talking to a woman the other day who had lost her brother to an untimely death due to illness. And she was explaining how her brother who was a military veteran was a prepper. A prepper is someone who is preparing for the apocalypse. He is preparing for a melt down of society and law and order, and all the social chaos that would come as a result of it. This man had saved a small fortune in gold and silver bars. He had purchased many guns and lots and lots of ammunition. He had all kinds of generators and battery chargers and supplies. He had even bought these giant metal shipping containers and built an underground compound that he could live in until it was safe to come out. And then he got cancer and died at a relatively early age. He had made every preparation in order to survive, in order to live regardless of what happened. But I can’t help but wonder if he was prepared to die. I can’t help but wonder if he prepared to meet God.

Jesus said to His disciples, For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? The media seems to make so much out of billionaires and the movie stars and whoever has the most money. And yet what reward is it really to die a billionaire and not be right with God? You can’t take your money with you. A billion dollars on earth doesn’t have any value in heaven. Hebrews 9 says, it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.

Jesus spoke of that judgment in the parallel account in Mat 16:27 “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS. There is going to be a judgment for every man, when every thought and every deed will be examined in light of what you believed about Jesus Christ.

Jesus went on to say in Mark’s account, vs38 “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

What are you trusting in today? Are you trusting in the value of your 401K, your IRA? Are you trusting in your ability to be financially independent? Or have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, who has forgiven your sins and given you eternal life? I urge you to repent and confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that you might obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.

I want to emphasize something about Mark’s gospel as we continue in our verse by verse study of it this morning. And that is that Mark is not writing a biography of Jesus, he is not writing a history of Jesus Christ nor His ministry. But Mark is writing the gospel. The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. The good news is God’s plan of salvation for His people, brought about and manifested through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Now I emphasize that point because understanding that helps us to discern why some things are stated in the gospels and some things may have been left out. So that we might understand that some things that might seem merely biographical on the surface may be intended to be used to teach certain principles of the gospel. We have to be careful not to over-spiritualize every thing that happened, and yet we do need to recognize some things that have spiritual significance and not just read it in a superficial way.

And Jesus Himself emphasizes the necessity of that, of having eyes that see spiritually, and not just see the physical implications of an event. In fact, He rebukes the disciples for their lack of spiritual insight in vs17 saying, “Why do you discuss [the fact] that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? “HAVING EYES, DO YOU NOT SEE? AND HAVING EARS, DO YOU NOT HEAR?”

Now that’s pertinent especially because of the fact that Jesus has reached a transition point in His ministry. From this point on, He is not so much focused on preaching the gospel to the multitudes as He is focused on teaching the disciples. He will be crucified within a year’s time, and He must prepare the disciples to carry on His work once He is gone from them. And so we will consider this passage in light of this transition in HIs ministry, and that Jesus is using these events to teach the disciples especially. To prepare them for ministry when He is taken away from them.

So then, the chapter opens with yet another feeding of the multitudes. You will remember we looked a few weeks ago at the feeding of the 5000 in chapter 6. This is a few weeks or so later, we’re not sure exactly. It’s in another location, which may have been in the Decapolis region, a largely Gentile region.

Look at vs 1, “In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and said to them, I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a great distance.”

Though Jesus is now focusing on teaching the disciples, that doesn’t mean that He has abandoned the multitudes. Mark says He has compassion on them. But perhaps Jesus also wants to pass on that compassion to His disciples. He wants to teach them what it means to have compassion. And so He does that by example. That really is the best method of teaching a lot of the time, isn’t it? Not just to preach doctrine, but to show by your actions the life changing doctrines of our faith. For out of a changed heart come a change in actions and behavior.

Jesus had taught that principle previously as recorded in Luke 6: 44-45 “For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil [man] out of the evil [treasure] brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.”

So how better to teach compassion than to once again feed the hungry multitudes who have no possibility of feeding themselves. And even more to the point, to engage the disciples in that process.

But the disciples are slow to learn. Vs. 4 And His disciples answered Him, “Where will anyone be able [to find enough] bread here in [this] desolate place to satisfy these people?” They have already forgotten what happened a few weeks earlier when they were in another desolate place, and there were 5000 people there who had not eaten. But let’s not criticize too severely the disciples when we are often guilty of the same thing. Isn’t it amazing how quickly we forget the provision and blessing of God in the past when faced with a new trial in our lives? We are so caught up in the moment of crisis that we forget how often God has delivered us or provided for us in previous trials.

But let’s continue the story in vs 5 And He was asking them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.” And He directed the people to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the people. They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well. And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces.”

Now when Jesus fed the 5000 there were 5 loaves and two fish. In this feeding of the 4000 there are seven bread cakes, which were like flat bread, and some fish. I don’t think there is anything significant about the amount of food available. But what is significant is that Jesus asks the disciples how much bread that they had. Again, the emphasis of Christ’s teaching is to instill compassion for the multitudes in the hearts of the disciples, and to consider what they had as the means of supplying the need of the multitude.

Spiritually speaking, this miracle illustrates that Jesus is the bread of life that comes down out of heaven, which God gives to men who are desperate for the spiritual food which gives life. And the disciples take the bread of life from Christ and serve it to the multitudes, and God is able to make it sufficient for everyone that will receive it.

So the disciples serve the people and after everyone has eaten, they pick up 7 bushel baskets full of the leftovers. There is more than enough for the multitudes and for themselves. These baskets are quite a bit larger than the 12 baskets they picked up after feeding the 5000. In the previous case, the baskets were more like the size of a personal lunch basket. There were 12 disciples and 12 baskets left over for them to be able to eat. In this feeding, Mark uses a word that is also later used to describe the basket that the apostle Paul was let down from the wall in. That’s a pretty big basket, to be big enough to hold a man. It reminds us of the promise that in regards to ministry, that God will provide all your needs according to His riches in glory. Perhaps it also speaks to the abundant, super sufficiency of the gospel.

It illustrates the principle Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount, “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure–pressed down, shaken together, [and] running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”

Immediately after this event, they get back in the boat and leave this region to go to the region of Dalmanutha. And it is after leaving the predominately Gentile region, and going back to an area more populated by the Jews, that they run into the Pharisees again. Vs11 “The Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, to test Him. Sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, “Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.’”

I’ve said before that the Pharisees were like the game, “whack a mole”. They were always popping out from behind a tree or something, hoping to catch Jesus or His disciples in some error. In this case, they come asking for a sign from heaven. Jesus has been doing hundreds if not thousands of miraculous works. But they want something more. They want to tempt Jesus to do something prideful or self validating. And if He should do what they ask, then they would use that against Him as well. Because they have already decided not to believe in Him. I think they recognized that there was already more than enough evidence to prove that He was the Messiah. But they have rejected Him because they do not want this man to rule over them. They have attributed His miraculous powers to Satan. And so in a similar fashion as Satan did in the temptation of Christ in the wilderness, they want to tempt Him to sin in some way in order to publicly discredit Him. For instance, to sin like when Moses struck the rock in anger so that water came out. They hope to discredit Jesus in a similar way.

Matthew adds in his account in chapter 16 vs 4, that Jesus said “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.” That miraculous sign that Jesus speaks of was likened to the sign of Jonah, where Jesus was three days in the belly of the earth and would rise again from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus was the sign from God that Jesus was indeed the Holy One of God and that God had considered Him righteous and His atonement had been considered sufficient for the sins of the world.

But when Jesus says this generation will not be given a sign, He is speaking of the Jewish people living in His day. Particularly, He is speaking of the Pharisees and other religious leaders that have rejected the truth of the gospel. When Jesus appeared after His resurrection, He doesn’t appear to the Pharisees, or temple priests. He only appears to those who had believed in Him, His disciples.

But isn’t it also true that our evil generation seeks for a sign? Isn’t it true that people today say that if God is real, then why doesn’t He show Himself? Why doesn’t God prove Himself to me? But one day God will reveal Himself in all His glory, with flaming angels of fire, and yet that display of His glory will not be for their salvation, but for their damnation. God has established that it is by faith and not by sight, that we are saved.

Let’s look next at vs 13 “Leaving them (that is the Pharisees), He (Jesus) again embarked and went away to the other side. And they had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” They [began] to discuss with one another [the fact] that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you discuss [the fact] that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? “HAVING EYES, DO YOU NOT SEE? AND HAVING EARS, DO YOU NOT HEAR? And do you not remember, when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.” “When [I broke] the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?” And they said to Him, “Seven.” And He was saying to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

Once again, we see the emphasis here is on Jesus teaching the disciples, and He uses the incident with the Pharisees. Jesus is trying to teach spiritual discernment to the disciples. Discernment is not something that is easy to teach. Yet it’s something vital for a spiritual teacher or leader to have.

But when Jesus is warning them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, the disciples think that He is upset because they forgot to bring enough bread for lunch. I”m not sure how they made that correlation, except it seems that they are always thinking about their stomachs. I suppose we are guilty of the same thing a lot of times. The Lord may be teaching us a spiritual principle in the Word, and we interpret it as a physical thing. I was trying to explain to someone the other day about that principle in regards to what we consider blessings. We tend to see blessings only in the realm of the physical. In fact, we most often consider God’s blessings as being financial. But actually, God’s blessings are much more than simply financial. In fact, you might argue that financial “blessings” are more often than not really a curse.

So Jesus was warning them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Herodians. The Herodians were the party of Herod who were conniving with the Pharisees how to discredit Jesus and ultimately how to kill Him. Leaven in scripture is always a picture of sin. That’s why they ate unleavened bread at Passover. So in this case, Jesus means that the teaching of the Pharisees and Herodians is evil, in that it has the corrupting influence of sin in what appears to be spiritual food. The gospel is spiritual food, the bread of heaven, given to the multitude. But the spiritual food that the Pharisees fed the people was in fact corrupted by sin. It was corrupted by unbelief and hatred and the desire to murder of the Son of God.

And it would seem that Jesus is a little exasperated that the disciples cannot see that, but instead interpret His warning as saying something about not having enough bread for their lunch. So Jesus reminds them that He had supplied enough bread to feed 5000 people and 4000 people and still have plenty left over. Don’t they understand that He could easily feed 12 disciples from one loaf of bread? Don’t be focused on physical things when you need to be focused on spiritual things. If you comprehend the spiritual, then God will take care of the physical.

There’s one final illustration of this principle of the necessity of spiritual discernment. And that’s found in the healing of the blind man. Vs 22 “And they came to Bethsaida. (This is the same place where Jesus fed the 5000) And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him. Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see [them] like trees, walking around.” Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and [began] to see everything clearly. And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”

Taken at face value, this is one of the most confusing and difficult to understand miracles that Jesus performs. Jesus who has by now healed probably hundreds of blind persons, who has healed countless others from every sort of disease, who has even raised dead people to life, heals this blind man in two stages. And no one seems to know why. Some commentators just say that God has His purposes and we are not privy to them. And that may be true to some extent.

But when you consider the context of this whole passage, we might get some insight into why Jesus heals this way. One thing is for sure, it’s not because this man doesn’t have enough faith to be healed, as the charismatic faith healers like to say. It’s not because Jesus doesn’t have enough power to heal in one sitting this particular brand of blindness in this man. As I just said, Jesus has healed thousands of people, even dead people. You can’t find less faith than in a dead person, nor a more difficult illness than death. So you can disregard those possible reasons.

I think we must use a bit of spiritual discernment ourselves in considering all that Mark has related that happened so far in this chapter, which gives us the only possible reason that Jesus heals this way. And that is to illustrate that spiritual discernment, or spiritual maturity comes by sanctification, which is progressive in nature. See, salvation comes to us in three stages. The first stage is justification, whereby by faith we are judged in Christ, where He takes our sin upon Himself and we receive His righteousness. At this point we are born again, made alive in Christ Jesus by faith in who He is and what He has done. We are given a new heart.

Then the second stage of our salvation begins at that moment. And that is the process of sanctification. Sanctification is the process of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. It is the process of living out the righteousness that has been imputed to us. It is learning to be obedient. It is learning about the Lord. It is contemplating on His word and applying it to your life. It is the fruit of righteousness produced in our life from having been given a new heart. As Jesus said, “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good.”

I read recently about a man who was saved out of a pagan culture. And as he grew in his faith he decided he wanted to memorize the Sermon on the Mount. He said, “I had a really difficult time memorizing the Sermon on the Mount until I committed to live out those principles in my daily practice.” Sanctification is living out our salvation, bearing the fruit of righteousness in our life.

The third phase of our salvation is glorification. When we shall see the Lord face to face, and we will be made like Him, given a new body in the new heaven and the new earth. But the second stage is the one we live in now. It’s a stage of spiritual progression. And that stage is the one in which you grow in spiritual discernment and maturity. And I think that’s what Jesus was illustrating by His two stage healing of the blind man.

Remember, He has given two illustrations of feeding the multitudes from His hands to the disciples hands to the hands of the multitudes. Then He rebuked the Pharisees for not seeing Him for who He was despite having seen the miracles and signs that He had done. Then He rebuked the disciples for not having eyes to see, for being spiritually dull and only thinking of the physical, when they should have been focused on the spiritual. And now He heals the blind man in the first stage, so that he sees, but not clearly. And then laying His hands on Him again, the man begins to see clearly.

I think there is a correlation indicated there in the progressive nature of our sanctification. Whereby as we follow Christ, as we do as He instructs us, as we follow in His footsteps, as we listen to His word, our eyes are made more clear, so that we understand more distinctly the truth of the gospel, so that we might be more closely conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

That is the goal of our salvation. We will not be made perfect here in this life, but as Paul said in Phil. 3:12-14 “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s speaking of the process of sanctification, of becoming more like Christ, and then he goes on to speak of our glorification. 17 “Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, [that they are] the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end [is] destruction, whose god [is their] belly, and [whose] glory [is] in their shame–who set their mind on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”

Let us strive to follow in Christ’s footsteps, that we “may be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own derived from [the] Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which [comes] from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (Phil. 3:9)

Last Sunday we looked at the passage in Mark where Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because of their hypocrisy.  These religious leaders cleaned the outside of the cup, so to speak, but the inside was full of corruption.  They publicly made a great show of  following the traditions of men, which presumably had their basis in religious law, but inwardly they broke the commandments of God.  And so Jesus taught the disciples that it was necessary to have a clean heart, for out of the heart proceeds all evil.

Now a clean heart or a new heart speaks of a spiritual transformation.  A leper cannot change it’s spots.  Neither can man change his heart.  We sometimes speak of “having a change of heart.”  We mean by that a change of mind, or a change of attitude.  And it’s possible to do that.  My wife says it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. I’m just supposed to accept it and go along with it, I suppose.

But spiritually speaking, to have a change of heart is much more than simply deciding to do wear the blue shirt rather than the red shirt.  The Bible uses the word “heart” to denote the will and emotions and intellect of a man.  In Biblical terms, you can even use the word soul as a synonym for heart.  So when the Bible speaks of the heart, it speaks of the innate desires of man, the intrinsic nature of a man.

Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it? In that saying, we see that man in his fallen state is sinful, and he is sinful because his heart is sinful, inclined to sin.  And he cannot know it, which means comprehend it, or control it.  This condition is the result of the fall. When Adam and Eve sinned, they caused their sin nature to be passed on to their children, and to all succeeding generations.  So man is born with a sin nature, a sinful heart, which produces a sinful life.  So immediately following the fall, it says in Genesis 6:5 “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every intent of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.”

The heart is the source of all evil.  As Jesus said in the previous section, vs 20 And He was saying, “That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,  deeds of coveting [and] wickedness, [as well as] deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride [and] foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”

The great problem of the world is not pollution. It’s not poverty.  It’s not a lack of education or a lack of health care.  The great problem of the world is that the world is held in the bondage of sin. Sin is the snare and condemnation that is brought upon the world through the enemy of God and man, who is Satan.  And the only way to be freed from that captivity of sin is through Jesus Christ.  

Now Mark is going to use two events in the ministry of Jesus to illustrate this principle of salvation, which is that a change of heart must come through faith in Jesus Christ. There must be a spiritual transformation, and only Jesus has the power to change hearts.  That is illustrated here in two episodes following this teaching about the heart.

The first episode is described for us starting in vs 24 “Jesus got up and went away from there to the region of Tyre. And when He had entered a house, He wanted no one to know [of it;] yet He could not escape notice.  But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at His feet.  Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.”

Now remember Jesus has just finished teaching about the heart being unclean and now Mark records Jesus as going into the Gentile region, a region that the Jews considered unclean. Traditionally, they avoided Gentile regions, and avoided as much contact as possible with Gentile people.  But Jesus deliberately travels to Tyre and Sidon, a Gentile region and enters a house there, presumably to stay with the occupants.  Who they are we are not told, but we might suppose that they were Gentiles, though they might have been Jews living in a Gentile region.

But irregardless of who He was staying with, word gets out that He is there, and a Syrophoenician woman comes to see Him. Now she is undoubtedly a Gentile.  And for the most part, Jews did not converse or have fellowship with Gentiles.  She knows this.  But she is desperate for help.  And she knows that only Jesus can help her.

Matthew’s account in Matthew 15 tells us more about this woman’s faith than we see here in Mark.  Matthew says that she says to Jesus, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.”  Notice she calls Him Lord, Son of David.  It’s evident from that appeal that she believes that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.  She has a right understanding of Biblical prophecy, better than the Pharisees by the way. And as this event unfolds she continues to call Him Lord. 

The scriptures had been given to the Jews.  And the covenants were given to the Jews. Jesus would say in Matthews account in chapter 15: 24 “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”  Jesus would say to the Samaritan woman, “salvation is of the Jews.”  So the gospel is first given to the Jews, even as the old covenant was given to the Jews.  But that did not mean that the other nationalities could not obtain salvation.  There was such a thing as becoming a proselyte, which was to convert to the Jewish faith and practice.  And the scriptures show many examples of Gentiles converting, such as with Rehab the harlot, with Naaman the Syrian, with Ruth the Moabite.  So there was a way for a Gentile to become saved.  But it was through the Jews.  And Jesus had limited His ministry to the Jews.  But we have already seen other examples of His ministry reaching beyond that border, such as with the Samaritan woman and the Roman centurion whose servant was healed. But Jesus’s primary ministry at this time is to the Jews.

But this woman has come to Jesus believing in who He was, as prophesied in scripture, and she is seeking His help in the deliverance of her daughter from demonic possession.  We have been talking about demonic influences or demonic control or demonic possession for a couple of weeks now in our Bible studies.  And I think it is a matter of concern for our times as well. As we become more and more a pagan society, as we reject good and embrace evil, we open up our hearts to demonic control.  And I believe we are seeing more and more evidence of demonic control, and even demon possession occurring in our society today. In fact, demon worship and Satanic practices are not only becoming more common, but are more acceptable today and even trendy.  I heard a popular female movie star the other day refer to herself as a witch.  And she seemed proud of that title. 

Scripture tells us in the last days men will worship demons and sorcery will become more and more commonplace. 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.” It’s interesting to note that the word sorceries comes from the Greek word “pharmakia” which is where we get the word pharmacy from. The scripture shows that sorcery and drugs are closely connected. No wonder our society is manifesting more and more demonic influence.

I’m afraid that we tend to try to explain away a lot of what is really demonic control over a person’s life by trying to attribute it to other factors, such as an emotional or psychiatric disorder, or a drug or alcohol problem.  And I will agree that sometimes unnatural behavior is a psychiatric or emotional disorder and we it’s not always easy to be able to discern the difference.  But I also believe that a lot of behavior is demonic in origin and we don’t recognize it as such.

I don’t know what the specific characteristics of demonic possession was with this girl.  But we know that she was a young girl. Mark says she had an unclean spirit.  Matthew says she was cruelly demon possessed.  I would suspect from other accounts of demon possessed people that one manifestation of being demon possessed was that she was hurting herself. Another mother came to Jesus on another occasion about her demon possessed son who threw himself in the fire and tried to harm himself.  And we recently studied the story of the demoniac in the tombs who cut himself and constantly was screaming.  So in the case of this young girl there was probably some very evident manifestation of demonic possession which her mother knew was of the devil.

But I will tell you that there are varying degrees of demonic control, and not all of them show signs that we might attribute to that.  For instance, there is an event that happens not long after this, where Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind Me Satan.”  Peter showed no outward signs of demonic influence. He was a disciple. He had just made a great statement about Jesus Christ being the Son of God. And yet Jesus sees enough of the devil in him at that moment to call him Satan.  And I don’t think Jesus was joking when he said that.  I don’t think he was exaggerating either.  So we must believe that Jesus meant what He said. 

So not all demonic control manifests itself in someone by having a demonic look about them.  They don’t always have horns on their head or fangs or some evil look about them. And yet we need to be discerning.  In Peter’s case, the evidence was simply according to Jesus, “you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”  God sees the heart, and He knows our thoughts.  And He could see that Peter’s thoughts were influenced by Satan.

But while Jesus can read the heart, I don’t think we have the ability to read minds.  My wife thinks she can read my mind.  And maybe she is the exception and can actually do that. But most of us mere mortals can’t read minds. But nevertheless I think we can be more discerning sometimes when it comes to demonic behavior.  I had an experience recently where someone I encountered I believe was being demonically controlled.  And one of the primary reasons I believe that was that their mouth was spewing the most vile curse words and profanity that you have ever heard. I’ve had a few encounters like that over the years in ministry and I believe that when you have that kind of the vilest profanity being used, being screamed at you in a unreasoning manner, you can be sure that the person at that time is being controlled by a demon.  They may not even be aware of it, such as Peter wasn’t aware of it Im sure, but nevertheless, it’s a manifestation of evil that has it’s source in demons. It may not be a permanent condition, but it may come on for a while and then it’s influence may seem to wane. In the case of this young girl, it seems to have metastasized to a permanent condition.

Well, Jesus responds in a way to the request of the woman that may seem atypical. Vs27 But Jesus said to her, “Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw [it] to the little dogs.”  There are a couple of things that seem inappropriate with Jesus’s answer. For one, it would seem that Jesus was calling this woman a dog.  A dog was a euphemism that the Jews used to refer to Gentiles. It showed the disdain that they had towards Gentiles.

But Jesus actually uses a different phrase to describe the position of the woman. He says “little dogs” or some translations have it, “house dogs.”  The derogative word dogs that the Jews used indicated that Gentiles were like mangy dogs that ran the streets, practically wild and ravenous. But the dogs that Jesus speaks of is a house pet. Being called a house pet is not quite as bad as being called a mangy wild dog.  But we might suppose that Jesus is not making a derogatory statement to this woman about being of an inferior race, but rather to  show her relationship and position in the kingdom of God.

An even better understanding of His intent is shown in His mention of “first,” ie, “let the children be filled first…” A first obviously precedes and acknowledges that there will be a “second.” So Jesus is indicating that there will be a time or opportunity for the Gentiles, which will come after the gospel is preached to the Jews.

But this woman, percieving that Jesus has opened the door slightly, is bold enough to try to push it open even wider.  Vs 28 And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.”  She recognized that her position was that of the house dogs, but also knew that even they receive some of the scraps from the table. She had faith that God could still help her and deliver her daughter, though the Gentiles were not the primary object of Christ’s ministry.

And Matthew says in  15:28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great [is] your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.  Mark’s account has in vs 29 Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”  And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.”  Even by her leaving Jesus to go back to her house was an act of faith, as she had no evidence that Jesus had delivered her from the demon until she arrived and saw her daughter. But she believed in Him and in His word.

But let’s make sure we understand Jesus’s commendation of her faith. It was faith in Jesus Christ, in who He is.  Not faith in herself, or faith in the power of faith.  She believed in who Jesus was, and in HIs word.  And Jesus rewarded her faith in Him by delivering her little daughter from demonic possession.

The second event that illustrates the power of Christ to change our hearts, is found in the next episode that Mark selects for us.  Vs 31 “Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee.”  Now the geography described here is a little confusing for me, but Decapolis was ten cities that were primarily inhabited by the Greeks.  So again there is this idea of Jesus visiting these unclean regions, or unclean people.  The principle being taught of course is that only Jesus can make the unclean, clean. 

Vs 32 “Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him.  And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”  Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly.’”

In every case of Jesus healing or delivering someone, He seems to use a different method.  We just read about Jesus delivering the demon possessed daughter and yet He didn’t touch her or even visit her personally.  He delivered her from a distance. But in this case, Jesus not only touches this man, but he puts His fingers in the man’s ears, and spat on his finger and touched the man’s tongue.  In chapter 8, in another healing of a blind man,  Jesus will spit on a man’s eyes, in the process of healing him. 

Now trying to understand why Jesus did some things some times, and other things other times, and sometimes did nothing at all, is beyond our pay grade.  Except to show us that there is no secret formula for healing.  And I don’t think that there is some medicinal value in spittle. I don’t think that there was some special holiness in Christ’s spit which had healing properties. I really don’t know why He did it that way though, when He could easily heal someone without doing anything at all, as we have clearly seen. 

But what is evident is that as He puts His fingers in his ears, and touches his spittle to his tongue, He shows that He is changing those specific impediments by the power which comes from Him. The elements of Jesus’s body enters this mute and deaf man’s body which then changes him.  Isn’t that what is represented by taking the Lord’s supper?  When we eat of the elements which represent Christ’s body, we symbolically show the means by which we are saved through His sacrifice on the cross.  We receive the Spirit of God who gives us life, who changes our heart, so that we might have life more abundantly.

The fact that Mark says that Jesus sighed as He looked up to heaven, indicates that Jesus took the man’s condition upon Himself.  He sympathized with this man’s condition. I am reminded of Isaiah 53 which says, “Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He [was] wounded for our transgressions, [He was] bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace [was] upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.  He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. …  Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put [Him] to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see [His] seed, He shall prolong [His] days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.  He shall see the labor of His soul, [and] be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.”

Jesus came to save sinners.  That was His purpose.  To offer Himself as our substitute, to offer Himself as a sacrifice to atone for our sins, that we might be given life.  Jesus did not come to earth just to heal as many people as possible and miraculously feed tens of thousands of people.  But He came to fulfill the prophecy of One who would crush Satan’s head, who would set the captives free, and who would rule over the kingdom of God.

And so Mark tells us in vs 36 “Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed [it].  And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.’”

Jesus told them not to tell anyone because He did not want to be overwhelmed by people wanting to be healed, to the point that He was not able to preach the gospel. But nevertheless, His healings did provide evidence that He was the Son of God.  If they would have believed that, then they could have been saved.   But though HIs healing astonished them, most of them stopped short of believing unto salvation.

Believing in Jesus as Lord is believing first and foremost in who He is, the Son of God, in what He has done, which is to provide atonement for our sins through His death on the cross, and believing in what He has promised, which is eternal life.  When Jesus was preaching in a house and they opened up the ceiling to drop a paralytic man in front of Him, Jesus said to him, “Son your sins are forgiven you.” And the Pharisees became indignant because they said no one has the power to forgive sins but God alone.  So Jesus said, “But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”–then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”

That’s the reason Jesus healed and casts out demons, so that men might know that He has the power and authority to forgive sins, to create in them a clean heart and renew a right spirit within them,  and give them everlasting life.  I hope that you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, that you might be given  a new heart and a new life through Him.