One of the titles of Jesus that we are looking at today is the title of Lord.  I think that the true sense of that word is somewhat lost on our culture today.  It would be better understood in a feudal system, where someone who was considered the lord owned all the land, provided protection and was served by the people of the land.  Over time, the title extended to various types of nobility, such as a Lord of Parliament, or someone called Lord who held an office of authority in government. Another historical use of the word was, of course to denote divinity.  The Caesars used to claim the title of lord, and would make their subjects offer incense once a year and they were forced to proclaim when making the incense offering that Caesar is lord. So there were many different possible meanings of the title Lord, ranging from master or owner, to nobility, to sovereign, to that of divinity.

And one of the things that makes it even more confusing to 21st century Christians is that the title of Lord is used in a variety of ways in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments.  One of my favorite references of this title is found in 1 Peter 3:6, and one which I have tried to remind my wife of, but with little success, which says that Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.   Now obviously, that is not something that is commonly done in our culture, nor in my house either, for that matter.  

But to understand the full significance of this title, we need to consider it in the context of this passage which occurs in the last week of Jesus ministry before the cross, which is called the Passion week.  You will remember that in chapter 11 Jesus had come into the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey on Sunday morning, and the crowds were calling out ““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!”  So they were saying that He was coming as the Son of David, which was understood to be a title of the Messiah.  And He is coming in the name of Jehovah, which is the personal name of God, which is what the word LORD was substituted for.

Then the next day, Jesus came into the temple and drove out the money changers and the vendors and stopped the commercial enterprise of the priests who were taking advantage of the people.  And Mark tells us that the scribes and Pharisees and high priests came and asked Him, “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?”  

Jesus avoided a direct answer to that question by asking them a question concerning John the Baptist’s authority.  But He gave an illustration in a parable of the vine growers, which describes a similar setting to that of a feudal system, in order to illustrate that Israel was the vineyard, and He was the owner of the vineyard’s Son whom they would plot to kill.  So by illustration He claimed authority of Lord by virtue of the fact that He was the Son of God. 

Now that infuriated them, so they conjure up three questions to try to entrap Him in something that He might say, so that they might put Him to death.  When He brilliantly answered them all they are rendered speechless.  They don’t know how to respond to His wisdom.  So now, in response to their silence, Jesus asks them a question which speaks once again as to His authority which they had called into question.

And He does so by building upon the shouts of the multitude who hailed Him as the Son of David, which was understood to be referring to the Messiah.  So in chapter 12 vs 35, Jesus poses the question, “How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?
David himself said in the Holy Spirit, ‘THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, “SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND, UNTIL I PUT YOUR ENEMIES BENEATH YOUR FEET.”’ David himself calls Him ‘Lord’; so in what sense is He his son?”

Notice first of all that Jesus confirms the inspiration of scripture by saying that David spoke in the Holy Spirit this prophecy concerning the Messiah. Peter would later elaborate on that doctrine of the inspiration of the scriptures, saying in 2Peter 1:21 “for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” It’s really amazing to notice how often Jesus, who was the Word made flesh, utilized the scripture in His ministry. He had no problem with it’s authority and inspiration and infallibility as the Word of God.

Now what was commonly understood by the Jews was that the Messiah would be of the lineage of David, and that He would restore the throne in Jerusalem and Israel would once again be a great nation, receiving the full blessings of God through the reign of the Messiah.  They see this reign as a purely physical, temporal reign.  The Sadducees, remember, didn’t believe in the resurrection so they were only concerned about the present.  And they were also the party of the high priests.  So they thought they would be the administrators of the kingdom under the Messiah.

So the multitudes had shouted the refrain that Jesus was the Son of David as they ushered Jesus into Jerusalem only three days earlier.  And both the multitudes and the scribes and high priests understood this saying to be the concerning the fact that the Messiah would come from the line of David and restore the throne and restore the dominance of Israel as a nation.  

But in Jesus’s answer, He seems to be bringing that doctrine into question saying, “How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?”  It is clear that Jesus is speaking of Himself as the Christ.  They wanted to show that He could not be the Messiah, but He is taking the approach that the children in the streets calling out “Hosanna to the Son of David” were speaking of Him appropriately.  By the way, Messiah is the Hebrew word translated into the Greek as Christ. So Jesus in a roundabout way is confirming what the multitudes have said about Him, but He brings into question this idea that the Messiah is the son of David.  He wants to show that the Messiah is more than just the son of David.

And He does so by quoting from Psalm 110.  Now in the our Bibles it is presented as Jesus quoting from the Greek Septuagint translation.  That was the Greek translation of the Old Testament which was in use at that time.  But in the original Hebrew language, there is more distinction in the Psalm.  And that distinction comes in the usage of the word Lord. In the Hebrew text, the name Jehovah, or Yahweh, was considered so sacred by the scribes as the personal name of God that it could not be spoken, or even written.  So in order to accommodate that idea, they used a tetragrammaton to signify the word Jehovah, which was the word LORD, which was substituted for Jehovah. 

There is another word for Lord in the Old Testament, and that is the word Adonai.  Both words, Yahweh and Adonai  were names denoting God. The first  being His personal name and the other being His title.  In the New Testament, the word for Lord is the Greek word kyrious. And in our Bibles which are translated from the Greek, to show the difference between Adonai, and Jehovah, Adonai is presented as Lord, and Jehovah is presented in all caps, as LORD. 

Jesus is quoting from the Septuagint translation, which is the Greek translation then in use.  But in Hebrew it would read as, “Jehovah said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet.”

The point that Jesus is making is that though the Messiah was to be a son of David, David by inspiration of God calls the Messiah his Lord. So the question Jesus asks is how can David call the Messiah his Lord if He is his son?  The answer of course is that the Messiah was not only the Son of Man, but the Son of God. This is known in theological terms as the hypostatic union of Christ. He was fully God and fully man.  He was born of the Spirit and born of a virgin.  He was of the lineage of David and yet He is the Son of God.  

What the Lord Jesus wants to illustrate to these unbelieving religious leaders is that the authority He has to cleanse the temple is because it is His Father’s house.  The authority that He has to heal or forgive sins, or to teach the truth concerning the kingdom of God, is because He is the Son of God.  He is One with God, and so His authority is from God. Therefore, the son of David is not only Messiah, but He is Lord God.  

Now we can only imagine how infuriated this made the scribes and high priests.  But Mark records the crowd as enjoying listening to Him.  I doubt most of them understood all that He was saying, but they understood it to be a rebuke of the religious leaders and so they enjoyed seeing them corrected to some extent.  But notice that Mark uses the same turn of  phrase to describe their enjoyment as he used in the passage where he said Herod used to enjoy listening to John the Baptist.  Yet Herod eventually put John to death, and in a few days some of this very crowd would call for the death of Christ as well.  So the fact that the crowd enjoyed listening to Him does not equate to them believing in Him unto salvation.  

Now there is an important connection to an earlier passage that we must make sure we see here.  In vs 28, a lawyer had asked Jesus what was the foremost commandment.  And Jesus answered with the Shema, “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 the Lord is now saying is, “The Lord our God is one Lord: And you shall worship the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and I am not only David’s son, I am David’s Lord.” The Lord that we are to worship with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. 

The Lord Jesus Christ is our Sovereign, He is our Master, the owner and provider of every good thing. He is the Creator.  John says in the first chapter of his gospel that nothing was made without Him that was made.  He is God incarnate, God in the flesh.  The Word that was in the beginning with God, who made all that was made, who became flesh and dwelt among us.  

Isaiah in the Old Testament should have informed the Jews that the Messiah would be much more than just  human  royalty.  Speaking clearly of the Messiah, Isaiah 9:6 says, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.  There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.”  Isaiah makes it clear that Messiah is the son of David, and will sit on the throne of His eternal Kingdom, and that He is the Lord God.

So the church is to be the Lord’s vineyard, and we are to be His servants.  Salvation comes not only in faith in Jesus as a person, but in confessing Jesus as Lord.  Romans 10:9-10 says, “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.” As our Sovereign Savior and Lord, we bow to Him and yield to Him our lives in service for the glory of God and for His kingdom. Jesus’ identity is the central issue of spiritual life. What is Jesus to you? Is he Lord? The whole issue of how to enter the kingdom and how to live in the kingdom of God hangs at that point: Is Jesus your Lord?

Is Jesus the Lord of your life? Is He the one who governs your life? His lordship is the key to our life in Christ. That is why all through Paul’s epistles you find many practical exhortations which are linked always with “as unto the Lord”: “Wives, be subject unto your husbands as unto the Lord,” (Ephesians 5:22). “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church,” (Ephesians 5:25). “Children obey your parents in the Lord,” (Ephesians 6:1). “Stop stealing for the Lord’s sake,” (Ephesians 4:28). “Masters be kind to your employees for the Lord’s sake,” (Ephesians 6:5-9). In every aspect of life Jesus Christ must be Lord of your life.

Mark concludes this account with an illustration that indicates how Jesus’ lordship will manifest itself. The true expression of a heart submitted to the lordship of Jesus is demonstrated by a contrast between the pious, proud, religious scribes and a humble, poor, and godly widow. The scribes loved to be seen and admired for their positions and their adherence to certain rituals and ceremonies which they thought made them appear holy and righteous.  The widow, on the other hand, presents a picture of someone who loves the Lord with all their heart. And as we know from the life of David, God judges the hearts, not by outward appearances.

Let’s first consider these scribes.  Jesus lists six things that show their hearts are evil. First He says beware of the scribes because they like to walk around in long robes.  You want to put that into a contemporary context, beware of religious leaders who like to dress up in some religious outfit that they think gives them some sort of pious look.  I would add to that, beware of pointy hats.

Next, He says beware of those who love respectful greetings in the market places.  They love the fawning attention that their positions render them and the titles and so forth that people use when addressing them.  To tell you the truth, I don’t really enjoy being called “pastor.”  I understand that people are trying to show respect, but I would just as soon be called Roy.  Paul was called simply Paul, and that’s good enough for me.

Third, He says beware of those who like the chief seats in the synagogue.  That was the seats up on the podium facing the congregation. They were the chief seats.  That sort of thing was also done with the parishioners in the early churches in the middle ages and even afterwards.  The rich gave money to patronize the priest and the church and so they would have the side benches up front with their names inscribed upon them.  And so the order of the congregation would follow suit with the wealthiest up front and the poorer people in the rear.  

Fourth, they love the place of honor at banquets. It’s more of the same, using their positions to an advantage, their religion to garner respect and public admiration.  We see religious celebrities cashing in today through the sale of books and television specials and so forth. They are masters at self promotion.

Fifth, Jesus says they devour widow’s houses.  They took advantage of poor widows by robbing whatever resources may have been left to their estate.  This is the most egregious of all their abuses as far as I’m concerned.  And this is what I see as the sin of a lot of television preachers today.  Paul speaks of those wolves in sheep’s clothing in 2Tim. 3:6 “For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses.”  I see that speaking of these false teachers on TV as entering into widow’s houses and leading them astray and taking advantage of them, devouring their financial resources as well as devouring them spiritually.  

And then number six, Jesus says beware of those who pray long prayers.  He says that they do not pray to be heard of God, but they do so for appearance sake.  They love to be seen as pious, as knowledgeable.  So they pray to be heard of men in offering long, laborious prayers.  Beware of praying to be heard of men.  God doesn’t answer those prayers, and furthermore, He is opposed to them.  

So what is the synopsis of those religious hypocrites?  They love to perform their religious ceremonies to be seen of men and to win their approval.  They superficially give praise to the Lord, they superficially love the Lord.  But the Lord sees their hearts and consequently does not regard their service as acceptable.  They have their reward here on earth.  People call them holy, righteous and look up to them, and approve of them.  And so they have their reward on earth.  But they have not earned any reward in the Kingdom of God.  

Note now the contrast in the last 3 verses as we see Jesus recognize the heart of the widow.  Jesus was seated near the treasury in the temple.  And what they did was they had 13 trumpet shaped repositories made which hung on the walls of the temple court.  And the people would file into this area to give their offerings to the Lord.  Mark says that the rich people were dropping large amounts into the coffers.  I read somewhere that the way these were constructed, and the type of coins that were being given as a offering, meant that there was a corresponding loud clatter when a large amount of coins were dropped in.  To make it even more ostentatious, Jesus said elsewhere that some even had actual trumpet players announce their coming into the temple to make an offering to make sure everyone noticed them giving. 

But irregardless, when a rich person came in the temple to give, it probably sounded a lot like hitting triple sevens on the one armed bandit in the casino. Not that I speak from experience, mind you. A cascading sound of coins flowing into the trumpet shaped urn which would resonate throughout the temple and draw approving glances from the people in attendance.  

Then Mark says that a poor widow came in and dropped two small coins into the treasury, which amounted to a cent.  Now there is a lot of commentary on exactly how much she gave, but the best sources I can find say that what she gave was probably equivalent to about a dollar in today’s currency.  And it was in the form of two small, thin coins.  To drop such slight coins in the trumpet vase would have barely made a discernible noise.  

But though her offering made little noise and drew no attention of the crowd, yet it made a great impact on Jesus. He said, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”

Here again we see revealed the divine nature of Christ, in knowing not only what she put in the offering, but also in knowing what she had left to live on.  But there is another lesson here that must be seen.  And it is not a lesson on tithing. I try to avoid talking about tithing or giving offerings as much as possible.  Paul said  giving must be not out of compulsion, that God loves a cheerful giver.  I know a lot of preachers have used this text to preach about money.  I’m not going to do that.  You are smart people, you can read into that if you want yourselves.  

But what I believe the real point of this is, is that this widow gave the Lord everything.  She didn’t hold anything back for herself.  There were two coins, she could have said I will give the Lord one and I will use the other for myself.  But instead, she gave everything to the Lord.  This woman revealed that she loved the Lord with all her heart, with all her soul, and with all her strength.  She didn’t hold anything back. She recognized that all that she had was the Lord’s, and so she gave all that she had to the Lord.  She fulfilled the foremost commandment.

And I think that is the point of this whole passage.  If you believe in Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, then you must believe that He also is Lord.  And if He is Lord, then He demands your life, your heart, your all.  He isn’t interested in pretentious, pretend Christianity that parades it’s virtues to be seen of men.  But He demands all your life.  That is how we are saved, ladies and gentlemen.  We surrender all. He is Lord of all.  He is worthy of all that we have and all that we can give.  We can never repay all that He has done.  But the least we can do is give Him our complete devotion and worship Him as Lord.

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. 

Last week we looked at the most important question in the world, which is what must I do to inherit eternal life? The rich young ruler was considered a good person. But he found that he wasn’t good enough to enter the kingdom of heaven. The question before us today in the passage we’re looking at, is how do you become great in the kingdom of God? A desire for greatness is a worthy goal, if it is achieved within the realm of the kingdom of heaven. But I would be willing to guess that many people who may desire greatness, consider it only within the temporal, earthly realm, and aren’t very concerned about being great in the kingdom of God.

We typically think of greatness in the realm of sports figures. Hank Aaron was a great baseball player. Maybe the best there ever was. Muhammed Ali considered himself the greatest boxer. That’s open for debate. Tom Brady could be considered perhaps the greatest quarterback in football. That is unless you’re an old Colts fan like my wife. Then you would probably say Johnny Unitas was the greatest quarterback. My sport of choice is surfing.  But I’m not a great surfer by any stretch of the imagination.  But there are a few icons in the sport that have achieved greatness to some degree or another.  One such guy is a man named Laird Hamilton.  And even if you aren’t a surfer, you might have heard of Laird.  

Surfer Magazine once labeled Laird as “the sport’s most complete surfer, displaying almost unnerving expertise in a multitude of disciplines, and flat out surfing’s biggest, boldest, bravest, and the best big wave surfer in the world today, bar none.” I guess that qualifies Laird as being one of the greatest surfers ever. 

Usually along with such physical feats of greatness come also a lot of arrogance and pride.  And perhaps Laird was prone to that sort of thing at certain times in his life. But I understand that a near death experience may have tempered that arrogance to a certain degree. In fact, according to a YouTube video I saw, it would appear that he turned to the Lord in that situation.  I can’t say that he is saved, but it certainly seemed like that near death experience may have humbled him to some degree.  

So a while back I watched an interview with Laird in which they talked about all sorts of things that were going in his life, and the interviewer finished the talk with a last question which was “How do you define greatness?”  You would half expect an answer like, “well if you look up greatness in the dictionary you will see my picture.”  But the answer that Laird gave was really kind of out of character for him.  He said greatness required compassion, being courageous, humility and love.  There could be other aspects as well, he said, but those were in his opinion the top four.  Not exactly the stereotypical answer you would expect from a great sports figure, is it?  

The topic we are looking at in today’s passage is that of greatness, and I’ve titled the message “the gospel’s path to greatness.”  This has really been a sort of a theme in this chapter and even in the previous chapter.  There is a recurring theme about what it means to be considered great in the kingdom of God.  And in regards to Laird’s answer to the question of what constitutes greatness, I was quite surprised to find a correlation here in this passage of those same four points, compassion, courageousness, humility and love.  I think we are going to see Jesus illustrate each of those characteristics in the following passage, though not necessarily in that order.  

Before we get into this passage though, let’s look back at the last verse of the previous passage which I think gives us spiritual insight into God’s perspective on greatness.  Jesus said in vs.31, “But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”  That statement sets the stage by letting us know that God doesn’t look at greatness the way man looks at greatness.  Let’s look now at the opening scene, in which we see the courageousness of Christ which is one of the essential characteristics of greatness.  

In vs32 we see Jesus leading His disciples on the road to Jerusalem.  Notice that He is taking the lead.  He is purposely, resolutely heading to His destiny with the cross.  The disciples aren’t fully aware of where He is leading them, but He knows very well the pain and suffering that awaits Him.  So Mark says He took the disciples aside to explain to them more fully what lies ahead.  Marks says the disciples are amazed and fearful.  Yet Christ is courageous.  He resolutely marches toward what most people would run from. Jesus knows the full ramifications of all that is inculcated in the cross.  Far beyond what we can even understand from the benefit of having the scripture accounts, He knew completely in advance.  And yet He faces towards Jerusalem, heading resolutely towards the cross.

Notice also what Jesus has to say about His destiny.  This is the third time in Mark that we see Jesus foretelling that He will suffer death.  He first did so in chapter 8 vs 3, after Peter had affirmed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. Then He gave a more detailed version of this prophecy in chapter 9 vs 31.  And now in chapter 10 vs 33,34 He gives the most detailed version yet.  This is a great illustration of what I have often referred to as “progressive revelation.” That as you walk in obedience to the light God gives you today, He will give you more light for the next step.  It is important, not that we have full knowledge, but that we have full faith in what knowledge we have received and walk in it in obedience.  And when we do that, then God will give us more knowledge that we might walk in it.  

In this third prophecy of vs 33 and 34, we see seven distinct prophecies that Jesus reveals.  That’s pretty definitive prophecy isn’t it?  Jesus is not just giving an indistinct allusion to something that may or may not happen, but very specific things regarding His Passion.  Notice these seven points; 1, the Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of the chief priests and scribes, 2, they shall condemn Him to death, 3, they will hand Him over to the Gentiles, 4, they will mock Him and spit on Him, 5, they will scourge Him, 6, they will kill Him, and 7, three days later He will rise again.  That is incredibly detailed prophecy concerning Himself, and as we all know, all those things were fulfilled to the letter. 

You know, I’m sure a lot of us we wish we could know the future.  But to know the way you will die, especially the time and the manner, which in Jesus’ case was through torture, is not a knowledge that any of us would want to have.  But to have this foreknowledge to this degree, and then to resolutely head towards it rather than run from it is to show courage at it’s greatest level.  It is one thing to go on a dangerous adventure, perhaps to surf the biggest waves you can find, but you do so with the expectation that you will survive.  Jesus went to Calvary knowing that He would be tortured and killed and yet willingly offers Himself up for our sakes.

And that courage illustrates another characteristic of greatness, which is love.  Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down His life for His friends.” Jesus loved us with a sacrificial love.  The greatest love that one can exhibit is to lay down your life for another.   John 13:1 says, “having loved His own, He loved them to the uttermost.”

There is another essential element of greatness, which is humility.  Yet first  we see that the disciples illustrate the negative contrast to Biblical principle of humility, through their selfish ambition. Their selfish ambition is a sharp contrast to Christ’s humility.  We see this starting in vs35.  

The gospel of Matthew adds further detail to this situation – Matthew says the mother of James and John accompanies them, and in some way or another adds her request to theirs.  They start by approaching Jesus and asking Him to do them a favor.  It would seem they understood at least that Jesus was going to be established on His throne as the ruler of the Kingdom of God.  So they have that going for them.  They have faith in Christ the King and the gospel of the kingdom.  But that’s where the good implications of their question ends.  What they were asking for, and even recruited their mother to help them get, was to be seated on the right hand and the left hand of Christ when He sat on His throne.  They were asking for the chief seats of honor in the kingdom. They were asking to be recognized as the greatest in the kingdom of God, second only to Christ.

Now this is nothing short of naked, unbridled, selfish ambition.  It is a desire to be given preference over the other disciples.  It is a desire to be recognized as greater than the other disciples.  But as we will see, it was not a good desire, but a sinful desire born of of selfishness and pride.  

Notice the sharp contrast between Jesus and the two disciples; Jesus is predicting His humiliation, while they are asking for their exaltation.  But before exaltation must come humility. Humility is an essential characteristic of greatness.  Jesus was a perfect example of humility, having left His glory in heaven to become a servant.  The apostle Paul says we are to emulate this example of Christ’s humility in Phil. 2:3-8, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves;  do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.  Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Notice that Paul said we are to have the same attitude as Christ did in regards to humility, putting the needs of others before yourself.

That’s the exact opposite of the attitude of the world, isn’t it?  The doctrine of the world is go for it, grab all you can get, protect and proclaim your rights.  I’ve often said in regards to surfing that it is one of the most selfish sports there is.  There are no referees out there, no rules saying who’s turn it is.  And so it’s every man for himself.  And consequently it turns out to be a very selfish endeavor with everyone trying to get as many waves as they can.  The better you are, the more waves you get.  And that’s a good illustration of what is wrong with the world’s view of greatness.  Climb over, walk over anyone in pursuit of your goals. All’s fair in love and war. Do whatever you have to do to advance yourself. But that’s not God’s path to greatness.  

Notice what Jesus says in regards to this request of James and John. “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to Him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. But to sit on My right or on My left, this is not Mine to give; but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

James and John seem a little overconfident in their answer that they would be able to drink the cup that Jesus drinks, and be baptized in His baptism.  Whether or not they fully realize it, Jesus is talking about the agony that He will suffer at the cross.  To “drink the cup” was a Hebrew idiom which they should have realized meant to fully undergo the same experience.  And to be baptized they should have been understood meant to be engulfed, or overwhelmed.  Their answer showed they obviously did not understand what He had just said about being scourged and delivered up to be killed.  They probably thought that was just hyperbole.  Just like we think that it is hyperbole when Jesus said in the previous passage that it was impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  We have a tendency to disregard those truths which don’t fit our template.  

But Jesus out of His compassion for these two disciples does not rebuke them, in fact He acknowledges that they will in fact endure a similar baptism of fire and drink the bitter cup.  Little did these aggressive, ambitious young men who, by the way were known as the Sons of Thunder, little did they know then that one of them, James, would become the first martyr of the church, and the other brother John would be imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos.  But it should be noted that while Jesus’s suffering and death was vicarious, their suffering could never be, but nevertheless it is related in the sense they would suffer for Christ’s sake. 

However, it needs to be pointed out that they were overconfident in their assertion that they could endure what Christ would endure.  In fact we know that on the night of His arrest, they initially  ran away as did all the disciples.  But at this moment, they are full of bravado.  And that is an important distinction in the pursuit of greatness.  One must not mistake bravado for courageousness. There is an old adage I like a lot which was spoken by a king of Israel, ‘Let not the one who puts on his armor boast like the one who takes it off.’  Jesus is courageous in the truest sense of the word.  The disciples are full of bravado.  They have not yet had their faith put to the test.  After the resurrection, they will exhibit some of that courage that Christ had.  But up to this point they are full of their own self importance.

Well, lest we think too little of James and John and too much of the other disciples, note that in vs 41 that when the other disciples hear this they become indignant towards the two brothers. They are indignant because the greed of the two is exposed, but their indignation exposes their greed as well.  This desire for greatness is a long standing issue with the disciples.  Remember back in chapter 9 vs 34 they are discussing among themselves which one of them would be the greatest.  So if anything, they are just jealous that James and John spoke up to claim those thrones before they did.  All of them are guilty of the same selfish interests. 

But before we move on, let’s be honest about ourselves.  It is human nature to think of yourself first.  It’s human nature to look out for number one.  But though it may be human, it is indicative of our sin nature. That is why Jesus said the second most important commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.  The first commandment is to love God above everything and everyone.  The second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. 

So Jesus needs to correct this attitude among the disciples, so He stops and calls them together for a lesson.  And He tells them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

First, Jesus uses an analogy of the world’s great men as compared to those who would be great in the kingdom.  In the world’s system of greatness, the rulers exercise authority over the others.  To exercise authority is to lord one’s superiority over people, to oppress people, to govern people.  They make laws and ordinances to restrict or control.  And in so doing they make the people serve them.

But that is not the way God would have greatness expressed. In the kingdom of God, the great serve the weak.  The ruler becomes the servant.  As illustrated by the Lord Himself, He came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. 

Jesus is saying that in the kingdom of God in which He is Ruler, it is the exact opposite of what is practiced in the world. Greatness consists in serving, in the outpouring of self in service to others.  It is to practice sacrificial love, and that not just to those who can reciprocate by advancing you, but even to those who cannot repay or to those who are undeserving.  This reveals yet another characteristic of greatness, that of humility, and no one is more humble than a servant.  Remember the text we looked at earlier in Phil. 2:7,8 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

The service which Jesus came to give was to give His life as a ransom for many.  This ransom paid in Jesus’s blood is what is known in theological terms as substitutionary atonement.  Isaiah 53:11 in speaking prophetically of the Messiah says, “As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities.” 

Now finally, Mark gives us an illustration of greatness in the account of the healing of a blind man named Bartimaeus. As Jesus and the disciples are walking out of Jericho, Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is passing by.  And so this poor blind man, a beggar, begins to call out in desperation for Jesus to have mercy on Him.  Bartimaeus is a perfect picture of a man who is lost.  He is the perfect picture of a man who needs to be saved.  First he is blind. The image of blindness is a common metaphor presented in the gospel for those outside the kingdom of God.  Paul says in 2Cor. 4:4 “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 

Secondly, he is a beggar. In the eyes of the world there is certainly nothing great about him. In regards to salvation it is necessary to see yourself as a beggar.  Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” To be poor in spirit is to recognize that you are spiritually bankrupt. To be a beggar means you recognize that you have no means by which to be saved.  To be rich is to think yourself as self sufficient, when in fact that very attitude prevents you from receiving the grace of God unto salvation.  So the fact that this blind man is a beggar makes him an excellent candidate for salvation.

And thirdly, notice his desperation.  His urgency.  He cries out repeatedly, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”  People around him told him to be quiet.  But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Listen, that is how you are saved.  That is how you enter the kingdom, as a beggar, as one who realizes that he is blind, hopeless and helpless to affect anything on his own.  And then a desperate appeal to God for mercy.  A blind person in those days had no other recourse than to beg.  There were no state resources available to such a person.  There were no cures, no doctors that could offer help.  There were no jobs to be had for blind people.  You had to beg.  It was a hopeless situation. 

And so is our natural condition.  God wants us to recognize the reality of our sinful condition.  He wants us to realize our hopelessness, so that our hope is in Christ, our faith is in Him alone.  So Jesus says, “call him to come here.”  So they said, “Take courage, stand up! He is calling for you.”  Notice that characteristic of courage again, but now it’s on the part of the blind man. And here we see the proper application of courage.  Courage is acting in faith to what God has promised.  If the Lord calls us to it, we may be courageous because we know that it is according to HIs will.  

So Jesus asks him “What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus asks this not because He doesn’t already know the answer but because He wants Bartimaeus to confess what he desires of the Lord.  The Lord knows what we need, but He wants us to ask for it.  He wants us to confess it. And so Bartimaeus says, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!”  It’s interesting that he said, “regain my sight.”  That would indicate that at one time he had his eyesight, but for some reason or another had become blind.    

The linguists tell us that Rabboni is equivalent to calling Jesus Master.  First he called Jesus “Son of David.”  That’s a Messianic title.  Now he calls Him “Master.”  That is a recognition of Jesus’ superiority. He recognizes that Jesus has control over His creation.

And in response, Jesus praises him for his faith. Vs 52 “And Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road.”  The word there that Mark uses which has been translated as “made you well” is actually in the Greek “souzo”. Souzo may also be translated as your faith has saved you. I think that’s more accurate. He asked for physical sight, but Jesus gave him spiritual sight and physical sight.

But notice Jesus says, your faith has made you well.  Faith in what, you might ask?  Faith in the power of healing?  Faith that he could be healed? Not at all.  But rather faith in Christ, in who He is, in His authority and power as Lord and Christ.   And immediately he received his sight.  And when the procession started up again for Jerusalem, Bartimaeus followed them.  

Listen, this healing of the blind man is not only an illustration of the greatness of Jesus, as illustrated by His compassion, His love and humility in serving a beggar, but also the greatness of Bartimaeus.   This man went from being the least in the eyes of the world to great in the kingdom of God. Jesus said in Matthew 11:11, that he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John the Baptist, who was the greatest among men.  To see Jesus in the light of His truth, to have faith in Him and to forsake all and follow Him, is to begin a journey on the path to greatness according to the gospel.  There can be nothing greater than to inherit eternal life, to become a citizen of the kingdom of God, and to become a child of God.  That is greatness that far surpasses all the world’s concept of greatness.

The question for you then is, have you begun that journey to greatness?  According to the standards of man you may think you have already accomplished much in that regard.  But in the kingdom of God, it begins with a new birth, becoming like a child, realizing like Bartimaeaus that you are helpless and hopelessly blind, unable to do anything of your own power, and calling upon the mercy of God to save you. And then in the light of God’s truth, to follow Him in faith.  That is the path to greatness.  

As I was talking about this concept to someone the other day, I said that before you can become great, you must first become good.  Before you can become a great surfer or great football player, you must first become good.  But becoming good spiritually is not something we can achieve through our own efforts.  We become good through faith in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, believing in who He is and what He has accomplished on our behalf.  And through faith in Him, our iniquity is transferred to Him, and His righteousness is transferred to us, so that we are made good, made righteous in Christ before God.  Then, and only then, we may be able to do even greater works than these, as Jesus Himself promised.  

The question before us today is without a doubt, the most important question in the world.  We find it articulated by the rich, young ruler in vs 17.   The question asked by the young man is this: “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  It is a question that should be of the upmost concern to everyone here, to everyone in every age.  Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed unto man once to die, and after that comes the judgement.” 

The certainty and the inevitability of death should be apparent to any thinking person.  We consider it prudent to plan and save and prepare for our retirement, and yet we do not seem to prepare for death. You may not make it to retirement. You don’t know what the stock market or real estate market will be like 10 years from now, or if you will be around to find out.  But reality should tell you that one day every man and woman in this audience today will die.  Science would like us to believe that we simply cease to exist when we die.  But the Bible tells us that upon death we will face God’s judgment and the verdict of that judgment will be eternity in either heaven or hell.  

Mark is presenting for us the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He is not writing a biography of Jesus Christ per se, but he’s writing the gospel.  The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Son of God, the King of the Kingdom of God,  who took on human form and became our substitute and our Savior, paying the penalty for our sin by His death, that we might receive eternal life in the kingdom of God. 

And as Mark writes this chapter of his gospel, he uses two events to illustrate how one may enter into that life in the kingdom of God.  Last week, we looked at the passage beginning in chapter 10 vs 13, in which Jesus essentially says that the way to enter into eternal life is by becoming like a child.  Jesus says in vs15 “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it [at all.]”. I said last week that means that you must be born again.  There must be new birth, spiritual new birth.  Jesus said in Matthew’s account of that event that you must be converted and become like a child to enter into eternal life. Jesus said in John 3 to Nicodemus, “you must be born again.”  And you are born again spiritually when by faith and trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and given new life in the Spirit.

Now in the passage we are looking at this week, the same question is presented, but in this situation, the person finds out he is not able to enter into eternal life because he was trusting in his accomplishments.  He was trusting in his own righteousness, and in his wealth.  The baby that Jesus used previously as an illustration had no accomplishments, had nothing by which to gain merit with before God, had no wealth, and had to trust completely in Jesus Christ for his salvation. The rich young ruler has everything that wealth and position and good works have to offer, and yet finds it is not enough to gain entrance into eternal life. 

So the incident that Mark records for us in the meeting of the rich, young ruler, provides a sharp contrast to that of the children.  The children came to Jesus in their helplessness and trust and they are accepted into the kingdom.  The rich young ruler comes to Jesus in his wealth and self sufficiency and he goes away crestfallen that he cannot enter the kingdom.

Let’s look more closely at why the rich, young ruler was not able to enter the kingdom of God.  I keep referring to this man as the rich, young ruler, but Mark doesn’t call him that.  Mark just calls him a man, and so we have to get the rest of the description from the other synoptic gospel accounts.  But all the gospel writers  say that he was rich, that he owned much property.  The fact that he was young may not have a lot of bearing, but the fact that he was a ruler probably indicates that he was a religious ruler of a synagogue.

Notice that he comes running up to Jesus.  That may be an indication of his youth.  He is excited to meet Jesus.  He is eager to find out the answer to a question that is obviously important to him.  Those are all good qualities.  We should all be eager to know the truth concerning the kingdom of God, and recognizing that Christ is the source of truth is an important first step.  Jesus Himself declared, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by Me.”  So it is a good first step for this young man to come to the Lord with a sense of eagerness, and it is prudent to come with a sense of urgency.

Then Mark says that this young man knelt before Jesus and addressed Him as “Good Teacher.”  As a ruler of a synagogue, this would indicate an uncharacteristic willingness to humble himself, and a reverence for Jesus.  This also is a good beginning, but Jesus is going to seize upon that reference to Him as “good” in order to get this man to see who He really is.  To believe in Jesus Christ, in who He is, and what He has done, is the basis for our faith which is required for salvation.  Does this man believe that Jesus is the Son of God? I would suggest from his address of Jesus as “Good Teacher” that he doesn’t really understand who Jesus is.

So while his sincerity and urgency and reverence are commendable, it still falls short of what is necessary to gain eternal life.  That raises an important point that needs to be stressed.  Many people are impressed to come to the Lord for a variety of reasons.  And according to popular opinion, you just need to come as you are and be sincere, and if you have some degree of belief that  God is real, then God will accept you.  But Jesus makes it clear that sincerity alone is not enough.  Only the truth can make you free. So Jesus questions him in vs18, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone.”

And that is the crux of the issue.  Yes, we are saved by faith in Christ.  In John 3:15 we read that   “Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” But believes what about Jesus? That is the essential question.  What Jesus is pointing out is not that He isn’t good, and only the Father is good.  But rather He’s making the point that if He is truly good, then He must be God.  A lot of people are willing to say that Jesus is good, He is a good teacher.  That He was a mystic, a shaman, a spiritual guide.  But Jesus never claimed to be just a teacher or just a prophet.  He claimed to be the Son of God.  He told Philip, “if you have seen Me you have seen the Father.  I and the Father are One.”  He told the Pharisees, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Therefore, either Jesus is God, and is good, or He is a megalomaniac, He is an evil imposter.  But He cannot be good unless He is God, because He claimed to be God.

Before you can gain entrance into eternal life, or the kingdom of God, you must recognize that Jesus is God.  Salvation is from the Lord.  And Jesus the Lord is the only  way to salvation. Jesus said “no man comes to the Father except by Me.”  It is only through the grace of God that we might come to know God and be accepted  by God and receive eternal life.  A good man, even the best of men, could not by his death atone for even his own sins, much less anyone else’s.  Only God can atone for the sins of the world.

The problem though really wasn’t whether or not Jesus was good, but that the young man thought he himself was good.  If you had met him, he was what you might call a good person.  He was religious, he had his head on straight, he was moral, he was sincere, he performed good works,  he was all the things that we think constitute goodness.  In his mind, I’m sure he didn’t think that he needed to be saved, he just wanted the assurance that he was going to have eternal life. He wanted Jesus to confirm that he was good enough to enter into eternal life. It’s like when you were in college, and you had worked hard to get good grades in class, but you come to the teacher near the end of the course and ask him if you’re going to get an A in that class.  I’m sure that if you compared him to practically everyone else around, you would consider him the upper crust of society.  He had no obvious shortcomings.  If anyone could go to heaven, it would be someone like him.  And it’s evident that he thought of himself that way.

So Jesus turns the conversation to the standard of goodness.  The standard of righteousness.  God’s standard of righteousness is not by comparing you to your neighbor, or your husband, for that matter.  According to our standards, we are righteous, or at least we think, we’re really not a bad person. Certainly not deserving of spending eternity in hell.  But Jesus turned him to the standard of God’s righteousness, which is the law, or commandments.  

Jesus said in vs.19 “You know the commandments, ‘DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, Do not defraud, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.’”  And notice how quick the young ruler answered, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up.”  Now I’m sure he was sincere.  But I am also certain that Jesus, knowing all things and able to know his heart, was more than aware of the ways in which this man had fallen short of those commandments.  But the Lord would allow this rich young ruler’s answer to stand, and move him from the second table of the law to the first table.  The second table, or the second half of the law, deals with mans’ actions towards man.  The first table of the law deals with man’s actions towards God. Had the young man been in attendance at the Sermon on the Mount, he would have known that Jesus equated hate with murder, and lust with adultery and so forth.  But rather than address those internal shortcomings, Jesus brings his attention to his relationship with God.

Vs. 21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”

Notice in bringing his attention to his relationship to God, Jesus first demonstrates God’s love for us.  We would have no chance of eternal life were it not for the love of God.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should have eternal life.”  God’s love comes first in our relationship with God.  We love, because He first loved us.  Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  In any relationship we might have with God, it must be predicated by the fact that God first loved us.

Secondly, if God loved us, then we are to love God. Jesus said in another place that the foremost commandment was this; (Mark 12:30)  “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.”  So the question Jesus posed to the young man was this; if you think you keep the commandments, then here is the foremost commandment.  And if I am good, then I am God.  And if I am God and you love Me with all your heart and soul, then you will do what I command you.  And this is my command, “Go and sell all you possess and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me.”  

Now no matter how you look at this statement, this is a tough thing to do.  Imagine if that were it.  Imagine if the only way to enter into heaven was to sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and then follow Christ. If that were truly the only way to have eternal life, then I dare say that none of us here today would really be willing to make that sacrifice.  Would you be willing to sell your stocks, your cars, your houses, your jewelry, etc, etc, and give it all away to poor people?  I think not.  I think all of us would be like the rich young ruler and walk away from this church crestfallen, knowing that we were not willing to give it all up to God.

So then, according to this standard of righteousness, none of us can be saved. This young man’s refusal to sell everything exposed three sins against the commandments.  First, He did not love the Lord with all his heart, mind and strength.  Secondly, he sinned by holding onto idols in his life. You cannot serve God and wealth.  His wealth was his idol.  And thirdly, he sinned against the second foremost commandment, which is that you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  If he truly loved his neighbor as himself he would have acquiesced to the Lord’s request and given the poor all that he had.  In one simple statement, Jesus exposed the young man’s hypocritical adherence to the law.  And He has also exposed our hypocrisy as well.  Though we would like to think that we are really not a bad person, Jesus has shown us that there is none righteous, no not one. We’re all guilty of breaking God’s law, of falling short of God’s standard of righteousness.

Then who can be saved?  That is my cry, and the cry of the disciples. And Jesus does not make it any easier for us.  He turned to the disciples when the young man went away crestfallen and said, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!”  I would have half expected Jesus to stop the young man as he was walking away and say to him, “Hey Richie, come back here!  I was just kidding!  It’s not really that tough.  I would never ask you to sell everything and give it all away.  I was just using hyperbole!  I was exaggerating!  Lighten up, salvation is free for the asking!”  

But no, Jesus states that it is hard for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples are amazed, so Jesus repeats it again in vs24. Jesus *answered again and *said to them, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!” But notice this time He does not add the phrase “for those who are wealthy.”  In this verse, He seems to include everyone.  

But then for the third time, Jesus declares this principle by analogy, saying in vs25, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” If there is any doubt, we should have none after three such statements.  Jesus has just emphatically said  three times that it is practically impossible for a rich man to be saved.  

So the disciples are amazed at this statement, and understandably so.  I am amazed by this statement.  I am terrified by this statement and you should be too. Because we are all rich in this world’s goods. I’m sure that though many of us may wish we were richer, none of us would wish that he were poorer.  And I can guarantee even if you are considered low income by the standards of the United States, you are extremely wealthy compared to the majority of other people on the planet. 

So the disciples ask the second most important question in the world, in vs.26, “Then who can be saved?” If none of us are willing to give away everything and follow Him, then who can be saved?  If the disciples question makes you cry out in despair then the Lord’s answer should make you cry out “Hallelujah!”  

The Lord’s answer is found in vs27 Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”  Notice, Jesus broadens it to all people, not just rich people.  For people it is impossible to keep the commandments.  For people it is impossible to enter the kingdom of God.  Isaiah 53:6 says, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.”  It’s impossible for anyone to enter the kingdom of God on their on merits, regardless of what they might do, because none of us can measure up to the standard of God’s righteousness.  

But the good news is that Jesus Christ has measured up to God’s standard of righteousness.  He is good, and He is righteous.  And because He loves us, He has offered up Himself to be our substitute, and God has put the penalty for our iniquity on Him, and transferred His righteousness to us.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Him who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  With God it is possible to enter the kingdom, because Jesus has paid for our sins and transferred His righteousness to our account, so that by His grace we who believe in Him might be given eternal life.  That is the gospel of the kingdom of God.  The good news of the kingdom.  God has made our citizenship in heaven possible through Jesus Christ.  Salvation is from the Lord.

Peter though is not thinking so much about what Christ has done for them, but rather what they have done for the Lord.  He’s still thinking of the rich young ruler who couldn’t give up his wealth to follow Jesus.  And so he says to Jesus, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.”  That’s a rather bold statement.  They had left much.  They had left their fishing nets.  They had left their homes.  But there were times that it would seem they returned temporarily to their fishing, and to their homes.  So I can’t help but wonder if there is not a hint of the same hypocrisy in Peter that the rich young ruler expressed when he said that he had kept all the commandments since his youth.  

But notice that Jesus does not rebuke Peter for overstating their commitment.  But rather Jesus would seem to commend whatever sacrifices they had made, even if it was only temporary.  In vs29 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. “But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”

Now this statement must be understood figuratively to be understood correctly.  The point Jesus is making is that there will be a reward for what we give up here on earth for the sake of the kingdom of God.  Paul said, “all the things which were gain to me here on earth, I gladly count as rubbish for the surpassing value of knowing Jesus as Lord.”  There is great reward in following Jesus.  But here in this earth it may be spiritual blessings in exchange for physical benefits.  In the physical, there will also be persecutions. You may well suffer physically in this world for following Jesus, but there will be incalculable spiritual blessings.  Jesus said elsewhere, “In this world you will have tribulations, but take courage, I have overcome the world.”  And when we overcome this world, we will grasp hold of eternal life, and all that eternal life promises; an abundant, fulfilled life, eternally living in the presence of the source of all life and blessedness.  So all of the benefits and wealth that this world offers will one day pale in comparison to the blessings we shall enjoy in eternity.  

However, Jesus adds one caveat to that future promise of rewards, which will be looked at more thoroughly later, and that is He says “But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” This was the qualifying remark regarding the apostle’s reward. All who sacrifice for the Lord will be rewarded, but God’s way and timing of rewarding may not match up with man’s way and timing of being rewarded. When God rewards, He judges with righteous judgment.  He sees the heart, the motive, and the sacrifices that were made that may have not been noticed by man.  Man judges according to outward appearances.  But God judges according to the heart.  Thus many who have seemingly achieved great things for the kingdom according to man’s perspective, may find themselves on the end of the line in the judgement to come.  

But that should be an encouragement to all of us.  Because not all of us have great wealth, or great talents to use for the Lord.  But we will be judged by what we do have, and as we are faithful in little things, He will be faithful to reward us with better things.  

Back when I was just trying to start this church, I used to work two or three days a week in construction to help meet my bills.  I wasn’t very talented when it came to construction, so I was at the bottom of the totem pole at work. Everyone else it seemed was my boss.  But there was a man who lived in Potomac that was the big boss. And I would see him almost every weekend when he would travel to the beach and check in on the development. This man and I were just about the same age.  And though I didn’t see the resemblance, one of my coworkers said that he thought we could be brothers because we looked so much alike.  But if we did, that’s where the similarity ended.  This man, that I’ll call Dave, was at the top of the company ladder, while I was at the bottom.  I remember working in his beach house, and being a little envious of a lifestyle like he had, with a million dollar beach home fully furnished whenever he chose to come to the beach. He seemed to have everything, and I seemed to have very little in earthly wealth.  I was literally sweeping floors and taking out trash in this company, while trying to start this church. And I will confess I sometimes I felt sorry for myself, and perhaps felt like Peter must have felt.  “Lord, I’ve given up so much to follow you.  What’s my reward?”  

Well,  a couple of years after I had been working there, one day I heard the news that Dave passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack.   I don’t know his eternal destiny.  From my perspective, there was nothing about him that led me to believe that he was a follower of Christ.  But one thing I do know, the beach house, and the cars and the bank accounts and profit sharing were still there, but Dave doesn’t live there anymore.  He is in eternity.  And in light of this passage we looked at today, I wonder what his reward was?  Did he receive eternal life through faith and trust in Jesus Christ, or did he enter into eternal damnation and separation from God for refusing to let go of the idols of this world?  

What about you?  What are you worshipping today?  What do you consider more valuable than love for the Lord? As you examine your life today in light of the word, I urge you to remember the question Jesus asked back in Mark 8:36,  “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?”  Jesus gave His life in exchange for your soul.  If you will just trust Him and believe in Him, then He will forgive your sins, and give you His righteousness, so that you might inherit eternal life.

Today’s passage is one of the best known stories of the gospels. It’s very simple truth, presented in a simple, straightforward way. So much so, that the full significance of this passage might be easily overlooked. I believe it contains some of the richest theology in regards to salvation that we might find anywhere in the scriptures, and so I want to focus on just these four verses this morning.

Let’s read it in it’s entirety first of all, and then I will try to comment on it. Vs 13, “And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it [at all.]” And He took them in His arms and [began] blessing them, laying His hands on them.”

This account is repeated in all three of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with very little variation. Another interesting thing to note is that the familiar story of the rich young ruler follows directly after the account of the children coming to Jesus, which serves as a stark contrast. If the subject of entering into eternal life is the point of that contrast, as evidenced by the rich young ruler’s question in vs 17, then the significance of this event with the children must be taken as instructive as to how one may enter the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus says here that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these children. And that whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all. Compare that to the rich young ruler who after asking how he could inherit eternal life went away sorrowing, even though he had kept the law, because he was not willing to forsake everything and follow Christ. And of course, the phrase “enter into the kingdom of God” is the equivalent to the phrase “inherit eternal life.” They are both speaking of the same thing; the kingdom of God is eternal life. Eternal life is not just a long, long, long life. It’s the abundant life that Jesus said He gives. “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

The prosperity gospel preachers have bastardized the abundant life concept as something that you get when God blesses you with health, wealth and happiness. But Jesus wasn’t talking about that, or promising a heaven on earth type of existence for believers. But rather, Jesus was talking about a new life through Jesus Christ. He was talking about being born again of the Spirit into new life. And that life is everlasting life in the kingdom of God, as we live under the reign of Jesus Christ the Lord.

The passage begins by saying that they were bringing children to Jesus so that He might touch them. The idea was that He would bless them, laying hands on them and praying for them such as was the tradition passed down from the patriarchs. You can find examples of Isaac and Jacob doing the same for their children. Today we have somewhat of a tradition of bringing your baby to the church for dedication, which may have come from this sort of thing. But it would seem not to be out of place in Jewish society of that time to bring your baby to receive a blessing from the priest or rabbi.

So I think it was a sincere desire on the part of the parents to see the child grow up unto the Lord, to have a godly upbringing, to call upon God to protect and nurture the child, and to bless the child as he grew up. There was nothing wrong with such a thing, in fact, the parents are to be commended for their desire to raise their child up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

I would encourage you that are parents today to realize that you have a stewardship of the gift of children that should not be taken lightly. Your responsibility in raising a child is not merely to keep a roof over their head and feed and clothe them. Your responsibility is not just to save up money so that they can go to college. Your responsibility is to teach your children the fear of the Lord. To raise your children up in the church. To teach them the word of God.

When God gave the commandments to Moses He gave specific instructions to the parents saying in Deut. 6:6-9 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Being raised by Christian parents to believe the Bible and follow the Lord should not be an option. I’ve heard parents say, “Well I am leaving it up to junior if he wants to come to church or not. I don’t want to push anything on him, you know.” I wonder if such parents leave it up to junior whether or not he wants to brush his teeth. Or whether or not he wants to go to school. I would suggest that their spiritual state is of greater importance than their grade point average or how many cavities they have. So I encourage you as parents, and as grandparents, to make the spiritual development of your child the highest priority.

These parents wanted the best spiritual advantage for their children and so they brought them to Jesus. Commentators tell us that Luke makes it clear in his account that the little children were actually infants. I would think it included infants up to the age of toddlers, because we see later in vs 16 that Jesus took them in His arms. So I doubt that they were much older than toddlers.

The disciples though rebuked the parents for what they perceived as bothering Jesus with their children. This is another example of the disciples exercising certain behavior that we can as arm chair quarterbacks easily criticize them for. Many preachers seem to love to point out the faults of the disciples, as if to show their own surpassing spiritual maturity. But in the disciples defense, there are multiple instances recorded in Mark when Jesus Himself attempted to get away from the crowds.They were constantly being hounded by people seeking to see some spectacular miracle, or people seeking healing, or all kinds of things that people wanted from Jesus. And so they were probably just trying to prevent what they thought were just another type of interruption. They certainly didn’t understand the full significance of what these parents were trying to do. I’m sure in their minds, blessing babies didn’t compare with the pressing business of healing blindness or casting out demons.

But when the disciples rebuke the parents, Jesus rebukes the disciples. Actually it says He became indignant towards them. I think a better translation might be annoyed. I think Jesus thought the disciples were missing the point. Jesus came to give life, everlasting life. That was His purpose. His goal wasn’t to heal everyone of every disease in Israel. And as evidenced by Jesus’s statement, these children were the perfect recipients of the grace of God.

Jesus says to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Previously, in chapter 9, Jesus had said that whoever puts a stumbling block in front of one of these little ones, (referencing a child that was among them) it would be better for him if a milestone was tied about his neck and he was thrown into the middle of the ocean. So when Jesus says don’t hinder the children from coming to Me, I suppose He is annoyed that they so quickly have forgotten that admonition.

The point is Jesus wants the children to come to Him. Listen, there is no better time to come to Jesus than when you are young. I read some statistics once that I can’t find now, but they spoke about the odds of coming to Christ at various ages. The percentage of the possibility of coming to Christ when you were below the age of 18 was quite high, but with every decade that passed the likelihood of coming to salvation dropped considerably. By the time someone had reached the age of 60 or more, and had not come to salvation, the likelihood dropped to the low single digits. So for you parents, you’re not doing your child any favors by waiting until they get older to make a decision about the Lord. The best opportunity to become a believer is while they are young.

Jesus says, “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” John MacArthur preached a sermon on this text and the whole premise of the sermon was to say that children who die before the age of accountability are saved by the grace of God. I think he also wrote a book on that subject. And I think that has long been the traditional view of many conservative Bible teachers and scholars. John Calvin, for instance, seems to hold to that view. And they use this text and a number of other supplemental passages to support the idea that God bestows His grace upon those children that die before they have an understanding of right and wrong, and consequently are innocent of presumptuous sin. They have inherited the sin nature from their parents, but they haven’t had the cognizance to act upon it, and God grants those who die in that state grace. I would tend to agree with that view, but I don’t feel we can be dogmatic about it on the basis of this statement alone.

But Jesus does seem to make an unequivocal statement here; the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. He doesn’t qualify it by saying the kingdom of God belongs to such as these who are born of believing parents. He doesn’t say that the kingdom of God belongs to such as these who are baptized. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve. And these little children have nothing to offer God in exchange. They can’t even offer God faith. But God grants them grace.

But while the salvation of babies may be implied in what Jesus says, I don’t think that is the primary point of what Jesus is saying. He further explains His point by saying, “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” So He isn’t saying that only babies will enter the kingdom of God, but that unless you become like a child you will not enter it. Unless you become LIKE a child.

Well, what does that mean? How do you become like a child? It means to accept the gospel with genuine trust, with child like humility, knowing that you have nothing to offer in exchange. It’s complete trust in what Christ has done for us, and not trusting in your own righteousness, or your own accomplishments, or your own inherent goodness. To be like a child means simple, child like trust in Christ.

I heard the story of a wealthy shop owner that piled up gold coins on the window sill of his storefront. There was a sign in the window above it which said “Take one.” All day long people walked by the window and saw the coins and read the note, but inwardly they were thinking, “You can’t fool me.” And so they passed on by. When evening came, just before the shop owner was going to remove the coins, a child came by, read the sign, and reached out and took a coin. That’s child like faith.

How many people, I wonder, have refused to trust in Jesus as their Savior because they think that they are too smart for all this Christian stuff. I shudder to think of who might be here today who doubt in the validity of the gospel, who want to think about it, who want to believe that it can’t be that simple, that there must be more to entering into the kingdom of God. But Jesus said in Matt. 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

But there is yet another application that we could make from this statement of Jesus. To become like a child is to be born again. To be born again in spirit. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3: 3 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

So to be born again is to become a child again, but not in the flesh, but in the spirit. That is how you must become like a child in order to enter the kingdom of God. Being born again is to trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, the Holy Son of God, who came to die in your place, to pay the penalty for your sins, that whosoever believes in Him might be saved.

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Through the cross of Jesus Christ, my sins are transferred to Jesus, and His righteousness is transferred to my account. And by faith in that sacrifice on His part, I am given new life, I am born again. I have become like a child born into the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is the rule of Christ in your heart and life, together with all the blessings that result from His rule. Entering the kingdom means receiving new life, that is, everlasting life. John 17:3 says, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Once you come to know and believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you enter into eternal life and all the blessings that come from being a child of the King.

Then after stating how you must become like a child to enter the kingdom of God, Jesus took the children in His arms and blessed them. Vs.16, “And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.”

John 1:12-13 says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The Bible tells us in several places that salvation is of the Lord. God is the author and the finisher of our salvation. Do we have a part, a responsibility in salvation? Yes, our responsibility is to believe. To come to Jesus. And He will do the rest. As many as receive Him, He will give you the power to become the sons and daughters of God, even to them that believe on His name.

You are born again by believing in Jesus Christ, believing in who He is, and what He accomplished for us, and you are born again not of flesh, nor by the will of man, but you are born of God. You become like a child, born for the second time, born of the Spirit, and as a child of God, you are granted an inheritance in the kingdom of God, even everlasting life.

Today the ruler of the world has left a coin of the greatest value on the window ledge of the kingdom of heaven. He has put a sign there which says, Take one. What is your response? I urge you – in child like faith to receive His gift of eternal life, the greatest treasure.

As you know, our tradition at the Beach Fellowship is that we study the scriptures verse by verse. That tends to keep us from over emphasizing some things, or under emphasizing other things, depending on what we think people want to hear. Last week I said that the subject matter of Jesus’ teaching on hell at the end of chapter 9 was very unpopular, and if I were a smarter, more popularity conscious preacher, I would have skipped over it.

Well, I suppose that today’s passage of scripture is even more unpopular than the subject of hell. Today Jesus speaks against divorce, and for the sanctity of marriage. And so in all likelihood, I will be offending at least half of you here today. According to the American Psychological Association, approximately 40-50% of first marriages end in divorce. The divorce rate for second marriages is even higher, with approximately 60-67% of second marriages ending in divorce. I have also heard that the statistic for divorce is about the same in the church as it is in the world. So I’m sure that in our representative congregation here this morning, about half of you have been divorced.

That being said, I have already resigned myself to the fact that I will never win any popularity contest. And I believe that it’s far more important that I try to please God rather than men, so I will simply tell you what Jesus had to say on the subject and you can take it up with Him if you find it unsettling.

Let’s look at our text beginning in Mark chapter 10, vs 1: “Getting up, He went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds gathered around Him again, and, according to His custom, He once more [began] to teach them. [Some] Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and [began] to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife.”

Jesus is deliberately and slowly moving closer to HIs destination which is Jerusalem and to His destiny which is the cross. He now leaves Galilee and enters Judea and once again the crowds flock to Him. And as was His custom, He began to teach them. The subject of His teaching is the gospel of the Kingdom of God. The only means by which people can enter the Kingdom of God is through Jesus Christ, through faith in Him as the Son of God, the Messiah, and what He will accomplish for them on the cross.

One of the main points of His teaching is to help people come to the realization that they are lost. That is why in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus spends a great deal of His message expounding the law. The purpose of the law was to make man understand that he is a sinner in need of salvation. I think it was Billy Graham who said, that the difficulty is not in getting people saved, the difficulty is in first getting people to understand that they are lost. Most people tend to think that they actually are not such a bad person. And so they make excuses for themselves while condemning others. But in reality all men are sinners and hopelessly lost, outside of the kingdom of God.

The Pharisees were a religious order of the Jews that prided themselves on their self righteousness. They believed that they kept the law as they had determined it. They had lawyers and scribes and rabbis who had studied the law and wrote a commentary upon it called the Mishna which they held in higher regard than the scriptures. So believing that they had kept the law according to their interpretations, they were not exactly fond of Jesus’ teaching which suggested that they were actually guilty of breaking the law.

And so the Pharisees routinely showed up whenever Jesus was teaching to try to catch Him with a trick question, or to catch Him or His disciples in some infraction according to their understanding of the law, with the ultimate goal of discrediting Jesus in the eyes of the people.

Their question then was a trick question, one that was designed to get Him in trouble with half the people, regardless of how He answered it. The question was whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife for any reason. According to one school of rabbinic teaching, Moses, whom they considered the author of the law, permitted a man to divorce his wife for unchastity, or adultery. The other school interpreted that Moses wrote that a man could divorce for any thing that he found distasteful. For instance, he could divorce her for burning his toast. And the majority of Jews favored that interpretation, and possibly that was also the accepted view of the disciples.

So if Jesus answered in such a way as to take the stricter position, He would undoubtedly offend the majority of people that favored the more lax view. But if He sided with the more liberal view then they could accuse Him of accommodating sinners and being morally lax.
Either way He answered, the Pharisees weren’t interested in keeping the commandment as He understood it, but only in trying to embarrass Him and discredit Him before the people.

But in response to their trick question, Jesus turns them to the scriptures, not to the rabbinic traditions. He says in vs3 “And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” The scripture, though written by human hands, in this case Moses, is the inspired word of God. So the scripture is authoritative, because it is the word of God. The rabbinic traditions were the word of man as he interpreted scripture. But Jesus turns their attention to the word of God. It’s the authority, not the rabbinic traditions.

By the way, that’s why we preach through the scripture, verse by verse. There is no other authority. Science is not an authority. Philosophy or psychiatry is not authoritative. All of the sciences are evolving, ever changing. But God’s word never changes. It is forever settled in heaven. 2Tim 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” And Peter says in 2 Peter 1:20-21 “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is [a matter] of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

The Pharisees answer Jesus in vs 4 They said, “Moses permitted [a man] TO WRITE A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND [her] AWAY.” What they give is an abbreviated synopsis of what Moses said, and in so shortening it, turn the intention of the law into something that indicates permissiveness. They say Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce. That is not actually what Moses says.

The original commandment can be found in Deut. 24:1-4 which says 1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s [wife,] and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts [it] in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, [then] her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.”

Moses, while recognizing that the common practice was to write a certificate of divorce and send her away, does not condone that practice, but is merely addressing the additional responsibility of possible sin after a man has divorced his wife. Moses is saying that if you divorce your wife, and she becomes the wife of another man, then the former husband is not allowed to take her back again to be his wife. That’s a sin, an abomination before God. But Moses does not encourage or condone divorce. They had misinterpreted the law to accommodate their sinful desire.

So Jesus answers them in vs 5, But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.” See, Jesus says that Moses didn’t permit divorce, but he is writing a commandment in response to the hardness of their heart in carrying out their sinful desire to divorce their wife. In Malachi 2:16 God says, I hate divorce. God said, “the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.”

So God didn’t condone or give permission for divorce. Sometime before, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke to this same issue saying, Matt. 5:31-32 “It was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for [the] reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” So Jesus had taken a position on divorce and according to Him, who is the Word made incarnate, the only reason for divorce would be unchastity. But even then, I think that the will of God is that there would not be divorce. He does allow for it in the case of unchastity, but He does not order it.

And that principle finds it’s in the sanctity of marriage as given by God. If marriage is a holy union between a man and a woman and in the sight of God they become one flesh, then what God has joined together let not man separate. So Jesus expounds the principle of divorce by stating the ordinance of marriage. He says in vs 6 “But from the beginning of creation, [God] MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

So in answer to this question of divorce Jesus goes back to the original ordinance of God in regards to marriage, and once again, Jesus uses scripture as His authority. The first scripture reference is taken partially from Genesis 1:27 which says in full, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” The world has a whole bunch of problems with that verse, don’t they? First of all, the world doesn’t believe in creation. It doesn’t believe in intelligent design. The world believes in evolution, which is that man evolved over billions of years from some microorganism and random chance.

But if you believe that God designed and created man in His own image, and created them male and female, then that sets the parameters for everything that comes after. God didn’t make three or four or ten genders, He made two genders, male and female. But if you take God out of the equation, then I guess anything goes. If evolution were actually possible, then it’s conceivable that man could evolve into many different genders or variations of genders. But I don’t believe evolution is even possible, and if it were to happen that gender evolved then it would mean the end of our species. But I believe the Bible, and that God created man male and female and He said it was good. And that settles a lot of questions for me right there.

But that raises the question, do you believe in God, or more to the point, do you believe God? A lot of people claim to believe in God. However, they don’t believe in the God of the Bible. But the Bible says that Abraham believed God, not believed in God, and He credited it to him as righteousness. Abraham believed what God said. And like Abraham we gain righteousness by believing in the God of the Bible and believing what He said and what He promised and what He accomplished.

So having established that God made man male and female, Jesus goes on to show that God established marriage. Vs 7 “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Again, Jesus quotes scripture. This time He quotes from Genesis 2:24 which says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”

The whole context of that scripture should be considered though. God had said that it was not good for man to be alone. And then “the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” God designed marriage as part of creation to complete man and accomplish God’s purposes in creation.

So the indissolubility of marriage is stated by Jesus in very forceful terms. Jesus is summarizing the divine ordinance concerning the marriage bond. In God’s eyes, they form a partnership, one completing the other, each complementing the other, so that they individually are better together through their union. For a man to separate what God has joined together, means to arrogantly defy the work of God. And I would add to that, that when a couple make their vows to come together in marriage, that they make such vows to God and not just to each other. It is a three party covenant. So when you break that vow to your wife or husband, you are also breaking a vow to God. And that is a fearful thing, to break a vow to God.

Well, after Jesus said these things, they go into a nearby house, whose house we are not told, and the disciples take the opportunity to question Him further about this teaching. Vs.10 “In the house the disciples [began] questioning Him about this again. And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.”

What Jesus is saying here is that a husband who divorces his wife, thereby separating what God has joined together, is committing a grievous sin, and that he adds to that grievous sin a further condemnation by marrying another woman. Such a man is sinning not just against God but against his wife, for he is involving himself in adultery against her, or if she remarries, causes her to commit adultery.

So in very simple terms, using scripture as the authority, Jesus denounces divorce, refutes the rabbinical misinterpretation of the law, reaffirms the laws true meaning, condemns the guilty party, defends the innocent, and throughout it all reaffirms the sacredness and inviolability of marriage as ordained by God between a man and a woman.

So we are to understand that Jesus regards the break up of a marriage to be an abomination before God. Yet on the other hand, that same uncompromising Lord Jesus Christ is the merciful Savior, who says to the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.” For most people listening here today that have had a divorce, it’s too late to undo it. In fact, you can add to the injury by divorcing once again to try to rectify the old divorce. But we can go and sin no more. if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The law exposes the fact that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But if we turn in repentance to the Savior, and believe that He died on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins, then as Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, so we by faith believe in what God has done and we receive the righteousness of Christ applied by grace to our account that we might gain eternal life and escape the condemnation that we deserve.
If you’re here this morning and you have been considering divorce I pray that God’s word has convinced you that God’s plan does not accommodate divorce and you will keep your vows to God. But if you’re here today and you are considering marriage, I hope that you realize that marriage is a covenant between you and God and your future spouse. It’s not something to be entered into lightly, or with a cavalier attitude. And if you are here this morning and you recognize that you have sinned against your spouse and against God by divorcing your spouse, then I hope you recognize that if you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins, and cleanse you from all unrighteousness, and by faith in His work on the cross, God can make all things new in your life.

As I so often tell you, I preach through the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter.  In so doing, we end up dealing with the attractive parts of the gospel, and the not so attractive parts of the gospel.  But irregardless of a particular scripture’s agreeableness, we know that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction in righteousness, that the man of God may be adequate, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

I suppose that I preach through the gospel verse by verse, is because I’m not smart enough to write out a series of sermons on popular topics such as loving relationships, or on God is love, or about how to live your best life now.  However, I suppose that if I were really smart, I would skip right over this passage before us today and move on to chapter 10 as if nothing was amiss. 

This passage and subject matter would have to be one of the most difficult to speak on in light of the attitude of our present culture, and the incongruity of speaking on such a unpopular subject of divine judgement and the punishment of hell.  I’m sure that speaking on these subjects will certainly disqualify me from any popularity contest. Those of you visiting here will probably go home and tell all your friends of this horrid experience you had, when you visited a church  on the beach on a really delightful morning, with the sun shining and the waves breaking and the dolphins jumping, and then this awful preacher started ranting on about hell fire and damnation.  Really quite a terrible scene.

But you know what’s really weird, is that Bible scholars tell us that Jesus spoke more on hell than He did about heaven.  So if you are going to preach through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, then you will have to hear a lot about hell.  And so I really don’t see how we can avoid this for long.  So let’s just get to it, and deal with it, as best we can.

Thankfully, this passage doesn’t start with that subject, however.  It starts with the apostle John asking Jesus about someone they had seen casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and they had told him to stop doing it, because he was not one of them.  It seems a bit out of context with the rest of the passage, but I think there is a thread of continuity that runs through these verses and we see it all come together at the end.

Vs. 38 John said to Him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we tried to prevent him because he was not following us.”  But Jesus said, “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is for us. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as [followers] of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward.”

It’s important to read this keeping in mind that the disciples had just had an embarrassing incident which we looked at a couple of weeks ago in which they had been unable to cast out a particular nasty demon.  Actually, it wasn’t so much that the demon was particularly powerful, but that the disciples had neglected to spend enough time in prayer, recognizing their utter dependence upon Jesus Christ to do any mighty works.   Pride, or a lack of humility on the part of the disciples were really the problem, not the power of the demon.  Remember Jesus had cast out  thousands of demons that were in the demoniac of the Gerasenes. So the difficulty wasn’t the demon, the difficulty had been their lack of reliance upon God for their authority.

So then the disciples see a man casting out demons who aren’t a part of their group and they have a problem with him, perhaps due to jealousy on their part.  In fact, they tried to stop him.  But what they failed to pick up on was that this man was not some Jewish exorcist, he was casting out demons by the name of Jesus Christ.  In other words, this man was a believer in Jesus Christ.  He was working the works of God through the power of Jesus Christ.  That’s what it means when Jesus said, “in my name.”  In the power and authority of Jesus Christ.  And he could only do that because he was a believer in Christ. Just because he wasn’t a member of the 12, didn’t mean that he was not a disciple of Jesus.

And Jesus speaks to that, saying, “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is for us.”  The key to understanding that saying is that this man was working “in My name,” or “in Jesus name.” The power of Christ works in us that believe in Him to bring about any righteousness that we do.  Our ability to live the Christian life lies not in our power of discipline, or our power of self control, but in having given our life to Christ, so that the power of Christ lives in Me.  That’s what it means to be saved, to be born again, it’s to have new life in Christ, Christ living in me.  That’s what Paul speaks of in 2Co 12:9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

And that power of Christ in us is the reason that we do good works. As Paul says in Eph 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Now there is a special significance to that phrase, “in My name,” or “in Christ’s name.”  What it means is that it is true to the gospel of Christ, it is according to the truth of Christ, it is by the authority of Christ, it is in the power of Christ.  Jesus, as the Son of God,  omnipotently knew that this man was speaking the truth of Christ and working in the genuine authority and power of Christ.  We may see someone today who claims to be speaking and working in the power of Christ but we may wonder if the person is truly representing correctly the gospel of Christ.  And sometimes that is a justifiable concern.  Because the devil often masquerades as an angel of light, as we are told in the scripture. 

So we have to balance this admonition of Jesus to not hinder someone who is preaching in Jesus name on the one hand, with another admonition against those who claim the name of Jesus, according to Matthew 7:21-23, but their sinful life betrays them as not being of Christ.  Jesus said,  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven [will enter.]  “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’  “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

So we must use spiritual discernment to know when someone is truly working in Jesus name, and when someone falsely claims Jesus name, but they aren’t preaching the truth of Jesus’s gospel.

But for those who truly work in Jesus name, Jesus says in vs41 “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of your name as [followers] of Christ, truly I say to you, he will not lose his reward.”  So as we do the works of righteousness which God prepared beforehand, that we might walk in them, even to the very minor work of giving a cup of water to another believer, Jesus says that such work will be rewarded.  Heaven is a place of rewards, as well as a place of rest.  It’s a place where we are given rewards for the works that we have done on this earth.

But at the judgement seat of God which is in heaven, it will on the last day be a place for the judgement of wickedness.  And just as a minor thing as giving a cup of water will have a reward, so will every thought and deed, no matter how trivial it may seem now, have a consequence or a reward in the judgment.

Jesus spoke of that in Matt. 12:35-36 saying “The good man brings out of [his] good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of [his] evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.”

And so having spoken of the reward of the righteous works,  at this point Jesus turns His attention to that judgment of the unrighteous works, those who have rejected Him, and who hindered those who would come to Him.

Jesus says in Vs42  “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.”  These little ones that Jesus speaks of are the children of God, those who have believed in Jesus Christ, who have believed His gospel and been converted.  This statement relates back to vs 37 “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”   Matthew’s account of this saying gives further amplification of this – “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  So little children are the children of God, made so by conversion, being born again.

But those that hinder a child of God, that cause a child of God to stumble, to fall into sin, Jesus says that having a millstone tied around your neck and being dumped into the ocean to drown would be a much better alternative than the judgment that you will face when you are called to give an account for your life.  I think that there will be a hottest part of hell reserved for people who lead others, especially young naive people, even children, into sin. And yet I believe the devil has especially targeted children today in our society, and he’s using people of influence in the media and entertainment industry to put a stumbling block in front of them.  Jesus says that such people will deserve the most severe punishment. And Jesus promises that God will judge such with the fullest measure of His wrath.

Jesus goes on to say that the disciples must be on their guard lest they cause others or themselves to stumble, to fall into sin. If any bodily organ, hand, foot, eye or anything, no matter how dear to us it may seem, if it threatens to become a trap or a stumbling block to someone, they must immediately take drastic action to be rid of it.  Jesus correlates this back in chapter 8 vs 34 as taking up your cross, being willing to die to  physical lusts of the flesh.  Here he relates it as cutting off your hand, or plucking out your eye.   In other words, you don’t try to mollify sin, to condone sin, to accommodate sin.  You cut it off. You mortify the flesh.

Jesus says, in vs43 “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, [where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED.]  If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than, having your two feet, to be cast into hell, [where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED.] If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell,  where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED.”

There are some theological issues that are raised by this teaching which I want to address, and yet I am sure I cannot answer to everyone’s satisfaction.  The primary question to my mind that arises is the reality of hell.  Is hell a real place?  I would say that according to Jesus, it is very much a reality.  Is hell eternal or is it a place of annihilation? I would say that according to Jesus’ statement, it is eternal.  Is hell a place of fire and burning? I would say that according to Jesus, it is an unquenchable fire. Then another question is, who will go to hell? According to what Jesus indicates here, it is for those who have rejected Christ and continued in rebellion against Him.  Sin is rebellion.  And hell is reserved as the punishment for sin.

I wish to God that there was not a hell. I wish that no one would ever end up in hell.  I hope and pray with all my heart and soul that none of my loved ones or friends would ever find themselves in hell.  I heard one preacher say that we should never be able to speak of hell without tears in our eyes. No one in their right mind wishes hell on anyone.  Even our worst  enemies we should love enough to do everything possible to keep them from hell.  

But I also heard another preacher say that a person will have to walk over the cross of Christ in order to get to hell. They are going to have to trample on Jesus as He is dying on the cross for your sins, in order to get to hell. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus suffered our punishment so that we might be delivered from the hell we were destined for.  The good news of the gospel is that salvation is a free gift of God, if we will just believe in what Jesus did for us, that as the Son of God He became our substitute, and was punished for our sins, so that we might be forgiven and receive the righteousness of God, and we might have eternal life.  

But Jesus makes it clear that for those who reject Him, there is reserved for them a place in hell.  Then Jesus continues to talk about the judgment of fire, which I think is directed towards His disciples, or believers,  in vs 49 saying,  “For everyone will be salted with fire.”  He isn’t saying that everyone will go to hell.  But it’s not easy to understand what He is speaking of.  He probably is speaking of a trial by fire, what Peter calls a fiery trial, which will come upon everyone for the purpose of purification.  In believers, this fiery trial will be the means by which sin is purged, our iniquity is burned away so that our righteousness may be revealed.  Jesus correlates fire with the metaphor of salt to represent a curative, a preservative against the corruption of sin. If you rub salt into a wound, it burns like fire, but it also cleans and preserves against corruption.  So is the work of a fiery trial in a believer.

In Isaiah, when the prophet saw the glory of God on His throne, he said, “woe is me for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” And an angel of the Lord took a lump of coal from the fire before the altar and put it on his lips, and said, ““Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.”

The hymn How Firm A Foundation that we sing here so often says, “when through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply, the flames shall not hurt thee, I only design, thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”

Peter says in 1Peter 4:12-13, 17 “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you;  but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. … 17 For the time [has come] for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if [it begins] with us first, what will [be] the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” 

So there is either a fire of punishment for the wicked or a fire of refining for the believer.  But everyone will be salted by fire. But Jesus leaves the idea of fire and continues with the metaphor of salt, saying in vs 50 “Salt is good; but if the salt becomes unsalty, with what will you make it salty [again?] Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

It’s easy to see that salt is good. It’s a preservative, it cleanses, it was even used as currency, as a measure for money.  The saying that someone is “worth their salt” means worth their wage.  It comes from Roman times when soldiers were paid in salt.  Salt was considered of such great value that the soldiers were paid with it.

However according to Jesus, salt could become worthless. It could lose it’s saltiness. And He asks the rhetorical question, “how can you make it salty again? Jesus said in Matt. 5:13  “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty [again?] It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.”

You might say then that salt is the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in your life, the refining fire of the Holy Spirit in your life.  But if you disregard the Spirit’s warnings, and sin against God and man, then you effectively quench the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, and righteousness and judgment.  But it’s possible to quench the Holy Spirit and rebel against the Lord, to continue in sin.  And if that occurs in your life, then your physical life is  no longer good for anything godly, but to be trampled under foot by men.  Reminds us of trampling over the cross of Christ in order to get to hell, doesn’t it? 

Heb 10:28-31 says,  “Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on [the testimony of] two or three witnesses.  How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?  For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.”  It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

So as a preservative against the temptation to sin, Jesus says, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”  It’s useless for a man to try to do good works unless by the grace of God he has been made good within. That is unless he has been converted into a true child of God. It’s having the power of the Spirit of Christ in you. To have salt within oneself means then, to have the sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, working to conform you into the image of Jesus Christ.  Romans 8:9 says, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” So having the Spirit within you,  then you become, as Jesus said in Matt. 5:13, the salt of the world. And therefore also, your speech is always seasoned with salt. 

To that end, Jesus said, be at peace with each other.  Having the Holy Spirit in us as the salt that cures us from quarreling, from envy, from strife, from anger, from jealousy, from trying to outdo each other, but instead learning to love one another and serve one another, and value the other more highly than yourself.  That is the means of peace.  As Paul said in Rom 12:18 “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.”  That is how we become the salt of the earth. Being at peace with one another is how we manifest Christ who is in us,  to the world.   As Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” (Matt.5:9)