Unbelief (2)
Notes
Transcript
Good Morning
Good Morning
Where do you learn to make a banana split? Sunday School
I missed being here last week. I feels like a lot longer than that. I am looking forward to the meal afterwords and some good fellowship.
Let’s pray
This morning we are going to be in Mark 8:11-21. Last time we saw that Jesus had compassion on the crowd and did another food miracle. He fed 4,000 Gentile men plus the women and children. His compassion for the people moved Him to provide for their needs. We serve a compassionate King. He sees our needs and our sorrows. He is our provider. We waste precious time worrying about things that the Bible tells us not to. In Matthew 6:25-26
25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they?
Instead of worrying about these things, we just need to look to Jesus and He will see us. These Gentiles left their homes and went to Jesus and stayed with Him for 3 days without food. They were not asking how they were going to get food. They were just happy to be with the King. If we keep out focus on Jesus, we will not worry about the little things, the things that He is going to take care of.
Today we are going to look at Jesus giving His disciples a very serious warning. He is going to warn them about the false teaching of the Pharisees. We are going to look and see 2 different types of blindness. Blindness due to the hardening of the heart, the rejection of Jesus and blindness due to spiritual immaturity.
Please stand as we read God’s word.
11 And the Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, demanding from Him a sign from heaven, to test Him. 12 Sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, “Why does this generation demand a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation!” 13 And leaving them, He again embarked and went away to the other side.
14 And the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. 15 And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and the leaven of Herod.” 16 And they began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread. 17 And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet comprehend or understand? Do you still have your heart hardened? 18 having eyes, do you not see? and having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember, 19 when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.” 20 “When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?” And they said to Him, “Seven.” 21 And He was saying to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
So Jesus and the disciples had just came to the region of Dalmanutha. This region was on the western side of the Sea of Galilee. It was south of Capernaum. Jesus is back in Isreal. It didn’t take long for the Pharisees to start trying to trap Jesus. They were still made from the last time they failed to get Jesus. They want to kill Him. We can see by how they are talking to Jesus, that they are not happy. They are arguing with Him. They are demanding that He does a miracle from heaven. They believed that only someone from God could do a miracle from heaven. They also believed that only demons did miracles from earth. Which is what they accused Him of doing. They said that He casts out demons from the power of the devil. They wanted Him to call down fire from heaven or make the sun stand still. They wanted Him to prove to them that He was who He said He was. That is a dangerous place to be in, demanding things from God! Who do they think they are? Who do they think He is? If they truly believed, they would have been bowing before Him instead of demanding things from Him.
We see His response to them and their demands. First He sighs deep in His spirit. Now at first glance this seems just like when He sighed when healed the deaf and mute person. But here it says that He sighed deep in His spirit. This is a more intense and troubling sigh. Jesus new that they would never believe and that they had hardened their hearts towards Him. He knew that He could have done a sign that no one had ever seen before and they still would not have believed. It is not because of signs that people believe. Luke 16:27-31
27 And he said, ‘Then I request of you, father, that you send him to my father’s house—28 for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not come to this place of torment as well.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”
It is through hearing the word of God that people’s hearts are changed, not through signs and miracles. Romans 1:16
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
It is the word of God that has the power in it, not the miracles.
Jesus tells them that He is not going to give them a sign. He is not only talking about the Pharisees, but also those who follow them. He says this generation will not be given a sign. This is where Jesus ends His ministry to the of the region of Galilee. He will return one more time but He doesn’t want the people to know and He is focused on teaching His disciples. He is done trying to persuade the religious rulers and their followers. He gets back in the boat that they just got there in and leaves to go back to the other side.
Mark gives us a little for shadowing. He tells us that they had forgotten to take food for the trip. They only had 1 loaf. How in the world is that going to be enough to feed all 13 of them???
Jesus begins to give them the warning about the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod. In the Bible leaven is consistently used as a symbol of evil. Jesus is telling them to be careful and watch out for false teachers. The leaven of the Pharisees is that they are teaching a works based salvation. A salvation that comes from being a descendant of Abraham. That if you followed all the laws, you would be counted as righteous. That is a lie straight from the mouth of the devil. I can be good and do many wonderful things for others, but if I don’t repent of my sins and believe in Jesus Christ, I have NO Righteousness. The only righteousness I have is that of Jesus Christ. His righteousness given to me through the work that was done on the cross. Without His death, burial and resurrection, I have nothing!
While Jesus is giving them this serious warning, all they can think about is lunch! They thought He was talking about food. They were concerned that they didn’t have enough food. If Jesus couldn’t hold His audiences attention, what am I even doing up here? How can I even think that you are listening? I know most of you are already thinking about that chicken!!
Jesus knows that they are talking about food and puts on His dad hat. How many times do I have to tell you this!! I can see Him sinking His face into His hand. How many people do I have to feed before you understand? Have you not softened your heart? You have eyes but don’t see, ears but don’t hear, and your memory is horrible! It must have been like trying to disciple 12 3 year olds! They had a memory of like 1 day.
How many baskets of food did you collect when I feed the 5,000? How many baskets did you collect when I feed the 4,000? I fed over 40,000 people with 12 loaves of bread and a few fish! It’s not about physical food!!! My message is a spiritual one! I am the bread of life! Hello, McFly!
Then He says to them, do you not understand? In Matthew 16 we can see that they finally realized that He was not talking about bread, but about the teaching of the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were blind because they had hardened their hearts toward Jesus. They didn’t want to hear the truth anymore, there was nothing that Jesus could do or say to get them to believe. They had a self inflicted blindness that was permanent. They had their truth and that was all that they wanted. Their is a point when we have reject Jesus enough, that He will stop. He did it here with the Pharisees and the people of Galilee. He will no longer teach and do His ministry in this region. He is moving on. He is on His way to Jerusalem. If you feel your heart being drawn to Jesus, don’t ignore it. It won’t last forever unless you act on it.
The disciples had a blindness that was caused by immaturity. They believed in Jesus and were following Him daily. They just were still spiritual babies. In verse 21, they got it. They now learned the lesson that Jesus was teaching. He was teaching them to be careful of the false teachers of the world. They will spoil the whole loaf with their lies. We have to be careful who we listen to. Just because someone calls themselves a pastor or a prophet or a rabbi or a fill in the blank, doesn’t mean they are teaching the truth of Jesus Christ. We must be studying God’s Word and learning it. We must be hiding it in our hearts so that we will know when someone is speaking lies. The only way to know a lie, is if you know the truth first. The FBI counterfeit division doesn’t study all the fake money to find the bad ones, the study the real US paper monies so well that the fake ones are obvious to them. That is the only way we can be safe from the false teachers is if we know the truth so well that the lies are apparent. Don’t even take what I say as the truth, be like the Borean’s who knew the truth and checked what was said against it. Check what I say and if I say something that isn’t true, call me on it. Let me know. If I say something that isn’t right, I want to know so I can correct myself and repent. It is my biggest fear that I will someday say something that is not Biblical from the pulpit. I do my best to study and research what I say, but I am human and I am sure one day it will happen. But that doesn’t stop me from trying to prevent it.
Know who it is you are listening to and getting teaching from. Check what they say with the Bible. The Bible is the authority over everything. If it isn’t in the Bible, then we need to question it.
We all have one of these 2 blindness’. What is the cause of your blindness? Is you heart hard toward Jesus? Do you feel Him calling you? If you do, He won’t call forever. There is a time that He will stop calling and move on. Answer the call today. I pray that no one here in the same category as the Pharisees. I don’t think you would be here if you were. If you haven’t repented of you sins and believed in Jesus, please do it today. We are promised tomorrow. We don’t know what is going to happen when we leave this place. If you die without answering His call, it will be too late. As we sing, you come.
Let’s pray
