Studies in the Gospel of Mark
The Greatest Preacher
Aim: To show that Jesus was a preacher with passion, and power.
Text: Mark 1:21-28
Introduction: With all the preparations in place the Lord Jesus now throws Himself into His mission. John has pointed to Him as the Lamb of God, the father has declared Him to be the Son of God, Satan has tempted Him and He is clearly seen to be the Holy One of God, and the disciples have followed Him as the Messiah of God.
Now bear in mind that Mark does not give us a complete or chronological account of Jesus’ ministry. His Gospel is the “Reader’s Digest” version. He skips to certain highlights, and presents the Lord as the Servant of Jehovah, jumping from task to task, and one of Jesus’ chief purposes was to preach the gospel. We saw that in verse 14, “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God.” Jesus was the greatest of all preachers. His sermons were simple and yet profound. His message addressed not just the intellect, but also the emotions and the will. He spoke to the heart. His sermons were carefully peppered with well-chosen illustrations from every day life, and we know that the common people (at first) heard Him gladly. What a privilege it must have been to sit under the sound of the gospel preached from the mouth of the Lord Jesus.
Now Mark rushes along, and unlike Luke who took us to the synagogue in Nazareth, Mark brings us to the synagogue in Capernaum. Capernaum was the hometown of Andrew and Peter. It was also a town that witnessed some of the Lord’s best preaching and teaching. There He performed many miracles also. So Mark brings us to this town, to the home of Peter, his mentor and hero, and shows us Jesus at work in the synagogue there.
Now there are three aspects to this visit I want to highlight for you this evening:
First of all we see that Jesus Expounded the Scriptures
Then He Expelled the Demon
And finally, He expanded His Reputation.
Come now as we consider each of these in turn:
I. He Expounded The Scriptures – vss 21-22
A. Mark writes, “And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the Sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.” (vs 21)
1. Synagogues arose during the years of Israel’s Babylonian captivity, around 586 BC. Since the people could not go to the Temple to worship, so they came together in the synagogues to read and teach the Law and worship God.
a. By the time Jesus came synagogues were at the heart of every Jewish town and community.
b. There the people would gather on the Sabbath days to worship the Lord and hear His Word.
c. Typically pray read the Scriptures and hear a sermon usually given by rabbi or a scribe.
d. As with most things Jewish at the time, the weekly trek to the synagogue on the Sabbath had become something of a drudgery – largely due to the monotonous nature of the sermons.
e. The scribe or rabbi would stand and read some portion of Scripture and then he would sit down and endlessly quote other rabbis.
a. “Rabbi so-and-so thinks this, but rabbi so-and-so says the other, however the opinion of rabbi is of the opinion that neither of these two have it right, so he teaches us that…” And on and on it went.
b. Often, they would talk about the restrictions of the Sabbath or some other aspect of the Law whilst the people sat with a glazed look waiting for the last “Amen.”
2. This was the scene into which Jesus arrived.
a. “And straightway on the Sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught.”
b. What did he teach? Well, typical of Mark he skips the details, but we have a fair idea of the kind of message Jesus preached.
c. When He visited the synagogue in Nazareth He preached from Isaiah, as we observe His open-air ministry He referred constantly to the prophets – Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Amos, Micah, and others.
d. When he taught the disciples on the road to Emmaus, Luke tells us He began, “at Moses and all the prophets, (and) expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.”
B. There are many today who want to downgrade preaching in favour of the sensational and the miraculous, but we should never forget that Jesus was firstly and fore mostly a preacher – and a thoroughly Biblical preacher at that.
1. He expounded the Scriptures, and He believed in the PRIMACY of preaching.
2. I wish to God we had men leading our churches today who believed the same thing – but they are far more interested in being thoroughly modern, and being seen to be trendy than in simply proclaiming the truth of Christ.
a. It is by the foolishness of preaching that God has chosen to save some.
b. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, but how shall they hear without a preacher?
c. Never, never, never underestimate or downplay the role of preaching in the plan of God.
C. Jesus was a preacher who expressed PASSION in His preaching.
1. The rabbis and the scribes were academic and dry. Their endless droning did little to stir the hearts of men – but the Lord Jesus (as we shall see) always got a reaction.
2. When he preached at Nazareth the people were so indignant at His word that they tried to throw Him over a cliff!!
3. In contrast when he taught the two disciples on the Emmaus Road their testimony was “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”
4. You see that is the effect of God’ Word. Sometimes it will make you angry, sometimes it will thrill your soul (like the woman at the well) and sometimes it will warm your heart – but when the Bible is preached the last thing it ought to do is leave you untouched and dispassionate – either the preacher is doing a great disservice to the Word of God, or the listener is so hard and far from God that He is untouched.
D. With the Lord Jesus preaching was a priority, it had the primacy, He preached with passion, and I want you to see He preached with POWER.
1. “And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.”
2. When He spoke, everybody listened.
3. His was not the dry academic treatise of the scribes who quoted the rabbis and discussed endless arguments by Jewish theologians, the kind of preaching Paul calls “vain jangling” – no Jesus was the opposite of that.
4. He made no reference to this rabbi or that writer… this Word, is HIS Word, when he taught, He taught with authority.
5. He was open, He was honest, He was direct, His word was plain, His application practical. He had the touch of Heaven upon him.
6. There are not many preachers like that today.
II. He Expelled the Demon – vss 23-26
A. Like we said earlier, when the Word of God is preached well it gets a reaction, and we see that in this account.
1. Sitting in the synagogue, under the sound of the Saviour’s preaching sat a man with a devil.
2. Does this surprise you? Many a devil sits in the church pew unannounced, and this one is no different.
3. Had this man shown the slightest indication of his state he could never had entered that place – they wouldn’t have had it. But there he was, probably just as he had been the week before, but he now He is confronted with the truth of Christ, and the devil doesn’t like that.
a. Why hadn’t he kicked off before?
b. Because the devil had nothing to fear from their comfortable services with its dry dusty form of ministry. But this was different.
4. So as the Lord was preaching, suddenly there is this disturbance – have you ever been in a service like that?
5. John Mark, ever the man for understatement, says this man “cried out”, but the Amplified gives us a fuller picture, it says, “and now immediately he raised a deep and terrible cry from the depths of his throat.”
6. This guttural tongue must have at once both disturbed and thrilled the assembly.
7. The possibility of demonic possession is a real one.
a. Right throughout His ministry the Lord Jesus encountered such things, and if you wonder why so much then, and no so much now, you must remember that Jesus came, in part, to ”destroy the works of the devil.”
b. In His Temptation the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to challenge the dominion of Satan, but right throughout His ministry He deliberately wreaked havoc in the devil’s realm.
8. In my time as a Christian I have come across only a small number of people who could be said to have a demon… and they are mostly those who dabbled in the occult and the spirit world in some way. They opened themselves up to it.
a. It is a testimony to the work of Christ and the power of the gospel in this country that we do not see more of it.
b. So whether we understand it or not, whether we have faced it or not, it is immaterial; demon possession is a very real spiritual condition.
c. Notice what this demon said;
B. “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.”
1. Notice that the demon switches the personal pronouns, sometimes speaking in the plural, “we, us” and sometimes speaking in the singular “I”.
2. Does this mean there was more than one demon – no, the Bible speaks here of an “unclean spirit.” But the demon is in such control of this man and his faculties he is actually speaking on his behalf – using his body, using his voice.
3. This devil is under no illusion about just who Jesus is – he calls him “Jesus of Nazareth.” That’s an indication of his humanity.
a. BTW did you know that in the New Testament only devils address the Lord Jesus as simply “Jesus”? Everywhere else He is referred to as the Lord Jesus.
(i) In this they seek to insult His Person.
(ii) This is like meeting Queen Elizabeth and calling her “Liz”, rather than “Your Majesty”, it just not done, it is insulting to her position and reign.
b. But then notice the second name the devil uses, he calls the Lord, “The Holy One of God.” That is a title of deity.
(i) “For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.” (Isaiah 43:3)
(ii) You see the devil knows who Jesus really is.
4. Now the phrase “What have we to do with thee” is an interesting one.
a. Again it intimates “conflict”, this is the language used by ancients when their land was attacked or their city besieged.
b. In Judges 11, Jephthah, the judge of Israel asks of the threatening Ammonites, “What hast thou to do with me, that thou art come against me to fight in my land?”
c. This demon is threatened by the presence of Christ, he realises the Lord has come to establish His kingdom, to take his territory, “to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”
d. I wonder are we taking territory from the devil? – We should be!
C. I love how the Lord responds to all of this.
1. He is unfazed, and unafraid. He looks toward this poor soul caught up in the grip of satanic possession and he says, “Hold thy peace.”
2. Literally, “Put a muzzle on it, or gag it!” In today’s vernacular He might have said “Put a sock in it.” And then he orders the demon out – he evicts him, and frees the man of that unwelcome guest.
4. Mark reads, “And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.”
5. Now the word “torn” here indicates a convulsion, and because of this some people have related this condition to epilepsy.
a. Let me be clear about this: Epilepsy is a neurological condition that can be controlled with medication.
b. Demon possession is a spiritual state that can only be resolved by the gospel.
c. There are those around today who would have us believe that demon possession is as common now as it was in Jesus day – actually outside of the gospels there are only 4 incidents of demonic possession in all Scripture.
a. Twice in the O.T. and Twice in the New.
b. In the Old we read of demonic activity in the case of king Saul and the prophets of Ahab.
c. In the New Testament we read of the young woman at Philippi who followed Paul and Silas, and the demonic control of the seven sons of Sceva.
d. Beyond that nothing.
e. The presence of Christ created a stir in the spirit world and hence the explosion of demonic activity in the gospels, but beyond that we find such activity is rare – and certainly not to be associated with the unfortunate ailment of epilepsy.
D. By the expulsion of this demon the Lord proved the power of His Word, he demonstrated by His deeds that which He had declared in His doctrine.
III. He Expanded His Reputation – vss 27-28.
A. Having heard him preach and watched Him at work the congregation of the synagogue were amazed.
1. This was different. This was not the normal Sabbath day experience. This was new.
2. In fact it wasn’t new. It was the same everlasting truth that was there all along, but hidden beneath the weeds and debris of scribal traditions.
3. All Jesus did was clear away the rubbish, to reveal the truth – and the truth proved to be exciting and powerful.
4. It’s still exciting and powerful, but how we have gotten away from that.
5. We have swopped the life changing power of the gospel for dead orthodoxy, and legalistic living, for rationalist thought or charismatic extremes.
6. Do you that the world is still crying out for faithful preachers of God’s word who practice what they reach, who live out the power of Christ in their daily lives and deliver the power Christ in the faithful, Spirit filled preaching of God’s Word.
B. When the door of the synagogue was opened that day, the tongues were wagging.
1. “Immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.”
Conclusion: You know it is our job to spread His fame throughout our community today. Are we telling others of the Lord Jesus? Are we spreading abroad His fame? Are we gossiping the gospel? Who are you seeking to win for Christ?
Maybe you are here and not a Christian. You may feel that you are a pretty good person, as good as anyone else who attends this church or any other, and that may be. But did you know that without Christ dwelling in you, without knowing Him as you Saviour you are just as much in the grip of Satan as this man was, in Mark’s gospel. Oh, you may not be possessed like he was, but the Lord Jesus said of those who have never exercised faith in Him that they are of their father the devil. That is a sobering thought, is it not? And yet this same Jesus is able and willing to save you tonight, to release your soul from the grip of sin and wrong, to exchange you destiny from hell to Heaven, if you would but ask Him.
