#14 The Gathering Storm
Series: Mark
March 29, 2020
Chuck Sligh
NOTE: PowerPoint or ProPresenter presentations are available for this sermon by request at chucksligh@hotmail.com. Please mention the title of the sermon and the Bible text to help me find the sermon in my archives.
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Mark 3:1-6 - "And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. 2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. 3 And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. 4 And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. 5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. 6 And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him."
INTRODUCTION
Well, we’re still in lockdown because of the coronavirus. Hopefully too many of you are not climbing the walls yet.
JOKE: In the midst of all the bad news, I do have one bit of good news: WHO, which stands for the World Health Organization—WHO—has announced that dogs cannot contract COVID-19.
Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released.
So, to be clear, WHO let the dogs out.
JOKE: I saw a meme this week that made me laugh. It showed a picture of a T-Rex, which as you know, had tiny little arms and hands. The caption for the meme said: “Couldn’t wash hands. Is now extinct.”
So, let’s all be sure to cooperate and keep our hands washed. Hopefully, with a lot of patience and a little humor, we can get through this thing safely.
In our series through the Gospel of Mark, from time to time it’s important to get our bearings and see the big picture of where we are in Mark’s narrative. Mark begins by laying the foundation that Jesus is the Son of God by telling several incidents that begin to reveal who Jesus is. Chapter 1 describes a twenty-four-hour period in the ministry of Jesus where He preaches the Gospel, heals the sick and casts out demons. Chapter 2 sets the stage for the coming storm of opposition Jesus would face that would lead to His crucifixion by relating five dramatic stories of confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders of Israel:
• In verses 1-12 Jesus forgives sins and heals a paralytic man, earning Him the ire of the religious mafia as a blasphemer, for it is blasphemy to claim for oneself a prerogative reserved only for God.
• In verses 13-17, by calling Matthew into his circle of disciples and hanging out with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus is accused of associating with the dregs of society instead of with good and upright people, a big no-no with the Pharisees.
• In verses 18-22, Jesus shows contempt for man-made religious rules about fasting that were put on a par with God’s Law, and practically superseded God’s Law, and His defiance of their rules enraged the Pharisees and scribes.
• Then in verses 23-28, Jesus flaunted silly man-made Sabbath rules of these self-righteous religious leaders and went a step further by claiming to be the “Lord of the Sabbath,” confirming their charge of blasphemy.
It is in this context that Mark’s fifth story is set, which seals Jesus doom, and leads ultimately to our redemption through His death on the cross.
I. Verses 1-2 set the stage for our story. – “And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there who had a withered hand. 2 And they watched him, to see if He would heal him on the sabbath; so that they might accuse him.”
Jesus again enters the synagogue on the Sabbath. This was a courageous act, the act of someone who refused to seek for safety and ease and who was determined to stare down a dangerous situation.
In the synagogue that day was a man with a “withered hand.” The Greek word used seems to indicate a condition the man was not born with. Most interpreters think that because of some disease or injury, his hand lost functionality, causing its muscles to atrophy and shrivel up over time.
Illus. – When I was in high school in Okinawa one of my classmates had had polio as a child, causing him to lose the use of his legs completely. He could walk on his hands as easily as I can walk on my legs, and he did so frequently to get around, giving him extraordinarily huge arm muscles. But his legs and feet were thin as rails whose muscles had withered up and never grown, requiring him to use hand crutches to get around on foot.
This was the case with this man’s hand. He could do nothing with it. His hand was all shriveled up and useless. There were a hundred things he could not do. He probably was reduced to beggary because most tasks require both hands. But he could attend synagogue, and that day he did.
Verse 2 says that “they,” meaning the religious leaders, “watched him.”
The Greek word “watched” is in the imperfect tense indicating that they were “hanging in suspense.”
What were they waiting with bated breath for?—To see if He would heal again on the Sabbath so that they might accuse Him.
II. In verses 3-4 Jesus bravely takes the initiative, “And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Step forward.’ 4 And he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath, or to do harm? to save life, or to kill?’ But they kept silent.”
Jesus refused to be intimidated. He could have told this man to come around to Peter’s house when the sun went down to heal him. But he doesn’t. He had long written off the man-made traditions of the religious mafia as nonsense, so He acts courageously and decisively, without heed to the consequences to Himself.
He sees this poor, handicapped man and tells him, to his horror, to “Step forward.” Notice the man didn’t request healing; Jesus singled him out involuntarily. Had this man known his handicap would be made a public spectacle, he probably would have skipped synagogue that day! One of the greatest fears of handicapped people is having people stare at them. Yet Jesus instructs this man to step forward and be at the center of attention.
Standing there, Jesus asked the religious mafia a rhetorical question: “‘Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath, or to do harm? to save life, or to kill?’”
• The first part of the question, “‘Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath, or to do harm?...’” had to do with the healing of the handicapped man.
For Jesus, human need posed a moral imperative! Where good needs to be done, there can be no neutrality! Failure to do good is to contribute to evil. To Jesus, it was not merely OKAY to heal on the Sabbath; it was RIGHT to heal on the Sabbath; I was necessary to heal on the Sabbath, whether or not it conformed to their extra-biblical rules.
To the religious authorities, proper religion was about theological correctness, matters of purity, specific and observable acts of piety…and worst of all observing with meticulous detail man-made traditions and laws. But to Jesus, it was about responding from the heart to injustice and suffering!
James R. Edwards says, “Questions of theological orthodoxy and moral behavior cannot be answered in the abstract, but only by responding to the concrete call of God in one’s life and to specific human needs at hand. The test of all theology and morality is either passed or failed by one’s response to the weakest and most defenseless members of society. For Jesus the call of God presents itself urgently in the need of this particular man.”
• The second part of the question, “‘Is it lawful…to save life, or to kill?’” was not about the handicapped man, but about Jesus Himself.
He was taking steps to save this wretched man’s life; the Pharisees and scribes were thinking out methods of killing Jesus. No matter how you think about it, it was certainly better to heal a man than it was to think about killing a man.
The end of verse 4 tells us their response to Jesus’ question: “But they kept silent.” They could not refute His point, nor would they admit their error or maybe they were just cowardly. But their silence spoke loudly enough: It shouted that it was better for this man to continue to suffer than to break one of their precious rabbinical rules!
III. In verse 5 we see Jesus’ reaction to the religious leaders’ silence, “And looking around them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts, he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out: and his hand was restored as whole as the other.”
The stubborn silence of the religious leaders prompted two emotions in Jesus.
• First, it made Him ANGRY.
Not all anger is bad. Paul said in Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry and do not sin.” So anger in itself is not always sinful. Sinful anger is when we are angry over the wrong thing. If I’m angry because you make more money than me, that’s the wrong kind of anger; but to be angry over sin, or injustice or the killing of the unborn or suffering inflicted on the innocent is the right kind of anger.
The stubbornness and self-righteousness of these religious leaders stirred Jesus to a holy anger. How dare they turn the commandments of men into the commandments of God; how dare they turn their hearts away from compassion for slovenly submission to man-made rules; how dare they put tradition before people. This deeply angered Jesus’ holy sense of justice and righteousness.
• The second emotion Jesus felt was GRIEF.
He was grieved at the “hardness of their hearts.” The Greek word translated “hardness” here means “the covering with a callus” and when used metaphorically, as here, referred to becoming hardened to compassion, cold and indifferent to God’s will or the needs of others, dulled to spiritual perception and understanding. These so-called “religious,” so-called “leaders” would rather see this man live with his handicap the rest of his life than for Jesus to transgress one of their beloved man-made rules!
This cold-hearted love for legalism angered Jesus on the one hand, and on the other hand grieved Him, for He knew where that hardness would lead them…to a lost eternity! Jesus was even concerned about THEM!
Then, in open defiance of their silent opposition, Jesus healed this poor man before everyone’s eyes. Notice that He didn’t hesitate or equivocate. He didn’t decide whether to act or not depending on His standing in the polls or on the personal consequences He would face. He stood firmly on righteous principle.
He tells the man, “Stretch out your hand.” Remember, this man had not asked to be healed. He was just a bystander in Synagogue that Sabbath and Jesus took the initiative.
The same is true of our salvation. Jesus took the initiative to provide salvation by His death on Calvary to pay for our sin’s penalty. But there is a response God requires of us to be saved. We have to respond in faith.
Jesus said, “Stretch out your hand.” The man could have shrunk back to his seat in fear of the religious mafia. He could have withered in his soul in fear the same way his hand was withered. He could have feared excommunication from the religious leaders.
But the voice of Jesus had authority and held out hope. In that instant, this man had to decide who he would listen to: the voice of authority and hope or the voice of those who would rather he remain handicapped than violate sacred rules of men. Besides that, every shred of evidence indicated that if he held out his hand, nothing would happen. I mean, what Jesus was telling him to do made no sense whatsoever.
But a spark of faith rose up in his soul, and he obeyed Jesus’s command. Instantly blood rushed to his shriveled-up hand, old atrophied muscles grew and strengthened, and suddenly he could move one finger, then another, then another until, as Mark describes it, “his hand was restored as whole as the other.”
And so it is with us. The world tells us not to listen to the voice of Jesus. That God can someone’s life and give eternal life simply by obeying Christ’s command to believe in Him makes no sense whatsoever.
But if we will obey and believe in Jesus, He will take our shriveled-up souls and give LIFE to them; He will make us WHOLE again; He will give us spiritual STRENGTH to live for God! It is by FAITH we can be made right with God.
IV. Finally, verse 6 describes the result of Jesus’ actions and words – “And the Pharisees went out, and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him how they might destroy him.”
The compassion of Jesus is free but costly. The man’s hand was restored, but the Pharisees and the Herodians conspire together to plot how they might destroy Him.
There never were stranger bedfellows than these two groups. As we’ve already seen, the Pharisees were a religious group that was hyper-religious, strict in their practices and interpretations, zealous of the Law and contemptuous of the Romans or anyone aligned with the Romans. The Herodians, on the other hand, were a political group of worldly, non-religious sympathizers and supporters of King Herod, the Jewish puppet of the Romans.
Usually, these two groups didn’t get along. It would be like the KKK and the NAACP joining forces. This shows how much they wanted to kill Jesus—the Pharisees because Jesus threatened the religious status quo; the Herodians because Jesus represented a potential political threat to the peace and stability of Herod’s rule.
The decision to destroy Jesus casts a shadow over the rest of the Gospel of Mark. Everything from this point on leads inevitably to the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus. The evil designs of men—ironically the “guardians of the Sabbath”—who resolve to do harm and kill, will be used by God to carry out His will for our redemption.
CONCLUSION
What does God want us to take away from this sermon?
• First, recognize that to Jesus, living for Him is not about ritual and rules and regulations; rather, it’s about love of God and love of people.
A man asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment? Jesus answered him, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: “You shalt love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)
Everything in the Christian life can be subsumed under these two commandments.
o First is to love God with all your heart, soul and mind; in other words, to love God with all your being; with all that is in you.
Part of that is found in true heart-worship—that is, spending time in prayer and at church adoring and worshipping God. It’s taking time to ascribe to God the worth He is in our lives. It’s in pausing to thank God for the blessings you experience in your life.
And most of all, it is in obeying His Word. God’s commandments are not the invention of humans. They are not meant to bind you but to free you. Every command brings blessing and joy, not sorrow and toil. Read and listen carefully to God’s Word, and then LIVE IT OUT! That is the highest form of worship there is.
o But second, God says to love your neighbor as yourself.
We do this through serving and ministering to others. In his commentary on the Gospel of Mark, William Barclay says, “To Jesus, religion was service. It was love of God and love of others. Ritual was irrelevant compared with love in action…. To Jesus, the most important thing in the world was not the correct performance of a ritual but the spontaneous answer to the cry of human need.”
Let me ask you: Are you serving people; ministering to needs; sacrificing for others? There are a multitude of ways you can do that. One way is to find a place to serve and volunteer in your local church. All the adherence to rules and all the religious things you can do account for NOTHING if you are not in the business of serving and ministering to others.
• My second application to you from this message is a warning: Don’t allow yourself to become hard-hearted.
The heart is seen in Scripture as the center of human personality, producing emotions, desires, thoughts and reasoning, understanding and most importantly, faith. When we as believers allow our hearts to become hardened, we get calloused in our emotions; our desires and thoughts are not centered on God; our reasoning and understanding are dulled; and we no longer live by faith.
Illus. – In my early teen years, I worked hauling hay and doing other odd jobs for farmers around the town of Smyrna, Tennessee where I lived at the time. I earned $1.60 an hour, which was below minimum wage even back then, but I thought it was a bonanza. The farmers I worked for encouraged us to wear gloves. I found out why…. Some of the older farmers had done years of hard manual labor. If you shook their hand, it was like shaking the hand of a lobster. They had handled so many things with their bare hands for so long, they had built up thick callouses on their hands.
And you know what?—That can happen spiritually to believers. You can get to a place where you have callouses on your heart. God’s Word no longer pricks you; sin does not bother you as much; God’s will is no longer the chief priority in your life; the needs of people no longer touch your heart-strings; the cries of the lost no longer stir you to action.
Have you developed a hardened heart? The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 3:12-13 – “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. 13 But exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today’; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”
The writer here says the cause of a hard heart is the deceitfulness of sin. We give in to sin and are deceived that it’s okay. If we allow sin in our lives, it dulls our spiritual senses and causes us to be callous to the will of God in our lives and the needs of others.
What is the answer?—The answer is to turn from your sin, confess it to God and ask Him to restore again to you the joy of your salvation.
But this can happen to an UNBELIEVER too and it has eternal consequences! In the Bible is a chilling example of what can happen to people who persist in hardening their hearts. The Bible says that when Moses came with God’s command to “Let my people go,” Pharaoh hardened his heart and wouldn’t submit to God’s command. Six times the Bible says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. But then something changed. Four times it says that GOD hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
In the same way, if you do not listen to God’s call to salvation, each time you do that, you harden our heart just a little bit more. If you continue to harden our heart, at some point God will assist you. HE will harden your heart. Then you are in a mortal danger because none of us comes to God without God’s calling and influence in our lives. The moment God stops calling you is the moment your eternal fate is sealed.
This is why Paul says with a sense of urgency, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2)
You say, “Oh, I can wait to be saved another day.” Proverbs 27:1 says, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”
If God is working in your heart now, turn to Christ NOW; give your life to Him TODAY. DO NOT DELAY: Trust in Christ TODAY; NOW!
