The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

Sermon: Legion (Mark 4:35-5:20)

LegionSunday, June 25th, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 4:35-5:20
35 And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. 36 And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships. 37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. 38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? 39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
5 And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. 2 And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3 Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: 4 Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. 5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. 6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, 7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. 8 For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. 9 And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. 10 And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. 11 Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. 12 And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. 13 And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. 14 And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. 15 And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. 16 And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. 17 And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. 18 And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. 19 Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. 20 And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for the power that is manifest in the Lord Jesus. We thank you for these stories you give us in the gospels, that reveal to us Your compassion, even and especially to those who are afflicted by demons. We ask that you would exorcise in our own day the many evil and unclean spirits that have possessed our nation, arise, and deliver us O Lord, for we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. 
Introduction
Well after a long day of teaching the crowds in parables and then explaining those parables to his disciples, evening has finally come. We were told at the beginning of Mark chapter 4 that Jesus “entered into a ship and sat in the sea [while] the whole multitude was on the beach,” and now Jesus is going to send them away and say, “Let us pass over to the other side” (Mark 4:35).
You’ll remember they are on the Sea of Galilee, which is about 64 square miles in size (roughly twice the size of Lake Washington), and Jesus has been preaching and healing and casting out demons in these primarily Jewish towns along the coast.
His custom has been to go into the synagogues and teach on the sabbath days, but his popularity is increasing such that he can hardly go anywhere without huge crowds following him. Therefore, the only place the Lord Jesus has to rest is in the hinder part of a ship.
Now, the way that Mark has arranged this material suggests that if we know how to interpret Jesus’ parables and see in them the mystery of the kingdom, then we will also know how to rightly interpret the real-life “parables” of Jesus’ actions.
Just as the parables forced us to ponder the deeper meaning of seed and soil and lamps and mustard trees and birds, so also Jesus’ actions are themselves packed with significance and invite us to ponder the deeper meaning of storms and ships and swine and demons who drive those swine into the sea.
It is the interpretation of Jesus’ parables that should prepare us now to interpret Jesus’ actions. And so even though we are not reading parables anymore, you should still be thinking about what these now real historical events signify. What do Jesus’ actions teach us about the kingdom of God?
Outline
There are two major scenes in our text:
In verses 35-41 of chapter 4, Jesus brings peace to a stormy sea.
In verses 1-20 of chapter 5, Jesus brings peace to a demon-possessed man.
Mark has intentionally set these two scenes next to each other for us to compare and contrast, and so despite this being quite a long sermon text, it’s important for us to study them together.
The Calming of the Storm
Verses 37-39
37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. 38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
Notice first that the ship is full of water, “the waves beat into the ship so that is was now full.” The ship is probably starting to sink. And yet somehow, Jesus is asleep on a pillow. His body is probably soaking wet, and we presume his head at least is propped up out of the water so he can still breathe.
The disciples of course are afraid they are going to drown, and so they wake Jesus up. And what do they say to him? They say to him what all of us have probably said to God at some point or another: “Lord, don’t you care about me? Don’t you see what is happening? Do you not care that I am suffering? I though you loved me?” “Carest thou not that we perish?!”
You can almost hear the frustration and annoyance in the disciples’ voice. Why won’t you do something?
This is a good question to ask, but before we see how Jesus responds, I want us to zoom out for a moment and think about how this scene might be similar to other stories in the Bible, because that is going to help us penetrate to God’s intention for giving us this miracle in the first place. Of all the things that Jesus did, why give us this story in this context?
So think for a moment and ask yourself, has anything like this ever happened before in the Bible? Are there any similar stories with boats and water and storms?
Perhaps the first instance we think of is Noah’s ark. Noah’s ark is the first boat to appear in the Bible and it is used to survive a great storm (a flood of God’s judgment).
This motif of an ark saving us through water, the Apostle Peter says is a picture of baptism (1 Pet. 3:20-21), baptism being a kind of death and resurrection, a rebirth through water.
When we come to the book of Exodus, we see that baby Moses is saved by a miniature ark (תֵּבָה), a basket of reeds that helps him escape Pharoah’s persecution of the Hebrew boys. Ironically Moses then becomes Pharaoh’s adopted grandson.
This salvation through water that Moses experiences is itself a foreshadowing of when he will lead the nation of Israel through the Red Sea. What do you do when you need to cross a body of water but don’t have a ship? God splits it in two. The Exodus from Egypt is another Noah’s Ark moment. There is a flood of judgment on Egypt, plagues, and destruction, but Israel is saved through water. The Exodus is a second Noah’s Ark.
And then finally we must not forget the story of Jonah. Jesus will later tell the Pharisees that the only sign they will be given is the sign of Jonah, and in this story of Jesus sleeping in a storm, we have many parallels with the Jonah story, I’ll mention just a few:
Jonah is commissioned by God to preach repentance to the Gentiles, God sends him to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, but Jonah goes the other direction.
Where is Jesus going in our text? He is going to the Gentile regions of Galilee, to the Gadarenes, to the Decapolis, where there are pigs and tombs, and other unclean things that were an abomination to the Jews. Jonah refuses to go to them, Jesus chooses to go to them.
Both of them get on ships, both ships are caught in a great and life-threatening storm, and both are asleep while it happens.
Both Jonah and Jesus are awakened by a frantic and fearful crew.
And then we start to see some important dissimilarities between these two stories.
In order for Jonah to calm the storm, what must happen? He must die, the sailors must cast him into the sea. Jonah 1:15 says, “So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows.”
The miraculous calming of the storm after Jonah’s death, is what converts these Gentile sailors, “they feared the LORD exceedingly.”
Now what does Jesus do to calm the storm?
Verses 39-41
39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? 41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
In Scripture and in every other world religion, everyone knows that the weather is outside of man’s control.
The pagans would offer sacrifices to various deities in hopes that the god of rain, or the god of sun would be favorable to them and cause their crops to grow. If there was a drought, the deity must be angry. If there was an abundance of harvest, the deity must be pleased. But in either case, the pagan mind knows that only God controls the weather.
Therefore, what could be a more obvious sign of a man’s deity, than that he can bring instant calm to a deadly storm? And unlike Jonah, or Elijah, or Moses, or any other great prophet, Jesus does not pray to God, he does not ask for God to save them, but rather, He Himself just rebukes the wind like a father rebukes his son, and says, “Peace, be still” and the wind and the sea obey him.
Gentiles know that only God has this kind of power, it was what converted the sailors on Jonah’s ship. And the Jews likewise have many passages in Holy Writ that say the same.
Psalm 107:23-31 reads almost like a prophesy of this event, “They that go down to the sea in ships, That do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord, And his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, Which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: Their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, And are at their wits’ end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, And he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, So that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; So he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men!”
There is only person who can “maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.” And that is the LORD. Who then is this Jesus?
Proverbs 30:4 asks the same question, “Who has ascended into heaven, or descended? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has bound the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, If you know?”
What Solomon pondered in Proverbs and what the Jews sang in Psalms; Jesus comes to answer. The LORD Jesus is his name.
Mark leaves the question hanging in the disciples’ mouth, “What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” And for us who know the answer to the question, we are given a deep insight into the ways of God and why He does what He does.
If you were one of the twelve disciples on that ship, who lived through this miracle, and pondered this scene after Jesus resurrection, what you would conclude is that, because Jesus is God, according to His divine nature, He was the one who caused that storm in the first place, just like Psalm 107 says, “He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind.”
And therefore, if Jesus has the power to both cause the storm and make it to cease, then He must have had some greater purpose for bringing us to the point of almost perishing. What was the purpose for Jesus sending the storm?
Well, there are at least two reasons for Jesus doing this:
1. First, Jesus wants us to know that there is nothing that touches us, that does not first pass through the hands of Almighty God. Just as Satan could not touch or harm Job unless God gave him permission, so also there is no storm that can harm us unless God permits it.
The wind may be tempestuous, our boat may be filling with water, but Jesus says, even if you are executed, “there shall not an hair of your head perish” (Luke 21:18), and “a sparrow does not fall to the ground apart from your Father’s will…and you are of far more value than sparrows.”
Nothing touches the disciples, and nothing touches us that does not first pass through the hands of God. And if God permits it, then we can be at peace knowing our Father knows what is good for us. Sometimes a storm is just what we need.
2. Second, Jesus wants us to know that He is always with us in the ship. Jesus could have stayed awake in the storm if he wanted to (if he fasted for 40 days, he can certainly keep himself awake for a few hours if he wants), but he chose to go to sleep. Why did he do this?
He did this first to reveal that he was truly human (that he was fully man with a true human body that wanted rest), but he did this also to test the disciples’ faith, to bring them to a point of crisis wherein they would cry out for deliverance.
You see while Jesus was sleeping according to his human nature, He was at the very same time according to His divine nature wholly present and awake and ready to save as soon as they called out.
As it says in Psalm 121:4, “Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
And again in Psalm 34:15, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And his ears are open unto their cry.”
Jesus wants the disciples and all of us to know, that the trying of our faith is how God increases our faith. Just as you need heavier weights to build stronger muscles, so also the LORD gives us more difficult tests to increase our reliance upon Him.
1 Peter 1:6-8 summarizes the lesson of this miracle saying, “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”
God sends his church like a ship into the storm, so that calling upon Him in the time of trouble, He might answer, and give to us that Divine tranquility and peace which surpasses understanding.
Now if this first miracle demonstrates Christ’s power over earthly and external forces (the powers of nature), this next miracle reveals Christ’s power over spiritual and interior forces (the powers of evil).
The Exorcism of Legion
Verses 1-20, I will summarize this story for us.
Having calmed the storm, Jesus and his disciples arrive at the other side of the sea. And lo, their destination was the country of the Gadarenes (a Gentile region with pig farmers nearby). Mark says in verse 2 that “immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.”
We are then told in verses 3-5 that “no man could bind him, no not with chains,” and “always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.”
So, this demon-possessed man is about as far from the kingdom of God as a man can get. If ever there was someone who was “unredeemable,” unclean, and “untouchable,” it was this man.
According to the law of God, “He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days” (Num. 19:11). This man lived amongst the dead.
According to the law of God, “the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase” (Deut. 8:8). This man lived near thousands of filthy swine.
According to the law of God, “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead…I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:28). This man cut himself with stones constantly.
And yet, Mark tells us in verse 6…
Verses 6-7
6 But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, 7 And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.
So this man seeing Jesus and running towards him, falls before him prostrate, and then we hear the voice of the demon speaking through him, “I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.”
Jesus then asks for his name, and the demon responds (in verse 9), “saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.”
This name Legion is a Roman military term and suggests that there are many thousands of demons inside of this one man. A Roman legion was approximately 6,000 soldiers, and although we are not given an exact number of demons here, we hear from their own mouth that “we are many.”
So, Jesus commands this Legion to “come out of the man” and in verse 12 it says, “all the devils besought him, saying, ‘Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.’”
Jesus permits them to go into the swine, and verse 13 says, “and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.”
The same sea that threatened to drown the disciples and their ship, becomes the graveyard for God’s enemies. This was true in the days of Noah and the flood, this was true when Israel crossed the Red Sea and saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore,and it is true when a legion of demons face off against the Messiah.
Remember what Jesus said to the scribes from Jerusalem back in chapter 3, when they accused him of casting out devils by the prince of the devils. Jesus said, “No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.”
Well, this is the strong man. This is the one that no one could tame. This is thousands of demons going against Jesus. And the best they can do is beg and parley to be sent into the swine. And when they do they go rushing down into the watery abyss. The devil is no match for the Lord Jesus, not even when there are legions of demons.
There are many many lessons here.
We could reflect upon the nature of demonic power and its suicidal tendencies.
We could ponder why it is the pigs drowned, despite the fact that most pigs can swim.
We could reflect upon how Jesus regards one man’s soul as worth more than the lives of 2,000 pigs, the men and animals are not of equal value. These are all good questions to ponder.
But I draw your attention to what Jesus wants this man to go away with, and that is: the great compassion that God has shown him.
There are two different responses Mark records for us after this exorcism.
The first is from the people who fed the swine and lived in the city, verse 17 says, “And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.” They want Jesus to leave.
Whether this was because they had suffered a great financial loss by the death of 2,000 pigs and didn’t want any more trouble. Or because they knew themselves unworthy to have Jesus amongst them, like Peter said, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” We are not told their reasons. Whatever the case, they want Jesus to depart out of their coasts. That’s the first response.
The second response is from the man who was delivered. We are never told what his name is (in any of the gospel accounts), and there is a reason for that. But this man responds by asking to follow Jesus. Verse 18 says, “he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him.”
This man went from violent and wild and running naked in the tombs, to “sitting and clothed in his right mind.” And the one whose mind has been made right by the Lord Jesus, wants nothing more than to be with Jesus. That is what right reason moves the will to do.
However, Jesus does not allow him to join The Twelve. Verse 19 says, “Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.” And then verse 20 closes with, “And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.”
Not all are called to be apostles, but all of us are free to go home and tell our family and friends, to publish in all the places we travel, how great things Jesus has done for us. How he has had compassion upon us.
The truth is that apart from the grace of God, any one of us could be that wild man, naked, possessed, cutting ourselves, and living amongst the dead. Perhaps some of you have faced or are still facing those same self-destructive temptations and behaviors.
The same evil that possessed this man by the thousands, is very much at work in our own day. Just look at the sexual perversity and insanity around us, the grooming of children to cut off their private parts and choose their own gender. This whole abomination called “Pride Month” where people boast in their shame, and flaunt their iniquity, and demand our approval for wicked and unclean acts.
What other name is there for this but demonic?
Our nation and our culture and many many churches, have become synagogues of Satan. They have become unclean places where demons are invited to take up residence.
And unless Christ has compassion upon us, we will die in our sins. We will jump off a cliff and drown ourselves like wretched swine.
This story is meant to warn us about where sin and unrepentance leads. It leads to the abyss. It leads to the same place where devils are punished and tortured for eternity.
This story is also meant to give us hope. That Christ is a compassionate God, and is willing to go out of his way, to cross the sea into unclean places to deliver us.
Conclusion
So take heed what you hear and see in these miracles. See in them that Jesus is wholly divine, and that He wields His divinity always for the good of His people. See in the face of the Lord Jesus, the power and love and compassion of God. And then fall down and worship Him. Pray that you might be with him. For he will clothe you, and make you to sit down him with in heavenly places, giving you the mind of Christ.

Sermon: Parables of the Kingdom (Mark 4:21-34)

Parables of the KingdomSunday, June 18th, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 4:21-34
21 And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick? 22 For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. 23 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. 24 And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. 25 For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; 27 And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. 28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. 29 But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
30 And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: 32 But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. 33 And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. 34 But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for Mark’s gospel. We thank you for the revelation of the kingdom that you have given unto us. And we ask for the Spirit of Illumination to be given unto us now as we seek to understand what we hear, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Last week we encountered the very first parable in Mark’s gospel, “The Parable of the Seeds or Soils,” and this morning we have four more parables to try to figure out. We remember Jesus said that if we do not understand that first parable then we will not understand any of the others, so here now we get to practice our interpretative skills and see if we can grasp the mystery of the kingdom. If you are someone who likes a good riddle, here are four riddles to interpret.
Outline
In verses 21-23 we have the Parable of the Candle/Lamp
In verses 24-25 we have the Parable of Measurement
In verses 26-29 we have the Parable of the Growing Seed
In verses 30-32 we have the Parable of the Mustard Seed
Verses 21-23 – The Parable of the Candle
21 And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? And not to be set on a candlestick? 22 For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. 23 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
There’s some ambiguity here about who the “them” is that Jesus is talking to. It is possible this is still just the disciples in private but based on how this section ends in verse 34 (there the “them” refers to the crowds), it is likely that Mark is just jumping back now to that public teaching time where no explanation of the parables is given. Whatever the case, we are now left on our own (together with the Holy Spirit) to figure out what these four parables mean.
What we do know already is that these are all parables about the kingdom of God. And we should also know that based on how Jesus interpreted the parable of the soils, there is not necessarily always a 1-1 connection between the sign and the thing signified. Sometimes a sign (like seed, or a Sower, or a light) can have multiple significations.
For example, in the Parable of the Soils, the seed which is sown refers both to the Word and to the People sown. So seed can represent both God’s Word, The Gospel, the message of the Kingdom and the different kinds of People who respond to that message, all in the same parable.
One of the best rules for interpreting a sign or symbol is to first see how the rest of Scripture uses and interprets that symbol.
So in our parable here, we might first ask, what does a candle or a lamp represent in the rest of Holy Scripture? Where do we see these objects?
We know at the most basic level that a lamp is a light in the darkness, and this should call to mind the creation of light in Genesis 1, or the creation of the stars on Day 4 to give light to the earth.
We know from Exodus that there were lamps and lampstands inside of the tabernacle and temple which are themselves symbolic.
Revelation 1:20 says, “The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.”
If you continue reading Revelation, you’ll learn that these seven stars which are angels are the pastors or bishops of the seven churches.
So lights are stars, stars are angels, angels are pastors or preachers of the Word.
And in Psalm 119:105 it says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, And a light unto my path.”
We read also in 2 Samuel 22:29 that David says, “For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.”
We read in Proverb 13:9 that “The light of the righteous rejoiceth: But the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.” There the lamp refers to the light of the mind or spirit or intellectual life which men have.
In Isaiah 62:1-2 it says, “For Zion’s sake will I not hold my peace, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, Until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, And the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, And all kings thy glory.”
So what is a lamp in Holy Scripture? A lamp can refer to God, to God’s Word, to pastors who preach that Word, to the light of the intellect/mind, or to salvation and righteousness. That is the symbolic package that is a lamp or candle in the Bible.
So when Jesus says, “Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? And not to be set on a candlestick?” there’s a good chance that the candle refers to one or all of those things. And to have all of those verses that I just read to you in your mind when you hear candle or lamp, is part of how you get ears to hear.
So what is the candle in this parable?
Well first and foremost I believe it refers to Jesus and his teaching.
This is somewhat obscured in English translations, but the sense of the Greek text here is that the candle comes or cometh (ἔρχεται), which is a really odd way of describing the arrival of a candle. A more literal translation might be, “Does a lamp come that it might be put under a bushel?”
Well usually lamps don’t come on their own, and the implication here is that this coming is the coming of a person, namely the coming of Christ who is the light of world.
Listen to how John describes Jesus in the beginning of his gospel, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Now if we think back to all of those Old Testament examples of what a lamp is, we see that all of them fit here. The coming of Jesus is the coming of God, it is the incarnation of the Word, it is the arrival of salvation and righteousness and life for men. All those things that a lamp is in the Old Testament, Jesus comes and brings in Himself.
We might also say that more specifically in this context, the candle refers especially to the words Jesus speaks. These parables, like Jesus divine identity, is hidden to some but revealed to others. It all depends on if they have ears to hear and eyes to see.
Now if the candle is Jesus and his teaching, then what might the bushel and the bed refer to?
We don’t know for sure, but it’s likely these things that have the potential to cover or smother the light, refer to his eventual death.
Jesus says in John 3:19, “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
So the lamp comes and is meant to be set on a candlestick (to have central place amongst God’s people in the temple or the church), but because men hate the light, they will try to put it under a basket or a bed. They crucify the light, they try to silence his teaching, and they persecute all who proclaim that light. This is the bushel and bed.
Jesus then concludes this parable by saying, “For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. 23 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”
So both the concealed identity of Jesus and the concealed truth of his teaching is going to be made manifest. The mystery of the kingdom that is presently hidden is going to be revealed, and that is what the 27 books of the New Testament are. They are the revelation of the kingdom of God. They are the hidden and secret things made manifest.
Now in verses 24-25, Jesus gives another parable about understanding this revelation.
Verse 24-25 – Parable of Measurement
 24 And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. 25 For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
This is a more straight-forward parable and is something we might expect to find in a book like Proverbs. It’s a wise aphorism about how the world works. In our day we might say, “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.”
The principle here is that if you are generous in your measuring out of what you give to others, then God will be generous to you. But if you are stingy or deceitful in your measuring, then you are going to get back the same.
As Paul says in Gal. 6:7, “God is not mocked, a man reaps what he sows.”
Or again in 2 Cor. 9:6, “He which soweth sparingly shall also reap sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall also reap bountifully.” So there is a principle here of divine reciprocity.
The analogy then that Jesus is making is between what happens in the marketplace with material things, and what happens internally when people hear spiritual things.
The one that already has faith and knowledge and love for God is going to be given even more by these parables. But the one who lacks faith, and has no interest in the things of God, is only going to be made worse by hearing them. Their heart is hard, and therefore Jesus says, “even what little he has will be taken from him.”
Just as there is often a growing economic inequality between the haves and the have nots, so also there is a growing spiritual inequality. This is what the truth does when it comes into the world. The people who love truth, find it and are given more. And the people who hate the truth, reject it, and lose what little they had.
This parable is another way of saying that you get out of the Word what you bring to it. You get out of the worship service and the sermon what you bring to it. If you come hungry and thankful and zealous to know and praise God, then this service will be of great benefit to you. But if you come skeptical, and selfish, and resistant to obey God’s Word, then you might as well go somewhere else. Charles Spurgeon once said, “the same sun that melts wax hardens the clay.”
So what are you? Wax that desires to be molded and conformed to the image of Christ? Or hardened clay, without the moisture of grace.
To those who have, more will be given. And to those who have not, even what little they have will be taken from them.
Verses 26-29 – The Parable of the Growing Seed
26 And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; 27 And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. 28 For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. 29 But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
We might think of this parable as an extension of Jesus’ first parable on the different seeds/soils, except that here we focus in on the good seed and how it grows.
The word is planted in the hearts of men, the human Preacher or Sower of the word does not really know how it grows. He preaches, he goes to sleep, gets up the next day, and over time, “the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself.”
The Greek adjective here is αὐτομάτη, from whence we get our English word “automatic.” And it refers to something that happens without any visible cause, or by itself.
The Apostle Paul reflects on this reality in 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 where he says, “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”
The mystery of the kingdom is that God is the invisible cause of the kingdom’s growth.Just as a farmer plants seed by faith, so also should Jesus’ disciples proclaim the word.
We cannot see down into the soil of men’s hearts, but we can see and judge the fruit of their lives, “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.” And when that fruit comes forth, then the sickle goes in, the harvest of souls has come.
In the Hebrew calendar there are multiple harvest festivals.
There is the first fruits offering after Passover in early spring.
There is the feast of Pentecost 50 days later.
And then there is the great feast of ingathering or tabernacles in the Fall.
And what all these harvests signify to one extant or another is the judgment of our works, the examination of what is growing in our lives, and the separation of wheat from the chaff.
And so the sense of this parable is that God’s kingdom grows in a hidden and invisible way, but it is growing towards a very visible and glorious end—the great harvest festival of final judgment.
Just as the Hebrew calendar has many mini harvests throughout the year, so also the Christian life is marked by God’s pruning and harvesting of our fruit along the way. Every Lord’s Day is a miniature harvest where we are gathered in, judged by God’s Word, pruned, and sent back out to bear more fruit. And eventually all of us, good and bad, are going to be gathered in at death, and stand before the Lord to give account for our works. And so we should treat every Lord’s Day as preparation for that final Day of the Lord. Harvest is coming, so take heed how you hear.
Verses 30-32 – The Parable of the Mustard Seed
30 And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it? 31 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: 32 But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.
Of all the possible trees Jesus could have used to describe the kingdom of God, it is surprising that he chooses a mustard tree. Why does he do this?
There are few reasons:
First, because the mustard seed was for them, the smallest of all seeds. You can see it if you look closely but it would not stand out to you as significant. And this is the way God sows his kingdom in the earth.
Isaiah prophesied that when the Christ comes, “he shall grow up before the LORD as a tender plant, And as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him” (Is. 53:3).
Nobody looks at a mustard seed and says “wow, that’s a beautiful and impressive seed, I want that.” But that is how God chose to enter this world and plant His kingdom. And church history is the story of that little mustard seed growing into something “greater than all herbs.”
What began with Jesus and the Twelve, grows to 120 disciples at Pentecost, then 3,000 and then 5,000, and now there are 2.2 billion professing Christians on planet earth.
And this brings us to what I think is the second reason Jesus chose the mustard tree, and that is that: the mustard tree is very unlike the other great trees of the earth. And Jesus wants us to know that His kingdom is of a different species than the kingdoms of men.
He says explicitly to Pontius Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”
In both Ezekiel and Daniel, kingdoms like Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt are likened to tall trees that stretch to the heavens, or like great cedars of Lebanon. Earthly kingdoms have an impressive and visible greatness that makes people stand back in awe because you can see its size.
But the mustard tree, even when it is fully grown is only about 10 feet tall. And it does not have the same imposing and visible presence that a great cedar or redwood has.
If anything, the mustard tree had a reputation for being a dangerous and invasive species.
Listen to what Pliny the Elder (a Roman scientist who lived in the time of Christ, AD 23-79) says about the mustard tree:
“It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted; but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once.” (Nat. 19.170-171)
When we look at the history of Christ’s kingdom for the last 2,000 years, it has grown very much like a mustard seed. It has been transplanted in many a foreign soil, and it has been hard to uproot.
Consider the fact that we are all living here in Centralia, some 7,000 miles from where that mustard seed was first planted in Jerusalem, and yet we are the kingdom. Here it is. It’s the Word of God and the reign of God in the people of God.
It is truly a kingdom, it is truly a great tree, but it is truly unlike every other tree and every other kingdom on earth.
There are of course more details in this parable we could study and meditate upon, like the nature of mustard and its strong flavor, or the meaning of the birds which lodge in the shadow of the tree, but I will leave that for you to ponder on your own.
Conclusion
Jesus says in John 12:24 that “unless a seed dies it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much.” What is hidden but implied in all of these parables is that in order for the kingdom to grow, something must die. Someone must die. And it is through death and resurrection that God’s kingdom multiplies on earth.
In 1 Cor. 15:20, Paul calls Jesus the first fruits of the harvest, and if Jesus is the first fruits, then there is a death and resurrection that awaits all of us well. And it is towards that final harvest that all of us should look in hope.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

CKA Graduation 2023 (Exhortation)

Graduation 2023
In Ecclesiastes 7:8, Solomon says, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
Tonight, we celebrate the end of a thing. The end of roughly 13 years (K-12) of education, of learning, of study, of tests, of reading and homework, and all the rest. Tonight, marks in a significant way the end of childhood. To graduate from high school is in many ways to become an adult. And to become an adult means to receive new responsibilities and new freedoms. For the first time in your life, you a have a new freedom to choose what is next. You have the freedom to fail or to succeed, to squander what you have been given, or to turn a profit on it. These twin gifts of greater responsibility and greater freedom are what God likes to give to us at this stage of life.
So how then should a young man use this newfound freedom? How is a young man to know which path is the path to success, or even how to define success? It is a good and better thing to close a chapter, as we are doing tonight, but what wisdom is there for us as we begin to write a new one?
That is the question I’d like to answer briefly now from the Scriptures. I have three specific exhortations for you Aiden as you enter adulthood.
1. Leave Childish Things Behind
The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthian 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
When we were boys, it was natural for us to choose the path of least resistance. To try to get the things we wanted with the least amount of effort. Laziness comes easily to fallen creatures, and therefore God lovingly gave us parents, and teachers, and coaches to beat that laziness out of us.
The mark then of a mature man (and a free man), is the ability to exercise self-control. Proverbs 16:32 says, “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he that rules his own spirit is better than he that takes a city.”
To govern and discipline your own thoughts, words, and emotions is to make you greater than a man who conquers a city. The mature man knows that cities can and have been conquered by brute force, by clever ingenuity, and even by treachery, but to conquer oneself and rule over your own passions and desires is what makes a man truly free and truly great in the eyes of God. And it is only the eyes of God that the Christian really cares about.
You are entering a world that is hostile to Jesus Christ and His servants. And if you would be a faithful servant of God, then you must learn the spiritual discipline of genuinely not caring what the world thinks. As Paul says in Galatians 1:10, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
When we were children, we lived to please ourselves, and sadly many American adults continue to live this way (as selfish children). But for those who want to leave childish things behind, as you should, God alone must be the person you desire to please. God alone must be the one whose good opinion you cannot live without. God alone must be the one you want to impress.
When you care more about what God thinks of you, than what the world thinks of you, you are starting make progress. You have left childish things behind and can now embrace the freedom and responsibility Your Heavenly Father wants to give you.
God loves you far more than your parents or family or future wife and children ever will. And God’s love will not let you be comfortable remaining as a child when you ought to be an adult. God wants you to be perfect as He is perfect, and so flee youthful lusts, and leave childish things behind.
My second exhortation is essential to helping you do this, and that is to…
2. Seek Out Wise Counselors
Solomon says in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” And then He says in Proverbs 15:22, “Without counsel, plans go awry, But in the multitude of counselors they are established.”
There are two principles here that all of us must take to heart.
The First is that: We don’t always know what is best for us. It is possible to be convinced that you are doing the right thing, going the right way, when in reality, it is the way of death. “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”
So what do you do then to prevent that kind of self-deception? The answer is in that second Proverb.
The Second principle is that: In the multitude of wise counselors there is safety.
All of us need wiser and more experienced mentors to help us avoid destruction. Just as a wise King needs a cabinet of advisors to help him rule well in his kingdom, so also every young man.
Right now your kingdom is very small, it consists of yourself and your time and your resources. But Jesus says that he who is faithful in the little, will be made ruler over much. And so practice now for when God puts you in charge, for when God gives you other people to care for, like a wife and children.
The years you are about to enter, from age 18-30, are the years in which you will probably make the biggest decisions of your life:
Where will you live?
What career will you pursue?
Will you go college, if so, where?
Who will you marry?
What church will you go to?
How serious will you be about following Jesus and obeying His Word?
These are the years in which the concrete that was poured in childhood fully sets and then you get to build a house on top of it. And so what kind of house are you going to build? What kind of house do you want to live in? Who are you going to be?
Solomon says that without wise counselors, plans go awry, kingdoms fall, houses are destroyed. And so search out and seek advice from godly men and godly women whose houses are in good order. Surround yourself with the counsel of Christians whose lives you want to imitate. If you do this, you will find safety, and you will find success.
Finally, my third exhortation is:
3. Commit Everything You Do to The Lord
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”
If you want God to direct your paths, you must acknowledge him in everything. This means thanking Him for the challenge that is in front of you. This means walking by faith and doing whatever you set your hand to do with a whole heart, that is cheerful and glad.
If your attitude towards the Lord is an abundance of thanksgiving, God will make it very clear which way you are to go. If you seek out wise counsel, and run the numbers, and make your plans, and then commit those plans to the Lord, God promises to direct you, and He will make all your paths straight.
In the name of Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: How To Hear A Sermon (Mark 4:1-20)

How To Hear A SermonSunday, June 11th, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 4:1-20
And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. 2 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, 3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow: 4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. 5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: 6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. 8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. 9 And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 10 And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. 11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: 12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. 13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables? 14 The sower soweth the word. 15 And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts. 16 And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; 17 And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended. 18 And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, 19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. 20 And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for revealing unto us the mystery of the kingdom. We ask now that as we consider this parable from the Lord Jesus, that we might be given ears to hear, and eyes to behold your glory, and thus become fruitful. We ask for your Holy Spirit in Jesus name, Amen.
Introduction
How many sermons have you heard in the course of your life? How many sermons have you listened to?
If you have been a Christian for, say 10 years, and went to church every week, that’s about 520 sermons you have heard thus far. That’s quite a lot.
Now if you grew up in the church and are now in your 30s or 40s or 50s and beyond. You have no doubt heard many thousands of sermons by now.
Perhaps even over 100,000 sermons if you attended Sunday School, or mid-week or evening services, or listen to sermon podcasts, etc. That’s a lot of preaching over the years.
Now according to Jesus, each of those sermons was an opportunity for the “sowing of the word.” And the question Jesus sets before his audience is: How did you respond to that Word? What kind of fruit, if any, has come from all of that hearing? Did it do anything? What is different in your life because you heard those sermons?
Well, you see our text this morning is a sermon on how to hear a sermon. And this is the first extended block of teaching that we encounter in Mark’s gospel. This parable Jesus tells and then the explanation of it, is the skeleton to key understanding all the other parables. If you don’t understand this parable, you won’t understand any others.
Jesus says in verse 13, “Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?”
The stakes are high for Jesus’ audience, and for us who want to understand. So let us walk carefully through this text and see what the Lord will show us.
Division of the Text
Our text divides neatly into two.
In verses 1-9, Jesus preaches his sermon to the multitude by the sea, he gives them various parables.
In verses 10-20, Jesus privately explains one parable in particular to his disciples.
Context
For the previous 3 chapters Mark has been developing and playing with this idea that there are insiders and there are outsiders.And he’s done this by using the imagery and scene of who is inside or outside the house.
There are generally 5 groups we have met so far:
1. There are the twelve disciples who are “in the house” and we expect them to be “in the know.”
2. Then there are the multitudes of sick and demon-possessed people trying to get into the house for healing and deliverance. In chapter 2 we saw a paralyzed man let down through the roof, forcing his way into the kingdom.
3. Then there are Jesus’ family and friends who are “outside the house” and excluded because they think he has lost his mind.
4. There are scribes and Pharisees who claim he is possessed by the devil; they blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
5. And then there are all these demons who keep saying he is the son of God, but Jesus silences them.
So this theme of insiders and outsiders (of who is “in the know” and who is not) continues to develop as Jesus gives them this parable. And this parable is really an explanation for why there are such diverse and strong opinions about Him.
How is that 100 people can all hear the same words (the same sermon), but go away from it with radically different conclusions? How is that some people hear but don’t really hear? Or some people hear only what they want to hear, and therefore don’t really hear. This parable is going to put everyone who hears the Word into one of four categories.
This is a parable that gives us distinctions, it tells us who is inside and who is outside the kingdom.
Verse 1
And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.
Now if someone is “by the sea on the land,” where are they? They are on the beach. They are on the seashore. And the seashore is a significant location in the Bible.
God says to Abraham in Genesis 22:17, “I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.”
When God first preaches the gospel to Abraham (Gal. 3:8), it is a promise that his seed will be as numerous as sand on the seashore.
And so here in Mark’s Gospel we have The Seed of Abraham, the Son of Promise, in whom all the nations will be blessed, and Mark tells us, “There was gathered unto him a great multitude.”
We have a multitude on a beach in Israel, and we should recognize that this is Abraham’s seed.
Verses 2-3
2 And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine, 3 Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
Here now begins the parable, and notice it’s a parable about seed, “a sower went out to sow.”
In the Old Testament seed can signify both people and God’s Word, and in this parable, seed is going to represent both of those things.
Now before I read the rest of this parable, I want you to put yourself in the position of the crowd. Imagine you are not going to get that private explanation later with the disciples, this is all you get to work with, this little parable. And ask yourself, would I actually understand what Jesus is teaching here? Would I be an outsider or an insider? Do I have ears to hear?
Verses 4-9
4 And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up. 5 And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: 6 But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit. 8 And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred. 9 And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
How did you do? Did you understand the mystery of the kingdom in that parable?
How many of us would hear that sermon and have little idea what to make of it without further reflection, further explanation? You can imagine going home with your family and arguing about what that parable meant and what each thing signified. “What did it mean to you?”
What’s more, when you read the commentators on this passage, who have Jesus’ explanation, there is still a diversity of opinion about what is going on here.
There is general agreement that this is about different kinds of people who respond differently to the Word. That is true. But how does this parable reveal to us the mystery of the kingdom? What is it about the kingdom of God that we are taught by seed and soil and birds and thorns? Well, that is what the disciples want to know.
Verses 10-11
10 And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. 11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
So here Jesus makes a distinction between those who are in and those who are “without.” As much as some Christians don’t like this “Us vs. Them” dialectic, properly understood, that is the way Jesus created the world.
As he says in Matthew 12:30, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”
So the first division Jesus makes is between the multitude outside, who only get parables, and the disciples who are inside, unto whom the mystery of the kingdom is “given to know.” Parables for outsiders, kingdom knowledge for insiders.
Now this might seem very elitist to some. There is this privileged Twelve disciples around Jesus, and then the masses outside. Why not give this private interpretation to everyone? Why speak in parables at all?
Well in a very real sense, that is what the gospel accounts are. They are the things spoken in secret, which Jesus says will be shouted from the rooftops. However, at this stage in Jesus’ ministry, that knowledge is being concealed.
And this is the real riddle of Jesus’ preaching. Why does he come speaking in parables?
Well Jesus gives us an answer in verse 12.
Verse 12
all these things are done in parables…[so]12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
This is a hard saying for many Christians to accept, because it appears at first glance that Jesus is saying, “I preach in parables so they won’t be forgiven.” And we wonder, isn’t the whole point of Jesus’ ministry to forgive sins? Is this a contradiction? What is going on here?
Well, if we know our Bibles well, we know that Jesus is giving us a quotation here from the book of Isaiah, specifically Isaiah 6. There are also allusions here to Jeremiah 5:21.
In Isaiah 6, God commissions Isaiah to be a prophet. And then for 50+ years, Isaiah is going to preach repentance and forgiveness and the word of the Lord to Israel, He will be sowing seed.
Now think about the history of Israel at this time (700 years before Christ), do they listen to him? Mostly not. Eighteen years into his ministry and the northern kingdom falls to Assyria, they are taken into exile. A few generations later (while Jeremiah is preaching) and the southern kingdom falls to Babylon, and Judah is taken into exile.
So the purpose of Isaiah’s ministry (and really all the prophets of this time) is to warn a stubborn and rebellious people of God’s covenant promise. A promise you remember that rewarded obedience, and punished disobedience (Deut. 28, Lev. 26).
And so the prophet’s job was to preach that covenant of grace, which meant that anyone who repents, anyone who returns to the LORD will be forgiven and saved. That is a genuine promise held out to them, and in the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah that meant being preserved as a remnant despite Assyria and then Babylon conquering them.
So Jesus quotes from Isaiah 6 to identify himself and the nation, as being in the same situation as before. Jesus is the prophet, the people have disobeyed, judgment is coming, but forgiveness is offered to all who repent.
Listen to Isaiah 6:9-13 from which Jesus quotes: And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ “Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.” Then I said, “Lord, how long?” And He answered: “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, The houses are without a man, The land is utterly desolate, The Lord has removed men far away, And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. But yet a tenth will be in it, And will return and be for consuming, As a terebinth tree or as an oak, Whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump.”
Notice again the mention of seed. Now remember that Isaiah is being sent to a people that is already blind and deaf and under judgment. Like Pharaoh, they have hardened their heart as stone, and so although the word comes to them, it does not take root. The truth only further removes any excuse and thus increases their guilt.
This is exactly what Jesus just experienced for three chapters. He has been preaching the gospel of the kingdom, doing miraculous works of healing and exorcism, and yet the Jerusalem scribes accuse Him of breaking the sabbath and blasphemy (both of which are capital crimes), the Pharisees and Herodians are plotting to murder him.
So what do you do when the authorities have your phone tapped, when they are going through your emails, reading your text messages, trying to find dirt on you. Well, you start speaking in code. Or in Jesus’ case, you preach in parables. So that “seeing they may see, but not perceive; and hearing they may hear, but not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.”
Jesus preaches in parables to further harden an unworthy and hard-hearted people. He has a mixed crowd with mixed motives in front of him, and therefore parables are how he can give the truth to some, while concealing it from others. And here, Jesus is just continuing to do what God has always done.
As it says in Proverbs 25:2, “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: But the honor of kings is to search it out.”
Or as Proverbs 23:9 says, “Speak not in the ears of a fool: For he will despise the wisdom of thy words.”
Parables are how God likes to separate the proud from the humble, the meek from the fool who he thinks he knows-it-alls.
Now it is most certainly true that God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). But what Scripture also teaches us is that God has a greater desire for something else, namely “that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy” (Rom. 9:23), and “that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth” (Rom. 9:17).
More than universal salvation, more than converting every fool and hard-hearted sinner (which he could do), God desires the revelation of his power and justice and grace and glory for those who are vessels of mercy. And that is ultimately why Jesus preaches in parables, so that the reprobate be further hardened and receive justice, while His elect are mercifully gathered into the kingdom.
Parables are a vehicle for God’s grace and glory to be put on display.
Now with that as the motive for teaching in parables, let us see now how Jesus interprets his own parable.
Verses 13-14
13 And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables? 14 The sower soweth the word.
So first the seed is identified as “the word.” And this word is sown or proclaimed indiscriminately, it falls everywhere. Jesus teaches the multitudes.
But notice that in the rest of this interpretation, it is people who are sown.
Verses 15-20
15 And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.16 And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground…
So Jesus identifies the seed as both word and the people sown. We are then told that the soil represents people’s hearts. So now we have seed and soil that represent different kinds of people.
And there are four different kinds of seed or soil who receive the word into themselves.
I’ll summarize these four groups for us (from verses 15-20):
1. There is the Wayside Seed/Soil. These are those who Satan devours immediately like birds of the air. They hear the Word but pay little attention to it. They forget the sermon as soon as they walk out the door.
2. There is the Stony Seed/Soil. These are those who have no root in themselves, they are what we might call the “surface or nominal Christians.” They are the barnacles of the church.
They get excited when they first hear the Word, they might even get baptized and join the church, but as soon as things get a little difficult, they fall away.Covid happens and they stop attending. Someone they love dies, a divorce happens in the family, someone sins against them and they are outraged that God would ever allow such a thing, and they lose their faith.
Maybe you’ve met some of these shallow Christians before.
3. There is the Thorny Seed/Soil. These are those people who think they love Jesus but actually love the world more. They like all this talk about the kingdom, they want to be the head and not the tail, they want to take dominion, and have a lot of kids. But it turns out that they just want the accoutrements of the kingdom without the King himself. They want God to serve their dreams and ambitions instead of surrendering all of their dream and ambitions to Him.
For the thorny seed/soil, there is no real love for the Lord Jesus in their hearts, just a desire for his stuff.
4. There is the Fruitful Seed/Soil. These are those who hear the Word, receive the Word, and obey the Word. And in so doing, they become one with Jesus Christ. And because Christ is the fruitful vine, who has life in Himself, all who abide in Him become exceedingly fruitful, bearing thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold harvest.
This is what all of us should want to be: good, fertile, fruitful soil, that receives the implanted Word with meekness and bears the fruit of the Spirit.
So that is the mystery of the kingdom, it’s the word planted inside of people, and if it is received, it changes them.There isOne Message, One Gospel, but four different kinds of people who respond to it.
In Jesus day, this parable was first and foremost an assessment of the multitudes, of the nation. God had promised by the prophets to replant Israel like seed in the promised land. A remnant would return from exile and flourish again, this is what happens in the time between the Testaments. The Jews set up synagogues throughout the empire, they rebuild the temple, they win back some independence, but all is not well in Jerusalem. There are thorns, and birds, and devils, and stony hearts amongst them.
And so the coming of Jesus is really the coming of God to inspect His vineyard.
As Jesus says in John 9:39, “For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.”
Jesus comes to judge how Abraham’s seed is doing, and this parable is the first diagnostic Jesus gives them. And He wants them to reflect and consider what kind of seed they are being, what kind of heart is inside of them?
And this of course is what God wants us to ask ourselves today.
How have you been hearing the sermon? Is there fruit in your life? Is there love for the Lord Jesus in your heart? Do you really love the King who died and rose to save His people?
Conclusion
It says in Hebrews 4:2, “For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”
God’s promise of fruitfulness is offered to all who will hear with faith. So believe what God says when His Word is preached, and in due time, an abundant harvest will come.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: The Unforgivable Sin (Mark 3:19b-35)

The Unforgivable SinSunday, June 4th, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 3:19b-35
And they went into an house. 20 And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. 21 And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself. 22 And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils. 23 And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. 27 No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house. 28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: 29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: 30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.
31 There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. 32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. 33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? 34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for giving us Your Holy Spirit that guides us into the truth. We ask for illumination now as we consider some hard and challenging words from the Lord Jesus, we ask for help in His name, Amen.
Introduction
This morning we come to what St. Augustine considered to be one of the most challenging questions in all of Scripture, which is, “What is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?” Various and diverse answers have been given to this question, and we will tackle that later in the sermon. But lest that distract us from the bigger and more central issue here, let me remind you of the context that Mark is setting up.
Last week we saw that Jesus called to himself The Twelve Disciples. These twelve disciples are the reconstitution of the twelve tribes of Israel, and they stand in contrast to the nation of Israel which has in many respects become apostate.
This apostasy is especially evident in that everywhere Jesus goes in the Holy Land is infested with demons. Rather than coming to a nation that is full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus comes to a people that is sick and dying and oppressed by evil spirits.
And so the calling of The Twelve is the formation of a new society. It is the beginning of a new Israel, a new nation, a new house, and kingdom of God. This is the beginning of what will eventually be called the Christian Church. And as we see in Revelation 21, the twelve apostles are the twelve foundations upon which the New Jerusalem is built.
So Mark is setting up Jesus and the Twelve as one community, One House, and now he is going to contrast that house with two rival communities, or two rival houses. So what are those two rivals in our text?
1) Jesus’ friends and family, or what we might call “The Natural House”
2) The religious leaders of Jerusalem, who represent the Temple (God’s House) back in Jerusalem.
And the question before Jesus’ audience is really the same question before all of us today: Which House are you in? Which House has your highest loyalty and love? Who is in that House? Who has your utmost affections and total allegiance?
That is the theme of this section, Conflict Between Rival Houses, so let us walk through our text together and see how this conflict plays out.
Verse 19b
And they went into an house.
So far in Mark’s Gospel, anytime Jesus calls a new disciple to follow him, the next thing he does is go into a house to eat with them.
He did this first after calling the four fishermen, he went into Peter’s house.
He did this a second time after calling Levi the tax collector, he went into Levi’s house.
And now this is the third time that he calls more disciples and then goes into a house to eat.
We presume that this is Peter’s house again, which is where we have already seen many miraculous healings and exorcisms, because it says in verse 20…
Verse 20
And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread.
Earlier the multitudes were pressing into this house, there was nowhere to sit, and Jesus healed a paralytic who was let through the ceiling. And now Jesus and the disciples come down from the mountain, they are hungry, but they cannot so much as eat bread.
Being with Jesus is very inconvenient to attending to the normal bodily needs of eating and sleeping. These routines are constantly interrupted by multitudes who are clamoring for healing and help from Jesus.
Verse 21
21 And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.
Here, friends refers to Jesus old companions or family members. Later we will see his mother and brothers and sisters calling unto him from outside the house, but here we are told that these friends “went out to lay hold on him.”
The idea here is that they think Jesus has gone crazy. He gets baptized by the John the Baptist, and the next thing we know, He thinks He is God.
And in every other case, this would be a very good and reasonable thing to do. They want to restrain Jesus and keep him from embarrassing himself or bringing shame upon the family. Or perhaps they want to protect from the crowds and the controversy that is following him, he might end up dead. They are doing what concerned friends and family naturally do.
Of course, in this case they are committing the sin of unbelief. This is a lack of faith that Jesus is God, or that He knows what He is doing, and it will not be until after his Resurrection that their eyes are opened to the truth.
So this is the first of the rival houses that Jesus must contend with: The natural family with its natural concerns for his natural wellbeing.
Now before we see how Jesus responds to the Natural House, Mark inserts a second rival house into the narrative. And Mark likes to use this “sandwich structure” in His gospel where he begins a line of thought, what we might call “The A Story” or “Primary Plotline” and then he interrupts it with a subplot or “B Story” which when completed will give us a new perspective or reference point to understand and resolve the “A Story.”
Also, to make things more complicated, sometimes within that subplot (or “B Story”), Jesus tells a parable, so that now you have a story within a story within a story, and it kind of telescopes to teach us at different levels.
That is what we will see for the first time here, and again throughout this gospel.
So what is the “A Story?” The “A Story” is that Jesus and his disciples are in the house, they can’t eat because of the multitude and his friends/family have come to kidnap/rescue him (take him back to Nazareth). Then in Verse 22, we have the second rival house introduced.
Verse 22
22 And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
This is the Religious House, and these scribes are not local Galilean scribes or priests from Capernaum, these are the scribal elite, the most learned men who come from the big city of Jerusalem. The modern equivalent might be to say that these are the scribes who studied at Oxford and Cambridge and are present on behalf of the King of England. They have a massive amount of clout because of who they are and what they represent. This is a retinue of sorts from Jerusalem.
The charge they make against Jesus is that He is himself possessed by the devil, and not just any devil but by the prince of the devils Beelzebub, which as we will see shortly is another name for Satan.
How does Jesus respond to this accusation?
Verses 23-27
23 And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end. 27 No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.
So Jesus’ clapback is that the scribes are poor theologians. In their envy they have overlooked the basic truth that Satan cannot cast out Satan, and if such a thing were possible, the kingdom of darkness would implode (there wouldn’t be all these devils in the promised land.
Satan and his demons are united in their opposition against God, and therefore the kingdom of darkness must be plundered by someone outside of it. And so Jesus likens his ministry to someone entering a strong man’s house, binding the strong man, and taking all his stuff.
In this parable, Jesus is the stronger man, who kicks down the door of Satan’s house, binds him, and plunders his goods. From the beginning of Jesus ministry, this is what He’s been doing: fighting Satan, casting out devils, and plundering their house.
What are the “goods” or “spoils of Satan’s house? Theyare the souls of men. Men who as Paul says in Colossians 1:13, “have been delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Healing is one thing, but the forgiveness of sins is what actually transfers a person from Satan’s House to Jesus’ House.
The Devil is a strong man and he has a kingdom, but Jesus is a much stronger man, who comes with an infinitely more powerful kingdom, and he transferring men into it.
In the parallel passage of this same scene in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus adds, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come upon you” (Matt. 12:28).
So this entourage of accusing scribes from Jerusalem is refuted. Jesus reasons that no house that is divided against itself can continue to stand (unless someone stronger comes along), and even the scribes had to admit that Satan’s kingdom was still very present among them, perhaps in their minds most exemplified by their Roman overlords.
There is also here in Jesus’ parable a prophetic warning to these scribes. And that is that the temple in Jerusalem was itself a divided house. The high priesthood was controlled by the Sadducees (who were heretics), while the Pharisees were the dominant teachers and rulers of the people. And after the resurrection of Jesus, these divisions will become even more acute (as Paul will use to his advantage in Acts). Jerusalem will eventually be destroyed by civil war; they will burn their own food supply and light their own temple on fire.
So Jesus warns them, “a house divided cannot stand,” and any scribe with a little bit of self-awareness would know that that was a true description of Jerusalem and the house there.
Jesus then issues a more serious warning if they want to avoid that future destruction.
Verses 28-30
28 Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: 29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation: 30 Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.
So here we come now that difficult question: What is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit?
To answer this let us start with what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not.
First notice that Jesus says, “all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men,” and this includes blaspheming Jesus who is the Son of Man, he is God.
Under Mosaic law, blasphemy was a capital crime, and you could be put to death for doing so.
Leviticus 24:16 says, “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.”
So blasphemy under God’s law was not only a sin, it was a crime, and it is this charge of blasphemy that the scribes and Pharisees are going to use against Jesus to crucify him. Jesus is claiming to be God, that is blasphemy, therefore he must die.
Jesus of course knows that this is going to happen, and he declares to them now, that even this sin will forgiven them. What does Jesus say from the cross? “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
So someone could blaspheme God, they could curse Him, or even crucify Him, and Jesus says, “All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and [even] blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme.”
This is further proved by the example of the Apostle Paul, who says in 1 Timothy 1:13, “though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief…”
Notice that in both Jesus’ prayer on the cross, and in Paul’s confession, it is blasphemy done in ignorance that is forgiven. This is key to understanding the kind of blasphemy that cannot be forgiven.
Let me now give you the three basic interpretive options as to what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is, and note that these are not mutually exclusive, all three of these could be what Scripture is referring to.
Option 1. It is the literal verbal utterance of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This view was held by Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose, Jerome, and Chrysostom.
Under this interpretation, this sin is what the scribes are doing in our passage, calling the work of the Holy Spirit a work of Satan, or calling the spirit that is within Jesus “an unclean spirit.” To say that and mean it, is to blaspheme in an unforgivable way.
Another possible example of this sin would be Ananias & Sapphira lying to the Holy Spirit, and thus they drop dead for their crime. That could be a form of blasphemy against the Spirit.
Option 2. St. Augustine’s view was that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is persistent unrepentance.
This would include blasphemy as described in Option 1, but it adds the condition that they willfully resist and reject the Holy Spirit until they die. In support of this, we might point to the fact that Jesus says these scribes are, “in danger of eternal fire” and therefore although they are at present blaspheming the Holy Spirit, it will only be unforgiveable if they continue to do so.
The Apostle Paul would be a good example then (under this option) of someone who blasphemed the Holy Spirit by persecuting Jesus and the church, but then by God’s grace, was brough to repentance. Paul did not persist in this blasphemy.
Option 3. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the sin of malice or contempt against the Holy Spirit’s goodness. We might call this the sin of apostasy or hard-heartedness.
This would again include sins like Option 1 (literal verbal blasphemy) but adds the condition that it is sin without ignorance. It is the sin of the devils to knowingly call good evil and evil good, to call God Satan and Satan God. And therefore just like the fallen angels had no opportunity for forgiveness, so also those who commit the same sin as the angels.
Summary. So you can see there is some overlap in these three options but each of them nuance it in a different way.
I think what it ultimately comes down to is determining whether or not these scribes are actually committing that sin or just in danger of committing that sin. Good arguments could be made in both directions, and I’ll leave that for you to ponder.
My position is a blend of Options 2 and 3, both of which include but qualify Option 1.
I believe blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is willful, knowledgeable (without ignorance), rejection of the Holy Spirit.
This would include verbal blasphemous utterances like the scribes are doing here, but I think these scribes are partially ignorant and therefore only in danger of committing the unforgivable sin.
One of the reasons I think this is the case is because we see in the book of Acts that many scribes and Pharisees do repent and become Christians who were formerly opposed to Him (including Paul).
Acts 6:7 says, “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
So what Jesus says on the cross about God forgiving those who crucified Him, comes to pass at Pentecost when Peter preaches to the very people who murdered him, and 3,000 are cut to the heart, forgiven, and baptized.
There is also a historical element to this kind of sin in that those who continued to resist the Holy Spirit after Jesus was resurrected are now without excuse and are no longer ignorant of His claims to deity.
So while Jesus’ identity was somewhat veiled to these scribes, and they blasphemed God not knowing who Jesus was, after the resurrection and ascension and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, they can no longer plead the same ignorance.
So that’s my understanding of what the unforgivable sin is, and a common question that people then ask is: Can people still commit this sin today? Yes, I think so.
However, some people wonder if because they once thought or said the words “I curse you Holy Spirit” that they are therefore unsavable. Is that true?
The short answer is no. I don’t think a momentary thought or blasphemy like that is unforgivable.
The longer answer is that the only person who can commit this kind of sin is someone who has real light and knowledge of God such that they are without ignorance. And then knowing who the Holy Spirit is, they consciously reject Him or depart from the faith. Essentially, they refuse salvation, harden their heart and God gives them what they want (separation from Him, both now and for eternity).
Whatever your understanding of this sin is, it is playing with fire to go anywhere near it. So don’t blaspheme at all. Get as far away from hell as possible.
Returning to our text, Mark brings a conclusion to the A Story in verses 31-35, as we see how Jesus responds to his family.
Verses 31-35
31 There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. 32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. 33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? 34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! 35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.
The scene here is Jesus is in the house with the Twelve, while his family is outside the house calling for him. This difference of place illustrates what Jesus makes explicit in words.
Who is Jesus’ true family? Who has the deeper connection to him?
Is it his mother Mary, and his brothers and sisters who grew up with him? Jesus says it is “whosoever shall do the will of God, that is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Jesus is drawing the boundaries of the New Jerusalem. He is defining what makes someone with Him or against Him.
Do you do the will of God? Then you are Jesus’ family, you are in His house.
As radical as this might seem to pit the natural family against the spiritual family, Jesus is not introducing anything new here. The Ten Commandments already put worship of God and loyalty to Him as more important than honoring father and mother and the rest.
Jesus is not being rude to his family or dishonoring them by saying this. He is restating what God has always commanded: that worshipping the true God and dwelling with Him, takes precedent over everything else, even the natural family.
When God called Abraham, he left his idolatrous family behind.
When Jesus called James and John to follow him, they left their father in the ship with the servants.
In Luke’s gospel we are told that when Jesus himself was a boy, and Mary and Joseph were looking for him he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
For Jesus, that which is eternal takes precedent over the temporal. And it is in this sense that the waters of baptism are thicker than blood. Commitment to Christ and the household of faith, may mean at times leaving your unbelieving parents behind. It might mean you are rejected or disowned by your siblings or family for what you believe.
But if you do the will of God, and are loyal to Jesus and His House, then you are joined to an eternal fellowship of saints. A fellowship that begins in this life and continues into eternity. A fellowship that is with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose glory we shall behold and enjoy forever.
That is the family and household that Jesus invites you to join. And so do the will of God, repent and believe, for in Jesus alone is the forgiveness of sins, and he delights to forgive all who will come to him.

Sermon: The Twelve (Mark 3:7-19)

The TwelveSunday, May 28th, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 3:7-19
7 But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea, 8 And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him. 9 And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they should throng him. 10 For he had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues. 11 And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. 12 And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known. 13 And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. 14 And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, 15 And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils: 16 And Simon he surnamed Peter; 17 And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder: 18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, 19 And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for giving us this gospel to teach us who You are, and to show us what it means to be a disciple of Your Son, the Lord Jesus. We ask now for your Holy Spirit as we consider divine truth, and we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Introduction
Mark 3:7 is the beginning of a new section in Mark’s Gospel, this brings us into the second phase of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee.
The way that most commentators outline the book is to put Mark 1:1 thru 3:6 as Jesus early ministry in Galilee (so all the previous sermons we’ve had fall under that heading), and then from our text this morning, Mark 3:7 thru 6:13 is Jesus later ministry in Galilee.So we are beginning that second half of his Galilean ministry, and this is all setting up what will eventually be his journey to Jerusalem to die. Jesus is showing us the way of the Lord, and that way leads to enthronement via death on a cross outside Jerusalem.
So Mark wants us to pay attention to these various geographic and location markers because of the associations we should have with them having memorized the Old Testament.
Jesus starts in the wilderness where John the Baptist is preaching, and then he comes into the coastal regions of Galilee, teaching and healing people in the synagogues. And this morning we will see Jesus escaping to the sea and then ascending up a mountain. So we should be jogging our memories now for the kinds of things that happen on the sea and on the tops of mountains. What significant events happen there?
Now to remind us of the context, we saw last week that Jesus had a showdown with the Pharisees over Sabbath laws, and Jesus having won that battle, his opponents, the Pharisees and the Herodians immediately go to plot Jesus’ destruction.
So what we have in our text this morning, is Jesus departure from the synagogue and then he travels to two different places:
1. First in verses 7-12, he withdraws/flees to the sea He has a boat that is his floating pulpit, to keep the crowds from thronging him.
2. And then in verses 13-19, he goes up onto a mountain to ordain twelve disciples.
So from the Synagogue to the Sea to the Mountain, that’s the movement here.
Verse 7
7 But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea…
The word for withdrew here is the same word (ἀνεχώρησεν) that is used to describe David when he withdraws or flees from King Saul.
1 Samuel 19:10 says, “And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin; but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and he smote the javelin into the wall: and David fled (ἀνεχώρησεν) and escaped that night.”
So like David, Jesus has the current ruling authorities seeking to murder him, and so naturally he does what David does and flees/withdraws himself. In this case Jesus flees with his disciples to the sea.
Verses 7-8
…and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea, 8 And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him.
Here, Mark lists seven different regions from which people are flocking to Jesus. First you have Galilee, Judaea, and Jerusalem which constitute what we might call “Israel proper.” Then in the south you have Idumaea (Edom), to the east you have the region Beyond Jordan (eastern side of the Jordan river), and then up north there are the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon.
All of these places, with the exception of Idumaea, are places that Jesus will eventually travel to later in this gospel. However, the focus here is on the vast extent from which people are coming to see this Jesus.
It is also likely that this mention of seven regions is meant to call to mind the original conquest of that land under Joshua. Paul says in Acts 13:19, “And when God had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot.”
So the same land that God once conquered under Joshua and gave to Israel, Jesus (the new Joshua) is reconquering that same land by his ministry. Joshua conquered with sword and army, Jesus conquers with His word and disciples. That is one of the parallels here.
One of the other major connections is that this is the same thing that happened to David after he fled from Saul.
In 1 Samuel 22 we read, “David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down thither to him. (we will see Jesus’ family coming out to him next week) 2 And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them: and there were with him about four hundred men.”
So David as a king in exile, with Saul seeking to kill him, has a multitude of followers (sinners and debtors) that he becomes captain over. Likewise, Jesus has far more than 400 men coming out to him, and they are coming from the farthest reaches of Israel, and even beyond its borders.
Now there are two big questions that hang in the air as we continue thru Mark’s gospel:
1. Who is this Jesus?
2. Are you with Him or against Him?
The proclamation of the gospel and the testimony of Jesus’ works, forces people to take sides. This was true then and it is true now. But so far in Mark’s gospel, it is only the demons who seem to really know that Jesus is the Son of God, and they are of course set against Him.
And so among these multitudes who are coming to Jesus, there is still a big question mark over why they are seeking him. Are they traveling all these miles for mere physical healing? Or for the novelty of a prophet, to see a worker of miracles? Or are they seeking him because He is God in the flesh, the one who has the power the forgive sins?
Mark wants us to ask this same question of ourselves. Why are we here? Why do we follow Jesus? What are you hoping to get from all this?
If God were to suddenly appear to you like he did to Solomon and said, “Ask what I shall give thee,”what would you say in return? What do you want?
If God were to say to you, “You have served me well, what reward wilt thou have?” What would your response be?
Well, the answer that we all want to grow up into being able to say honestly is, “Nothing but you O Lord.” As it says in Psalm 73:25, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”
That is what a real disciple wants, and that is the measure of a true Christian. We want God because in Him is everything (life, joy, love, wisdom, blessedness, satisfaction, resurrection from the dead). As Peter will later say to Jesus,“Where else can we go, you have the words of life.”
So what do you want from God? Why do these multitudes flock to Jesus? Do they really know who He is?
Verses 9-10
9 And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they should throng him. 10 For he had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues.
Here the presenting reason for their seeking of Jesus and trying to touch him, is for healing from plagues and various diseases. They are still seeking him primarily for his power to heal their bodies.
Verses 11-12
11 And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. 12 And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known.
Here again we see that the Holy Land is full of unclean spirits and devils. Just as King Saul was plagued by an evil spirit, so also the rulers of Jesus’ day. If you read Josephus, the Jewish historian, he tells in detail how insane the Herods were. You can think Joe Biden is off his rocker, but the Herods were far worse.
So Jesus is cleansing the land of its impurities and that means healing the sick and casting out demons. We’ve already seen him do this on a smaller scale in the first 3 chapters, and now those waters of cleansing that Jesus carries about in his bosom are growing deeper and flowing farther. The power of the Holy Spirit is cleansing the land as these multitude come to him.
So that’s the first section of our text, Jesus on the sea, and now he ascends a mountain.
Verse 13
13 And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him.
This is the setup for the ordination of the twelve apostles. The location is significant because it is upon the mountain that God often speaks, reveals, and commissions His servants.
In Exodus 19:20 we read, “And the Lord came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.”
When God is on Mount Sinai, only those whom he calls is allowed to ascend, and if anyone crossed that boundary, they were to be put to death.
Exodus 19:12 says, “And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death.”
So here in verse 13, we have Jesus, we have God on a mountain top, and it says he, “calleth unto him whom he would.”
This is the great offense and scandal of God’s grace. God loves some people more than others. God loves everyone insofar as He created them and gives them their being, and even dies for them such that anyone who believes may be saved (1 John 2:2), but as Jesus says in John 6:44, “no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” Or as God says in Malachi 1:2 (which Paul cites in Romans 9:13), “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”
God loves everyone but in different proportions, in different ways, and to different degrees. So while God loves Esau as his good creation, He does not love him with the same covenantal-electing love that He has for Jacob, and thus that lesser love is called hate by comparison.
It is in a similar sense that Jesus says in Luke 14:26, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
God loves some people (and some nations) more than others. This is really the whole story of the Bible: God looks out a world that is composed exclusively of sinners who deserve damnation, and then He calls unto Himself whoever He will: Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Paul, etc.
And if that rubs us the wrong way, that God chooses some and doesn’t choose others, well, all I can say to you is what Scripture says: that you have far too high an estimation of yourself, and far too low an estimation of God.
What does the Apostle Paul say to those who feel that God is unfair to choose some and not others, he says,“Who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” (Romans 9:20-21).
God is free to love whoever He wants however He wants, and none of us deserves that love in the slightest. We call it grace for a reason (Rom. 11:6).
Romans 9:15-16 says, “For God saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. 16 So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that sheweth mercy.”
The calling of the disciples, like the calling of salvation, is as Mark tells us here in verse 13, Jesus “calleth unto him whom he would.”
And what is their response to this call? “and they came unto him.”
In verses 14-15 we are then given the purpose for which Jesus ordains these disciples.
Verses 14-15
14 And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, 15 And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils.
Of these four purposes for which Jesus ordains The Twelve, it is not surprising that they are ordained to preach, to heal, and to cast out demons. That is something we have come to expect. But notice what the first purpose is for which Jesus ordains them, “that they should be with him.”
The school of discipleship is first and foremost to simply be with Jesus.These twelve men are going to travel with Jesus, eat with Jesus, talk to Jesus, ask Jesus questions along the way, follow Jesus wherever he goes. And by spending all that quantity time and quality time together, they will eventually be equipped so that three chapters from now, Jesus can send them out two by two to preach the gospel (Mark 6:7).
The training for ministry is to be with Jesus. And when you spend time with Jesus, it will be evident to others.
As it says in Acts 4:12, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.”
Jesus turns fishermen and tax collectors into preachers and writers of Divine Things. Their Greek might not be the most polished, it may read somewhat crudely, but as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Cor. 2:4-5, “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
The power of God and the demonstration of the Spirit, comes to these apostles thru being with Jesus. And although none of us are able to physically follow Jesus around Galilee today, what we do have are these four gospel accounts that allow us to truly encounter the real and living Jesus. And when we hear His Word by faith, in the Spirit, truly we are with Him.
Finally, in verses 16-19, we have the listing of the Twelve Apostles.
Verses 16-19
16 And Simon he surnamed Peter; 17 And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder: 18 And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, 19 And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him.
Of these twelve names, we are told almost nothing about seven of them. With the exception of Judas and the first four disciples, none of these names will occur again in Mark’s gospel.
What little we are told here is that…
Simon is renamed Peter, which means rock, and this will come to characterize him as both being at times a stone of stumbling that needs to be rebuked, but eventually a firm foundation upon which the church can be built.
James and John are surnamed “Sons of Thunder,” and this also likely has a double meaning. At times they will be overzealous, seeking honor for themselves (to sit at Jesus left hand and right hand), and even wanting to call down fire from heaven. But after Pentecost we see them mature. James will be the first apostolic martyr (Acts 12:1-2), and John will thunder the love of God in his gospel and epistles.
But Mark’s focus is not to give us a biographical sketch of the disciples, as interesting as that would be, Mark’s focus is that Jesus is reconstituting the twelve tribes of Israel in these twelve men.
Just as God gathered the twelve tribes around Sinai and later around the tabernacle, so Jesus gathers twelve men around Himself. Jesus is the mountain of God; Jesus is the tabernacle and center of the world. And these Twelve Apostles are the beginning of a New Israel and the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
When John sees the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21, it says, “And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”
Jesus in calling The Twelve, is starting to build that heavenly city, and that building project continues down to this day.
And so as we celebrate our two-year anniversary as a church, let us remember the blood that was spilled so that we could be called to the top of the mountain. Let us remember that special love that God has shown unto us, by calling us elect in Christ. And may grow to be able to say with the Psalmist, “there is nothing on earth that I desire besides You, O Lord.”
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

2,000 Years of Church History (In Less Than An Hour)

Two Year Anniversary
A Brief Church History
May 23rd, 2023
 
Introduction
On August 24th of 2012, Joe Stout contacted Dave Hatcher (pastor of Trinity Church in Kirkland) about starting a church in Lewis County. It would not be until May 23rd, of 2021 (9 years later), that the church would be formally constituted. Two years later, and God has given us a place to worship, a Christian school, a congregation of about 120, with 91 official members (46 adults, and 49 children).
Right now in America, the majority of churches are composed of 75 people or less (that’s the median congregation size), and so for God to give us the growth we have had in just two years is really a great blessing. And we thank God for that.
 
Now you all know the 5th commandment. The 5th commandment is “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” And this commandment applies not only to individuals but also to groups of individuals, to institutions, to tribes, to nations, and especially to churches. God commands His people to remember and even memorialize certain great acts in history.
And so just as it was important for the Hebrews to tell their children the story of the Exodus and the 10 plagues, and God’s miraculous deliverance every year at Passover, so also it is important for us to remember the many saints who have gone before us, without which, we would not be here, without which, none of us would be Christians.
It is the grace of God that we heard the gospel and there are innumerable people who we have never met that made that hearing of the Word possible. The very fact that we all have the Bible on our smartphones, and access to Scripture and books and solid doctrine at our fingertips, is almost impossible to explain to a Christian living in the 1st What’s a phone? What’s the internet? What is electricity? What’s a podcast? What is YouTube?
 
It says in Jude 1:3, “Beloved…it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” That “contending for the faith once delivered” is a task that the Holy Spirit has empowered the church to do for 2,000 years. And every single one of us will one day be able to trace in unbroken succession, how that faith was handed down to us across the centuries. One day, in the New Heavens and New Earth, we will get to meet and shake hands with and hug those people who God used as his instruments to bring about our eternal salvation. As my old pastor is fond of saying, “God loves to use crooked sticks to draw straight lines,” and that really is the story of church history. It is messy, it is complicated, and often both sides in a dispute are wrong. But nevertheless, the church of Christ continues to prevail.
 
So with that, let us trace our family lineage from the year 33 AD to present day 2023 AD. We’ll start at the beginning. And because we are covering so much ground in so little time, I am going to divide that 2,000 years of history into 4 basic sections to help us keep track of where we are in the timeline. This is of course an oversimplification, but I think it’s a helpful way of dividing time:
 
Four Eras of Church History
The Early Church (first 500 years of church history, from the apostles in 33 AD thru the Fall of the Roman empire in 476 AD)
The Middle Ages (1,000 years of Christendom in various forms, roughly 500-1500 AD)
The Reformation/Early Modern Era (1500-1750, from Luther to the birth of the USA)
Late Modernity to Contemporary Era (1750-2023, from birth of USA to now)
 
#1 - The Early Church
In Acts 1:8, Jesus says to His disciples, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and thus began the age of the apostolic church.
The book of Acts is our earliest narrative of church history, and in it we see the spread of the gospel from Jerusalem and Judea, then into Samaria (because of persecution), and then to uttermost parts of the earth. Acts begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome.
In less than 40 years, the gospel would reach the ends of the earth, such that the Apostle Paul could say in Colossians 1:23 (60 AD), that the gospel was preached “to every creature under heaven.” And in Romans 1:8 (57 AD), that the faith of the Romans was spoken of “throughout the whole world.”
This of course is what Jesus prophesied in the Olivet discourse of Matthew 24 and Mark 13, that “this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world (οικουμενη) as a witness to all the nations (πασιν τοις εθνεσιν), and then the end will come.” The end referred to here was the destruction of Jerusalem and the Old World in 70 AD.
So within one generation of Christ’s death and resurrection, the gospel went everywhere. However, because of persecution and various wars, there are very few written records from the years immediately following the apostles.
It is not until Eusebius (260-339 AD) and the rise of Constantine that we have the first written history of the church. Eusebius is considered the father of church history, and already he is writing some 200 years after the death of the apostles.
 
Key Events - What happened in those first 500 years?  A lot!
Most importantly, the doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation were hammered out.
We have from this era the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed (381), The definition of Chalcedon (451), and the Athanasian Creed (6th century), all of which deal with these doctrines.
The first 500 years of the church were spent defending and defining that Jesus is indeed God and then coming to grips with what that means about who God is as both One and Three. One divine essence in three subsistent relations, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
So much of what we take for granted as Christians was hard fought over, and many saints died to defend these truths.
The most notable theologians of this era, what we call the church fathers are as follows:
West
Ambrose of Milan (340-397)
Jerome (347-420)
Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
Gregory the Great (540-604)
East
Origen of Alexandria (185-254)
Athanasius of Alexandria (298-373)
Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390)
Basil of Caesarea (330-379)
John Chrysostom (347-407)
In terms of political significance, it was Constantine’s edict of toleration in 313 that made Christianity a publicly lawful religion in the empire. Constantine himself would later be baptized and converted to the true religion.
So our church holds to the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, and Definition of Chalcedon, and therefore we consider all of the church fathers I mentioned earlier as our spiritual ancestors. That doesn’t mean we agree with every single thing they said, but it does mean you owe them honor as building upon the foundation of the Apostles, and defending the most important doctrines of our religion in the face of great opposition and adversity. It is these saints, theologians, and pastors that contended for the faith, so that it could be handed down to the next generation.
So of the three major divisions in the church today: Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, something we share in common is that we are all Trinitarian Nicene Chalcedonian Christians. We all hold in high regard these fathers in the faith, and trace our lineage back to them. This is an era before any of those later divisions took place.
This leads us to the Middle Ages where you have both the rise of Christendom and the first major split within the Nicene church.
 
#2 – The Middle Ages
The Middle Ages could be further subdivided into Early, High, and Late.
Early Middle Ages (476-800, the fall of the Roman empire to the beginning of the “Holy Roman Empire” under Charlemagne, who was crowned by Pope Leo III)
During this time, you have the rise of Islam and the Arab Empire.
High Middle Ages (800-1300)
During this time you have the great East-West Schism of 1054, and this is where the Latin West and the Greek churches in the East (Byzantine Empire) divide over issues of church government, papal authority, and the filioque clause of the Nicene Creed. This was a division that had been growing for many years, but finally came to a head in 1054, and this is a division that remains today between what we now call Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.
It is here that Protestants can look back and see points of agreement and disagreement with both sides in this debate. So to give you a sense of some of the differences between East and West at this time:
The West did not allow priests to marry, whereas in the East almost all priests were married men. Here Protestants would side with the East.
The West used unleavened bread in communion, the East use leavened bread. Here Protestants can go either way since we think both are legitimate.
In baptism, the West had a diversity of legitimate modes of baptism (immersion, affusion, pouring, etc. and usually only once), whereas the East immerses people (even babies) three times in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here Protestants are divided, many Baptists require immersion, whereas the reformed (our church) believes all modes are legitimate.
The West taught the doctrine of purgatory and indulgences, whereas the East denied the existence of purgatory or some kind of “treasure of merits” that can be dispensed to saints. Protestants of course side with the East here.
The West added the filioque clause (“and from the Son”) to the Nicene Creed. This has implications for the doctrine of the Trinity and how you understand the procession of the Holy Spirit. The East rejected this addition on various grounds, some procedural (since it was not original) and some theological (denying the double procession of the Spirit). Here the Protestants are on the side of the West, as we retain it in our Creed.
And lastly, and most importantly, the West at this time made very exalted claims about the Pope of Rome and his primacy over the other bishops, claiming he had absolute authority over the entire church, the East of course rejected this and held that the five ancient patriarchates of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria together offered leadership to Christians. Here, the Protestants are on the side of the East.
You also have during this time on both sides, an increase in the usage of icons or images of Christ. And there were various iconoclastic controversies. This issue of images of Christ is going to come up again at the Protestant Reformation with the Reformers largely rejecting images as idolatrous.
Some of the other noteworthy events of this time were the Crusades, and also the invention of the university. Universities started as cathedral schools for training clergy, and so in 1096 you have the founding of the University of Oxford, which is the oldest English-speaking university in the world.
From these universities sprang some of the greatest theologians who ever lived, and the seeds were planted in them for what would become the reformation a few hundred years later.
The most important and influential theologians of the Middle Ages were:
John of Damascus (675-749)
Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)
Peter Lombard (1095-1160)
Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)
Late Middle Ages (1300-1520)
In the late Middle Ages, you have the beginning of the Renaissance (1350-1650) and Humanism, which revived the study of ancient texts, especially in their original languages (Greek, Hebrew, Latin, etc.).
The most important humanist for launching the Protestant reformation was a man named Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), and he was responsible for compiling, editing, and publishing the New Testament in the original Greek, and all this at the same time that Johannes Gutenberg’s (1400-1468) printing press was revolutionizing the way information was printed and disseminated.
Historians are fond of saying that “Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched.”
And so in the years leading up the Reformation, you had for the very first time in human history, the ability to mass produce identical texts, so that everyone could read the same thing at very little cost.
Prior to this point, books were very expensive to copy, and produce, because you needed a scribe to handwrite them. Now there is the arrival of a more standardized and stable text that more people could access.
This revolution in access to the Scriptures and their translation into other languages by Wyclif, Tyndale, Erasmus, and others, began to rock the boat of Western power structures, especially the Roman Catholic Church.
For example, in 1440 Lorenzo Valla showed that the Latin used in The Donation of Constantine was not that of the 4th century. This forged document had been used by the Roman Catholic church to claim supremacy and the power to appoint secular rulers in the West.
This debunking of a such a key authority helped to undermine trust in the papacy.
And this brings us to the next big split in the history of the church, and that is the various reformations of the 16th
 
#3 – Reformation & Early Modern Era
The reformation itself went through various phases. The first phase runs from 1517 to 1564, so from Martin Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses to the death of John Calvin.
1st Generation Reformers were people like Martin Luther (German), Ulrich Zwingli (Swiss), Martin Bucer (German), and Philip Melanchthon (German).
2nd Generation Reformers were people like John Calvin (French), Peter Marty Vermigli (Italian), and Heinrich Bullinger (Swiss).
After that first wave of reformers, the next phase was coping with the aftermath both politically and theologically of breaking with Rome, and this meant developing and defending Reformed Theology as the true and apostolic faith over against the errors and corruptions that had dominated the church for many years.
This theological development and articulation reaches a peak in 17th century as various confessions are drawn up, and this includes the original version of our church’s confession, The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646).
Our church uses the American version of the WCF (1788 AD) which makes a few minor changes, but on the whole, we are the direct theological descendants of the Westminster Divines.
Now here we have to talk a little inside baseball because what we call Protestantism today is really composed of a bunch of different regional churches that broke with Rome. And so while we have agreement with other Protestants in not accepting papal authority (we have that in common with the Eastern Orthodox), there are a whole host of other issues that we disagree on amongst ourselves, and that continues down to the present day.
For example, although we credit Luther with kicking off the Protestant Reformation, we have far more in common with someone like Ulrich Zwingli (the Swiss Reformer) who argued vigorously against Luther over Christology and the Lord’s Supper. So there is still to this day a Lutheran church that is Protestant like we are, but as Reformed Westminster Presbyterians, we have some major disagreements with them.
 
#4 – Late Modernity to Contemporary Era
Perhaps the biggest difference between our church and the churches of the reformation era is that we live in America.
The United States was shaped by a diversity of Protestant denominations (Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, etc.), and therefore the way we think about religion and government and the church is radically different from ages past, and this is in large part due to the forces of secularism.
Americans take for granted that all religions should be tolerated and treated equally. But this is really a novel idea in the history of the world, and one that is not actually possible to accomplish. There is always some supreme principle by which you organize and rule society, and secularism is the current false god of America.
So to situate our church then within that broader picture of church history, I want to give you a prioritized order in which we should identify ourselves to others.
I should note here that this should not be taken in the sense of being schismatic like the Apostle Paul warns about, “I am of Peter, I am of Paul, I am of Christ, etc.” but rather a way of communicating honestly about what we believe to people who ask.
So who are we as a church?
We are first and foremost Christians.
That is we believe in the same Apostles and Nicene Creed as present-day Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox do. We believe in the Lord Jesus and practice Trinitarian Baptism. And this would exclude heretical sects like Arians, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses who do not.
Second, we are Protestants.
That is together with all protestants (and EO) we reject the supremacy of the pope and his authority over us. That’s the “Protestant” part.
Third, we are Reformed Presbyterians.
The “Reformed” part refers to our doctrine as in line with the magisterial reformers (John Calvin, Westminster divines, etc.), and that is to distinguish us from the Lutherans, from the Anabaptists, the Methodists, and other “non-reformed” Protestants.
The “Presbyterian” part refers to our form of church government, which distinguishes us from those who believe in Episcopal church government (rule by bishops) as in Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodox on one side. And then Congregationalists and Baptists (rule by the congregation) on the other.
So as Reformed Presbyterians, we believe the church is rightly led and ruled by elders, not a pope nor by the congregation, and that is intended to provide both accountability amongst fellow church leaders (presbyters), and gives a court of appeal for the congregation in the case that one of the elders is out of line.
While church government is not something most American Christians think about, it’s actually one of the most important dividing lines between denominations and churches and how they are run.
So we are Christians, we are Protestants, and we are Reformed Presbyterians.
And the hope is that one day, these various labels will no longer be necessary because the church will have achieved far greater unity than we have now. We are praying and believing for the day when Jeremiah 31:34 comes to pass in full, which says, “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For they shall all know me, From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: For I will forgive their iniquity, And I will remember their sin no more.”
May God hasten that day!
 

Sermon: Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:18-3:6)

Lord of the SabbathSunday, May 21st, 2023Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Mark 2:18-3:6
18 And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? 19 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. 21 No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. 22 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.
23 And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. 24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful? 25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? 27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
3 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.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for giving us Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath. You are the God of eternal rest, of everlasting shalom, and we thank you for making us to lie down in green pastures and for leading us beside the still waters. We ask that you would now restore our souls, our bodies, and our minds, as we study Your Word, for we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.  
Introduction
Under the Old Covenant, God commanded Israel to feast and rejoice on a regular schedule. Every seventh day, every Sabbath, was a feast day in which the whole nation was to stop working, worship the Lord, and as Nehemiah said to the Jews, “Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10).
God commanded that every seventh day be a day of rejoicing, a day of feasting.And as if once a week was not enough, he then added to that weekly feast three annual festivals that lasted a whole week. Three extra weeks of what we would call “holidays.” So in the ancient Hebrew calendar, at least one fifth of the year involved some kind of religious festival. The God of the Old Testament is clearly a God of feasting.
Now if God commanded all these regular feasts, we might wonder if he also commanded any fasts, and if so how often?
Does anyone know how many days of fasting are commanded in the Old Testament? The answer is one.
There is only one day of fasting that was commanded in the Torah, and that was the Day of Atonement (Tishri the 10th), the tenth day of the seventh month, 10 days after the new civil year began, God says, “For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It shall be a sabbath of rest unto you, and ye shall afflict your souls, by a statute for ever” (Lev. 16:30-31).
The prophet Isaiah takes this “affliction of the soul” to refer to fasting in Isaiah 58, and this is the only regularly commanded day of fasting for Israel.
We see later in Israel’s history that the civil leaders had authority to proclaim a fast in times of national distress or emergency, and people were of course free to fast on non-feast days if they desired, but in terms of what God prescribed to the nation, He overwhelmingly commands feasting for over a fifth of the year, while fasting for only one day in the year, and that on the day of Atonement.
Now in our text this morning we have the beginning of various controversies that are going to follow Jesus for the rest of his earthly ministry. By now it is clear that Jesus is someone to be reckoned with, He is gaining in popularity, and with that popularity comes envy, jealousy, and false accusations from the ruling class.
Jesus is experiencing what any of us would experience if we were to say, run as a candidate for the presidency.If any of us were nominated to run for such a powerful office, prepare to have your political opponents going through everything you ever said or did to find dirt on you, and if they can’t find it, they will manufacture it.
This is exactly what happens to Jesus from the scribes and Pharisees, and those accusations begin around laws for the Sabbath. If the Pharisees can prove that Jesus has broken the Sabbath, then they win, they prove him to be a sinner and a fraud and therefore not the Messiah. And so in our text this morning we have three different scenes that revolve around what it means to observe the sabbath.
Outline
Verses 18-22 the people ask, “Why don’t Jesus’ disciples fast?”
Verses 23-28 there is a debate over “Whether Jesus’ disciples are breaking the sabbath?”
Verses 1-6 of chapter 3 take up the question, “What is lawful to do on the Sabbath?
Verse 18
18 And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not?
Now remember the context here. Jesus has just feasted with his new disciple Levi the tax collector and is eating and drinking with publicans and sinners. And that table fellowship and ministry to the spiritually sick (to whom he has come as physician) provokes the religious elite to question his methods.
And so they ask, “Why don’t your disciples fast like the rest of us?”
In Jesus day it was the custom for Pharisees to fast “twice a week” (Luke 18:12) on Mondays and Thursdays. And throughout the history of Israel, fasting was something you did as a sign of repentance and mourning for sin. Fasting was a way of forsaking earthly things, dying to the flesh, so that God might have favor upon you. In that sense, fasting is a very good thing.
The Pharisees knew rightly that the nation was under God’s judgment. It was the nation’s sins that had caused the exile and destruction of the first temple, and it was the nation’s sins that were presently keeping them from experiencing the blessings and prosperity of God’s covenant.
So it is commendable and even right that the Pharisees should fast, but to fast from food without also fasting from sin was to defeat the purpose of fasting, and that is what the Pharisees were doing (as we shall see).
So the question comes to Jesus “Why don’t your disciples fast like the rest of us?” and how does Jesus respond? Well, he responds cunningly with a question.
Verse 19
19 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.
This is a bombshell of a response, because in the Old Testament who is the bridegroom? Who is the one who marries the nation? What is the Song of Solomon all about? It’s about the love between God and His people.
In Scripture, God is the bridegroom.
Isaiah 54:2 says, “For thy Maker is thine husband; The Lord of hosts is his name; And thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.”
God is the great king who marries the nation and gives them His name. Just as a husband gives his last name to his wife, so also God put his name YHWH upon His people, and they were commanded at Sinai to not take the Lord’s name in vain.
So the covenant between God and Israel is spoken of as a marriage covenant, and Israel is frequently called an unfaithful bride, a spouse who whores after other gods and worships the idols of foreign nations.
And so when the prophets foretell the arrival of a New Covenant, it is the promise of a future wedding, it is a kind of “save the date” for a wedding that will take place in the latter days. God is going to come as King and put away the sins of His people, and when they are married, then the wedding feast shall begin.
So when Jesus poses this question back to his interlocutors, He is implicitly claiming to be God. He is calling himself the bridegroom, and his disciples are the wedding party (“children of the bridechamber”). And so because in Jesus the wedding feast has come, the king has arrived, it would be improper for the wedding party to fast. That is Jesus’ argument.
Part of the good news of the gospel is that we feast with God. And Jesus reveals what God does when he comes to earth, he goes into people’s houses and eats with them. Jesus is the God of feasting.
In verse 20 there is a foreshadowing of Jesus death, he says…
Verse 20
20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.
So Jesus does not come to abolish fasting altogether, there is a time to feast and a time to fast (Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for everything), but that time of fasting will take place after his death.
He then poses two riddles to further demonstrate why his disciples are not fasting.
Verses 21-22
21 No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. 22 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.
The bottles here refer to wineskins (probably from a goat). And in the ancient world everybody knew that both wineskins and garments would be destroyed if you tried to connect new with old.
And so Jesus is saying here that the customs and rites or administration of the Old Covenant, would burst if the wine of the Kingdom was poured inside.
New wine, new cloth needs a new form that can grow and expand with it. And the wineskins and cloths of the Old World are insufficient.
So that’s why Jesus’ disciples don’t fast. They are new bottles, they are new cloth, and the old forms will not do. John came fasting, Jesus comes feasting, and the disciples are members of the wedding party.
Moving now into the second scene in our text, first the disciples are disparaged for not fasting, and now in verses 23-28 they are charged with the crime of sabbath breaking.
Verse 23
23 And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. 24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?
So here the charge from the Pharisees is that the disciples are working on the sabbath. As they pass through a field, they grab a head of grain, rub it in their hands and eat the kernels, the Pharisees see this and say “aha, harvesting crop, that’s work, that violates the sabbath.”
Now before we see how Jesus answers this charge, it’s a good exercise to ask ourselves how would I respond if I was in this situation (if I was a disciple)? What is the best biblical counterargument to the Pharisees here. There are a few possible responses we could give.
One possible argument is that Deuteronomy 23:24-25 made provision for what the disciples are doing. God says there, “When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes at your pleasure, but you shall not put any in your container. When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.”
So it was permissible for someone to pass through your field and eat some grapes or eat some grain, but they weren’t allowed to collect it or put it in a basket, you had to just to use your hand. This was a provision for travelers and the poor before there were McDonalds at every exit.
Furthermore in Leviticus 23:22 it says, “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.”
So this was the social safety net God provided for the poor. It wasn’t a government handout, it was food left at the edges of the fields. The whole story of Ruth revolves around these laws.
And so the disciples were well within the law of God to do this, and we might say this is especially appropriate on the Sabbath day which is supposed to be a day of feasting. If the Sabbath comes and you run out of food, it’s okay to go to the store and grab something. If your wife forgot an ingredient for the sabbath meal, it’s good and right to go and get it. Whether from the garden outside, or the grocery store, the sabbath is to be a day of feasting and rejoicing.
So that’s one possible defense, and perhaps you can think of others. But let us see how Jesus mounts his argument, because this is a fascinating text.
Verses 25-28
25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? 27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28 Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
This is a profound and penetrating use of Scripture that Jesus deploys, and there are multiple arguments embedded here.
We heard earlier in the service 1 Samuel 21 which is the proof text Jesus uses, and to understand Jesus’ argument, you really have to understand that Old Testament passage. So let me summarize that scene for us.
David has just fled for his life because King Saul is jealous and wants to kill him. Sound familiar?
He goes to Nob, where the tabernacle is situated and the priest there is Ahimelech. David is hungry, it is a sabbath day, and He asks Ahimelech for five loaves of bread for him and his men.
Ahimelech says, “There is no common bread on hand; but there is holy bread, if the young men have at least kept themselves from women.”
David says, “yes, the men and their vessels are holy,” and so Ahimelech gives him holy bread from the holy place to eat.
We might wonder whether that was lawful or not because Jesus explicitly says, “it is not lawful to eat but for the priests.” So what is going on here?
Well in the parallel passage of Matthew’s version of this same conversation, Jesus adds, “Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple” (Matt. 12:5-6).
So I take Jesus here as adopting the Pharisees definition of what is “not lawful” and then refuting it by David’s example. He is saying, if that is your definition of sabbath breaking, then David and the priests “break the sabbath” too.
And then he tops it off by saying, “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.”
Jesus’ argument has multiple levels:
For one, if taking some grain in your hands on the sabbath day was “breaking the sabbath” then David was an even worse sabbath breaker. For David is doing “work for the king” on a special assignment, together with his young men. That is the reason he gives to Ahimelech for his urgent need, “I’m doing the king’s business.”
And if you concede that point, then Jesus and his disciples are good.
But if you argue that point, Jesus has another argument for you, namely, that the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. In other words, you could argue that even if David was not holy, it would have been right to give him the holy bread to keep from starving. The preservation of life takes precedent over ceremonial cleanliness.
And then if you still don’t buy that argument, Jesus has another trump card, which is that He is God. He is the Son of Man. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. And so the one who created the world and gave man the sabbath, can give grain to his disciples when they are hungry.
In addition to this defense of his disciples, Jesus by deploying 1 Samuel 21 is placing everyone within its narrative. If Jesus and his disciples are David and his men, then who is King Saul (Herod and the Pharisees)? Who is Doeg the Edomite who snitches on David to Saul, and then later kills Ahimelech? It’s these guys Jesus is talking to.
And lastly, you might have wondered why does Jesus say this happened in the days of Abiathar the high priest, when in reality it was Ahimelech who was priest?
Abiathar was Ahimelech’s son, and for a time he served David, but later he conspired with Absalom against David and betrayed him. So when King Solomon comes to power, he deposes Abiathar and Zadok becomes high priest.
So Jesus has purposely called forth the memory of Abiathar because like Abiathar, the priestly class is going to conspire and betray the true king. And after they do, they will be deposed. The priesthood will be transferred to the Son of Man, the priest for ever after the order of Melchizedeck.
This is a devastating argument and in our final scene we see how the Pharisees respond.
Verses 1-6
3 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.
This is the great irony and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. They go to church to dig up dirt on God. They charge God with breaking the sabbath. And when God heals a man’s withered hand, they immediately conspire on the sabbath how to commit murder against God.
Jesus asks them, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?” Well apparently they think its lawful to kill, because that’s what they conspire to do.
Sin will make you stupid. Sin will make you irrational. And the Pharisees are dead in sin.
And so we might ask, What is God’s heart towards such wicked men? What is God’s heart toward sinners?
Jesus reveals to us that God is both angered and grieved. He is angered at their actual breaking of the sabbath, wanting to prevent a man from being healed, to stop his disciples from eating, and He is grieved at the hardness of their hearts.
And this should teach us how to feel, when we look out at the world around us, with all of its evils and absurdities? Like Jesus, we should be outraged that God’s law is trampled upon, that the Sabbath is not a day of rest and worship and joyful feasting unto the Lord, but rather a day of selfish and carnal pleasure, of business as usual with no regard to the Lord who made us.
Conclusion
If Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, then He is the Creator, He is the Lord of everything else. And God promises that if we observe this day of rest and worship as He commanded, then truly we shall be blessed. For as He declares in Isaiah 58:13-14,
13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath,
From doing thy pleasure on my holy day;
And call the sabbath a delight,
The holy of the Lord, honourable;
And shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways,
Nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord;
And I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth,
And feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father:
For the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
God wants to give us life and rest and joy in Him. Psalm 16:11 says, “At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”And that rest and those pleasures are offered to all in the gospel. To scribes and Pharisees, to hypocrites and sabbath breakers, and they are offered to you anew today.
So repent and believe in the Lord of the Sabbath, and He will give eternal rest.