"He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. He *said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” And He *said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?" But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He *said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him."
Good Morning my beloved,
We welcome you to worship in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a privilege it is to come together to study rich awesome Truths in God's Word. We are so thankful that the Lord lead you join us today. We often hear people say how Jesus would handle divisive social issues of this world, if He were still walking on the earth today, He would side with illegal immigrants, He would embrace sexual immoral relationships and social justice, He would be outraged by our conservative political processes that seek to deny our freedom of self-expression and demand our right to choose to live as we want. Surely He would support abortion, accept alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality and transgenderism and the other issues that mean so much to us because Jesus taught love, acceptance and tolerance. And so that’s what we should do.
We welcome you to worship in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. What a privilege it is to come together to study rich awesome Truths in God's Word. We are so thankful that the Lord lead you join us today.
However, we can’t claim to preach the Gospel without teaching that Jesus called His followers to a radical new alternative way of life, to embody humility and suffering, to live a pure life; to deal with our sin by denying the natural impulses of the lusts of the flesh and take up their cross. He taught them the way of modeling an alternative society, was to shame their oppressors by offering them the other cheek, to do good to those who persecuted them, forgiving those who hated them and to pray "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Unfortunately, the more religious people are the more consumed they are with spiritual pride, and the more resistant they are to the Truth. The church today has made serious concessions to His message that Jesus Himself didn’t make. And as the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ we must teach the Gospel exactly as Christ did, without compromise or consideration as to who hears it. Jesus did not teach tolerance and acceptance of sin, relaxing God's moral standards, He taught that the Kingdom of God was open to unworthy sinners who would repent and believe, obeying all that He commanded.
Sin is like an aphrodisiac, removing our ability to restrain the flesh, enticing us to indulge ourselves and to seek personal gratification by committing every wretched sinful desire of our hearts. You don’t have to teach people to sin, it's encoded in their DNA. That's why Jesus taught us how to deal with sin in Matthew 18:8-9, "If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell."
Listen, you can mask your sin by controlling your external behavior but you can’t do anything to hide the inside from the One Who knows what's in your heart. Such was the case with the Pharisees, being highly religious people, they restrained themselves from the visible sin on the outside, but ignored the invisible sin on the inside, walking around appearing to be outwardly righteous, professing to be holy but were inwardly morally and spiritually corrupt, committing sin in their hearts. In Matthew 23:27, Jesus said, "Woe
to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed
tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full
of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness." There's a lot of holy hypocrites in the church today, counterfeit Christians, disingenuous deceivers who wear a mask to keep people from discovering they haven’t been transformed.
That's why in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said in Matthew 5:20, "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." And He later warned in Matthew 6:1, "Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven." There’s a lot of religious phonies, especially in the leadership of the church, sinful men practicing their righteousness before men to make a good impression on those around them. How many have preached Christ, without holiness in their own heart, falling short of following His teaching? God's not interested in how you look on the outside, playing the game of religion. He's interested in those who hearts are genuine, devoted to Him. Jesus reserved His most blistering words for the religious hypocrites who masked their vile, corrupt hearts. In Matthew 15:7-9, Jesus said "You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you; "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is
far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men." In Job 36:13 says "But the godless in heart lay up anger." God despises those who substitute His divine commandments with human philosophy.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father, Father, thank You for Your Word, for the power and clarity with which it speaks to those of us who know Your voice. Lord, grant Your people the spiritual wisdom and knowledge to help us understand how it applies to our lives today. Help us to live each day in gratitude with an eternal perspective. Thank You for reminding us of the standard to which we have been called. Father, we pray that Your Truth would penetrate even the hardest hearts among sinners, and they would respond in repentance, confessing Christ as Savior and Lord today. All for Your glory and increase in the Kingdom. In Christ's name we ask and pray
Amen
Today's Message:
If you have your Bibles, open them and turn with me to Mark chapter 3, verses 1-6. I'd like to encourage you follow along with me as I read to set the text in our minds. I pray that the Lord
would help us to hear and apply what He has to say to each of us today and strengthen our faith. Mark 3:1-6.
"He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered. They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. He *said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and come forward!” And He *said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?" But they kept silent. After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He *said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him."
The whole Pharisaical system was built on their high degree of spiritual pride, the Sabbath was their day to put their self-righteousness on display, and parade around before the populous. It was also an opportunity for Jesus to expose their corrupt religious system, which He frequently did. And they hated Him for it because their deeds were evil. In John 15:22, He said "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin." They not only loved to think highly of themselves, they loved for others to think highly of them. Jesus openly rejected their superficial assessment of their spiritual condition and publicly exposed their spiritual bankruptcy. He was a threat to their whole self-righteous false religious system. Jesus never attacked the Pharisees themselves, He attacked their attitudes and crooked practices. In fact, it was His blatant attacks on their Sabbath combined with making Himself equal with God, that was the driving force behind their wanting to kill Him. They couldn't handle the hearing the Truth. When divine Truth confronts the error of false religion, all hell breaks loose on the part of those who hate the Truth.
Let's look at verse 1, "He entered again into a synagogue; and a man was there whose hand was withered."
Mark tells us "He entered again into synagogue," he doesn't tell us where, Luke tells us that He was teaching in the synagogue. Mark then says "and a man was there whose hand was withered." Though we're not told anything about how his hand became malformed, whether it was an accident or a disease, nor how long he had been afflicted, just that his hand was withered, implying it was dead. I believe Mark leaves them out because the particular details are not the focus of the story. Luke does add in chapter 6, that it was the man's right hand that was withered. Perhaps because it may have prevented him from doing the every day things that he would need to do, let alone making it difficult to earn a living, since most people are right handed. This man is in obvious need of healing but it's not a life threatening condition.
Verse 2, "They were watching Him to see if He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him." Mark uses the verb "paratēréō ," which tells us the is not just a casual observance, they are insidiously watching Him with great personal interest to ensure a particular outcome. In other words, their eyes are laser-focused on Him, they're going to make sure they don't miss anything. Luke says they're watching Him closely so that they might find reason to accuse Him. He had healed on the Sabbath before violating their man-made laws which said helping someone on the Sabbath was work, the only exception they made was you could help someone if it was to prevent them from death.
How gracious of them. These men didn't care about people, they had no compassion for suffering, they were ruthless. Keep in mind, they didn’t have any laws about healing because no one had ever done that before. Jesus was the only one in redemptive history to go around healing people. So they're watching Him intently to see if He violates their Sabbath law by helping this man. By the way, there is nothing about not helping people on the Sabbath in the Old Testament, they decided that you couldn't do that. This was not God's law, this was their tradition that helping someone constituted work. Which is interesting since Jesus never did anything that would constitute work, He never exerted Himself in anyway to heal anyone. He did it with a word or a touch. They desperately needed a reason to accuse Him of breaking their law, so they put healing in the category with work. They could have cared less about the man’s disability, and He could have cared less about violating their Sabbath tradition. He hated their hypocritical Sabbaths. In fact, He staged events to unmask their hypocrisy. And, that's exactly what He does!
Verses 3 and 4, "He *said to the man with the withered hand, "Get up and come forward!" And He *said to them, "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill?" But they kept silent." Jesus is not timid or passive in confronting false religion as many would like to believe, He's the aggressor here. He stops teaching and initiates a confrontation, saying to the man to "Get up and come forward!" Matthews tells us they questioned Jesus first, asking, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" He didn't answer their question, instead He gave them an analogy, "What man is there among you who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep!" Then He asks them "Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill? " He knew exactly what they were thinking, they wanted Him dead. They would have killed Him right then and there, if they thought they could have gotten away with it. They had the desire, but they needed a reason. Of course, they knew the answer to His question, they were the religious experts in the Scriptures. Exodus 20:13 says, "You shall not murder." They were filled with hate, wanting to do harm, wanting to find a reason to kill Him, He was filled with compassion, wanting to do good, what are they going to say? If they say it is lawful to do good and save a life, they would affirm His act of healing as good. If they say it is lawful to do harm and to kill, they would affirm their own wickedness. They knew they were trapped, that they couldn't say anything, and so did He; so "they kept silent."
Verse 5, "After looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He *said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored." Mark says He looked at them with anger, but the word "orgḗ," tells us this was not a sudden outburst of anger, this was a swelling righteous indignation against unjust evil, holy wrath against sin. We rarely ever hear about our Lord being angry, in fact, because people in the church today don't like to think of our Lord being angry with sin, they like to think that "modern Jesus" is somehow OK with the sin taking place in our world. Beloved, I'm here to tell you, He's very furious with those who profess His name while flaunting their sin is His Church. Romans 2:5, "But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God." God loves His Church, but He's furious with the horrendous, unrestrained iniquity that's going on in it. Then Mark says and He was grieved at their hardness of heart, their unwillingness to embrace the Truth. The Lord is angry at sinful attitudes and yet, at the same time, His heart is grieved for every unrepentant sinner that will suffer the consequences of his own rebellious sin. Scripture teaches, He finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Make no mistake, God’s good and mad, and soon they're going to find out just how angry He is when His wrath is revealed upon the earth. Paul warns us in Galatians 6:7-8, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." I'm here to tell you, when Christ returns, there's going to be a great many people who will be reaping a harvest they didn't bargain for! How devastating for many professing Christians, who have spent years, even decades in the church, that will still hear Jesus' haunting words in the end, "Depart from Me. I never knew you."
At the end of verse 5, "He *said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored." Everybody saw it, this man's withered hand miraculously became fully functional right before their eyes. You would think they would have all huddled together and said, "Maybe we should rethink this. Only God Himself could pull something like this off." In John 3, Nicodemus said "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." But not these Truth rejecting self-righteous hypocrites, they're outraged.
That brings us to verse 6, "The Pharisees went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him." Unbelievable. These self-righteous rageaholics are totally out of control, they're motivated by their rage to kill Him. They’ve got to kill Him to protect their reputation. The Herodians had nothing to do with the Jewish religion, they're secularists who had no interest in religion. They were politically driven, loyal to the Herodian dynasty. I would like you to understand these people had nothing in common, they couldn't agree with each other on anything, are here they are conspiring together to stop Jesus. The Sabbath was created to illustrate the heart of God, His benevolence, mercy, kindness, goodness toward man. The Pharisees were so caught up in their system of religious tradition, they completely missed the true meaning. That’s what self-righteous pride, combined with arrogance, and sin will do to you. Ritual and tradition must never stand in the way of serving God, and meeting the needs of others.
In Closing..
Jesus didn't violate God Sabbath laws, He fulfilled them. He only violated the man-made traditions of those who chose to add to them. Sabbath rest is good, but demonstrating mercy, kindness, compassion, and tenderness toward those in need is what God desires. We are never more like Christ than when demonstrate the love of God toward others. It’s a reminder that not everyone who claims to represent God does.
I don't know what your attitude has been toward Jesus Christ has been, but I do know He's willing to forgive you. So, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, I'd like to encourage you to turn to Him today and experience grace of salvation and the tender mercies of forgiveness. Won't you stretch out that hand of yours and experience the healing touch of Jesus? You may be thinking, "God could never forgive someone like me, you don't know what I've done." It doesn't matter what you've done, it only matters what He can do! Trust Jesus today, He specializes in the impossible.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen