Welcome to Expound, our weekly worship and verse-by-verse study of the Bible. Our goal is to expand your knowledge of the truth of God as we explore the Word of God in a way that is interactive, enjoyable, and congregational.
Let's pray.
Father, we calm our hearts. We still our hearts before You. The psalmist said that he would calm his heart like a weaned child, and just that idea of being satisfied after being fed, being cuddled and nestled by a mother, like a weaned child would be fully satiated and enjoying the warmth of that kind of intimate fellowship. We just nestled into You now, Lord, and give You permission to speak into our lives truths that we have forgotten, truths perhaps that we've never heard, truths that we have pushed aside, and perhaps we need to be reminded of them again.
But we give You the permission, Lord, without marginalizing truth, without, when we hear it, thinking this applies to someone else. We just want You to deal with us however You would with the same text of Scripture. Help us to understand it. Help us to understand the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ at this particular time. In Jesus' name, Amen.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest sandwich ever made was made on April 24th, 2004, and displayed in Mexico City. A single sandwich that weighed six thousand nine hundred and ninety-one pounds, just nine pounds shy of seven thousand pounds. The top slice of bread took eight full-grown men to maneuver into place.
Now, I don't know how practical that is or what they do; they probably trashed it afterwards. It's hard to cut something like that up and make it practical, but these people do these kinds of things just to set records.
The largest sandwich ever made.
We come to chapter 8 of Mark, the second largest meal ever recorded in the Scriptures. The first largest meal is the feeding of the 5,000 in chapter 6. You remember the story where Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the multitudes. That was the largest feeding because it says there were five thousand men, and it was gender-specific. The Greek word included just the men; the heads of the household were counted. That was just how they did it. That's not to include the women and children that would have been present, so upwards of 20, some even figure twenty-five thousand people were fed on that one lunch occasion.
We now come to the second largest feeding in the New Testament, and not as impractical as a sandwich in Mexico City that weighed seven thousand pounds. This was an individual lunch, but this time the crowd is different. This time it's not five thousand men plus women and children; it's a total of four thousand people.
This miracle, beginning in chapter 8 of Mark, is probably of all of the great miracles Jesus did, the most neglected of His signs and wonders because it is so similar to the feeding of the 5,000 that some either skip over it or think it's a parallel account. It is not; it is a separate account in a separate place with separate circumstances for a separate set of reasons.
For example, in chapter 6, the feeding of the five thousand men, the crowd was with Him one day. Here in chapter 8, the crowd is with Jesus for three days, and they are at this point utterly famished.
Second, in the feeding of the five thousand men, twenty to twenty-five thousand people, in Mark chapter 6, Jesus tells them to sit down on the grass, and Mark even includes the fact that it was green grass. So we know that the episode took place in the Galilee region, probably late winter or early spring because that's when the grass is green in Galilee.
Here, they are told to sit on the ground. There is no mention of grass, probably because now that many months have passed by, this is the summertime; all the grass dies. It is, for the most part, barren ground.
The third difference is that in chapter 6, the feeding of the five thousand, there were five loaves and two fish. In this account, the feeding of the four thousand, there are seven loaves of bread and a few fish.
We're not told exactly how many. In chapter 6, the feeding of the five thousand, they picked up how many baskets of fragments? Remember? Twelve. Twelve baskets of leftovers. In this account of chapter 8, they pick up seven, and the baskets are different. The Greek words that Mark uses for the two accounts are entirely different words.
The twelve baskets in chapter 6 are little tiny lunch baskets; "kaphanos" is the Greek word. In this account that we read, they take seven large baskets; you might call them hampers, huge wicker baskets filled with leftovers.
Finally, the difference was in location. In chapter 6, the feeding of the five thousand takes place in Galilee, the Jewish-occupied area of Galilee, where there were hundreds of towns and a huge Jewish population. This takes place outside of Galilee in an area called the Decapolis, something we mentioned last week at our outdoor service, and I'll just brush up on that a little bit in these verses—in a Gentile-occupied region, not a Jewish region.
So there's enough differences for us now to start.
Verse 1: "In those days," meaning the days when He, Jesus, and His disciples were in this area of the Decapolis, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and said to them, "I have compassion on the multitude because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way, for some of them have come from afar."
Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?" He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?" They said, "Seven."
So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground, and He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them, and gave them to His disciples to set before them, and they set them before the multitude. They also had a few small fish, and having blessed them, He said to them, "He set them also before them."
So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments. Now those who had eaten were about four thousand, and He sent them away.
Our first reading of this sounds a little bit odd. It's odd that the disciples, we would think, would ask such a question. Now it's been a few months, but it's something they're not going to forget. When Jesus pulls off a miracle like He did in chapter 6 and feeds 20,000 people, they're not going to forget that. Would you forget that? No, you wouldn't forget that.
So it's odd that they would ask in verse 4, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?" You would think that their answer to Jesus saying, "I have compassion on these people; they've been with Me for a few days; we got to feed them," you would think the disciples would kind of get that little smile, that knowing smile, and say, "Okay, like we know there's no bakery around here. There's no Panera Bread restaurant; there's no Paradise Bakery; there's nothing like that in the area. This we know, but we're okay with that. We remember what You can do; You can speak it into existence. There's not a problem here; You can fulfill their need like You did the last time."
But it looks like, it sounds like, they have forgotten the episode. Now their hearts definitely are hardened, as we will see.
When I read this or accounts like this in the Gospels, I think back to the children of Israel when they were in the wilderness, how time and time again the Lord fed them with manna from heaven, opening up the Red Sea, bringing water from the rock. And after all of those provisionary miracles, the Bible says the children of Israel grumbled and complained and murmured in the wilderness.
I used to be mystified by that. Really? After all of those miracles of the daily manna from heaven, the water from the rock, and the opening up of bodies of water, and all of that provision, you guys are still acting like that?
And I come to the New Testament, and I found out that not a whole lot has changed. So the disciples sort of react, saying, "You know, there's not anything here that could sustain."
I don't know how you are when you face a difficulty, but I imagine you're a lot like me. I'm a lot like these guys. I know God's Word; I know His truth; I know His promises, but my immediate reaction is to think, "Oh, there's a problem here. This is hard; this is tough."
Do you remember Sarah's reaction when the Lord visited Abraham and audibly spoke to him, saying, "I'm going to return in several months' time at the set time of the year because your wife Sarah is going to have a baby"?
Do you remember her reaction? She was on the other side of the tent flap when that conversation was going on, and she laughed. And she laughed inwardly. It wasn't like "hahaha"; it was just like this little snicker inwardly. And then she thought—she didn't say; she just thought—"I'm an old lady; Abraham's an old man; we're past the ability to have children. Shall I have pleasure in my old age?"
And then a voice came from the other side of the tent flap: "Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the Lord?" And then Sarah said, "I didn't." Well, the Lord said, "Yeah, you did; I heard it."
A good question to ask yourself is, "Is there anything you can think of that's too hard for the Lord?" What's hard for Him? A common cold? If somebody has a cold or a flu and they say, "Would you pray for me?" Sure, I'll pray for you. "Lord, heal this cold." But then somebody else says, "I have stage 4 cancer; would you pray for me?" Oh, well, that is hard for you. But is it too hard for the Lord?
Is anything too hard for the Lord? It's always a good question to ask ourselves.
Somebody once said, "When God wants to do something wonderful, He starts with a difficulty. When He wants to do something really wonderful, He starts with an impossibility."
Thousands of people have gathered. This is not like Galilee around the Sea of Galilee. There were fish in that lake; there were towns everywhere, and there were thousands upon thousands of people that lived on the crowded shores of Galilee 2,000 years ago. But now they are in a different area, more of a wilderness, more of a sparsely populated area known as the Decapolis.
Remember that word from last week? The Decapolis—"deca polis," ten cities. These are Greco-Roman cities, ten of them. The Decapolis was, look at it as the Roman Empire on the easternmost frontier from Rome. The easternmost Roman frontier had ten cities that had a Greek culture, occupied by the Romans, largely Gentile-occupied, and it was more austere in terms of its geography.
So it wasn't as comfortable and as populated and as abundant as the Sea of Galilee.
So His disciples answered, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"
I think the key to understanding this is the term "these people" in the text. "How can one satisfy these people?" It's not like they have forgotten the miracle that Jesus pulled off, and they're completely ignorant about this whole thing. It's the only word I can think of. I mean, you'd have to be idiotic to have seen a miracle where God created food and then go, "You know, I don't know what we're going to do."
So they're not that bad off; they would not forget that. But the key to the interpretation is realizing, "Look, I don't know how this is going to happen. I didn't know how the last thing could happen, but how can one satisfy these people?"
Now, what the reference here is to the Gentile people. It's one thing for You, Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, to feed Jewish people who are expecting their Messiah, but we are outside of the covenant geography. We are in the Decapolis area; we are in an area inhabited by non-Jewish people. You're the Jewish Messiah; what on earth would You have to do with these people?
Remember, Jews had no dealings with Gentiles, and strict Jews wouldn't even walk down the street where a Gentile had walked without placing his robes close to his body.
Now Jesus is getting these guys ready for the Great Commission: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Well, Jesus can't drop that on them just before He leaves. "Oh boys, by the way, not just to the Jews, but to the whole world. Go!" Because they wouldn't retain that. They have been conditioned to only deal with Jewish people and believe that the promises of the Bible are for the Jews.
Jesus wants to show them that His message isn't just for the Jews; His salvation isn't just for the Jews; His love isn't just for the Jews; His compassion isn't just for the Jews. It's for the whole world; it's for the Decapolis as well as every other place.
So they're sort of wondering about why Jesus is dealing with these people. So He asked them, without having to explain it, "Just how many loaves do you have?" And they said, "Seven."
So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. Now notice this: He took the seven loaves and gave thanks. If you ever wonder why do we pray before we have a meal in public, it's a private thing. Jesus did it in a Gentile, unbelieving area.
Now, I am sure that when He sat down and He had these loaves of bread and He started praying for them, that maybe the disciples—and certainly the crowd—would have thought that sort of selfish. He's about to say grace and eat His meal in front of us, not knowing that He was simply blessing the food in order to distribute it.
So again, keep in mind these disciples are thinking, "We're Jews; He's Jewish; these are Gentiles. Here we are; what are we doing here? Why would Jesus have compassion?"
And yet the only time that Jesus specifically declares that He is compassionate is in this incident when in verse 2 He says, "I have compassion; I have compassion on the multitude, this Gentile multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days."
So He commands them to sit down; He gives a word of thanks, giving up blessing. He breaks it, gives it to the disciples; the disciples give it to the multitudes.
There's an interesting principle here: Jesus does feed the Jews first; He gives it to His disciples first; the disciples give it to the multitudes second. That's a principle we find even in Paul's writings that God's mercy and grace is to the Jew first and also to the Gentile.
So He feeds them, but then He wants the disciples to be a part of feeding the multitudes.
Now think about this: Did Jesus have to have the disciples even involved in the process? Not at all. He could have just said, "Boys, just back up; watch this. Check this out." Raise His hands; instant manna falls from heaven. It happened before in the wilderness; it could happen then. Or "Boys, back up; In-N-Out Burger right in their laps."
Or I should be more geographically specific: "Blake's Lotaburger with green chile and a slab of cheese." Perhaps very unkosher, but these are Gentiles.
Could have worked. Jesus could have done that. He didn't need to give it to them and have them give it to the crowd. Why did He?
Simple: He's teaching them the lesson of the Great Commission. "Go into all the world, for God so loved the world." And He's showing them that God wants to do a work in the world, but He wants to use us to help Him do the work.
Do you think God needs you to do His work? Well, in case you don't know, let me give you the newsflash: No, He doesn't. He doesn't need any of us to do His work, but He condescends; He limits Himself to using imperfect tools to get the job done—us.
He says, "Here, take this bread; you be the instrument in distributing it to the multitude. I want to use you; I want to use your gifts, your talents."
He doesn't need you.
Now, I've heard sermons: "God needs you; God wants to do a work, and He needs you. Are you doing your part?" He doesn't need me; He doesn't need you.
In fact, to prove that point, in the end of days in Revelation chapter 14, God will dispatch an angel to fly through heaven to preach the everlasting gospel to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people on earth. He's going to get the job done once and for all, where the whole world will hear the gospel by an angel proclaiming it all around the earth, all around the globe.
Now, I've read that before, going, "Why didn't He just start that from the beginning? In every generation, just here goes the angel; he's going to make his weekly tour around the world and say the words and do miracles."
God has determined that He wants to use imperfect tools.
You go, "Why?" Because then He gets more glory. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, the things that are weak to confound those that are mighty, so that no flesh would glory in His presence.
Here's the deal: If a surgical team left the United States tonight on a Boeing 747 equipped with all of the medical equipment that you could imagine aboard that plane and landed in the heart of Africa, and with all of the latest equipment was able to perform surgeries and help a community, we'd say, "Well, that's a nice gesture."
But if a couple of surgeons with Swiss Army knives and a few little alcohol swabs were able to go into the same part of Africa and perform surgeries and bring healing, you'd go, "Amazing doctors; amazing skills; these people are outstanding."
So when God does a wonderful work through limited means, He gets more glory.
So take heart! I love that I read stuff like this. I go, "I'm in! Sign me up! If You'll take anybody, I'll be one of the anybody's. I'll be one of the whosoever's. I'll be one of the people who say, 'Here I am, Lord; send me.'"
That's what these disciples are. He breaks the bread, gives it to them; they disperse it to the multitude.
They also, verse 7, had a few small fish. Having blessed them, He said to set them also before them. So they ate and were filled—glutted, as the word; they were completely satisfied, satiated—and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments.
Now those who had eaten were about four thousand, and He sent them away.
I mentioned that these baskets aren't the small little lunch baskets. It says in chapter 6 this is a different word—large baskets, hampers. Some of you will remember Acts chapter 9 when Paul was at Damascus and he got into trouble, and they wanted to kill him in Damascus. So the disciples, it says, let him over the wall in a what? A basket.
It has to be a pretty large basket to put a human being in. That's the word used there, and here that's the kind of basket we're talking about—seven large hamper-like baskets.
Now, I just want to throw something in because to me it's fascinating, and it goes along with what we're saying. Bring your mind all the way back to Deuteronomy in chapter 7. The Lord begins that chapter by saying, "When the Lord God brings you into the land that you're about to go in and possess, He will drive out the nations from before you."
This is the land of Canaan; this is the land of Israel that they're occupying now. He's going to give you the land; He's going to take all of the nations out, and then He mentions them: Girgashites, Hittites.
Now let me start again: Girgashites, Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Jebusites, Hittites, and I forget the other one—termites? Turn out the light? Something like that.
One of the other "ites," seven nations that occupied that land.
How many loaves were there? How many large baskets of leftovers? Seven.
Seems to be a correspondent truth that Mark wants us to get across: these Gentile nations that God would cast out, Jesus is saying, "I have a heart for; I am compassionate for them."
And the word, by the way, that He uses in verse 2, "I have compassion," is three words in English, one word in Greek: "Splanknizomai." It's a long word. "Splanknizomai" speaks of the intestine, the gut. I feel deeply within me compassion for these people, and He displayed it by the way He fed them and provided for them.
Now those who had eaten, verse 9, were about four thousand, and He sent them away.
Now just a final note before we jump into the next paragraph. One of the greatest writers you can ever read on ancient history, Biblical history, is a guy by the name of Alfred Edersheim. Alfred Edersheim has a very interesting note. He says every single phase of Jesus' ministry, He ended with a feeding.
When He was done ministering in Galilee, He ended it with the feeding of the 5,000. When He was done ministering to the Gentiles, the second phase of His ministry, He ended it with this—the feeding of the four thousand. When He was done with His Judean ministry, just before the cross, He ended it with a third feeding—the Last Supper for His disciples before the cross.
Verse 10: Immediately after He sent them away, He got into the boat with His disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha.
Now I hope you're going, "Where in the world is Dalmanutha?" Good question.
Dalmanutha—this is the only mention of that place in the Bible. It is mentioned in ancient literature, ancient Jewish literature, but this is the only mention in the Bible. In Matthew's account of this, it says they sailed to a place called Magdala.
Who is from Magdala? Mary Magdalene. Mary of Magdala, the little town just north of Tiberias on the southwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee—that is ancient Dalmanutha in New Testament times, Magdala or Magadan, some of the texts say.
And that's where they sailed. If you've been with us to Israel, do you remember the day when we get into the boat, cross the Sea of Galilee? We start at the dock in Tiberias, and then we start sailing along the western shore, and we end up at a place called Gennesaret or the plain of Gennesaret.
So we kind of take that little corner of the lake, and we have a little service out there on the lake. And as we skirt the shore, there are these bull rushes that are growing up, and there's a set of ruins off to our left—just a set of ruins, archaeological digs. That's the area of Dalmanutha, right off to our left.
Picture the boat. I know some of you have been interested. That's not fair. Well, come to Israel, and you can check it out. Remind me, and I'll point out Dalmanutha to you.
That's where they came.
Now watch this: They hit the shore, then the Pharisees came out and began to dispute with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him.
Of course, these nincompoops start showing up everywhere. This is like the God Squad, you know? They're just going to follow Jesus around. It seems like what really irks them is the fact that the crowds are taken by Him, and they're starting to follow Him, and they're pressing in around Him, and His popularity is growing while their popularity is shrinking.
And out of sheer envy and jealousy, in the name of religion, they start arguing with Him. And it sounds funny: "We want to see a sign."
I would say, "Have you boys been following Me the last week? How does feeding 4,000 do for you?"
You'll wonder what on earth they are talking about—a sign.
Well, this is different. Notice it says a sign from heaven. The typical word that Mark uses for miracles, he doesn't use here. Usually, he uses the word "dunamis," which is dynamic, some dynamic miraculous sign or wonder. Here, the word is "semeion," and it's a different idea.
It's a sign from heaven. They want God the Father to personally authenticate Jesus in front of them. Remember when Jesus was baptized, and John the Baptist had that authentication? The dove came out of heaven; the Lord spoke out of heaven, "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased."
They want that. They want a personal heavenly manifestation from God the Father giving Jesus Christ the authority as their Messiah.
Now why would they ask that? Well, in Deuteronomy chapter 13 and 18, it anticipates that even false prophets will be able to come along and work miracles and bring people with them, bring people as followers of them.
So in Deuteronomy 13 and Deuteronomy 18, it says if somebody comes and performs miracles but draws you away from the word of truth, the Torah of God, the law of God, he's a false prophet; don't tolerate it.
So there must be some authentication, and that would be that what he predicts coming to pass would indeed come to pass.
So we want to see a sign; we want some divine authentication from God, from heaven, that You are that Messiah.
Verse 12: This is just—I just, certain things blow my mind. I just love about Jesus, but He sighed deeply.
Can you just picture it? It's like, have you ever been just so frustrated with somebody who just are persistently blind or they just are persistently against you, and they just will not see?
He's just totally exasperated. In fact, it's a very rare word to sigh deeply. It's a word that is found nowhere else in Scripture and found only thirty times in all of ancient Greek literature. It means to be so totally fed up and exasperated with their persistent unbelief that He just says, "I'm done with you. I'm done."
In fact, watch: He sighed deeply in His spirit and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Certainly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation."
He left them; He just turned around, didn't even acknowledge their requests, and walked away. He was done; He was fed up.
And getting into the boat, He departed to the other side.
Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, so they're in the boat; they're going across the Sea of Galilee this time to the northeast side, to Bethsaida.
As you'll see, the disciples had forgotten to take bread; they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat.
Then He charged them, saying, "Take heed; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod."
And they reasoned among themselves, saying, "It's because we have no bread."
Interesting insight into how these guys thought. You know, and again, I read about the disciples, and I'm just so glad the Bible records this stuff. It makes me feel better about myself.
They're all getting in a tizzy and full of drama because they have one loaf of bread, whereas it was a long boat ride. Remember, one of the boat rides lasted more than eight hours crossing that lake because of a storm.
So we only have one loaf of bread; there's a whole bunch of us. And so here they are, worried about the bread, lamenting that they only have one loaf of bread.
And Jesus wants to use what just happened with the feeding and with the Pharisees as a design to teach them a deeper truth about evil.
And so He uses the term leaven. He said, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees." You just had an encounter with them, and the leaven of Herod.
And they thought, or they reasoned among themselves, saying, "It's because we have no bread."
Now stop for a moment. Can you see the problems when humans get together and reason among themselves without asking the Lord? Churches do this all the time. They have committees, and they talk, and they discuss, and they have this meeting and that meeting. Did you ever stop and pray?
Now think about it: Who's standing right in front of them? Jesus! All they had to do is say, "Pardon me, what do You mean by that exactly?" And then it's over. They don't have to kvetch anymore.
But they go, "Man, it seems to really bum us out. We didn't bring any bread; He's really mad." That's like a passive-aggressive statement.
He's trying to get their attention by saying, "Just ask Him; talk to Him, then you'll be okay."
Now He's talking about leaven, and leaven is a sign of evil. Yeast is put in bread to make it rise, and it permeates, goes through the whole thing.
And it typically, in the Bible, is used to speak of the spread of evil. "Beware of the leaven, the evil that spreads quickly of the Pharisees and of Herod."
"Oh, what does He mean exactly?"
Well, here's where you need to compare accounts. In Matthew's account of this, Jesus says, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees," and then He says, "Beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees," of the teachings.
So that is false teaching of these religious legalists. And as some of you know, legalism, the teaching of legalism, like yeast, like a cancer, insidiously can spread through God's people.
"Beware of that," Jesus said.
And of Herod, there was a group of people called Herodians who sought to change the spiritual temperature of the nation by political means.
I know people that try to do that today. It's all about their political agenda, their party, their candidate. "Be aware of that," Jesus said.
The reason? Because they have no bread.
So Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember when I broke the five loaves and for the five thousand? How many baskets full of fragments did you take up?"
They said, "Twelve."
"Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?"
They said, "Seven."
He said to them, "How is it you do not understand?"
Wow! Can I just say I'm glad I wasn't in that boat?
Have you ever had somebody say, "Man, I wish I was living during the time of Jesus"? Really? You want to be hanging out? You want to be one of those disciples? Well, you're going to have some episodes like this.
I'd hate to be that rebuked by Jesus. And it's not the first time. It's like, "Are you dudes like totally clueless? Do you not figure this out? Do you not remember what I've done? Are your hearts still hardened?"
Followers of Jesus Christ can have hardened hearts. One of the biggest problems for spiritual people or moral people is this hardness of the heart, and it's tied to something.
Verse 18: "And do you not remember? When you fail to remember, your heart is susceptible to hardening."
Spiritually speaking, I don't mean hardening of the arteries; I'm not talking arteriosclerosis here. I'm talking about a spiritual condition. When you fail to remember God's mercies for you and your spiritual history, and you fail to forget that, when you put that out of your mind, your heart can harden.
You don't stay tender anymore; you become entitled. You can become angry, bitter, because you forget; your memory fails.
So He says, "How is it that you do not understand?"
The Lord was speaking about the persistent unbelief that existed in the Pharisees and existed in the Herodians, and that spread like leaven does through bread and perhaps was already a part of that group of disciples, even though they had seen so much and heard so much that Jesus had said and done, and it spreads quickly.
Verse 22: Then He came to Bethsaida, and they found a blind man. Not He found; they found a blind man, or they brought a blind man to Him and begged Him to touch him.
So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything.
And he looked up and said, "I see men like trees walking."
Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up, and he was restored, and he saw everyone clearly.
And then He sent him away to his house, saying, "Neither go into the town nor tell anyone in the town."
Mark is the only one that records this very interesting incident, and it is the only time in Scripture where Jesus touched somebody twice, not once.
This bothers some people. Some people think, "Well, what happened with Jesus? Was there like a power shortage going on in His Messiahship? You know, is He like warming up and had to kind of get it right?"
First of all, I want you to notice that they brought him—somebody who was blind. They, being whoever they were in that town, they being probably friends of his or relatives of his.
It reminds me of chapter 2, the lame man, the paralyzed man whose friends brought the man to Jesus. The crowd was so thick that they had to open up the roof and let him down on the ropes.
I love friends who love their friends so much that their priority is, "We got to get him to Jesus." That's the best thing you can do for your friends—get them to Jesus, tell them about Jesus.
"Hey, our friend is suffering; what do we do? Bring him to Jesus."
So they look for him, and they brought him to Jesus. It wasn't that man's faith; I don't think the man had any expectations. He's sort of like, he's blind; they're just leading him along.
And it was their faith. Is that important? It's huge.
There is a doctrine that has been going around; it's still prevalent today that says you will not be healed unless you personally have the faith. And if you're not healed, it's because you didn't have enough faith.
"Brother, sister, you're living a Satan-defeated life. Shame on you; you could walk in perfect health. You could name it and claim it; you could blab it and grab it; it will be yours. But the only reason you're not walking in that perfect health is because you don't have enough faith."
There's no record of this man having any faith, but evidently, his friends had the faith that when Jesus hit the shore in that boat, they thought, "We got to get him to Him."
And they brought their friend to Jesus.
So He took the blind man; Jesus had to grab him by the hand. What a tender picture of the Lord directing him around obstacles.
And He leads the man out of town. Why? I mean, he's in town; why didn't He just stay in town and do it?
He leads him out of town, away from the crowd, away from the relatives, away from the people. Here's what I believe: Our Lord has already pronounced a judgment on this town, Bethsaida, along with Capernaum.
"Woe unto you, Capernaum! Woe unto you, Chorazin! If the signs and miracles done in you had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented long ago."
And He consigned them to judgment; their hearts were hardened. His doing a miracle with that kind of unbelief would only just stir things up; it would not further His cause at all.
So it's like, "This is between Me and this guy."
Leads him out of town, and then, hmm, He put spit on his eyes.
The idea of a disease-encrusted eyeball covered in human spittle—did I describe that adequately enough? Well, it's repulsive to most of us.
What is going on? Why is He doing this?
It was not that uncommon, actually. It was believed that under certain conditions, human spittle could actually bring healing.
But this is in two stages. He sticks His hands in the guy's eye, rubs that spittle around, and there's disease-crusted eyes. We don't know why he's blind; there were a number of reasons for it, but He's wrapping it around.
And then He says, "What do you see?"
He goes, "I see men like trees walking."
Okay, well, come here; let me do this again. Lays hands on him.
"Now what do you see?"
"I see everything perfectly clear."
20/20 vision!
The second time He did it to draw out his faith, as He has done so many times with the woman who touched the hem of His garment, had the flow of blood for 12 years.
Several occasions, the man whose daughter died. He always would draw out faith from the people that He was ministering to.
And then He sent him away into his house, saying, "Neither go into the town."
So evidently, he didn't live in that town, but Jesus was there, so his friends brought him to that town he didn't live in, but said, "He lifts somewhere else."
Jesus said, "Go home; don't even go back to town, nor tell anyone in the town."
Now Jesus and His disciples went to the towns of Caesarea Philippi.
Okay, here's what you need to know: After verse 26, you could draw a line in your Bible; it's a dividing line. It's a turning point—a turning point into everything we have read so far in the gospel account and everything that will follow.
Scholars call this the Continental Divide of the Gospels. Everything before this point, Jesus has been ministering to the masses, to the crowds. He's been doing miracles for the people; He's been showing Himself to the Jewish nation and then to Gentile nations that He is the promised Messiah, and He's been teaching the crowds principally in Galilee.
Now Jesus leaves Galilee, and everything will be focused from here on out, not to teaching the crowds, but to teaching the twelve—the disciples—training them, getting them ready for His suffering, His death, His resurrection, preparing them for what is coming.
And all of His focus won't be the healing, won't be the crowds, but the disciples.
And so we call that the Continental Divide.
He's preparing them.
Jesus and His disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippi, and on the road, He asked His disciples, saying to them, "Who do men say that I am?"
And they answered, "John the Baptist; but some say Elijah, and others one of the prophets."
But He said to them, "Who do you say that I am?"
Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ."
Let me paint the picture: Caesarea Philippi is 25 miles north from Galilee. It is a beautiful spot; it's probably one of the prettiest spots on a tour to Israel.
The day that we go up north, and we go to Tel Dan—remember Tel Dan? How many of you have been to Israel? Raise your hand if you remember Tel Dan. Way up in the north, it's where the Jordan River begins. Very green, and in the summer, it's very cool.
It's at the base of the highest mountain in the Middle East called Mount Hermon. There's snow on Mount Hermon year-round; that's how tall it is.
The Jordan River begins here. Caesarea Philippi was a town built by Herod Philip. Remember the whole Herod mess? Herod Philip built a town for Caesar Augustus to honor him.
And by this time, Caesar Augustus, who reigned as Emperor a total of 57 years, he was deified by the Romans. They called him "Lord."
In fact, this is one of the reasons the early church got into trouble, is because they were told to stand at a statue once a year and put a pinch of incense in front of the statue and say, "Hail, Caesar! Caesar is Lord."
And Christians refused to do this. They wouldn't grab the incense, and they would, in defiance, say, "Jesus Christ is Lord," and they killed them for that.
So already in that area, in that town, Caesar was being deified, worshiped.
Also, in Caesarea Philippi, there were 14 temples to different gods—not only to Caesar but to Baal, the Old Testament deity Baal worship, and temples to another god called Pan.
Some of you know who that is or what that is. It's a false god in Greek mythology—half-man, half-goat, plays a little flute called a pan flute.
That's where it comes from. According to the myth, Pan, that god, was born in a cave nearby—the same cave where the Jordan River comes out of the rock.
Jesus deliberately takes His disciples to a place that had false worship of other gods, other deities, to make a comparison between who He is and who they are, and also to the very source of the lifeblood of the nation—the source of the Jordan River.
Now, the Jordan River has three sources: the Dan River, the Hasbani River, and the Baniyas River all flow into the Jordan.
And if you've been with us, we go over just those three tributaries that flow into the larger Jordan River. Josephus, the historian, tells us that originally the water flowed out of this cave at the base of Mount Hermon, but eventually an earthquake came, and it fell in.
Today, you can see that cave, and you can see the remains of the earthquake spoken of by Josephus, and you can see the river coming out of the diverted part of that mountain.
It was important to the Jews; that was the source of what they called living water. It was important to the Greeks; it was the birth of their god Pan. It was important to the Romans; they deified Caesar.
So with all these different belief systems, Jesus takes them there to set Himself in contrast to them and says, "Who do men say that I am?"
The different opinions vary. We've already discussed this at length a number of times.
Second question on the test—the most important: "Who do you say that I am?"
Peter said, "You are the Christ."
Matthew gives us the whole answer: "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God."
Christ—"Christos" means Messiah. Messiah is the same as "Christos." Messiah and Christ were the same. Christ was not His last name; it's not like "Mr. Christ," and then this is Jesus, and that's his last name.
No, Jesus was His first name; Christ was His title as the Messiah.
The word "Christ," the word "Messiah," means to smear. The idea is to smear with oil. So Messiah literally means the smeared one or the anointed one because in the Old Testament, there were three groups of people that they smeared with oil.
Do you remember who they were? Prophets, priests, and kings.
Priests first, later on when the prophets started developing, prophets, and then the kings of Israel.
Now, because of this third group, the anointing of kings, the original concept among the Jews of Messiah sprang forth. They saw the coming Messiah as a conquering king, and because of the Babylonian captivity in 586 BC, the monarchy—the Jewish monarchy—let them down.
It birthed a hunger to see somebody greater than David, the first real king after Saul, to come and deliver the Jews and to set up the kingdom age.
So there was this growing intensity by the time of the New Testament for a king, a monarch, a deliverer, a Messiah.
So they were looking for a political Messiah; they were looking for a military Messiah.
Jesus wants to show them that you won't understand the Messiah unless you see Him as a crucified Messiah.
So who do you say that I am? "You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the Living God." They got that right.
But watch this: Then He strictly warned them that they should tell no one about Him.
Now later on, He'll reverse that and say, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." But right now, He doesn't want to have some kind of a rebellion, a revolt, have Rome come in and just destroy this whole thing.
So He says, "Keep that part quiet." There's already crowds everywhere following Him, and He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.
He spoke this word openly.
Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him.
But when He had turned around and looked at the disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, "Get behind Me, Satan!"
I told you, there are times you just don't want to be in that boat. You don't want to be in the gang or hanging around with Jesus.
I mean, it's like Peter saying, "Yeah, Peter got the answer right; you're the Christ." Probably felt really good about that.
Now he feels pretty low.
"For you are not mindful of the things of God but of the things of men."
Completely misunderstood the idea of who the Messiah was. If you're going to understand Messiah, you have to see Him as a sin bearer, and they didn't get that part yet.
So this is all part of the education, the discipleship, the training of these twelve, getting them ready for the Great Commission.
Well, our time is up. I mean, I could go on for another hour, but you couldn't, and the children's ministry couldn't, and perhaps some of you could. I didn't mean that as a slur, but time's up.
Let's pray.
Lord, as amazed as I am in reading the account of the Lord Jesus, I'm even more amazed reading the account of these disciples—these frail, common men.
And the story is so truthful and so honest, so vulnerable are they—so weak, so filled with doubt, questions, and hardness of heart—so filled with their own issues and their own personal ambition and their own misunderstanding.
And I like that. I am heartened by it; I'm encouraged by it because they reflect me so often.
And how patient You are with us! Yet You want to speak directly to the heart, and even Your rebukes are filled with compassion and tender mercy.
Thank You for Your compassion, Lord. As Jeremiah the Prophet said, "They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness."
Lord, some of us are facing difficulties; others of us are facing an impossibility.
on Nov 05, 2023
